The soil is boiling.
Noxious fumes rise from fissures.


Ice cubes and air-fresheners
Are thrown down from the mansion windows
And we are expected to go to war.


To war, where we will get to be
    Harvested by machine guns,
    Throttled by creeping yellow-green,
    And drowned in ice
        While our blackened feet fall to pieces.


Blind old Nikolai
Can't see the flames
Burning behind thousand-yard-staring eyes
Sunken into one hundred million hollow faces.
    Hollow faces etched into the night
    By the glow of mortar blasts
    And factory fires


He revels in ineptitude
While our agonizing joy
Is found in the next teasing grey sunrise
As we seek to one day return
To the torn and tear-dampened recollections in our pockets.


While a colonel weeps into a photograph,
The wife of his brother weeps into a telegram
    As her cousin is getting his vocal cords clipped out in the streets of Petrograd
        And his father is being eviscerated upon factory

Yes, Nikolai;
The soil is boiling
And I will live, I must live
If only to see the day
That it crumbles beneath you.

There's a click, no noise, followed by
A relief, an awareness.
I sense all, I smell the humidity rise as if it will soon rain.
There is a grace only felt in redemption -      
                    Rebirth.

New life breeds an exciting adventure.

But the next click reveals a deafening noise

The camera's aperture opens fully and the capture light file the opening.

White, life filling, fully encompassing.

True life, new life, everlasting life begins  -
                     Rebirth.

Cold, wet footprints of drowned ghosts
     leading you towards nowhere, a heat-blurred unreachable zenith.
Unlit candles, china white on a china plate,
     shots of *****, shots of bleach.
Ambling along dusty corridors,
     hallways with loose floorboards and memories you're not sure you ever had.
Desert haze, his brooding gaze,
     conversational Russian 101 and irretrievable moments
alone in bed together while Sean Connery distracts you from the press of his fingers.

it was the
summer
of 13

when a city
consumed in a
Cronut crazed
heat wave

amped
the tenderloin

slicing the underbelly
of Hell's Kitchen

packing meat for
Russian oligarchs
pouring fistfuls
of petrol rubles
down the
thirsty gullets
of glutinous
developers

their distended
bellies welling
with aching
avarice
from an
extended
stay at an
All You Can Eat
zero interest
smorgasbord
courtesy of
Uncle Sam’s Diner
somewhere off the
West End

getting fat
on the land
reclaimed
and rebuilt
on the dust
and detritus
of an expired
Great Society

Bloomie's metropolis
rising on the rubble
of razed neighborhoods....

the vertical leaps
shooting ever upward
the heady windows
framing portraits
of endless replication
offering the amenities
of the vain comfort
found in ghettos of
soulless high rises
and the billowing
gray perspective
of blanched out
street cafes
brewing $9 lattes
and big box
boutiques busy
busking the
latest rage
of sweat repelling
yoga mats and
wearable apps

America’s Mayor
Giuliani paved the way
he arrested all
the squeegee men
confiscated their Windex
dumped it down
the sewers and filled all
vacancies at Rikers

a year after Sandy
rolled up the Hudson
breaching the banks
of West Street
licking the streets
clean of urban
flotsam the
surging boom
bloomed

Bloomie bankrolled
a red carpet
for his global
fraternity of
plutocrats
unleashing a
tsunami of
shekels

washing away
the fading
memories of
Captain Sully’s
cool headed
lunch pail
heroism proving
that 727’s can
walk on water
was now passe

Lou Reed
left town
the wild side
monetized by
the belching
banality of
Urban Hipsters

millennial
babes in toy land
embarked on an endless
shopping spree
where credit limits
never expire and
giddy narcissism
greased with entitlement
orders up room service
as the next course
in this endless
movable feast

Music Selection
Philip Glass
The Hours



9/8/13
NYC
jbm

Little moist drops of heaven
       Trickling down my throat
    The heavenly burn,
                   delicious
Synonymous with an Angel's wings
               fluttering in my esophagus
     Liquid lightning, striking
          Almost blasphemous
 A devilish game of Russian Roulette
              With four shot glasses,
   Three rogues and one gent
Emotions getting looser
    Clothing getting tighter
           The taste becoming
     Sweeter
          Liquefied demon tears
Playing a wicked game
            with my insides
    Putting a beautiful curse on my mind
             Melted Whiskey Raindrops
     Sending shivers down my spine
           This hellish war of love, hate and
                    Intoxication
   Has never felt so
                  *Divine

I can't write
Russian with this pen.
This pen is stingy with ink.
I have to re-trace
my strokes to make them shown.
It makes me re-think my stupidity
before I can make it permanent.

When Daniel said
"Russian Roulette"

"Russian Roulette"
Is exactly what Daniel meant

If only somebody had have warned all of us

Sorry

RUSSIAN

Красивый  но жестким

(Beautiful but TOUGH)