Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

yesterday
i found out
my mom sold my dog
and chopped down the tree
that my brothers and sisters and i
spent our whole lives playing under.
my little sister
gave me a sawed chunk
of the Big Tree
to remember it by
everything in my life
is a sawed chunk
a ****** piece
of something bigger
that once was all mine
and whole
and perfect...
mom,
i'd rather have
the ******* tree

Let me tell you the story of my death:

Carving words on the bark of a tree
A poem that means life to me.
Glows through night, my soul delights!

        "Exist beyond my death, oh please...
            So I could live in bliss at least."

But they cut the tree, so mindlessly
Illegally. ****, selfishly!
In chainsaw, I was murdered.

        A massacre,
      ... a massacre of my every being!!

I'm a ghost that forgot, the best in me
Now writes relentlessly
To relive the words, once killed in greed
I found the "papers*", the poems you lead...

Then before me, is some piece of me
they killed.

I died a hero,

She was crying.
So he approached
to lessen the anguish,
her life has notched

He exchanged her tears
with his cozy smile;
to calm down her nerves
at least for a while.

The language of tears
has always appealed him;
as to the insects,
the sundew's gleam.

Innate was this nature of his
to weep for the poor,
for the women, for the children
and for the downtrodden, to be sure.

But with hollow chauvinism
then, the men ruled the society.
And accounted weeping as a sin
resulting from inferiority.

They disliked the boy
and his uncommon ways
to heal the sufferer,
to their utter dismay.

They called the boy
and asked him to change
his beliefs and ideology
or to be ready to estrange.

The boy couldn't understand
how his actions have been
outrageous in their view
and thus sentenced as a sin.

He stood against them
and let the proposal decline.
He advocated his logic
to those ****** swine.

But their ears were concealed
to even the rumbling thunder.
Intoxicated by masculinity
they committed blunder.

The men enraged
and reached for their knives.
They shouted, they cursed
and skinned him alive.

Skinny *** Poem
(8/11/2014)

Every kid wants to be something when they grow up.
They picture perfect future families with puppies and kittens,
but for me something was missing.
I just wanted to be happy.
Maybe my vision wasn't so great though,
because 'happy' looked like it had 6 letters to me, and spelled 'skinny.'

People used to throw bricks at my glass house.
Shouting that I’d be skinny enough to slip through cracks.
Cracks of life,
cracks of struggle and strife,
cracks of everything not nice.
They'd tease me and say I looked like I smoked crack,
when I'd lose weight,
I'd gain it all back,
in the form of their extra hate.

But I didn't feel skinny on the inside.
Although I had skinny bones and skinny skin,
brittle enough to break within.
Under the pain of that pang
as their bricks shattered my glass house.

Tell me, have you ever been afraid of words?
Thoughts can be terrifying but once turned to spoken word,
that in turn will turn to shouted word,
that in turn will turn to incoherent nonsense.
Which starts a sensation of ear drums ripping,
being sawed in half immediately,
no time spent ticking,
by shrill shrieks and violent vocalizations.

As if a sound wave could burst your body parts faster,
no, more efficiently than a barrage of fists.
Because it will know exactly where to strike,
in fact, it will sneak through your solid surface,
into every single crevice,
knowing where the best place to hurt is.

All it takes is a whisper strategically said in your ear,
'skinny.' 'skinny.'  'skinny.'
I could feel it float away from me,
carried off by the wind.
As if a sound wave could carry an army of statements,
piled up and armed with bayonets of every decibel level,
ready and willing to siege each individual joint crack and muscle ache,
being pushed under imposed stiffness.
It will ooze out your pores, as if your fat face was an instrument amplifier.

They thrived on the thrill listening to my shrill shriek.
As I stepped on shards from my shattered glass house,
And stared into the million fractures,
each a broken reflection of the million me’s I could be.
But none of them skinny... enough,
skinny for everybody else,
but never for me.

I’d envision each day, blood drops staining my glass carpet.
Each ounce of that luscious red,
each day left my body filled with an ounce less of dread.
An ounce less to fit into a size small shirt,
and 30 inch waist Skinny jean.
My body became my own private ****** machine.

Every kid wants to be something when they grow up.
I just wanted to be happy, I mean skinny.

what did it take for me to miss those days?
crawling breathless,
stomach nails for breakfast, ventricles of rust,
pounding on my ribs with any upright task
from soaking bed delirium,
corroded mind and eyeballs
tortured falun dafa tears
stinging on the walls a glowing red,
my branching veins encasing me in flaming
paths of mystery: to live or die, to try or fail
at simple efforts
--never gone without, since infanthood--
to stand itself a tissue horror
bathing in the needles of another lifeform's hold on me,
that spiral nesting multitasker
legions in the joints,
invading forces claiming spinal tower-riches
as if my thoughts will be my last,
originary flickerings of self, sacked and razed,
the burning out of novelty for bottom emptiness
and only sympathies malinger there--
yet vaster frame invisible to healthy eye emerged:
a sea, empathic with my prior paths from health diverged:
adrenal waves and dolphin plays of other air ensouled i purge
with cascade urges tension mixing universal breath
of statements, fears and wry coercings not to think of death
or tempting near the abolition of a system *****
for all the benison it's bound to store for years
of hiding blind and uttering the shield-word
of our sly, superficial, group-stock lies,
to have us screaming at each other out of only kneejerk love
a mask of fodder from our young dogmatic wanderings
they burn and burn and choke like spirochetes themselves
while shoving under family rugs the truth

cicada shells clung eerily against the burls and branches
of a monumental tree itself a deathly symbol bare of green
like ornaments of rhythm upsurge birthing into death digest
the exoskeletal remains, under finger crunched as
up the bark i climbed
to view what death had taken value on for me, and balanced
up atop the hill of faded names i yearned the meanings of,
and in the clouds
a part revealed
a sunny mist,
to paint me colorful again--
and in that mood a hail began to tick on forest floor:
the brittle dead a singing whisper flaking brown
on brown, on earthy brown to gather white within the paper nooks of leafy drums

how whimsically to service death
anon anon for now they're always lying there
across the road atop the grave hill,
from other species hunted here
but this, that time it was a carved skull
hacked or sawed but yards from peaceful temple yard
another, cleaner omen skull had led me there,
ochre red with emerald mold
the cranial pale divided stop and go
and led me wondering within the stream
to notice other signs i half-expected mystically:
surreal blood abundantly with vulture feathers carpeting the scene:
a stag with missing brain, missing hind and organs
chosen how, i'd never know
--i saw the arrow though, a barb of certainty--
and old fur, gray and white, a timely passing then,
to make of gore a sacred right,
and in hale ignorance i prayed like only atheists can pray
with self-disclaiming smirk but
humble authenticity of unknown forces
biding in the impulse-meaning-gathering of earth,
now memory to glean and hold to live in me

My friend and I talk about it
Neighborhood got decimated this year
One after another the corners of community are gone
We touch the elder memories
as one might touch a head in blessing
as loved ones pass

We linger longest over John

Found dead after ten hot days
by other-worldly hazmat crew
flanked by cruisers
with their special, yellow truck
and zipper bags

...found 'im
glasses folded neatly on the night stand
in his jammies
all tucked into bed

No one thought it strange
that strange young guy would die
already decomposing in his head
Lost
among his personal effects
his fleet of rusting cars
and half-assed projects
Deck tacked to garage
his herds of “pets”

Easy to pretend he wasn't really there
between jail stints or some imagined threat or theft
of crap
haunted by the shadows of his persecutors
caught in motion lights
and cameras' blinding evidence of
jungle-jumble and malfunctioning alarms
going off in the wind
Everyone's out to get his stuff
We could dismiss him--

mostly
sorta

...except for times
he mowed his grass at night
or hand-built “the lunatic tower”
just for mom
from scavenged scraps and
hammered hours
power-sawed
through the housing codes
and horror
of the neighbors...
...Such a special spectacle...

******* crazy-- John!

He was enough for one day at a time
like when

he flung that threatening bolder
on bilco doors
for percussive effect

"Get off my ******' property!”
(not using his “inside voice")
“Next time, that'll be your head!!

He announces his intent
to not get mad, behave himself
to call the cops on me instead
Fake-dialing
While his mother screams in dread
“John is off his meds!”

My phone is set to speed dial
911
__

“How did we miss this?
How did we not miss him those quiet days?”

How we miss him now
How quiet

Touch me, I am fragile but I know I will not break. If you look at me long enough your eyes will start to water based on the saltiness of my skin because of the sea's I've swam to get to the place I'm in now. Open, closed, I've ran back and forth a hundred times, I am the weakest link and the leader of the group. If you sawed me in half you'd see three things: my barely pumping heart, a toxic amount of love, and a will to survive.

Touch me, but be gentle, because although I learnt to withstand even the deadliest of summer heat your cold heart isn't something my body is used too. Close your eyes, count to ten, am I on your mind? No. Throw me into the ocean. I'm no use to you then. It's cloudy but it doesn't rain, mid 70's but no humidity, my heart is sore, but I'm breathing. Oh god, I don't know how, but I will continue.

Touch me, be rough, *****, make it a melody and prove to me all I'm missing out on by not being enough for you. Afterward, I want a list of ten things I can change so that I will be enough for you. Make it a hundred if you have too, I just want to be enough for you. Staple it to my forehead, toss me in the ocean. I'm not here for your approval, only my own, and I don't think I'll be content in who I am until I'm something you think is worthwhile. Push me on the ground and kick me as hard as you can, make this pale skin your canvas, I want bruises and blood, six broken bones and a concussion to match. Make me hate you. Babe, all I've got is love.

Touch me, one last time, but don't let go until the end of this lifetime. This love became a competition long ago, and boy do I love to win. Tonight the universe spoke to me and it told me here is where I need to be, and I think it wants me to fight. Put on your armor, give me some weapons, I'm here for the long haul and I'm taking every prisoner I can. Touch me because I am weak and I need to learn to be strong so I can withstand this, 'cause baby this love feels like seeing a doctor coming towards you with a needle the size of your head, "oh don't worry sweetie this will only hurt a tad", *******. I still felt it a week after. But this one, ****. I'll be lucky if it doesn't still sting in a year...

Touch me, please. I'm begging you. I need to feel alive, but you've been suffocating me and my heavy heart. How am I supposed to survive when loving you feels like death?

bildings in roowins
I rite with brokin-hand


it is the year of the unlord-tyms 2085
and skool hadbin abolishd since fyv decades
evrything in disrepair -
                    no hospitills no parks
                    no creche no greens
all grey and dark

now here I lie amid the rubble
I see they took my legs for under-market
what else did they take?
**** *******!
belly rumbles
the last I'd eaten was 2 days on
a chunk of hard-bread whose colour would turn envy in its boots
with artifishal-milk whose curdled smile greeted the back of my arid existence

**** bastarrrrrrds! they put me under, sawed off my legs
left me hobbling with jagged wounds and smirk-pain like hot-rods searing my brand-new stubs
elementary-bandage of an old sheet torn into strips...

wait, I must use this anger as fuel to get me going
she told me so
many, many times..




(I can remember my mother reading to me
reciting from her memory
they had burnt evry-single-book Man had ever known
                My eyes have never been graced with a book
but
she tort me words with stick in sand
and counting with stones
and there were many stones
               she fed me poetry when there was little else to eat
with fainting-body and starving-belly
my mind took pleasure in her ultimate-care
               she told me of a time when childrin took poor-interest
in the blessings of a book.. wen their minds were swallowed wholemeal by what they called media, I think
when they were not saddled with the worry of their next meal's magical-appearance
                (I can spell 'their' at least, yes.. she made sure I knew the difference)
the only pictures I saw were the ones she drew for me
in the volcanic beach-sand when we ran away from the parasitic-city
                I knew nothing of the world but what I saw around me
                        - decay, decay, decay
until she brought me colour - rite into the hart of me -
                           blooms that hurt at first, so bright and giving
                           that it saturated every molecule in my parched-centre
                           and I became a rainbow-suffused capsule in a otherwise drab-society
such wonder she spoke with open-eyes and loving-tones

and I also remember.. the day they took her..
I remember.. too much)



I crawl forward like a snake in the .. wait, what was that expreshin again?
I'll think later when I find a place to harbour my broken-body
                     thought is a luxury here
thers a horrible smoke in the air
          stings me so
and I miss her so
I have nobody left
but I cannot feel forsaken, as so many do
and succumb to self-pity
she made sure my armour grew
                 from the inside.. first
yet.all.the.while.she.watered.my.hungry.mind
and I took it with disbelief painted on my face
the things she told me about..




                I cannot believe there once were -
green fields and trees with chirping birds
a blue sky
blue? not possible
I've never seen a blue sky
I think she was being kind to paint me portraits of psychedelia
   to entertain and distract me
   from the horror of our lives
I heard tales of things called flowers - daisies and things
like vegetables and fruit
it seemed funny to me - little beings in the ground,
                                       growing
                                       standing rooted, awaiting harvest-hands
               just for people??
uncredibill
waaaat???
no..  such depth of kindness I can hardly imagine
for we have had only *hard-earth.. most concreted
and drank only brack-water from collapsing pipes
no, an unforgiving-scene is all I know
yet
     she is so kind to feed me such fantasy-tales of deep-imaginashin
     pity she could not tell any others
     for any tenth-of-a-whisper of this to any wrong-ear
and her head would roll
in the gutter.. where we lived in contest with rats
she could only rally my mind and relay things which would die with her
things that she bequeaths
to me

what will I do with it? this legacy of forgotten-paradise..
what can I do?   this wonder-clad heresy..
                I now know thers a way out these city walls
                ther is a life beyond
with valleys and rivers and salty-seas
I must try to find a river
she told of oceans which live - which heave and swell and move!
she said these things too .. they exist
what quaint-things, indeed
oh, for dreems..

but now, I must off the streets
for a double-darkness has begun to fall
when red-eyes will scour the streets for scraps of flesh
        anything is worth a barter
        even a dead-man in a lane whose eyeballs are gone
        harshly-hacked out living - by a previous-visitor
becomes a piece of currency for seekers of the dark

I don't know what they've done to her.. or where she is now..
yet, she always said - keep moving
                                   keep searching
for blue-sky and flowing-rivers and yellow-flowers..
(I wonder if it's real
I do believ her - I must)*




now I scrape on in haste into a darkening-alley
towards a derelict-bilding
whose sinister-interior is the only welcome it can afford me
             I have little choice
             no time for sentiment
plus, I feel a fever coming (perhaps this is all the dreem.. and she is the only-flower I know)
the night-Rats will come out soon
and I hate their stink
it doesn't help I leave a trail of blood..




now
only hoap lives
on
in hobbled-soul

as I rite on with brokin-hand
onto the back-pages.. of my mind




S T -  5 octoblah

Saw a wretched man
living in shacks
His beliefs were very
soft just like wax
Bought his beliefs
with bundle of rupees
Took it in sunlight and
molded with ease

Saw a gullible man
standing on street
Cheated his beliefs
with language sweet
His beliefs resembled
some old wood
Sawed and chiseled
it the best I could

Saw a strong man
holding his beliefs tight
Forcefully took his
beliefs with a fight
His beliefs were
like some metal hard
To bring it in shape I
hammered and charred

If you're a patient in a hospital, wouldn't you want to know
exactly how many people have died in the room
                                                                 you're currently sleeping in?    
                           How many hearts have stopped beating, how many
                                                               lungs have deflated, how many
pupils have stopped responding to light—
                                                          ­                 how long CPR was
                                                                ­             performed before
                                                                ­            Time     of     Death
                                                           ­                       was called?
How many DNR patients waltzed into the afterlife
without so much as a half-hearted chest compression?

Ribs can break during CPR.
How many cracked ribs have echoed
                                                                ­  across the walls of your
                                                                ­            hospital room?

                                                           x

Eve was made from Adam's rib.
God plucked the bone and
                                                                ­                  fashioned it into a
                                                                ­             subservient woman to
                                                                ­               replace the wild one,
                                                                   the first one, the no good one,
                                     the woman made from the same soil as Adam:
      Lilith.

                                                           x

We break ribs, break wishbones, break most things we don't understand. A confused patient will take out his IV, his PICC line, even pull at his chest tube or his LVAD driveline.
If it doesn't make sense, we will try to eliminate it in the sake of
                                                                ­                               normality.

                      ­                                     x

Some time in August, we had two codes within one hour.  After 30 or so minutes of chest compressions, they pronounced the second man dead.  He wasn’t my patient that night, and I didn’t know him.  I think his ribs snapped under Alyssa’s hands when she tried to revive him.
                                                            ­      And what does that feel like?   Not just the desperate rush of adrenaline,
        of trying to bring someone back to life—not just the emotional,
                                                                ­           but the physical of it all.

The cracking of the bone beneath the heels of your hands.  
Your fingers laced on top of each other
                                                                ­ pounding and
                                  pounding and
                                                                ­                                  pounding
                                                           against the sternum.  
One, two.  One, two.  One, two.  
                                                          ­            The bone cleaves in half.
And how much pressure does it take?  
I’m sure science could tell us, but
                              how does it feel in your arms, in your shoulders—
                       will your muscles remember the strength it takes and
                                                      stop you next time?

                                                           x

How hard did God have to try when he ripped out
         Adam's rib to make Eve? And
                           how long did it take Adam to recover from the loss?
(Maybe he never did.)

                                                           x

Healthcare is still so barbaric.  You must hurt to help.  
                               Saw through the sternum to get to the heart.  
                 Insert a painful tube to remove the excess fluid.  
                             Drill through the skull and remove
                        potentially useful brain matter.

I have nightmares of tripping over IV tubing and
ripping out PICC lines.   I am terrified of
dropping someone's chest tube on the floor,
                                                 of it ripping violently out of their lungs.
It's not my blood, it's some else's,
                                               and that makes it so much worse.  
                    Being responsible for another human's well-being
                                             is actually terrifying.

I just want to be helpful.  I don’t want to hurtful.  But so often,
                                         I find myself damaging the ones I love.

                                                           x

I would rather have my brain-dead sternum sawed open than
rot in some hole in the ground like my mother if it
                                                        would mean that I could be useful.
                                                   And all we really want is to be useful.
To feel something.  To be something.  
To be proud like the original sin.

Remove my ribs.  All 24 of them.  
Make them into several new women with
several new names and
                                           faces and
                                                            eye colors and
                       skin colors.
Their lives would be more beneficial than my death ever could be.

Like Eve with Lilith, replace the bad, with the seemingly good.  
                                                         Replace the soil with the body.
                                                  It all has to come from somewhere.  

                                                           x

                     How to keep the self close and yet distant from trauma.

He was looking at me
But I was looking at the waiter
He finally lose me
He was so egotistic
His ego got in between us
It sawed right in half of our bonded heart
Last night I left him
Last night I left him in the dark

He recently shared something with me about holding hands. Everything written in the piece was true. From the start, his hands have made me feel safe, nurtured, needed, adored, wanted, and healed.
See, I rarely let anyone touch me before. Human touch was not something I craved until him.  I didn’t know how much I needed it until I wanted it, but he did.
      As he reached for my hand yesterday , as he does countless times, I began to notice things on a deeper level. I saw the structural beauty and strength of his hands; his skin color, his beautiful fingers, the veins, the hair pattern. I reflected on how many keystrokes they typed and words they’ve written. I thought of how many times they played the sax and played video games with skill and passion.
     Then, I remembered this past year. Those hands created a beautiful room for me in his home. Those hands literally moved ALL my physical belongings exclusively on their own. They held my hair as I was sick with my head over his toilet. They actually mopped up my cats’ ***** when it was overflowing at my old house.              
They have painted, caulked, sawed, sanded, created, recreated, cooked amazing meals, chopped countless veggies, cut every piece of meat he served me, taught me to use his PS4 controller, dried my hair, colored my hair, massaged away my pain, and given me love I didn’t know existed and more.
     His hands have been blistered, scraped, calloused, cut, pricked, sore and he doesn’t complain; they never stop giving nor does he.
And I’m so grateful and honored to be the one whose hand he holds forever...

There was a magician from Bath
I couldn't help but laugh-
While performing his magic
His act turned quite tragic-
He sawed his assistant in half

One day, you
decided I would
speak no more.
So I sat as
you sawed my tongue
and sewed my lips,
"For proper measure," you said.
You smiled at your finished work.
I couldn't.
You see,
My lips were sewed
together, too tight
Like the pen
I held,
hidden in my hand.

I told this
***
a life-long necessity
of mine
more or less.
But first I said,
before anything, maybe
it’s just a life-long exhaustion
of mine I’m
expelling needlessly, okay?
I want to make sure you
know that
so you don’t go thinking
I’m weird or nothing,
though honestly  

it all drops hard like
iron
faster than
gravity
to the same
place
anyway.

But this is what I told him:

Sometimes I wish the world
would roll up all it’s got.
Roll it all up in one unsettling
heap of heaviness it can
toss on me like stock from the
deep. O I wish to God it’d
give me the torturous insanity
and every inexplicable loss
it can conjure up—just one
catatonically tremendous
slap to my stupid little
face, flushing it with
cosmic humiliation
and fear I don’t even
notice I ****** myself.

So that, at least, it’d all be
there, you know? And I wouldn’t
have to ask where it is and
what the hell’d I do
to get spared.

I told him give me the
holocausted ashes smelling of
Zyklon B, the crawling away from
sawed off shotgun shells
catching friends hiding under
the library desk anyway, the
running over of your dad by
a drunk who lost his wife to
the cancer that took the brother of
somebody you knew whose
mother had

suicidal depression, hadn’t
smiled really in years, she’d
sat with cold coffee
for years, and around her
had been worse than
darkness, for a reason she
never ended up knowing.

I said to him give me the
harshest words a child has
ever known against him
and have them rest upon
my spine like a freezing
brain spreading electric
wild fires across
my vertebrae, give me
burning skin really
burning, and cheating wife seen
moaning, and drowning baby now
dead
and beaten wife now
collapsing, another baby now
beaten and
thirsty wino keep drinking, and
a stranger with his face
blown off red and
brown and tattered and
I don’t know how but
still hanging there like
boiling chicken fat, dripping,
but the doctors
able to keep his heart
beating and his organs
pumping too, so now
people can see him
and his whole face
as an indication there is
something in the air
that deserves pitying.

Give me it, I said,
with homicide and
double homicide, and
a side of
stabbings and
chokings and
bludgeonings
and guns and rope and
gas and asphyxiations
and love letters and
love-making giddy ***
and flowers for the
love of your life
who is cutting herself
because she can’t stop
cutting up souls after
she *****.

Give me everybody’s
******* loneliness
that is lonelier than
a thing lost before it was
born, and as it was
being born, born into
losing itself, its slow
destruction, and there was
not even anybody there because
there was never going to be
anything to help you, there is
nothing to be achieved and
nothing for which
striving is
helpful.

There just is a memory of
a hazy possibility of
happiness, that one
felt once
in a senseless dream.
A memory that is
always fading towards
non-existence or
existence that has
no place for it, because
it is already full of
something else, and you,
your “transcendence,”
are wasting time,
waiting.

What are you waiting for I
said (with just a little irony).
Give me the heaviness, don’t
hide it anymore. Show it
all bare and give it all
to me. Tell me, here, take this
and hold it for the sake of—

What?—what is this?
Is it this? Just
the universe drooling on itself? Or
is it more? Somehow less?

Well, for the sake of
whatever lies here (lies here!)
and is too ****** in eternity to
delight us with a clear
answer to the
question that all the
living creatures on this
sacrosanct dirt, in some
crevice of their being, I know,
are asking it.

And this ***, when I finished
telling him what I’ve just told you
didn’t say anything back.
His brown face was treaded terrain,
crumpled cracked ditches,
broken dry grin.

He looked elsewhere, smelling of
decades of drunken alcohol
and lice and yellow toenails and
******* alone against
brick walls at night

and also his brown hands
adjusting the dirt-drenched
cardboard bed he will surrender to
tonight, after who knows
what else.

Drinking summer skin,
I hear the voices in the night sky
I'm a slave to the darkness around the stars,
and I can't remember why

One, two, twenty-three percocet in my soul.
Ambulance lights breathing throughout the mist.
Pump my stomach like the sawed-off shotgun
that I was too afraid to use,
because what if I 'miss'?
What spectrum of desolation to be traced with lips;
to kiss away the desire to exist.

Mirrored reflection injection causes the resurrection of my imperfection.
I see me for who I am, who I was, and who I won't be.
It's the collection of
my eyes dilating and my knees speculating their arrival
to the blue and white tiling disguised as neo-survival.
My mind is evaporating. My body begins to convulse.
I am a ghost in a machine. I am without a pulse

I tried to let the rain wash away my sins
and all they did was smear.
Big ones, and not-so-big-ones
swirled languidly.
Not angry.
Not raw.
Just,
leisurely.

I expected gaping maws
to open across my skin,
but none came.
I fell to my knees before
the great make-believe keeper of heaver
but my lips held my tongue prisoner
while my pride sawed at my throat.

There are no sins if there are none to speak of.

A yellow jacket
Pulsed while scaling candied ham
Then braced, sawed a piece
Away it swayed amongst oaks
Cicadas shrilled loud and hot

heart was the forest
trampled upon on with haste
sawed to halves
now a barren land

you came
watered my saplings
tended the leaves
brought upon me sunshine

with all you could give
like a gardener
had a connection with i
a ferocious fire blossomed

love we called it
but the flames, scattered
like forest fires
destroyed me once again

I was celebrating as normal I'm not sure why besides oh yeah duh I'm the most awesome writer in the history of this site .
The bar was empty as usual the old crowd had been abducted by aliens and replaced by children whom seemed to believe I truly gave a **** that there five day relationship had just fallen apart yeah live on your own bust your *** to exist then tell me how ******* hard life is okay kiddies.

It came through the wire a message that read.
Dear Gonzo I just read your recent co write and wow was I impressed
It's so great to see established writers giving new writers like yourself a break.

It appears this juvenile hamster had smoked a little to many bath salts today for they had no clue as who my ego fed **** was how dare they.
Yes kids isn't it a shame when all the kick *** drugs were discovered by your grandparents ?

Look don't reinvent the wheel if it gets you ****** up stick with the **** that hopefully doesn't make you trip ***** and lock yourself in a closet with a butcher knife .
That's why I stick with the mild stuff like herion.

I was just about to write this writer wanna be a long and thoughtful response telling them in a mature way to go **** themselves when yet another message came in .

Hey Gonzo loved your co write I always wanted to co write with a true writer any chance you could ask Helen if she would write one with me ?

Dear lord man these kids were higher than Justin bieber's  over inflated ego yeah he's going to put out a new album yeah you been warned .
.
Another message came in in one after the other it was like I was driving a ******* ice cream truck on a hot summer day every bed wetter and ****** picker running down behind me with there snotty little dollars clutched in hand didn't these children know I hate kids .

Well all except for barley legal hot ***** with low self esteem cause I truly love helping misguided ****** yeah I know I'm such a thoughtful ******* aren't I?

I couldn't take it I slammed the laptop shut and turned up the jukebox as I poured myself a stiff drink .
At least here at the bar I could escape this insanity .
But the nightmare was far from over .

As I herd the squeal of airbrakes as a school bus came to a stop outside the bar ****** I was being invaded **** why hadn't I infested in those rabid coyotes Lilly Mae  had tried to sell me .

The little ***** hit the door like invaders across are unguarded boarders yeah do you know how many millions of those ******* Canadians slip through every day .
Yeah if only we had snipers then we never would had to listen to Nickleback.

They jumped on the pool table laughed played and really started to **** my buzz as they played there modern crap they called music .
It was like being ***** by a ****** clown and the rest of his fifty buddies that could fit in one car I swear those  *******  can pack a car better than any Mexican I've ever known and for my fellow Latino friends out there I truly meant no disrespect please don't stab me or bounce up and down on my skull with your low rider  .


Hey Gonzo the leader of this dwarf cult spoke up we want a co write with you.
Um like hell I will Frodo just take your sawed off *** and return back to the shire  okay.

**** that stupid lord of the rings joke dork don't you know harry potter is the in thing *******.
The little man had said a mouthful there and being he was a Harry Potter fan I could tell he was probably used to having his mouth full of assorted things like his nerd friends magic staff .

Look sparky or ******* or whatever the hell you name is note to anyone if you don't have *******  I probably wont care what your name is .

I truly hate kids okay and there's nothing in this world that would make me ever write anything with you so just carry your *** cause I'm sure you are missing out on some kickass time to sulk in your room that is more furnished than my entire house and post your bleeding heart sonnet all over your ex girlfriends face book wall alright.


Okay the little hamster replied .
You know Gonzo I'm real sorry you feel that way cause I was going to overlook the fact that you offered me and my friends ***** and tried to get my underage sister to flash her ******* .

It's a real shame I hate to see such a talented co writer go to waste sitting in prison but you don't want to co write with us so I fully understand .

I couldn't believe this little **** was going to blackmail me it almost brought a tear to my eye how demented he truly was .
Reminds me of myself at that age when I blackmailed my sitter into showing me her ******* ahh the preciouses memories .    

I weighed my options co write masterworks of true demented genius or play basketball with guys who had been in so long that they let me win cause I was a hot ***** .

Hmm I had to ponder that one cause I never was very good at basketball duh I'm white and slightly bad humored with racist jokes that if do offend get over yourself it's called a ******* joke okay.


Okay sparky you got yourself a cowriter but can I ask one thing first?
Sure Gonzo shoot.
Well being that I was going to be falsely accused of seeing your sisters ******* maybe I could actually see them?


I don't have a sister you perve I just said that to trap you into co writing for us and finish this stupid *** write cause it's drinking time and I got places to be people.


Until next time hamsters stay crazy Gonzo.

This looks like nature.
Standing on the edge on the edge of a bridge
above a man made pond
surrounded by asphalt trails
trees cracking under pressure.
I walk amongst the preplanned trails.
A pseudo-wilderness.
Parked my car in a designated spot.
The deep blue sly outlined
by artificial sounds and light.
Listening to the sounds of the Earth
thru headphones.

Runners cross by…
To my left is an old Hackberry
Celtis occidentalis.
I’ve learned about nature
in textbooks.
This particular Hackberry is covered in a vine.
It’s struggling to survive against an exotic species.
Further on down my path is humankind
“beautifying” nature
with preplanned gardens
gazebos
marble benches donated by nature loving proprietors
next to sawed off stumps
these benches give me a decent place to rest.

As I continue my walk I come across
an unsightly dead Black Cherry
Prunus serotina.
Soon it will be disposed of
by a chainsaw.
Nature’s blemishes.
Please help us keep the Gardens clean.
Trash around a metal can.
Why do human ***** monuments in monuments?
Dominance over nature.

The flowers will begin to bloom soon.
This family has come to soon to take pictures.
Spring has only begun to spring.

Please teach your children to appreciate nature.

I turn back towards my car.
Signs guide me on the path to return.
The road most taken.
Of to my right is an emergency station
push for help
nature is being taken.
I pass by a stream pristine
if you do not count the five plastic bottle, crumbles of paper and shoe.
The trees above me blow in a soft breeze
which reminds me of air conditioning.
There are areas marked off for protection.
Protection from whom?
We’ve already safeguarded it in gaudy surveying tape.

Resting upon a donated bench I watch a maintenance man
raking gumballs.
Continuing down my path I think
“How long have I walked?”
Suddenly,
A golf cart coming around the corner overtakes me.
Pushing me onto the grass.
My feet sink into the muddy ground.
I’ll have to wash my shoes tonight.

Coming across native grass still smoldering
a controlled burn.
I realize
humankind has learned to perform the duties of our mother
better than she can.

I pause

lose myself for a moment
before I remember
I have things to do
and
there’s a two-hour parking limit.
On my way out I discard my trash in a dumpster
rolling my window down
to feel the breeze once more.

i often wonder how i will die. skin cancer.
heart complications. liver cirrhosis. old age.
undetermined cause. ******. accidental overdose.
i daydream that it will come soon. my future
without you feels like a false floor. i'm waiting for you
to appear with white gloves, wand in hand, to whisk
me away. to climb into our coffins side by side, a twisted
amusement park ride. ****** cotton candy and jagged fun
house mirrors. being alone is stuffy weight. despite the added
space, my chest is tense and eyes are bugged. your hands,
your voice, your warmth would set me free.

The Fence

A wooden fence once surrounded my home
Which I had hoped would keep out all intruders-
It was the fence my father had built
Years before his passing

Alive always inside a world of my own
I had built myself a different sort of fence-
One made of spoken words and angry gestures
That would ward away intruders I believed were always out to harm me.

A wooden fence can simply be sawed or broken down
When one is motivated to do so
And locks to their gates can be opened with a key
Therefore a wooden fence most likely will not shut the world out.

My own fence has shut the real world out
My soul and spirit are protected.
My special fence keeps me sheltered from the world outside
And is built from barbed wire of my imagination.

My mother and my father have passed away years ago-
They shall never become part of my private world –
It was not my wish that they would have ever been, as
They were forever trying to break down that fence that guarded my castle in the sky.

Now I am living in a different place in time-
Far from the wooden fence surrounding what was once my family’s home
Life is safer and not as threatening now
But I still with caution carry with me that extraordinary fence of my dreams.

Someday I hope that I can find that phantasmal key
That key that would unlock the gate to that protective fence of mine-
So that I could step out side, if only for a brief moment-
And hopefully learn that the real world is not a place to fear.

I hope that one day I shall awaken to a rainbow on my horizon
And that fence I have hidden behind for all the days of my life
Shall vanish as did the wooden fence had after so many years-
And I can find new freedom while I give thanks that I no longer have to be afraid.

Claudia Krizay

Live or die, but don't poison everything...

Well, death's been here
for a long time --
it has a hell of a lot
to do with hell
and suspicion of the eye
and the religious objects
and how I mourned them
when they were made obscene
by my dwarf-heart's doodle.
The chief ingredient
is mutilation.
And mud, day after day,
mud like a ritual,
and the baby on the platter,
cooked but still human,
cooked also with little maggots,
sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother,
the **** *****!

Even so,
I kept right on going on,
a sort of human statement,
lugging myself as if
I were a sawed-off body
in the trunk, the steamer trunk.
This became perjury of the soul.
It became an outright lie
and even though I dressed the body
it was still naked, still killed.
It was caught
in the first place at birth,
like a fish.
But I play it, dressed it up,
dressed it up like somebody's doll.

Is life something you play?
And all the time wanting to get rid of it?
And further, everyone yelling at you
to shut up. And no wonder!
People don't like to be told
that you're sick
and then be forced
to watch
you
come
down with the hammer.

Today life opened inside me like an egg
and there inside
after considerable digging
I found the answer.
What a bargain!
There was the sun,
her yolk moving feverishly,
tumbling her prize --
and you realize she does this daily!
I'd known she was a purifier
but I hadn't thought
she was solid,
hadn't known she was an answer.
God! It's a dream,
lovers sprouting in the yard
like celery stalks
and better,
a husband straight as a redwood,
two daughters, two sea urchings,
picking roses off my hackles.
If I'm on fire they dance around it
and cook marshmallows.
And if I'm ice
they simply skate on me
in little ballet costumes.

Here,
all along,
thinking I was a killer,
anointing myself daily
with my little poisons.
But no.
I'm an empress.
I wear an apron.
My typewriter writes.
It didn't break the way it warned.
Even crazy, I'm as nice
as a chocolate bar.
Even with the witches' gymnastics
they trust my incalculable city,
my corruptible bed.

O dearest three,
I make a soft reply.
The witch comes on
and you paint her pink.
I come with kisses in my hood
and the sun, the smart one,
rolling in my arms.
So I say Live
and turn my shadow three times round
to feed our puppies as they come,
the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown,
despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy!
Despite the pails of water that waited,
to drown them, to pull them down like stones,
they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue
and fumbling for the tiny ****.
Just last week, eight Dalmatians,
3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood
each
like a
birch tree.
I promise to love more if they come,
because in spite of cruelty
and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens,
I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann.
The poison just didn't take.
So I won't hang around in my hospital shift,
repeating The Black Mass and all of it.
I say Live, Live because of the sun,
the dream, the excitable gift.

I am fleeing from Proscription,
half heartedly at best.
I view death with some ambivalence,
as perhaps a welcome rest.
I would die here in the Country
That I have, so often, saved.
The constitution predeceased me.
The Republic is enslaved.

A Freedman has betrayed me.
I see soldiers block my path.
Like some fallen Gladiator,
I’ve turned thumbs down on in the past,
I will not draw back in fear,
I stretch my neck out to the sword.
By the gods, this man’s a butcher.
My neck is hacked and sawed.

It’s an interesting perspective
as my head rolls in the dust.
They are hacking off my hands
My voiceless lips mouth my disgust.

I will tip toe around this feeling like a spill
in the floor that I don't feel like cleaning up because it isn't my mess (but it is)
You tied knots in my stomach like
they taught you in boy scouts and
you were never really good at math but it
didn't matter because English was your strong subject and
you'd be ****** if you didn't
paint your words like scenic painting.
You said your IQ was higher and
I knew it wasn't but I let you
think that because whatever
I was difficult
and no one ever let's  me forget it and
for once I needed to agree that maybe
this whole thing wasn't for me but
if not me then who
so I forced myself to be there. 
I already have a hard time accepting
compliments and yours were
as hollow and bare as the dead oak tree you
sawed down in boy scouts my ribs
the broken branches termites crawling out
of my tear ducts and
to think they say they taught you
survival and other things that young
men should know and people always
say boys will boys and
you are always trying to put me
in my place because
that's what you've been taught to do
but my place is wherever and
however I wish to be and
for reasons I don't understand I had
allowed my place to be with
you and if I call you out I'm
a ***** and if you don't agree with
the pictures I paint
with my own tongue
I'm a *****  and
you tell me I haven't seen anything but
I know I have seen more than
you and I'll write in my diary but stick
around anyways because I'm
difficult and no one will ever let me forget it. 
And one day I wake up and realize that
you no longer have interesting
things to say and I try to
imagine a time when you
did but my mind draws a blank
you did not treat me as your equal
we are so young, and I've read
more books than you, yet you
tell me there is no truth other
than the words that roll off
your tongue wet with paint
you claim to love art yet Salvador Dali means nothing to you.
And I continued to be your teacher
while you insisted that I was the student
I longed to be taught by someone
who saw the worth in my words
and not just my ******* and treated
me well regardless of the size of my ***.
I didn't date much because I'm difficult
and no one ever let's me forget it.
And if you're constantly telling me
I'm weird and adding lol
I don't wanna ha.ha but I will
because you make me feel like
I'm not normal.
You make me feel as if I'm living
an alternative lifestyle because
I don't wanna have *** and
I don't think about it every waking moment
not every conversation I have with the opposite gender has to be sexually charged like
an angsty teenage battery.
And then one day I find that besides me you
have been giving many girls hollow deaf
oak trees and though I've seen more documentaries then you it stings
like a slice through my heart and
even though you learned first aid in
boy scouts you leave me to bleed.
I wouldn't have let you near my
wounds (I would have)
but the fact is you left me to bleed out
and it's pain I can't explain or name And
I'll refrain from mentioning it to my friends because I don't want it to matter but
sometimes it does.
At the end of the day my taste in music
was better and your art was paint by number
and just because everyone makes me feel
like I need to be with somebody doesn't
make it true my heart is most vibrant
in solitude.
Your boy scout badges mean nothing
to me so what you can tie knots
in my stomach and make me feel
pathetic is there a patch your mother can
sew onto your uniform for that?
I can't tell if you're the magnet or I am.
One day I'll stop texting you back but
I'm difficult and no one will ever let me forget it.

Scars and scabs
Come leaking out in drips and drabs
After events that occurred  
And events that shouldn't have
Sand on soles go walking into shoes
And embed themselves there within
Shards of glass buried deep under the skin
Wiggle their way to the surface again
And when life warms to the call of the sun
We pack it all back, for morning has come
Old things get beat down until purple and plum
For newer less blue things to be squeezed under thumb
I worry about my mind and its multitude of storage rooms
Filled with undealt with boxes and musky fumes
Now stuffed to capacity
Those come leaking out too
They tare through the surfaces that have long since been plastered  
And sawed down and painted and polished afterwards
Now my body, heavy and ***** with these returning things
Sheds them part by part in painful rebirth
And after I've been made naked of these morsels in my mind
I'll pack new boxes in my empty  storage rooms from time to time
For a peaceful heart is a dozen a dime
But none is as interesting and messy as mine

I make trips to the corner store, at 12 in the morning.

Calling all cars to get the **** out of the road,
I'm swerving.

Calling all lights,
blink and be gone. Streetlights,
stoplights, lamps, lighters,
blunt tips, cigarette butts,
all lights be gone.

Dear Earth, get low in the darkness.

On my first trip,
I was accosted by rabid dogs who drooled shoelaces
and I could tell they were being hounded
by the kilter of their angry maws
and sawed-off minds.

They barked like guns.

And they saw me--completely irrelevant---
popping caps off Lokos
taking sips that could **** up an Orca,
completely swimming.

I had to kick them home.

At work today,
Someone got caught stealing five pesos worth of food,
and got threatened with a felony,
but they've got some lint in their pocket,
and knew how to keep it cool.

My girlfriend operates in ideas.

I've been at work for so long,
that I yell and walk around,
like I'm in the shower.

Dear eleven year old Briauna,
Sixth grade will be a long year for you; don't worry, it ends.
You are going to be tempted
to cut off all your hair to look like
Alice from Twilight. DON'T.
You'll regret it the day later,
and the only thing more ******
than making a horrible decision,
is making a horrible decision
because others tell you to. Besides,
you'll soon learn how important
your individuality is. After you start
to change, your friends won't
feel like home anymore,
but don't stress over this, there are
many other apartments that
you have never explored.
You'll find one that fits
your needs better anyway.
Twelve,
I remember this as the divorce year.
The year you learn that family units
are hard to split evenly. The time
you finally realize how it feels
to be a magician's assistant,
being sawed in half until there are two
of you. You will try to make sure
mom and dad get an equal piece
when this happens... They won't.
Mom needs your ear and
dad your shoulder. Let mom rant.
Let dad cry oceans over mom,
I promise it will make you an expert
at sailing through the waves.
Thirteen,
The year depression creeps in
like smoke under a doorway
in a house fire - slowly rising up,
taking over the space, quickly
eliminating your ability to breathe.
The fire extinguisher is found
years down the road, but for now
just let the water pour from your eyes,
it will diminish the flames.
Fourteen,
Kate Moss, unfortunately,
becomes your idol this year.
Boys take the backseat to body image.
Your diet will consist of apples
and carrots, and you will assure yourself that THIS is what being
a teenage girl is.
THIS IS NOT WHAT BEING A
TEENAGE GIRL IS.
Teenage girls are sleepovers and
gossip and impossible daydreams
made possible through extreme ambition. Teenage girls
are ******* kickass warriors,
but they are also sensitive and fragile.
They often need reassurances;
someone to remind them that
their body is just the casing that protects the essence of their soul,
someone to appreciate the beauty
that they produce, someone to say
**** diamonds, food is
a girls best friend, no matter how
much our weight obsessed culture
try's to convince you otherwise.
Fifteen,
This has so far been your best year.
Treasure it. This year you'll meet a boy
who reminds you to be unapologetically yourself.
When you kiss him for the first time,
don't apologize after. He hates
the way you take blame for all of
the world's problems. He will soon
slip through your fingers so quickly
that you won't be able to tell if
he was even real or simply
a daydream that you wanted so badly,
you went along with the delusion.
Other boys will come and go,
but he will always return. Let him.
Sixteen,
This is the year you let your depression
run rampant, spewing destruction
on anything that could possibly
bring you joy. You'll turn
to alcohol and razors, anything
to numb the constant assault
from your brain. Right before your
seventeenth birthday, you will
swallow a bottle of antidepressants
you kept hidden in your sock drawer,
but it won't **** you.
Instead it will empower you.
You will use your survival to promote recovery. You will take your passion
and throw it into poetry.
In fact, as I write this poem,
you are now four months clean.
Dear twenty-five year old Briauna,
I imagine you surrounded by beauty. Beautiful cities, beautiful people,
beautiful talents. It comforts me
to remember that you and I
may be in different places
right now, but we're on the same path.
The happiness you currently feel,
I will eventually feel too.
Thanks for not giving up on us.
I'm really excited to meet you.

Sunny day in June, the tenth to be exact
The horrible day my sister was attacked
Beth was in the house, her friend Mark outside
She was cleaning,he in the yard kept with pride

Beth Anne was on hands and knees scrubbing the floor
When she heard real gunshots, at least she swore
Snuck to the window and peered out with care
On the rocky driveway, saw Mark sprawled out there

Been shot three times in his back,lay in his blood
Beth saw her ex...with a .38 he stood
While terrified, behind the aquarium she ducked
Brad blundered in dressed in hunters camouflage- ****

Her heart hammering in her ears, bursts of short breaths
Saw him through the murky water, planning two deaths
Beth Anne cowered down praying to her dear Lord
He found her, pulled her up by the hair, fired once more

The bullet blew off her ear and traveled on down
Collapsed her lungs, in her blood she would drown
Brad disappeared and the firing just stopped
For Mexico he fled, red ranger with white top

Beth dragged herself the complete length of the rug
Called 911, shed been shot...head ringing from slug
She was determined to live, wouldn't give up the fight
But then she passed out endangering her plight

Came the Greeley police, fire trucks, EMT's
Assessed the situation, perp further he flees
They all worked on Mark, too late he was dead
One smart responder....woman shot in the head

They spreading out rushed the house, found my sis
Beth was unresponsive, victim almost missed
Speeding to Weld County General, sirens blaring
Got her in the ER cut off what she was wearing

O.R. She went with damage extensive
Not much hope, docs and staff apprehensive
For many hours they sawed, pinned, stitched and closed
The ICU threat of infection posed

Her body and face were unrecognizable
Family stood believing the impossible

Appeared an Adonis with blonde hair and blue eyes
Talk of afterlife evidently not lies
Her guardian angel told Beth he was there
Would appear much later, in death they would share

From the age of 7 to yesterday

I wanted to be a magician

I wanted to saw people in half

And make friends with tigers

I wanted so badly

To own the smoke and mirrors

That distorted the world in front of me

It was in my blood

This house was built on rigged floorboards

I can fall from any height when the rug is pulled

And land safely

I am practiced in

Slight of hand

And slight of tongue

My voice is a distraction

Only convincing because of the

Way it builds

Causing whoever is listening

To expect something magical to happen

         Hocus Pocus

It really is magic to think that time and time

Again

You’ll listen

And believe me

There is nothing up my sleeve

I am still trying to find stitches

Big enough to reattach the parts of you

I sawed away

And hammers big enough to smash the mirrors I used

To lie about the way we look when we’re together

And the smoke

So much smoke building

Like a fire that was never meant to be put out

There is a fire escape

Right behind the trap door

To this whole thing

You know my tricks

You know all my secrets

You’ve fanned through all the pages of my work

Just know

You can leave any time

Right over there

Next to my pens and my poetry

Past the loose floorboards

And the hanging body of my last assistant

Is the EXIT sign

Spewing through my pores
are obviously vocal cords
I'm sweating cause don't you notice how heaven is getting bored.

-- And lord I know we children
but give us something appealing,
cause hell it just seems enticing
cause sin is clearly unwilling to,

release us from its wrath and be spiritual,
my spirits in this clash with this alcohol--
but I try not to break the law
by sleeping this poison off

I'm squeamish
believe me
I'm sick
and suffering from withdrawal,

cause all i see is Sandy Hook behind the walls
and in front of my iris
my silence becoming violent
exhaling louder than sirens
I'm sighing cause you be lying,

you say!

That you will save us
if we put nothing above you
but you taking our children
we made them to be just like you:

I'm sleep.

But if I wake up
will you incarnate a savior
cause jesus is highly needed
don't tell me its human nature!?

to pull the trigger,
peal off -- a mind set against the lord,
pop -- pop they let off  should i be packing a sawed-off

Na

But I'm speaking from my core
its obvious that I'm lost
I'm screaming but don't you notice how heaven choose to ignore.

And lord I see the irony
but I'm not even 60
why are you choosing to hire me
is it because I'm gifted, a voice?

I had no choice
cause the devil trying to recruit me rolls royce;
Versace starter kit it's not hard to convince me I swear--

he's talking salary
how the ******* will miss me
just put this ounce in your pocket
and listen Nina closely

"just trust me I got your back with Nina don't need a safety"
  
I'm loyal,
so should I start to bang
cause if you can't beat them stay
I need a hymn to sing as I hold the burner to my face--  

remember what the preacher say,
if your feeling lost, pray  
I never had a voice
Trayvone Martin never had a say

so is the prayer worth it,
will jesus even surface,
the creases on my faith is shaped like Eve and Adams serpent;

I'm lying to my friends
I'm not religious on purpose
I'm a servant to the truth
but seems the truth is out of service.

Titanic barnstorms the Tennessee plain through jet powered airplane
As though the Lusitania New York City could hardly proffer a contradictory profane
Nevertheless the intricacies of gamboling and gambling garble too many dice
Listerine rinses a whitewashed flaw until it singes gravity sawed twice
Three pieces of would form a tripartite could, that can’t because beggars are mute and rude
That beggars whisper the hymns of an immemorial festivity churlish upon listless attitude
So we hearken the classics and drop the ink quill upon that pile of effluvium and molasses
We invent friction just to pass a fall’s worth of failed jack-*****
“No more” he exclaimed just as the leaky faucet marginally contained
“Know more reason and you will be fully redeemed”
So I cannot pinpoint the provenance of despair among discrete colonies with barter too unfair
With ***** dens conflagration’s dead blank stare
The pit of the useful and the heap of the useless sorted into neat piles on either side of the River Nile
And each pottery keepsake is a husk of a land long ago defiled
But the hunters that talismans comfort shadowed into a grave crypt
They marooned a contact with pedigree to become flimsy with vogue equipped
So they lament on an August morning, lugubrious in toil and minatory in warning
The darkest nights yet seen by sirs yet sheen rollicking in mourning
We skedaddle the limited spectrum of shallow rust becoming hard work’s dross
Draining the swamp of career politicians that prefer the aroma of cod over the swagger of skunks with high sunk costs
Filch me a new coast Bill the Butcher and secure my passage for bonanzas of wealth
A fool’s card is now the traipsed parliament of one world stealth
Among the aristocracy an impediment to change locks all race in internecine game
Racecar palindromes offered as sacrifice to winsome but momentary glares aglow with disdain
Neuter the profligate, neutralize the builder’s set, stain the chastity of the Marmoset
Suddenly the zero-sum game adds up to twenty
With every dime and dozen going to infinity beyond debt with prosperity aplenty
As the laggards play dominoes on quaint tables frittering at the surface
Foment the disregarded rage and wrangled page into a classic Ace of Base
But who really is Walter White?
Does he live in camouflaged tents next to trees daring an alien but mutual fright?
Is he the kind of Wizard that never had consanguinity with alarmist rite and expeditious lies that aleatory fate is somehow too proximal to become in lambent sight?
Questions answer themselves over time with droned litanies of every conceivable tome
Forgotten in an ash heap in Alexandria more so than Rome
Supersonic flight that hedges prizes qualified kites
Encyclopedias of knowledge won’t even decode ghastly ghoulish capes of an off-color might
Now we simper at the glowering ignorance of menial men
Swimming with sharks and synchronized with the obnoxious hen
They won’t learn nearly as much from the Sun as warmth as they would the Moon for guidance
They won’t plaster Paris with the vandalism as counseling for pilfered tridents
So maybe the Anglophones have a menagerie yet seen
Maybe the game was introduced so early the royalty knows explicitly of beatific beams.
All is lost can never be forgiven in the land before time
In the land before precise minutes, seconds and momentary fragrance of threadbare design
So horology is horrific, when the jaws of the aliens in time thresh galloping headless horsemen Revered in this part of town
The imperial switchboard was stocked to the brim
The counterbalance of a Washington winter was equally grim
Embittered by the bellicose autonomy of fledgling families with endless land but limited prosperity
The dragooned riposte resounded among church bells with alarmism in sincerity
But the attrition of winter and the conditions of every primordial printer
Staged the coup that led to the walloped whimper
As the world shrank and wealth enlarged
As the shark tank of time plowed through shares like an ice threshing barge
We found that history is the caretaker of fringe reason becoming indomitable arbitrage
And for ever space that exists from now to the beginning of time there has always been space that begins with a luxurious spa and thereafter credit charged.

I was always the kind of kid who liked to fix things
I bought myself a pink hammer when I was 8 years old
and I liked to “fix” things with it.
turns out I wasn’t all that good at fixing and I
mostly just broke things.
nobody really had a problem with it until
I broke myself and then
fix yourself!
they scream
go! nail yourself back together!
but all I really feel like doing is sawing myself in half.
I could see myself failing to fix anything,
watching helplessly with my pink hammer while they
screamed loudly, endlessly
fix yourself fix yourself fix yourself fixyourselffixyourselffixyourselffixyourself
they tried everything.
they took pliers and pried open my brain they
measured and remeasured my sanity with tape and pills
that looked suspiciously like
the bubble in those bars you use to make sure something is even
my mother and father wore safety glasses as i took an axe
to my sense of self and buried it with
a shovel bigger than the three of us
“she’s a bit of a fixer-upper” they say
as if they’re selling a house
they try to fix me up, gorilla glue me together but
it’s too little, too late
I sawed myself in half and there’s
no fixing this one.

She has a girlfriend.
Deep red hair and soft fingertips and a magnetic gaze like being pierced by a ray of sunlight
And a girlfriend.
Freckles sprinkled like cinnamon over pale cheeks,
Eyelashes that cast soft shadows
Around chocolate eyes
As she looks down in confusion
That I would gaze into them
Like I gaze into a night sky full of diamond constellations.

And. A girlfriend.
Permission aside, and brevity,
The fact remained, and...

God help me, but I never minded.
We were partners, and we danced all night,
Not with steps but with subtle touches and near collisions.
And I tried, I really did,
To bow out.
But sweeping close and stealing away,
Somewhere within the infinite moments when we were a breath apart
I lost my grip on restraint
And tumbled into her thrall.

I don’t understand how someone could want a man.
Men have no power, no magnetism like that.
No force that draws you in like a moth to a flame.
No captivating pull that drags you into their arms.
When I've kissed a man, I've been led.
Hell, when I've kissed most people, I've been led.
But every once in a great while,
I meet a girl and I am drawn,
Enticed, seduced.
And oh,
Does that demolish my self control.

The dizziness of being touched
My skin humming like guitar strings
Strummed
By her casual hands
The little tendrils of her hair that waved in the breeze and twined in my fingers...
I showed her tenderness that I don’t show people
Because I knew she wouldn't see it if I did.

When I hitched my fingers beneath her chin,
I thought of the marble sculptures in the soaring halls of a museum-
Perfect and smooth- that cool, soft texture that begs caresses.
Even as a child,
I always wanted to run my fingertips across their cheeks,
Feel the curve of their lips,
See if soft and unyielding could exist together like kin.

Last night, my restraint frayed like a rope
Sawed down by the blade of her subtle symmetry.

I never had much anyway
And what I had never meant much to me.

We shared a breath a thousand times before we shared a kiss
And it was like dying to be so close every single time.
That was the best part- the sweet, slow torture of being close-
I didn't think I’d feel that way again
After the last time.

Maybe that was why I couldn't stop,
Wouldn't try,
When her hands would flutter around my waist
And land like butterflies on my hips.
I’m not sure it was me,
Leaning in, tugging on the thread of decency I didn't have.

I fell. And I was happy about it.
From grace and from goodness.
All my life I've made my choices to save everyone else
And last night I made my choice to stop for a night
And save myself.
It was the sweetest chance I ever took,
And I don’t know what it means or what it makes me.
Not sure what I've lost,
And if I care to look towards missing it.

I know it was too short a time when I was near her.
I wouldn't call myself caught,
But captivated.
It was like being drugged.
Her hands wove a spell into my skin,
Pressed a longing into my chest
That I haven’t truly felt in too long to remember.

Stupid me, I loved her scars,
Tattooed on her arms like snowflakes that hit her skin
And stuck, lacy, to it.
I tried so hard not to break her vow,
Sat with her and asked her who she was.
I think she thought it was an act
But she doesn't know that that was what I meant by kissing her-
I wanted her soul to come out and play,
And lay lithe in the light of the almost-up sun
So that I could see it and let it transform me.

Can you feel a woman’s soul in her lips?
Only if you look. Only if you beg for it to touch yours.
I did,
Unapologetic,
Full of shudders like a struck chord.

But hours before, I lay beside her as she struggled in her conscience
And told her I didn't mind.
What a story behind those eyes,
And chagrined to tell it, she glanced away.
Her fingers twined with mine and it was my struggle then:
To keep it simple.

But.
See.

The quirks of her lips when she’s tired,
The way she squints her eyes when she realizes she’s done it again
Like you've set the sun on her and not warned her first,
Her steadfast denial when the words of awe would slip from my lips
Showing her the side of me that can write a poem about such a beautiful girl,
They tugged at my heart and I bade it sit quiet.
But it ignored me like it usually does
And seeped tenderness into my veins like wine.

She has a little bit of me, I think.
God help me, I really know how to get myself into these messes.
But she does, she’s got the part of me that hoped
Someone like her would prove me wrong that I’d never feel again
Beyond the confines of my control.
She stole it with her soft lips
Pulled my resistance from me and turned it willing.
And today I woke up
Happy to have lost it.