Stepping onto the spray of pebbles
making our way onto the grounds
I considered to myself
And to myself alone
This will be a pleasant evening
with all parties involved behaving
as they should
Or something else entirely.
Something low.
Bellies down.

We gathered before
a small card table and
made our way unsteadily
Weaving up the incline
like skiers intertwining
down the molehills
to the properties.
Up is down.
Not good.

You moved to the right
Sprinkling pleasantries in one direction
and into one direction only.
Close and physical.
Like a sprite always looking up in quiet confidences
But a bit too early.
I wondered
Did the companion notice?
Can this companion see the play?

When too many seconds pass
And it’s time to head to the right
Where I am strolling
Disturbingly care free
Unattached and
No sign of attaching
You shakily try a few words
Yet offer no enticements
for that **** costs
It’s expensive
So you hoard and bestow sparingly
To well considered targets

Knowing this
And that there will be no payout
My body has told you that much
You return back to the companion
again and again
Softly stepping And considering
with your magical archetype-wielding
Hustle and shake down.
A threadbare con under the moon
And blackened sky.
I am left alone.

I had looked into your eyes at some point
and wondered
What are you? Peering deeply.
Are you a daemon?
I felt badly. To wonder
And certainly not for the first time
That this extended moment
sitting side by side
On stools
In the Mexican night
Was with some kind of creature
Not human
Not kind
A predator
You said so yourself
With pretty eyes
And two harmless old canines.

We sat and waited for the companion
Who showed up with a bottle of wine
And we sauntered back to your rental
The senile dogs entered and retreated immediately
into the darkness
to face the walls
immobile yet somehow agitated
A bad sign.
Spirits are here.
The dogs are aware.
You have said that they could be
Easily corrupted by being pure souls.
By a force that’s
bent upon the destruction of
All Souls
Not just dogs.
However if you asked me
The devil gets his due.

God that’s funny.

You withdrew to get them sorted
In the darkened rooms
Especially that dusky mauve poodle
A miniature with a frazzled dying coat
And questionable eyes
Blindness or Defeated?

You and the companion dug into your chicken
Ravenous and American style.
I, horrified, ate a bland soup of corn

Out came notes and pens and post-its
And the data was exchanged across
the central kitchen prep-table
with the white quartz top.
You paused and turned to your right
Facing me and my spoon
And speaking under your breath to your shoulder
Confirming with your angels
and channeling guides
That the real estate numbers looked good,
In what wasn’t any language
that I’m familiar with,
But they validated your inquiry
As they should
And perhaps you scribbled a notation
Or a mathematical calculation
Perhaps not

The companion saw none of this
Apparently hearing no little squawks or soft babble
Too busy grinding into her meal
and her resentment.
This is not going well at all.
My soup is bad
My company is bad
I must change this immediately.

But
The companion has a word for me
Instead
You are too nice
You have made yourself too available
You will get hurt by bad people in this town
You with that sweet smile
Warm hands
huggable shoulders
kissable face
and laughing eyes and all those euros in your
Change purse!
They will mean you harm.
I know about these things.

I chose not mention the man that drew my portrait that day
Although it did look like a rock
And yes the one that arrived at our lunch unannounced and uninvited
That did not go over well either.

But you
You have your daemon
You are safe
And protected
And loved
Touching fingers
And make offerings at her altar
by way of undeveloped but
prime
real estate
Giving the devil her due.

Tell me about the Ace of Wands!
Tell me about the Ace of Wands!

This has been poorly imagined I admit:
The sunny penthouse
Open to the breeze
which presses and sways
through the sliding glass doors

Upturned champagne bottles
set in buckets of melting ice
A crystalline view of the Pacific
Or dusky Vegas lights

Strewn silken sheets
A **** carpet you can grab on to
The myriad of variations under a rising Moon

Yet Leather and Ecstasy are no where to be seen.
And though I wasn’t thinking of Sardinia
or of the Amalfi
That is a great idea

ROMP
noun
1. a spell of rough, energetic play.
2. a farce.

Eventually
(An earth-sign cusp is slow no matter how much air)
Eventually
creeping into my mind’s eye
(Thank you Time)
was my dodging of the slow-moving bullet
Alas, the lumpy bed in Hollywood awaits
with serviceable sheets
Encased in variations on a theme of
brown everything
A soul death in faux wood paneling
Someone else’s earring on a
grubby carpet floor
that offers you
burns for your back that won’t heal so fast
if that’s what you want
There’s the opening of the door
on the purring refrigerator
to look at cold nothing
And think nothing
Cystitis is on its way
And yes,
Too much dust

Don’t get me wrong
I have no real issues with dust
I have stood
Alone in the semi darkness before
In such a living room
Staring at this luminous particulate
On album covers
and in the glare of backlit windows
Floating in a beam from
a ceramic thrift store table-lamp

I was on my way to find the bathroom
Where a pair of pink ******* lay
drying
in wait for
me

Bachelor dust
Is old
I can write my name with my finger
in that which rests
upon the turntable’s hinged cover
In case you don’t remember
What they call me

As I’ve said
I’ve got nothing against it
Ask the dust
Go ahead
Ask it
Resting quite comfortably
on the bookshelves
If there are bookshelves
As if it had
something to do.
I ask it why?

my invading molecules subdivide
and grow more comfortable

Dust?
Why do I smell the stench of
chaste virgins and ***?
The intoxicating odor of foxed letters from an epistolary exchange regarding:
One Fair Maiden and the Devilish Pursuits to  Compromise Her Virtue?
The Opinions and Observations of Fallen Fruit
Here: The woman and her only true
possession
And Here: The sticky absconder who smells of fish.
They meet.
She blinks.

The dust replies
It’s a simple plan:
The Dear Lady is to be led
Astray
by pretty words and unspoken indiscretions
her dowry in the end, useless
She’ll be banished to the counties
To be a governess
or the
Bored companion
of the only living relative who will
Admit her services
Unpaid in silver coins
He is Blind and his Cook has left
Dyspeptic
Disagreeable
Cheap
and Mean.

She is Ruined.
Perhaps she will escape
to Italy
and die
Alone
in the sunshine.

The dust tells me another story
The same century still
This time, a miscreant princeling
surrounded by Trifles
Picking up one bob and then another
Preoccupied by uselessness
Perhaps a strawberry
Perhaps more claret and his mistress’s left breast
Tonight will be the scullery maid
Who will lose more in the end
Than she could ever possibly imagine
Tossed out of the kitchens
to Providence.
God bless Her.

The dust tells me
It’s mercantile, my dear
It’s all transactional
But look at me
I’m here for a time but am easily
Agitated and
Airborne
Aeolian driven
Ever blossoming fugitive clouds of swirling devils
Interstellar Reflection Nebulae
As you can see
I’m never in one place
So I say keep it movin’.

Is it the possibility of
Some unforeseen yet magical
disappearance or
Of it being
Loped off
That makes one so very aware?
Erections must give great reassurance
Yes!
It is I
I am here
I am still here

Freud says that women want one
That they look down and see barren flatness and one fine line
instead of a mounting glory
A majestic rod
But I think perhaps
Freud is more afraid of losing his
Would that make him a woman?
I think not.
She is not on the right side
of the minus sign.

It must be a perpetual
Existential terror
The possible fate of Bobbitt
the Marine
Having one’s sliced off and
Thrown over the roof into the tall grass
Where the cops won’t go
unless the dogs go first
It’s so easy to do
Look it’s Mr. No *****.

One must understand this
From a very early age
And what of the consequences?
Shall we build effigies everywhere
Living spaces and statues
And talk about them all the time
And never learn
how to get the stream into the bowl?

Well look who’s here everybody!:
It’s Nice Try Huncke (drink)
It’s It seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time Huncke (drink)
It’s I wasn’t anywhere near there Huncke (drink)
It’s Yeah So What? Huncke (drink)
It’s I didn’t do anything Huncke (drink)
It’s You got the wrong cat Huncke (drink)
It’s This belongs to me Huncke (drink)
It’s I bought that downtown Huncke (drink)
It’s I don’t know what your talking about Huncke (drink)
It’s Really, You Don’t Say? Huh! Huncke (drink)
It’s I’m not carrying nothing Huncke (drink)
It’s I’m clean Huncke (drink)
It’s I’ve been clean for a long time now Huncke (drink)
It’s I wasn’t even uptown Huncke (drink)
It’s I never use that stuff Huncke (drink)
It’s That’s Stuff will **** ya Huncke (drink)
It’s What I do? Huncke (drink)
It’s Nah I don’t know him Huncke (drink)
It’s You can’t keep me here on that Huncke (drink)
It’s We were just talking Huncke (drink)
It’s He disappeared? Really? Huncke (drink)
It’s I’ll give you an An A for Effort for that There Huncke (drink)
It’s That Just Might have Worked Huncke (drink)
It’s There’s Nothing in my Pockets You Can Search Me Huncke (drink)
It’s What are you talking about? Huncke (drink)
It’s I don’t know him Huncke (drink)
It’s I’m just a poet Huncke (drink)


Can replace “drink” with “puff and pass” but no ****** you will die...

Time doesn’t exist here.

Have your plate
But please don’t touch anything on it.

You’re doing
your deed
You’re doing
what you feel
to be your role here
by Design

An Activation
of a certain characteristic of your’s
Where You feel like You have this
tendency to kind of
become radioactive
as well!

Tell Me!
What do you see
when you don’t see
What I see
when I look at you?

I don’t know what that’s alluding to.

Someone’s doing some digging
They’re really,
They’re looking into,
I’m hearing,
the Crystal Ball
But it’s not just like
Ha ha ha,
so interesting

I’m seeing
The Crystal Ball
has even its own ways
of stalking, right?

If we think about
a Crystal Ball
It’s like
Ok
We
We
We
Peer into
the Crystal Ball
We look through the glass

Places
and
Time
I don’t know what that’s alluding to

But it’s like
Even
The Crystal Ball
Ha ha
Has an agenda of its own
that is not really
part of the storyline!

It’s like
it’s so weird
I’m seeing
a Crystal Ball
as a character in like a movie
Or something?

Everyone thinks
Oh they just look into
the Crystal Ball
and that’s all they see
But
it’s like
The Crystal Ball
Has it’s own police report
That it doesn’t file.

Remember when this used to be a bodega where you could by an egg a few cigarettes and some *******?
I only bought **** there
a couple of times
I really went in there for milk or coffee
or an Entenmann’s raspberry danish in the big long rectangle.
I don’t remember the brand I smoked then
but they didn’t sell them.

The guy next door in my building had a thing for rich girls with flash cars
who would buy him clothes and other such presents
He was from the OC
and what he was doing in Brooklyn
I don’t even know
He got involved with some local
Columbians
Through the corner bodega
And of course proceeded
to date one of their women.
The OC Romeo.
Lady Lover.
Irresistible.
Pink Lacrosse shirt.
Turned up collar.
Leisure slacks.

I had to tell him once to not slap his thigh at me
When I passed him
on that corner
Posing with his newfound buddies.
And to give me back my cassette.
He tells me he left it out on the window sill
And it rained and got wet.
I said give it back anyway.

Not too long after he was gone.
Both he and his yuppie roommate
I heard he moved back to Newport Beach.
I wondered why he ran
Cuz I know he ran
Fast
I had some crazy neighbors in Hollywood
who disappeared
into the Russian night.
Someone spotted them a year later.
Playing with the wrong people.
Taking liberties.
Conning a con.
Your life really is not worth
very much
in those circles
so you’d better be quick on your feet.

I’ve cried a lot over you
It was a nasty break up

When I left I said
We’re through
And
I’m never coming back

It’s been 18 years now
And I’ve seen and heard things about you
In the meantime

And I have to say
With no ill intent
That you have really let yourself go
I wasn’t prepared for this in coming back
It’s ironic because it’s why I left you

When I washed my hands of you
I consoled myself
With thinking
In fact
Knowing
That you were a *****
Who gave it up too easily
Or a monster like Frankenstein’s
Electrified on a table
Not quite dead
But not quite alive

A friend once said that you were
Always nicely coiffed
But walked about
With a long trail
of **** smeared toilet paper stuck
to the bottom of your superb shoe
Scraping under and behind
And unbeknownst to you

I’ve walked and walked
Everywhere
With a book
So as not to look
Crazy
And I’ve sat waiting
For you to appear
Suddenly

I’ve sniffed the air
For you
On this street and on that
Stalking you really
But you were gone.
I sat in that park for a long time

Washington Square
With my little book
After
One short story or two I closed the book
I left
There’s nothing here.
You’re gone.

The first time you made me stop
in my tracks completely
I was bewildered on First Avenue
heading south
It was long ago
Now I realize that it
was
a premonition
I was suddenly lost
I stared at the sign that read
K-I-E-V in neon to my left
I told myself
“You know where you are”
“You know exactly where are you are”
And in any event, keep heading south
“You know where you are.”

Upon my return
all these years later
it happened again on Canal
I stared hard at elderly Chinese couples
Hoping for eye contact
which I never got
Looking for an answer
An explanation
Their strategy for survival
Is this Co-Existence or a Time Loop gone WRONG?
How many of us are actually ghosts?
An old boyfriend told me once that they don’t like you.
And neither do the Poles.

“Is this the real life?”

I forgot until quite recently that
Not so long
afterwards
in Astor Place
I thought about you again
I thought that you must have moved over one block
West
But that’s just not possible.
It really is you.
This is you.

So casting you to the side
as I have done
As I had done
Will it help me at all?
Has it helped me at all!

Now I wonder if you are
a captive monster
rendered impotent
by steel and concrete?
Or a jammed low frequency
that dulls the mind
which Science won’t render mute?
Was it a healing potion
The perfect ratio
of
**** and **** and rage
That was
The Most Holy of Trinities?
Spurned and now this

If we made it again
A perfect batch
Could it re-start your heart and keep it
beating?
Like the Doctor in the stormy moonlight?

Do the tides help at all?
I don’t miss you if that’s what you’re thinking.