I’m still trying to recover
From a guy who was my lover
In the seventies.
He was the best lover ever
Even though undercover
But built to please.

He knew the latest slang
Never missed a thing.
And boy could he quickly
Roll joints with alacrity.
He entertained me in my home
While he was out to roam.

He was a man of magic tricks
And his manner was so slick
Like the seventies.
He was teaching me by being
And seeing was believing
What he did with ease.

Looking right into my eyes,
The way he bared his soul,
I knew it was for real,
Was not like some fake roll.
He warmed my place with a smile
And then decided to stay a while.

He listened to everything I said
And that so got into my head
Because I was only accustomed
In past realities.
To being shined and ignored
By friends who seemed bored
In the seventies.

As wonderful as it was rare
I had no desire to share
His kind of rarity.
He was the first time I fell hard
And I wanted to play that card
All through the seventies.

I.

One night at the Troubadour I spotted this extraordinary girl.

So I asked who she was.

‘A professional,’

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

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

oh, by the way, they worked.

Once I became aware,

I saw these women everywhere.

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



II.

She had a printer engrave a calling card

that featured a bird of paradise

borrowed from a Tiffany silver pattern

and,
under it,

Alex’s Aviary,

Beautiful and Exotic birds.



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

pampered arm pieces with expensive tastes

and a hint of a delicious but remote sexuality.

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

the quintessential California girl

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





III.

The mechanism of Alex’s sudden notoriety is byzantine,

as these things always are.

One of her girls took up with a rotter,

the couple had a fight,

he went to the police,

the police had an undercover detective visit

(who just happened to be an attractive woman)

and ask to work for her,

she all but embraced her

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

to charge her with two counts of pandering

and one of pimping.

For Alex, who is fifty-six

and has a heart condition and diabetes,

the stakes may be high.

A conviction carries the guarantee of incarceration.

For the forces of law and order,

the stakes may be higher.

Alex has let it be known that she will subpoena

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

And the revelations this might produce

—perhaps that Alex compromised policemen

by making girls available to them,

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

in exchange for their blind eye to her activities

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

For Alex’s socially correct clients and friends,

for the socially correct wives of her clients and friends

and for a handful of movie and television executives

who have no idea they are dating or

married to former Alex girls,

the stakes are highest of all.



IV.

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

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

of many of the city’s most important men,

to say nothing of visiting businessmen and Arab princes.

If she decides to warble,

either at her trial or in a book,

her song will shatter more than glass.





V.

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

There were supposed to have been ten people there,

but only four came.

One of them was a short woman

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

When I arrived, the table was set for two.

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

but she knew the important facts of my situation:

I was getting divorced from a very wealthy man

and doing the legal work myself

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


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

slender, flat-chested woman

—and I don’t have any.

It wouldn’t be a frequent thing.

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

sometimes in Europe.

The men will be elegant,

you’ll have your own room

—there would be no outward signs of impropriety.

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





VI.

The tall, slender, flat-chested brunette

didn’t think it was right for her.

Alex handed her a business card

and suggested that she think about it.

To her surprise, she did

—for an entire week.

This was 1978, and $20,000 then

was like $40,000 now,

I knew it was hooking,

but Alex had never mentioned ***.



Our whole conversation seemed to be about something else.



VII.

I was born in Manila

to a Spanish-Filipina mother and German father,

and when I was twelve

a Japanese soldier came into our house

with his bayonet pointed at us,

ready to do us in.

He locked us in and set the house on fire.

I haven’t been scared by much since that.



My mother always struck me as goofy,

so I jumped on a bus and ran away,

I got off in Oakland,

saw a help-wanted sign on a parish house,

and went in.

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

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

But I didn’t care.

It felt safe.

And the priests sparked my interest in the domestic arts

—in linen, in crystal.



A new priest arrived.

He was unpleasant,

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

still a teenager,

married a scientist.

We separated eight years later,

he took our two sons to another state

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

Keep them I said and hung up.

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

—though I don’t,

I just hate to be manipulated.



My second husband,

an alcoholic,

had Frank Sinatra blue eyes, and possibly

—I never knew for sure—

had a big career in the underworld

as a contract killer.

Years before we got serious,

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

She and her friends were so elegant

that I started spending time with them in beauty salons.

They were so fancy,

so smart

—and they knew incredible people,

like the millionaire who sat in his suite all day

just writing $5,000 checks to girls.



VIII.

I was a florist.

We got to talking.

She was a madam from England

who wanted to sell her book and go home.

I bought it for $5,000.

My husband thought it was cute.

Now you’re getting your feet wet.

Three months later,

he died.

After eleven years of marriage,

just like that.

And of the names in the book

it turned out

that half of the men were also dead.

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



IX.

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

Great food Alex had cooked herself.

Major giggles with old pals.

And then,

instead of chocolate After Eight,

she served three women After Three



This man has seen a bit of life

beyond Los Angeles,

so I asked him how Alex’s stable

compared with that of Madam Claude,

the legendary Parisian procuress.

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

A Claude girl was perfectly dressed and multilingual

—you could take her to the opera

and she’d understand it.





He told me that when she was 40

she looked at herself in the mirror

and said

Disgusting.

People over 40

should not have ***.

But She Was Clear That She Never Liked It

even when she was young.

Besides, she saw all the street business

go to the tall,

beautiful girls.

She thought that she never had a chance

competing against them.

Instead,

she would take their money by managing them.





X.

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

It was before the pill;

Girls weren’t giving it away.

Claude specialized in

failed models and actresses,

ones who just missed the cut.

But just because they failed

in those impossible professions

didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful,

fabulous.



Like Avis

in those days,

those girls tried harder.

Her place was off the Champs,

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

Once I met her,

I was constantly making withdrawals and heading upstairs.





XI.

We took the lift

and Claude greeted us at the door.

My impression was that of the director

of an haute couture house,

very subdued,

beige and gray, very little makeup.

She took us into a lounge and made us drinks,

Whiskey,

Cognac.

There was no maid.

We made small talk for 15 minutes.

How was the weekend?

What’s the weather like in Deauville?

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

She always used ‘jeunes filles.’

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

She left and soon returned

with two very tall

jeunes filles,

One was blonde.

This is Eva from Austria.

She’s here studying painting.

And a brunette,

very different,

but also very fine.

This is Claudia from Germany.

She’s a dancer.

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

I gave my English guest first choice.

He picked the blonde.

And wasn’t disappointed.

Each bedroom had its own bidet.

There was some nice

polite conversation, and then



It was slightly formal,

but it was high-quality.

He paid Claude

200 francs,

not to the girls

In 1965, 200 francs was about $40.

Pretty girls on Rue Saint-Denis

could be had for 40 francs

so you can see the premium.

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

You didn’t have to be J. Paul Getty.





XII.

A lot of them

were models at

Christian Dior

or other couture houses.

She liked Scandinavians.

That was the look then

—cold, tall, perfect.

It was cheap for the quality.

They all used her.

The best people wanted

the best women.

Elementary supply and demand.



XIII.

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

She showed it to me and Rubi.

She was proud she had survived.

We talked about the camp for hours.

It was even more fascinating than the girls.



She was Jewish

I’m certain of that.

She was horrified at the Jewish collaborators

at the camp who herded

their fellow Jews

into the gas chambers.

That was the greatest betrayal in her life.



XIV.

She was this sad,

lonely little woman.

Later, Patrick told me who she was.

I was bowled over.

It was like meeting Al Capone.

I met two of the girls

who worked for her.

One was what you would expect

Tall

Blonde

Model.

But the other looked like a Rat

Then one night

she came out

all dressed up,

I didn’t even recognize her.

She was even better than the first girl.

Claude liked to transform women like that.

That was her art.

It was very odd,

my cousin told me.

There was not much furniture

and an awful lot of telephones.

“Allô oui,”



XV.

I had so many lunches

with Claude at Ma Maison

She was vicious.

One day,

Margaux Hemingway,

at the height of her beauty, walked by.

Une bonne

—the French for maid

was how Claude cut her dead.

She reduced

the entire world

to rich men wanting *** and

poor women wanting money.

She’d love to page through Vogue and see someone

and say,

When I met her

she was called

Marlene

and she had a hideous nose

and now she’s a princess.

Or she’d see someone and say

Let’s see if she kisses me or not.

It was like

I made her,

and I can destroy her.

She was obsessed

with “fixing” people

—with Saint Laurent clothes,

with Cartier watches,

with Winston jewels,

with Vuitton luggage,

with plastic surgeons.



XVI.

Her prison number was

888

which was good luck in China

but not in California.

‘Ocho ocho ocho,’ she liked to repeat

Even in jail, she was always working,

always recruiting stunning women.

She had a beautiful Mexican cellmate

and gave her Robert Evans’s number

as the first person she should call

when she was released.



XVII.

Never have *** on the first date.



XVIII.

There will always be prostitution,

The prostitution of misery.

And the prostitution of bourgeois luxury.

They will both go on forever.



“Allô oui,”



It was so exciting to hear a millionaire

or a head of state ask,

in a little boy’s voice,

for the one thing

that only you could provide

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

--it's mostly dialogue.



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

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



XIX.

She was like a slave driver in the American South

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

the makeover put the girl in debt,

because Claude paid all the bills to

Dior,

Vuitton,

to the hairdressers,

to the doctors,

and the girls had to work to pay them off.

It was ****** indentured servitude.



My Swans.



It reached the point

where if you walked into a room

in London

or Rome

as much as Paris

because the girls were transportable,

and saw a girl who was

better-dressed,

better-looking,

and more distinguished than the others

you presumed

it was a girl from Claude.

It was, without doubt,

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



**.

The girl had to be

exactly what was needed

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

I played a little the role of Pygmalion.

There were basic things that absolutely had to be done.

It consisted

at the start

of the physical aspect

“surgical intervention”

to give this way of being

that was different from other girls.

Often they had to be transformed

into dream creatures

because at the start

they were not at all



Often I had to teach them how to dress.

Often they needed help

to repair

what nature had given them

which was not so beautiful.

At first they had to be tall,

with pretty gestures,

good manners.

I had lots of noses done,

chins,

teeth,

*******.

There was a lot to do.



Eight times out of ten

I had to teach them how to behave in society.

There were official dinners, suppers, weekends,

and they needed to have conversation.

I insisted they learn to speak English,

read

certain books.

I interrogated them on what they read.

It wasn’t easy.

Each time something wasn’t working,

I was obliged to say so.



You were very demanding?

I was ferocious.



It’s difficult

to teach a girl how to walk into Maxim’s

without looking

ill at ease

when they’ve never been there,

to go into an airport,

to go to the Ritz,

or the Crillon

or the Dorchester.

To find yourself

in front of a king,

three princes,

four ministers,

and five ambassadors at an official dinner.

There were the wives of those people!

Day after day

one had to explain,

explain again,

start again.

It took about two years.

There would always be a man

who would then say of her,

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





XXI.

A New York publisher who visited

the Palace Hotel

in Saint Moritz

in the early seventies told me,

I met a whole bunch of them there.

They were lovely.

The johns wanted everyone to know who they were.

I remember it being said

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

You asked them where they came from and they all said

Neuilly.

Claude liked girls from good families.

More to the point she had invented their backgrounds.



I have known,

because of what I did,

some exceptional and fascinating men.

I’ve known some exceptional women too,

but that was less interesting

because I made them myself.



Ah, this question of the handbag.

You would be amazed by how much dust accumulates.

Or how often women’s shoe heels are scuffed.





XXII.

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



That was a difficult moment

When they arrived they were very shy,

a bit frightened.

At the beginning when I take a look,

it’s a question of seeing if the silhouette

and the gestures are pretty.

Then there was a disagreeable moment.

I said,

I’m sorry about this unpleasantness,

but I have to ask you to get undressed,

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

Believe me, I was embarrassed,

just as they were,

but it had to be done,

not out of voyeurism, not at all

—I don’t like les dames horizontales.



It was very funny

because there were always two reactions.

A young girl,

very sure of herself,

very beautiful,

très bien,

would say

Yes,

Get up, and get undressed.

There was nothing to hide, everything was perfect.



There were those who

would start timidly

to take off their dress

and I would say

I knew already.

The rest is not sadism, but nearly.

I knew what I was going to find.

I would say,

Maybe you should take off your bra,

and I knew it wasn’t going to be

beautiful.

Because otherwise she would have taken it off easily.

No problem.

There were damages that could be mended.

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

some not

Sometimes it can be deceptive,

you know,

you see a pretty girl,

a pretty face,

all elegant and slim,

well dressed,

and when you see her naked

it is a catastrophe.



I could judge their physical qualities,

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

but I didn’t know how she was in bed.

So I had some boys,

good friends,

who told me exactly.

I would ring them up and say,

There’s a new one.

And afterwards they’d ring back and say,

Not bad,

Could be better, or

Nulle.



Or,

on the contrary,

She’s perfect.

And I would sometimes have to tell the girls

what they didn’t know.

A pleasant assignment?

No.

They paid.



XXIII.

Often at the beginning

they had an ami de coeur

in other words,

oh,

a journalist, a photographer, a type like that,

someone in the cinema,

an actor, not very well known.

As time went by

It became difficult

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

The fact of physically changing,

becoming prettier,

changing mentally to live with millionaires,

produced a certain imbalance

between them

and the little boyfriend

who had not evolved

and had stayed in his milieu.

At the end of a certain time

she would say,

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

And they would break up by themselves.



Remember,

this was instant elevation.

For most of them it was a dream existence,

provided they liked the ***,

and those that didn’t never lasted long.

A lot of the clients were young,

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

They would buy you presents,

take you on trips.



XXIV.

For me, *** was something very accessoire

I think after a certain age

there are certain spectacles one should not give to others

Now I have a penchant for solitude.

Love, it’s a complete destroyer,

It’s impossible,

a horror,

l’angoisse.

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

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

He was jealous too.

We broke plates over each other’s heads;

we became jealous about each other’s pasts.

I said one day

It’s finished.

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say:

Break my legs,

give me scarlet fever,

an attack of TB, but never that.

Not that.



XXV.

I called her into my office

Let us not exaggerate,

I sent her away.

She came back looking for employment,

but was fired again, this time for drugs.

She made menacing phone calls.

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

She shot three bullets

I was dressed in the fashion of Courrèges at this moment

He did very padded things.

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

The bullet

—merci, Monsieur Courrèges

—stuck in the padding.

I was thrown forward onto the telephone.

I had one thought which went through my head:

I will die like Kennedy.

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

The second bullet went through my hand.

I have two dead fingers.

It’s most useful for removing bottle tops.

In the corridor I was saved from the third bullet

because she was very tall

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



XXVI.

There were men

who could decapitate,

****, and bomb their rivals

who would be frightened of me.

I would ask them how was the girl,

and they’d say

Not bad

and then

But I’m not complaining.

I was a little sadistic to them sometimes.

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

But I’ve known them all.

I had them all

here.



She will take many state secrets with her.



XXVI.

I don’t like ugly people

probably because when I was young

I wasn’t beautiful at all.

I was ugly and I suffered for it,

although not to the point of obsession.

Now that I’m an old woman,

I’m not so bad.

And that’s why

I’ve always been surrounded by people

Who

were

beautiful.

And the best way to have beautiful people around me

was to make them.

I made them very pretty.





XXVII.

I wouldn’t call what Alex gives you

‘advice,’

She spares you Nothing.

She makes a list of what she wants done,

and she really gets into it

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

She gives you names of people who do good facials.

She tells you what to buy at Neiman Marcus.

She’s put off by anything flashy,

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

in front of an audience,

You look like a cheap *****!

I used to wear what I wanted when I went out

then change in the car into a frumpy sweater

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

Oh, you look beautiful!



Marry your boyfriend,

It’s better than going to prison.

When you go out with her,

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

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

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

and say they need rent money.

She wants to see you do well.





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

what he liked,

the names of the girls he’d seen,

and how long he’d been with them.

And I only hired girls who had another career

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

and beautiful-and-interesting,

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

These men wanted to talk.

If they spent two hours with a girl,

they usually spent only five or ten minutes in bed.



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



XXVIII.

That was my big idea

Not to expand the book by aggressive marketing

but to make sure that nobody

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

And I kept my roster fresh.

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

get exploited,

and then are cast off.

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

I let the men know:

no violence,

no costumes,

no fudge-packing.

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

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

Save your money.

This is like a hangar

—you come in, refuel, and take off.

It’s not a vacation, it’s not a goof.

This buys the singing lessons,

the dancing lessons,

the glossies.

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

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



XXIX.

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



Une femme terrible.

She despised men and women alike.

Men were wallets. Women were holes.



By the 80s,

if you were a brunette,

the sky was the limit.

The Saudis

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

ignore them all evening while they

chatted,

ate,

and played cards,

and then, around midnight,

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



They’d order women up like pizza.



Since my second husband died,

I only met one man who was right for me,

He was a sheikh.

I visited him in Europe

twenty-eight times

in the five years I knew him

and I never slept with him.

He’d say

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

but he introduced me

by phone

to all his powerful friends.

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

That’s why I never went out

he would have been disappointed.



***.

Listen to me

This is a woman’s business.

When a woman does it, it’s fun

there’s a giggle in it

when a man’s involved,

he’s ******,

he’s a ****.

He may know how to keep girls in line,

and he may make money,

but he doesn’t know what I do.

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

She’s young,

She’s pleasant,

She can do things

she can certainly make love.

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



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

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

Pina Colapinto

A petite call girl,

who once slid between the sheets of royalty,

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

They really dolled her up

She looks great.

Never!

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





XXXI.

Madam Alex died at 7 p.m.

Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,

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

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

This was the passing of a legend.

Because she was the mother superior of prostitution.

She was one of the richest women on earth.

The world came to her.

She never had to leave the house.

She was like Hugh Hefner in that way.


It's like losing a friend

In all the years we played cat and mouse,

she never once tried to corrupt me.

We had a lot of fun.


To those who knew her

she was as constant

as she was colorful

always ready with a good tidbit of gossip

and a gourmet lunch for two.

She entertained, even after her conviction on pandering charges,

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

surrounded by knickknacks and meowing cats,

which she fed fresh shrimp from blue china plates.



XXXII.

She stole my business,

my books,

my girls,

my guys.

I had a good run.

My creatures.

Make Mommy happy

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



She was, how can I say it,

classy.

When she first hired me

she thought I was too young to take her case.

I was 43.

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

She was right.





XXXIII.

I was fond of Heidi

But she has a streak that is so vindictive.



If there is pure evil, it is Madame Alex.





XXXIV.

I was born and raised in L.A.

My dad was a famous pediatrician.

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



I think that Heidi wanted to try her wings

pretty early,

and I think that she met some people

who sort of took all her potential

and gave it a sharp turn



She knew nothing.

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



Alex and I had a very intense relationship;

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

so she was abusive and loving at the same time.



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

but it's like this:

What took her years to build,

I built in one.

The high end is the high end,

and no one has a higher end than me.

In this business, no one steals clients.

There's just better service.



XXXV.

You were not allowed to have long hair

You were not allowed to be too pretty

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

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

And then she loses the business



XXXVI.

I was pursued because

come on

in our lifetime,

we will never see another girl of my age

who lived the way I did,

who did what I did so quickly,

I made so many enemies.

Some people had been in this line of business

for their whole lives, 30 or 40 years,

and I came in and cornered the market.

Men don't like that.

Women don't like that.

No one liked it.



I had this spiritual awakening watching an Oprah Winfrey video.

I was doing this 500-hour drug class

and one day the teacher showed us this video,

called something like Make It Happen.

Usually in class I would bring a notebook

and write a letter to my brother or my journal,

but all of a sudden this grabbed my attention

and I understood everything she said.

It hit me and it changed me a lot.

It made me feel,

Accept yourself for who you are.

I saw a deeper meaning in it

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



XXXVII.

Hello, Gina!

You movie star!

Yes you are!

Gina G!

Hello my friend,

Hello my friend,

Hello my movie star,

Ruby! Ruby Boobie!

Braaawk!

Except so many women say,

Come on, Heidi

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

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

and I'll make it really nice,

like the Beverly Hills Hotel

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

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

Charles Manson was captured a half hour from Pahrump.



I said, Joe! What are you doing?

You gotta get, like,

a garter belt and encase it in something

and write,

This belonged to Suzette Whatever,

who entertained the Flying Tigers during World War II.

Get, like, some weird tools and write,

These were the first abortion tools in the brothel,

you know what I mean?

Just make some **** up!

So I came out here to do some research

And then I realized,

What am I doing?

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

I can do this.

When I was doing my research, in three months

I saw land go from 30 thousand an acre

to 50 thousand an acre,

and then it was going for 70K!

It's urban sprawl

—we're only one hour from Las Vegas.

Out here the casinos are only going to get bigger,

prostitution is legal, it's only getting better.





XXXVIII.

The truth is

deep down inside,

I just can't do business with him

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

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

It's not my style at all.

Who wants to be 75 and facing federal charges?

It was different at my age when I

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

I was 22,

25 at the time?

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

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

—the girls and blah blah blah.

But the money was really good.



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

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

It's hard-core; how I live;

It's totally a nonfunctional atmosphere for me

It's hard to get anything done because

It’s so time-consuming.

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

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

I will be jinxed and cursed the rest of my life

and nothing I do will ever work again.



Guys kind of are a hindrance to me

Certainly I have no problem getting laid or anything.

But a man is not a priority in my life.

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



XXXIX.

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

And soon all the parents in the neighborhood

wanted me to watch over their children.

Even then I had an innate business sense.

I started farming out my friends

to meet the demand.

My mother showered me with love and my father,

a pediatrician,

would ask me at the dinner table,

What did you learn today?

I ran my neighborhood.

I just pick up a hustle really easily,

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



Alex was a 5' 3" bald-headed Filipina

in a transparent muu muu.

We hit it off.

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

It's in and out,

over and out.

Do you think some big-time producer

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



Columbia Pictures executive says:

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

Jeez, it's like the Nixon enemies list.

I hope I'm on it.

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

for people to gossip about me.



That's right ladies and gentlemen.

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

If you live out here,

you've got to hate people.

You've got to be pretty antisocial

How you gonna come out here with only 86 people?

That's Fred.

He's digging to China.

You look good.

Yeah, you too.

It's coming along here.

Yeah, it is.

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

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

Really?

I thought there was a lot between us.

No. We're neighbors.



He's a cute guy

He's entertaining.

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

I thought my property went all the way back

and butted up against his.

But there was one lot between us right there.

He said he was buying it,

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

So I went and called the broker and said,

I'm an all-cash buyer.

So I really bought it out from under him.

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

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

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

and it'll be a nice area.

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

Like this guy here,

someone needs to **** him.

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

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

It's just, people are destroying it.

I’m looking into green building options

I don't want anything polluting,

I want a huge auditorium,

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

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

There were over 300 birds in there!

That lady,

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

which is a huge job.

She called me once at 3:30 in the morning

Come over here and help me feed this baby!

Some baby parrot.

And I ran over there in my pajamas

—I knew there was something else wrong

and she was like

Get me my oxygen!

Get me this, get me that.

I called my dad; he was like,

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

They ended up getting a helicopter.

And they were taking her away

in the wind with her IV and blood and everything

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

And she dies the next day.

She was just a super-duper person.



XL.

I relate to the lifestyle she had before,

Now, I'm just a citizen.

I'm clean,

I'm sober,

I'm married,

I work at Wal-Mart.

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

and we relate.





I got out in 2000,

so I've been sending her money for seven years

She was…whatever.

Girlfriend?

Yeah, maybe.

But ***, I tried like two times,

and I'm just not gay.

She gets out in about eight or nine months

and I told her I would get her a house.

But nowhere near me.

I didn't touch her,

but I'd be, like...

a funny story:

I told her,

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

about contacting me in the real world.

I'm not a lesbian.

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

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

So I Googled her name,

and she has this huge company.

Huge!

She won, like, Woman of the Year awards.

So I called her and I go,

Not bad.

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

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

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



XLI.

No person shall be employed by the licensee

who has ever been convicted of

a felony involving moral turpitude

But I qualify,

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

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

You've got to be hustling.

Nighttime is really enchanting here

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

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

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

people can adjust to anything.

I was perfectly adjusted in the penitentiary,

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



We had done those drug addiction shows together

Dr. Drew.

Afterward we were friendly

and he'd call me every now and then.

He'd act like he had his stuff together.

But it was all a lie.

Everything is a lie.

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

He was just such a mess.

So out of it.

He stole money from my purse.

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

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

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

He told me that’s his favorite actress.

Better than Meryl Streep.



XLII.

The cops could see

why these women were taking over trade.

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

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

One thing they are not is lazy.

In the USSR

they grew up with no religion, no morality.

Prostitution is not considered a bad thing.

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

That’s why it’s exploding here.

What we saw was just a tip of the iceberg.

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

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

The madam who organized this raid

was making $4 million a year,

laundered through Russian-owned banks in New York City

These are brutal people.

They are all backstabbers.

They’re entrepreneurs.

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

For them, that’s the American dream.



XLIII.

If you’re not into something,

don’t be into it

But,

if you want to take some whipped cream,

put it between your toes,

have your dog licking it up and,

at the same time,

have your girlfriend poke you in the eye,

then that’s fine.

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



She was my best friend then

and I consider her one of my best friends now,

because when I was going through Riker’s

and everyone abandoned me,

including my boyfriend,

I was hysterical,

crying,

and she was the one that was there.

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

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

loyalty, respect, and love for her.

And if she’s going to prison for eight years

—that’s what she’s sentenced for

—I’ll go there,

and I’ll go there every week,

for eight years.

That’s the type of person I am.

That old song from the seventies
Is as sappy as the thought
That it still could make me feel something
For you
But the seventies are long gone
With them a lot of other things
Not the least of which is
Any appreciation whatsoever
For this sappy song
From the seventies
Or
The puppy love sick sensorium
That is a teenager's heart

Her mouth glittered agape
With sacred promise,
Like a box of unused
Engagement invites
Christening invites
Birthday invites
Still in the wrapper
For sale at a
Lifeline.

When you’d rather live
In a car
Than the zombie stance
Of a modern house,
Clean and soulless
With a hermetically sealed lawn,
Winter pageantry draws to a close
With bogan’s shooting-
Pearly eyed paupers
With constellations in their gaze.
With eyes full of hope and stars
That burnt bright and fade for
Flickering lens light.

Their voices murmur soft
Through catacomb
And underbrush
As only the ephemeral things are whispered of –
Dreams.
The addicts of ideals
The junkies of hope
The drinkers of despair
Have tiger soft tongues.

They lap and feast gladly,
From broken vessels
Chipped with hazardous teeth
That seek to fill their
Ermine mouths with the ******
Draught
Of truth.
Stumbling through wine-hour
They swarm, with tongues ******
And all constellations burnt out.

The hyacinth rides wild
Upon her shoulder,
Writhes in the silver brunt
Of moonlight,
Writhes in the stillness of dead perfume.

Marching to the beat
Of my enemies drum,
My hands inside my pockets.

Little bluebirds spun from dream
Sit on the holy perch,
A branch in all innocent minds.

The redeemed and patient
Make a subtle art from
Long distance perversions.

Similarly as we chase ghosts over Daffodils.

Fields of winter
under lunar glow
sway without us.

Long distance love
lingers with loose lust
along Regret street.

I hung it next to the memory
Of childhood cooking and Indian summers
Without further thought.

It slipped into the novel that took the form
Of an old coat, slipping into the lined pocket
It sank with a sigh.
Satisfied with itself.

Bombarded by the pounding
Dead eyed stare of ***** goddesses,
Broken by the undisputed angelic
And unglued ones,
All moon faced
All hopelessly optimistic
All lawfully rebellious
With green serenity
We pasted our dreams
On a wall so real it shone gossamer.
He counted the imperfections in the glass
With mind hesitation
As the whole world went black,
In a sea of much deserved discontent,
Wishing for the soft.

A moment of pure luck?
Jesus was an astronaut
Smoking Zen by the fire.

Suicidal angst
never had you in sonnets?
What a ******' shame.

Our life is but a song
We never hear.

I chipped away at the excesses
of my baroque person,
each strike took a
Railing
mounting
wall
decoration
desire
demand
exclamation
from the battlements.
All left now, a hill.

I paid for my banquet
with a sip of loneliness
and left behind the question
that asked all quiet poets
the meaning of love,
that asked all quiet poets
to answer with a villanelle
shouted from every
distant peak.

They sent the troopers
to greet me instead,
and my library was put in shackles,
and I kissed their ***** feet.

I answered that I carved this mountain
from the baroque bedrock
upon which they laid their city.
They smiled and asked about the aqueducts.
I wept and spoke of kitchenettes.

A meal provided
on a lead cast plate
my jailor asked about freedom
I answered with defeat.

There were two atoms
One questioned the meaning of existence
The other the existence of meaning.
             -Regardless they looked the same.

An apple on a branch,I took
The same way history takes a footnote.

The same way cashiers are all doctorates.
The same way trains find the station.
The same way you sing like a bird (and I like a cow).
The same way we never really wish to be writers.
The same way our final friend is made of pine.
The same way all streets lead to nowhere.
The same way all jobs **** society.
The same way we always lie to our children.
The same way a man loves a woman.
The opposite way we ****.
The opposite way we make love.
The way that I know a man who’s totem animal is a worker ant and he is unemployed by choice.
The same way we take old memories and turn them into fashion.
The very same way all sacred things become profane and all profanity becomes sacred in the eyes of many.

Dying relic of the Optimistic Seventies,
A new coat of paint for the old irony
     -slap dashed with obscurity.
Although I wear the costume of my enemy,
I will write the exaltation in blue smoke
As **** by an unsuspecting victim
Occurs in the dark.

The face of another love stares down at me.
I smile.
Yet I know it is not her.
I weep.
A sudden method sparks revival.

Jackie Pleasure wore a gray smile,
The anthem of a lost generation:
‘Happiness is lost in smiling.’

You are dead to me,
the boatman calls
I will not taste of your amber lips
I will not taste.

The welfare of all never hinged on darkness as we fear the fall,
A multitude of angels sang their songs
And never learnt to say goodbye
Or cast a long distance eye
Over half spent desire.

Drawn out caricatures,
Paraded intoxication
Flirt with our mistress death
And have her pick up the tab.
She pays with silent music.

The ***, we learn, is a bridge
Between all words and waltz’s,
Our Light Brigade to conquer art.

In the twilight of this, our mansioned night
Let us ring out true with indulgence,
Excess, abandon and the call of ‘yes’
Kali rang on the wire of a golden telephone.
Her name
“Kali, Kali…”
Like a quarrelsome minotaur
Flew through the waves of silk ideal
And strangled the babe
With cool breath.

There was ice (oh yes!) and fire and song.
With our candles burnt down to the ash of all streets
We walk then. We walk.
All life is but a song.

The ghosts of all forgotten stamps
Now echo on the wind of speech.
On High! Oh speak!
Of songs sung but never danced
With our broken dream.
When starlight meets the dust, and
Shadow eats the snow,
All our stories are satin sheer
And all our wants are gone.
We watch the memories march, until
They find a sliver of chrome that showed that place
Where all piano’s live and breathe.
My father in the wishing well,
My mother played trapeze.
My sister never saw the light,
My brother never born.
That was that,
Where stars meet dust
And floorboards sing off key.

Maybe I could write a book all

Stares of people creamy tons
Eating dark bonbons
Find your nitch and call
The silk milk  switch
The"Cat Eye"
People come and go
But the sunset stays
The play up or play
down the love of life
An eternity of hearts
of your wife
The family

The boy ship ahoy
(Patch-eye Pirate)
Robin Almond Joy
And she just loves
them Tomboys
all lacey eyes

Masquerading
"Almond Eye's
flavor of soy
Lactose tolerant

Paintbrush deviant
He is so creamed for her
Dark sunset stimulant
Come on drink it all

Inside of my mind do
you dare to wink
and call

Take a look?
Are we losing
our scruples
Coconut milk
Smiles and dimples

A mystery of
illusions  more darkness
of confusion
The plain ordinary people

So on and then on?
Met our confusion of people

Right on # target_

Are we still creamy
stir it on

Darkest sunset
way beyond
Soothing so distant and just
like that
gone___

We cannot click on
anything creme
De La Creme
The computer magnet
like a crazy clone,
all lost being alone

Staying obedient trying to
find the way
(No God) what
No Man?
The cream in your cafe
The Prince
She's the angel dust
hair rinse
((Garnet))

Creamified sonnet

Dark sunset Jade Hornet
on so on her lips so on etc
They met the sunset
head on right time
She's on
All Laced
He's on
What a kisser
Is right time on?
Did he miss her?

My heart was on
the line

Robin birds of throbs

Losing so much time

being robbed deplorable

Like an abysmal

Disgraceable hum
Shady money sum
Banging drum yum
Dark sunset color gum

The dark silhouette
asylum

The sin or the sunset

Being straight jacket
Suzette

Minds breakdown
Heart Silk Crown

"Pennywise clown'

*** in the Cat milk
movies

Remembering the
The seventies

Peace signs and
Groovies

My sunset dreams
depleted

Was this the book
I needed to
be completed

How I armed myself
Finger lake creamy

Fate and time stood out
Dreammmmy_

My brain was fried
scrambler

But sunny side was up?

At midnight rambler

The Brooklyn Bridge
sunset heart dividers

Cosmic globe riders
Dark spell mentors
Spilled the creamy
Goddess of darkness
robe

This ancient Roman sunset
The lover of Darkness
Lace me the darkness hour

The tower high rise sunset
bad spirits gave us
wits to live it

We have it made what
we see
Sometimes Illusions
Creamy silk hands and
The rock bands
How her Darker?Cream
Saw the sunset in between
lips met

Face to face they land
Her place lacy demands
Her spell eyes of a bet
Her lipstick on his collar
She was ready to set
He see's the specks of colors
Through her headset
He yearns for her to
holler__

The peek reddish
Sushi-pink
The darkest of sunsets
"Freshly Raw' she sipped his
Sunset drink

When our light will come
will be
protected
Forevermore patiently

The darkness became us
the goodness

Of a better time of rising

Information Required Order 38582 Moonshine Makin's

I intend to use this order to test
the viability of an herbal extracting service for local gardeners.
If there is interest
and our trials prove commercial, the methods
will be posted publicly, methodic.

The intended customer base is the home canning and preserving enthusiast, ****** societies, 'n'such.

Now, the pod cast, statement of use. Right, of course.
Right use is to be made of all the time we wish, and we wish to share the method we use.
With youse.
Here's my idea, at the moment

nothin,

then I hear this guy who got famous in the seventies,
in such a way that I would have known.
Had I been on the same planet
during the Seventies
and half the eighties.

Terrence McKenna, right. If I had survived 1970,
and things had been well positioned for that to have happened,
had I not...

What did we do, my strange friends, or was I the only one who does remember my last sane thought? Actually,

I don't. And then, I do. Quasar-ic-ish-ly.

An edit or two could change every thing,
imagine this Terrence
McKenna taught "Authentic Being" a sort, or class, of being,
very high and good.

We teach being authentic.

Being a being's been being a while,

upon multiple instants of
a time, best'n'worse, full'n'empty, war'n'peace

(i'sgottabeat)

yet never is hope absensed. Any time I tell a story,
hope springs eternal, soon

soon the old fool will see No one is listening, and wink.

No one and the fool have friended
upon such times as these,
No two, as well, (seedawink)
to a far lesser degree, ye may see.
Secret secret secret knowledge, gnosis, donchaknow,

is same as sacred, yes, yes, it is, sacred made, made sacred, samesame that's the game... secret

I am in me,me ni ma I
Magic Ab-io-alchemical Hermitical Heretic, am I. Spirit. Muse?

Are we lost? No. We are wiser than we were.
By any measure.

A statement of use for that we wish to take, once it is granted. What's the use? We stuck not knowin, right?

Wait, I have a chit
"All things pertaining to life and godliness have been given thee." Got that at VBS, by God.

Really, we are treading on Bunyan's tale? We escape the Giant Despond on a promise of a promise?

Yes,
seems so. So little is different. The road, seen rocky three decades ago, or so, now, it's

bricks, silicon bricks, I recon they been doped, ye ken?
Some ol loswoids crosswise need gold ducts to flow
past the reflective edge, where we saw that Mckenna

outright lie.
He did. Damright. Said Paradise was opened by the door that shut Eden, but he said that

Like it was a bad thing.
Jesus Christ, if he missed the whole reason there is a Bible and a Jesus in it, who is gone gowon his testified
psyc-hellic oppositio cunjunct-ifitis trip?

So, I missed the seventies,
as if I were flying from LA at forty k and I go on by, to land in 1985, after fifteen years enculturated to believe a not-so-complex,
on the surface, lie.

Truth has a strange mercurial 'spect,
all the light that can be reflected is reflected in mercury, see,
the edge twixt yinanyang, dang,

as far as we can see, tho'

we can't really even see HD, but
it seems better.

Reflecting on an idea is blissfull, but that's not the reason.

Prison
Prison
These cells of the familiar I want to take you on a journey of sorts take you inside a real prison let you walk
The cat walk in B house the other four cell blocks were round this one could have passed for a haunting
Looking structure in an old horror flick it had ten tiers I can’t speak of Attica or Quentin though my army
Buddy lived on the dead end street with the prison at the end so I knew by sight and the preacher that
Worked in Quentin he almost convinced me it was more dangerous than Statesville in Joliet it’s a tossup like the
Old inmate well into his seventies he was called a crank they housed them on the bottom tier called
Cranks because they wouldn’t work in the prison because of their attitude it wasn’t his seventies he
Wouldn’t work when he was fifty he still had respect because he was part of the Saint Louis mob but he
Told one day it was different than in the old days he said it used to be you had to do something to get
Killed now they would **** you for a slice of bread or for a lot less as one guard found out on the other
Side on the tenth tier a guy went to walk this guy to the infirmary not the hole the inmate walked
Straight out of his cell stuck the guard with a homemade knife or prison lingo a shieve they said that
Wouldn’t have killed him but when he dumped him over the rail and he fell ten floors and hit the
Cement He was finished senseless unexplained violence it could be he didn’t like the food that day. That
Was one reason you got vacation after six months the stress was incredibly high unlike the old prison
Movies you were not even given a night stick when chow was called you had to frisk every one before they
Went back to their cells a spoon rubbed against concrete soon gets a deadly point so you stand there as
Two hundred inmates sneer at you as they pass going down the corridor to the mess hall if you had any
Kind of protection they could just take it and beat you to death with it. I was taking twelve of them from
One location to another one I didn’t give any thought to the Dingo boots with square toes I was wearing
Then one of them said you could really stomp someone to death with those couldn’t you I felt like Bob
Hope delivering a hyper joke in one of the old road shows I didn’t snarl like bob there wasn’t a camera
Running I tried to give him my best tough guy stone face answer yea you never knew what they said if it
Was heading somewhere but in this case he just enjoyed the thought of stomping someone to death.
I could go on and give you some details that are hair raising and more brutal than the scenes in
Fargo but I want you to be able to sleep without the light on I started as I said to take you on a journey
What has been said thoroughly gives you all you need or should hear about those places. But at the
Beginning I said the cell of my familiar not a dungeon but in the most emphatic truth that I can use we
Are closed up here it does play out as a dungeon darkness plagues the human family truly disturbing
Darkness surrounds us we separate form society those who can’t live lawfully and house them in
Prisons I have at different places written about the price Christ paid for our freedom he loves and sees
Present needs and future terror that the lost face for no other reason did he subject himself to the
Horrors of Rome’s cruel brutality and the agony of the death on the cross your house is filled with your
God given blessings and they are to be your comforts give you pleasure that’s loves provision but most
Of us know Henry Storemin his cell of the familiar with the help of an electric appliance turned all that
He knew into a death trap he couldn’t get out of a place he knew for years and neither can we exit sin
And Death on our own nothing is wrong yes like the girl at the lake picture of wealth and health but as I
Told I Saw the real situation pierce the obvious I told you I got in trouble when I tried to write about the
Death of Candy Jack out home I was probing deeper and deeper visualizing her in death and then the
Awful realization of death without any flowers or doctoring I started touching the true realness of death
It wasn’t rosy it was and can be out done only by hell as being scary I recoiled and fled our cell of the
Familiar is taken us to deaths door and if you don’t have a true walk with God hell will follow. People
Don’t realize the cross was the means of deliverance and payment but it was God’s living expression of
How dangerous the situation is for you without salvation the beams of light are striking your window
Panes it is being mixed and missed as natural light it is your escape from an eternal lake of fire the
Broken figure marred beyond recognition who can argue at judgment I didn’t get it liar you see what it
Cost this was irrefutable proof you need to heed such evidence of God’s displeasure and of the lengths
He has gone to protect and reach you I’m sure I will lose some or all today from this but one who does
Less than this is less than a friend and is also a prisoner in the cell of the familiar. God’s love bids you to
Come the enemy says be a fool and die with me and join me in the fire it was created for me and my
Demons but you make your selves guilty and bring the same punishment on yourself.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

In the seventies
we brought back silks and saris
hot with colours
that shocked the nights
Punjabi embroidery
on cheesecloth kaftans
mirror glittered skirts
that were spun with light
Kashmiri shawls
and Afghani dancing dresses
arms full of bracelets
silver and brass
enameled and etched
and singing with ***
rings of Ivory, sapphire and jet
necklaces of jade and threaded apple seeds
rain forest timber bowls
white marble boxes from Agra
with precious inlay stones
our little Taj Mahals
we wandered the globe
like a magical village
of lovers and
and came back
with backpacks of dreaming
and hope.


© M.L.Emmett

my grades have dropped from nineties to seventies and i am incredibly sad.
my heart has been dropped down countless flights of stairs and i am incredibly bruised.
my body has dropped off of a balcony from thirteen stories high and i am incredibly gone.

Dear Poet friends. After reading Dolly Lama’s poem ‘Poetry Helps Heal’, I was reminded of a poem I composed many years ago titled ‘The Healing Power of Poetry’. This poem is not a work of fiction, but based on reality. Hope you like it, and tell your friends to read the same. Thanks, - Raj, New Delhi.


  THE HEALING POWER OF POETRY:
    KNOWN  AS  ‘BIBLIOTHERAPY’

The word Poetry derives from the Greek word ‘poesis’,
Which means ‘a making’ of a literary art form,
Where language is used for its evocative, aesthetic,
and emotional response.
A poem is an emotional-intellectual-physical construct, -
meant to touch its reader’s heart!
Poetry links one individual to another by its
distilled experience.
Through its rhythm of words and imagery,  -
driving away our inner loneliness!

‘Words are the physicians of the diseased mind’, -
Oceanus  tells Prometheus in ancient Greek
Mythology.
Thus the Oracles at Delphi used the healing power
of poetry, -
Through their various ritualistic chants and
incantations;
And tamed many a savage mind into subjugation!

The Roman physician Soranus in the First Century
AD,
Had prescribed poetry and drama for his patients
who were mentally oppressed;
Tragedy for his maniac patients, and Comedy for
the depressed.
The great psychiatrist Sigmund Freud had clarified,
That it was not he but the Poet, who had discovered
the Subconscious Mind!
Freud went on to say that the human mind is a
poetry-making *****;
Focus of ‘poetry for healing’ is self-expression and
growth of the individual.
Whereas focus of ‘poetry as an art’ becomes the
very poem itself!
But both use the same technique Freud had said;
Words, rhythm, metaphors, sound, and images,
But in the end the result is the same.
The word ‘therapy’ comes from the Greek word
‘therapeia’, -
Meaning to nurse or cure through dance, song,
drama or poetry;
Perhaps the divine way to poetic therapy!
It is therefore not surprising that Asclepius, the
Greek God of Healing,
Is the son of Apollo, the God of Poetry and Medicine!

The first hospital for the mentally ill in the American
Colonies,
Was set up in Pennsylvania in 1751, by Benjamin
Franklin.
Where a number of ancillary treatments were used,
Including the writing of poetry and reading it aloud.
Written by the patients who were mentally ill.  @ (see notes)
‘Bibliotherapy’ was the term used for poetic therapy,
Which had become popular during the Sixties and
the Seventies.
It was also effectively used in Group Therapy,
With patients sharing their feeling and emotions,
Providing a release for their inner pain and tension !
The rhythm and repetition of words often created
a hypnotic trance, -
Reaching out to those ‘secret places’ - creating a
bridge, -
To that unconscious mind from which poetry springs!
Friends, in support of what I have just said let me
quote,
Those immortal lines which Robert Frost once wrote;-
“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
  But I have promises to keep,
  And miles to go before I sleep,
  And miles to go before I sleep” # (see notes below)

Foot Notes: ** Initially poetry was ****** recited and also sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. After the invention of  writing, it started to develop its own form. Forms make arrangement out of derangement, harmony out of discord, and order out of chaos!
@= Writings of some of these patients were also published in a newspaper titled “The Illuminator”.
# = Lines quoted above are from Robert Frost’s famous poem, “Stopping by The Woods on A Snowy Evening”, - were extensively
used for poetic therapy at the Hospital.
        All Copy Rights Reserved By the Author Raj Nandy

--------------------------------------------------------­------------------------

hereunder is served some poetry pouches full of love,
dear reader, stir them as you like,
if you wish you may crack them to pour into mouth,
you may smear them on your body
or you may sprinkle them on the ground
and then chant the name of god
with love and enjoyment

1.
the simplicity that rolls down
from the body of the sweet-meat
made by my mother

let it brings light
to our radish-red love-story

to hear or to notice
love
does not need
putting an ear on the wall
of the wall-street journal

the bottle could be filled
from the voice

when you go to fill the bottle
you would see that everywhere
the arrangement of picnic is ready

when i want to take part in that feast
my neighbours would drive me towards
the home  

although i’ve spent all my life
running behind the love

2.
who’s won the muddy-battle
was yesterday’s politics

my addiction is actually to cater
the pouch of love
to develop all vitamins
and all bathrooms

people say you don’t love
the claps of the rats

yet i’ll come down
from the branch of a guava-tree
as a wave-of-shopping-mall
to the lake of your love

now i’ll jump out
from this computer screen
to register a kiss
on your lips

don't miss to applaud
by clapping the hands


3.
the heart is half-sunk
in the window

to some extent
in the lipstick too

on the dinner-plate
there is the feelings of the lord

that means
i’ve to be burnt more
i do agree

i would become
the sculpture of khajuraho

this happenings may have been
the right search for love

on either-side of which  
a green is being worked out
by the nostalgic-cycle

whose colour-texture is very much harappa
which has too many geometric-memories

4.
an undertone is speaking
from within the solitude

now i’m in very much
distress

or i’m in love

i don’t know my love is what-for
may be that’s an arrangement only

so easily are those interactions
stitched with words

strenuous or effortless
in flight
initiated
with seclusion

but when in the sinking of the playfulness
i  write the games of the street-charmers


the birds again and again
pierce the archery

thus becoming ashes
through travelling

in time-gaps still
the audacity to compose poems
on you

5.
is it true love
or i do take it granted
that i’m in love

or i do love to think
that i’m loving

and there is
neither any welcome address
nor any opening song
in my love

my experience with heat of fire
and with burning pain
in the flames of water
is nothing less

6.
in course of burning
i look around

the chilly-plant  in the tob
planted in my won-hand
producing green-chillies

oh-** how sweet they are

it is no chilled-body
that has earned
my life or death

no remarkable mark
is endorsed
on the lotus-leaf

now easily some words
can be written
on you

i don’t know whether
those would be at all
some lines of a poem


7
someone falls in loves
someone makes love
love comes to some another

there is the far-off
whispering

at first she constructs me
then destroys rightly

i notice her
for the first time in six weeks  

the love
that writes
in the footnote of the tennis-ball
a desperate struggle for existence

within our skull
there is the love

or the midnight of the orion

the little squirrel asked now
are you in your seventies
or eighties

those houses with the coating of
the sky the air the light-and-shade
provide me with the presentation of
a wig and
a set of artificial teeth
8.
the love
that touches the hand
in drizzling

the love
that gets lost in the brandishing
grasses

would they want to inform
that the flowers don’t have any skyscraper

in the layers of the flesh and blood
of the detergents
as if  a whole human civilisation has been suffering
from suppressed pain

within it with the dry spell of
anger and cough
the time

had there been no feeding from the love
does the human civilisation stagger

9.
do you think those words
or it’s myself

whatever may you say now
i’ll travel within a great death
to die

rather after my demise i may tell
i’ve informed everyone …look

beneath the large evergreen flower tree
the game of light and shadow continues

beside those simple households
besides a high-head mobile-tower
what else would you like to be

is it a bath in the ganga-river is it a leaf
of the water-lily or it’s a king-cobra  
tell me

i would now make love
with that idea from you

10.
the  apparent golden *** that i thought
to be the underneath of a kadam-tree

in the dim light i can notice that
the stars in the sky are disappearing  

this session of poetry
is coming to an end

now where would i
go

to that little home

the home
a tiny word of 4 letters

within that home
the children are giggling
playing … and making funs

when i entered
with a tri-cycle in hand
for them

i have been perplexed
many old persons are waiting there
to shake hands with me

10.
almost most of my desires  
are very much hurt

to show it publicly
i wrap bandages
around all over my body

i keep on the stage-drama  

in our programme of reading poetry
tea is served twice
current has gone off for three times
for four times the mobiles ring

to pick up love  
some people think about returning back
from today’s dais to the ancient stage
of performing folk-drama

then they are also sympathetic
to my sufferings

12.
everyday
on my way to return home from the school
when my mom took hold of my hands

i could see in my body
the dancing of an unforgettable
aura

even now that mystical halo is walking
on the leaves of the trees
to fulfil my mornings

that wayfaring along the road
is ringing far and far-off

thus taking bath in every day’s  
dust smoke hue and cry

many such love
gradually gets aged

is it true
in the long run
i too
would be the ingredient
of a fairy-tale

just because i love
that paddy field

some time later
she will also become
human

13.
then she will make all of us  
join her walking

those inmost feeling
those memories meditations

the loneliness  and solitude…

sans the touch of the imagination of
a crater…
a creator…

this blunder…
this socially outcast white …

this type of uneven…
and irrelevance…

sume words
when peep in the mind
i surprise to see that
it’s ten to 2 at night

then in the balcony
my father is crying

he always notices some grave-yard men
in front of him

and sheds tears  

14.
after the dry leaves of the winter
fall in innumerable drops
the spring comes

the cover-face of spring means
a note-book of the rain-tree
letting float in the sun-water

and mr harry says that
this question of change
is a major pull

because all the unreal talks
you are delivering one by one

to keep pace with it
the ambulance comes at 10am
with a stale dead-body

in it’s shirt
is written the spelling of myself

i then sat on the grey volume
of the college-campus

in the front
a beggar from the war of waterloo
is passing by

over the dust of myself
with a faster pace
blowing is the thoughts of

ataraxia  
in the air… and air… and air…
    

15.

if your wishes colour silver
then do return back to the x-mass dancing
of the autumn

sound of whose far-off hoof-steps
digging so much soil of
story-weeds

i went into the nail-polish
with the proof of tea-cup
in my hand

there in the midst of lot of snow-flakes
and in the bed soft with the light of the candle
is now that honey-name more tarnished

now the atomic-howling
does not follow the rules of nature

so the rain-tree that seeks a-field-more-sky
with the hope to become king after the sun-rise

so that king is now waiting
in the grocer’s shop
at a stretch  for an hour

16.
does her well-wisher esse then thinks
to escape from the love-making whirl-wind

on the dry branches of the axis power
the new generation of the birds

rather stop a while there silently and listen
which song is hidden in the bronze-buddha

or in the school of the terracotta-horse

i’m now opening the coating
of the night-enamel to read this home

and behind the coo of dove
is smiling

the god of the penalty-kick

17.
sitting on an orange-coloured balcony
in an outsider lane
the green is writing poems
  
better than the face-powder

from this side all long the famine
i’m the priest of the
agro-based civilisation

still-then i think
why so much light of partiality
is on the body of the chrysanthemum

within the monsoon
in collusion with the  hair-band
now thousands of birds are born  

they can hear my
dry straws and twigs

whose hearing is the police
in so depth of the forest

don’t move the
dreadful resorts

one such photograph of the girls
who wakes up in the midnight

speechless…
unmindful …
destruction…

that is you now

i’m then in the spore
of the perfume-bounded body
of match-making

18.

who has lied in the box
made up of the temperature
of god

all on a sudden
there is a hue and cry
in the abdomen of the time
wearing a ***** pajama

actually that has been filtered up
from the voices of rock-songs

the roaming
of a fatigued traveller …

the lies
within their wishes
write my existence

and then run
to buy vegetables
from the station-market

so many lay-offs
come to the body of paper-weight

to listen to all those
is not improper

walking through the traffic-jam
gradually
this home becomes solely my home

one day the golden of
human

then it is i
who is you

and walking through the
monsoon

on either side of the field
it is all autumn

19.
when borrowing the religion of
the night-queen  
i fall in love

then is it real
that our mangos and jack-fruits  
can make the perfumed-soap
vigorously from the light of the
blood-line

i count the bells of the churches
ringing repeatedly

and piercing the image
of your prominent face

rounding through lots of old
the love becomes exhausted

and the love comes back
in the form of college-classes

there are you myself
and so many notes
of the body

I do not own a motorbike,
Never been a member of the Third *****.
I’m not Italian, French or gay,
(No homophobe, just not built that way).
I’m not Tom Jones or a member of Queen,
I’m not going back to the seventies in a time machine.
I’m not a backing dancer for Madonna,
Talc on my legs “I don’t wanna”.
So why do I own a pair of leather trousers?

This was definitely a mistake,
Like breaking wind on a first date,
Swearing at the boss at the crimbo celebration,
Being caught by parents doing a ****** gyration.
Persuaded to buy them, through the mist of lust she had taste,
I found out too late, she was highly religious, chaste.
Good quality, not cheap, never worn,
Could be used in transvestite ****!
Does anyone want a pair of leather trousers?

A seventies child
Born in Wales, one of the four
Countries of The UK.

I remember brown as the colour
of the day.
Fabric embossed wallpaper
all the neighbours names, who married who,
who was carrying on, the alcoholic, the beaten wives,
Even, get this the peadophiles (or kiddy fiddlers as was known)
Dai the milk, Mair the bread, the shop of infinite items.

Rugby practice for dad, baking for mam
(Cake and babies) gossip over the garden hedge
Fish on a Friday a Sunday roast, hot sweet tea.
Bubble and squeak, post delivered before you
left for school. Mist on the mountain, dew on the grass.

Welsh valley life, sounds idyllic
but scratch the surface and a darker colour
than brown emerges. Petty squablings leading to
familial feuds, the Williamses don't get on with
the Joneses, and as for the Pritchards, less said the better.

School, local, no not for me. I was sent to a Welsh
School, taught and learnt the language denied to my
Parents by English politics. Cat amongst the pigeons there.
Did I think I was special? Ideas above her station. That's what
the neighbours say.

Well, you all had the option.
Dr Forbes FRCS
Delivered babies buried men and women
Loved by all, especially his lollipop sweets.

I wasn't a child to get *****, or rip wrapping paper
off of gifts, I liked to go under the stairs (like Harry Potter)
and read. I left the dirt for my sister born 4 years later.
Then in 1982 came my brother, tidy my mother describes it.
'74,'78,'82 poor dad to have to wait I say!

More pubs than chapels, more walking than driving
more rain than sun, more music than ever was sung.
The '80's came, and we had strikes, no electric, candles
toast made with a toasting fork over the fire.
No mines, no steel, no jobs.

Picket lines, dole queues, women in work
latchkey kids, Thatcherism, ******* times.
Falklands war, IRA bombs, Royal weddings
Tory rule

But, the fire in the dragon never went out
and Tom Jones still sings his heart out.
Cymru cysglyd gwlad y gân, deffrwch
nawr, dyma'ch tro.

I hadn't been there in ages, hadn't visited, I had no reason to
But then the Covid virus struck and Dublin where I was working was put into quarantine
I wasn't allowed to go up there anymore to work,
And I had no computer at home and no broadband/ WiFi at the time
So they sent me down to the Old Town
It was nice driving down the motorway, it was Autumn and the leaves they were all changing colour
The different shades of red, brown green and yellow
With the sun shining on the mountains and on the bay
It felt almost like I was going on my holidays,
The Old Town it had changed so much, there were all these new buildings,
Retail parks on the outskirts, hotels, new schools, civic buildings... coffee shops
It was lovely and clean and tidy
Like those living there were really proud of it,
The old town I'd known it was there also, in the background, a bit dusty now
There was the big old gothic church my Dad used take us to, to Mass some Sundays
There was the Port and the big ships along the Quay
There was the secondary school I was meant to go to... had we stayed...it looked old, a bit dilapidated now
I wondered was it still being used as a school,
In the Main Street there were still old names of shops that I recognized
The shoe shop where my Mom used buy us shoes
The chemist where my brother got his glasses... the Bakery
The cinema where we seen our first movie "The Magnificent Seven", it was all done up now... all different...
In the office things were... well...weird! ghostly!
A big modern office and some days I was the only one there, just me all on my own
Was like something out of a Sci-fi movie
Other days maybe two or three might come in to join me
All the others of course, they were all working from home,
Often I'd find my mind just filling with old memories and nostalgia...
I could hear the old ghosts calling, calling me to go back
I knew... I knew I had to go back there
Back to where it had all begun for me
The little seaside village where I was born.

So going home I took the coastal road not the motorway
Just the sight of the headland and the blue mountains sloping down to the sea
With the lighthouse there at the end
Just seeing them again gave me an old feeling of my father, my Dad
And then the village itself, the seafront... all the colourfully painted shops,
Sweet shops & novelty shops, the amusement arcade, pubs and hotels and B&B's  (Bed and Breakfasts)
After being away for nearly fifty years, it still looked...it still looked pretty much the same, was hard to believe
I stopped my car and went into a little supermarket shop to get a sandwich for the next day
As I looked around, I seen these two mature ladies there, they were around my own age
I thought to myself 'I might have gone to school with you once many years ago, one of you might even have been my wife had we stayed here and not moved away
I might have lived a more normal, a different life'
But then I thought 'Life is never that simple, is it'.
Outside I decided to go for a walk, to look around and reminisce.

There was the path, the pavement I used go to school on with my brothers
It was like returning to the scene of a crime
How I used to dread going to school sometimes
There was a teacher, a lady teacher that used scare me a lot, she terrified me so
I remember I got sick in class on several occasions
She put me outside once sitting on an upturned bin
I can still remember sitting there on that bin in the sun, feeling so lost and that I was a really bad boy, wishing I was home
I remember I used to get hives, itches on my skin
My Mom used keep me at home
She was afraid, she thought I'd give them to the other kids
I missed the addition and subtraction tables at school because of this
To this day I still don't know what 7 + 5 is, instead I bring it to 10, I know 5 is 3 + 2, so I say 7 + 3 is 10 and 2 is 12
And I know all the doubles, 7 + 6 is 6 + 6 is 12 and 1 is 13, funny that
How I used to dread going to school
Until that was... until one day I did well at something and I received some praise
Then things seemed to change after that, I wasn't as bothered anymore, I think then I realized I was doing better than some of the others in my class and that seemed to make a difference
I remembered sitting beside pretty little girls who used have lovely pink pencil cases with lots of fancy colourful things
Whereas me I barely had a pencil, a rubber (eraser) and a ruler
They were strange lovely creatures, the Girls with their lovely long hair and their cute little faces...
I remembered walking home on my own, with my little schoolbag on my back with all my books in it
It was such a beautiful place, the view with the beach and the sea and the faraway blue mountains
And yet, I used to worry about so many things
It's like even then it was all about...all about survival...
There was the big Chapel on the hill
Once before the Summer holidays they were looking for altar boys and someone put my name forward
Then on the first morning back to school after the Summer holidays
The teacher said you better get down to the church right away, like fast!! you're on the altar this morning !!!
I was terrified, I didn't know what I had to do, no one told me anything
So there I was on my own kneeling on this cold hard marble altar and it was hurting my knees something terrible
And the priest he's talking about God and the Devil and Evil or Hell or whatever
And all these people, the whole congregation their all staring up at us
And I'm petrified, and I started to get faint and nauseas
The priest had to stop the Mass
I can't remember if I got sick or passed out
I was so embarrassed and thought afterwards I was such a terrible bad person, I knew it'd be all around the school the story.

I walked on...our house was gone, knocked down, where there used to be three houses together attached, now there was only the end house
Our house used to be the middle house
It didn't look right now, the symmetry looked all wrong
It was like there was two missing teeth
Why did they have to knock it down ? I wondered. It saddened me a bit...

At another house I stopped, this used to have a shop, a small shop,  the shop was no longer there
This was my Best Friend's house, all the days we used to play football together in the back garden
Kicking the ball to each other
With our jumpers/ sweaters as goalposts
The first to score ten would win the game
I...I usually won
I always found you easy to read, it's like you only ran in straight lines,
I think you were a bit in awe of me for some reason
Maybe you wouldn't have been my friend if you'd beaten me
How did we become friends anyway, I wondered
I suppose coming home from school
We lived on the same road and were in the same class, we'd have met each other
I had two older brothers whereas you were the oldest
So our families would have had a different dynamic
I remember you had a delightfully silly younger brother
I remember your Mom, she was very pretty, she was a lot younger than my Mom
You used bring me in and give me a meal sometimes, we'd all sit and watch TV
There was a different feeling when I was in your house...a different atmosphere
But when your Dad would come home, he was a bit scary
And I knew it was then time for me to go home
You'd wonder afterwards what the lovely Mom saw in the scary Dad, adults they were a bit peculiar.

We were inseparable in those days, many mornings you'd hear the knock on the door
And the familiar greeting
"Hello Mrs B---, Is G---- in, is he coming out to play?"
We were always playing soccer up the garden
Or down on the beach, going out for miles to meet the tide, catching *****, looking under  stones to see what we might find
I remember we were very entrepreneurial
In the Summer we used collect returnable glass mineral bottles, Orange and Lemonade and Coca Cola
And we'd bring them back to the shop and get money back for them
And then we'd have a royal feast, we'd buy bottles of Orange and bags of crisps and ice cream pops and chocolate bars,
Remember all the different Ice pops there used to be, Choc Ices and Brunches and Orange splits, 99's... Ice cream cones
Chocolate bars, Smarties and Malteasers, Milky Bars and Milky Ways, Dairy Milk chocolate bars, fruit gums and Love hearts with little love messages written on them
We used hang around the amusement arcade, play the slot machines, maybe help some old lady collect her winnings, she might give us a tip
There was the bumper cars and the swingboats and music playing all the time on the jukeboxes
It was the seventies (the 70's) and glam rock was all the rage
Marc Bolan and T-Rex, and Slade and The Sweet and a million others
So many great songs, we couldn't wait to grow up and become one of those amazing creatures we saw on the telly
I'd never lived since as intensely as I did back then,
We'd stay out till late
We were like young hustlers going around,
It seemed the days they were never long enough, all the things we got up to,
We'd Caddy in the local golf course
And retrieve lost ***** from the ditches...
Heh! Remember... remember that time... the Brennan sisters, we were up one day near the school
There was building work going on
And there was this big high mound of clay
So we climbed to the top to take in the view
And then the two Brennan sisters came over
They lived nearby
They were in our class at school, we knew them only to see
They were smiling and laughing and giggling
They beckoned for us to come and follow them
We went wondering what was going on here
They led us back to their house, I think their parents must have been out
One of them came up to us and smiled
And then she pulled down her pants and showed it to us in all its wonderful glorious splendour
It was amazing... incredible... such a sight
Her beautiful...her splendid... her lovely... bare Bottom!
I remember thinking it was like a lovely ripe pear
One of Life's great mysteries had just been unveiled
And her there with this huge impish grin,
When we were going home we promised each other we'd not tell anyone, our parents, not even the priest in confession
About that great vision we'd just witnessed
It was the height of naughtiness
Yea! Those were the days...

I wondered, 'Whatever became of you Old Friend ?
I looked you up online but couldn't find your name anywhere, couldn't find anything about you
Were you even still alive ?
50 years was a long time, I'd barely made it this far myself, and I had a lot of scars to show for it
I thought rather amusingly that I should knock on your door
Maybe you were still living there,
But what was I hoping to find ? I wondered...
"Whose at the door ?", a woman's Voice inside might say,
"Just... just some crazy guy talking about 50 years ago" her dutiful husband would reply
That's probably how it would go
I felt like I was Rip Van Winkle awakening after being asleep for 100 years or in my case 50 years
What did I hope to find
What did I hope to see, an old man now just like myself
And I bet you'd tell me your opinions on the government and the economy
And how the village had changed over the years and how other old schoolmates of ours had got on in life
But No! that's not what I wanted to hear or see
I wanted to see you there again just like you were as a little kid
Your lovely youthful face smiling back at me
And you'd say, "I'll get the ball and we'll have a game, the first to ten wins"
This was what I was looking for, this was what I wanted to hear.

We were very close, were going to grow up together, go to the same schools...college
We'd always be friends
We'd meet all the trials of life together....
I hope Life worked out well for you, my friend
In a way...in a way I almost didn't want to know
If I learned you did well in Life I'd probably only get jealous
I'd start to think I was better than you and that I should have had those things you had
Life, this world it makes enemies of us all... eventually
It divides, is all about competing and comparing... and beating (I suppose).

I still remember that last night before I left forever
We were down on the beach, it was twilight, the tide was coming in... the waves slowly advancing
Just like in life I had no power to stop it, to change things,
I had no say, I didn't want to go and leave you Old Friend
No! I didn't want to go....

Thank you...thank you for being my friend, for being there
For all the time you gave me, I hope I didn't hurt you in any way.

I have a photograph, one solitary old black and white photo of the two of us
We're sitting on a barrel in our back garden on either side of my Dad whose in the middle
You look a bit uncertain, unsure of yourself, probably lost in the dynamic of my family,
I look at you and I think
"Whatever happened to you.... Beautiful Friend, whatever became of you"
And then I look at myself as well, and I think, I whisper
"Whatever became of me as well".

I own an ugly sweater
It has tatters and tears
Misshapen patterns
And holes everywhere

From the missing tag
That’s been savagely clawed and cut out
Why companies make them so scratchy
I have yet to find out.

Cheese grader sized holes
From where hungry moths attacked
For their personal enjoyment
Or a midnight snack.

A perfectly good sweater
And being prone to sharp corners
Don’t pair well together
Just ask my unraveling thread
That’s been caught onto edges
And hideously snagged.

It’s humorously sad
Go ahead, you can laugh
Your sweater is next
The moths are coming
I promise you that.

The bottom frays like a hippy
I would say it looks cool
But that style died in the seventies
Just wait, that that trend will recycle
I’m not in denial.

The fabric and material
What’s left of it
Is a delicate cashmere…

Alright fine, it’s a scratchy wool
Ancient, archaic, and feels like Velcro.

Sometimes leaves cling
So I look like a tree
The optimistic side of me
Just says nature loves me.

But I could do without the bees
Ohh so many stings…

The insides are bumpy
From being cleaned on high heat
Now my sweater suffers from dwarfism
It’s challenged vertically.

The wrists are stretched out
From being rolled up and down
Permanently smells like dirt or meat
Depending on my activity
Or what I had to eat.

Blackened mascara speckles the sleeve
From dramatic tears
Or being too lazy to grab a tissue
As if my sweater doesn’t have enough issues
I drag in my problems
My pendulum swinging emotions
If my sweater were human
I swear, it would leave me.

It’s been thrown on the floor
Tossed in the back of my car
Tied around my waist
And forgotten in stores
I always say sorry
I hope it forgives me.

From the sleeves that cradles sneezes
Hugs are completed
Sharing germs or sharing love
All becomes one experience.
You’re welcome.

The front like a canvas
A Jackson ******* painting
Ubiquitous splatters of coffee stains.

Missing sips that dripped off my lips
From being scolding hot
Or scarce concentration
But nine times out of ten
It’s my deficient attention.

Looking like it’s been through hell
And no denying it has.
Sure, I could donate this human sized rag
But they wouldn’t know the story behind
Each stain and frayed thread.

They would see the sweater as just ugly
Dismiss there was even a journey
They wouldn’t ask
The why’s or how’s it came to be.

This sweater is not just fabric
It’s a memory
An extension of me.
…
..
.
But seriously,
I should get this dry-cleaned
It’s disgusting.

But I love it.

If you're a writer your main trade is hating yourself and
finding ways to be clever about it.
Smoke cigar and coffee-stained typewriters,
bachelor in the sixties, suicide in the seventies.
I'm just a cliché, raining cats and dogs, beating dead horses and singing
a little song about death
a little song about love
there is nothing new under the sun.
Dylan doesn't understand what you do is better than
accounting, your trade is people
like stock markets-
string them up and watch them fall
I play with hearts, you say like
a girl showing off her somersaults in the backyard.
But no one is listening.
…
…
…

So you burn your eyes out with hot wax in the living room
and swear
your name is Icarus
throw your diploma into the laundry and watch it turn into tissue paper,
taking moonlight walks down the beach and
straight into the bottom
of the ocean.

(you thought she would hit you
when you told her you wanted to write
but she only laughed...
and you were surprised
how much
it hurt.)

Your father's pride, a phone full of contacts,
seeing straight in the ******* morning and the heart
of a girl that was once foolish
enough to love nitroglycerine,
sold for
a bottle of ink and a scrap of paper
and your name in the
obituaries.
...
...
...

Tell yourself it was worth it.

Just like any other town, except the middle school is in an old strip mall, selling free education. The bank advertises a “Kalachi Festival” and nothing else, not low interest loans or free checking. The streets are lonely, but then again, it’s Sunday morning and most are at church. Where I’m headed, riding passenger, just for you. I hate riding passenger, but I’ll let you wear the pants today, I’ll stick to my fifties inspired floral skirt and clichéd pink teddy bear sweater. We arrive. Nine-thirty on the dot. Right on time, you say “I told you we wouldn’t be late.” I roll my eyes and breathe deep as I open your car door. We walk across the gravel lot to a low lying building. Church. No loud music or free coffee to hide behind. No large crowds or jumbo screens. Just people. We go into a classroom. Read from the bible. Meet people whose names I promptly forget. But that’s okay, they forget me too.
We finish on the gospel of John. And take a bathroom break, I take a while, not willing to endure the awkwardness that is sure to occur if I exit before you do. I stare at my reflection and regret my eyeliner. I’m glad I wore flats, not heels, and feel a bit overdressed to be honest. I exit, after using hand sanitizer as hand soap, realizing, then proceeding to wash my hands again. You’re talking to an elderly woman, she’s small, fragile. I hug her awkwardly, I’m terrible at meeting people. Another deep breath. Your father comes into view. What if he hates me? What if you realize you’ve made mistake? What if I accidentally say ****? ****. ****. ****. Deep breath out. Shake hands, smile and greet awkwardly, yet again. Meet Pearl and Ruby. The Two Jewels of the church. Meet Leonard. Joke with leonard, Think of my grandfather and how I should call him. Mentally punch myself in the arm. Greet your mom, get told I’m pretty, laugh, not knowing what to do.
I sit next to Alanna and the *** Smoking boyfriend, Scott. Sing. Pray. You do announcements. Everyone takes communion, Myself included. You pray, with such conviction and belief I’m confused. I put on the pious face for the congregation. Look innocent. Observe. Sing again. No instruments, only robust voices, all together. Your hand is in mine for the sermon. Finding it hard to concentrate, I notice the approximate age and décor of the church. Probably mid-late seventies. The Mauve carpet reminds me of my mother. She loved mauve in the 90’s, when it was popular. Exposed beams make it feel more like a chapel. They remind me of my church at home. There’s a choir section, making me realize it could have been another church at some point, you don’t have choirs. The sermon’s finished. Your hand has left red marks on mine, small ovals that you fuss over. We make our way out of the church. The last to leave. Following your parents home.
You lived in the country. In a wooden house that reminds me of my first house in Perry. Covered in dark wood. Your kitchen reminds me of my mother, covered in sunflowers, her favorite. You give me a quick tour.  The art that covers the walls of your home is yours and your siblings. I’m amazed. We clomp down the stairs; “they’re extra steep” you warn. Your mother’s preparing lunch. I contemplate offering to help, but don’t want to look like an *** if she says yes and I mess something up.
We retire to the living room with your father. He asks about my family. My parents, an Engineer and a Marketing Director. He asks about their expectations for me. Asks me if I live in the country, No, I reply, I live on the golf course. His eyebrows raise further. ****. I should have left that out. He thinks I’m wealthy. I’m not, neither are my parents. Mercifully we get called in for lunch. Roast, salad, corn, cantaloupe, potatoes, I love home cooking. You peer pressure me into cheesecake. Your father suggests you take me to the pond. You think twice. Taking in my shoes and skirt. We go anyways. Kiss as soon as we’re out of sight. I wish we could just lie down beneath a tree and sleep. We walk back to the house. Collect groceries and money, Even me. We go to the car. Drive away. You’re tired. So am I, we fight a little on the way back, mostly joking. We fall into bed and sleep away the morning. Which you say went well, I’m still unsure.

Having stormed the 2015 catwalks, the 1970s trend is now tilting its felt beret towards our make-up bags. Good news for the party season, when a red lip and a metallic wash on the lids are ideal for anyone who struggles beyond the realms of a slick of foundation, bronzer and mascara.

Because while the era's make-up is rich in glamour, colour and confidence, it's also easy to emulate. So channel Jerry Hall and Diana Ross, and let Alex Babsky, UK make-up ambassador for Lancôme, show you how to get the look with a contemporary update.

Take one (above)

"Choose one element of the glam look - a shimmery or emerald eyeshadow, for example - and temper it with a subtle approach to the rest of your make-up. Think a nod to the 1970s, not Studio 54 pastiche," advises Babsky.

Here, he layered powder over cream shadow, in just one colour, "for more oomph" - using Stargazer Eye Dust in 17 (£4) and Anthony Vaccarello for Lancôme Hypnôse Eyeshadow Palette in Green Fever (£38). The strong eyes are balanced by "soft, liquid bronzer fusing into light, illuminating foundation, with a non-clumpy mascara [Lancôme Hypnôse Volume-à-Porter, £22.50] and natural brow".

Glow show

"The basis for all these looks is a perfected, but barely powdered, slightly sheeny skin finish," says Babsky. Look for an illuminating foundation, such as Lancôme Miracle Cushion (£29.50), which Babsky used here, or apply liquid illuminator underneath your foundation; tryLaura Mercier Foundation Primer - Radiance (£29) or Lancôme La Base Pro Hydra Glow (£28.50). "Leaving your skin with a reflective, 'real' finish allows you to incorporate bold make-up accents without it becoming overdone," says Babsky.

Shining Star

The sticky gloss of the 1970s has been superseded by a new generation of high-shine lip lacquers. "They almost roll on for a super-glistening finish. You don't need to blot, and they are a lot more comfortable on the lips," explains Babsky, who here used Lancôme Rouge In Love lipstick in 185N (£22).

Lighten up

"These are all quite 'made up' party looks, with a shine reminiscent of the glossy 1970s, but with a new lightness," says Babsky. Where 1970s make-up textures were often thick and gloopy, the 2015 version is all about taking advantage of today's finer, more languid textures. "A real must is a cream or liquid bronzer to give winter skin a much-needed moisturising glow," he says.

Here, Babsky used Giorgio Armani Maestro Liquid Summer Bronzer(£39.50) with a fine layer of Lancôme Belle de Teint (£35) over the top.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney

www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-melbourne

With the addition of one.
They seems to have so much fun.
Just by removing one.

With the addition of one.
They grew to be better.
Then they once was.

Mary got to sing a little more.
Notice her lead upon Touch, a simple additive song.
These are the ladies called, the Seventies Supremes.

Led by the voice of the sweet vocals of Jean Terrell.
A voice you can tell so different than Diana Ross.
Who recorded an album called boss?
And I'm not talking anything from her.

And sweet Cindy Birdsong.
Another member, who grew into her own.
And shared more vocalistic leads as a co-lead singer.

It Time To Break Down, with his bass beat.
Would have anyone dancing upon their feet.
Stone Love, taking them in areas that Holland, Dozier Holland never thought of.

These were the Supremes.
Which by this time only four membrs were upon hits.
We can't forget Flo.
Who were apart of the original hit trio?

Frank Wilson, accepted the challenge of the seventies unit.
And left them with an imprint that fans will remember.

The hamster walked alone broken hurt and on the verge of ending it all.
The streets of Hello were empty as the head of the *******  who created it .

He just couldn't take it anymore school was driving him nuts  his family were insane and there had to be more to life than sitting in his room on weekends listening to ****** music writing angst driven poetry and ******* to internet ****.
Anymore viruses and his computer was going to be more infected than Katy Perry's rancid crouch .

All hope was lost when he saw it in the parking lot a van  with the words M.R  Gonzo's  advice and free clinic walk-ins and homeless nymphos welcome  .

It sort of looked like a old bookmobile and smelled like a ******* or something that had died in a ******* .

The young misguided hamster figured what the **** did he have to lose so he knocked on the door .
It swung open as a cloud of smoke poured out the door it looked like a scene from towering inferno or Willie Nelsons tour bus  .

After hacking up half a lung and getting a contact high a face of true poetic brilliance emerged from haze of smoke .
And the young hamster was looking straight at the  one the only the often perverted cult leader of Hello Gonzo.

Hey there amigo **** bud you don't know how glad I am to see you come the **** in .
Saying the that the living legend Of Hello grabbed his school book and vanished into smoky hollow .

The kid sat there awhile not knowing if he should run or follow this nut job .
Well that is until a hand reached through the fog and pulled him in.

What the **** kid your wasting a great buzz you know how long it took me to get this bake going in here have a ******* seat.
The inside of the place looked like some cross between a Pub and a bad seventies ****  minus the  ugly chicks with cracked out faces and Chewbacca between there legs .

Ummm maybe I should leave .
The kid said scared of this scene and the mad hatter of a person sitting with a stiff drink in hand a umm well lets just say a herbal cigar in the other .

Bud you need to relax I tell ya  I got the munchies from hell .
With that said he took a bite out of the text book.
Jesus Christ this **** tastes more and more like cardboard dude I aint paying for this ****** .

Umm I'm not a pizza delivery guy and that's my math book ******* .
Yeah of course I knew that im just ******* with you sparky .
Okay man fifty bucks .

What?
The young hamster was convinced this guy was totally insane .
Fifty buck's for what ?

Duh Fifty for the **** ******* what you really think anyone would come here for ******* life advice from me?
I mean sure I'm ******* awesome as **** I do great drugs I drink more  than a fish and chicks dig me I mean sure you don't see any around that's just cause there on a break man I'm kind of finding myself .
You know just me my drugs and the wilderness .

Okay that explains why this place looks like you live in it there's a stack of **** movies that looks like you raided a wharehouse and your parked in a vacant lot in the city.

Yeah well least Im not some kid selling terrible pizza's that taste like paper oh yeah your late bud so this ones on the house .

I'm not a pizza boy you crazy old ******* !

Taking a long pause the artist formerly known as Gonzo was dead silent .

You have a point pizza boy who am I kidding I live in a kickass converted bookmobile  where I basically sell dope  to little ***** looking to get high and hopefully get to see some ******* in between
and you my wise public servant of terrible tasting pizza are yet living a existence of misery selling **** for us stoners to stuff are wasted faces with.

Dude are you ******* nuts I'm not a pizza delivery boy I'm just a young writer looking for advice .
The  young hamster went into his whole tale woe how nobody liked him and he was being picked on by ******* jocks who seven years from now would working the same dead end job as himself jerking off to old game video's well the ones that didn't make it to the NFL and had super model ****** blowing them while they watched old game videos that is .


He rambled on as the wise slightly ****** and definitely drunk wizard of Gonz pretending to care and listen  much like he did to chicks he was trying to get lucky with.

You know Gonzo your really ******* weird but man I feel better .
I bet you were once just like me a outcast loser wimp who was deeply sensitive  and yearned for the love of another.


He just stayed silent  sitting across from the table a wise man hidden behind dark glasses and  madness .

So what do I owe you man ?
Umm Gonzo  man are you lost in thought or something ?

The young dork had just bared his angst ridden soul and now he thought to himself **** man I think it was to much for him no wonder he's gone insane from listening to my ******* .

It felt like a hour as he kept trying to get the poet known as Gonzo to respond .

He was about to get off his **** and shake him when a noise more fowl than Justin Biebers  voice broke the silence .

It was the biggest and longest  **** he had ever herd and smelled almost as bad as gonzo's demented long winded jokes .

Finally he showed signs of life oh dude I forgot to tip you so sorry **** I had the best  sleep of my life your better than listening to the newest Taylor Swift cd  hell I was like in a coma dam did you **** in here I swear you kids and your silly pranks it's okay kid I swiped your wallet.  
You wont believe the **** I can pull when your asleep.


So you mean this whole time I been spilling my heart out to you thinking we were really becoming friends you were ******* asleep!?

Like a drunken baby after a good binge  in the trailer park amigo .

**** this !!

With that the young miserable moody *** teen hamster was gone and again gonzo was left to his thoughts to reflect on maybe he should have.
Aww **** that **** he said and cracked another fifth of bourbon and turned on some first class **** I'm talking bout the evening news hamsters get your minds out of the gutter.

Sure life can be total **** look at mine it's like a landfill of ******* crap.
But instead of being emotional *****.
I do what any grown man who lives a mobile bar does   .

Drink my liver silly and party my **** off writing ****** misspelled things to make people laugh and get hamsters to show me there ******* duh I'm just like Shakespeare  minus the talent and funny dungeons and dragons voice .

Until next time kids stay crazy.

Gonz

Another enchanting "Barry Hodges Memory" poem for you all!

O glorious Art Deco edifice, tucked away behind the 'Dilly!
In your near century of hospitality, how many millions of visitors
Must have thronged your rooms, meeting, greeting, eating, sleeping
And (need I specify the obvious?) ******* away the fleeting hours?
How sad it is to think that the dear Regent Palace has fallen victim
To the money-grabbing developers' philistine wrecking *****.

Rumour came to me in the Seventies that the ground floor cocktail bar
Had gained a somewhat , shall we say, *louche reputation,
Being frequented by ladies of the night and part-time gigolos;
And that the hustle and bustle of the reception area meant that
Staff would hardly notice if guests invited a newly made friend upstairs
For some horizontal entertainment, be it on a cash or ex gratia basis.

Several evenings, perhaps after a night at the theatre, I paid a brief visit
To the dimly lit bar, with its sophisticated black pianist tinkling out a tune
In the very best Casablanca tradition, perhaps even crooning a little ditty.
One summer night I recall I dropped in, probably post-prandially
More in hope than serious expectation, ordered an over-priced G&T;
And settled down to assess the odds on some casual leg-over action.

Much to my surprise I was soon joined by a large middle-aged blonde
(to a naive young chappie, any woman over 35 is no spring chicken);
She was Icelandic and big with it in the mammary department,
But not fat I hasten to add, just sturdy, like a splendid Wagnerian Valkyrie;
Yea, I knew she was gagging for it when she confided that, only last week,
She had shared l'amour with a young stranger in the Wienerwald al fresco.

I cannot recall much of our no doubt fascinating intellectual conversation
And I certainly can't remember her name, but I do know I readily acquiesced
To her generous invitation to participate in a glug of her duty free allowance
Within the intimate privacy of her spartan little bedroom on the seventh floor.
Delightfully, to my mild pleasure, our upwards journey in the crowded lift
Enticed her to caress my eager testicles in a heart-warmingly experienced way.

Over a malt whisky and, following an extended exchange of warm saliva,
We ended up stark ******* naked in the rather narrow single bed;
Sadly, my recollections of our coupling have gone the way of all flesh
(but my well-preserved diary for that year notes I gave her the works thrice)
And I do vividly remember wondering what time the Underground started
on Sunday mornings as I was no longer enamoured of her tobacco breath.

Now, dear reader, we come to the ****** of my night of Nordic nookie:
Just as the dawn's early light was filtering through the ill-fitting curtains,
My partner in lust informed me that she desperately needed a squirt
(I fear I omitted to mention that the RPH didn't run to en suite facilities)
And that, rather than struggle down the corridor to the communal bogs,
She intended to void her bloated bladder in the waiting washbasin.

She enjoined me to be a gentleman and to refrain from watching her
As she performed her toilette and I assured her, with a covert smile,
That I would not breach her urinary modesty. Thus I slyly observed her
Waltz over to the window and, with the assistance of a handy little chair,
Hoist her ample buttocks up on the basin and let fly her steaming ****;
O, what a romantic sound it made as it splashed onto the porcelain!

As I lay there, entranced by the sight of my piddling blonde Brünnhilde,
An unexpected sound intruded over the splatter of her seething waters:
O Jesu! Suddenly, in the veritable twinkling of an eye, the basin's supports,
Unequal to the unscheduled weight of the female Goliath squatting thereon,
Gave way and what's-her-name fell to the economically carpeted floor,
Screaming in fear, spread-eagled in ****-drenched shattered chinaware.

To say I was beside myself with mirth would be an understatement but,
Gentlemanly as always, I managed to pass off my gargled giggles
As evidence of gallant concern. As soon as common decency permitted,
I made my excuses and left the disconcerted dear to tidy up a bit.
But I will confess to emitting a huge howl of uncontrolled laughter
As I raced off to the nearest toilet (I too was bursting for a huge slash).

Call me old fashioned
but the sight of a kipper tie
is like nothing on earth
candy for the eye.
Bell bottoms on your jeans
bells hanging around your neck
Jazzy colours on your shirt
and nobody gave a heck.
Permed hair-dos on each head
everything went to the extreme
The Bay City Rollers
and you were living the dream.
The Osmonds you fell in love with
David Cassidy sending you in a spin
The sounds of the seventies
a memory you keep locked within.

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Call me old fashioned
but the sight of a kipper tie
is like nothing on earth
candy for the eye.
Bell bottoms on your jeans
bells hanging around your neck
Jazzy colours on your shirt
and nobody gave a heck.
Permed hair-dos on each head
everything went to the extreme
The Bay City Rollers
and you were living the dream.
The Osmonds you fell in love with
David Cassidy sending you in a spin
The sounds of the seventies
a memory you keep locked within.

Call me old fashioned
but the sight of a kipper tie
is like nothing on earth
candy for the eye.
Bell bottoms on your jeans
bells hanging around your neck
Jazzy colours on your shirt
and nobody gave a heck.
Permed hair-dos on each head
everything went to the extreme
The Bay City Rollers
and you were living the dream.
The Osmonds you fell in love with
David Cassidy sending you in a spin
The sounds of the seventies
a memory you keep locked within.

They all look so young and lively and free on the Berkeley campus
walking and smiling and dancing swing and exercising and studying in internet
cafes and along the college walk there are clubs: pre-dental society,
women engineers, others, worn signs that stay out all year long in California and wear well
like the Clinton/Gore bumper sticker still visible and affixed to the stop sign off Telegraph and I wonder when there will be an avenue called "Internet"
And along the walls of Cafe Mediterraneum are highlights of the sixties, photographed by the dead owner of the place and there are still students studying and wierdos and old people reading books but there is no inspiration here anymore
From my generation, the eighties there are no pictures, and none from the seventies either and from the nineties and this decade has come and gone without notice on the walls
because youth by itself does not renew and innovate and the pressures of culture are too strong to re-invent and
it's not like there's nothing wrong, nothing that needs to be changed in our world today if anything things are worse
but now youth is only thinking about youth and buying low and selling high and there is no more idealism, no more desire to rectify anything, only to establish oneself as part of the middle class or above and have a house and 2.5 children
when the world is quickly being destroyed now just not by war, or an atomic bomb
that would be obvious because it would be loud and white and then there would be darkness and drops of rain and devestation
but I think I want to drop an intellectual bomb on these young people and tell them to wake up and try to change the world again and stop watching Reality TV and
do something that will help the world and put your picture on the wall of the Mediteraneum because you are trying to help the collective good and not just feather your own nest and not just worship the rich and exploitive entrepeneurs and try to emulate them as we were told to do in the eighties because that is just selfish meaninglessness that can't keep being replicated in this world, because it can't withstand it
our land and water can't withstand this lifestyle and the dollar store selling cutesie things made in China are coming from child labor and blood money and this dollar store is on Telegraph and no one cares or notices not even the young,
as slave labor continues to produce goods, just not here, where you can see it
and even if you care about animals, you can think of two million cats and dogs torchured and skinned alive for their fur in China and you , Berkeley are wearing it onn your fur trimmed coats
There is an eeries silence on Telegraph now where there should be the aliveness of debate and not just to get ahead, but to give a voice to the voiceless and alleviate the real and obvious suffering in the world
So youth, you are not so young and fresh you are a dissapointment
you are cowardly, pondering your own navel
and submissive and I expect more
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH
change is frightening, but it is
the only thing
that will save us

Dance music,
Damp heat and talk,

Drifts to halcyon days of,
Seventies groove and Afro's ruffled,

In the political funk of,
Freedom fighters and platform shoes,

Cadillac language,
Smooth and languid,

Dripping off honey colored lips like,
Melting chocolate...

It's a card trick,
And we are mesmorised by,

Furtive glances,
Over fanned cards,

Fascinated by the sleight of hand,
And the afternoon light,

Our soft voices and loud giggles,
Caught in a trick of time,

Heavy with love and breakfast but,
One will not survive.

radiating
street lamps
ionized the
indigo blue
haze charging
the night air

sparking the
city’s eclectic
currents coursing
through the
abandoned raceways
and empty streets

energizing the
phantoms of
the city’s
restive spirits

the ghosts of past
Great Falls Fests came
jitterbugging back
to life

transparent
veils lifting
and falling
with it, a voltaic
indigo blue
billowed out of the
abandoned stadium
pouring smoking
oboe moans
into the cavity
of the great gorge

“I was one of the last
to perform at
Hinchliffe Stadium”
Duke proclaimed
with his usual  
distinguished air

“it was also one of my
last concerts”, he added
with a tinge of
sorrow in his voice

“the band was rockin
the Art Deco tiles,
splintering and shattering
into bits of earth toned graffiti
the last vestiges of
a bygone Jazz Age
dissolving into the
disco fizz of the
Seventies”

the indigo mood
clamoured off
the rocks absorbing
the sonorous waves
like a stand of
hallowed
sequoias

“I’m trying to
remember what
my last tune
was that night.

was it Caravan?
or a Prelude to
a Kiss?  No no
too mellow
we always ended
on an upper
a real crowd pleaser,
I recall the boys swung
a medley before the grand finale
that medley included
Mood Indigo, Caravan,
Sophisticated Ladies,
Prelude to a Kiss.
We opened with Kinda Dukish
Rockin and Rhythm
we closed with
Satin Doll
Yes I’m quite sure
I waltzed them
off the floor
that night with
Satin Doll”

Duke ran his
fingers through
his processed hair.
He grabbed my shoulders
raised his baggy eyelids
And looked me straight
In the eye

“Yes, we followed
Tito Puente, he killed it
we upped our game
He was just starting out
But at this time Silk City
was going Caribe
Juan Tizol was
out of his mind that night,
I thought him and Babs
we're gunna jump ship
and join the Salsa Circus
Yeah El Rex and Celia Cruz
were that good

El Rex had the place
jumpin and jivin
it was a glimpse of the old days
livin in the here and now
just like the old days
I couldn't compete with that
so I waltzed them off
the floor with Satin Doll
a little cheek to cheek swoon
maybe some guys got lucky that night
and maybe some girls fell in love
Yeah Paterson was changing,
the ***** Leagues long gone
the last ****** Auto Races
crossed the final finish line weeks before
when the raceways in the stadium
replaced the raceways to the factories
we knew it was coming to an end
and with it all the good paying
jobs, whatta shame
just like me and the boys
watching El Rex
the Duke was dethroned by a King
just like Silk City
we had our day in the sun too
a Satin Doll Sun
Those were some good times,
sometimes”

Duke scratched
his head,
and he looked down into
the swirling noise
of the Great Falls
“on a night like this
the mood indigo
takes you into the
darkest hues of blues”

fragment from
Silk City PIT 6:
The Great Falls

Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins
Mood Indigo




Oakland
3/30/13
jbm

(FRAGMENT WORK IN PROGRESS)

Part 6 of extended poem Silk City PIT.  PIT is an acronym for Point In Time.  PIT is an annual census American cities conduct to count the homeless population.  Hope and Labor is the city motto of Paterson NJ, nick named The Silk City.

The current heartthrob,
In a long line of men,
And the goodbye speech
Hearing it all over again.
Said it wasn’t working
And I knew it as well.
Pretending he loved me
For him must have been hell.

By this time in my story
I had learned the ropes.
Neither of us felt we had to
Act like a couple of dopes.
We could divide up the music
The dishes and the clothes.
It didn’t work out this time.
That’s how it always goes.

We picked each other
Because we looked good
And felt things would click
And turn out like they should.
Before long we discovered we
Didn’t have similar dreams.
Two on different tracks together
Is not as easy as it seems.

It happened so many times
I became an expert at it
Because I had no ability
To effectively combat it.
It was love me and leave me
For too long of a time.
As if getting to know each other
Was some kind of a crime.

It would be years before I noticed
How I approached this love task.
They had to guess what I wanted.
It was no good if I had to ask.
That had to figure what I needed
And then they must give it to me.
That was the story every time.
That was my romantic M.O., see?

Today I know it was a stupid game
Like wishing for a dream to come true.
And it didn’t matter one little bit
How many others did the same thing too.
I discovered it wasn’t about good looks
Or some kind of storybook ending.
It’s more like an intense version of us
Becoming friends, our lives blending.

Lipstick and mascara
Mother
Summer
Winter
And now
Your age earned
skin
Deserves
freedom

Every time I look up
Into the black ocean of night
I expect to see a falling star
Inevitably
The only ones whose light reaches my eye
Are fixed and fated
To remain eons after I've gone
That should be wonder enough
But I love a falling star

She guided my hand to the right spot
Said "This is how it's done"
I said "This is all there is?"
"Isn't this enough?"
"I thought it would be so different"
"It isn't"
"You're like a stranger to me now"
"Run your finger down the side"
"Your skin is dry and unfamiliar"
"Kiss me on the lips"
"Your tongue is like a withered flesh-prune"
"That Meat Loaf song is so romantic"
"I never bargained this with you"
"Aren't you the lucky one"
"Inside your mouth is like a desert"
"Keep your hand out of my pants"
"Oh, I really don't know what it was doing down there, as I'm not interested"
"Is it past midnight yet?"
"Long ago, this lesson has gone on too long"
"I'll let you love me tomorrow"
"By then it will be too late"

Call me old fashioned
but the sight of a kipper tie
is like nothing on earth
candy for the eye.
Bell bottoms on your jeans
bells hanging around your neck
Jazzy colours on your shirt
and nobody gave a heck.
Permed hair-dos on each head
everything went to the extreme
The Bay City Rollers
and you were living the dream.
The Osmonds you fell in love with
David Cassidy sending you in a spin
The sounds of the seventies
a memory you keep locked within.

drumm drumm drummed in two
ranks of
auto-
filers whacking keys and levers and springs
slamming
edged
quantum of scripture
i e o u y vowels of no need-- back in cunieforming time
then came those monkeys with the typesetters
whose keys never got stuck
uno
marko per stroke
five 'undred per bit of etaoinshrdlu
click click cliche'
time measured by degrees in fractual
sym-metry wit' bio me

Tumeric kicks in,
eases the swelling of the bubble.

Imagine the imaginings of a child reading
funny papers
in the privy, smokin' grapevine for no

known reason, or,
maybe it appeased the flies, while I sat
upon the throne
in a tower of my own

wandering through memories of
Terry and the Pirates saving Dalai Lama
from the clutches of
the abomb-in-abled snowman,

Yet-i isis now, the Prince of Persia, once more?

No, this battle is not mine. This
war
was
won;

at that crossroad in Perry's Cafe
when the offer was made: star a footnote here
aster-risks have not been invented... we must reduce opacity.
histoical he refused the deal but  did Write the course
"The Internet in One Day"

work for hire, a good gig, then Netscape went public,

reality validated verification of the efficacy
of Feynman's reversible NAND gates,

the future was super positioned
No taxes, tarriffs or tithes; pay flat
twenty percent
for eighty in return, guaranteed in for by of
we, the people's adaptation to

Paredo's Principle versed in Solomonic Wisdom,
re-de-clearing no non new things
under the sun,
trial by

total emersion in a sea of green sans
yellah submarine,

acid etched re
collectibles dust and debris,
flotsam jetsome wetsome old girls dream

it's now, the future, 2019, and some
of us
survived the seventies in hiding,

we're back.
wee voices you ignore at your peril,

not every inspiration is from for by good.

Some are.
Some words live in the sounds they make,
hocus pocus
abra
cadabra, for instance... is heard by children

as the leaven-less wafer
transmogrifates at
the spoken words Hoc es Corpus

Genutim, non factum
magic
thinking is nothing like

what you thought, child.

The message is believable, the messengers
may
be otherwise. EH? ***-eye-say-- eee- eh?

Self-evidence is acceptible, take a hold,
get agrippa comprehension

sweet-almost
persuasive enough to mask the bitter
ever
after taste of century eggs left in the fridge too long

Biome, bio-me, self-effident-icacious
conch-ious
ness, ac
knowledged... these words lived
once,
the eggish-isms egging us on, go
on, only you...
not me, I'll wait
I've slipped, I've fallen... where's the beef? Was this a common quest?

1972. Sheizbomb, pirate orange sunshine.
1973. We reached escape velocity
1974. Trajectory changed
1975. Lost contact, she's near Cuyguna
1976. Prego
1977. Aha, the reason is born

Future 2019 will seem as real as you may
imagine. I promise,

Ever after, all, as real as you may
imagine. I promise

look, see self evident truth, act asif you know
and understand
angel talk

there remains a rest for the cadabre we inhabit,
"Dancing Queen" "Fernando"
Abba's body of disco hits, missed
by missing one decade and a half,

in sanct-if-ication vacation
to become a hermit when I grew old, if ever,

hoc corpus, eh, as long as faith remains
rememe-r-able post Sini-ification of Suffering,

(the Dragon from the East is not the beast
embodied in the west with golden head,
silver breast, brazen *****, iron legs
and flaking rusting feet of steel
stuck
in sludge ponds and stump ponds and undrained
swamps and sloughs {called wet lands by frogs and ducks})
Ah, so

The golden-green-blue dragons gracing slotmachines,
lure hopers to the slime, not
green Nickleodean slime, real slime from century eggs white
jelly gone dark, dark brown and stinky...

even if i'd tried, I'd never have imagined
eating a century egg
sans chewing, just
gulp
swallow it whole. Din't choke gk kg.

deja vu? no, you missed something.

waiting is being
Dalai Lama, half-scientist, half-otherwise aware
there, in exile,
remains hoping a peace past standing under the
acknowledging of good
and evil,

new mercies on one side, meaculpa, mea
maxima culpa,
on the other.

Who pays? Me or Jesu or the pariah one step
up from a cockroach?
Wait and see. Be still.

Don't ask Mother Teresa, she had no clue.
But she finished what she began,
that was her plan,

skip as much purgatory as abody can stand
imagining worth it all.

Me, says the hermit,
I took the grace Noah found. Wait and see. Get ready.

Google translate the Latin Mass, then imagine it
being a message you must hearken to

drum drumm drummmed into your brain before
your prefrontal
cortextual tester circuits formed and your responses

were ever etched
on the tables of your faith belivin' childheart,
sweetheart,

just think, what if good news gathering is
even-jelly-if I can. Evangelical, if I say-tion sugar pi,
event-tually we see, fine,
details, points to every true story

a bed of nails no liar may rest upon

'fi say so, semper fi.

{evangelicum laude graduates bher no bad news in ever}
--phi beta kappa, key that opens what?-- do you know

what meaning signals breathe? beat?

Take great gulping gasps of air,
affording your self
evident right

to surface, as a bubble you can breathe in.
I think we're alone now

there doesn't seem to be any one around, now

1977, that was four whole decades ago?

Right. And whenever you are, dear reader, this was
ever ago. I testify, I examined this life.

It has been worth the effort. Now I wait. Still.
Try it. Here, there,

no condemnation, the act it self just
is null-ift before asif goes whatif and we lose our value,

we balance madness. We work closely with Cleo,
she handles historical re visioning.

time out-- essential term screams for discretion, get to the grain---
What noise is this... mmmmm
Muse- muse- just, muse like
music, drummm drummm hummmmm
Define, fine, granularity, like salt or sand or sugar
but qualia
mysterium familiarus

Term definition. Lord means h'laf weardan, {Welsh}
warden,
protector of our bread,
by which man does not live alone,
owner of the tower in the vinyard where your captive enemies
languish in your wishless hate.

We wait,

we companions be, joined by the leaven from the sky

leaving footprints in granulated sugar salted sand,
feel it,

sorta sticky, like toe-jam. like mebbe toejam spreader
and the Walrus was
CS Lewis level mere signposts at degrees of little thinker
steps tick tic tic
spiraling
clock wise from up,
counter-clockwise from down

forward, ever onward, off is impossible in the land of on,
here for ever is
too much good stuff,

but that lasts (to the same level of qualia judgment degree)
mere mortal moments

flash. Here we be, wondering and wandering, to an fro,
to get a feel,

for real. This can't go on for ever, they say.
Shall we see, I say... as I passed away.
Life goes on, and no lie follows

Listen,
it's finished, that's all we need say. Live on. Be good,
or die trying. No lying about anything.

What if ever did begin and you simply failed to be aware?

Venus in Boots

You scared others, but me! Attracted
By what I’m not sure, your hair, eyes, hips.
Maybe it was the *** noodle you were having for lunch

My modern day Venus: behind the beauty counter at Boots
Head and shoulder above everybody else,
Even though you were only five foot two

I was captivated by your beauty, our eyes met
Then gazing at your full red lips, hearing those
Immortal words, “can I help you sir”.
It was at that moment I realised I do need help.

Nights and days I dreamed of Venus in Boots
I longed , not for her body, but her heart.
You in your twenties me in my seventies
The odds were not in my favour.

Slowly a relationship formed
You let me hold your hand, smell your neck
No kissing: I bought you things
Earrings , jeans, you asked what colour
I could not resist. Blue!

We went for walks , town, country, seaside
The waves crashed. My heart had already crashed
Totally besotted. Even though it was all one sided
I was blissfully happy!

As I paddled, I felt tired. As the tide ebbed
So did my life. My final thoughts were of my
Venus in blue jeans, in Boots.

Growing up
in an American house
in the nineteen fifties,
sixties and seventies,
the cheese of choice
was Velveeta,
the processed cheese-type food,
and we cut it
with a cheese slicer,
which was a thing
with a handle
and a wire
and a roller,
and my mother
would make us
grilled cheese sandwiches,
which she called
cheese toastwiches,
and the molten goo
would spill out
unto the plate
as we were eating one,
and this traditional cheese
seemed to start
in the days
of the little red metal pedal car
and end in the days
of being drunk and high
at two in the morning
watching Eddie Constantine movies,
and so the cheese
has changed
and it is now
mozzarella.

Call me old fashioned
but the sight of a kipper tie
is like nothing on earth
candy for the eye.
Bell bottoms on your jeans
bells hanging around your neck
Jazzy colours on your shirt
and nobody gave a heck.
Permed hair-dos on each head
everything went to the extreme
The Bay City Rollers
and you were living the dream.
The Osmonds you fell in love with
David Cassidy sending you in a spin
The sounds of the seventies
a memory you keep locked within.