A lifetime ago, I was younger like you,
before my dreams faded and life was still new.
I wish I knew then, all that I know now,
I wanted our life but didn’t know how.
I settled for less and tried the right things,
and cashed in my soul for all that it brings.
I’ve made my mistakes, like others before,
forgiveness more fleeting, ‘til you closed the door.
Waiting for answers, I went into shock,
you left me no choice but to turn back the clock.
I walk this new path while finding myself,
forgetting our past is best for my health.
As I move along, a decade removed,
my body more fit now to go with my mood.
I realize by now we could have had more,
alone I will see what life has in store.
I so miss the comfort of you every night,
kindness from others, brings love at first sight.
Each new encounter, just gives me a shove,
reminding myself not to fall back in love.
When, where and who will be the right one?
I’ve so much to give, just let it be done.
I may never take them, to become my wife,
but I need embraces to sustain my life.
Addiction exists with drugs and affection,
I’m itching for love at each intersection.
How long must I wait to rip out the sutures?
Pleasure Delayer, indefinite future.

Fros-ty the Snowman
had a twin brother named Lou
He got hit by a truck,
and we said "What the ****?",
and "You should totally sue!"

Before-he could call a lawyer
along came a snow plow
it mixed him up,
with yellow snowman guts
and he got snowman AIDS and gout

The ne-xt day, Lou died
but he left an inheritance check
Frosty sued the man,
and took all he had,
then he cashed in both of the checks

Fros-ty moved up north
Alaska is where he's livin'
where he got buck wild,
and had a child,
that he fathered with Sarah Palin

Fros-ty the Snowman
had a twin brother named Lou
who brought about fame
to the family name
in Time and US Weekly too!!!

We enter the church and immediately
have to push through two dozen sobbing Italian women
dabbing dry eyes; their tissues only show
black and multi-colored smears. Amid the echoing
“Oh my Goawd”s, they lean down and kiss my sister’s cheeks,
but even in my best black cap sleeves, I am the taboo
to my cousin Janet, a woman as barren as the stone lot
in between her husband’s restaurant and Deihl’s Autoshop.

We find an empty pew, and watch as the men
stride down the aisle, contestants
in a cultural Miss America pageant where the wrong answer
gets you whacked. Their heavy brows
sink in condolence as they hand over stacks of bills,
every hundred becoming a pity penny
for all the moments Janet lost in her luxury-life
made shiny by diamonds and cars and fur coats
which can’t be cashed in for a second chance at a family.

The men have paid for the food, the china, the band
in the corner meant to fill the space of sadness—
a reminder that we live a lavish life.
My sister shifts in her seat and as a man walks
by she touches his jacket, and gasps.
He’s a god.

The other night
I spent all of my tears & paid all my prayers,
I had hoped it would end it all.

My pillows
cashed in the huge streaming check
from every drop my eyes spilled.
My blanket held me down
while both thought took turns
throwing hard punches & kicks
at every square-inch on my body.

Then
my bones crunched
with every attempt
to fully drain the hope-
-ful air in my lungs.
I could only lay there.
Twitching out breathless cries,
rubbing blood out of my eyes
& taking it all in for the whole night.

The following day
I brought these thugs to work  
but no one else seemed to notice.
My doctor tried to numb me with pills,
& I must admit
although they did work at giving it all the cold shoulder,
it didn't take long
before I struggled to use my shoulder
With their knives & spears steaked into my skin.

Every night now, I sleep to their stories
& their bullying,
eyes-wide,
cut-throat,
focused on breathing all night.
I thought I could fake my way through it all
but now
these noices have started making sense
& I
don't know why I'm breathing anymore.

First what I learned about business at six years old my sister and cousin were out in the pasture behind the house on Jefferson St
We were this messing around and we found these turnips in a line in these little piles with weeds piled on top they were covered
With little flakes of ice very cold on bare fingers we weren’t deterred before long the little red wagon was bulging or this was
The sales and delivery truck so now let’s find some customers so off we went door to door people were pleased and we did a crisp
Business success came to fast we were up at Beno’s little standard gas station spending our windfall so back to work well
Got back to the house and then I thought man uncle Fred was living in the office now defunct after the green house went down
We all have old uncles how sweet fun loving knee slapping koots hold on big sale straight ahead so I knocked on the door the door
Opens wide prospective customer is ready to be sold uncle Fred would you like to buy some turnips then it happened right above his
Collar red started to rise it was surprising to say the least it seemed like right then was when the ping pong game started in my mind it would
Bounce back and forth front to back one side was thinking this is wild then hey this looks like a thermometer how is he doing that
Then as it kept going to his full white head of hair one part of the Childs brain is it going to catch on fire about then the top of his head
Didn’t blow off the only place available came to life this great roar emits from his mouth if this was a peanuts comic strip our
Hair would all be blown straight back I also didn’t know he had been a sailor and I thought he had me confused with someone else I
Heard that happens to older folks he spoke as though he thought we had a hearing problem then the mistake he said you sons a b——-
No I’m Lavern’s boy your sisters daughter he said what were you doing in my turnips back to the back part of the brain I was thinking
Thank God we already cashed out our profits butter fingers baby Ruth’s bubble gum and all the other candy was all I was thinking
Well and how to go out of business gracefully mostly in a hurry how fast can you get a wagon in motion going the other direction
maybe it was me but from then on he looked like he looked on us with a birds eye and we were worms to tell the truth I’m still not a
Great fan of turnips later I learned the line cussing like a sailor I thought he must have really sailed long and hard.

How come your brain doesn’t have a red flashing light when you’re going to do something stupid Halloween night eight years old?
Costume or lack of one go out as Minnie pearl straw hat corn cob pipe and dress the late October wind was alive to say the least
Legs so use to cover and warmth now pop cycles so high then the thrill of cold wind whipping up you rear what to do slap your legs
Together that only would help the inside cross your legs then you couldn’t walk only thing left grin and bear it what else could go
Wrong walk up to the door the guy whips the light on why couldn’t a lady have come to the door an old lady so it’s show time for
Effect I **** on the pipe one problem the idiot who made the pipe didn’t clean out the dust when he drilled the well part of the pipe
No problem I cleaned it out the tongue barely felt it the throat got the whole load so for the next three minutes I choked gagged spit
All Over the guys yard he was quiet amused it seems later I found a piece of paper that said inspected by number fifty four I wanted to
Write a letter dear fifty four but I didn’t have any other address and I was to small any way so frozen somewhere from the middle of
My shorts down half strangled I hate Halloween.
Almost childhood
The Jefferson gang went to the lake to camp out we were in this hideaway deserted spot off the main lake at the end of a slough
It was as black as the end side of a barrel and cranes are almost extinct well why this one had to stay alive at our camp site
It would fly over the water right at you then make this terrifying sound it was like a white specter a ghostly sight and it just kept doing
It well what do the brave do I can’t speak for them but I can speak for five spooked cowards we all jumped into a pup tent for two all
Of us were armed with shotguns all I know is if a farmers bull or cow walked up and mooed it would have been cow dunnie everywhere
A tent hanging in tatters and all of us chocking from gun powder at close quarters and deaf somehow we ****** up our guts and went
To bed it was five thirty in the morning it was nice and cold but I had pants on I was down at the edge of the water the mist was over
The water and then the biggest boom it was like a farmer had been blowing out a stump with dynamite and forgot the last stick or it
Was the crack of doom maybe it was I whirled around and there was Jesus standing right in front of the camp fire his Indian blanket
Held straight out with both arms I heard how he turned water into wine but he turned our campsite into chef Boyardee spaghetti
Factory well at least Charlie Cole did he came late into the camp out idea he wasn’t there when we were told to punch a hole in the
Can Before you throw it in the fire to heat it up he had scalding hot spaghetti on his face in his hair all over the tree limbs he continued
His Christ like imitation like he was amazed or in deep worship where ever he was he felt no pain maybe he was where the can went we
never did find it I hope no one was blown out of bed by the blast well it didn’t make the paper I guess all kinds of crap happens at the
lake.

Seduced
by the
school
shooter
singing
siren
songs
of
shotgun
blows
to the heart beat 
of the wet American dream.

It's the human interest
horror allegory
The hero doesn't even get
15 minutes

But the shadow has
got a gun fetish
Counting bullets as 
They're counting blessings,
numbered 1-27
3x his pump action 

Light 'em up
***** 'em out 

Some head-sick self-entitled 
monster in a mask
on a mission of mass destruction
Cashed in on their
little tax deductions

The most sacred snuffed out
before the light could become them

It's the darkness that dominates
As the dragon *******
Witch inside
The mind
displacing emotions
away from the art of 
living 
loving 
and losing

You're the submissive
Ascend the divine madness
or find yourself in shackles
in the machinery. 

Humming
hypnotizing
hymns 
of conformity 

Another one's lost his mind
Descended
And the scapegoat 
is mental illness

We all know, 
The media is the medium
is the message
The subliminal secret passage
to the shared skewed subconscious
Planting ideas of bloodshed
Like evidence in the 
Bodies of specific demographics 

Demonize
Pack the prisons

Capitalize
And cut the blood losses

Here we are now
Hopeless
It makes for great entertainment

At Bookshop Santa Cruz
I look at a book about the East Bay then and now
One picture strikes me: 1969 Sproul Plaza
Govener Ronald Reagan has the National Guard spray
tear gas on protesters on the steps of this Berkeley Administration Building
People run in black and white
they look like my parents
The helicopter is so close to the ground, like the Vietnam War

I was three
In the backseat of our VW Bug
My mother was driving me to Strawberry Canyon
for a swim
Then she got scared--something on the radio
We turned around
I didn't understand
She had to protect us from tear gas
We lived in a war zone
Everyone was very upset
We were attacked by our own government
Even children were fair game

An innocent frog is placed in water
If the water temperature is raised gradually
the frog will sit there until it dies

In 1980 Ronald Reagan became our President
Much to our dismay
"70% of pollution comes from trees" he had announced
as Governer, he was obviously a man of science

The vice grip clenched, the water temperature raised
as we felt around us the world becoming more
difficult as a middle class
we were supposed to wait for crumbs to fall
from the table of the rich folks
fighting over the bits like starving animals

Budgets were cut
Prices rose, wages fell or disappeared completely
We were at war

1985: I took a class in Economics in college, a UC
I learned that Supply Side Economics was
a silly idea written on a napkin at a fancy restaurant
where the fat ones eat
and the crumbs are thrown away

It was all a sham
An excuse
The vice grip tightened, the world became
more difficult
not the American Dream my parents grew up in
To be middle class was to struggle and struggle and still
not have anything

The frog began to die
Somehow we saw that
Reagan drifted away, but his ghost
remained, a respite in the 90's

Then we were at war again
Not just tear gas, but carpet bombing
Guerilla warfare in the streets of a hot arid country
Oil companies, already saturating our ground and our air with their products
Cashed in

The frog is near death
We struggle, and nothing gets better
Only a respite

At a fancy restaurant
on a napkin someone wrote
a new theory of Economics
that became like Scientology
Outgrew it's ridiculous inception
And became real

Ronald Reagan dropped tear gas
from helicopters on Sproul Plaza
and it drifted to Strawberry Canyon
where children learned to swim

But that is child's play now
the frog is about to die
I want to pull it out.

Blue Hill Avenue

It begins with Spanglish-speaking merchants
conducting business inside of bulletproof stalls,
where the faint scent of dried cod follows you
to the flat fix next door, into the auto body,
a hair shop, and to the steps of a church
for first generation Cape Verdean-Americans,
their offspring and that old lady --
someone’s  grandmother --
who wears a black dress on Fridays
and walks home from the Market Basket
the same time that you get off the bus
who wears a shopping bag full of tropical foods
and memories on her head.

And if you stand at its first **** south,
you will notice how the families disappear
in the African American section.
There are fewer stores here, lots of energy boxes
with epitaphs: “Tiffany Moore Died Here”;
a seatless swing set, a playground gone fallow.
You won’t see any church steeples in this section
that feeds on a neon CITGO sign too small
to illuminate the skyline like the mega one in Copley does.

A few blocks away, a ghost of the Jewish past sits
with pointy stars of David nestled inside its
bulbous steeples that simmer on summer Sundays
where Haitian congregants stew inside,
praying and giving to the building fund
in damp envelopes that will go to the omnipotent one
who will someday replace the stars with crosses.

And as you keep walking, past the temple,
you enter Grove Hall’s Mecca, a strip mall
with a drive-thru Dunkin Donuts,

a Stop & Shop, CVS, Bank of America,
and a Rainbows that sells your teenaged aunt
the sequined one-off shirt she needs for a date
and the fishnets she wears to the carnival
that parades through a sliver of the avenue,
the very next section of our beloved Blue Hill.

Across the street, Check Cashers speak English
as good as the number of dollars and cents
they count when they hand you back your cashed check
or the double win you scratched out of a Gold Rush ticket.

Adjacent to them, a Greek-owned sandwich shop
that feeds you steak bombs as long as your forearm or
Festive Fridays: 20 wing dings, a pound of fries,
a Greek salad, and a gracious gulp of fountain cola --
essentially, a heart-attack meal.  

Next, another ghost of the Jewish past,
a church in the former Franklin Park Theater,
where Yiddish entertainers performed vaudeville acts
which nobody living can remember.

Then a building that resembles an African footstool,
one that will allow you to see over the **** of the hill
and down below at a gospel choir trapped in everlasting song
against the wall of the one-hour cleaners and that store
where a turkey-shaped lady with flour dusted hands
stands behind a window, noticing you,
while guarding her beef patties and cocoa bread
with a bulletproof smile.

Love got drunk one day
And slipped away as quickly as it came.
Leaving impressions and marks and a ******* memory
Why did it have to do that?

He told me
Perhaps the brightest insight
To human history
Since Copernicus Said
Hey maybe
We’re not so important
That the world
(literally)
Revolves around us
But perhaps it is us
Who revolve around the world
(as it should be.)
What my Copernicus said was
Individualism
Is the single most sign
Of continual human progress.
That without it
We just become droids
Or peons
Or mindless beings
Without sentience
Without intelligence
Without the single most important vocabulary word
“Why?”

You can see why he intrigued me.

Ever-going quest to
Make love stay.
Slipping out of my suitcase
Man it was cramped in there
I looked up
And saw my name written in the sky.
*******.
Always finding new ways
To tell the world
What we are
And what we could be
If I cashed in my chips
And went all-in
For just one hand.

Tears came
Hanging ten on the edge of eyes
Refusing to fall
Uncertain of their plight
So they do what people do
When they are scared
And they freeze.

It crushed me to know
I’ve cashed in my chips
One too many times
He thought I’m incredible
When really
I’m un-credible.

Love didn’t stay.
It took the next flight to Vegas
To gamble some other poor soul’s life
Leaving me
To look up a nameless sky.

© 2009 (Jim Sularz)

Quiet mounds of yellowed tailings and dead weeds whisper low.
And proud rusting relics telling tales of striking gold.
The rush from East, from North and South, by wagon, train or foot.
Days not all that long ago, in tall ships made of wood.

“A gold rush struck in’49, all quite by accident.
A burning fever that cut men to bone, in a sea of dingy tents.
Day and night, they toiled and tolled, many headed home without a cent.
But some packed out bags of glistening gold, and made a stop at "Buzzard’s Breath."

"The town’s mud logged street, deep with horse manure, bubbled like a shallow grave.
With a Sheriff’s office, a livery stable, and a church for souls to save.
And a fancy house, on a grassy knoll – sign read, “Madam Lil la ****.”
With soft, curvaceous ladies who mined for hearts – and gold of a different sort.

Didn’t take long before easy gold, was extremely hard to find.
And burly miners, tough as steel, moved in to hard rock mine.
With bloodied knuckles, dented hats, they blasted at a furious pace.
To find the gold, called the Mother Lode, yellow blood coursing through their veins!

The mine they worked was called “Long Shot”, the men thought that name a curse.
But the miners hankered for the handle, "Buzzard’s Breath”, and the mine’s name was reversed.
As luck would say, they held a royal flush, when they hit that horse-wide vein.
Of the purest gold, yet to be found, this side of the Pearly Gates.

Eyes wide as saucers, they were all in awe, everyone was filthy rich.
The miners should have all retired and should have cashed in all their chips.
But a man’s hard to figure, when his blood is yellow, and he’s stricken with a gold fever.
“Eureka! Boys, *** the dynamite and a whole lot more mining timbers!”

They mined that vein to the bowels of the Earth, and the heat increased by day.
"Buzzard’s Breath" became the hottest place, to Hell – the shortest way.
And then one day, the men never came back. – Hell must have jumped that claim.
Of the purest gold, yet to be found – that’s where the Devil mines today!”

Quiet mounds of yellowed tailings and dead weeds whisper low.
And proud rusting relics telling tales of striking gold.
The rush from East, from North and South, died a slow and quiet death.
Along with days of tall wooden ships, and the ghosts of Buzzard’s Breath.

Her fourteen days $?..........&

And what? And I am losing
some attachments
And____
is this our way
We should say is this my end today
My salvation
(Losing) wed long train
of thought
(Religion)

One day before
She screams!!
Such finesse of refinement
We all fall down 
Like children
of the **** torment
Statues the transformation
so real
Carve the deal on the 13th

Like the Gal Friday
battle Tut
masked out the
Halloween taking
out their spleen

Statuette Tut of
the jurisdiction
The fourteen karat teen
gold doesn't put a hold on me

How our minds
became off-set

My blocks are the key
to his heart mindset
The trade of the marks
her freedom
Her lips
quite a
surgery can blow
those bricks
down like a bullet

How it out knocks singing
over again
we all fall down
like ashes remain

Oh! Gee  V for Victorious Glee

How he couldn't pass
this
opportunity
deliciousness,
divineness
because of me,
there I went to the silent hill
The tranquil of quietness
Her weapon
the bullet dress - --
The coffee in the
King Tut shape
The curvy glass

Like a desert storm fires
Going First class

Not a block party second in mind
          "He" King Glee
Behind her walls, he reconstructs
Cheers of joy bullets one of a kind
Like a setup ploy
Her body fine weight
of gold
Eyes almond he's my candy
Second chances of joy
Her third timeless so hot
Is "She"
He's trying to nourish her heart

"With Glee"

Those love instructions
Like a bullet for me?

The King Oh! Gee

The Queen you
had to see
Like the golf clubs to putter set
The ball whole cup
The whole process stayed put
She was so enticed by his
bungee climbing
Seeing his first shot shooting
wasn't a star

The bricks to the end of the war
Judy the Star was Garland found
a different  time of Era la boom
reborn lady Liza Minnelli

The Empire of the Tut
(Bali Island Hut)
Her best to the
last stone paver layers
Like a Tut mortal dreamers
On her deck Golden Egg cards
King on top of the Queen
blocks bam the bomb ticks
The Joker having his last laugh
The war of fidelity like a plaque
of immortals
"And Please God' let it be over

You're my lucky star
No matter where you are
The ancient portal sip of wine
"All Glee" smile to trust
Come attached with loads of funds
His attache case modernly- eyes dim
Cashed into her twilight blank stare
Head over heels digging underneath her
gold - heavy heart and mind spins
into a migraine

His prayers are working
constructing a force
Something is emerging
racing for hearts
Engaging the space of valuable
objects of time

  We heard of the
one-day creation
the mysterious temple
Kinksters my heroes our fellowman
To the hipbone, those hipsters stick
  together to hustle

She is trying harder to please him
The gold to be seized
Thousand times over
to build
a form of loves the golden touch

The building could collapse
Heart together can relapse
If her love doesn't stand tall
The darkness can come to her eyes
The death of cards handed
like her corpse flying bullets

Such a massive stone block
She loved to be entertained
Let me make you walk my path
Solid as a rock

Like the Sun Gods map like the
Egyptian cat tongue
The strange pharaohs ancient
stolen identity
Layers and layers
Trumpet tower Presidential
Her bullet racer tulips
Lips bloom with gravity
900 feet getting a grip confidential

The ruins the strange existence
every time will there be next time
The new technology reveals
more secrets one bullet at a time
A silver bullet doesn't
compare to her myths Antionette


Her Anniversary all in gold,
to be or not to be
The silver award bullets
His mighty treasure
for poems of the sonnet

The largest space to build
in Egypt
Look up its a plane
King Tut bird
Super bullet giant beams
Going once or twice
70 Ladybird feet
Pharaoh timeline
so many wives

The column layering
checkerboard
She the sweeter cake
Had life sliced itself

Her layers the feed
of his smorgasbord
The name Ramesses 11
To reveal the evidence
stolen identities this
wasn't the (Providence)
Laying bricks in
my stone bed
Like a heart of stone

Building a gold his
mind like a block-freeze
It will take lifetimes
Marlon "Brando"
The commando of the waterfront
try to be upfront
It felt like a hard cement

Two bricks intellectual speaking
The goldrush her heart racing the
bullet of time
So thick-headed 
The Queen just sit
beheaded

The golden bond have
  guns will travel I Glee I pads
  The speed of bullets meet
my heroes what lads
The kingdom was
holding women
Joy to the
tacky glue magnet

Not the carnival of
cotton candy soft gold
The King got his ladies like
The Funhouse King Tut
no detention to have
Like the speed of lightning
never to hold
More love to build intermission
The kings only private
Gold VIP Theatre

All smiles the build-up
   Another mysterious setup palace
Those bricks of brown
warmth orange-reds of fire leaves
Falling over her milestone of
Mink hair
the fairytale of
Rumpelstiltskin
 Are we in to know
  what really clicks

More layer and layers of her
goldilocks of hair 
 stronger than any bricks

Oh the cringing  demon of eternal youth,
******* away promise and hard won truth.
I see far more than ***, lingering, in her eyes
I see, instead, the milk teeth of youthful lies,
of forever and today, hopes and screams
replacing tomorrows, frayed at the seams.

Oh, mere ***, be gone, you sordid troll!
Crawl yourself back in your hole.
If ‘tis *** you brought to this trapped piece of light
then speak to your own soul and leave me a bite
of the apple she does not offer
and the delights you think her youth will proffer.

I have no time to dance to your twisted tune
of youth over too fast and maturity too soon!
What stinks more of your *******;
her stretched, prolonged, aging youth or back bared, partial  ******?

I giggle as I consider her Eve-like dreams
of bitten apples and grander things.
And God said, let there be light.
Is that truly all He said when he banished the night?

Maybe she is wet from being born.
From demon Youth’s desperate grasp she is torn
and into the world, for a moment, she is cashed;
back bared and ready to be lashed
by the ‘cruel’ reality we keep from youth…
…like bronzed, baby booties and baby’s lost tooth.

Maybe, coquettishly, she glances ahead,
away from the bonds of youth’s birthing bed;
not, as you apparently dream, toward some sordid affair
you see in bared skin and strands of dampened hair!

There is beauty in her eyes, it is true,
the beauty of youth’s first, full faced view
of tomorrow and tomorrows again…
Exactly how long do you think, she should remain a youth, then?
Oh the Apple that lingers past ripe upon a tree,
Snakeless, Eve-less, unchosen, unbitten for an eternity.
Shall we trap, virginal, in iron cages of our blind, stupid lust
the false innocence of youth only tears and death can rust?

Foolish, foolish Adam and blind, impregnable Eve; is *** all you can ever see?
I can peer past your layers and layers and layers of false, bitter modesty.
If you see ******* then know this, before you atone:
You bring that demon wherever you go and it is yours and yours alone.

Some of us have twins,
most of us have split personalities.
Have you met Bandit yet?
Our lives aren't measured in years,
they're measured in our victories.
So take your blades and spill some blood.
It's a dog eat dog world.
If you play The King Of Hearts,
every hand in life
it will only get you,
cut, burned and thrown to the curb.
Used, depleted, robed of every thing you can lose.
It's **** without *******.
&
I'm done, like a cashed bowl.
This hand I'm playing The Ace Of Spades.
Revenge stings like a bee and
like you said I have anger issues.

I'm drawing again.
I'm learning a new technique.
Sketching you out,
*******.
*******.
:)

My pupils are turning green
that loot, that coin, that greed
money doesn't grow on trees
**** straight, but I throw cash
on eighths, domed so my foot
don't hit the brake.
high on the way, I don't tail gate
I pass
Hear a bump in my trunk
my stash,
rattlin' around to the amp,
off that ramp, round the corner to the
courthouse,
sippin' on a shake
bought with food stamps
**** this I'm out
home to crash on the couch
and scheme
cream, cream, I want my cheese
stacked like chedda' on the line
at my minimum wage grind
Cops gave me a fine
like I got time to pay that ****
can't blame 'em though
they tryin' to get what I got
in my pocket
my wallet
you called it
Money

There was a time I didn't stop to smell the roses anymore
I just wanted to hide away from the world

He took my childhood
He took my trust
All because of his sick ******* of lust

It took me awhile to finally see
That he was to blame for the horrible, awful ...not me

Once I started cleaning out darkened cobwebs
and the craziness from my mind
Those roses started smelling sweeter and sweeter all the time
Despite all that evilness from him
I overcame and I am longer victim

He on the other hand I hear is not faring that well
Seems as though he has already cashed in that one way ticket to hell
He can never hurt me or anyone else for that matter ever again
He loses and ...I WIN

In time..

You will learn to forgive yourself..
for  all  the reasons  why
  you think you need
  to forgive yourself.

The blame,  and shame
placed in to you
was done  in the most  
horrendously unfair way..
when you were  at  such a
tenderly-young,  
and impressionable age.

It  was  your  v u l n e r a b i l i ty
that was so horribly cashed in on.
The greatest horror of all
was the shame and blame
that you were forced  to carry..

as if it was your own doing..


   It    Was    Not.

have you ever felt shot into space
with nothing to hold to without any trace
of the one who was always around
who could laugh really hard and without any sound

and you fear that someday he will see
that you're mind is a strange one indeed, yet it's free!
to be up in the air and then down
hear that music that plays like a carnival sound

and it's something that's deep in your soul
from the day you first met he's been making you whole
cause he won't let you feel afraid,
fix you up when you're ****** and knows his first aid

Five of us kids to take care of
and all within seven short years
Leno then Beano then Bonzo then Labo then Damo
all laughter and tears.

It seems that we share the same feelings
about our ol' dad, and it's said
much better to share them while we are alive
than to wait until after we're dead.
  
and so I will write about Daddy
and because I am long with my word
my poems I will say can go on for a day,
and a night or so that's what I've heard.

To Tony, Loretta would cater
she cooked for the man who would date her
they married and so, and what do you know
three children would come along later.

Born October two four, nineteen hundred
and twenty eighth year of our Lord
at home, the first child of Tony and Rhetts
baby Vinny, was cut from the cord.

This sweet little Vincent Morrone
raised up in by my Nonna and Tony
quickly stuck in his ways, from the start of his days
and could size up the truth from a phony.

He grew up in old Jersey City
where he polished the width of his witty
had a sister named Claire who remembers him there
dear old dad, handsome lad, and she's pretty.

Their brother was born sometime later
our sweet uncle Jerry Morrone
Handsome and good and well liked in the hood
got those genes and that same funny bone.

 After Highschool, staff sergeant in Air Force
guiding take offs and landings, his post
Four years of St Pete, put him smart on the street  
and he left for the likes of our coast.

He was offered a job down in Jackson
elementary dear Watson, it's said
he would fall for another young teacher, a screecher
whose sassiness got to his head

He married our mother, that's Jacquie
they really were some kind of a pair
she knew he was smart, liked his looks and his heart
and respected the good that was there.

So five days a week Dad would teach
and he liked those nine months of the year
but he lived for the summers at Jenkinson's beach
where that salt water pool was so clear.

in a torn old white sweatshirt and plaid shorts
he was sharing a Bud at the fence
loved his mower and pool, and that backyard was cool
much more like a park, you would sense.

we know how he hated the gurlic
and that onions would just make him hurlick
my mother would never use any such thing
he could drive her to sing like Steve Urlick.
( did I do that?)

No qualms about eating cold hotdogs
and cheddar in chunks from red foil
liked his eggplant cut thin, and his gravy could win
a blue ribbon, the secret? No spoil!!

Could deliver a joke like Bob Newhart
or a pun just for fun was sublime
he was always aware, but for crowds, didn't care
unless it was harmony time.

Best one on one at a party
but the life when it came to his cracks
made small talk okay, but preferred just to stay
to the side and be watching the acts.

Old Spice and that weekender stubble
did his thing and his speaking was soft
he was never a man to cause trouble
but he'd tell you when something was off.

McDonalds and corn on the cob
smoked a pipe, did not curse, and was never a slob
though I know he was not always neat
he was clean, never smelled, never spit in the street.

taught us never to take wooden nickels
and he loved a fresh jar of those kosher dill pickels
drove a large Orange bug in the day
with a driver side  SPEBSQSA

he wiped off my face with his thumb
that he'd lick first to clear away jelly and crumb
and he'd always be there in a pinch
if I needed his help, he was there, not a Grinch!

He was always the Good Humored one
bought us Ice cream and took us to places for fun
an occasional "word to the wise
you've cashed in your chips
and don't hand me your lies."

and the one who would walk me not once
but twice down the aisle of heartache and gloom
as a wife I have failed, a dunce
yet dismissing that elephant out of the room.

and tried not to laugh at my lot
at my barrenness, troubles and all of that snot
took me back to this place for some peace
never charged me a dime, not a landlord with lease
but a man with the mercy he knows
he understood sometimes that's just how life goes

and suddenly everything's changed
I am fifty two times around, feeling deranged
and it's not because I need a crutch
feeling lost in this world  
which I've lived in and such

but that I have been shot into space
having lost what I loved, it's my dad's loving face
and I'm here in the house that he bought
it's the one where we loved and the one where
we fought

and I cried here at length at the table
feeling shot into space, as if I am unable
to cope with the loss of my dad,
with the loss of his smile  and the voice that he had

and the place that he had in my life
in my heart....in my head...in my mind...So I climbed
to room where my dear daddy slept
and I laid on that bed and I wept and I wept
feeling shot into space I recalled that man's face
and I reached for the  tissues he kept in that place

and in one second flat, as I blew
from the nose of his likeness,  I knew and it's true
I was beamed back from space
into someone's embrace
and believe me, as if my dad knew...

For my father was known to be punny
always quick with the wit, such a honey
he would tell me to write, for it was his delight
that his children were his kind of funny.

I am never to think I am odder
for I am what I am, my dad's daughter
I hear distant strumming and now my dad humming
the theme song from Welcome Back Kotter.

http://youtu.be/5VlGyMG0ksg

Where skin meets pole,
In low society.
Is where I thrive.
This isn’t the right choice.  
Singles hustlin.
Join me in these dollar days.
This is your light switch entrance.
Sitting at a marble bar
Loveless love, pay by the song.
Selfish fun, ***** talking on the jukebox.
Jazzin’ to the music.
Standing up on that marble stage,
Showing the world whats yours is ours.
Drunken memories lived to the fullest.
I’m out trying to discover America.
Stripped down to its rawest form.
This road is laden with fallen philosophies.
Tasting of ***** money.
Bitter.
Fully **** girls flashing. (lights)
Blow in the bathroom.
The nightlife you’ve always wanted.
Movie star lifestyle.
Dimly lit.
Have some backroom privacy.
Conversations with strangers.
This is naked in all sense of the word.
Sensual seduction.
Classical redemption.
Primal ecstasy.
Trying to make amends with myself.
This is a haggard lifestyle.
Society frowns upon us.
Shameful scandals.
Fake lovesick mannerisms
Paid for in advance.
Exposed on stage.
You’re in love with a stripper.
Kitty, Desire, Destiny, Velvet.
All the love you’ve been looking for,
For the price of admission.
Just sit back and watch the girls on stage.
This is it.
We’re searching for love.
And if we cant find love,
We’ll settle for lust and luck.
You’re well taken care of here.
Don’t you worry about a thing.
Just don’t run out of money.
Superficial lover for a pay as you go one-night stand.
Never lonely here.
Late night tonight.
In the back of the club.
Are we having déjà vu yet?
You’ve been here before.
You’ll be here tomorrow.
Just a little longer now.
Climbing up the pole to the ceiling,
Only to slam down in the splits.
Don’t worry it can only get better from here.
This is the right choice.
Bright light flashing.
You’re finally in the spotlight.
Sold out, checked out, cashed.
“Let me do all the work sweetheart.”
We must live the way we feel is right.
We’re all trying to make our way in this world.
Lets not forget each other.
Cocktails anyone?
Is this wrong?
Living in this life.
This party
that never ends.

My man and another who was once a friend to me but ended up an enemy over complications
Used to be my brother
We were conversating on our past court cases and long lost lovers
As one does as days pass
Some we recall and others fictitious, for entertainment basis
It was negative now looking back
After all
We came to the conclusion the only education we embrace is
The knowledge of freedom due to time incarcerated
The only lesson we can grasp
Primitive thoughts lack direction
Meaning, they **** at navigation
Sail a moment of hope into a masked land mass
And ignorance blames the placement
Blood always runs thicker than water, even in the rivers that rose to flood
Took the path of some resistance
You always fear loss, if you've ever lost what you love
So don't break cypher with negativity that's the metaphorical equivalent of a cashed blunt
Keep it real
Keep the front porch comforts close to you're heart
Revered
The only passions we lose contact with are the ones that we conceal

For those who could use a laugh

First what I learned about business at six years old my sister and cousin were out in the pasture behind the house on Jefferson St
We were this messing around and we found these turnips in a line in these little piles with weeds piled on top they were covered
With little flakes of ice very cold on bare fingers we weren’t deterred before long the little red wagon was bulging or this was
The sales and delivery truck so now let’s find some customers so off we went door to door people were pleased and we did a crisp
Business success came to fast we were up at Beno’s little standard gas station spending our windfall so back to work well
Got back to the house and then I thought man uncle Fred was living in the office now defunct after the green house went down
We all have old uncles how sweet fun loving knee slapping koots hold on big sale straight ahead so I knocked on the door the door
Opens wide prospective customer is ready to be sold uncle Fred would you like to buy some turnips then it happened right above his
Collar red started to rise it was surprising to say the least it seemed like right then was when the ping pong game started in my mind it would
Bounce back and forth front to back one side was thinking this is wild then hey this looks like a thermometer how is he doing that
Then as it kept going to his full white head of hair one part of the Childs brain is it going to catch on fire about then the top of his head
Didn’t blow off the only place available came to life this great roar emits from his mouth if this was a peanuts comic strip our
Hair would all be blown straight back I also didn’t know he had been a sailor and I thought he had me confused with someone else I
Heard that happens to older folks he spoke as though he thought we had a hearing problem then the mistake he said you sons a b——-
No I’m Lavern’s boy your sisters daughter he said what were you doing in my turnips back to the back part of the brain I was thinking
Thank God we already cashed out our profits butter fingers baby Ruth’s bubble gum and all the other candy was all I was thinking
Well and how to go out of business gracefully mostly in a hurry how fast can you get a wagon in motion going the other direction
maybe it was me but from then on he looked like he looked on us with a birds eye and we were worms to tell the truth I’m still not a
Great fan of turnips later I learned the line cussing like a sailor I thought he must have really sailed long and hard.

How come your brain doesn’t have a red flashing light when you’re going to do something stupid Halloween night eight years old?
Costume or lack of one go out as Minnie pearl straw hat corn cob pipe and dress the late October wind was alive to say the least
Legs so use to cover and warmth now pop cycles so high then the thrill of cold wind whipping up you rear what to do slap your legs
Together that only would help the inside cross your legs then you couldn’t walk only thing left grin and bear it what else could go
Wrong walk up to the door the guy whips the light on why couldn’t a lady have come to the door an old lady so it’s show time for
Effect I **** on the pipe one problem the idiot who made the pipe didn’t clean out the dust when he drilled the well part of the pipe
No problem I cleaned it out the tongue barely felt it the throat got the whole load so for the next three minutes I choked gagged spit
All Over the guys yard he was quiet amused it seems later I found a piece of paper that said inspected by number fifty four I wanted to
Write a letter dear fifty four but I didn’t have any other address and I was to small any way so frozen somewhere from the middle of
My shorts down half strangled I hate Halloween.
Almost childhood
The Jefferson gang went to the lake to camp out we were in this hideaway deserted spot off the main lake at the end of a slough
It was as black as the end side of a barrel and cranes are almost extinct well why this one had to stay alive at our camp site
It would fly over the water right at you then make this terrifying sound it was like a white specter a ghostly sight and it just kept doing
It well what do the brave do I can’t speak for them but I can speak for five spooked cowards we all jumped into a pup tent for two all
Of us were armed with shotguns all I know is if a farmers bull or cow walked up and mooed it would have been cow dunnie everywhere
A tent hanging in tatters and all of us chocking from gun powder at close quarters and deaf somehow we ****** up our guts and went
To bed it was five thirty in the morning it was nice and cold but I had pants on I was down at the edge of the water the mist was over
The water and then the biggest boom it was like a farmer had been blowing out a stump with dynamite and forgot the last stick or it
Was the crack of doom maybe it was I whirled around and there was Jesus standing right in front of the camp fire his Indian blanket
Held straight out with both arms I heard how he turned water into wine but he turned our campsite into chef Boyardee spaghetti
Factory well at least Charlie Cole did he came late into the camp out idea he wasn’t there when we were told to punch a hole in the
Can Before you throw it in the fire to heat it up he had scalding hot spaghetti on his face in his hair all over the tree limbs he continued
His Christ like imitation like he was amazed or in deep worship where ever he was he felt no pain maybe he was where the can went we
never did find it I hope no one was blown out of bed by the blast well it didn’t make the paper I guess all kinds of crap happens at the
lake.

Childhood
First what I learned about business at six years old my sister and cousin were out in the pasture behind the house on Jefferson St
We were this messing around and we found these turnips in a line in these little piles with weeds piled on top they were covered
With little flakes of ice very cold on bare fingers we weren’t deterred before long the little red wagon was bulging or this was
The sales and delivery truck so now let’s find some customers so off we went door to door people were pleased and we did a crisp
Business success came to fast we were up at Beno’s little standard gas station spending our windfall so back to work well
Got back to the house and then I thought man uncle Fred was living in the office now defunct after the green house went down
We all have old uncles how sweet fun loving knee slapping koots hold on big sale straight ahead so I knocked on the door the door
Opens wide prospective customer is ready to be sold uncle Fred would you like to buy some turnips then it happened right above his
Collar red started to rise it was surprising to say the least it seemed like right then was when the ping pong game started in my mind it would
Bounce back and forth front to back one side was thinking this is wild then hey this looks like a thermometer how is he doing that
Then as it kept going to his full white head of hair one part of the Childs brain is it going to catch on fire about then the top of his head
Didn’t blow off the only place available came to life this great roar emits from his mouth if this was a peanuts comic strip our
Hair would all be blown straight back I also didn’t know he had been a sailor and I thought he had me confused with someone else I
Heard that happens to older folks he spoke as though he thought we had a hearing problem then the mistake he said you sons a b——-
No I’m Lavern’s boy your sisters daughter he said what were you doing in my turnips back to the back part of the brain I was thinking
Thank God we already cashed out our profits butter fingers baby Ruth’s bubble gum and all the other candy was all I was thinking
Well and how to go out of business gracefully mostly in a hurry how fast can you get a wagon in motion going the other direction
maybe it was me but from then on he looked like he looked on us with a birds eye and we were worms to tell the truth I’m still not a
Great fan of turnips later I learned the line cussing like a sailor I thought he must have really sailed long and hard.

How come your brain doesn’t have a red flashing light when you’re going to do something stupid Halloween night eight years old?
Costume or lack of one go out as Minnie pearl straw hat corn cob pipe and dress the late October wind was alive to say the least
Legs so use to cover and warmth now pop cycles so high then the thrill of cold wind whipping up you rear what to do slap your legs
Together that only would help the inside cross your legs then you couldn’t walk only thing left grin and bear it what else could go
Wrong walk up to the door the guy whips the light on why couldn’t a lady have come to the door an old lady so it’s show time for
Effect I **** on the pipe one problem the idiot who made the pipe didn’t clean out the dust when he drilled the well part of the pipe
No problem I cleaned it out the tongue barely felt it the throat got the whole load so for the next three minutes I choked gagged spit
All Over the guys yard he was quiet amused it seems later I found a piece of paper that said inspected by number fifty four I wanted to
Write a letter dear fifty four but I didn’t have any other address and I was to small any way so frozen somewhere from the middle of
My shorts down half strangled I hate Halloween.

Almost childhood
The Jefferson gang went to the lake to camp out we were in this hideaway deserted spot off the main lake at the end of a slough
It was as black as the end side of a barrel and cranes are almost extinct well why this one had to stay alive at our camp site
It would fly over the water right at you then make this terrifying sound it was like a white specter a ghostly sight and it just kept doing
It well what do the brave do I can’t speak for them but I can speak for five spooked cowards we all jumped into a pup tent for two all
Of us were armed with shotguns all I know is if a farmers bull or cow walked up and mooed it would have been cow dunnie everywhere
A tent hanging in tatters and all of us chocking from gun powder at close quarters and deaf somehow we ****** up our guts and went
To bed it was five thirty in the morning it was nice and cold but I had pants on I was down at the edge of the water the mist was over
The water and then the biggest boom it was like a farmer had been blowing out a stump with dynamite and forgot the last stick or it
Was the crack of doom maybe it was I whirled around and there was Jesus standing right in front of the camp fire his Indian blanket
Held straight out with both arms I heard how he turned water into wine but he turned our campsite into chef Boyardee spaghetti
Factory well at least Charlie Cole did he came late into the camp out idea he wasn’t there when we were told to punch a hole in the
Can Before you throw it in the fire to heat it up he had scalding hot spaghetti on his face in his hair all over the tree limbs he continued
His Christ like imitation like he was amazed or in deep worship where ever he was he felt no pain maybe he was where the can went we
never did find it I hope no one was blown out of bed by the blast well it didn’t make the paper I guess all kinds of crap happens at the
lake.

At the age of nine he wanted to die
which was something I couldn't understand
because I knew our mother loved us.

desperation so

doctors drill diagnostic decisions down his throat.
I pray he won't choke on the
shallow pills he has to swallow
hollow dreams he has to follow.

Sedating's seductive for families who can afford it.

The Founding Fathers have forged my future,
they've mocked my freedom and cashed in on humans.
America likes to revive our problems with the quickest fix, money solves it.

My brothers become another lab rat
to solidify the fact that these pills are legit.
Simply because his name appears on a list.
Ignoring the fact his original pain was nothing but a claim

against all of this cultural *******.

my lungs hurt from the ashed bowl
this **** is purple, what a novelty
too bad it's as dry and not crystal-y

shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake

I wish I didn't have a ugly glass pipe
but it'd seem silly to invest in a ****

I don't like your dog, he smells.
You're twenty-one.
You can't take care of your dog.
What if they eat something bad?

You were stupid to get a dog.

I  barely have the munchies
let's make something cheesy.

I can't even get high anymore.

It's boring.

I don't like that it doesn't do anything in means I have to cut back or something
or I have to get into it more, which costs money that I don't have, on things that
I don't really need.

Smoking should not be a hobby, it's barely an interest.
It's just like a background noise, like your noisy dog.

But I need to remember, in all of this,
that if I'm bored, I'm just being boring

To Certain Poets About to Die

Take your fill of intimate remorse, perfumed sorrow,
Over the dead child of a millionaire,
And the pity of Death refusing any check on the bank
Which the millionaire might order his secretary to
     scratch off
And get cashed.

     Very well,
You for your grief and I for mine.
Let me have a sorrow my own if I want to.

I shall cry over the dead child of a stockyards hunky.
His job is sweeping blood off the floor.
He gets a dollar seventy cents a day when he works
And it's many tubs of blood he shoves out with a broom
     day by day.

Now his three year old daughter
Is in a white coffin that cost him a week's wages.
Every Saturday night he will pay the undertaker fifty
     cents till the debt is wiped out.

The hunky and his wife and the kids
Cry over the pinched face almost at peace in the white box.

They remember it was scrawny and ran up high doctor bills.
They are glad it is gone for the rest of the family now
     will have more to eat and wear.

Yet before the majesty of Death they cry around the coffin
And wipe their eyes with red bandanas and sob when
     the priest says, "God have mercy on us all."

I have a right to feel my throat choke about this.
You take your grief and I mine--see?
To-morrow there is no funeral and the hunky goes back
     to his job sweeping blood off the floor at a dollar
     seventy cents a day.
All he does all day long is keep on shoving hog blood
     ahead of him with a broom.

I cashed out all my chips
got them exchanged for all their worth,
the tattered rags upon my body
I give back unto the earth
for sacrifice to be accepted,
all my blood turns into dirt.
I don't want to be forgiven,
just loose the weight,
disperse the girth.

I've tried so hard to lift my arms,
but this body's just a curse
I've got the prison of my skin
beneath which all is coded verse 
try as I might, I can't take flight
though my head floats above the clouds
nobody hears the violent storm which springs from out my mind, so loud

convex'd, I'm hexed,
convinced that I will not find rest
the earth must feed from me
and plant it's seeds deep in my chest.

A new day is dawning
Been waiting for weeks
Cashed in my pay cheques
To pay for the tweaks

Drawing, deciding,
Doubting my needs
Umming and ahhing
This lust i must feed

Booked the appointment
There's no turning back
Go under the knife
Would you look at that!

Followed the steps
and handled with care
The bigger the better
But same face and hair

Mid-chest attention
They all think I'm dumb
But not enough's changed
So I'll have my *** done

I dodged a desert eagle bullet and disappeared
As the swan's trumpet rusted
During the Pentecost
As the ordained minister pressed play
Chiang Kai-sheck pressed on against communists

My horse got spooked by some type of anomaly
Making me late for my two o'clock train
So now I have saddle bags of useless words
My cigarette's one giant granny ash
And my bowl is cashed

“The grief therapist will see you now.”
the perky redhead told us.
Her rolling hips then led the way
majestically before us..

Final arrangements must be made.
as our loved one is gone;
Melvin joined the choir invisible
singing his swan song.

He had been fading badly,
and we knew the end was near.
Now he’s a mortuary client,
pausing  for his final bier..

Thank God for prearrangement
or we truly would be gored.
It gets to be quite expensive
when you’re sleeping with the Lord.

He’s shuffled off this mortal coil
and brought the curtain down.
Soon he’ll be checking out the grass
from six feet underground..

Melvin has given up the ghost.
He was snuffed out in his prime.
He cashed his chips in early,
passing on before his time.

“Your loved one’s in a better place.”
The Undertaker gravely said..
“His ancestors have embraced him
in a place of light, not dread.”

Some will say he kicked the bucket,
checked out early, bought the farm.
The religious say he’s with the Lord,
The perpetual light is on.

Melvin, were he here with us,
more likely would have said
a better place for him would be
that redhead’s poster bed.

If ever
there was a spark in mindless stupid
would it not be the ladies remarking
at scooped cut asphalt
jagged, freeing suffocated Terre?

the most fertile , the most thirsty.

Lush outside. inside the skin?
rancid repulsive desiccation,
a piquant impulse for escaping love.

Mouth's morning wift: gloomy, heavy, smoke.
Eyes: blurrr,
Memory: cashed
Framework: gaunt & yellow, a Purple cadaver among stern Circles, reflecting the Nausea of popularprice

Words Heavy (Kiss Bukowski)

Drinking White Russians with Black Kenyans,
not joking you I was just in Ethiopia,
this it not a Haiku or a Love Poem,
this is gifted insanity like Jim Morrison,

no jealousy I’m already Seamus Heaney,
isn’t it ironic how we can be both depressed and happy,
like a ghost that won’t leave earth,
or a Self that’s over the hill but still tries to write ****,

oh that’s touching,
like John Updike meeting E.E. Cummings,
not gay no way,
but I’d still kiss Charles Bukowski,

no bukkaki though,
because I’m a Simple Man and rather than,
bukkaki I’d probably like to make Love One on One,
I guess I’m New School and Old Fashion,

flirting with Death like I’ve already got my chips cashed in,
Life a Trip and can be a ***** it depends on how you’re acting,
as an overwhelming sense of anxiety creeps into me,
like being Maya Angelou performing a show for the ****,

a Civil Rights Superhero,
that makes Her point without any lustful thoughts of revenge,
presence light as a snowflake,
words heavy as the weight of the world on her back as it bends,

words heavy as the weight of the world on my will as it bends,

all the white watching my own show from the front row,
drinking White Russians with Black Kenyans,

joking I’m not joking,
I was just in Ethiopia,
this it not a Haiku or a Love Poem,
this is gifted insanity like Jim Morrison…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

Oh you no 7 x 7 isn't 49
And there ain't no way in the world
That your soul could possibly be dead
Cause you seeing those crashing waves
Yes you hear them and their loud
But somewhere deep inside that head
There is something else to be said
Last night I dissapeared from sister
And yes I lie when I say I don't miss her
I wrote her a note while sailin' away on a boat
Oh how I lie when I say I don't miss her
Whisper to the night and expect not an answer
Alone in a world spinning with disaster
Words that twirl eventually are wet with drool
Mary sister yes once used to be my master
A fortnight was alright until the birds started chirping
So early that I just couldn't stand it
I buried the hatchet in this heart long ago
And no the action was not at all outlandish
Passing through years that felt like seconds
As the sound of my sister still beckons
Lightning cracks as I bend my back
For a dollar in inevitable squalor
An open road for the hipster toads
Lures the weak ones with spirit like dreams
But these monsters that linger inside our heads
Our myth with apparition standing stiff
Link the chord and be bored with the music you heard before
Cause' the times that were a changing are now no more
Look forward to the quick and easy fix
A painting that costs one thousand and ten licks
Hang it for coffee, hang it for drink, hang it for the boyfriend who you believe can think
For that is what we are all really looking for
A masterpiece of sincerity a tip toein' with authenticity
Convinced I've felt the real thing
A shadow tells me that I am not here
No never, not at all
The back of a bedroom says that this room is full
My girl is at the end of the hall
Standing alone, no bone but mine
The reader grins afraid and victorious
All at the same time
Tell me what I did, what I said, who the gutter girl ****** in bed
Aftermath of publications punkish in their poors
Metal metaphors of anarchy wishing that they were similes in "the feel"
Goodnight to your grand opening selling that thing with the feathers
Why bother with something that I can't shoot in the eye, bake with a pie
Eat while the year is passing and the cars won't stop to bother
Hello, yes?, I'm here, are you? Yeah, why?, cause you wanted me to get here man!!!!!!
OH YEAH OH YEAH OH YEAH I PLUM FORGOT
Silly at night sinking softly in the morning but the nightlife ain't a morning cause a the stink of her breath
****** tosses a hat in the air, dies, another comes and takes his place
Continue
Black and blue with a ink blot test gone array
The starry night sky with a million cities burning
Minions of monsters move so fast madly that your own thoughts forget themselves and remember the hair of your first love that seemed like an ancient angelic mare
Not a possibility of the sea where there are no currents that can move the memories of transitory commerce that made another guy rich and another guy poor
Oh so poor
Oh so dead
Oh so filled with **** previews that make young men and women rich on clips of fat like a steak thrown away
Concrete pours on the heads of the righteous filled to the brim with ideals of theological fantastics that in the hemisphere spelling never did exists all the while the black lines, yet with yet, tell themselves secrets jingling bells with sapphire eyes all the while caught off guard with a thousand endless secrets still wishing they had millions
A mystery novel produced, never read, but remembered
Hallow in the heart, she said to me, hallow and crazy
Ok then toward the end the street said right or left and I chose up
A girl, mexican, wished one day she could believe that she was clean
A wet spot on the rug told me not to tug at his anxiety and his belief
Ok then, where do we go from here?
No, I don't tink' I know the answer
"Do you?" No. "Do you?" Nope. "Are you answering for me or are you answering for yourself?" I'm answering for the chalkboard cause' I like the sound of chalk on the thick green skin
Forget about it until the time comes for the girl behind you with the *******
Read a note from a girl and she said she loved me
Said I hated her and she still said she loved me
Were married now
Not a thing special when the dance makes up your soul
Forgetting that time ticks for the sure and the scared
OHHH what happiness comes from check good and cashed
Which preferment plan for the milk and the maid
The honk and the duck's blade?
Farming in the depths of dirt that reminds me of my young girth
A plentiful place where images flicker on the edge of sinister

chapter three


June 4th. 1980;


The day, it’s the morning of June 4th.  It’s Wednesday; I go up the block to be with Kelli; her friend Lynne is a sleepover guest, this day. I and Lynne have never got along but if I want to be with Kelli than I’ll have to hang with Lynne for the day. We’re watching “The Price is Right” on television and Lynne went inside for a while. After a time she comes in laughing!?
“I was just on the phone with Barbra B. and she’s off and running…  Let’s go down by her house and see what’s there to watch!?”  Kelli and Lynne get into the front-seats of Kelli’s White Buick Electra 225
I was in the backseat; the two of them were laughing up a storm! Kelli drives up Calamus ave. until she nears 74th. Street; this is where Barbra B. lives. Barbra is frilling a most extremely large kitchen-knife; it must be the biggest knife in her house?! Here she comes with her father chasing up behind her?  He’s trying to catch-up and stop this girl from getting to whatever place she is so hard-pressed to get too???
Lynne slaps onto the side of the door, Kelli slows and Lynne rolls down the window then sticks-out half her body; she waves over to Barbra B. and screams, “Hey Barbra, what’s going on?”
Kelli says, “What are you doing?”
“Where’re you going? You need a lift? Come on there’s plenty of room in the back!”  The door-locks pop open… “Come-on we’ll take you where-ever you’re going!”
Barbra heads towards the car; Kelli, grips the wheel, laughing; I know this laugh… Kelli has no idea what’s going on?! Barbra takes hold of the door as her father reaches her; he grabs her arm and pulls her hand away; Barbra’s father yells to Kelli, “Get out of here; Leave!”
Kelli steps on the gas and drives off!
Heart’s racing… ‘Holy crap, that crazy ***** had her hand on the door? She was about to be inside this car, she had a knife; she, she, she be sitting next to me?! What the hell just happened???’
Kelli drives back towards the house; the two of them seating in the front seat… laughing?! Not the same laugh but…, laughing! Lynne’s, an all too familiar sort; it’s a kind I heard in the silent-times unspoken about; a delight to a well done of what just happened.
Kelli’s, her laugh is also all too familiar, hers, is the kind that reassures. It’s the kind I’d feel deep inside me at three in the morning while swinging, inside Little Bush Park, on those swings beneath moonlight knowing, oddly enough, I’m safer there at that moment than I’d be anywhere-else.
Kelli parks up on the corner, on the side of Tootie’s house; she runs across to store for soda, cigarettes and stuff then we went upstairs.
“What the hell was that…?” Kelli says, laughing, while she slaps the bag onto the table; bag brakes open and as liverwurst, cheese, bottle of soda and the cigarettes flies off to all parts of the kitchen!? “What did you do? That was f----- up!?” Kelli starts to fix us lunch as Lynne tells us about what she was doing in the kitchen while we were watching The Price Is Right.                    
  
Lynne calls up Barbra’s gay-lover and tells her she’s Barbra’s (formerly) ex-girlfriend and that she’s calling to let her know Barbra and she are back together so she’ll no longer be needed or wanted in their lives!  
Afterwards, Lynne calls Barbra’s saying to Barbra, she’s Barbra’s ex-girlfriend’s newest lover and she’s calling to inform her,Barbra, that Barbra’s ex and this girl’s new lover are bopping the sheets with each-other and the two of them are being played as fools; as one could imagine and as we saw for ourselves, Barbra went into a high-speed tailspin. Barbra snaps?!  And now she is out there trying to go end these two women in a pool of their own blood!?  
Unbelievably, Lynne still thinks what she made happen is a big fat hoot???
Kelli, “What the hell were you thinking???”
Lynne looks at Kelli, and with this snide tone and smirk on her face she says,” What… I was bored! Did you see Barb’s father’s face?” laughter erupting from her as she turns to get her stuff out of Kelli’s bedroom; “Hey it was fun!”
Kelli,” Oh brother; you’re…? Hey, get ready and I’ll drive you… home.”
Kelli looks at me and we both put hands up with baffled looks?!          
It’s just around 3 pm. as Kelli rolls up to Lynne’s to drop her off. She asks Kelli to drop her down at the bar she hangs-at so she could find-out what’s been going on there.
Kelli did and on the way back she stops by Julia’s, her mom’s, work; Julia gives us a list and we go over to key-food to shop.
While we’re shopping Kelli keeps, “I can’t get over what we saw???”
I kept thinking how did Lynne know so much of Barbra’s love-life??? She knew names, places and everything she’d need to get that girl Barbra to to such a point and state?’ I think Kelli and I were both shaking from this for the rest of the day.
  Kelli drops me off, goes parks and goes into house.
I remember this date so well because later that night at around 2:30 in the morning I was at my father’s door knocking?!

” Dad? Dad? Dad; you need to get… You have to get-up!?”
My water broke??? My due date’s not ‘til September 18th. I first thought, ‘Oh no not again?! This can’t happening; … not again?! But, there was no pain, no blood, and no sense of dread like the other times?
I went into my room and grab onto my bag and what-ever-else I thought to take; I figured, by this time my dad would be ready to bring me up to the Boulevard and we’ll cab it to St. John’s. He wasn’t in the middle-room; he wasn’t in the kitchen I knocked on the bathroom door and… He’s not in there? Maybe he went up to call a cab to pick me up at the door?? I’d think he would… He’d have said something…,  like when you have what you need I’ll be downstairs I’m going up to get a cab??? The hall-door’s closed?!’
“Holy crap?!”
No, no, no, I go back to my Dad’s bedroom door and knock. “Dad…? “
“What?” My eyes nearly pop out of my head!
I try to open the door but as usual the lock is on? “Dad?! My water broke???” As one could imagine my voice is no-longer an indoor voice?!  “Never mind broke it’s like the dam broke here and there’s water everywhere out here! Come on you have to get up… you need to take me to St. John’s?!”  
Pin-drop silence…?
“Dad?”
This low soft moaning whimper comes from behind that locked door, “Can it wait until the morning?”
  ??? Bang! Needless to say dad needs a new door-lock.
“Nelson…; Get up!”
“Ok.” Slowly he gets to his feet. “I don’t know why…, now? Why can’t you wait ‘til morning?”
“No, now.” In my head,’ Maintain: Four six-packs… I’m lucky I’m going alone?!’
“I need coffee? What the hell is all this water on the floor?”  
   “Dad? Dad; … that would be me?! It’s why you’re up?  We need to go… St. John’s?! Let’s go!”
Ever notice how when you need… there’s never one to be found??? Phone-booth! Lindy’s cab come and picks us up; not one yellow-cab? We get there and they check me out.
The doctor, “You have had what’s called a premature rupture of membranes; you’re being admitted so you can continue to be monitored. Your baby’s vitals but…; we want you to understand the baby’s condition is at high-risk it’s holding its own.”
“Doctor…?” My eyes begin to whelm-up…
“Miss Rose…” The doctor places his hand on my arm, “You need to remain claim; I have the nurse come give you something and I’ll come check on you when they put you in a room; for now remember the vitals are good.”
“Thank you.”
“Ok; your father’s outside, I have him brought in to you.”  
I told him I’d have to stay and he should go home.
“You have money for a cab?”
“My bag is under there, Dad.”
You know, it’s strange; he has no problem asking me to give him money so he could get home!? He doesn’t know where I get money… But, he couldn’t care less?! And, I doubt very much even if he knew it would bother him; hem, he’s lived off her all these years…, knowing that I’ve been signing Elaine’s name and cashing her checks from the checkbook I took and packed in my bag the day I left that place in Brooklyn would faze him?! Well maybe if he was aware I only cashing $50. to $100. At a time out of an account which has $33,000. In it would?! I stopped writing checks after I bought everything I needed for a baby until a baby is one month old; after $1700. I didn’t take anymore. Till the day my mother died neither she or I ever said a word about that checkbook. And, I know she knew… every time a check was cashed.  When I cashed them at Manufacture Handovers Bank would confirm with a call before any check cashing; they did it since my brother, Kevin, cashed out a $12,000 check and left town! A signature that was in no way like my mother’s! The bank made a deal to replace half?! I’m sure she could have had ever last penny back but the bank would have had police-case opened and a warrant out for Kevin and she never did turned her back on that boy?! That check wasn’t even, close-to, the worst thing that boy had done. The day he died I smiled, enough said.  Well, I think she thought I would have felt bad and come home and I’d do what she wanted me to do that day.

The sun’s coming up… They just put me here in this room, room 410; I hear the Doctor down the hall. I hope he has good things to tell me!? I pull the drape to see him when he comes in the door; a circle of people are out there with charts. They’re coming in…,”Miss Rose, these are the team who will be watching over you.” Doctor was saying their names but I wasn’t hearing him; all I want was for him to tell me the baby’s going to be alright. “Miss Rose I spoke to your GYN and he informed me you were already aware of this being a high-risk pregnancy?
“Yes.”
“The chart says you been pregnant before?”
“Yes; never over five months.”
‘Well, you do have that in your favor; although, there’s still no… Miss Rose? What wrong?”
“There’s… No…”
“Listen!” he places his hand on my arm. ”Understand what I’m saying; we’re monitoring the vitals and you and your baby are, for right now, fine. The longer that baby stay in there the better be the chances of survival. Do you understand this?”
“Yeah”
“Good; in order for this to be we will need to keep you in the most sterile environment possible. Do you understand what this means? I can see you’re not; Miss Rose you’re going to have to stay in the hospital until the baby is born. And you’ll need to be on complete bed-rest so we can continue to monitor the baby. This means no wondering the halls this is a private room and you have a bathroom all to yourself no getting out of bed just to walk around, no unnecessary movement you need to stay pregnant for as long as you can. Now, you understand what I’m telling you?”
Crap! I look at this doctor like he just grew three more heads??? “You want me stay here, and to sport this bed? Until, September 18th?”
“No… Miss Rose September 18th Is full-term an ideal time for the baby; we already know that won’t happen that date’s gone and is impossible now. But the idea is to now get you as close as we can to that date. Let’s just take this a day at a time. I come and check in on you later. Remember, no getting up except if you need to use the bathroom. Ok?”
The bathroom only; got it!”  
The doctor leaves my room… Its Thursday morning 7:12 am. June 5th. 1980
Mind this point, it’s still 1980?! You can smoke inside a hospital; and, if you’re in a private room without Oxygen Tanks in use.
The date and time of baby’s birth is...; Friday, morning, on June 6th. 3:54 am.
They took him right away from the delivery room I only saw him from the mirror up in the corner of the room; you know the kind where things are closer than they look type’s… they put me back into my room. It’s 7 am. I know, I have had a baby boy but I haven’t met him? Three hours not one word; not one word to me by anyone here?! Did something happen? Again.
It is 7:10am. Door, to my room, opens… The doctor steps in… “Miss Rose?” he walks to the side of my bed. “Has anyone been in to talk to you?”
“…no.”
“We need to talk to you about what is next for your son…”
“My, son…” I thought sure… he was going to say???
Yes, they are ordering transport for him, now; our hospital isn’t equipped to care for his needs we need to rush him to another hospital that can give him the best chances to survive this early most… we’ll do best we can. They’ll bring him in a moment I know you hadn’t had a chance to hold him.”
As he said this four people enter the room and my baby, my baby.
The nurse walks around to the left of my bed and hands me this itty biddy blanket holding this little face.  I look at him and thought ‘His skin he’s so purple; his face… he looks just as she did. But he’s here. ” Hello Joseph! I’m your mommy. I’m grateful you’re here. “
Big hands; the nurse who handed my baby to me to hold is now on my right-side to take him away from me.
They rush my tiny boy out to the neonatal ambulance He’ll be at Long Island Jewish Hospital when I leave here on Monday.

My head’s drenched,
I lack an umbrella.
My clothes are soaked,
I lack a jacket.
My chin’s to the puddles,
So my brow drags the oil
And I’d crack if I had to smile,
If I had to say, “thank you,”
Just one more time
Under rain, under shame, and the
Laughing gods above.

With a sliver of scorn,
I do muster one more
“Thank you,”
As I’ve got my pay;
Cashed my last inch of dignity
And quickly lost
When I do the math and see
That I’d spent more on gas
As opposed to what I line my
Pockets with –
Lint and little more.

With a dwindling fuel,
Both in belly and beast,
I leave for the ends of existence
Knowing full well,
I’d return, I’d come home,
And when I can’t have food
I steal this simple moment,
A special kind of sustenance wherein –
I don’t want to see my wife,
My brother, or my mother.
I don’t want to see anyone or anymore.