Slumming.
Slumming around downtown.
Slumming around downtown St. Paul.

A broke high school student.
A broke student with perpetual down time.
A broken down senior student letting go of time.

Slumming.
Slumming down to Raspberry.
Slumming down to Raspberry Island.

Walking across the Mississippi River.
The bridge had been raided.

Marching.
Marching down teal and raspberry stairs.
Icycle nose hairs.
Seeing my breath as my chest shivers.
I found my heart trapped under the solid river.

Teenagers ******* about freshmen that got the bridge raided,
Teenagers ******* about artists they've always hated
and artists ******* about things they've created.

Underagers slowly letting out smoke.
Underagers letting out what keeps their lungs beating.
Underagers slowly letting out steam, cheating.
Me.
letting out smoke that came from the ice.
Smoke of below zero temperature, freezing my insides.

Mindless.
Mindlessly walking.
Mindlessly walking through endless skyways.

Mindless.
Mindlessly talking.
Mindlessly talking about things I don't remember.
Until we've arrived at We-Be-Smokin'.

Huddling.
Huddling in a group.
Admiring the art that claimed the spot before we did.

Scuttling.
Feet scuttling.
Feet scuttling in place to outrun the cold.

Reminiscing of months before when I was sitting alone in Starbucks with my
venti white chocolate mocha listening to crazy George yell at his imaginary
wife. Not being bothered. Not being cold.

Ran into an old friend  - uptown Friday night
She'd had too much Tequila - Must say she looked a fright

"I'm feeling  old and tired; don't care to be alone'
She asked me if I could -  'would I take her home"

Her directions led us home - to the wrong side of the tracks
To a place  that long ago I swore -"I'm never coming back"

"Do you remember hon ... you gave me my First drink"
The tears came so heavy -  I was afraid to blink

Those last words she spoke - still searing in my brain
The pain so hot - I thought I'd go insane

"You drunks say the coldest things - but blame me if you will'
' I'm gonna need another shot to rid me of your chill''

"For old times sake,'  I said - 'I think we should go 'Slumming'
"Down to 'Old Town' -  like when we were just sixteen'
"And you were the prettiest girl that heaven ever seen"
"I don't know' she said - 'It's not like I remember'
'The lights are brighter now -  the streets are nice and clean'
"Not like when we'd get our kicks...
Watching Hoochie Mamas hooking up with Tricks"

"And you, I asked... 'What do you remember most
About those endless nights?'
"When our minds bemused of reason - reason took to flight"
Sober now, she spoke softly ... of times I see in dreams
She said ..."I remember the Poetry you wrote for me...
So long ago it seems"
"On the walls down there in 'Old Town'
" Like OUR lives... now crumbling down"

a)  i am the mortar incurring blow after blow
     from the abrasive quality of your negligence.
      no, i am herb between pestle and mortar
      the full realization of 'rock and a hard place'

b)  i am the mortar between each brick you lay,
     in blue collar glory, or rock star slumming,
     to bind shaky corridors of past serenity
     and bear indiscretions on my limestone shoulders

c)  i am the mortar you fire before crawling under covers
     for inexpensive *** and trashier beer
     by a lake on a camping trip where tents trump love
     like the queen of spades in a hand of hearts
      
d)  in fact, these are false, merely possibilities --
     actuality: you were never enough
      to make me spew homonyms in metaphor
      because you were nothing like them,
      always appearing changed but monotonous in meaning,
      and if you're so into contraposition,
      are we not but names for each other?

I pretend that your poems and 
my poems go
slumming in disguise;
carrying on in dark doorways
of riverfront bars—
tipsy, telling secrets,
spilling out into the sweet-smelling
night,
libertines 
more in love 
than they were before.

Yes, it's holidays in summer,
No books, what a ******!
Chicks need light books for lit.,
Mental slumming, that's what I call it,
Yes, recreational reading,
Books for older  girls is what I'm needing.......

First may I apologize for
The womanizing,
And
The shallowness.

Call me Ismael

I went whaling once.
Not -- on the high seas
But, at Big D’s, Gillys.

I went downtown, and around town
Trying to -- get down.

I needed a Moby to my ****.
So I went searching.
For the meanest, biggest, foulest fish in the sea
And there are plenty of fish in the sea

Trust me

And four or (fourteen) shots of tequila later,
She’d consumed me.
Like, Jonah.
I was inside her.

And the only way I could get out was a smoke
And I quit that **** years ago.

I woke up, my muscles hurt
My head hurt
My heart, still hurt.
I looked over and there she was
Lying naked in the covers
Suddenly, my stomach hurt.

As I hung my head praying to that porcelain god
I thought back to last night, and who’s lips I was kissing
I remembered tasting yours, not hers
I remembered your eyes, not hers
I remembered your touch, not hers
I heaved up, your memory, not hers.

And like that you were gone.
No longer did I pray every time my phone rang
That the phrase would be “1 new text from -- “

I had deleted your name in my phone.
The letters were just too pretty.
I tried changing the fonts,
They looked good in every typeface

Hell, you made Webdings look good.
So I had to tarnish perfection.
I had to delete -- perfection
And I sat there, head in the bowl,
Removing every last bit of -- perfection --
from my stomach. I smiled, broken heart and all
I smiled.

Went to film school, want to be a filmmaker still
My dream unfulfilled, but still unfolding
I look at what used to inspire me: magazine articles about
the great directors.  always male. even today.  I used to want
to be the female version.  Not anymore

The New Yorker has a piece on one
Describes the process: a demanding scene where
Julia Roberts walks down a street and then gives a LOOK
This is not drama.  drama is conflict.  the new yorker doesn't know this
describes the making of "art" as the shot is repeated with different LOOKS
It's all taken so seriously: a large photo of the ARTIST on the facing page
He has four o-clock shadow times a few days.  this is the look of a filmmaker
you will see it in the second half of the semester at any film school
and he looks worried, intense, confused...gassy?  artists are never happy
is life a pretty picture?  the artist knows this and cannot, will not smile

Later, "the Brille Building," in New York.  wow.  a building with a name no less
a building where many films are edited, have been edited over the years.  
a sweatshop for editors of picture and sound, and a place for the director
to continue, now out of the shadow of the STAR

He's using a lot of profanity now. Just because he's an old white geek don't think
for a minute he ain't kool, he ain't street.
Actually, go ahead and keep thinking that, because you're right
Amazingly enough, he, from his heights of artistry, is slumming it with take-out
Oh, the dedication.  Oh, the fear of ever leaving the building and being reminded
there is a whole world outside that doesn't care about you

His brother is the editor (no, don't say there is nepotism in this business, it's your imagination)
They review the shots of THE LOOK
There are many takes and now, this director who adapted someone else's novel
to the screen now claims, he wrote it.  Really.  It is all his.  

Yes I still love making films but I've never loved the biz
And as I get older, the more I think that real artists don't get written up
in the New Yorker with such verve because they'd think it was just too silly

the charm of French Colonial style
   with Cajun cooking promised -"genuine!" -
   at every second door
jazz bands at every other

the flair of well-groomed wealth and savoir vivre
   exuding from St. Charles´ porticos,
   the restaurants on Calle du Roi,
the campuses of Tulane, UNO, and Loyola

the grandeur of the superdome
the open space of Audubon and City Park
   oakes draped with Spanish Moss
alive with jogging, skating, biking, walking health
   between the nights -

all this makes you almost forget
the city project housings
slumming beneath the highrise business shadows
   crime ridden,
floating on neverending waves of dime-a-dozen tunes
from hi-fi stereos of cruising cars

the grand lake spoiled for generations
with the big city's waste,
the 'father of rivers' dwarfed beyond repair
by wharfs and cranes and fortified embankments
that line his banks as far as you can see
   and far beyond

a shotgun wedding of the rich and poor,
   the black and white,
   torn by the struggle to ascend
   from shotgun to colonial
to the soft sound of dixie

              * *

Old souls like me may just remain present
The throwback, old days manifested
Souls with ways out of style evident
Thinking like the world is infested

Old souls slumming it their very own way
The ones who still do things like the did then
Still keeping it classy every day
People who study the ways of the men

For oldest hearts and classic souls, it stays
It’s worth the standing out, the ridicule
Doing things the good way, the way that pays
Old souls don’t make fire, we make strong fuel

Old souls who keep it always fully class
Old souls like beautifully lit stained glass

books of poetry sit
dusty on my shelf

written by Neruda,
Hughes,
and assorted
others

but another being
sits there
too

it is Bukowski

his seven or so books
in my ownership
slouched in the corner
singing drunken
tunes

so, yes,
this is another
poem about my
second father

but it’s less about him,
and more about the others,
those books of poesy
I could never finish

sure,
I’ll read the first
section,
maybe half
of them,
maybe all but
the last
little
bit,

but never the whole
book,
cover to
cover.

I don’t know why,
money down the
drain really,
and yet,
I don’t regret
it

maybe I’m not cultured,
slumming with henry
and his gang of profanity
and depression,
to appreciate how and
what
they’re writing

but when I go back,
after reading the poems
for a little bit before
bed,
I find that I can go to
sleep when I put down
the works of Longfellow
or Cummings.

but when I finally silence
Bukowski,
all I can do is write
until my hands bleed so
much it hurts,
or my mind works to exhaustion
while my body falls to
shambles

Once I loved my country
Was filled up with pride
That was before my country
Suddenly fell over and died.
It didn’t die spontaneously,
My country was assassinated.
Murdered by people who
Lied, cheated and hated.

The accomplices were folks
Who stayed home and blamed
And insisted that both parties
Were essentially the same.
Those people refused to verify
What was fact from propaganda.
Now half the citizens are facing
A destructive national agenda.

There were thousands of jokes
About the unqualified guy who won.
Some were funny, made us laugh,
But what happened was not fun.
The person who was trained lost.
Now we have a bigot and a racist
Who is eyeing the Constution
And badly wants to replace it.

The people on both sides now
Have no idea what is coming.
They thought they elected a good guy
But he’s a rich kid who was slumming.
They thought he would help to bring
A national hoped-for change.
They will be shocked to death
To discover that man is so strange.

For him it’s about the ***-kissers
He keeps as his personal posse.
Be prepared, this next four years
Will be anything but glossy.
We will witness blood and death
And a crash of our economy
Because Trump and his cohorts
Believe in nothing but autonomy.

slumming heat blooms open pores
old cedar smells emit
from the backs of wooden draws
season
  and gelid memory
          are stimulated
****** thrall
   portal
     nostril thrilled
       into a receptive mating
so clear
drilled to receive all the flowers
               spent perfume
all the heavings and leavings
         of odorous humans
arousing the sense of it all
vaporous rewards
      produce a relaxed flushing

Wannabe novelist,
Slumming it slathering rhymes,
Awful prose and verse.

Is it insomnia
when I don't care for sleep?

The sort of sleep that is belligerent
interruptions at each half past
in the middle of every hour,
intervals of interlopers
awoken by invisible passersby
floating enemies striking me
with the hatred of their kinesis
cerebral lightning at my heart
or attempts at my suffocation
as I wake to a coughing start,
intruders invading my dream mind
as well as its peace

anything that would hurt me
they revel in my breaking,
I can hear the clicking of laughter
of teeth...

Deserts and all our cities
should have crickets,
yet Vegas feels like its been dying
the quiet now replete
no chirp of the lucky bugs
nor busying of bees with their buzz
rather its the fizzle of neon panic
the beatitude of cheats
the machinations of gamblers' defeat

or sometimes mostly
this deep in the twilight
a swarm of Ninjas, Suzuki, Kawasaki roars
toward their kabuki foot rubs
a twenty gets you a dub
rub you long time
for an hour behind red doors

Try to spank myself to sleep
if not to exhaustion,
but I can still hear the distant piercing
screaming
of latter days & soilent green
the secret war as alien is to any sound
sleep.

They look like people
we look like meat,
the living dead
their sake's flesh
all torn away and beat
up like faithful lovers that creep
seduced by the sluice
of the street / symphonies,
of rocket ship Discovery

Can't turn the volume down
in the black of night
when my mind's eye
is behind a veil
in the dark of 2:22
(in recovery)
and still the aliens
wretchedly wail...

whilst i'm
slumming in attempts at slumbering,
the greys are watching
humans lumbering
               and *******
two twenty two
in the dim
twilight
morning...

In Algiers I held a glass
that held a face's
stare
In the glass the face
that stared
stared back at me
in fear.*


We came upon slowing traffic.
Inside the war-torn bus the
standing passengers were gently
rocked as we drove along
the unfinished road.

Unfinished roads:
you became convinced
that each rock and pothole
was placed carefully in order
to discomfit passengers,
to remind them of
their poverty
or the slumming middle-class
of the acre sized swimming
pool that awaits.

We passed the sun-glassed
occupants of cars and busses
and the rolled-up sleeves
of lorry drivers.
Tanned arms hung out
of  windows;
fingers tapping
an unheard beat.

I stooped to stare at the
dancing distance of  heat
waves rising from
the baked highway.
Asphalt arteries.

People gripped passports,
identity papers,
rosary- beads
- Letters of transit -
they were not needed;
the border did what most
borders do-
it shrugged us through.

Smiles become all languages.

Later
I sat staring out
the window of a bar.
Hardly blinking.
A bus stopped and
people got off.
A dog scratched.
The sky was blue and cloudless.

I lifted a cold drink.
Watching.
Then Jez turned to me
and asked,
"Is this what it's like
to be drunk?"
I smiled as I slid my wine
towards her...

words    T Carroll

Clean break

doesn't quite work when you owe me
money time life disrupted, off balance, betrayed

the taste of your skin, i remember
a little girl in a shiny dress all those years ago
so pretty, wanted you, so far out of your league,
surprised but slumming it, but with love, so much love the bravest girl in the world I took you by storm never looked back.

perhaps a bit of defiance and anger. but i wanted to believe, and i did. i always did.

i am dangerous, you are dangerous, we can and do cause trouble.

tigers are known in these parts. believe me, I will have empathy, even as you burn.

and i will love the ghost

I'm slumming it with you; I do it
because I'm bored and you
you're good at what you do...
but I taste green and you spit metal.
Rich girls and downtown boys
never have happy endings ♥

it's been a wild ride, one of those roller coasters that make you sick every time
but the thrill is worth the nights spent shivering over buckets at the edge of your bed
and you've given me more downward plunges than anyone has, anyone since her
but the crawl to the top was so slow that i thought i loved the drop more
i've always lived fast, too reckless, too uncaring of my own worth
and staring down into oblivion as it steamed and smoked was its own kind of drug;

as a kid i was scared of darkness but that ride made me feel alive
i just had to close my eyes when it got dark, but eventually i got so used to darkness
i didn't have to close my eyes at all, and it took me too long to realise
your drug was not a medicine, there were no doctors writing you down on a prescription
i picked you up from slumming with the wrong crowd and injected you into my veins
just like you tempted me to do so, and now i'm feeling low from living high

the cost of euphoria is way too much, and now i know i'm dying inside
it's in the unhealthy coping mechanisms and the days spent wasting away in bed,
the bruises under my eyes and the way i chew through half the fridge
then spend three days eating nothing but the grounds left at the bottom of a coffee mug
don't get me wrong, there were times where you and i were so, so good but the cost of
living high is a debt i'll be paying for the next twenty years of my life - if i survive that long

There’s beauty, there’s magnificence, there’s splendor, and then there’s you. Sometimes I’m not 100% sure if you’re even human, or if you’re this superior race slumming it with all of us apes. I thought I knew what it meant to be in love until you told me about the 3 times you laughed so hard you cried. You ask me if I’m happy with you and I think you’re kidding because, c’mon, you’re the best thing I’ve ever had. I was falling through space when you found me. Well, I say found, but it’s more like we collided. You were Haley’s comet and I was blinded by your light and I stumbled into your path. If I believed in God I would say that he wanted us to be together. Sometimes, late at night, I imagine a bunch of Gods and Goddesses up in the sky fighting over you. I think that’s why we have thunder storms. Zeus is screaming at Aphrodite that he must have you because something so beautiful could only be his son, but Hades is trying to explain why he deserves you because you are worth more than anything money could buy. But I think that I deserve you the most, because even though I’m not a goddess, my love for you is pure and untouchable. I cannot give you the world, I cannot grace the earth with a permanent overcast for you, I cannot make all of your dreams come true. I cannot do anything but stand by you and hold your hands even when arthritis has taken over. I’d move mountains if the sun was in your eyes. I’d change the seasons if the temperature made you uncomfortable. I’d breathe underwater for you any day. But I know you, and I can see how pure your soul is, and I know you could never ask for any of those things. But you deserve those things, you deserve every good thing the Universe has ever created. You are the best thing the Universe has ever created.

She always seemed to run on ahead,
Skipping, prancing and dancing,
All the way to the Goblin’s Wood
While I followed on, romancing.
She never seemed to see me at all
Though she was my only vision,
The only feature that filled my world
Right through to the intermission.

She wore her hair in a plaited braid
That jiggled along behind her,
And left a trail like a dragon’s tail
So bright that the light would blind her,
But I was mesmerised by the legs
That danced in a crazy pattern,
They moved too fast for the man who begs
Or the girl that they call a slattern.

I’d see her shadow between the trees
As it weaved and it side-slipped gladly,
Whipping the pale white flight of the breeze
As the leaves whirled around her, madly,
Then all the denizens of the wood
Would come to the sight entrancing,
Dressed in the garb of the neighborhood
I’d leave them behind me, dancing.

‘Come out, come out,’ would the Goblins shout
But she’d leave them behind her, whirling,
The old ones suffered from reams of gout
And would sit with their hair there, curling,
I live in hopes that she’ll turn to me
When her dance has become more mellow,
Entwined around the mystery tree
Her dress fading green to yellow.

They call her Summer, but Autumn shades
Seem they’re a long time coming,
The leaves are skittering down like blades
In a part of the year that’s slumming,
The breeze is cool as I call her in
From the dance that she’s in the making,
While I, contented, await the sin
She keeps in the oven, baking.

David Lewis Paget

I was asked to create a holiday,
What about a pyjama day?
We would not get dressed at all,
Stay in bed, hide and stall,
Sit around in flannelette,
Stay in PJ's, don't get dressed,
In fact, don't wash or cook,
Do mental slumming with ****** books!

Sentient husbands
The seed and pa jo Rogan
Fear factor. Steve stabwell honey
Something slumming Logan
And Michael as the mass hell coming

*** Steve is Michael
Logans Gabriel
Russ is prophet of the higher word
Titles bright. Angel saved from hell
The lord is blessing.
Morph. When russ lights his spoken torch
Without the **** ingestion
Or the sentiment slowing porch fire
Torch wired for the divorce of his flames
I'm investing

Divorce from angels title demon
Screaming.
Saving dreams from spoken reasons.
Satan was a being of greed and seeming
Prosperity. In finding need
To bleed for Jesus to be seen and
Hell to keep its disease.
Steven your seed will be breath.
Not to breathe with out his greed for your eternal strength and peace.
Logan knows his approach to baby wit
Ma will be slow but holding.
Boasting golden shields.
Jo Rogan terrified. Square lives.
He won't be allowed kani
Manta and his needs spared to nines....
For four square sentient wives
*** he spared shared lives.
Chris pratt.
No history his tatts.
Reveal shape-shifting gifted vision.
Spector. Television
The seed has intelligent
In medicine. He shall have seven children
Omasku Niskani will be with me in the veteran.
*** his younger will be indifferent to time.
With six with the 9.
Russ is signed to sentient contract.
With selling symptoms
He spits like Ali hits in prime.
The seed is god in his high. Try rhyming
With.....
As russ speaks he says
(Not in rhyme)
Timing. His ducks 7 sliding
Call him prophet giant.
Call his logic defiant. But his word is is his ****
So **** the truth.
It still sticks
The truth ***** but he's sick.

This is for all the crazy people thinking that they were made to rule
Walking around with ray ban glasses wearing Armani cause  it’s cool
Believing that they are so much better even when they act like a tool
Don’t give in to the status symbols that people keep making
You think that this is what you’re made to achieve but your mistaken
This is for all you lazy people slumming around and wasting your day
Life isn’t something that you get to do over and over again
There’s always someone out there who could use a friend
And don’t forget there’s a million ways to be a better person
Then standing around debating shuffling lies and cursing
Don’t you know life isn’t a stage for rehearsing
If you’re not trying to make it better than your just watching it worsen
I know you think that it’s so hard to make any improvement
But all it starts out with is a little social movement
This for all the silly dreamers dreaming of a beautiful world
Refusing to just sit back  take it while violence and hate unfurls
Don’t give up when they try to tell you that you’re stupid
You got so many arrows of change so be the heart of cupid
And shine your light of love all over the place

it is all dead here;
the birds sing bones awake.
slow is the air
when the sky sleeps.
a fringe to hunger for
when the center dims
all glowing notes
is all we feed hope for.

escaping fangs lazily is
just wraiths scraping ancient
havens clean and leaving.

same old shape-changing...

see the bowl?
see the ocher?
this is us silently slumming
through the rush of present
flesh and far-flung mind;
derelict awareness shared
sparingly.

it's all love though.