CHAPTER ONE

My geographic movements during the past year could be called “A Tale of Two Couches.” So as June draws to a close, I assume the position here again on Couch California. I am back in Hemet, the place the smug among us call Hemetucky--as if there was nothing a couple of Mint Juleps and a **** of Blue Grass wouldn’t cure. It is the year of our Lord, 2014: so far an interesting year for women. There was a woman who wore socks to bed. There was always my long-time, here today-gone tomorrow, long time companion, currently teaching somewhere remote on the Big Rez, a southwestern Navajo concentration camp near the 4 Corners.  Next, there’s my current object of affection, that fine and frisky lady from The Bronx by way of Bernalillo--currently at home in Laguna Beach, Orange County. Trixie: my main squeeze at the moment.

And now, completely out of the ******* blue this afternoon, my cell phone rings and it’s ******* Juanita--my all-time favorite woman, Juanita Mi Favorita de La Quinta--a Coachella Valley town and desert wadi, extending its lucrative winter tourist season to become a significant, year-round retirement venue and a robust service economy feeding off it.  Juanita arrived there in the late 80s, in middle of her early forties.  She was unemployed, homeless, just a suitcase to her name and a two-year old toddler in tow. Her parents were there, as was her Aunt Peggy.  Juanita was always Peggy’s favorite niece, her favorite child, actually, Peggy herself being childless, never married.  Aunt Peggy put her maternal instincts to work on Juanita Rodriguez, her Sister Rosalia’s second favorite twin daughter.

Maria, Rosalia’s first favorite daughter, Juanita’s twin sister—MARIA: lives in Newport Beach and acts as an extra in many commercial ads shot in southern California and elsewhere, an irony never without sting for Juanita. “Que lastima!” Poor Juanita: as her would-be Hollywood Movie star aspirations disintegrated over the years, along with her unrealized lower expectations to be TV star, and even those semi-glamorous modeling gigs at trade shows and fairs—the elephant’s graveyard of the acting profession—failed to materialize, and now her celebrity habitat shrunken even further, to that sporadic but consistent mockery of stardom, I refer to any would-be thespian’s ignominious one-celled visual protozoan: The Extra Call List.  And—*******-- what happens next? Juanita’s sister Maria starts getting these parts, starts getting hired by filling out a ******* postcard, starts getting paid to look good in the background. *******: no professional education or instruction, no agent, and no need to **** off both the producer, the producer’s cousin Morey, the director and the director’s wife’s huge Golden retriever, Genghis--actually a mighty handsome animal--or needing to spill $4K on that Derma-brasion, Juanita inflicted on herself last year.

Juanita, as you already know, was the second favorite daughter and the second favorite twin of the family. She became the third favorite child in her three-child family upon the arrival of her slick baby brother Nico-- the Golden Child, who grew up to be a glib Merrill-Lynch stockbroker, office and residence, Beverly Hills 90112.  (Enter forcefully into the narrative, His Nibs himself, Sir Nicodemus of Hollywood, Juanita and Maria’s baby brother Nico. He speaks: “Excuse me, stockbroker my ***, as it says in a 11 point Rockwell Boldfont, right here on my gold-leaf embossed business card: Senior Large Capital Investment Counselor.”)

No, Juanita had a hard time just treading water in that Cleveland shark tank. And though she lacked nothing in the cuteness department, she had this one fatal flaw, namely, the gift of ***** and sass and a reflex to speak truth to power. Juanita: rejected by Rosalia as a threat to her hegemony as Boss of the Girl’s Club, was cast adrift on a tempestuous childhood cruel Montserrat sea, out there on the briny deep . . .  
                

                                      



High Seas: where many a tuna has a Sorry Charlie moment: “Star-Kist don’t want no tuna with good taste; Star-Kist wants a tuna that tastes good.”

Finally, Juanita is rescued, taken aboard the Good/Soul Aunt Peggy—that wayward bark Elisabeta Rodriguez, home-ported in Southside, Chicago, Illinois—the rescue at sea performed in classy, rather low-key manner; no Andrea Doria drama, but understated:

{Camera One, Helicopter above, zooms over turbulent ocean surface. Peggy, an oasis of calm, aboard the raft Kon Tiki with Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, floats by, whispering, “Going my way, Honey? Climb aboard. Have a homemade oatmeal cookie and a small glass tumbler of Jack Daniels.” Okay, no, that’s not fair. Sure Aunt Peggy drank, but never got round to offering you a drink until you were well into your 30s. Let’s just say she offered you a warm glass of milk, the mother’s milk deprived you by your mother, her sister Rosalia. Dear Aunt Peggy: a seasoned survivor herself, flawed by early childhood deafness and grotesque speech.  Yet, she had refused to settle for life in an asylum. She made a go at life.  She learned; she prospered; she flourished. And when the time came, she was there for you in the Coachella Desert, there for her feisty niece Juanita Ann.  Aunt Peggy: a loving spirit personified, became Juanita’s special confidant and counselor, her personal cheer squad of one. Juanita, of course, a former cheerleader herself--an early hint of greatness to be sure, a highlight, perhaps the highlight of her life, shown off every Halloween, still celebrated at American high schools each Fall. She is the Principal’s secretary at a huge suburban high school in Indio. Each Halloween, if the date falls on a school day, Juanita arrives for work wearing that scrupulously preserved, vintage 1966 cheerleader uniform, looking real foxy still, snug now in all the right places. Eternal Truth: Juanita has always and will always be good looking. Life with Juanita is perpetual “ooh la-la.”

So, I am on the couch that afternoon, reading more of Gramsci’s prison notebooks, specifically the philosophy he calls “Praxis.”  Completely out of the ******* blue, Juanita calls me on a RESTRICTED phone, as I said, Juanita, a torch I’ve kept burning for years, flaring up like a refinery flame--oil still very much in the present energy mix--hope springing eternal as they say, and instantly my mission in life is rekindling our lost love. Juanita’s conceived her mission prior to her phone call:  using me to keep her son from being whacked by the local Eme--the Mexican Mafia—that ethnic-pride social club that the RICO-squad-- using family tree socio-grams and other expensively-printed graphics, the one RICO keeps trying to convince us is some sort of organized crime conspiracy. The Mexican Mafia: like everything else practical and utilitarian in this world: THAT’S ITALIAN! And, if you are starting to sense a bit of ethnic chauvinism on, between & below the lines, you are barking up the right tree.
                                                           ­     
      
                                                            
(AUTHOR’S POST-SCRIPT EDIT: And, an ad for dog food right here? Not the best choice of sponsors, perhaps, at the moment. Juanita was far off from the ****** ***** that start looking not half-bad at 2:30 in the glazy morning, not anywhere near those beasts you find lingering in the airport bars you usually frequent near closing time on Saturday nights. No, I remind you that Juanita was all “ooh la-la.” In my next printing—and my Lord, there have been so many, haven’t there, Paulie “Eat-a-Bag-of-****” Muldoon? I will change out the Alpo ad, plugging in a spot for Aunt Jemima pancake syrup or Betty Crocker whipped cream, you know, something more apropos.)

Juanita, I really must hand it to you. You showed the greatest staying power, year after year as I moved further and further away from La Quinta, California. Juanita: you embraced what was good in me, ignored my flaws and strengthened me with your love for so many years. As far as you and Peggy, I guess it was a case of the “apple not falling far from the tree” one of many endearing Midwestern metaphors you taught me.  Peggy taught you, taught you to be kind and then you taught me. No matter what bizarre venue I pulled out of my ***, you showed above-average staying power, continued to visit me wherever I went, Casa Grande & Buckeye, Arizona, Appalachia, West Virginia, and even Italy, when I thought I’d try Europe again after so many years.  With each move, each time, Juanita renewed her commitment to the relationship. Meanwhile, I continued to test her, quantifying her dedication, undermining her sense of mission to disprove my worldview on the expendability of women. Surely, you know that one: the unreliability of women, women who disappear without saying goodbye. That old deeply etched conviction to never get attached to a woman, any woman, based on the empirical fact that women have been known to suddenly die, a fact seared into my still tender metal by the surprise death of my mother on 11 January 1962.

1962. It was already an insecure world, to wit:  The Cuban Missile Crisis. Nikita Khrushchev, in his time both Dr. No and Dr. Evil, namely the Premier whom we Baby Boomers saw as Boogey Man of All Time (Although Putin is showing potential, lately)—the Kennedy ****** (what else could you call it?). All these events scary, whether or not I got the chronology right . . . I remained on high alert for any threat to my delicate adolescent psyche.  My mother-Rosa Teresa Sekaquaptewa-died at 2 o’clock in the morning, screaming in agony while apologizing to my father for not having his dinner on the table when he walked in from work that prior afternoon. She’d already been in bed since noon, attended by two of my aunts--both my father’s sisters--who loved their Hopi sister-in-law, Rosa.  Also present was Lafcadio Smirnoff, M.D.--last of the house call medicine men--a dapper, mustachioed, swarthy gentleman, misdiagnosing her abdominal pain as a 24-hour virus, while she bled out internally for at least eight more hours, her whimpers alternated with screams, well into the wee hours of the morning.

I was upstairs in that dormer bedroom listening to her die. An hour later, Father Numb-nuts of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish teleported in, beaming directly into my bedroom from the parish rectory.  Father Seamus Numb-nuts, an illuminated Burning Bush . . . not quite the bush I ‘d conjured at other times, so many times alone with Gwen Wong, ******* Playmate of the Year, 1961, one of Hefner’s hot centerfolds. No, give me a ******* break, you momo! Whacking off is the last thing on a libidinous, adolescent guinea’s brain when his mama is being tortured and killed by God. Even Alexander Portnoy, Philip Roth’s early avatar would have drawn the wanking line at that unforgettable moment.

No, perhaps what I’d had in mind was The Burning Bush Golf Course where so much of Fletcher Kneble’s political mischief and government shenanigans got cooked up. You remember his books, some of the Cold War’s finest: Seven Days in May, Vanished, etc.

Or better yet, perhaps the greatest political slogan of the 20th century: “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” Thank you, Jesse. “Thank you, Reverend Jackson,” I slip into my Excellence in Broadcasting mode, my very own private Limbaugh. Announcing my on- air arrival is El Rushbo’s unmistakable, totally recognizable bass line bumper, courtesy of Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders band mate, guitarist Tony Butler: Dum, dum, dum-dum, Da-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum. Single, “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
Rush Limbaugh Song– YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=SScW9r0y3c4

I become Reverend Jackson. I emerge from the vapors, an obscure abyss of deep family pangs and disappointments, ever-diminishing public relevance and fade to black (no pun intended) and media oblivion. The only thing left is that line:  “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” You will always own that line, Jesse--true political genius (to wit: Rainbow Coalition) Jackson that you are, despite El Rush-Bo’s virulent anti-Black animus, his predilection to mock you, Al Sharpton, Corey Booker, Barack “Hussein” Obama, and any other professional ***** in America. Isn’t it time someone came right out and tagged Mr. Limbaugh as the Father Coughlin of our time.

Meanwhile back in The Bronx, enter another man of the cloth:  It’s Seamus Numb-nuts, making one of his many well-documented spectral visitations, his splendiferous miracles and wonders. How much longer will the Vatican ignore this humble Bronx priest, this epitome of Sainthood; this reverent man, lacking only the stigmata for a unanimous consent vote? Quote the Numb-nuts: “God Works in Mysterious Ways.” An old standard to be sure, but a lovely, all-purpose bromide for explaining why evil exists in our world. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed; I lost God at that moment, consequently shooting myself in the foot--metaphorically-speaking-condemning myself to an unshielded life, life OUT THE BUSHES!  I went forth into the world without God, without that handy divine crutch, that Andy Devine metaphor for when one’s legs grow weary: a puff of smoke, a reverb twang and a nasty frog croaking “Hi-ya, Kids. Hi-ya, Hi-ya. Hi-ya.”

   Andy's Gang - Pasta Fazooli vs. Froggy the Gremlin - YouTube
► 3:55► 3:55
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35odPm7b3w Aug 8, 2012 - Uploaded by jmgilsinger
Froggy the Gremlin -Tuba ... Andy Devine (Aug 24, 1952)

Life for me became lonely and purposeless. And probably explains my susceptibility to military discipline and a subsequent career in clandestine government service. In 1968--the very day I turned nineteen, September 25th of that year—that fateful day when I should have shot myself in the foot—literally not metaphorically--earning that coveted 4-F physical rejection, a draft deferment to be desired, that 4-F classification of unfitness for duty, a necessary loophole in U.S. conscript service law.  The Draft: last used during that great commonwealth Cold War purge, that culling out of the unwashed, uneducated children of immigrants, that cut-rate, discount, lower socio-economic ***** bank—the only bank where after you make a deposit, you lose interest, to wit: most Black, Hispanic and Poor White Trash parents.  We were cannon fodder, many of us got to be planted at Arlington and other holy American shrines, still wrapped in black or olive drab leak-proof body bags, doing our generational bit to strengthen the gene pool left behind. A debt, some would say, we owed the country and, given the sorry state of the global wicket, increasingly an obligation to the species. And if I had to predict an outcome, Fascism in America will arrive riding the white horse of the environmental, anti-nuclear Bolsheviks. One could argue that Communism has moved so far left on the political spectrum that it’s now the far right.  Concoct a legislative policy goal, accomplish it legally as the bill becomes Law, signed by the President, endorsed and blessed by The U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

To wit: “Three generations of imbeciles is enough?” declared Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an Associate Supreme Court Justice at the time, buttressing a majority argument harnessing the power of U.S. law as a legal means of purifying the race.  When euthanasia failed to win over American hearts and mind, the Federal Government played the war card again and again. Vietnam: undeclared and therefore unconstitutional--except for that Gulf of Tonkin ******* resolution. Vietnam: a cost-plus eugenics project, if ever there was one, although responsive, of course, to the needs of the Military-Industrial Complex.  ******* Ike: he warned us against Fascism in America. As usual, we ignored the man in charge.

Eugenics? Why didn’t the government just put all the retards on the stand, as John Frankenheimer did in Judgment at Nuremberg, a crafty Maximilian Schell humiliating a feeble-minded Montgomery Clift?  Why not, make everyone face a public tribunal, forcing all of us to testify in court, exposing our many substandard and borderline substandard cerebral deficits?  Why not force everyone to demonstrate just how ******* dumb we are, using some clever intelligence test, something l

if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

We’ve been in this place before.
A winter day in the Inland Empire,
So why not give it the respect
It earned in the annals & anals
Of American Land Scams,
Right up there, with
Arizona and Florida,
Desert & underwater “premium” lots,
“Premium” leads for CLOSERS,
Like Glengarry Glen Ross;
Hard telephone salesmen,
Cold-calling in its infancy.
Riverside and San Bernardino:
“A Development Too Far”
For many speculators
Since the 1970s,
But we may be on the brink,
Of another California Gold Rush,
Should many more of us over-55s
In search of lost community
And Cold War nostalgia
Come out here.

Yes, it’s déjà vu.
Here I am, all over again
Locked-down in my
Gated, golf-coursed
Lunatic Asylum,
Located in Hemet,
Riverside County,
Southern California,
A place I affectionately
Call Hemetucky.
The sun shines bright on
My Old Hemetucky Home—
Written by Stephen Foster,
An early American genius—
Stephen Foster - Wikipedia, the  free  encyclopediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Stephen Foster‎ Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826–January 13, 1864), known as the "father of American music", was an American songwriter primarily known for his parlor . . .

But I digress.
Here I am once more
Comfy in easy chair leather,
Enjoying another bottle from Temecula’s Doffo Winery,
Listening again to Pretenders—
The Isle of View,
Grooving to the sultry,
Come-hither,
***** voice of
Chrissie Hynde!
Amazon.com: The Pretenders - The Isle of View: The Pretenders ...
www.amazon.com › Movies & TV › TV‎ Fans of the Pretenders' 1995 live CD, The Isle of View, will be delighted that the DVD release of the band's televised performance at London's Jacob Street  ... isle Of View PRE-TENDERS UK live chrissie hynde 1995 - YouTube ► 52:18► 52:18 www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9BlVFT0x4s‎ isle Of View PRETENDERS UK live chrissie hynde 1995. Amazon.com: Isle of View by The Pretenders (1995) - Live: Music www.amazon.com › ... › New Wave & Post-Punk › New Wave Shop for music deals on CDs, MP3 songs and albums, and vinyl records by Pretenders and more.

(That’s right, Grasshopper!
This is how you finally
Make poetry $pay:
Sell ad space right in the
Middle of a ******* poem!)

Oh, Chrissie!
Take this for
What it’s worth, Babaloo:
For What it's Worth-Buffalo Springfield - YouTube
► 2:37► 2:37
Ka-CHING! Ka-CHING!
Oh, Chrissie!
I’d eat your ****, Babe,
Just for old time’s sake,
“But there's a woman
With a gun over there,
A tellin' me, I got to beware.”
Have you met my girl friend?

i came around this neck of town
with a few suppositions about scotland.
Its a little admittedly a little odd willingly picking and packing  up
to sail across the sky
despite the little itch
painted on the inside of my eyelids,
brain, reminding me of people to whom I wont speak again
until they’re once again immediately in front of me.

(which means I’m kind of **** at staying in contact, even with the internet at my disposal.)
but even as technology laces the textures of communication
I constantly find myself in silence,
misplaced somewhere between the pages and the covers,
happily nestled in a place just as cozy as the beds i find myself in these days.

and when you move, there’s obviously going to be a mildly upsetting adjustment period when people ask you out for coffee and small talk.
Which is always weird, being forced through that routine when both parties know it
inevitably takes a little more than a strong cup of coffee and an exchange of pleasantries to get to know somebody.
personally, i prefer the pleasant haze of sunlit leaves
a meander through a forest, the back alleys of trees.
If you want to get to know me, take me out of society.
those coffee spoons and sugar cubes don’t mean anything to me.

when you grow to know me, you’ll see that this beauty’s only used to
sacrifice the loneliness of these panic attack blues.
black jeans, black docs, redbull and a bag of green
help me fly above this city, over the changing loyalties
the mettle of this skeleton’s made of the brittle bones of birds,
my wings are composed of their bitter words, (and that’s just fine)
(because) i’ve a tar pit where my heart is/
and it drips to fill the space that makes an artist’s hearts harden

but behind that internal la brea, I’ve been aptly middle named
because ive got a kinder ray behind
that shines for those who choose to stay.
not only for those who choose to stay, but for those who allow me in as well;
its hard to let a stranger in, should they let your secrets out,
but i’ve got a lockbox for a memory because i don’t remember a lot of things
so rest easy knowing that your words are and will be safe with me.

I know
when I go
to that the place I called
home will still show
on the mail I get
but my heart
was left behind in a haze of partial memory
and leaves I won’t again see green until a tender summer’s eve.

but until then, i have 53c murray place, the locals to my scottish life,
to keep me sane, or at least humane before the leaves have fully changed and
fallen from the trees completely.
when thats happened, i’ll have to leave.  
I’ll have to leave the grey skies and lichen foundation
and a forest full of sympathizers  and former strangers.
i remember standing on the rooftop as the breeze blew below
yelling to the people who will never think to look above the street they know.  
Roger, if heaven has a cell for me too, i’ll rent that **** as a timeshare,
so i can make a pretty profit off the constant loss of my memories and endowed indemnity.
and chrissie, you’ve been a sister to me, a parallel sort of emily
thats going to make leaving this new family
all the more difficult.
and robbie, i’m an old soul, as only you’d know.
classical music in the afternoon to soundtrack an empty flat,
at least i know you’ll follow me soon after i go back.

i remember leaving the flat for the second time, when i was sure i knew my way around,
i saw clouds fit for an easel
and a sun fit for a screen
harboring glory in every pixel.
and during that walk home,
english, french and spanish disappeared,
and i took no notice,
while i go on revising the quiet days i never intend to publish.

She was the type of girl who
Knew how to demand a man’s attention.
The smart ones gave her the best
They had, a full-service menu,
If you catch my drift?
They knew she’d reciprocate later,
Alligator, with the sweetest B.J.
This Side of Paradise,
(Forgive me, F. Scott)
Can you dig it, Mister?
We’re talking Mohammedan
Fantasy & Paradise here, Babaloo.
That’s the kind of girl she was, always
Screaming: “Attention Must Be Paid,”
Co-opting Mr. Loman, of course,
But unlike Willie, Ms. Hynde has a
Trevi Fountain full of Self-Esteem.
Going into the home stretch now,
Determined her last Act will be
Focused solely on Self-Actualization.
That’s the type she is.

12/10/2012:
A very mellow day,
A day that makes one’s golden years actually golden.
Happy in retirement?
There’s a joke:
You slave like Spartacus in the Libyan salt mines for 30 or 40 or even 50
years, and now you’re supposed to re-calibrate the machine, re-gauge
one’s anatomy and metabolism for a habitat so far and away grindstone
gone.
The muckrakers Studs Terkel and Barbara Ehrenreich remind us:
Work is the only thing we can do for 8 hours, other than sleep.
Perchance even to dream out that Roman **** or Bacchanal.
No, alas, 4 hours is the legal limit for an ******* lasting that long,
During all our joy-juiced carnal desires,
Be they under the elms or elsewhere.
Cialis! ******!
Names already living it up in infamy.

A simple truth about Retirement:

Stop working and die.
A most intense public service announcement,
A vast digital image out of Yeats,
A very special Spiritus Mundi P-S-A.
Targeting Baby Boomers, especially:
“You better find yourself something,
Or someone to occupy your mind.”
Brought to you by the good people at
OCCUPY BRAIN STREET,
First a national, then a veritable global movement,
However so short-lived;
Like all the others.
Oh, Boomers, your attention span is down to 8 minutes.
Your mnemonic links are frayed and tattered,
Your hard drive noodle fragmented,

Yet still whirring white noise jazz.
A New Orleans Dixieland funeral,
And Al-Zheim trumpet blast to go out on.

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,
But I am relatively well adjusted in retirement.
And today—previously mentioned as a mellow day--
Today is one reason why.
As is medical marijuana and the sultry voice of Chrissie Hynde,
With or without her band of Pretenders.
And let’s throw in a lovely bottle of Temecula red wine--
Doffo, if you’re going to get fussy on me,
Another blithe distraction cultivated and custom-made for old age.
Indeed, a very mellow day.

for Chrissie*

Your coffee cup
in the sink

bearing the traces
of the lips
I awoke with and kissed
in the dim morning light.

I resist washing it

hesitant
to wipe away
this tangible memory

but I do,
confident in the knowledge
that your next
lipstick print
will be left
on my lips

red as blood

and
just as warm.

I have no confusion
I know what you can do
you are in my sight
you are in my eyes
what you don't see
does not exist to me
all that's falling
you take in
pieces whole to you
fixed is boring
you talk lightly
I hear nothing else
you're not from here
it's different
you're different
teach me
your luminosity
I want in
I'm like
all the others
find in me
a bend a buckle
single me out
high up
observe
I am alone
alone
high up
I will laugh
it will all seem
silly

Ivy and Jean's visit at two moons on Jupiter



You see ivy and Jean went out in the after life trying to find somewhere to
Party, and Graham Thorne whose earth life is me, all drunk beer together,
You see graham Thorne. Was in the bar drinking and chatting up Chrissie Amphlett and
While Jean Allan is building a new mini mall, which is located at top of the Jupiter, you
See, with her creative touch, she designed each stair well, as well as the special food court,,and she helped build the Great new Jupiter department store.You see Jean Allan is working very hard, trying to keep Brian looking cool and functioning well, so Jean brought Brian's previous life Graham Thorne over to the mall construction site, to dig the first blade of grass, you see, Jean had waited for this moment since she left the earth in 1997, her current earth body, who works for the Belconnen Magpies now as a runner, but he hasn't got much of role, because Jean was busy working to build the mini mall,,and  this made her earth life very sure of himself, and Ivy, who was the head of the Jupiter town hall, said to Jean that she needs to put some marble into the cracks, making a beautiful formation. And then Graham Thorne poured the lacquer all over it, making it firm to touch,



Sent from my iPhone

I hate my hands
I hate my legs
And I hate my brain back then
I bullied people
Grabbing people on the mouth
Chasing people around the shops
Telling my dad I will stab him
With no knife
I let the garage on his head
I punched him at the front door
I didn’t want to do all this
It was my previous life’s kidnapper
In my body
I threw cricket stumps at my brother
I hit him in the pool
I teased him by saying
What is wrong little chrissie
Did I hit you too hard
I hate my hands
I hate my mouth
I tied myself up
And gagged myself too
I played tv shows in my room
My brother thought I was dumb
So my hands would pinch him
I hate my hands
I hate my mouth
I hate my feet
I hate my brain
My brain is making me do all this
To my family
I wanted to put my hand across this person
He told his mum
I copped an ear bashing
I saw people getting into a big cage in the shops
I felt like locking them in
Stupid brain.
My lifeline is leaving my hand
Getting itchy
I hate my hands
And my brain
I didn’t lock them in
But did worst things
I hate my hands
My brain
My body
But deep down I have got over it

Go play with the petty minds of your ilk's
where snowflakes drip
and pennies short of farthings marry tool
boxes with blunt edges
waving neon signs of induced paranoia
and coloured seeds in brine
for in their market place of trading places
its for sale at gun point
after all Chrissie Capone sold the copyright
and the blueprint of
planting seeds of staining and discolouration
as they do in prisons
to prey on and bully and intimidate victims
tap on the demoralising skits
and make yourselves puppies on chained leads
but alas not all are brainless
You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people
some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the
people all of the time.
do majority decide how long a piece of string is
ye simple buyers of neon jives