The first time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at Granny's Kitchen in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The waitress, a soft spoken white woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, had just dropped off my plates --- a simple mix of scrambled eggs, two pieces of greasy bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. Now, no matter how cheap, I always feel like I'm cutting loose at breakfast places for the sheer abundance of plates. While I'm sure the eggs and bacon could have shared real estate, each component had its own china.

The waitress lingered at my table, her fingers fidgeting with straws in her apron. I made eye contact. Well, my eyes contacted hers; she was staring at my lips.

Sure I can't get you something to drink? she asked.

This was approximately the tenth time she'd made sure. She was uncomfortable that I had supplied my own beverage -- a Big Gulp. But even more than that, she was uncomfortable by the deep red stain taking over my lips. Contents of the Big Gulp: merlot, boxed.

(That is an unnecessary detail. I've only written it so I never do it again.)

Before Greg hopped up on a table and announced to the restaurant, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, blah, blah blah, I poured a copious amount of syrup on my pancakes. Then I moved the bacon to my pancake plate. In my experience, very little in this life is better than syrup on bacon.

I shut my eyes for that first bite, just like the commercials. The syrup dribbled a bit onto my beard, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered it had also landed on my shirt. I grabbed a napkin. Heard a chair slide backwards. I started with my beard, peering around the diner, making sure no one saw. I think I heard someone gasp. But I was busy, working that napkin then against my shirt. Jesus, I thought. My grandma, who's got a splash of the Parkinson's, could eat with more grace.

If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, a very official voice boomed behind me.

I turned around to see if I recognized him as one of those cuffed jean-sporting, wild plaid-loving NPR hosts. He wasn't one of those. He was a sunburn with mop hair in a black tank top and hemmed jean shorts. He did, however, have a cleft chin. That's actually worth noting. Don't see a lot of them these days.

I know you guys are busy, he said. I know that like me, you guys are probably broke as hell. I mean no offense Granny's, I love this place, but it ain't exactly four stars. Or three. Anyway, all I want from each of you is five dollars. If you ain't got five, give me four. Ain't got four, three. And so on.

He started with the stringy Japanese couple on the west side of the restaurant. Nobody really seemed scared, not the freckled brat in canvas sneakers, not the liver-spotted gentleman with a copy of that day's paper.

My old friend Jerome used to say that white folks are the only romantic criminals. He tacked it up to that whole Bonnie and Clyde crap. Greg, it seemed, was privy to that information, too. He smiled and thanked each person as he robbed them of a few presidents. The victims, smiling back, seemed to be thinking of their names tagged at the end of some newspaper dialogue. A few even gave more than he asked.

Here, take fifteen. Times will get better.

Aren't you just a charmer.

It was all very moving.

So he gets to me, and of course, I don't have any cash. I carry a debit and an arsenal of credit cards like a normal American. I don't know how he made it to me before running into this particular problem.

No, I don't have one of those iPhone card swipers, he said. Well, you gotta give me something.

I offered a gift card to Harold's Clothes for Men, it had like two bucks on it, but he wasn't interested.

What's your name?

Henry.

How much do you weigh?

Enough to keep me prohibited from most amusement park rides.

I like you, Henry. Well, let me ask you something. Have you ever loved a man? he asked, pointing his smudgy revolver just past my ear.

I shook my head no.

Me neither. I've always been curious, though. You been curious?

There was a time when I was thirteen -- Blake Hinton was changing after basketball practice -- and I remember thinking, that is an incredible chest. These lines just sprawled from his sternum, lines leading to these almond *******, and I specifically remember wanting to eat them like, well, almonds. But that hardly counts as curious. So, I said, No.

To which Greg responded: Get curious, boy. You're coming with me.


In the spirit of honesty, I was in a bit of a haze before Greg made me climb into his beat up Cavalier. Not just from the Big Gulp brimmed with merlot, no, I hadn't slept in two days prior to the whole gun-in-face incident. Reason being, I was, as Greg would say, broke as hell, and the rent was due. I stayed up both nights conspiring (and drinking). So, really I was pretty thrilled to be kidnapped away from the whole situation.

I had visions. I guess from the lack of sleep. Maybe they weren't visions, maybe just dreams, or fever dreams, I don't know. All I know is I blinked, and we were in the Appalachians. And there was a grey longbeard in the backseat rattling on and on about how change is easy, movement is easy; it's that whole nesting thing that takes courage and strength, blah, blah, blah. I told him to be quiet. Greg told me to get some sleep. I blinked.

We were in a karaoke bar in Madison, Tennessee. There was a gin and tonic in front of me. I took a drink. There was a water with lime in front of me.

Greg asked, Where did you go?

I told him, your dreams, trying to be cute. He turned and asked the bartender for a Yeager bomb. Reaching for the server in -- granted -- an overly dramatic gesture, I said, Make it two. We made it three. We made it four. Seven. Then some vague, but perfect number, because my head rang right. The words came right. And I was a journalist, asking Greg all the right questions.

I'm not a criminal, he said.

I was just bored, man, he said.

You see, I was in a rut, he said. Last month I put up a personal on Craigslist. I know, it's pretty ******* desperate. I've read the kind **** people put on there. But mine was different. I just wanted some time with my ex-wife. Some couch ***, you know? We hadn't done it on a couch since I dropped out of college, and I hadn't even really thought about it until a couple weeks after the divorce. Then it was all I could think about.

A black woman, whose teeth glowed under the black light, began singing "Wild Horses." Then he read my mind, I think.

Yeah, she answered it. Did our thing on her sofa. It was nice and all, and like all nice things, you just want more, but she said I couldn't have no more, this was a fluke, a one-time, or no, a one-off thing, she said. Had to relocate, so that's why I did that whole thing at Granny's.

You ever get it on a couch? he asked.

No, I said. I've see a bra though --- two actually.

He took that as a joke, which was good.

Though wild horses couldn't drag me away, a gasoline horse could.


He handed me a courtesy breath mint after I finished throwing up. The Nashville skyline looks perfect, he said. Especially at night.

My stomach was gravel in a washing machine. Masculine love. At gunpoint, I had agreed to indulge it. I was going to make love to a man -- not just a man -- a criminal. Not something to write about on a postcard.

Mr. Winters, my esteemed landlord,
Apologies about the rent. Got kidnapped by a *******, and I'm presently banging and being banged by him in Music City, USA.

I blinked.

We laid on opposite ends of the queen-sized mattress.

I always liked Super 8s, Greg said. I don't see the point in spending so much on a hotel. A bed is a bed.

And I tried to be funny with something about the confidentiality of dark bedsheets, but it fell flat.

Greg cried. I love my ex-wife, he said.

Can I help?

Will you hold me? he asked.

The air conditioner kicked on in the already freezing room.

I'm sorry. You don't have to, he said.

I scooted against him. He smelled pleasant in a family-vacation-kind-of-way, like a fresh pretzel covered in salt. I put my arm under his neck. He buried his face into my shoulder. I blinked.


The front end of his Cavalier was held together with copper wire and coat hangers. It was a two-door. Both doors dented from, according to Greg, hit-and-runs. It had a Vermont plate on the back. It was red. I mention all of this to say: if we kept moving, we were bound to get pulled over.

In the parking lot of 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer, Greg asked me to retrieve his revolver from the glove compartment. You kinda have to uppercut it, he said. And I did.

I don't want to do it again, but we have to. I'm not staying put, not until I hit the ocean. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt anyone.

He showed me the revolver. No bullets. I nodded, in approval, I guess.


The second time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer in Bellevue, Tennessee. Of course, it was the same man, Greg, but the circumstances were a little different.

I went with two orders of biscuits and gravy --- or B & G as my dear friend Chance affectionately calls it. Four bites in and I'd yet to hit biscuit. For a moment, I wanted to tell Greg, C'mon man, ***** the ocean. Tennessee does gravy the way God intended. Nobody would find us in this suburb. We could be sharecroppers. Do they still have sharecroppers?

Do you like fresh corn? I asked. It was the first crop that came to mind.

Greg didn't answer. I noticed his plate of hash browns and eggs -- sunny-side up -- were untouched. You okay?

He was, he said, trying to get in the zone, that's all.

Alright.

Our waitress looked like a poster child for ******'s Youth. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen. She had blonde -- almost white -- hair. Her eyes changed color with the intensity and direction of light, a gradient between seaweed and dark ocean blue. She appeared to be an amish girl gone defective, and I was about to inquire into that very supposition when Greg stood on the table, and said, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second.

Tennessee is not North Carolina. In North Carolina, they got a healthy aversion to firearms. In Tennessee, however, once a babe can walk, the *******'s got a BB gun and an endless supply of empty soda cans for target practice. I say that, to say this: when Greg stood on the table, so did three other men. Their three guns pointed right at him.

Lower that gun, brother. You ain't gettin' any money out of us.

Hate to shoot you in front of your boyfriend.

Coffee spilled and ran off the tray our waitress held. She shook so hard, it wasn't clear how many women she was.

Greg's cleft chin centered on one gunman, than the other, than the other.

Just drop the gun, *******.

We don't want to ruin no one's breakfast.

Fellas, I said, he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We need a little money that's all.

That ****** is just trying to protect him.

I'm calling the cops, a purple-haired old woman yelped from under her table. Silverware clanged against the floor. Then the buzz of a fly. Then the pop of fries drowning in grease. Then the bell chimed as some idiot walked inside.

Greg's arm was shaky as he pointed the gun at me. Do you love me? he asked.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I put my arms up. Slid my chair back a ways. Stepped on the chair, then unto the table.

Do you love me? Greg asked.

His breath smelled like last night's alcohol and that morning's coffee. He was a child, a sunburnt child with a cap gun. He wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I put my hand on top of the revolver and lowered it. He crumpled, as if I were scolding him. They still pointed their guns at us. But for the first time in my life, I felt secured, tethered to a space.

I lifted Greg's chin up with my index finger. Covered his eyes with the palm of my hand. And I kissed him. I kissed him, keeping my eyes closed tight.

For
              Carl Solomon

                   I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
      madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the ***** streets at dawn
      looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
      connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
      ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
      up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
      cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
      contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
      saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene-
      ment roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
      hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
      among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
      publishing obscene odes on the windows of the
      skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn-
      ing their money in wastebaskets and listening
      to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their ***** beards returning through
      Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
      Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
      torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al-
      cohol and **** and endless *****,
incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and
      lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of
      Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the mo-
      tionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery
      dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops,
      storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon
      blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree
      vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brook-
      lyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless
      ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine
      until the noise of wheels and children brought
      them down shuddering mouth-wracked and
      battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance
      in the drear light of Zoo,
who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's
      floated out and sat through the stale beer after
      noon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack
      of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,
who talked continuously seventy hours from park to
      pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook-
      lyn Bridge,
lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping
      down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills
      off Empire State out of the moon,
yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts
      and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks
      and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days
      and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the
      Synagogue cast on the pavement,
who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a
      trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic
      City Hall,
suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grind-
      ings and migraines of China under junk-with-
      drawal in Newark's bleak furnished room,
who wandered around and around at midnight in the
      railroad yard wondering where to go, and went,
      leaving no broken hearts,
who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing
      through snow toward lonesome farms in grand-
      father night,
who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep-
      athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in-
      stinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking vis-
      ionary indian angels who were visionary indian
      angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore
      gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Okla-
      homa on the impulse of winter midnight street
      light smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston
      seeking jazz or *** or soup, and followed the
      brilliant Spaniard to converse about America
      and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship
      to Africa,
who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving
      behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees
      and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fire
      place Chicago,
who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the
      F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist
      eyes **** in their dark skin passing out incom-
      prehensible leaflets,
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting
      the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union
      Square weeping and ******* while the sirens
      of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed
      down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also
      wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked
      and trembling before the machinery of other
      skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight
      in policecars for committing no crime but their
      own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were
      dragged off the roof waving genitals and manu-
      scripts,
who let themselves be ****** in the *** by saintly
      motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,
      the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean
      love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose
      gardens and the grass of public parks and
      cemeteries scattering their ***** freely to
      whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up
      with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath
      when the blond & naked angel came to pierce
      them with a sword,
who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate
      the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar
      the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb
      and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but
      sit on her *** and snip the intellectual golden
      threads of the craftsman's loom,
who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of
      beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a can-
      dle and fell off the bed, and continued along
      the floor and down the hall and ended fainting
      on the wall with a vision of ultimate **** and
      come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,
who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling
      in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning
      but prepared to sweeten the ****** of the sun
      rise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked
      in the lake,
who went out ******* through Colorado in myriad
      stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these
      poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver--joy
      to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls
      in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses'
      rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with
      gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely pet-
      ticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station
      solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,
who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in
      dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and
      picked themselves up out of basements hung
      over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third
      Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemploy-
      ment offices,
who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on
      the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the
      East River to open to a room full of steamheat
      and *****,
who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment
      cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime
      blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall
      be crowned with laurel in oblivion,
who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested
      the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of
      Bowery,
who wept at the romance of the streets with their
      pushcarts full of onions and bad music,
who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the
      bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in
      their lofts,
who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned
      with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded
      by orange crates of theology,
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty
      incantations which in the yellow morning were
      stanzas of gibberish,
who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht
      & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable
      kingdom,
who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for
      an egg,
who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot
      for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks
      fell on their heads every day for the next decade,
who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccess-
      fully, gave up and were forced to open antique
      stores where they thought they were growing
      old and cried,
who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits
      on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse
      & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments
      of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the
      fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinis-
      ter intelligent editors, or were run down by the
      drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,
who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually hap-
      pened and walked away unknown and forgotten
      into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley
      ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,
who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of
      the subway window, jumped in the filthy Pas-
      saic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street,
      danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed
      phonograph records of nostalgic European
      1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and
      threw up groaning into the ****** toilet, moans
      in their ears and the blast of colossal steam
      whistles,
who barreled down the highways of the past journeying
      to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude
      watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,
who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out
      if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had
      a vision to find out Eternity,
who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who
      came back to Denver & waited in vain, who
      watched over Denver & brooded & loned in
      Denver and finally went away to find out the
      Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,
who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying
      for each other's salvation and light and *******,
      until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for
      impossible criminals with golden heads and the
      charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet
      blues to Alcatraz,
who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky
   &nb

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.

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-****

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.

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

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

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.

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

"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

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...

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

For Carl Solomon

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the ***** streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who got busted in their ***** beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and **** and endless *****, incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between, Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox, who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon, yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement, who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall, suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room, who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts, who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars boxcars 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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.

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."

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.

Adam, beauty of my splendours’ wake
Adam, gorgeous of my woman's make
Like blended incense of a skilled perfumer-longer lasting
Precious is your every moment’s memory-forever fascinating

Sweet like honey dripping with tastes
Exulting like melodic music to banquet
Exalting as glory of saints sequences
Fragrant like blossoms-blooms to bouquet
You are awesome, Adam, my handsome!

Betwixt your endearing arms embrace
There is no other kingly palace-
In the world, better than being in this place
You are mine ever, fortified fortress!

Your arms enclosures are posh and precious-what a delightful pleasure!
Than all the Royal Palaces in the world- the Palace of Pena,
The Buckingham, the Bellevue, the Palace of Versailles…..
You are my refuge, my strength, within you I am at peace!

Your hugs and kisses are the safest and secure citadel, château!
More than the newly built castle-Castle In Love with the Wind, Conwy Castle
The Château de Chambord or the worldly Windsor Castle, the Edinburgh Castle
Better than the Neuschwanstein or the Alcazar or the Culzean Castle  

On your pleasured chest
What more luxury lusciously nest?
Than this peacefully plumed softs on to rest
On yours is a cozy quilt pillow-purest!  

Adam, I adore you, you are the one for me and I am the one for you!
Like you are never any and if any there are not many but only of you a few
Adam, my strong man, your body is like the vigour of a youthful river flow
Shaped and chiseled finely like Archangel Michael’s-without any a flaw  
Your stamina is of a stallion, raised for the royal loyal knights, princes and kings

You eyes, they burns with allure like summer suns, with calmness and warmth
Your looks alone, burns my cold skin with a warm tenderness and a happy healing health
With you, again, my under skins shivers, vibrates with a new chill feel of elated lively wealth
You build stars for me even when my sky is a sorrowful sea of melancholy and misery

Adam, look at how you build-fascinating, amongst the pride of your elites
Like a cherub injected with alchemies of never getting old but growing younger
Straight and tall you stand-dominant before me conquered, deeply rooted as Lebanon’s cedars
And when me you touch gently o-ooh! It is with soft so tender as river lilies sacred splendours
Adam, you are killing me, skinning me while still I am living, let me first die for you!  

Let me feel your loving lips digging deep into mines meager burning complete even my heart  
Let me first touch those sinews and serrations all over your graceful figurine  
Let me first prostrate, adore you-my king and knight, my warrior and worship!  
Let me fancy you muscle man, a delighting idol of your deity’s outline
Let me a little look in those starry eyes of yours and see my fragility safe in their security

Let me feathery feel weighed in those toddler’s sways and swings of your swift palms lifts
You arms strength drawing all my energies faint, as it goes round my wasp’s waist  
Then you can slay and slice me-**** me subjugated into a humble defeat before you
In whatever way you want and feel best, I am capitulated-your captured and conquered queen!

Adam, before you, you are the coveted master and I am your surrendered slave
Besides you let me leafy feel, little and small dancing on your burly biceps
And my brittle petite bottoms sit safe on top of your large ****’s laps
For you alone are my glorious king-Adam, you send me deep into my craving grave
Stretch and save me from the abyss of my trepidations and temptations-I want you, for good!

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.

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.

They knew that the voices told me what to do
so they punished me and
threw away the key,

the voices had already let me know that
I should go and willingly
to Bellevue Chase Infirmary

and that's the way to work the charm
a couple of voices
a bit of self harm
an addiction or two.

I told them
they knew
because they
have to be right
so we spin them a yarn
which makes a bed for the night.

Then a titch of therapy
let them see
you see what's wrong
and before too long
they let you free

see
I knew they never threw away the key.

You'll have to forgive me...
Or not !?!
Its up to you.
I guess it's my sorta ,
Pre apology,
For ...... Normality ....
In reality is a relative term
Encompassing innumerable
Shades and hues  
Within an endless ever expanding spectrum
In a constant state of flux......
Like modeling tuxedos in Bellevue ,
Seen on tv,
Then caught yourself on fire
Working two pairs of nunchucks
Drunk on you're parents patio
Cause their friends wanted a show.   ?
Next day did a bachelorette party
Got attacked by two cougars...
And held down while the rest of the pack did tequila shots off me...
Ok    that  was actually a good night .....
Weird ..... But good .  
Anyways I guess what I'm trying to say is
This....
You are a star
You are far more and greater than even you can imagine you are ..
Never let anyone tell you what or who you are ....
Don't accept the limits people try to put on you...
You be you ....
Catfish? (That's an attempt at humour... Gaaabeesh?
Er... Gabish .... Uhm capisce?)
K **** it so I'm not funny
..... Heh heh ... Ahhhh  uuh emm
I know you ....
People are so hung up and jealous  ...
They can't see" you" the way you do ,
Not the real you!
Because the ones who do.......
are small compared to you .
And so they will be-little you.
to make themselves look better than you..
Don't trip on haters who run under you. k?
You are bigger than that.
Right ?
You are not bitter you are better.
They will look like the fool
Be cool !be you !
The magic is in you
You know it's true
The only limits
Can only be set and broke by
.. you!

kandis never raised her little girl voice
and was such a good person,
she had no use for evil people
who spoke their minds
kandis was so good, she didn't have unkind
words to say about ed murray

so good in fact, that she once escorted someone
out of a bar in bellevue, wa for talking about
what a ******* ed murray was and still is to this day
kandis did NOT want the world to be polluted by people
who called child rapists pieces of ****

eric didn't like his right arm or his left leg,
he would weep quietly into his lonely pillow
at night until the day kandis softly encouraged
him to cut off both

eric felt a sense of relief wash over him
when kandis suggested that,
so he proceeded to have his right arm amputated at the shoulder
and his left leg amputated mid-thigh

this did nothing to make eric feel whole,
when he confided in kandis that the amputation
had done nothing to relieve him of disphoria,

kandis would have none of it
and softly encouraged him to cut off his left arm
and his right leg,

which eric proceeded to do.

eric lies in bed with two nubs where his arms used to be
and two stumps where his legs used to be
each nub and each stub are beginning to rot,
blackly rot,
but he receives a lot of validation on twitter
because there are such good people in this world
and aren't you one of them?