The first enchilada was created in the summer of 1968
In a small house near Seal Beach
In Southern California.

The house was owned by a friend of my dad's
Or my mom's
And we had gone over for dinner

I was eight

I would like to say that it was a cool beach pad
With wood paneling, all the rage back then
And an Eames recliner in the corner of the living room

I only remember the paneling
but since I am writing this
The Eames piece stays

We had gone for dinner
And the owner of the house had made enchiladas
Beef ones as I recall with sauce from a series of Old El Paso cans

I can still smell and taste them
They were the first world food I had ever had
Besides canned Chinese food from the supermarket which doesn't count

And because I loved them with their ground beef and sauce
Their hot oil softened corn tortillas, sour cream, cheese and green onion
And little tiny bits of black olive

They became the prison guards
Throwing open the gates of my suburban Connecticut upbringing
Letting me leave the confines and walk freely in the sunshine for the first time

They were followed by many other firsts
Sushi, Crepes, haggis,  tiki masala and sea urchin to name a few
All of which owe their very existence in my life

To that first enchilada.

My first impression of the children's hospital was how nice everything was. It was new, with fish tanks and red sofas; pastel windows which made pretty colors on the floor when the sun went through them; walls were freshly painted and everyone talked with a smile. Everything just looked so peaceful.
It wasn't until my second visit that I saw the flaws. I was sitting on one of the red couches, waiting for my name to be called, and I was looking at the fish tank. A little girl was pressed up to the glass telling her mother that she could see nemo. But when I looked closer, I saw a little fish turned over floating at the surface. A man behind the glass quickly pulled it out of the tank, but I saw. That's when I started noticing other things. Like the bloodstain on the cushion next to me. And the fact that a few tiles were missing from the floor. The wood paneling had scratches on it; one of the pastel windows was taped up; and every parent was smiling, but the little kids holding on to them kept asking what was wrong.
Maybe that's just how hospitals are. They want you to think that everything's okay; that all that goes on inside are couches and fishtanks. They think that if they write out the word HOSPITAL in bubbly pink letters people might get it into their brains that everything's okay. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a hospital. Masking pain only works for so long, until broken bits and pieces push their way through.
I think hospitals are just fish tanks. Everyone is put on display for doctors and visitors and things seem okay for a while, you know, until they aren't. When a little nemo dies, they send away his body and just replace him with another orange fish that people can look at. We are all the cracks in the pavement; elevators shut down for repair; a phantom pain that nobody wants to believe is real. If you stand far enough away; if you distance yourselves from anything close to the word hospital, you can just let yourself focus on the mask they put up. But once it's time, and you're sitting on a red couch in the lobby of the children's wing, with a kid asking you where her older brother went, you'll find yourself staring at the cracks in the facade with a single tear running down your face and with emptiness in your stomach.

Tell me about the Ace of Wands!
Tell me about the Ace of Wands!

This has been poorly imagined I admit:
The sunny penthouse
Open to the breeze
which presses and sways
through the sliding glass doors

Upturned champagne bottles
set in buckets of melting ice
A crystalline view of the Pacific
Or dusky Vegas lights

Strewn silken sheets
A **** carpet you can grab on to
The myriad of variations under a rising Moon

Yet Leather and Ecstasy are no where to be seen.
And though I wasn’t thinking of Sardinia
or of the Amalfi
That is a great idea

ROMP
noun
1. a spell of rough, energetic play.
2. a farce.

Eventually
(An earth-sign cusp is slow no matter how much air)
Eventually
creeping into my mind’s eye
(Thank you Time)
was my dodging of the slow-moving bullet
Alas, the lumpy bed in Hollywood awaits
with serviceable sheets
Encased in variations on a theme of
brown everything
A soul death in faux wood paneling
Someone else’s earring on a
grubby carpet floor
that offers you
burns for your back that won’t heal so fast
if that’s what you want
There’s the opening of the door
on the purring refrigerator
to look at cold nothing
And think nothing
Cystitis is on its way
And yes,
Too much dust

Don’t get me wrong
I have no real issues with dust
I have stood
Alone in the semi darkness before
In such a living room
Staring at this luminous particulate
On album covers
and in the glare of backlit windows
Floating in a beam from
a ceramic thrift store table-lamp

I was on my way to find the bathroom
Where a pair of pink ******* lay
drying
in wait for
me

Bachelor dust
Is old
I can write my name with my finger
in that which rests
upon the turntable’s hinged cover
In case you don’t remember
What they call me

As I’ve said
I’ve got nothing against it
Ask the dust
Go ahead
Ask it
Resting quite comfortably
on the bookshelves
If there are bookshelves
As if it had
something to do.
I ask it why?

my invading molecules subdivide
and grow more comfortable

Dust?
Why do I smell the stench of
chaste virgins and ***?
The intoxicating odor of foxed letters from an epistolary exchange regarding:
One Fair Maiden and the Devilish Pursuits to  Compromise Her Virtue?
The Opinions and Observations of Fallen Fruit
Here: The woman and her only true
possession
And Here: The sticky absconder who smells of fish.
They meet.
She blinks.

The dust replies
It’s a simple plan:
The Dear Lady is to be led
Astray
by pretty words and unspoken indiscretions
her dowry in the end, useless
She’ll be banished to the counties
To be a governess
or the
Bored companion
of the only living relative who will
Admit her services
Unpaid in silver coins
He is Blind and his Cook has left
Dyspeptic
Disagreeable
Cheap
and Mean.

She is Ruined.
Perhaps she will escape
to Italy
and die
Alone
in the sunshine.

The dust tells me another story
The same century still
This time, a miscreant princeling
surrounded by Trifles
Picking up one bob and then another
Preoccupied by uselessness
Perhaps a strawberry
Perhaps more claret and his mistress’s left breast
Tonight will be the scullery maid
Who will lose more in the end
Than she could ever possibly imagine
Tossed out of the kitchens
to Providence.
God bless Her.

The dust tells me
It’s mercantile, my dear
It’s all transactional
But look at me
I’m here for a time but am easily
Agitated and
Airborne
Aeolian driven
Ever blossoming fugitive clouds of swirling devils
Interstellar Reflection Nebulae
As you can see
I’m never in one place
So I say keep it movin’.

fade into a crowded bar,
smoky, wispy;
three bar stools,
empty.

enter our three heroes
(or our three victims),
strangers.
they each take a seat,
throwing sideward glances lightly, curiously.
they hail from three different worlds
(but they're three sides of the same die).
and they all
hurt.

"shot of jameson."
the words seem to come from the stool,
only reverberating through a man in his forties.
two strangers glance sideways again, nodding slightly;
both gesture sideways with a wave of a wrist
and a point of a finger
before looking back down to the wood paneling
which seems to swirl and crack into a world all its own.

the jaded veteran of life is the first to get his drink,
followed by the frizzy haired young woman,
and then the boy who could be no older than twenty three.
three shots laid on the counter;
gulp.
three shot glasses clinking empty against the counter.

we all drink to forget, i think
(and the man, the girl, and the boy are no exception)

the man isn't happy
(and neither is his wife).
his world is woven of arguments and broken plates,
lost and tarnished love.
the burn of whiskey is nothing new
(more the burn of alcohol on a fresh wound).
his bar visits start with a head scratch and a sigh
and end with a taxicab back to his musty pillow
(and his musty love).

a tap on the shoulder,
he turns to look behind him.
"jesus, ****, bob! i've seen prettier expressions on train wrecks!  come sit with the guys."
he chuckles,
they stand
arms around each other's shoulders
to a darker corner.

the man needs to forget his life
(and the frolicking through meadows he thought it'd be).

two shots on the bar,
two empty glasses thud.

it burns, but she's had worse.
the girl hasn't been so lucky.
thrown bottles and cigarette burns are her world,
and the liquor is her respite from remembering
deadbeat dad
and mom,
who
(bless her heart)
wasn't there to stand in the way.
but she's better now,
all on her own
(or so she tells herself).

the ring of a cellphone pierces the chattering of the scene
briefly
before the click;
she answers.
"oh hey.  your flight's in?  sure, be right there."
her heels click against the floor,
the bar stool legs creak with her exit.

the girl needs to forget her jagged recollections
(though they pull from her like barbed wire from a corpse)
so she can forgive.

a lone shot on the bar.
a lone glass full no more.

his mouth stings like a newborn's being rubbed with the *****.
he won't ever get used to the sting of good liquor
(or of wanting her at his side through cold nights).
he didn't want school or work,
striving or achieving,
or his name in print.
just their fingers intertwined, or her head upon his chest
(because secretly, he can't fall asleep,
no,
not when she had the most lovable look in her snooze).
but his affection spans mountains, fills trenches, trails from rockets blasting through the galaxy
even though his sleeve-pinned heart has been skewered without remorse
more times than he could count when he was six years old
(so, why does it come as a surprise to him that the same couldn't be said of her?).
he tells himself he'll learn how to **** and not love
(so next time he won't have to drink himself back to normal).

another
shot.

*he drinks away his future
instead of past or present
(because he needs to forget how to love).

Today, I learned that when you touched me
My brain was still developing
In its ability to think long-term.

Today, I learned that I have persistent post-traumatic stress,
And that I cannot ever freely speak of what occurred
Without blue and red lights flashing
And slashing
Through your life
And mine.
So today, I felt your fingers again
I heard your breath replace my own
My body is, at most,
an autonomy forgotten
In the violent aftermath of your love.

Today, I hurt a perfect lover,
Who cannot taste the blood you made
Still wasting away, wrought between my hips
I was a young girl but, for you, I cursed the world
Cast myself into exile from those you said
Didn’t love me
Like you did
On that day

On that day
The sun blushed itself away into dusk
And I watched as I washed away
down the drain
The dripping dregs
Of what you’d craved, captured
And completely consumed
From me

Today, I know you willed my worship unto you
Because secrets from God
are worth dying for
when the suffering feels religious
and the pains feel like prayers
and the truth hurts so bad that I can’t
even think about it
alone
at home
with my eyes closed.

When 90 pounds wasn’t enough
And 90 days went by in a blur
And 90% out of the time  
My heartrate was 190 beats per minute

What there may be left to say
Is lost to my ebbing hedon’s memory
I let all the shades of you crash away
Evaporate the ocean of
a badly bruised mind
now left with little more
than terrified questions

When my back was pressed against
The paneling,
My soma was reified into
woman
And I threw my arms around your neck
and lost my sobbing to the friction
it burned so hot and sharp
and it smelled like bleach
as you ****** me
as we dangled
in that ****** metal box
You licked away my tears then
When you consumated this pain
for your *******
and I only wanted your embrace when
You licked my tears away

But its
Cold water on an old burn now
Your fingers, drenched in me then
Pried into my porcelain
Your love tasted like pennies and
It’s never left my tongue

Maybe it was your
Reddened thoughts that made you
Beat the color into me
Beat this sadness into me
But that was a long time ago.

A blinding
Hopeless inclination towards a blending of nostalgia
And something just a twinge surreal.
Too enraptured, perhaps, or too locked inside the senses
The search takes me places, to small shards that I don't quite comprehend.
Still unsure why, if I can't, or I just don't want to.

It's old and familiar
Soaking in solitude, rife with memory.
Touched lightly by the hem of rose tint, blooming in the spreading flames.
As the old wooden paneling, tried as a tinderbox
Begins to peel away, affected by the heat.
A fire, awakening with the first rays of morning.
To warm up the little room, as the walls softly fall, turning to ashes.
Revealing the bare frame.
And the fauna outside begins to show itself
Sprinkled with dew, gently coaxing away the flames.
Rooted too close, it would seem
As they progress, slowly wither under ash

But for now, I still crawl through creation.
Hopeless, I'll never recapture...
Ignoring new context, engulfed in this fruitless rapture
With the past still dancing through my head.

Little effects that quickly infuse the problematic and they can do great work and what’s better
We will start this journey on a night beach in the Mediterranean we sit alone a roaring bon fire
Ignites the immediate and the far reaching the mind also is ablaze the darkness sits as a stretch
Of measurable consciousness comfortable broodiness with a touch of spell binding running
Through it the lips have spoken wonder into this place then you board a ship bound for ancient
Troy you are below deck surrounded by the richest wood paneling the room you are mixing
Feelings with the timbers and the sweet tortuous sounds as the ship ploughs through the
Turbulent waters you go top side standing by the rigging in the gathering darkness the sails
Are full the wind howls ever so gently as the ship slips through the waters life as well has waters
You stand in this present world the real of earth and sky but with power of thought instantly
You flex mental powers your sum total is told in all the waves of yesterday that break as sweet
Tremors that contain smiles that hold endearments that are without price a parents hug long
Lost to deaths foreboding reality springs anew and it holds as much feeling if not more because
Of separation and the tears and pain that are raw and immediate the unbreakable bond that
Has to be experienced through that fleeting emboldened treasure of nuance you hold your
Hands over objects that are prized in themselves they can be ordinary but by memory they are
Addressed in true terms of their sacred effect on you its automatic when you take the hand of a
Child innocence courses into your soul you have collided with your own self in those tender
Days of longing for a world that was absent of harshness and magic was real you accessed life
Truly with features that were real intuitively they were the whole of storybook treasures or by
Advancing years the wife of youth is found by tender recall she frets and speaks of negative
Aspects of herself she doesn’t know love never ever looks in that way his eyes are filled with
That sweet and beautiful girl she is ageless and without having to create it as truth she only
Improves with age everything about her is softer she is more giving wiser and as she finds her
True self it commands more mature pure love and the years are viewed through the mist in his
Eyes caused by gratefulness and thankfulness that he was so blessed to be given such a one as a
Life’s mate from the fragile nuance life can and is transformed bitter turned sweet you
Customize and make life fitting and beholding nightmares will hold no tangible fears when you
Interject the lovely and the possibilities that live in the extraordinary circumference that can be
Found in the simple but profound realness of nuance I started this piece by giving the idea of
Nuance the richness of place and value and wonder that is discovery although loss tries to
Prevail the mind can slip at times the little space just this delightful shadow bewitching as shade
From a tree within this balance a flow a glow burst as the powerful beam found in silver moon
Light the opposite of contentious day here the powerless is visited by the distinctive caring rest
That is able to soften unravel the toughest knots you find the bestowing wisdom that leads to
Victory and peaceful rest where intimidation is thus confounded and you twist free abiding in
Love that always watches and delivers when facing stone walls that are the makings of a
Prison the light of nuance appears and provides the way of escape proceed the glorious garden
of freedom awaits

Too young for marriage
too old to stay with mom & dad.
But she hopped a bus following him West
and gave up all she had.

Skinny dipping in the salty sea
Infatuation in a rusty car
Plaid shirts and promises,
he was a thief that stole her heart

He gave her two babies
but she always felt alone,
between those wood paneling walls
his explosive temper was shown.

Beer bottles and ashtrays.
Tumbleweeds and sand.
Black, blue, and purple
painted by his hand.

So weak for so long,
she would cower in fear
Until she saw her children's faces,
filled with confusion and stained from tears

She left with just the clothes on her back
and two babies clinging to her hand
following the sunrise in the East
going home to mom & dad.

There is a tenant
that lives in my building
who pays no rent

This time of year
he spends his time
rolling his nuts into storage
behind the brown wood paneling
at the head of my bed

He scurries around his
furry little self, day and night
to ensure that
I get no rest

I asked the landlord
if this tenant pays rent
"How much do you get from him" I asked
"Can't get a nut out of him" the reply

"So why don't you evict him"
"Don't be stupid, I can't evict him"
"Why not?"
"Because you can't take a squirrel to court"

About a half an hour later
the landlord knocks on my door
Shows me a handful of acorns
then demands

"GET OUT"

I think HE's nuts

Each pad sinks deeper into the soft
smushy, slush that was once hard like
Oak paneling in an old farm house.
The snow melts into calm reflecting pools
but constant spring is not a blessing
to the pink skin underpainting
of the great white bear.

He is not in a gold rush,
or a hurry, but he cannot swim forever.
The rising tides will bring the whales
closer, and only leave oil
and Caribou behind.

What shoes should you wear
when the ice goes renegade
and leaves you all but stranded
on a liquid isle?
Polar bears do not dock their boats
in Bernard Harbor,

so check your snow shoes
at the door and be prepared
for pirates. For when deer
jump eight feet into
pools, predators
should still know how to hunt.

it's no good,
no good,
no good.

No good for tomorrows,
where coffee's been cold,
tastes like battery acid,
kicks nervous systems up into highest gear--range = infinite.

then kills.

It's no good.

No good for saturday afternoons,
lonely as clear blue sky
on open highway
hurtling through ferocious air.

No good.

Definitely not a monday morning thought:

A day for hangovers,
tightly-capped lips,
****-smelling ****,
and linoleum stained as an old man's scalp.

It's no good for that time.

It's good for moments:
the window open, the tune of hurled air humbling your eardrums. Music loud, but not unbearable.
someone laughing in the back, kicking up their feet on the headrest
and taking the last sip of Wild Turkey.

Asleep in a securely blue bar;
laying your head on the wood paneling;
feeling the hum-drum earthworm of puke
on your tongue: Tasting guacamole and seared steak.

When the cop hurls around, cuts the lights, and hops out the squad
like a monster with a conscience.

You know you're drunk,
but fear doesn't hit you
until everyone involved
has peeled off.

Fear lingers, like shaking a dead man's hand,
but there are other things that wash well.

you and her.

It's good for moments perplexing,
it calms.

It's good for moments of fear,
it throttles you into sanity.

It's good for moments of confidence,
it humbles.

It's good for clarity,
it maintains.

He lived in the perfect place
for a trailer park,
but his had the only wheels for miles. It
was a cemetery with just one

dead body,
a morgue with a single
black garbage bag.

We had a funeral for my hair
when he held
scissors to my skull, and swallowed my
motor cortex so I would never

run away – a promise
that he needed to check for silkworms
in case that is why my hair

stayed so soft.
My braids went into the plastic bag

and his tongue danced down my throat
daring me to move
saying he would love to
see me bend all my bones for him.

All his blankets were green
like the forest,
all his walls made of wood paneling –

me, the last young thing
and he buried me alive in his bad breath.

Spring sweeps over Canton
in slow moving waves of sun-
branches on the few carefully
planted trees begin to bud
beautiful white petals,
clean and spotless against
dirt tinted brick
and unwashed windows,
shedding blankets of soft
confetti on hybrid cars
and BMWs crowded into
spots on the street sides.

The warm weather brings bees,
mosquitoes, and morning joggers
who smile at each other as they pass,
their dogs running beside them.
They stop to smell
the patches of weeds that have
sneaked between cement panels
on the sidewalk, but are quickly
****** ahead as their owners’
heart rates begin to fall.

The jogging trail is tracked
in old houses ******
over like aging women.
They soak up the warmth
like a sponge, their seventy
year old walls continuing to peel
old asbestos speckled paint
beneath brand new wall paper
and paneling.

Bankers and law students,
doctors and nurses,
barflies and models
hunt them like injured
pray on a mountain top-
so few to feed on
that when one emerges,
hundreds dive for the ****
but only the ones with the
fattest wallets win,
and can sink their teeth into
the tender taste of
prime real estate,
a thin slice of Hip in
this burgeoning yuppie haven.

The handle
to the front door won't budge,
but it can still be locked
from the inside.
The overgrowth is five years
in the making, vines took over
this home of once improvement.
I don't believe we ever
owned a gas can.
A boarded up pool.
The one in which the dog died.
His body was as bloated as my eyes. The puppy in the pictures still hung in the basement beside the kicked in window.
Leaves and insects rest
on the linoleum floor, a cohabitation that was formed out of vacancy.
A long dresser left ajar from wood paneling, insects crawling around,
not that one would know how they
got there. Old paperwork and letters survived. The assumption is that the moths never arrived to join the spiders nestled in their leaves.
Both longhand and typed sentences that spoke of longing, love (young love), happiness, direction, and lastly evaluation. Broken glass fixed against the dresser, a reflection shows.
The dirt and grime is of a
subconscious level.
One that exceeds the proximities
of the appropriate metaphor.
So what is seen is loss.
And although this occurrence
comes as a new beginning, the best solution at the given moment may perhaps be a broom and a dustpan.

Emotions are like a storm rolling in, I prefer my mood to be like happy weather
When I say happy weather I mean a beautiful  sunny day
I look outside the glass window paneling and I see the birds chirping
And the trees lively and green

Not a cloud in sight but a lovely beam of sunlight piercing through the living room  of this glorious light
I noticed one of my dogs  as he lay, while the others frolic and play
And I enjoy the peace and quiet alone

I might want to enjoy this happy weather without a care
My heart is filled with this happy weather  mood

You don’t have to say anything,

we can lay on

thick blankets covered in

cigarette burns

and stare at

the paneling on the

sagging walls.

Kiss me

as the dust

collects on the picture

frames and

the wind carries away

the steady glances

we share.

You look beautiful

with

that cigarette

between your lips.

You look beautiful in

the color

red.

I like to sometimes hide in the shadows to get away from the madness
Eye Keep it bright within my dark confines
Reducing my use for all this plastic
Tragic happenstance organized dances
Charades parade through town all funking day
Never risking change.  Maybe the day we die some will finally ask why, but imma do my part in seeking past my thresholds to tune into my subconscious and really give it a listen, cuz I can't rest with saying I tried.
The room breathes with me, a pillow-like comfortablility in my being.  Then everything fades into the loud quiet of the evening.  Stains were given a new chance at life, dancing on the surface, waiting to be uncovered.  Above body Being hovered, I watched it look down with the kind of warmth from a lover
It touched me so.  Streams of realities bleed before my face and my only concern is these thoughts don't last long enough to chase.  So I wait.  With my slumped over, patient grace.  The beauty of the taste washes over my shores.  Didn't even come to dinner and I was still blessed with a plate fully-adorned
I welcome the shakes, tingles, and sensations
I am creator and I send off thoughts like payment.  Placing with direct intent, something miraculous is about to happen and I don't even know of it yet.  Star fuel in our chests, happy for the last and next breath....but what about this one...
Golden.  It is fullness, it is whole.  It is a feeling so deep that all that can vibe with it is soul
Maybe try tapping into the body's rhythms, to calm the water enough to bring forth the wisdom.
Through my rollercoaster of ups and downs I've picked up pieces stood ground at the places of my landing.  I feel hollow, getting my owl song on before my flight of understanding

I think I am now who I once was

Once upon a time slumping over dreadful decline
Walking blurred lines with heart's arteries tongue-tied
Half mind human took chance on the divine

Tethered in time, to stay, awake

Currently Lucid with Lucy
Listening to a Remix reflecting the times spent with self touching something sacred
Earned every feather flapped but I can't say it was painless
Let every shooting star tear my armor apart
Let it guide me to weave beyond these holographic 3D parts
Throw my dart into infinity, who's to guess where it lands first?  Birds eyes see I've fallen into limitations without finding the right high perch

A new way to take me back,
To the years of tears still held in the mask
It's gonna collapse cuz these man made creations sabotage the freedom to truly be.  What is truly me..?
Good grief.
He caught the spacecase, ****** his own brain to marvel over the sediment the drain couldn't take

Rest in peace to old demons seeking to conquer me.  My illumination exposed the old bones and that we should love the pieces equally
Fragments of who we used to be in air we used to breathe.  Now resurface intertwined in this cosmic web of everything.

Losing traces of self on the shelves of my music library
Full of care acting carelessly,
But with awareness we can remember not to move even when signaled to
Let loose from the bioboots
Creating reality watching the paneling become unglued

I am now who I choose to be

All that's remembered from my dream this morning are shooting stars.   Now before you lay to the deep you can rest easy seeing that star trail's descent.  One more breath you will be where you're headed.  God bless the restless with chests of stress.  May we forgive, but never forget.  Let the symbols come, I am ready to secrete the yesterweek's dmt to see whether or not this is really a 8dream.  Envisioning healing.  Pain pulses keep my head reeling.  But to take something from this, I am aware, I am feeling.

Remember you are dreaming

*Wake up~

amber lips are
getting too red.
the cat's eyes are
getting too cloudy.
the scratches
in the wood paneling
are getting too deep
& the church bell
that you can hear
from the mountains
is getting too loud.
the stack of pillows on
my desk chair is
about to fall over,
& the neighbors
are getting too high.
the molding
is getting too cracked.
the paint is
getting too faded
& my screams
are getting too quiet.

i found out
another friend is
Sad
with a capital 's', with capital weight
heaviness, of a bomb dropped
into glowing memoriam
sorrys and thanks, in equal measures
the world is
a little off kilter, a little
straighter
now
the sky still disassociates with the earth, in the morning
a membrane of white
stitched by avian sillouettes
awhiles whittling into brittle tones
paneling the arching of our spines
and
the italicized whir points out the
jagged smoothness
of sighs

Painted in tempera on illustration board
Don't know things by heart
They will only break you
Use your mind instead
How as a teen I wanted to die
But could not remember why
And the junkieing of america
Crack baby penquins walking on thin ice
A child being beaten on a bus
The driver runs then, drives away, does nothing
How do you spell deedy

Painted in brown acrylic
over pencil on wood paneling
She's the queen of visa
Knows all the tricks with cards
She said " I like to swim in the rain"
Alligators laughing, like on that Sendak drawing
"Yea" I say "I like the art in" and it was still hot
Dogfights for doughnuts just to shake a stick
The most out of place person I ever met
Was that surfer dude in Michegan
And when I stopped the chair cough
Then maybe I did do the world a favor
And the judge said "Can you prove that
this woman ***** you when you were
a two year old?"  And that is when
The tears began to fall down every cheek
of the jury.

Grievous

I hold you as the chameleon with his spring-trigger bone
Holds his tongue
And I will catch you as a fist
I will lick the stench from your odor sacks
as a skunk

All those creepy little fragments
bugs in the system;glitched codes
they are shackled souls in a microsecond arc-length
of the universal
Prodding the dirt
and the worms
as stars

How about all the spice trees?
The many different species of food glitter
they make the buds sparkle, they are thinking of the taste
of umami, of sour, of patchwork gaze
the cooked vestibules of bone
the marrow, seeping into the stew
The pepper trees are smoked
equinoctial bonfires
You and I are yet to be cooked through


A taxi in the trader joes parking lot
Big repetitive 7's splattered across its paneling
I won't forget when i'm drunk or inebriated somehow
The tree in the center of town is lit up with LEDs
Branches curling like worms

You are Pharos, you are the great celestial beam
you are the crescent moon, thin as a sleeve
and the hot taste of batter on your breath
the way you let my Guinness cool off next to the space-heater
and give me yogurt from the local townsfolk
Everything is creamy, you said.

But i don't like to hear that
It's a steel rod into my brain, that.
I am a simple Vishnu Hare Brahma
I do not have any purpose but to be enlightened
and worshiped for my powerful odors
and a four-chambered bowel
that makes the turn easier for worms.

2

Pitiful

You are the hopeless pod
the many wildebeest, crossing their annuals
through twirling water-crocs,
Lion Prides
Leopards shifting within the brush
Bacterial infections from ***** tusks
Strange metal boxes
No 7's on this side

I want to blow the ******* skulls off of anything
that aims for you, sweet mare
45-70
Will literally send chunks of it into orbit
Lion or Turtle or window or Children
The most godly thing is a bullet
And the streams of blood that will seed a new ravine
and seep the next feed of riverrun

Will you be mine, then?

15 years later, and we came back
the same creaking door announced our arrival
wood paneling and deer antlers seemed to remember us
the same way we started to remember them
six bunk beds and wooden shelves
where I used to put my radio and listen at night
the same key chains hanging from the light strings
we sat at the same wooden table
and put together that circular puzzle that has never left my mind
we went to the river and ran in bare feet
with the same fear of snakes as we did way back then
we sat 17 around the table and ate supper
and did the dishes with boiling water
we played Dutch blitz and card games
and always took someone else with us to the outhouse
we pumped that same water out of the same red pump
and the water had black flecks like it always used to
we all lined up and jumped off the rock in the same order as always
"my name is Bethany and I'm 22"
we hopped in the truck bed and went deer spotting at night
and remembered why we were scared of bears
and I remembered how much I miss being around my sisters
I slept on the top bunk with my sister
and she didn't stick her legs under my back like she always did
we climbed up to the fire tower
and rubbed leaves on our yellow jacket stings
I wish there was a natural remedy for nostalgia
when we left, they ran to the road to say goodbye
like they always did before
and my heart felt like some of it didn't leave with me
it took 15 years, but I came back

(News, May 2015: Every new home in France must grow food or have solar paneling)

Maupassant and Baudelaire
Say stick it up your derriere
You countries that just won't care
'Cos energy is free as free as thought
In, out, sunshine caught
So take your sticky carbon crap
Your shale, oil, and your frack
And leave them in the ground below
For we are here: the undertow
And we will grow.

A home that I saw
It was in a neighborhood that I had to explore
I certainly couldn’t ignore
The best way to describe
The wood paneling was magnified
It was a two family house
There was plenty of room even for a mouse
The antic had to room to store
This I know for sure
The house stood out on the block
The doors were sturdy with a strong lock
There was even a long backyard
There was space to move backward and forward
The fireplace was something to see
I like the house, but this is between you and me
My dream house in my mind
It has every combined
That is my house story, and I am smiling in my glory.

my mind breathes color
painting memories with
faces in rich oils
light watercolor
water rarely dirties

you are a strong forest green
welcoming, rooted, sensible, honest

he is a gentle sea blue
jovial, calm, deep, understanding

my dear friend, carrying a foreign name, royal purple
the boy I used to fancy, burnt orange
the other boy, rich teal, when he returns my smiles
cinnamon, pearls, dusty blue

my father is honey-stained oak paneling
my mother is garnet fabrics
my brother is a vivid red

the woman behind the coffee counter this morning, sweet canary yellow
the man jogging past my house this afternoon, the color of granola and sand

and me. i.
the world is a kaleidoscope

     i have always been grey

Blackberry wine and pecan biscuits ,
Crackling fires , knee high stockings , electric blankets ..
Communion with my evening star , storybooks luminesce
in a cold black venue , a hickory fire pops , vibrations travel the wood floors ..
Our reflections grace Pine paneling , elder hearts aglow on brisk , frosty , quiet nights .. Together ..

A flash of light with
One thousand tiny hands pounding the paneling of my door
The fireflies bow down in praise
A rush of hot breath
Dust left to fill in the gaps left behind
By the silence after the madness
And I still cut my hands
When I cover my ears

some August, July, or September. Some ordinary bliss, a magic. Your annual short-fall. An epitome, that overcomes, the hate in register octave. Time to rearrange the furniture. By now you should have found things to do at night, or Jesus. In the bedrooms where the moon men climb and claw. You are frazzled by sheets and pillow cases. The river rooks, your yellow shirt and blue jeans too. Them too. So many months have passed, so far as I could count, those moments when we grew so farther apart, or those moments, when we so closely grew together. That either, our choice of ice cream flavor became the same, or by a standard we resented the same kind of person, or on some eve not.

That it could make me shake, and sometimes even in the advesperating light I could see bits of your face in the wood paneling of my basement bedroom, or in the dissipating smoke of a cigarette I could make out a part of your cheeks and chin and nose. The small nose that I picked every chance I got. Lovely hatred, the glaring eyes you rattled me with or the sad letters and phone calls and your voice singing on my answering machine but then asking, inquiring to me. It's four in the morning and you're asking questions and I'm not speaking, my back arched and my legs and arms wrapped into my gut in the corner of the room, at the corner of my bed- that I could not April the 4th name the songs that you worshipped, if any, for tonight I could mention the acutely impossible grief, calls from the miserably disappointed. And ***** the rooms, those chairs of annoying, repetitive do-gooders, all of you, babbling buffoons in the pews and in the basements. The sides of your triangle softening into a mush, that you can't even keep your jawlines in focus. I hate you. That you could not even bare the inscription of an honesty so pronounced that it would unlock you from your tyranny of the eyes trailing off into space and nothingness, or follow the lines from the heft of your baited breaths, cold, hard *******.

There is good reason I am not god. I would spite the self-smitten, and helve the world inside out of your glory hole opus and irresistibleness. But should our letters over shine our bits, that we have lived our great adventures over, it would not be enough for me. And had you been shown the lives of our shadows, or could you not seize the light which has found you. I never forgave you, and instead, peeled my eyes back into my dry estate. Something more than every chance that was shucked from your pallid, mortal form. You were the life inside me and the words that ebbed from my infernal sores

I just wanted to make an art house out of popsicle sticks, a room out of acorns and limes. That maybe when you made your fashion dreams announced and I believed, that I could say ha-ha. An abundant melancholy shaped to a disparate creature shagged by a monster toiled in his rag and repugnance. I could have been alone in New England shaping the world on cobblestone streets, or say, kissing an hour in an airport parking garage gleefully strapped with excite and eagerness. Maybe I was just alone. Out of every postcard that I ever sent, giant quaffs of pink sugar, a clutch of headless penguins, the Newport Coast tide, that I could never be your prize and climb out to escape with you from your pain.

-
video—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPiIEcwoDHM


One is supposed to sleep with the intention of repairing the mind and the body of all those ills encountered in daily life, but This night was not one for rest. I think the clock was reading 9:53 last I had glanced, but it could have been 3:59 or sumthin.

Anyway, my eyes opened to the stature of a very tall and muscular fellow holding a pitchfork to my side. He said "Miss Seranaea Jones, you have been selected to participate in a wonderous event. Your going to tour the finest Pits of Hell and all of the recent improvements. Satan has"personally" endorsed this invitation to you, so we must be on our way !"

I think at that moment I said, "its not done yet, let it cook a while longer".

I was not really capturing current events, so he jabbed that pitchfork deeper and pushed me right off the bed. Frickin hurt too, so realizing
that this was gonna be a non-negotiable parlay, I agreed to his terms.

(or "It", I dunno... this dood was holding a pitchfork on me and I couldn't find my gun)

We went outside to his vehicle. It was Hottest **** thing I ever saw !
We got inside and I was surrounded by blinking indicators, computer graphics and some serious leather seats and solid wood paneling. He said "Please fasten your seatbelt, it is not currently permissible to have you killed". I said "Thanks" with a fearful stare of a chicken being held by its throat.

He started the engine and Ohh !!!— such an immaculate sound emanated from it. With one pull of the gearshift we plunged STRAIGHT DOWN. Before I passed out I saw what looked like platoons of dragons in formation poised to venture upwards into to midst of the Earth. My last element of memory was of cheeks rippling with the force of acceleration.


Having survived the trip down to the Negative Pearly Gates, the next thing I knew I was in a fish and ski motor boat cruising the River Styx. Had all those extras too, depth finders and flat monitors that surrounded the driver position— the screens were filled with the ******...


ummm—
wished i had not looked into the rear view mirror,
looking back was a version of myself as some
mummified shriveled past-tense
Seranaea  "thing"—
                                      — ughhh

He pointed to the sign at the entrance. It looked new enough, but was marred by bullet holes and deep scrapes.

It said—

                       "Ye who enter, Abandon All Hope.
                              ATMs are available inside.
                                        No Smoking"  

He said "My apologies for the condition of this entrance, we just recently had some particularly unruly admissions". I nervously nodded, thinking on how unruly I was upstairs to have become a Hellbound tourist.

The next thing I noticed were the creatures in the water, their mouths gaping wide, wrapped by bedsheet-white skin tightened around skulls and pairs of hollowed eyes. They were screaming knives into my soul.
My captor said "reach into this bag and throw one of these out to them"  
It was a bag of charcoal briquettes, so I took one and threw it. One of those creatures snapped it up and then slipped back underwater.

Cool !!

I did this a number of times, skipping the briquettes and watching them get snatched as like so many minnows gulping down bread crumbs. I was really getting the hang of it by the time I suddenly Slipped And Fell !! –splashing into the water as these things start immediately towards me, reaching for new flesh with long sharp Nails When I—

4 AM

Woke Up !
Wet—

wrapped tight
in a bed sheet—

peppered with
blacken 
fingerprints...



think id better be a good girl
from now on !!!



s jones
2007


.

The cold is nipping at my heels again
For two days I have been deluded into
Thinking that Autumn
May actually feel like Autumn

Rows of the skeletons I have shut up in my
Cabinets are now standing bare and silent
Along the horizon; they taunt, they mock
The few leaves they have managed to
Hold on to sway in the chill and
Shudder when I walk past

Three deer creep up to the patio
I watch them behind my safe place
My window is my protective cover
From all that is outside and out of my
Control
Frost sneaks up the wood paneling and
The faint laughter from the school children
Fades into a maniacal howl

Soon the snow will cover the tracks of
The poltergeists who visit me at night
In white robes blanketing their voices,
They surround me and pierce my dreams
Visions of violent assault and grief and
Helplessness
of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Winter steals my Indian summers and
Whips me with brutal cold and sleet
Warm afternoons turn into car accidents
And black ice and broken people
Soon the snow will present itself  
And the sunlight will fade from my eyes
So let me sleep until spring.

"People throw rocks at things that shine."
Her window was anything but transparent
Residue and memories had embedded themselves
Into the glass and scars marked the paneling

Chipped pieces of tape from 12 years before
Grasped onto its surface because it no longer
Had a picture of a childhood best friend
To frame next to the sunshine and clouds

There was still an impression of her nine-year-old
Hand print from when she watched her mother
And father screaming in the yard and later
Silently begged her mother not to leave as
Car tires squealed on the road parallel to the window

Heat still radiated from when that boy took her
Up against the curtains and glass as
Another boy watched from the yard with
A camera and no one told her 13 was too young

Streaks cascaded down in a mixture
Of blues and grays that came from rainy
Afternoons spent weeping over the loss of
Her never failing God who had left her stranded
Far too many times, especially when it came
To the boy who left her when she lost a baby
At the age of 14 without telling her
Until she had already left the clinic

The locks and springs were broken by the time
She was 16 from almost leaving her drunken
Father practically in a comatose state
On the couch they had found on the side of a road

By the time she was 17, the once
Reflective glass was obscured by the firth
From her life lived in a multitude of change

But every night,
Pebbles hit her bedroom window.

We have no fine old paneling of oak
No ancient silver on a sideboard new
When Charles the First still wore his handsome head
We have no Latin, we may not smoke, but still -

Between the cinder blocks and coffee urn
Dining upon the finest plastic foam
We laugh at yarns that Saint Augustine thought
Well out of date when Africa lost Rome

We have no fine old paneling of oak
But every day we share a fine old joke

The least you could have done
Was show me the sunset  
You promised.
Or hug me back
when I wrapped my arms around your neck.
I wished to be held, so badly to be hugged
There was no love against the steel paneling.
There was no tenderness in your hands.
How to speak escaped me
And how to break, how to break, how to break
All at once in the elevator.
Oh, flower! Young thing! Flimsy girl!
Growing pains in November,
I felt them in that grown-up moment.
Life takes what it takes and gives what it gives
And you were a giver
You gave me so much shame.

The least you could have done
Was known better.
You promised
To care for me.
But when your hands melted into me,
I wished to be gone, so badly to be done
There was no love in the air, only bleach
There was no tenderness in your voice.
Only want.
I would have given you my world,
But why did it have to be so scary?
How to heal, how to heal, how to heal.
Torn and bleeding, leaking pains
It hurt.
Will I ever forget?
You were a giver,
You gave me so much pain.