"bellevue" poems
It takes a lot to be level-headed
When I see where we're headed
I think of everything and I just want to sing
Would you like to take a drive with me?
And stay alive with me
I know I probably shouldn't tell you
But I'm contemplating Bellevue
Maybe West Louisiana or eastern Havana
Doesn't matter much to me
Just stay alive with me
And take a drive with me
I know that I'm merely 22
But I'm gonna be dying soon
And I don't want to regret things I haven't conquered yet
So would you take a drive with me?
And be a prize with me?
I can't tell you where we're going
Because I have no way of knowing
Just be the DJ for me and sing before you speak
And take a drive with me
To stay alive with me
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 10:24 AM UTC
I want to spit my tongue
straight out into the wind
Because I'm better stricken dumb
than smart-mouthed or thick skinned
Straight on to the edge of town
I will chase my temper out
There, we'll talk about the "whethers"
We'll talk the sun down
And I'll hope that's the last time we speak
Walk across the bridge on 5th Street
Half reflecting on past choices
Glimpse the moon on Goose Creek's surface
Spy a ******
Recall voices.
Like the one my father used before last April blew his chest up
Or ones I can't remember 'til I heave my boiling guts up
in some yard.
A tinny crash through piled leaves,
I just want to make it home--
The S.P.D. are everywhere
and we don't get along so very well
It's gotten late and gotten old.
It's gotten cold the heat is busted back where I make my home
I've hit my wall, I hit the pavement
Stand me up--two streets to go
5th and Bellevue ain't so bad
I'm nearly home.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 6:56 PM UTC
My great-grandmother lived in a time when if you sang too loudly in a public place
Such as on the bus
With no audible music anyone else could hear
You were thrown away
Reported by the sanest of citizens
Locked away in the mental ward of Bellevue Asylum
By your own family
She was an alcoholic
Well, she was Italian
As was that whole part of my family
And Italians like wine
And she liked her wine
Maybe a little bit too much
My grandfather said that by six o'clock
Everyone in the house was screaming
Throwing things
Alcohol-tinged, infant-like fits
The lot of them
Drunk
Every night of the year
But my great-grandmother
She was the only one who carried her drink
In a little metal flask
Tucked in her ragged coat
Took it with her on the bus
On the way to work at a hotel
Where people with enough money
To boost the world's economy
Slept, ate and yelled at her
For forgetting to put a mint on their pillow once
But she just hummed away
Took the flack with a smile
Sipped her poison
And rode the bus back to work
The next day
Drunk
Singing
La Donna e' Mobile
One day though
Her brothers caught up to her
As she was boarding that bus
She was singing again
And smiled
Asked them what they were doing there
And they looked at her
Smiled
And smacked her
They threw her in their car
And took her to Bellvue
In 1947
When the idea of mental health
Was shrouded in ignorance
And scrutiny
And the word "medicine"
Meant electric-shocks to the brain
Submerging in below freezing
Ice-tanks
And
Fiddling around
In people's brains
Through their eye-sockets
With screwdrivers
"Lobotomies"
My grandfather was born in 1945
He was only two when they took his mother away
And only three
When they told him she died
Rotting in the asylum
Experiments done to her
That my family will never know the nature of
Never know how much pain
She ****** up
Never know if the cause of death
Was actually "cirrhosis of the liver"
Or
An officially administered
Botched
Brain-fuck
Dec 27, 2012
Dec 27, 2012 at 11:27 AM UTC
Disheartened
The Dutch tourists have left
and last year’s cherries
hang unpicked as do almond nuts
that are also full of worms,
and who says the grass isn’t sweet?
The sun is a yellow ring
on a blind sky,
disillusioned.
As a 30 watt bulb in a room
with faded wallpaper,
at a rundown hotel
which calls itself Bellevue;
last stop before sleeping rough.
Nothing is more abject
then an out of season tourist town,
worried shopkeepers and tarts
even the flowers are grey;
except for a couple of retired seagulls,
birds have flown to Africa
and will not return
before the rain stops falling.
May 2, 2017
May 2, 2017 at 5:35 AM UTC
In a fleeting panic
my body aching
my head in manic
I was fitted for depression
by my fashion shrink
cosmic blue straightjacket
boots of shocking pink
Day-Glo eyelashes
and a faux stole of mink
I walked the streets of Soho
and climbed the Factory walls
a girl betwixt
a boy between
everybody’s darling
till morning came to town
in my corset of denial
I took cover in the rain
and sang naughty little ditties
seeping from the recesses of my brain
I tripped my way to Bellevue
where a thousand plastic junkies
awaited my return
I fell into their fancy
and we frolicked amidst our lies
and hopped aboard an east bound train
to a velvet paradise
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 12:49 PM UTC
"Your addiction and you are in love,
Not starcrossed"
And it's a tango I'm so familiar with,
Outside my mother's house, or my dorm room,
Or my apartments in Bellevue and Anaheim.
I know the steps, I know the rhythm,
That first drag of a cigarette,
That first sip of plum wine, or *** or whisky, or beer,
That ancient gut-longing for someone who isn't here
I know the chords to the opening song,
Even to the older, pining songs which are long-gone
Now finely-tuned to my latest loss,
I give up, I give up, and I pay for it
No matter the cost
It could be a waltz, or a samba, but it's just deep-set lust
And though women usually come out on top in Tango,
I know I'll never win
So it's just a tango, that dance with death
Because I can't leave it be, at least not yet
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 4:07 AM UTC
Autumn racing red and gold
behind half-open eyes of icy blue.
27th Fall. Step into cold
and race through
alleyways I've known.
A crunching stride, solitary breaths.
Staccato notes
banged out on sidewalks' grey scales...
...I'm every inch
of this softened ground,
these shoe treads, hieroglyphics...
...My town appends
its runic fate
onto
my story's granite page.
Crisping air, engulf my lungs.
Ensconce my face in drowsy weather.
Sleepy eyelids, sliding down
to Main & Dow Street. Watch me hover
along the margins.
These last 4 months of quiet aching
engraved in me come roaring out now.
Autumn streets stay silent.
And Kendrick Park
has whispered low
in bashful rustling;
I climb the boardwalk,
my thoughts are gilded,
responding slowly.
The breeze abates,
it's halfway warm.
Bellevue & Lewis
I am a statue;
smooth, cold marble,
still in November.
And, soon, the Summer comes with angry glares.
And, soon, this stony face will disappear.
These months will always linger in me.
Does my ghost haunt this place already?
I'll return here every Autumn when
October signs off on the Summer's death.
And I'll be tracing all your features with
forgotten footsteps' ancient hieroglyphs...
Aug 25, 2015
Aug 25, 2015 at 12:54 PM UTC
I still get my news from my hometown.
And I do not respond to my new friends.
And I cursed November when he came.
And I told myself my existence was feeble.
And I got all the movie quotes wrong.
And I was coughing all the **** time, craggy inhales and spittle in my tea.
They were all phonies then.
Except the boy
I met who
ended every sentence with
"I don't really know,"
so
everything he said could be true.
And I was running all the time in my sleep, then.
And ******* too.
And the same boy was always in my dreams - but not the right boy - the boy who was important to me only ever in sleep.
But dreams seemed important then, too.
Oh, I remember!
5 a.m.
when I yanked you out of bed, come, I am going
MAD!
(you were going mad, too,
just last week.)
The fog was not rising at all
chain smoking in respect to my lungs
and their strike on air
my strike on a way of living whose sole purpose was
to stay alive longer
what's all the yap about?
I was not sure I wanted to live
you kept on talking about dogs.
I do not want to live
you started talking about cars!
I have death in my fingertips, you fool!
You supposed heaven was real
and I thought over what I had heard:
heaven is all around us
(yes, we were in a cloud.)
And I supposed you were right
but I kept silent,
I could not put my world on you
and its godlessness.
There was a green flashing light
on the other side of Cincinnati
but you did not understand that reference yet.
But we counted all the
churches and rainy cars
They couldn't grasp at God either.
Godlessness!
it will make us all mad, then.
but it was science who spelt of protons and electrons;
and when I am GOOD
he shows me his twisted, gnarled little black heart.
and when he, angelic, comes--
I am the Darkness.
We supposed this was how God talks, anyways.
And the sun curled up again
we drank coffee
in bad lighting
over silence
the insanity
soggy waffles
night shakes leaving me and...
It took you hours to respond!
Grappling with insanity for hours!
the kinds in wavelengths
static
feeble
hours
glowering hunched electric clock in the corner
cracked windows
pane
I could not stop thinking over forgiveness
and if I forgave my father for forgetting my birthday
nine years ago
so mundane.
And if it mattered anymore
And if I forgave God
And if I would ever apologize to Him
there was a green flashing light in my baptismal basin, too.
I do not call myself Gatsby anymore.
Dec 8, 2013
Dec 8, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
In early winter
River grey and freighters few
The ducks and I wait
May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010 at 9:04 AM UTC
He spoke of God
In a lucid whisper,
Probing questions rolling
Off his manic tongue
Like the crunching wheels of a train
Well-rehearsed in the verses
Of the Good Book,
And the third rail...
Having failed shock therapy
And the system,
He rambles in public spaces,
Eyes glazed by the passionate brush
Of a missionary
Who missed his calling...
By a manic mile...
As he smiles
On the corner of Bliss
And Insanity...
Switching seamlessly
From:
Probing preacher
To:
Choir teacher
To:
Sister Hillary...
The hand-waving,
Foot-stomping sister Hillary
From a baptist chapel near you...
Watch this,
Dear commuters,
On the 5 to 9 patrol...
This train runs Express
From Hopeville to Reality,
Local to Utopia,
And derails at Bellevue...
This probing preacher/
*** choir teacher/
*** foot-stomping sister,
Rambling on the corner of Bliss
And Insanity...
Could be you!
~ Pablo
(#TheThirdRail)
2/22/2014
Feb 22, 2014
Feb 22, 2014 at 10:32 AM UTC
I watched the morning newscast
and found my mind straining to
get out.
Out into a widening desert,
sky open and black above save for
the piercing light of billions of stars
like holes in a living room curtain.
You can call me crazy for it,
but I thought I saw Ginsberg
looking at me through the window
with a sunflower behind his ear.
In fact, I'm almost certain this was anything but an hallucination as my cat pounced at the window
(she never liked my poems either, Allen)
and startled me back into reality.
The television, right, the newscast.
Nuclear bombs and
tariffs on Mexican goods and
oh look, the president is playing golf with the Queen.
I turned it off when I saw he hit a bogey,
parted the curtains, and thought, "That's it, I'm pleading insanity. See you in Bellevue, Allen."
Jun 5, 2019
Jun 5, 2019 at 6:46 AM UTC
It was windy that night, all those questioned agreed,
when the woman was struck by some falling debris.
It was here on West 12th Street,at the corner of Seventh,
by the condo they’re building on the site of Saint Vincent’s.
A section of plywood had chanced to fall,
driving “Tina” Nguyen head first into a wall.
She fell to the pavement and she struck her head.
They rushed her to Bellevue, but she was already dead.
Was it chance? Was it fate? Was it some Divine plan?
Her death was so random, so hard to understand.
We walk these same streets, so I think you’ll agree
It could have been you. It might have been me.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 8:27 AM UTC
I open my sliding door and leave my inhibitions scattered on my bedroom floor.
Up the flight of stairs, I take a seat on the edge of the roof facing the city.
It’s cold.
And if it wasn’t for this cigarette I’d be inside staring at my phone.
I count the lights on six six west bellevue place,
A building I loved but never been in.
I like smoking in the cold because I can never tell whats my breath and which is the smoke.
I look up at the deep blue sky and count stars of crystal white.
I tap my cigarette over the edge of the roof and watch as the flakes of ash meet its snowy doom.
I can hear the people below,
And the loud music coming from my room.
I see clouds of smoke,
And try to make a tune out of the car honks.
I pinch the cherry of my cigarette and hear it sizzle in the snow.
I take a look at my favorite building, smell the burning firewood, and feel the cold seek refuge in the warmth of my body before tossing this left over tobacco in an empty bottle of red wine, i call an ashtray.
Back in the warmth of my room,
In bed and curled,
I think about how if it wasn’t for that cigarette,
i wouldn’t see the world.
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 2:56 AM UTC
The morning, good; the morning, relentless—she tip-toes
out the front door in her ex-husband's brown patent leather shoes.
Outside. Walking again. On her own two feet but not in her own
two shoes. It's a Monday. It's an autumn. It's a neighborhood
with tricycles strewn in front lawns, with spent confetti in the
gutters, with Japanese trees, with Greek columns, with the reliable
sound of the working class commute in the distance. The shoes, four sizes too big, nearly slip as she half saunters, half staggers on
her way to the bakery on Bellevue. She's hungry for predetermined conversation, an exchange between a patron and a cashier. There's a young boy playing with a water hose. He waves enthusiastically. She matches it with a wave of her own as she passes by. The boy turns away, runs toward his home. She feels self-conscious and there's something in the pocket of her ex-husbands linen suit jacket, a bottle of cologne.
The door chimes as she walks into the bakery. The cashier says good morning before looking at her. The cashier's eyes quickly scan her and dart away. She's a child in her ex-husbands clothes. She orders a coffee. She asks for a Splenda packet. "I like my coffee like I like my women," she says. "Hot and artificially sweet." Pity laugh. Nervous laugh, maybe. It's not even her joke. He tells her the price. She hands him the money. Thank you. No, thank you.
She sits alone by a window. She's an alien doing normal people things. She's tired and whatever spark got her out the door may not get her home. A man seated at the table behind her sneezes once, twice, three times.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I think I'm allergic to your perfume."
"Me too," she says.
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 12:54 PM UTC
"
GOD ................... (?)
( everybody knows ! )
quit pretendin yer stupid !
)(
QUESTION
-----------
is dropping acid at midnight in New York City
The only cure for insanity ?
)(
Send your answers to
Bellevue mental hospital
New York City
••
•••
•
She took
All her charm and personality
TO THE BANK !
where she now has in deposit
2 dollars and 38 cents !
( such is the
American Dream )
"""
If it
AIN'T OVER
TILL
-----ALL-----
THE FAT LADIES SING
IT AIN'T NEVER
GONNNA BE OVER !
//
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 10:13 PM UTC
There must be someway out of here
said the patient to the shrink.
I can write a script for ******
that might help you think.
Give me your magic I said
maybe I'll find another door.
Don't be in such a hurry
just be grateful for the floor.
I'll need to see you often
you're in a fragile mind.
I'll write your script forever
as long as you stay blind.
Jun 2, 2021
Jun 2, 2021 at 10:16 PM UTC
The aptly named place Bellevue
At the time of writing contains
Eleven beating hearts
Nine, discounting my own
And that of a canine
Three, gaze out to where clouds meet
Peaks in a conspiring huddle
One, seated, inhales her clouds
Burning down from peak to basecamp
One ignores a dog with clear attachment issues
Two stroll in tandem, occasionally comparing screens
Two have wandered off in a
Calculated effort to avoid the
nosy parker on the next bench
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 6:14 AM UTC
There must be someway out of here
said the patient to the shrink.
I can write a script for ******
that might help you think.
Give me your magic I said
maybe I'll find another door.
Don't be in such a hurry
just be grateful for the floor.
I'll need to see you often
you're in a fragile mind.
I'll write your script forever
as long as you stay blind.
Jun 2, 2021
Jun 2, 2021 at 9:34 PM UTC