stuffing stolen oxygen
into my secondhand bag,
and smiling up at the
butter sun;
the ancient groundskeeper says,
earth mama, you should be
doing pirouettes
in Santa Ana, stumbling
barefoot bright sidewalks
in Albuquerque.

I nod and get in my car
feel my soul twitch
and I am astounded that
the trees haven't
found me out
yet, that the lilies
haven't strangled me
in my sleep
yet.

maybe I’ve been here
too long too long
maybe I need to go
where the sun is
relentless..

1500 miles to Albuquerque

Dedicated to stillborn fetuses, 99 cent Malt Liquor and Existentialism
1.
Nymphomaniac tree huggers
And overweight bisexual vegetarians
Swallowing phentermine poison to stay fit.

2.
Funky fresh *******  
throwing pigs at St. Augustine’s pear tree
and frolicking abortions over Moloch’s philoprogenitiveness,

3.
While sipping barbecue sauce dipped in Lipton tea,
dancing around adhesive bonfires
reciting memories of holocaust, the Kristallnacht nights
and beautiful words suffered by ancestors lost.

4.
Inhale chicken noodle soup, with a side of Lithium,
And prance to Literacy class to combat envisionment
With free association conceptual constructions,

5.
Computerized like Prometheus’ fire burning through SmartBoards
In classrooms where the poison of heterosexual history
Is fed to boys in skirts cursed by Adam’s apple,

6.
Baptized by social norms and locked away in hopeless closets
According to the Tautology of Leviticus…
until they cut their breath by the vein of soteriology;

7.
Misunderstanding of God’s words
Covets the innocent to early graves
In biblical paratactic irony…like God betting Satan for a Job.

8.
Rub fried chicken oil on Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ skin
and soil his white pride with ***** flavor,
for revenge  On the Properties of Things

9.
and howl out in glory of victory
over totes of  lickerish piper methysticum blunts
that beg the conundrum,
'What is the origin of this world?'
'Ether,' he replied.
But it is not ether!
Nor Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
It is Dada. Dada. Dada!
  10.
For this is a record of the life stories of the greatest minds and geniuses of your generation,
written in boys and girls
who mimicked Basquiat’s genius and tagged bathroom walls with abstract philosophies like “Love is a prime number” and “ the weight of Duncan McDougall’s soul can only be found on the 15th of October”
who drank vampirish gulps of Vicodin while consoling themselves with aphorisms such as: “don’t rue the misses, you don’t need a Mrs. when you’re elevated by chemical kisses”
11.
Who stood naked in mirrors, weeping, for they were a mystery to themselves, but a great talent and soon to be legend to some.
Who lit cannabis in loneliness and waltzed naked with their ghosts, fantasizing about ****** tomatoes and Corpus Christi Mexican Jazz.
Who composed psychedelic anthems from dreams that were lost in ghettoes where virginities were lost for loaves of bread, for the hunger of bread.
12.
Who wrote suicide notes on a toilet seat, contemplating the texture of Marshall Mathers’ favorite underwear and whether the color green was an invention of **** Germany.
Who used to love their lovers in darkness and colored the streets of Manhattan with rainbows on June 24, 2011 to mark the date lady liberty finally bought a new pair of glasses.
13.
Who lost musical talents to a Wine-house and ended up in a whine-house where lobotomy was subsequently prescribed by the milligram.
Who indulged in pharmaceutical vices and when asked why replied simply, every recursively enumerable set is Diophantine.
Who diagnosed themselves with “start ****-itis” and self medicated by eating Fifinellas at the stroke of each midnight.
Who rubbed paraprosdokians on their skin and occupied Wall Street in search of a new euphemism for being American.
Who poured Alkalizer on a dead moose and kicked it while feasting on the divine question, “why does Rice play Texas?”
14.
who got bored with conventional relationships and bought the Origin of the World on street corners from vixens nicknamed “Jezebel” and climaxed atop of them screaming  “I’m in Babylon, the great Mother of ******!”
Who attempted suicides upon suicides upon suicides, in Oakland, until they were shipped away to private catholic universities in Rhode Island, where the history of Colossus was being taught.
15.
who serenaded love interests with four letter curse words at open bars where Kubla Khan was read and Tartars kings were licked all over like holy communion *****.
Who drove home with the spirits of wine and crashed on telephone poles where their obituaries were written in their prime, leaving their mothers weeping and calling congress to reconsider Prohibition.
16.
Who mixed Redbull with Propofol and drank the juxtaposition galore only to be woken up the next morning dead in their sleep.
Who tattooed rat poison packages with goodwill messages such as “****** divided by Water =6th day of creation” or “Seroquel + Brett Favre = St. Patrick”,
who went speedballing with Basquiat during autoscopy and woke up wondering the cost of Nautilus in Albuquerque.
17.
who took 33 hallelujah 1800 tequila jello shots and daydreamed about laying on Mithras’ grave, yelling, beetlejuice, beetlejuice…beetlejuice.
who found the truths of the Bible invalid by the miscalculation of Pi in 1 Kings 7, verse 3, and mailed death on anthrax letters to Reagan in protest.
18.
who sat empty bellied at breakfast tables wondering the temperature of satellites at Lagrangian points,  only to soon catch fire in their tongues and speak Labyrinth soliloquies that ended in
19.
Zion,
Where Google knows every answer.
In Zion
Where the youth, tomorrow’s future, quote a ***** named Hova better than they can quote Jehovah.
In Zion
Where *******’s art was used as weapon during the Cold war.
20.
In Zion
Where sartorial geniuses where no pants,
In Zion
Where David Kato Kisule is the secret hero of these words, for he was taken at a time
In Zion
Where we were supposed to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

21.
In Zion,
Where the youth bear the scarlet letter X for they are a problem to tradition and hold no definition for the future, for they have discovered
In Zion
That the origin of this world is in their living eyes, and not in the dictionary of their ancestors who lived
In Zion
when the epitome of the literature of life ended in Revelation of Amen and Shantih shantih shantih;
this is a record of the greatest minds and geniuses there ever was, written
in Zion
where the meaninglessness and nothingness of Dada reigns, and the trinity of life now lives in the Subject, subjective and subjectivity.

“Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.”
                                                    ­ George Orwell, 1984* (published in 1949)

Which brings us, of course, to the subject of torture since 1949.
Come with me to the Casbah, Babaloo.
We begin in the 1950s with the French in North Africa,
****** baguettes in Algeria,
Couilles frits, anyone?
Electrodes wired to Mustapha’s *****.
And "Bigeard's Shrimps,” as the bodies were called,
Dumped over the Mediterranean from aircraft,
All things considered a je ne sais quoi,
Though Camus and Sartre gave it a whack.

Then the 1960s: the CIA dabbling in mind-control and LSD.
Later, a Phoenix Program,
Very secretive, sympathies with the Cong required,
Various elders selected,
The village disinfected,
**, **, ** and a bowl of Pho.

Apartheid anyone?
Thirty years of South African terror & torture.
Torment in the townships,
Shaka Zulu gold and diamonds,
De Beers in Swaziland swing.

1971: riots at Attica,
Prisoners abused and tortured,
Rockefeller’s overcrowded slammer,
An upstate New York katzenjammer,
Nelson’s finger on the trigger,
39 dead and counting,
But who’s counting?

The CIA, back in the news in 1973,
Torture chambers under Chilean soccer stadiums,
And the Khmer Rouge:
Those Wacky Cambodians with skull racks.  
And let us not forget the British,
With centuries of colonial experience behind them,
Occupy six counties in Northern Ireland.
Finally codify the imperial process,
The Five Techniques:
Sounds like a Motown group,
Satin smooth colored boys,
But more method than music:
(1) Wall-standing,
(2) Hooding,
(3) Subjection to noise,
(4) Sleep deprivation,
(5) No food and drink.

And there’s a bunch of horrible ****,
We still don’t know about the Argentine ***** War,
And other Mai Lai-like,
****-fest massacres in Vietnam.

How about torture since 1984?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Come quickly,
(www.prematureejaculatorsanonymous.com)
To mind,
As do US-sponsored rendition facilities,
Spread throughout the NATO alliance.
And closer to home, it’s never a dull moment in the 5 Boroughs:
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and Manhattan.
Take your pick from Giuliani’s Greatest Hits,
Rudy Kazootie’s campaign of law and order,
Not necessarily in that order.
More awful than lawful,
A bathroom plunger rammed up,
The Haitian voodoo ****** of Abner Louima,
While he be handcuffed at a Brooklyn station house.
Or, the NYPD partying like it was 1999.
When in fact, it was1999,
And a curious death it was for Amadou Diallo,
Would-be American citizen from The Republic of Guinea,
(No connection to Italy or Italians),
Abner & Amadou: a pair of cautionary tales,
Either/or reflecting standard procedure for the Po-Po,
Time and time again from coast to coast.
Either/or: poor Abner, no Haitian Papa Doc.
Poor Amadou, on his way home from night school,
When police squeeze off 41 rounds,
Most of them in his direction,
Hitting him 19 times.
Just the facts, ma’am:
Diallo had reached into his jacket.
A trigger-happy police officer yells “Gun.”
A jungle warfare quartet springs into action:
Shenzi, Banzai, Ed & Zazu,
Four equally trigger-happy colleagues,
Empty their weapons.
No gun was found on Diallo,
Only the wallet he tried to pull out,
Containing his Green Card,
4 U.S. dollar bills;
And a laminated,
Credit card-sized copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
(I just didn’t know when to quit, did I?
The wallet was there with Green Card and the bucks,
But I made up the part about the Bill of Rights,
Trying to add poetry to tragedy, as usual.)

I don’t have to say much about Rodney King (RIP).
You watched it on TV a hundred times,
And a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Or ten thousand or a million, I suppose.
“Can’t we all just get along?” asked Rodney Glen King.

Last but not least there’s Kelly Thomas (RIP),
Another incidence of police insanity,
It was July of 2011 in Fullerton, California.
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man,
Schizophrenic, but unarmed,
Beaten to death at a bus depot,
During an altercation with six Fullerton police officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019225/Kelly-Thomas-Poli­­ce-beat-taser-gentle-mentally-ill-homeless-man­-death.html#ixzz1e­3­4QnHtr

Mervyn Lazarus | Attorney | (www.mervlazarus.com) Police Brutality, Excessive Force and Jail Injury cases | California . . . Albuquerque

Jackie Chiles perfect attorney -YouTube, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcEietIoxk) Nov 17, 2010 - 13 min - Uploaded by Kroeger22 All the scenes with Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld."Chiles is a parody of famed attorney Johnnie Cochran; both ... www.seinfeld.com

Perhaps the greatest torture of all,
Is that which artists subject us to.
Let us examine the case of Roberto Bolaño:
Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean writer,
Tells a fabulous World War II story,
About a Spaniard--an Andalusian--
Fighting for the Germans against the Russians.
Captured by the Russians,
He is tortured for information.
The Spaniard speaks no Russian,
He knows only four words of German.
The Russian interrogators strap him into a chair,
Attach electrodes to his *****,
Attach pincers to his tongue.
The pain makes his eyes water.
He said--or rather shouts--the word coño.
It is Spanish for ****.
The pincers in his mouth,
Distort the expletive,
Which in his howling voice comes out as KUNST.
The Russian who knows German looks at him in puzzlement.
The Andalusian was yelling KUNST,
Yelling KUNST and crying in pain.
KUNST in German means art,
And that was what the bilingual Russian heard, KUNST.
“This ******* must be an artist or something.”
The torturers remove the pincers,
Along with a little piece of tongue,
And wait, momentarily hypnotized by the revelation:
The word ART had soothed the savage beasts.
So soothed, the savage beasts take a breather,
Waiting for some kind of signal.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian bleeds from the mouth,
Swallows his blood liberally mixed with saliva, and chokes.
The word coño,
Transformed into the word *KUNST,
Had saved his life.
It was dusk when he came out of the building.
Light stabbed at his eyes like midday sun.

So, it’s a fact that I love,
Truly love the simple blunt Anglo-Saxon expletive ****,
****: I pray that while I am being tortured some day,
I have the dignity to scream the word out loud.
And if I am screaming **** at the very end,
When my nervous system finally fails,
When I **** my pants,
When my pulmonic heart and lungs collapse,
Is that so bad?
Is that so wrong?

Do you realize that 1984 came--
Came and went, without any significant cultural hoopla?
The networks ignored it.
As did the cable pundits.
No significant comparative analysis between,
Orwell’s book 1984 and the year 1984,
Was broadcast electronically or publicized in print.
Steve Jobs got it, but as usual no one else did.
Mr. Jobs (RIP) did his best,
To mainstream its profound cultural relevance,
But ultimately failed,
Despite the $1.5 million he paid one of the networks,
To air a one minute nation-wide commercial,
During the 3rd Quarter,
Of Super Bowl XVIII,
January 22, 1984.
Despite Ridley Scott’s astonishing spell-binder,
His 60-second spot for The Macintosh 128K--
Still considered a watershed event,
And an advertising industry masterpiece,
…YouTube it and watch it.  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ji0B98IMo).
See the hammer throwing athlete chick,
See her fling the sledge,
That huge sledgehammer,
Smash into Big Brother’s flat screen face.
Despite Jobs’ global presence,
Despite Steverino’s unfettered microphone access,
Whenever he felt an oraculation coming on,
Despite everything,
He was unable to move the powers that be,
To either hype the book or the prophecy come true.

So, what’s my point? I have two.
First, in April 1984 the estate of George Orwell,
And the television rights holder to the novel 1984,
Considered the edgy Jobs/Scott commercial to be,
A flagrant copyright infringement,
Sending a cease-and-desist letter to Apple Inc.
And the advertising agency that produced the spot: Chiat/Day Inc.
The commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.  
Score: Lawyers 1, Artists 0.

My second point is that in November 2011,
The U.S. government argued before the U. S. Supreme Court,
That it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals,
Without first seeking a warrant.
In response, Justice Stephen Breyer (one of the sane ones),
Questioned what this means for a democratic society.
Referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Justice Breyer asked:
"If you win this case, then there is nothing,
To prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24/7,
The public movement of every citizen of the United States.
So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 . . .”*

My third point,
(Yeah, I know I said two, but *******.)
My third point is that I’m just so ******* angry,
All the time, late and soon like Wordsworth,
(Was anyone more aptly named?)
I am angry about so many different things,
And every day that goes by I relate more and more,
To the thousands of Americans that occupied,
Zuccotti Park and Oakland,
And countless other venues,
Out into the streets.
Across the country.
Around the world.  
I am humbled by their courage and perseverance.
Yet, I am afraid for them.
I am made paranoid by the scope and power,
Of the government,
Of the ruling class that controls it,
And the technology they allow us to embrace,
Technology’s sinister potential,
Now that more and more knowledge and information,
Has been digitized,
Existing only in cyberspace.                                                      ­                                                 
What frightens most is the realization,
That anyone with a word processor,
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.
The scary part is—
Repeating myself for emphasis—
That anyone with a word processor
And access to the database could rewrite,
Any historical or legal document,
To fit the needs of a current agenda.

Does anyone out there give a ****?
Does anyone out there share my nightmare?
Do it to Julia.
Do it to Julia.

Icarus washes up on Miami Beach over the spring break of 2k16 and finds a world where the gods roam the streets,
where his wax wings burned themselves into trenches of scars down his back,
where we warn our children of the dangers of flying too high,
but forget the part about the riptides waiting if you fly too low.

He asks Siri how far away the sun is,
finds Apollo in the red rocks of New Mexico
off I-40 just outside of Albuquerque,
alone and basking in the heat.
The ice caps are melting.

The sun still hurts to touch,
burning Icarus's hands and leaving fingerprints in the feathers of his melted wings,
but Apollo is much kinder now,
soothing the skin cancer with freckles and soft touches.
It no longer feels like a damning.

This is what happens to the children of tragedies:
they flinch too much,
they fall too hard,
they're fragile as glass but immune to everything the world can throw at them.
Icarus flinches at the sound of the oceans.
He knows the wrath of Poseidon.

Icarus rises from the dead with his irises washed white
and his rips etched with Hades's name:
he should have been a child of Persephone,
spring in his hands and flowers in his hair.
He should have spent his days sprawled in the sun's caress.
He should have been infinite.

Icarus flinches too much.
That's what everyone keeps telling him.
He flinches too much at every lifted voice and crashing wave and
he flinches too much when he feels sunshine on his face.
Icarus is sorry for flinching too much.
Icarus is trying not to flinch too much.
Icarus is sorry that it's taking so long to just get over his trauma and stop flinching so much--
sorry.

He doesn't know what to do now that he's touched the sun
and this time it didn't burn.
He wanted it to burn.
He wants to burn.
He wants to feel his bones breaking all over again because
that's the only time he doesn't feel like he needs to be in control.
Why is he chasing things that hurt?
Why does he feel
like he deserves to hurt?
He deserves to crash.

He finally touched the sun.
Icarus feels empty, and
he's still flinching.

I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
        a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
        Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
        ous hand, named for Death's planet through the
        sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of
        Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
        King worshipped once
with black sheep throats cut, priests's face averted from
        underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,
Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable
        Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,
her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow,
        black hail, grey winter rain or Polar ice, immemor-
        able seasons before
Fish flew in Heaven, before a Ram died by the starry
        bush, before the Bull stamped sky and earth
or Twins inscribed their memories in clay or Crab'd
        flood
washed memory from the skull, or Lion sniffed the
        lilac breeze in Eden--
Before the Great Year began turning its twelve signs,
        ere constellations wheeled for twenty-four thousand
        sunny years
slowly round their axis in Sagittarius, one hundred
        sixty-seven thousand times returning to this night

Radioactive Nemesis were you there at the beginning
        black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disil-
        lusion?
I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years
I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your
        dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,
Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao,
        Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an
        Abyss of Light,
Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-
        pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!
Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self
        oblivion!
Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages'
        prayers, old orators' inspired Immortalities,
I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious
        sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,
        Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque
I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado,
        Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,
Where nuclear reactors creat a new Thing under the
        Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death
        stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,
Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon
        secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Moun-
        tain boasts to store
its dreadful decay through two hundred forty millenia
        while our Galaxy spirals around its nebulous core.
I enter your secret places with my mind, I speak with
        your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal
        mouth.
One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of
        heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey
        Alps
the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance
        speeds blight and death to sentient beings?
Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,
        Unnaproachable Weight,
O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your con-
        sciousness to six worlds
I chant your absolute Vanity.  Yeah monster of Anger
        birthed in fear O most
Ignorant matter ever created unnatural to Earth! Delusion
        of metal empires!
Destroyer of lying Scientists! Devourer of covetous
        Generals, Incinerator of Armies & Melter of Wars!
Judgement of judgements, Divine Wind over vengeful
        nations, Molester of Presidents, Death-Scandal of
        Capital politics! Ah civilizations stupidly indus-
        trious!
Canker-Hex on multitudes learned or illiterate! Manu-
        factured Spectre of human reason! O solidified
        imago of practicioner in Black Arts
I dare your reality, I challenge your very being! I
        publish your cause and effect!
I turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!
        Your name enters mankind's ear! I embody your
        ultimate powers!
My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This
        breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your
        form at last
behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress
        of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered
        cabinets and baths of lathe oil,
My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot
        cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-
        sphere,
I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums
        underground on soundless thrones and beds of
        lead
O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent
        through hidden chambers and breaks through
        iron doors into the Infernal Room!
Over your dreadful vibration this measured harmony        
        floats audible, these jubilant tones are honey and
        milk and wine-sweet water
Poured on the stone black floor, these syllables are
        barley groats I scatter on the Reactor's core,
I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate
        close by, my breath near deathless ever at your
        side
to Spell your destiny, I set this verse prophetic on your
        mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with
        Diamond Truth!  O doomed Plutonium.

                        II

The Bar surveys Plutonian history from midnight
        lit with Mercury Vapor streetlamps till in dawn's
        early light
he contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between
        Nations' thought-forms proliferating bureaucratic
& horrific arm'd, Satanic industries projected sudden
        with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength
around the world same time this text is set in Boulder,
        Colorado before front range of Rocky Mountains
twelve miles north of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in
        United States of North America, Western Hemi-
        sphere
of planet Earth six months and fourteen days around
        our Solar System in a Spiral Galaxy
the local year after Dominion of the last God nineteen
        hundred seventy eight
Completed as yellow hazed dawn clouds brighten East,
        Denver city white below
Blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a
        morning star high over the balcony
above some autos sat with wheels to curb downhill
        from Flatiron's jagged pine ridge,
sunlit mountain meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone
        cliffs above brick townhouse roofs
as sparrows waked whistling through Marine Street's
        summer green leafed trees.

                        III
                        
This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you
        father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress
        and American people,
you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,
        you O Master of the Diamond Arts,
Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and
        consonants to breath's end
take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath
        out this blessing from your breast on our creation
forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats and mountains
        in the Ten Directions pacify with exhalation,
enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder
        through earthen thought-worlds
Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy
        this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind
        and body speech,
thus empower this Mind-guard spirit gone out, gone
        out, gone beyond, gone beyond me, Wake space,
        so Ah!
        
                                        July 14, 1978

that trendy ******(e) addiction
becomes you- and your fiction

goes well with the pale
-skinned thin western booted
blue-eyed shooter
riding sidesaddle
on your scooter

does she kiss like me
and bring you coffee?

i could lay you both down
in the in-betweens
and make heaven-

til hell is heavy as a monday
track day in albuquerque
while she sells your jewelry
in sante fe where it's trendy

-i'll be waiting
on the blue mesa.

r ~  9/19/14

Lend me your crimson
tinted telescope lens.
I can see you now
glittering out there
in alien sands.
Green lungs,
like neon lights,
ignite to match your joint.

Pantomime of a stoner,
I see you better in the dark,
while I lie wrapped in the sheets
of your second-hand smoke.

We rounded the corner,
the Sandia Mountains glimmering like rust-colored prophets
from the passenger seat.
Far from The Flatlands,
I traced the curves
of Mother Earth with my fingers.
I imagined the way her gentle hands
could carve existence on a whim.

I’ve finally broken the arrow…
left the reservation..
as the sayings go.
Not without some hesitation…
not without some reservations..
I’m going to walk the White Man’s road.

Broken arrows from my quiver…
left behind like White Man’s litter..
all along this dusty road.
The road that follows the river…
where I use to play and shiver..
catching fish without a pole.

I’ll stop one more time by the water…
wash away the tears and dust and sorrow..
break my bow upon a boulder.
My people have lost their way…
nothing left for me to say..
cut my hair above my shoulder.

I’ll follow the White Man’s way…
Maybe Albuquerque or Santa  Fe..
only my dusty boots will know the way.
Broken arrows from my quiver…
left behind like White Man’s litter..
all along this dusty road.

r  August 2012

There's always been Louisiana Avenue and Menaul Boulevard; the same streets as Coranado Mall
right by where I'd transfer busses and had the worst luck.
Everything has changed, but those haven't.
Karma's built up from tagging ditches, not caring who'd see,
Staying at that house on Tennessee, or the hotel right down the street,
sneaking cigarette so I don't disappoint
my family and be less than they already think.

I don't want to go to college,
I don't want to live in the heat,
I don't want to move to California and be around the endless sea of people;
people scare me.
I don't want to live near family that can't see I want to live on the road and love the few people I hold close that I know will eventually grow to go away.

I want to be alone.
I want to steal seafoam green paint swatches from Walmarts across the United States,
and magic cards, too, though I know no one will play.
I've got a home on Wright Street, my old abodes on Clement and Austin,
even the apartments on Louisiana and Montgomery once held me
by the neck in my closet,
or in the tub when I was in-love with being strung out, ****** up and dumb.
Moving away doesn't numb your brain, same people different state, same problems, nothing's changed.

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 25, 2015)

The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions.

The tendency to persuade oneself through rational argument that a purchase was a good value.

It's late at night and I'm forty years into a very thorough and consumerist collection of the vast ouvre of Cherilyn Sarkisian, 60s street urchin turned enshrined Hollywood A-lister -- iconic up there with Halston, Bianca, Liz and Jackie.

Paper and vinyl and electromagnetic tape, discs and cassettes and books and blankets and dolls and perfumes and magnets. Words and music and ideas every one purchased from corporations and strangers and seven 7-inch picture discs bartered online from a friend I didn't know I would one day meet.

It's late and I've been the Wrecking Crew premiere, sitting in the middle
of an Albuquerque scene of sorts,  the documentary opening at the local art house with me wedged between California-Sound fanatics. I'm sitting next to an oldies DJ everybody in town seems to knows but me.

The DJ laments how political the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is, (but then aren't they all?), and how Chubby Checker has yet to be inducted. As I see Cher self-depricate through the movie, I know she's an outsider to even this outsider culture. And if we peruse the halls rosters, we can easily make her case. But omissions always mean something. My basement full of memorabilia tells me what ain't right. But that's the bias talking. The same bias that gets The Byrds inducted, those who we've just learned didn't even play on their own records, or the theatrics of Alice Cooper, or the season of Ricky Nelson, or the artifice of KISS, Madonna....I've spent a fortune but just wait until the book comes out.

Post-purchase rationalizations, aren't they all?

I've watched a video on hamsters™
that reminded me of you
between your riddles and answers,
the tired mother on the rearview mirror.

Many times do I wonder
as you opened the door
with your yellow hair
falling on shoulders
nothing to say
naked
nothing to do
as you stroked and stroked
and stroked.

"Do you love me
- like I do?"


But then again I'm also doomed
to slit my wrists under the moon:
that same old moon, already missed.

Black rickety bridges
upon bayous and flowers
Stephen King's novel, then devoured:
let's go to Albuquerque,
and count the rings
around my eyes.

Sweet, sweet breeze, oh sing me to sleep-
The sun and the dust and the quiet we keep.
The secretive, beautiful, hot July Moon,
A forbidden, lonely, and quiet, dark room.
The place in the light, a village of sorts
A song and a fight, and pillow house forts
A dress and wind and a rain and the trees-
A wheel and a road and a sky and a please-
A fear and a love and a joy, oh, how free
To know that this time and this place is not me.

Now that it’s finally safe,
Now that Breaking Bad
Has wrapped for good,
And Albuquerque is
Safely free of Mr. White’s crystal ****,
That chemical perfection,
That awesome Blue Cook—
As it was known,
Known far & wide,
In the drug trade.
But I digress.

I return at last to New Mexico.
The so-called Land of Entrapment.
I slink back, decisively
To that island of Diversity,
Mutual Respect & Mañana.
I return to the scene of so many crimes.
Not to mention, misdemeanors.
“SMACK,” he’s back.
It’s that crazy **** himself:
The undeniably indomitable,
The late, great Soupy Sales.
Reminding us still,
Telling us, again, specifically,
Not to mention.

I am sitting in a brand new house
In Bernalillo, New Mexico,
Only 15 miles from downtown
ALBUQUERQUE.
Another Over 55,
Gated, golf-coursed
Lunatic asylums
(FOR ACTIVE ADULTS).
I am starting to repeat myself,
An early Alzheimer warning sign,
What do I expect to find here?
Life secluded,
Quiet days,
Getting quieter every day,
As strangers friends & neighbors
Pass on to what Hamlet called
“ . . . the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country,
From whose bourn
No traveller returns . . .”
To a mind-set,
Decidedly focused on the children
I will soon leave behind:
“$15 thousand bucks
To stick his crusty ***
Into a dusty,
Musky box of knotty pine?
(Muskie? The Senator from Maine
Who broke down & cried.)
No way, Giuseppi.
Cremate the crazy SOB!
Cook him.
Nuke him,
Titanium implants & all.  Let
Infrared rays do their work,
Arc lighting a late February
Coronado golden New Mexico evening sky.”
Here I sit.
I am listening to
“Sentimental Sinatra.”
Vintage 40s stuff:
Bobbysoxers & WWII.
Once again, I strain for understanding.
Mom & Dad:
Perhaps their music, like ours,
Is a perceptual doorway?
Perhaps my children will someday
Take the time for careful scrutiny
Of why their father was the way he was.
My 65-year old, pensioned-off ***
Behind the gates,
Locked within the asylum.
Our parents;
Our children:
Be they ever inscrutable.

Mind like a molecular laser
Even if you get in front of him
he always comes out ahead
His rivals dead
Evidence smashed
with "Magnets"
Chemical connect established
bringing in steady barrels
Cooking blue glass beneath circus tents
undercover of pesticide, and less pretty poison
His wife is a wreck
She's the only one who knows
Sweet Walt the chemistry teacher
Is a freon-blooded massmuderer
Keep the glass coming
Need fast cash
To get established
You can always count
on Skinny Pete and Badger
for comic relief
Albuquerque's foulest
runs every thing he sees
Its guaranteed...
He won't live to fifty-three.

Yeah
well I sat in the barbers chair while you walked up and down the crowded aisles in a half deserted Tesco store
I wondered why
what was it for?
The freezer stood alone at home
freezing cold as was its wont but it was stacked with want me nothing more at all
for it was full up to its freezing chin
with something brought from albuquerque
and two fifths of London Gin.

The barber gave a weirdly grin and gave me one of number two
I should have fekin known that's what the little *** would do
but you just wandered round and did you see that skinhead passing by the deli' counter?
that was me
I waved atop my fresh shaved head
but I was dead meat on the cooked meat and it shook me wide awake
I need to take a breather
might even leave her
she would not care
she's got Tesco's in her brain and not to mention in her hair with apple summer fresh smell,how much dumber can one get
well if I stick about just watch this space
look out for the smiling vacant face
that will be me
taking her
to do her hair
just like mine.

I was a stranger but he began to speak as we set in a shop it was with sorrowed heart he spoke
His daughter Ashley had returned from Albuquerque earlier in the year she had been there
After her father and mother divorced years before she chose to reconnect with her father it
Hadn’t taken a long time but a special someone entered her life a marriage date was set he
Asked her how did that move back here work out this was after the marriage took place in the
Beginning of May she told him I’m living the dream I always envisioned this was middle may at
The end of May he softly said we had her funeral in the same church she was married in blood
Clots moved to her lungs and suffocated her his beautiful Ashley was gone he continued to tell
Me that he visits her grave every weekend he installed lights that are always on dream felt foot
Falls evenly draw near the dark knight of death cut asunder their physical ties but her spirit is
Laden with heavenly mist she has the heavier spray of the crystal sea in her hair her face is
Grace filled she wears a bright glowing flowing gown it is hooded it has the finest texture that is
As immortal gold it embellishes her face her twenty three years are shown in startling detail
Birthdays of her family holidays every tender care that was shared is told by fetching silver
Moonlight slow motion reveals secret thoughts that were born in shadows that emerged with
Such power trees and their limbs and branches were drenched in tender reflection even the
Individual blades of grass spoke such rich history of magnificence and delight they ran up to the
Entry way of the home they shared when she skipped and ran and played when she grew tired
She would crawl up in daddy’s lap put her arms around his neck put her head against his
Shoulder and drift away listening to his assuring voice and shortly feel herself being gently laid
In her bed of dreams now the light of this world has been trimmed daddy still comes as he
Always has now more somber his voice but a whisper she too would be sad but she sees and
Hears the heavenly Fathers words and truths of a soon to be great reunion day for all who are
Separated will be united for ever in joyful peace and bliss we will be free to know each other
More than we ever could be in life she believes this passes to her father as he faithfully visits
Because she sees the beginning of a smile rise in his sad face before he leaves love never dies a
Treasure once created never diminishes only grows richer

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 25, 2017)

There are many small spaces
where poems come from
like a vortex in the room
or the far deep of the brain.
Early in New Mexico
was all about fermenting
with disasters of toys and monsters
living in the wall. Music fed
the core from a stereo console.
St. Louis was the smart house,
flower papered walls for things
Jessica Lange said in Tootsie.
This is where the poems came
if I sat under the window,
warming on the heat vent
between the foot board
and the bookcase my father built.
The dorms of Kirksville were vacant
and Maryland Heights was about collecting things
not words. Massachusetts, off the Great Road,
near the colonial stone fences and the old world woods,
was transitional, with suitcases
stuffed under the bed.
Yonkers was the second vortex
in the basement corner.
I wrote my way into morning while Helga
growled at the ghosts in the closet.
The nightstand light turned on by itself
while I slept and beautiful Mars things
were imagined. The river place
was a reading place, always flooding.
We invented our Internet spaces there.
In Pennsylvania, I wrote above the garage,
reading to stave off the sink hole
of misplacing myself. The first zine.
Playa del Rey was during a rainy season,
but the early morning sun on the balcony
was a small, shining vortex in a glass of water.
My only writing in the melancholy outside.
California was a renaissance,
poems abandoned on the carpets.
Mar Vista had a converted garage
down a shallow step into a plush ****.
This is where we planned books and courting ads.
The second Zine. The genesis of cowboys and zen.
Helga died here. John came here.
Venice was all about making pots
and domesticating on threads of ideas.
Redondo was dubbed Mayberry
with its shade and birds.
I couldn’t write in its beautiful spaces
so I planted budding bushes.
Back in Santa Fe, we made a makeshift office
out of the makeshift dining room.
The ceiling had hundreds of trees.
The third Zine. The first book.
Down in Albuquerque, there are cowboys
on the couch. The same twister of books,
poems and pop songs. Every piece
of every piece feeding into its space.
Every poem belonging to its home.

From Grassy Fields to Azure Blue  


Albuquerque a special time soulful sojourners came to release aloft what others find easy to scoff oh
Thy heavenly breeze from earthen habitation all sounds are found in thee laughter and tears the
Sobbing Goes to throbbing depths clouds pewter gray they show your needs and how hard you pray
Some are blessedly light others are weighed and bowed there are streams of air but the spirit too has
The lift and fall some is shear others are tender they hold all that is dear love hopes and dreams in them
You see the atmosphere as if you were sky riding at fiesta time strings of silver red golden black ribbon
They represent light hearted feelings the gust of joy that blows across many a yard and home from this
Dispositions of those that live there are discerned and carried outward and upward into playful days
Bathed in sunlight recharged with all the embodied love that continues through mankind dark shadows
Also are known their gloom are forever fixed with heartbroken tomb but just from earth the higher it
Rises its burning tears begins to fall as tender rain that mixes with tears and it not to be explained
But from this mixture golden memories derive their uncommon essence the loss is then to celebrate
Tendrils that drift across the sky when they briefly touch the ground though it be tearful a smile is
Left and in it the loved one is blessed honored and assured the swirling wind holds so many promises
Of happy tomorrows where the word separation has been expunged it no longer is a part of reality
You crossed the night train trestle your voice was the mournful whistle that announced the dear passing
Of love that went higher you were given a gift wrapped in pain but within it explained far greater truth
Than the limitation of earth’s love alone you are now aboard these sky ships as you rise your burdens
Grow Lighter your vision is enabled to see grandeur and great vistas the pulsating earth winks from
Homes far below you appear as bubbles on the wind in the moonlight glow in it is you’re refreshing
Enjoy the ride

The man on the phone
told him that rent was due
by five o'clock
rent which was not there
but five was seven hours away
and he had this feeling
that seven hours was a good distance
to put between him and Richmond
so he packed up his clothes
his old jeans and plaid button downs
and his typewriter
that old clunky *******
which made such sweet music
he stuffed it all into a backpack
and left his keys in the apartment
as the door closed for him
for the last time

He left Virginia behind
and headed west
he spent a night or two in Memphis
drinking cheap bourbon from a plastic bottle
and dancing with some pretty little thing
as Johnny Cash played over the radio
He took his car
and passed through
Fort Smith Arkansas
but he didn't stay too long
He made a few bucks
cleaning glasses in a ****** old bar
in Oklahoma City
sleeping in the small room
upstairs
He made it to Amarillo Texas
and thought that he might just stay
under the dead pan
Texas sun
but he was restlessly being chased
by his memories and fears
His car broke down
in Albuquerque
so he hopped on a train
heading to Phoenix
but Phoenix was tough
and alien
and he got footloose
real quick
He hitched out of there
with a ****** cardboard sign
which read simply
"West"
and he met some strangers
and made some new friends
before he found himself
in fallen angel country
Hollywood heart breaks
and smog covered starlight
with no more road left to travel
he'd been coast to coast
he settled down
like the pioneers who came before him
and burned his maps
just a *****,
road weary,
traveler
with a typewriter
and dusty worn jeans
a traveler who made his way home

I’m solaced by the flutter in my gut at the sight of you. Like a monarch spreading it’s wings for the first time; new and exciting. Even your smell haunts me.

You came to me when I least expected it, and stayed like I hoped you would. Cordial and charming, you swept me off my feet like a cool coastal wind, allowing me to finally relax and wring my toes in the sand.

Until now, I’ve always been content with solitude. But now I don’t find the same comfort in being alone. I never realized the beauty of a silent place can be so deafening without you next to me.

The little way is patience
Long distance running
When I was in Dublin
Silence, exile, cunning

It might not work
Or might not work till later
Florida the Land of Flowers
See ya later, Alligator

Trans man in Carrboro
She got her own style
Tells me I am handsome
After while, Crocodile

Bill Haley and the Comets
Rock Around the Clock
I have been to Albuquerque
What's up, Danger? What's up, Doc?

I found you, in a stack of photos:
the 2D you, I can't touch, taste or smell

the first thing that came to mind was sharing a joint with you and spilling the chocolate ice cream cone on your skin-******* shorts

and sneaking into the Woolworth bathroom, and our freaked frenzied scrubbing of fabric with nimble fingers and pink powdered hand soap

and how we couldn't stop laughing
until a woman older than time caught us
before we could consummate

which we did after running the entire
200 yards to my van, wet white shorts in your hand, with me looking over my shoulder for imagined narcs and other freedom snatchers

when we finished, we shared my last Winston, blowing smoke rings in the gathering gloom

your shorts were dry, and our high
had worn off--you didn't kiss me goodbye when I dropped you off

between your pad and mine,
I hit a black mongrel pup wandering on the dark asphalt

I scooped him off the road
with my hands; lifeless, light he was...

I found you, in that stack of ancient
photos--that was the day we conceived a son, one you had shredded in a doctor's office for $300 in illegal tender

I see the messy ice cream, your naked nineteen year old flesh,  smoke rings disappearing, the poor mutt dying

though not for lack of trying, I can't see the child you had executed in utero--without trial, judge or jury, save an elusive dream
of freedom

Albuquerque, 1967

Its 3 am in
Albuquerque
just pass noon in
Soweto
I know no soul there
no soul knows I am here
light years apart
in more ways
than one
Its 3 am in
Albuquerque
just pass noon in
Soweto
A non matter of time.

Adobe and dust,
a place so quiet.
One grandfather
cottonwood,
leaves rustling,
listens with us
for the next train.

Drought has dried
this land beyond
any living person's
memory.
Now, a cooling wind
gathers power.
The sky over the old
mountains darkens.

As the train pulls
out from the antique
station, a single fork
of lightning frames
itself in the small
rear window.

The silvered tracks
put distance
rapidly behind us.

Opening out now
before us, sunlight
on the High Desert.

We turn to see
starched white
cumulous clouds,
absent for months
float by, flat bottoms
casting healing shadows
over the parched land.

In Albuquerque, we
stop for new passengers.
It's days after the 4th of July;
families have been visiting.

Roasted green chilies,
their fragrance so earthy
are brought onboard.

A mother and her 
teenagers sit down
beside me. She smiles,
we talk. This brother
and sister are so good
to each other.

Dinner in the dining car
is an old-fashioned treat.
Big windows and white
cotton table cloths.

I find myself seated
family style, with a
father and son. Some
bicycle race has given
them rare time together.

As night comes on,
the conductor makes
a sleeping time call.
The lights are dimmed.

In the early hours,
walking aisle after
aisle and car to car
I see humanity
asleep in all its
quirky loveliness.

Tanned toddlers,
sprawled almost upside
down. Hair mussed up,
wearing bows meant
for grandparents.

Graying heads,
long accustomed to
leaning into one another,
rest peacefully.

One young man, a poet
with a crown of dreads
stands alone with his
thoughts, looking  
out at the stars.  

Jostled awake now,
I see the The Big Dipper
perfectly placed as a child
would draw it, twinkling
in my smudged window.

A haze of soft pink light
signals this new day.
All of us, coming home.

Human angels, each
here for one another.

I was there
66, through Albuquerque
Passing flag staff. Land
Of the cacti, hippies blowing
Smoke from arazonian glass.
Flower children and hard working
Laborers, I hit L.A seeing the
Whiskey a go-go, some band's
Made it to the stage, others a
No-show. Some to down and
Out broke or ******!
I was there back in the era
66-69. The farmers got together
With the hip ones to keep the
Sun inside these dark States
Shine.

It was summer, late 80's,  Lubbock, Texas, age prevents me from recallng the exact date and time. It was my father on the phone, asking if me and my wife, Karen, would like to go with him out to the airport to visit with my Uncle Jack(Major, USAF ret.). Jack called him and said that he and a 'friend' were flying in private plane to Houston, and would be stopping in Lubock and would be in around noon. Jack was the youngest of three brothers, and my favorite. Shortly before eleven, dad picked us up and off we went. I asked dad if he knew who was coming with him, and he said "no, have no idea."
Sitting in the coffee shop, looking out the windows, we saw this Cessna land, and taxi over to the gate. "There they are", dad said, with some anticipation. In a few minutes Jack and his 'friend' emerged. The 'friend" was tall, slender, grayish hair, crew cut. He looked familiar, that 'friend' as they entered the room, and then came the introductions.
His name was "Deke" Slayton. One of the original seven astronauts chosen by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) to participate in the original Mercury program in 1959,and was later the pilot of the docking module when they docked with the Soviet Soyuz capsule in 1975. He was a bomber pilot during WWII, and later became a test pilot. Jack was a glider pilot during the war, and upon retiring from the air force went to work for the FAA(Federal Aeronautics Administration) as Supv. Flight Control Operations, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They had known each other for a long time.
Needless to say, Karen and I nearly "slid out if our chairs", for it's not everyday when you find yourself having a casual cup of coffee and conversation with someone who considered such feats as, "just doing his job."
"You never know, who you're going to meet..... on any given day..... at any given time."
r.riddle: 10-16-2016