I.

One night at the Troubadour I spotted this extraordinary girl.

So I asked who she was.

‘A professional,’

That was my introduction that on a scale of one to ten

there were women who were fifteens—beautiful, bright, witty, and

oh, by the way, they worked.

Once I became aware,

I saw these women everywhere.

And I came to learn that most of them were connected to Alex



II.

She had a printer engrave a calling card

that featured a bird of paradise

borrowed from a Tiffany silver pattern

and,
under it,

Alex’s Aviary,

Beautiful and Exotic birds.



A few were women you’d see lunching at Le Dôme:

pampered arm pieces with expensive tastes

and a hint of a delicious but remote sexuality.

Many more were fresh-faced, athletic, tanned, freckled

the quintessential California girl

That you’d take for sorority queens or future BMW owners.





III.

The mechanism of Alex’s sudden notoriety is byzantine,

as these things always are.

One of her girls took up with a rotter,

the couple had a fight,

he went to the police,

the police had an undercover detective visit

(who just happened to be an attractive woman)

and ask to work for her,

she all but embraced her

—and by April of 1988 the district attorney had enough evidence

to charge her with two counts of pandering

and one of pimping.

For Alex, who is fifty-six

and has a heart condition and diabetes,

the stakes may be high.

A conviction carries the guarantee of incarceration.

For the forces of law and order,

the stakes may be higher.

Alex has let it be known that she will subpoena

every cop she’s ever met to testify at her trial.

And the revelations this might produce

—perhaps that Alex compromised policemen

by making girls available to them,

—perhaps that Alex had a deal with the police to provide information

in exchange for their blind eye to her activities

—could be hugely embarrassing to the police and the district attorney.

For Alex’s socially correct clients and friends,

for the socially correct wives of her clients and friends

and for a handful of movie and television executives

who have no idea they are dating or

married to former Alex girls,

the stakes are highest of all.



IV.

Alex’s black book is said to be a catalogue of
Le Tout Los Angeles.

In her head are the ****** secrets

of many of the city’s most important men,

to say nothing of visiting businessmen and Arab princes.

If she decides to warble,

either at her trial or in a book,

her song will shatter more than glass.





V.

A decade ago, I went to lunch at Ma Maison,

There were supposed to have been ten people there,

but only four came.

One of them was a short woman

who called me a few days later and invited me to lunch.

When I arrived, the table was set for two.

I didn’t know who Alex was or what she did,

but she knew the important facts of my situation:

I was getting divorced from a very wealthy man

and doing the legal work myself

to avail lawyers who wanted to get a big settlement for me.


Occasionally, she said, I get a call for a tall, dark-haired,

slender, flat-chested woman

—and I don’t have any.

It wouldn’t be a frequent thing.

There’d be weekends away, sometimes in Palm Springs,

sometimes in Europe.

The men will be elegant,

you’ll have your own room

—there would be no outward signs of impropriety.

And you’d get $10,000 to $20,000 for a weekend.





VI.

The tall, slender, flat-chested brunette

didn’t think it was right for her.

Alex handed her a business card

and suggested that she think about it.

To her surprise, she did

—for an entire week.

This was 1978, and $20,000 then

was like $40,000 now,

I knew it was hooking,

but Alex had never mentioned ***.



Our whole conversation seemed to be about something else.



VII.

I was born in Manila

to a Spanish-Filipina mother and German father,

and when I was twelve

a Japanese soldier came into our house

with his bayonet pointed at us,

ready to do us in.

He locked us in and set the house on fire.

I haven’t been scared by much since that.



My mother always struck me as goofy,

so I jumped on a bus and ran away,

I got off in Oakland,

saw a help-wanted sign on a parish house,

and went in.

I got $200 a month for taking care of four priests.

I spent all the money on pastries for the parish house.

But I didn’t care.

It felt safe.

And the priests sparked my interest in the domestic arts

—in linen, in crystal.



A new priest arrived.

He was unpleasant,

so on a vacation in Los Angeles I took a pedestrian job,

still a teenager,

married a scientist.

We separated eight years later,

he took our two sons to another state

threatened to keep them if I didn’t agree to a divorce.

Keep them I said and hung up.

It’s not that I don’t have a maternal instinct

—though I don’t,

I just hate to be manipulated.



My second husband,

an alcoholic,

had Frank Sinatra blue eyes, and possibly

—I never knew for sure—

had a big career in the underworld

as a contract killer.

Years before we got serious,

he was going out with a famous L.A. ******,

She and her friends were so elegant

that I started spending time with them in beauty salons.

They were so fancy,

so smart

—and they knew incredible people,

like the millionaire who sat in his suite all day

just writing $5,000 checks to girls.



VIII.

I was a florist.

We got to talking.

She was a madam from England

who wanted to sell her book and go home.

I bought it for $5,000.

My husband thought it was cute.

Now you’re getting your feet wet.

Three months later,

he died.

After eleven years of marriage,

just like that.

And of the names in the book

it turned out

that half of the men were also dead.

When I began the men were old and the women were ugly.



IX.

It was like a lunch party you or I would give,

Great food Alex had cooked herself.

Major giggles with old pals.

And then,

instead of chocolate After Eight,

she served three women After Three



This man has seen a bit of life

beyond Los Angeles,

so I asked him how Alex’s stable

compared with that of Madam Claude,

the legendary Parisian procuress.

Oh, these aren’t at all like Claude’s girls,

A Claude girl was perfectly dressed and multilingual

—you could take her to the opera

and she’d understand it.





He told me that when she was 40

she looked at herself in the mirror

and said

Disgusting.

People over 40

should not have ***.

But She Was Clear That She Never Liked It

even when she was young.

Besides, she saw all the street business

go to the tall,

beautiful girls.

She thought that she never had a chance

competing against them.

Instead,

she would take their money by managing them.





X.

Going to a ****** was not looked down upon then.

It was before the pill;

Girls weren’t giving it away.

Claude specialized in

failed models and actresses,

ones who just missed the cut.

But just because they failed

in those impossible professions

didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful,

fabulous.



Like Avis

in those days,

those girls tried harder.

Her place was off the Champs,

just above a branch of the Rothschild bank, where I had an account.

Once I met her,

I was constantly making withdrawals and heading upstairs.





XI.

We took the lift

and Claude greeted us at the door.

My impression was that of the director

of an haute couture house,

very subdued,

beige and gray, very little makeup.

She took us into a lounge and made us drinks,

Whiskey,

Cognac.

There was no maid.

We made small talk for 15 minutes.

How was the weekend?

What’s the weather like in Deauville?

Then she made the segue. ‘I understand you’d like to see some jeunes filles?’

She always used ‘jeunes filles.’

This was Claude’s polite way of saying 18 to 25.

She left and soon returned

with two very tall

jeunes filles,

One was blonde.

This is Eva from Austria.

She’s here studying painting.

And a brunette,

very different,

but also very fine.

This is Claudia from Germany.

She’s a dancer.

She took the girls back into the apartment and returned by herself.

I gave my English guest first choice.

He picked the blonde.

And wasn’t disappointed.

Each bedroom had its own bidet.

There was some nice

polite conversation, and then



It was slightly formal,

but it was high-quality.

He paid Claude

200 francs,

not to the girls

In 1965, 200 francs was about $40.

Pretty girls on Rue Saint-Denis

could be had for 40 francs

so you can see the premium.

Still, it wasn’t out of reach for mere mortals.

You didn’t have to be J. Paul Getty.





XII.

A lot of them

were models at

Christian Dior

or other couture houses.

She liked Scandinavians.

That was the look then

—cold, tall, perfect.

It was cheap for the quality.

They all used her.

The best people wanted

the best women.

Elementary supply and demand.



XIII.

She had a camp number tattooed on her wrist. I saw it.

She showed it to me and Rubi.

She was proud she had survived.

We talked about the camp for hours.

It was even more fascinating than the girls.



She was Jewish

I’m certain of that.

She was horrified at the Jewish collaborators

at the camp who herded

their fellow Jews

into the gas chambers.

That was the greatest betrayal in her life.



XIV.

She was this sad,

lonely little woman.

Later, Patrick told me who she was.

I was bowled over.

It was like meeting Al Capone.

I met two of the girls

who worked for her.

One was what you would expect

Tall

Blonde

Model.

But the other looked like a Rat

Then one night

she came out

all dressed up,

I didn’t even recognize her.

She was even better than the first girl.

Claude liked to transform women like that.

That was her art.

It was very odd,

my cousin told me.

There was not much furniture

and an awful lot of telephones.

“Allô oui,”



XV.

I had so many lunches

with Claude at Ma Maison

She was vicious.

One day,

Margaux Hemingway,

at the height of her beauty, walked by.

Une bonne

—the French for maid

was how Claude cut her dead.

She reduced

the entire world

to rich men wanting *** and

poor women wanting money.

She’d love to page through Vogue and see someone

and say,

When I met her

she was called

Marlene

and she had a hideous nose

and now she’s a princess.

Or she’d see someone and say

Let’s see if she kisses me or not.

It was like

I made her,

and I can destroy her.

She was obsessed

with “fixing” people

—with Saint Laurent clothes,

with Cartier watches,

with Winston jewels,

with Vuitton luggage,

with plastic surgeons.



XVI.

Her prison number was

888

which was good luck in China

but not in California.

‘Ocho ocho ocho,’ she liked to repeat

Even in jail, she was always working,

always recruiting stunning women.

She had a beautiful Mexican cellmate

and gave her Robert Evans’s number

as the first person she should call

when she was released.



XVII.

Never have *** on the first date.



XVIII.

There will always be prostitution,

The prostitution of misery.

And the prostitution of bourgeois luxury.

They will both go on forever.



“Allô oui,”



It was so exciting to hear a millionaire

or a head of state ask,

in a little boy’s voice,

for the one thing

that only you could provide

It's not how beautiful you are, it's how you relate

--it's mostly dialogue.



She was tiny, blond, perfectly coiffed and Chanel-clad.

The French Woman: The Arab Prince, the Japanese Diplomat, the Greek Tycoon, the C.I.A. Bureau Chief — She Possessed Them All!



XIX.

She was like a slave driver in the American South

Once she took a *******,

the makeover put the girl in debt,

because Claude paid all the bills to

Dior,

Vuitton,

to the hairdressers,

to the doctors,

and the girls had to work to pay them off.

It was ****** indentured servitude.



My Swans.



It reached the point

where if you walked into a room

in London

or Rome

as much as Paris

because the girls were transportable,

and saw a girl who was

better-dressed,

better-looking,

and more distinguished than the others

you presumed

it was a girl from Claude.

It was, without doubt,

the finest *** operation ever run in the history of mankind.



**.

The girl had to be

exactly what was needed

so I had to teach her everything she didn’t know.

I played a little the role of Pygmalion.

There were basic things that absolutely had to be done.

It consisted

at the start

of the physical aspect

“surgical intervention”

to give this way of being

that was different from other girls.

Often they had to be transformed

into dream creatures

because at the start

they were not at all



Often I had to teach them how to dress.

Often they needed help

to repair

what nature had given them

which was not so beautiful.

At first they had to be tall,

with pretty gestures,

good manners.

I had lots of noses done,

chins,

teeth,

*******.

There was a lot to do.



Eight times out of ten

I had to teach them how to behave in society.

There were official dinners, suppers, weekends,

and they needed to have conversation.

I insisted they learn to speak English,

read

certain books.

I interrogated them on what they read.

It wasn’t easy.

Each time something wasn’t working,

I was obliged to say so.



You were very demanding?

I was ferocious.



It’s difficult

to teach a girl how to walk into Maxim’s

without looking

ill at ease

when they’ve never been there,

to go into an airport,

to go to the Ritz,

or the Crillon

or the Dorchester.

To find yourself

in front of a king,

three princes,

four ministers,

and five ambassadors at an official dinner.

There were the wives of those people!

Day after day

one had to explain,

explain again,

start again.

It took about two years.

There would always be a man

who would then say of her,

‘But she’s absolutely exceptional. What is that girl doing here?’ ”





XXI.

A New York publisher who visited

the Palace Hotel

in Saint Moritz

in the early seventies told me,

I met a whole bunch of them there.

They were lovely.

The johns wanted everyone to know who they were.

I remember it being said

Giovanni’s Madame Claude girl is going to be there.

You asked them where they came from and they all said

Neuilly.

Claude liked girls from good families.

More to the point she had invented their backgrounds.



I have known,

because of what I did,

some exceptional and fascinating men.

I’ve known some exceptional women too,

but that was less interesting

because I made them myself.



Ah, this question of the handbag.

You would be amazed by how much dust accumulates.

Or how often women’s shoe heels are scuffed.





XXII.

She would examine their teeth and finally she would make them undress.



That was a difficult moment

When they arrived they were very shy,

a bit frightened.

At the beginning when I take a look,

it’s a question of seeing if the silhouette

and the gestures are pretty.

Then there was a disagreeable moment.

I said,

I’m sorry about this unpleasantness,

but I have to ask you to get undressed,

because I can’t talk about you unless I see you.

Believe me, I was embarrassed,

just as they were,

but it had to be done,

not out of voyeurism, not at all

—I don’t like les dames horizontales.



It was very funny

because there were always two reactions.

A young girl,

very sure of herself,

very beautiful,

très bien,

would say

Yes,

Get up, and get undressed.

There was nothing to hide, everything was perfect.



There were those who

would start timidly

to take off their dress

and I would say

I knew already.

The rest is not sadism, but nearly.

I knew what I was going to find.

I would say,

Maybe you should take off your bra,

and I knew it wasn’t going to be

beautiful.

Because otherwise she would have taken it off easily.

No problem.

There were damages that could be mended.

There were some ******* that could be redone,

some not

Sometimes it can be deceptive,

you know,

you see a pretty girl,

a pretty face,

all elegant and slim,

well dressed,

and when you see her naked

it is a catastrophe.



I could judge their physical qualities,

I could judge if she was pretty, intelligent, and cultivated,

but I didn’t know how she was in bed.

So I had some boys,

good friends,

who told me exactly.

I would ring them up and say,

There’s a new one.

And afterwards they’d ring back and say,

Not bad,

Could be better, or

Nulle.



Or,

on the contrary,

She’s perfect.

And I would sometimes have to tell the girls

what they didn’t know.

A pleasant assignment?

No.

They paid.



XXIII.

Often at the beginning

they had an ami de coeur

in other words,

oh,

a journalist, a photographer, a type like that,

someone in the cinema,

an actor, not very well known.

As time went by

It became difficult

because they didn’t have a lot of time for him.

The fact of physically changing,

becoming prettier,

changing mentally to live with millionaires,

produced a certain imbalance

between them

and the little boyfriend

who had not evolved

and had stayed in his milieu.

At the end of a certain time

she would say,

I’m so much better than him. Why am I with this boy?

And they would break up by themselves.



Remember,

this was instant elevation.

For most of them it was a dream existence,

provided they liked the ***,

and those that didn’t never lasted long.

A lot of the clients were young,

and didn’t treat them like tarts but like someone from their own class.

They would buy you presents,

take you on trips.



XXIV.

For me, *** was something very accessoire

I think after a certain age

there are certain spectacles one should not give to others

Now I have a penchant for solitude.

Love, it’s a complete destroyer,

It’s impossible,

a horror,

l’angoisse.

It’s the only time in my life I was jealous.

I’m not a jealous person, but I was épouvantable.

He was jealous too.

We broke plates over each other’s heads;

we became jealous about each other’s pasts.

I said one day

It’s finished.

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say:

Break my legs,

give me scarlet fever,

an attack of TB, but never that.

Not that.



XXV.

I called her into my office

Let us not exaggerate,

I sent her away.

She came back looking for employment,

but was fired again, this time for drugs.

She made menacing phone calls.

Then she arrived at the Rue de Boulainvilliers with a gun.

She shot three bullets

I was dressed in the fashion of Courrèges at this moment

He did very padded things.

I had a padded dress with a little jacket on top.

The bullet

—merci, Monsieur Courrèges

—stuck in the padding.

I was thrown forward onto the telephone.

I had one thought which went through my head:

I will die like Kennedy.

I turned round and put my hand up in a reflex.

The second bullet went through my hand.

I have two dead fingers.

It’s most useful for removing bottle tops.

In the corridor I was saved from the third bullet

because she was very tall

and I am quite petite, so it passed over my head.



XXVI.

There were men

who could decapitate,

****, and bomb their rivals

who would be frightened of me.

I would ask them how was the girl,

and they’d say

Not bad

and then

But I’m not complaining.

I was a little sadistic to them sometimes.

Some women have known powerful men because they’re their lover.

But I’ve known them all.

I had them all

here.



She will take many state secrets with her.



XXVI.

I don’t like ugly people

probably because when I was young

I wasn’t beautiful at all.

I was ugly and I suffered for it,

although not to the point of obsession.

Now that I’m an old woman,

I’m not so bad.

And that’s why

I’ve always been surrounded by people

Who

were

beautiful.

And the best way to have beautiful people around me

was to make them.

I made them very pretty.





XXVII.

I wouldn’t call what Alex gives you

‘advice,’

She spares you Nothing.

She makes a list of what she wants done,

and she really gets into it

I mean, she wants you to get your arms waxed.

She gives you names of people who do good facials.

She tells you what to buy at Neiman Marcus.

She’s put off by anything flashy,

and if you don’t dress conservatively, she’s got no problem telling you,

in front of an audience,

You look like a cheap *****!

I used to wear what I wanted when I went out

then change in the car into a frumpy sweater

when I went to give her the money she’d always go,

Oh, you look beautiful!



Marry your boyfriend,

It’s better than going to prison.

When you go out with her,

she’ll buy you a present; she’s incredibly generous that way.

And she’ll always tell you to save money and get out.

It’s frustrating to her when girls call at the end of the month

and say they need rent money.

She wants to see you do well.





We had a schedule, with cards that indicated a client’s name,

what he liked,

the names of the girls he’d seen,

and how long he’d been with them.

And I only hired girls who had another career

—if my clients had a choice between drop-dead-gorgeous

and beautiful-and-interesting,

they’d tend to take beautiful-and-interesting.

These men wanted to talk.

If they spent two hours with a girl,

they usually spent only five or ten minutes in bed.



I get the feeling that in Los Angeles, men are more concerned with looks.



XXVIII.

That was my big idea

Not to expand the book by aggressive marketing

but to make sure that nobody

mistook my girls for run-of-the-mill hookers.

And I kept my roster fresh.

This was not a business where you peddle your ***,

get exploited,

and then are cast off.

I screen clients. I’ve never sent girls to weirdos.

I let the men know:

no violence,

no costumes,

no fudge-packing.

And I talked to my girls. I’d tell them:

Two and a half years and you’re burned out.

Save your money.

This is like a hangar

—you come in, refuel, and take off.

It’s not a vacation, it’s not a goof.

This buys the singing lessons,

the dancing lessons,

the glossies.

This is to help you pay for what your parents couldn’t provide.

It’s an honorable way station—a lot of stars did this.



XXIX.

To say someone was a Claude girl is an honour, not a slur.



Une femme terrible.

She despised men and women alike.

Men were wallets. Women were holes.



By the 80s,

if you were a brunette,

the sky was the limit.

The Saudis

They’d call for half a dozen of Alex’s finest,

ignore them all evening while they

chatted,

ate,

and played cards,

and then, around midnight,

take the women inside for a fast few minutes of ***.



They’d order women up like pizza.



Since my second husband died,

I only met one man who was right for me,

He was a sheikh.

I visited him in Europe

twenty-eight times

in the five years I knew him

and I never slept with him.

He’d say

I think you fly all the way here just to tease me,

but he introduced me

by phone

to all his powerful friends.

When I was in Los Angeles, he called me twice a day.

That’s why I never went out

he would have been disappointed.



***.

Listen to me

This is a woman’s business.

When a woman does it, it’s fun

there’s a giggle in it

when a man’s involved,

he’s ******,

he’s a ****.

He may know how to keep girls in line,

and he may make money,

but he doesn’t know what I do.

I tell guys: You’re getting a nice girl.

She’s young,

She’s pleasant,

She can do things

she can certainly make love.

She’s not a rocket scientist, but she’s everything else.



The world’s richest and most powerful men, the announcer teased.

An income “in the millions,” said the arresting officer.

Pina Colapinto

A petite call girl,

who once slid between the sheets of royalty,

a green-eyed blonde helped the police get the indictment.

They really dolled her up

She looks great.

Never!

What I told her was: ‘Wash that ******.’





XXXI.

Madam Alex died at 7 p.m.

Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,

where she had been in intensive care after recent open heart surgery

We all held her hand when they took her off the life support

This was the passing of a legend.

Because she was the mother superior of prostitution.

She was one of the richest women on earth.

The world came to her.

She never had to leave the house.

She was like Hugh Hefner in that way.


It's like losing a friend

In all the years we played cat and mouse,

she never once tried to corrupt me.

We had a lot of fun.


To those who knew her

she was as constant

as she was colorful

always ready with a good tidbit of gossip

and a gourmet lunch for two.

She entertained, even after her conviction on pandering charges,

from the comfy depths of her blue four-poster bed at her home near Doheny Drive,

surrounded by knickknacks and meowing cats,

which she fed fresh shrimp from blue china plates.



XXXII.

She stole my business,

my books,

my girls,

my guys.

I had a good run.

My creatures.

Make Mommy happy

Oh! He is the most enchanting cat that I have ever known.



She was, how can I say it,

classy.

When she first hired me

she thought I was too young to take her case.

I was 43.

I'm going to give you some gray hairs by the time this is over.

She was right.





XXXIII.

I was fond of Heidi

But she has a streak that is so vindictive.



If there is pure evil, it is Madame Alex.





XXXIV.

I was born and raised in L.A.

My dad was a famous pediatrician.

When he died, they donated a bench to him at the Griffith Park Observatory.



I think that Heidi wanted to try her wings

pretty early,

and I think that she met some people

who sort of took all her potential

and gave it a sharp turn



She knew nothing.

She was like a little parrot who repeated what she was supposed to say.



Alex and I had a very intense relationship;

I was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated,

so she was abusive and loving at the same time.



Look, I know Madam Alex was great at what she did

but it's like this:

What took her years to build,

I built in one.

The high end is the high end,

and no one has a higher end than me.

In this business, no one steals clients.

There's just better service.



XXXV.

You were not allowed to have long hair

You were not allowed to be too pretty

You were not allowed to wear too much makeup or be too glamorous

Because someone would fall in love with you and take you away.

And then she loses the business



XXXVI.

I was pursued because

come on

in our lifetime,

we will never see another girl of my age

who lived the way I did,

who did what I did so quickly,

I made so many enemies.

Some people had been in this line of business

for their whole lives, 30 or 40 years,

and I came in and cornered the market.

Men don't like that.

Women don't like that.

No one liked it.



I had this spiritual awakening watching an Oprah Winfrey video.

I was doing this 500-hour drug class

and one day the teacher showed us this video,

called something like Make It Happen.

Usually in class I would bring a notebook

and write a letter to my brother or my journal,

but all of a sudden this grabbed my attention

and I understood everything she said.

It hit me and it changed me a lot.

It made me feel,

Accept yourself for who you are.

I saw a deeper meaning in it

but who knows, I might have just been getting my period that day!



XXXVII.

Hello, Gina!

You movie star!

Yes you are!

Gina G!

Hello my friend,

Hello my friend,

Hello my movie star,

Ruby! Ruby Boobie!

Braaawk!

Except so many women say,

Come on, Heidi

you gotta do the brothel for us; don't let us down.

It would be kind of fun opening up an exclusive resort,

and I'll make it really nice,

like the Beverly Hills Hotel

It'll feel private; you'll have your own bungalow.

The only problem out here is the climate—it's so brutal.

Charles Manson was captured a half hour from Pahrump.



I said, Joe! What are you doing?

You gotta get, like,

a garter belt and encase it in something

and write,

This belonged to Suzette Whatever,

who entertained the Flying Tigers during World War II.

Get, like, some weird tools and write,

These were the first abortion tools in the brothel,

you know what I mean?

Just make some **** up!

So I came out here to do some research

And then I realized,

What am I doing?

I'm Heidi Fleiss. I don't need anyone.

I can do this.

When I was doing my research, in three months

I saw land go from 30 thousand an acre

to 50 thousand an acre,

and then it was going for 70K!

It's urban sprawl

—we're only one hour from Las Vegas.

Out here the casinos are only going to get bigger,

prostitution is legal, it's only getting better.





XXXVIII.

The truth is

deep down inside,

I just can't do business with him

He's the type of guy who buys Cup o' Noodles soup for three cents

and makes his hookers buy it back from him for $5.

It's not my style at all.

Who wants to be 75 and facing federal charges?

It was different at my age when I

at least...come on, I lived really well.

I was 22,

25 at the time?

It was fun then, but now I wouldn't want

to deal with all that *******

—the girls and blah blah blah.

But the money was really good.



I would've told someone they were out of their ******* mind

if they'd said in five years I'd be living with all these animals like this.

It's hard-core; how I live;

It's totally a nonfunctional atmosphere for me

It's hard to get anything done because

It’s so time-consuming.

I feel like they're good luck though....

I do feel that if I ever get rid of them,

I will be jinxed and cursed the rest of my life

and nothing I do will ever work again.



Guys kind of are a hindrance to me

Certainly I have no problem getting laid or anything.

But a man is not a priority in my life.

I mean, it's crazy, but I really have fun with my parrots.



XXXIX.

I started a babysitting circle when I wasn't much older than 9

And soon all the parents in the neighborhood

wanted me to watch over their children.

Even then I had an innate business sense.

I started farming out my friends

to meet the demand.

My mother showered me with love and my father,

a pediatrician,

would ask me at the dinner table,

What did you learn today?

I ran my neighborhood.

I just pick up a hustle really easily,

I was a waitress and I met an older guy who looked like Santa Claus.



Alex was a 5' 3" bald-headed Filipina

in a transparent muu muu.

We hit it off.

I didn't know at the time that I was there to pay off the guy's gambling debt.

It's in and out,

over and out.

Do you think some big-time producer

or actor is going to go to the clubs and hustle?



Columbia Pictures executive says:

I haven’t done anything that should cause any concern.

Jeez, it's like the Nixon enemies list.

I hope I'm on it.

If I'm not, it means I must not be big enough

for people to gossip about me.



That's right ladies and gentlemen.

I am an alleged madam and that is a $25 *****!

If you live out here,

you've got to hate people.

You've got to be pretty antisocial

How you gonna come out here with only 86 people?

That's Fred.

He's digging to China.

You look good.

Yeah, you too.

It's coming along here.

Yeah, it is.

I wanted to buy that lot there, but I guess it's gone?

That's mine, man! That's all me.

Really?

I thought there was a lot between us.

No. We're neighbors.



He's a cute guy

He's entertaining.

See, I kind of did do something shady to him.

I thought my property went all the way back

and butted up against his.

But there was one lot between us right there.

He said he was buying it,

but I saw the 'For Sale' sign still up there,

So I went and called the broker and said,

I'm an all-cash buyer.

So I really bought it out from under him.

But he's got plenty of room, and I need the space for my parrots.

Pahrump will always be Pahrump, but Crystal is going to be nice

All you need are four or five fancy houses and it'll flush everyone out

and it'll be a nice area.

They're all kind of weird here, but these people will go.

Like this guy here,

someone needs to **** him.

I was just saying to my dad that these parrots are born to a really ******-up world

He goes, Heidi, no, no; the world is a beautiful garden.

It's just, people are destroying it.

I’m looking into green building options

I don't want anything polluting,

I want a huge auditorium,

but it'll be like a jungle where my birds can really fly!

Where they can really do what they're supposed to do.

There were over 300 birds in there!

That lady,

She ran the exotic-birds department for the Tropicana Hotel,

which is a huge job.

She called me once at 3:30 in the morning

Come over here and help me feed this baby!

Some baby parrot.

And I ran over there in my pajamas

—I knew there was something else wrong

and she was like

Get me my oxygen!

Get me this, get me that.

I called my dad; he was like,

I don't know, honey, you better call the paramedics.

They ended up getting a helicopter.

And they were taking her away

in the wind with her IV and blood and everything

and she goes, Heidi, you take care of my birds.

And she dies the next day.

She was just a super-duper person.



XL.

I relate to the lifestyle she had before,

Now, I'm just a citizen.

I'm clean,

I'm sober,

I'm married,

I work at Wal-Mart.

I'm proud to say I know her. I look into her eyes

and we relate.





I got out in 2000,

so I've been sending her money for seven years

She was…whatever.

Girlfriend?

Yeah, maybe.

But ***, I tried like two times,

and I'm just not gay.

She gets out in about eight or nine months

and I told her I would get her a house.

But nowhere near me.

I didn't touch her,

but I'd be, like...

a funny story:

I told her,

Don't you ever ******* think

about contacting me in the real world.

I'm not a lesbian.

Then about two years ago, I got an e-mail from her,

or she called me and said, 'Google my name.'

So I Googled her name,

and she has this huge company.

Huge!

She won, like, Woman of the Year awards.

So I called her and I go,

Not bad.

She goes, 'Well, I did all that because you called me a loser.'

I go, '****, I should've called you more names

you probably would've found the cure for cancer by now.



XLI.

No person shall be employed by the licensee

who has ever been convicted of

a felony involving moral turpitude

But I qualify,

I mean, big deal, so I'm a convicted felon.

Being in the *** industry, you can't be so squeaky-clean.

You've got to be hustling.

Nighttime is really enchanting here

It's like a whole 'nother world out here, it really is

I’m so far removed from my social life and old surroundings.

Who was it, Oscar Wilde, I think, who said

people can adjust to anything.

I was perfectly adjusted in the penitentiary,

and I was perfectly adjusted to living in a château in France.



We had done those drug addiction shows together

Dr. Drew.

Afterward we were friendly

and he'd call me every now and then.

He'd act like he had his stuff together.

But it was all a lie.

Everything is a lie.

I brought him to a Humane Society event at Paramount Studios last year.

He was just such a mess.

So out of it.

He stole money from my purse.

He's such a drug addict because he's so afraid of being fat.

He liked horse ****, though. He did like horse ****.

This one woman that would have *** with a horse on the internet,

He told me that’s his favorite actress.

Better than Meryl Streep.



XLII.

The cops could see

why these women were taking over trade.

Girls with these looks charged upwards of $500 an hour.

The Russians had undercut them with a bargain rate of $150 an hour.

One thing they are not is lazy.

In the USSR

they grew up with no religion, no morality.

Prostitution is not considered a bad thing.

In fact, it’s considered a great way to make money.

That’s why it’s exploding here.

What we saw was just a tip of the iceberg.

These girls didn’t come over here expecting to be nannies.

They knew exactly what they wanted and what they were getting into.

The madam who organized this raid

was making $4 million a year,

laundered through Russian-owned banks in New York City

These are brutal people.

They are all backstabbers.

They’re entrepreneurs.

They’re looking at $10,000 a month for turning tricks.

For them, that’s the American dream.



XLIII.

If you’re not into something,

don’t be into it

But,

if you want to take some whipped cream,

put it between your toes,

have your dog licking it up and,

at the same time,

have your girlfriend poke you in the eye,

then that’s fine.

That’s a little weird but we shouldn’t judge.



She was my best friend then

and I consider her one of my best friends now,

because when I was going through Riker’s

and everyone abandoned me,

including my boyfriend,

I was hysterical,

crying,

and she was the one that was there.

And, when somebody needed to step up to the plate,

that’s who did, and I have an immense amount of

loyalty, respect, and love for her.

And if she’s going to prison for eight years

—that’s what she’s sentenced for

—I’ll go there,

and I’ll go there every week,

for eight years.

That’s the type of person I am.

Smooth, smooth, fringed by yellow smudged, hard plastic
smooth, left to right then a painterly inconclusive running
out, the stroke all 60” expires into the yellow, then a firm
vertical orange stripe, a bookend, a hot surface elevated
upon a warm yellow bed, exotic, turmeric, heated from
below, as though from another world, a future planet found
in Manga, gum wrappers, belonging to the wedding
wardrobes of older women, and those with impossible
shoes, maybe a scarf, definitely lipstick and small Japanese
cars, decorative paper, a can’t-miss logo, as when I close
my eyes in the act of love, holding your kneeling body to
me I lose myself in a pattern of flashes, the bright play of
light and colour, a sensual play of pigment, blue and red
wavelengths, fuchsine, electric, electric, and the aura of
artists, such latent energy, hidden passion, rich in ******
fragrance, edged with desire.

The path of the brush now right to left yellow exposes a
yellow bookend at the left hand edge, there is a roughness
here in its covering of yellow, as though applied in haste or
in a single gesture with a large brush, it is thick, thick and
rough, but the yellow is almost present, a hint, a reflection,
as in the petals of the Bellis Perennis, you open your mouth
breathing, breathing your lips frame such perfect teeth as
day arrives,

Left to right, the paint thick then thinning to a broken
tailpiece revealing yellow on magenta, again, again, again, again,
how little I yet understand your body, the innerness,
the sheltered regions of your desire, I am afraid to harm this
preciousness, be disrespectful of the tapering valley where
love’s caress and kiss meet, are multi-dimensional, the
rectangle is not charcoal, but deflected, hesitant, to the left
the darkness of chocolate, to the right a greyness, a *****
grey, a dusty dark dog, loamed, a depth then play of
shadow, dark, textural as your maidenhair under the covers
above my right hand as it spreads my fingers across its
darkness into deeper darkness, a flat stone, its left end
washed by the cold tide, olived, clothed in mourning, there
is unpleasantness, some distaste, a little fear, the unknown,
the unknowable.

Daisy petals, opening in the morning light, the clapperboard
house on the Block Island beachside fresh-painted every
spring, immediately weathered, porcelained sea shell
textured, turned, tumbled, a dawn sky after rain,
ceramicised fungi, plain flour, acidic, taut, the moment
when the heart and breath seem to pause as we join each
other’s flesh as though this cannot be cannot really be.

Unrhymable this flower shade hued pigment deep saffron
vibrant, phoned, not quite of the fruit, a different tang,
sharper without sheen, magenta beneath its smoothed
surface up to left and right edge, (but for the yellow
frill beneath), lip covering, silk-scarfed, not autumnal yet, but oh
those Californian poppies, those desert landscapes as the
sun sets,

a single uneven gesture thrown left to right, an island
in silhouette with a rocky foreshore spreads into distance,

a bed of sylvan jade, an oasis, this an aerial view of tree
tops modulating to grassy pasture, a down-stroke western
boundary, an edge of surf on its northern border, perhaps
the brush formerly coloured has left its trace,

the main body of this Australian desert seen from the air,
Sidney Nolan’s bush, aboriginal earth, coloured mud,
unguent, the sense of liquid in your kiss, its warmth, the
very tip and corner of your lips, the brush of hair as you
move your head to my chest, the rubbing of hair on hair,
under your arms this play of sensation through the lips’
touch, then the shore, the sand no sand though, only in the
brochures, daffodilled perhaps, unsmudged, fresh,
vigorously golden, well-watered.

Venomous sentiment
and perilous arrogance
Living in a world
Filled with detriment elegance
Where Selfishness is just
Another prerequisite
Summed up in a word
*Unpleasantness

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature.  For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.

My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality.  She says I'm like the child who
Buries her head in the pillow
So as not to see, the child who tells herself
That light causes sadness-
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
To wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person-

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me.  We're walking
On the same road, except it's winter now;
She's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
Like brides leaping to a great height-
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth-

In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
From time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're trying to explain, the fact
That we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
Capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, The composition
Fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
Going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering-
It's this stillness we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

Somewhere in the forest
There is a paradise
Hidden in a circus tent
Blocked by a bramble thicket

There are ways we want to live
And ways we must live
But a spectrum is discovered
When the way we must live
Diminishes the way we want to live
And the way we want to live
Dictates the way we must live

We eat and then ****
Life tastes adequate when we're dining
So we keep feeding
Our appetite becomes insatiable
We devour what opportunity grants us
Ignoring the rumbling in our stomachs
Until we must face the unpleasantness of our waste
Even when we're wise enough to know the effects of eating
We continue eating
Learning minor methods of mitigating damage to digestion
It becomes hard to swallow
That this is all it takes to be human
As humanity's power becomes planetary
Meals turn to feasts
And **** piles up
As the rancid fumes plague us with mental monsters
We yearn for a simpler time
When rations were the size of a sunflower seed
And excrement exited as ethereal gas
An age that never existed

The way I wanted to live became the way I had to live
But now that I'm living the way I have to
I can't tell the difference between what I want and what I need
I guess that could be a good thing
Because the space between what I want and what I got
Is where fulfillment is found

As I stumble through this life,
help me to create more laughter than tears,
dispense more cheer than gloom,
spread more cheer than despair.

Never let me become so indifferent,
that I will fail to see the wonders in the eyes of a child,
or the twinkle in the eyes of the aged.

Never let me forget that my total effort is to cheer people,
make them happy, and forget momentarily,
all the unpleasantness in their lives.

And in my final moment,
may I hear You whisper:
"When you made My people smile,
you made Me smile."

Starting a new day
As the creatures of the dawn
Awaken from their slumber
Draw nearer to conversing
As my tongue tired of lasting words
Exchanging an unpleasant battle
Due to stronghold blockades
Those casting does not work as one
But bitter with sayings of lashing
Commencing words
Which are not quite pleasant
But sends a signal
Commanding respect
Bow down to no flesh of unpleasantness
As the spirit ease me with new slumber
Thanking God for a sleep I need
For the next preparation

Were we guilt of trying to be something we were not?
Unpleasantness went unspoken:
death, ***, depression
Ideas which did not exist
in our buttercup yellow
stake in suburbia

Like a slate was held
over the tops of our heads
keeping knowledge out
keeping pain in
where it festered in our bones
and our minds became darkened
all the same

Dispassionate parents
whose fire rests unknown
bred a lost generation
I and my sisters,
our little brother
all burning up inside.
Contradicting notions
manifesting themselves over the years

Who will we become?
Where does the path
of a sterile, manicured
lawn lead?

It leads to each other
that is how we will find ourselves
in the flesh of our flesh.

tachyphylaxis - tach·y·phy·lax·is (tāk'ə-fĭ-lāk'sĭs)  n.
1.    A rapidly decreasing response to pleasure following initial administration.

I didn’t know this
demon had a name.
Ugly as it is it fits,
a random mish-mash
of unpleasant sounds
and equal unpleasantness
felt.

I’ve known the *******
forever, manifest in vitamin cures
and psychological processes,
SSRI’s and stabilizers.

He attends to the end of
affectionate loving and all
the designer vacations
you've ever taken.

He is the golden handcuffs of
square foot home ownership
and his business cards are
set in silver.

To put it bluntly
his continuous presence
is intent on destruction
of any contentment.

He is all things along the way
that appear so promising at first
but never last.

Synonymous with tolerance,
antonymous with precedence,


the antagonistic leaven of all living.

Have you seen the Hills of Eden
They just lay beyond the grove
Where the beauty of the pasture is matched only by the snow
In the season of coldness when the hemlock starts to grow
Have you seen the Hills of Eden
Where the mass graves lay untouched
It was only for the purpose,man is always in a rush
Hush now children, don't be foolish
It's only tales of ghosts and goolish
Yet the weary be aware , above the graves the grass it fairs
Fairly poor from lack of sun or food I know not
yet for purposes the grass is dead above those spots
where dead are laid atop of dead
Like flesh was spread, and nothing said
It is the manner of our ways and still the Hills of Eden fair the same.
Like the rose flow
The lush exterior
Beneath the thorns that cower?
or the beauty of the rose is venerated from its lush exterior
allowing the unpleasantness of the thorn to contain an essence of beauty
thus the beautiful will bare the cross of the wicked
and the wicked will be better for it.
and say i have seen the Hills of Eden

The General stood looking in the mirror
Perfectly attired, Cap a Pied.
He turned to me and said
"We must not delay this,Mister Marshall.
This bitter cup that fate has handed me"
I handed him his sword in silence.
We'd be fighting in the hills
Were it up to me,
but even I knew that our men
were starving, Surrounded,
there could be no victory.

Traveler was mounted in an instant
Few looked finer on a horse than
Our Robert Lee.
Under flag of truce we rode
to the McLean House,
there to await the modern Ulysses.

Grant rode up dressed in a Sergent's uniform,
mud splattered,
His shoulder straps the only hint
of rank .
He looked more like the man
who had been beaten
Than General Lee who had to play that part.
He took Lee's white gloved hand, offered in greeting
both men's faces  etched with suffering, I saw.
They reminisced  about their other meeting,
when both served Scott in the Mexican  War.
Then General Lee asked Grant
to state terms of surrender.
They sat down and, in short order,
ended the unpleasantness of war.

The Victor was generous to the Vanquished:
No Rebel would be tried, or lose their home.
The men permitted to retain their side arms
Rations fed to men of skin and bone.
We'd Stack the drums and cannon in the field
Give our parole despite our internal pain
There were troops still in the field but it was over
April Ninth, a dark day without rain.

What is that?
That feeling...
sadness and loneliness and pain,
they've all met up,
and now they are curled
rocking back and forth in the pit of my stomach.
Depression is punching my heart in frustration,
but frustration
he is ambling through my mind
causing confusion and indifference
while they are meticulously
somewhat unwillingly gnawing at my muscles.
What is that?
The amalgamation of unpleasantness;
something of vast immeasurable and uncertain importance is missing.
Missing.
What could it be?

The weight 

Atop her shoulders

Is enough to 

Curve her spine

And twist 

The corners 

Of her lips into a 

Sinking line

But in the view

Of distant eyes

She is no more 

Or less

Than posture 

Uncorrected

And vague
Unpleasantness.

the bitters of winter
visited this very day
upon tender shoots of grass
its coldness did lay

an icy unpleasantness
which remorselessly kills
whatever lies under
its acrid chill

winter will reign over
these parts for many days
and its frosty cover
will have its willful way

the warming feel of summer
gone for a while
replaced by winter's
harsh freezing bile

The light of the sun creeps across the duvet
under which you and I are entwined.
Our limbs entangled like a pair of neglected earphones,
stowed away in a now unused jacket pocket;
both of us pleasantly unable to ascertain where our body starts
and the others begins.

The room smells like stale cigarettes and wine,
which is only intensified by both the heat of the sun
and the warmth of our own biology.
The aroma transforms from stale to fresh as I crack a new bottle,
pouring us both a healthy glass,
whilst you light our last cigarette;
Taking a few draws then passing it to me,
along with the over-flowing ashtray.

Our unwashed skin is sticky with dry sweat,
accumulated during sleep and *******;
Our mouths rancid from the wine
and the lack of toothpaste applied.
To the naked eye there is a thick and smokey cloud of filth
occupying the space above our heads;
creating an atmosphere uninhabitable to anyone but us.

This mass of pollution combines with the salt-filled air,
streaming in from the open window;
making for an interesting cocktail of unpleasantness.
To all this we are blissfully unaware,
and we just lie there,
basting in it;
caring not a jot.
Our thoughts only for each other
and the tingling in our nerve endings
when we catch the others eye.

For eternity we lie there,
until one of us has to ****.

I can feel the light touch of rain on my skin and the dripping of old raindrops into a flower ***
my mind is void of the unpleasantness a smile is permanent on my face
I feel my brain fog up with the fog that used to frighten me but I understand it now and the swaying of the trees the gray of the sky
the birds that fly above me
it’s beautiful breathtaking and saddening all at once.

I realize that this is how the world is to begin with
a mix of all these feelings and pain and joy
when all we want is just to be held
to be loved
to know that were important
but under this endless sky all we feel is small.

Dear Cancer,

I write this letter with nothing but sincerity and honesty. I think it’s time to say that no one likes you. And you should go the **** home. You’ve caused nothing but unpleasantness and to state the truth, you were never welcome here, or anywhere. You’ve successfully decayed our humour and allow us to frequently use indecent and ****** words. For the futur, keep in mind that you will never be greeted with a smile or the slightest salut. You will forever be cursed upon, as I am cursing you now. You’re the best at ruining lives, and you’re even better at causing misery than you are at tearing out hearts. I’ve got the last words this time. *******, you will not ruin her.

Sincerely,
I hate you.

My love, my sweetheart
she is as white as cold milk
at will as transparent as glass;
her lips are red, as red as dripping blood

she wakes me up each night
with a newly-plucked out
still-beating heart
of all varieties of human emotions:
"Breakfast in bed?" she croons

O her every word is a scream
her every look burns the spirit
she shrieks and groans and moans
enough to raise me up to the clouds
O her very touch is icy cold
her embrace is as delightful as being
in the arms of Queen Winter -
O...Ooo...wwooooh...should I compare her in a sonnet to a Winter's night?
but that would be groundless
for she excels
every unpleasantness
and horror, and she breaks all form

My love
she screeches like car tyres in a sudden stop
she scratches down my back
like a tractor on farm land
her eyes are hollow
and we exchange worms when we kiss;
her ears pop out
of her dry, unkempt straggly hair -
O she drives me into long howls, that wild wild
ghost of once a woman

O eternity,  eternity with my cold, cold love
O what would I not give to be always
and always
in spirit with her -
O I could die forever
to be in the cold, cold embrace
of my hollow-eyed screamy love

You walked casually away
I was bursting into flames
Here come the headaches
The air smells like medicine
I found myself alone

nobody told you?
you can’t hide from this heat
our love was ******* gorgeous
and then you ****** us
coughing up dust
pulling the curtains closed

Too much wine
creeping on the edge of silver lining
because my pen is tired of writing
on my hands and knees
the countless ways you smile with your teeth

Do forget
The unpleasantness
Chemical taste upon the tongue
Exhaled through the lips

Softly whistle your siren song
this will be the last time
Because I’ve been fast approaching death
loose grip and thin skin
Chemical taste upon the tongue
Hold the exhale in

-Joelena Saldana
12/3/14
I can't get him out of my head...
He's surfaced my dreams, I can't stay focused.

Every single morning,
I wake to the memory of him and fall asleep with his face in my head
and his words crawling under my skin speaking,
not singing,
but speaking in a sweet sweet melody.

Why can't I forget?

He's so many miles away.. States away.
Could this be love?
Could this be the thing I've been waiting for all these years?

Everyone tells me,
"Let him good.. You could do better..
He's not good for you.. We don't wanna see you get hurt Jo-Jo..
It's just lust.."

I feel like I'm going crazy!

Out of my mind trying to forget him.
But the crazy thing is,
me trying to forget
is me remembering every little thing we did.

Every single time we laughed,
every moment we wanted to be around each other.

He's always put a smile on my face.
Craved his kisses,
something we never did, but regret and wished we had.

It felt as if I was lost without his presence.

My day was never fulfilled without getting at least something from him.. His words..
A hug..
A laugh..
A smile..
Just one look towards me and my day would be final and complete.

I've never felt this much,
whatever it may be,
about a guy before.. About a person..

It scares me.

Now that I am not around..
Now that he is not with me,
because of these awful miles and states away.

One hundred and forty three of my days have not been complete.

Without his words..
Without his hugs..
Without his laugh..
Without his warm warm smile..
Without his glance.

I have been lost..

Confused of these days and what they might hold and mean.

I miss his touch,
I miss his sound,
I miss my eyes holding witness to his presence,
I miss his flowing intoxicating aroma that I could've kept forever.

And only one thing,
one thing that I fully regret not giving or receiving.

One thing that does appear in my dreams,
but wake to the unpleasantness of the morning rise.

A kiss..
A sweet, gentle, loving, caring, fulfilling kiss.

The taste of his lips.

All of our deep feelings would fall into that kiss.
And this kiss wouldn't have been just any kiss.

It would've been a fully remembered,
cherished for all these years,
first kiss.


Oh, S... What you do to me..
What spell you've casted.

Let the empty hands
embrace humanness and composure.  
Let the ebullient heart
thumbs belief & conviction.
The year enlighten lessons
of effacing unpleasantness and woes,
settling between bad & good.
Treasure the memories we came across
and be ready with wondrous love.  
Thank You 2020 for being the ebb & flow of life.

I Won't Sing A Song

I won't sing a Song,
lest I misguide the feet.
I won't sing a Song
about this unpleasant world
unpleasantness at Hiroshima,
gore all over Jalalabad.
I won't sing a Song,
lest I misguide the steps.
I won't sing a Song
about this tragic world
Tragic plane crashes,
tragic capsizing vessels.
I won't sing a Song
if craftsmen will specialize in dynamite drums
and blatantly make fire spitting flutes.
Why should I sing if craftsmen know nothing
accept to make piano keys able to spew hazards?
Can't be so dumb as to sing
while craftsmen are busy making weapon drugs.
I won't sing a song
Knowing Napoleon had fought sixty battles
and the seismic Tsunami yawns from time to time
I won't sing a song,
knowing Tsunami as I do, a convulsive eater
and water all round, she will not stop to belch
Drums of dynamites,
fire spitting flutes,
pianos of long ranging keys.
These aren't my idea of music
so I won't sing a song
With Bleeding Kansas fresh in mind
and engulfing of the Persian gulf,
how could i sing a song?
I won't sing a song
when the refugees fleeing ambush of tigers
fall victims to the pride of lions.

the bitters of winter
                      hath called this very day
                               upon tender shoots of grass
                                                        its coldness did lay

 an icy unpleasantness
                            which remorselessly kills
                                               whatever lies under
                                                                ­   its acrid chill

winter shall reign over
                      these parts for many a day
                                               and its frosty cover
                                                               shall have its willful way

the warming feel of summer
                        gone for some while
                                        replaced by winter's
                                                           harsh freezing bile

I repent for an irreversible folly, again
but its lingering unpleasantness
doesn't forgive my painful guilt.

There’s a certain blurry gentleness to denial
A Tylenol bottle cotton plug of protection
Muting the inevitable rattling,
A scratchy puff, a cloud,
Shoving it down into the bottle
Until it’s wedged Somewhere Else
now just a half a whisper you can almost hear
On a tv with no subtitles

I like it here.
Swaddled against such unpleasantness
Nestled and unfocused.
That’s the key.
Focus your attention on anything for too long and you’re *******
The spell will be broken
That little whisper
Now a shard of glass
Now unforgiving and sharp edged on your naked awareness

Now, it insists
Now
Hear me NOW

NO, ****!
So many wishes spill out when you lose,
The blood of your unreason stinging your eyes like black pepper
Like a floodlight in a dark room
Pluck it out or shove it down
It will find a way to find you
Outside or inside you
In front of or behind you

You can’t escape this time
Or can you?

If you sink to the bottom you can hide awhile
With the anchor on your ankle
And the waves on every side caressing, pressing oh so gently
Like a kiss, like a smile.

Bliss endless and tidal
Like denial.

April showers are upon us and windows will be washed
Buckets of clean water, but thirsts will not be quashed
Be careful of unpleasantness, you don't want to get sloshed
Or you may regret your actions, when implements get squashed

Last houses to be tended, but not the place you parked
My Reservations were in order, before we disembarked
Don't park on strangers driveways, some incidents are sparked
If the owner should arrive, our equipment may be marked

Leaving your car on unknown drives, isn't that just wrong
You don't want upset people and coming on too strong
Avoiding confrontations or provoking a sharp prong
Maybe it will be okay, because we won't be long

Private property people protect, so watch out where you tread
They may come back before we're done, or before we've fled
It will be law of the sods, you should park elsewhere instead
Never mind we'll carry on so be it on your head

Proceeding with our window clean now that parking is addressed
The arrival of a certain car, but the drivers not impressed
Waiting by his driveway, but I think you may have guessed
Apologies are too late when people are too stressed

Revving up his engine, as you moved your car away
Gained access to his driveway, hoping it would be okay
Wheels spinning ******* gravel, what an uncouth display
But it's hardly unexpected, when blocked drive's tempers fray  

Obliteration under wheel, so I guess he wasn't thrilled
Our buckets life was terminated and bucket blood was spilled
A bucket murderer in our midst, water's no longer filled
April showers are no more, now my bucket has been killed

Was our bucket slaughtered purposely or was it out of luck
Maybe a different outcome if our bucket wasn't stuck
I didn't let it bother me I didn't give a ****
Your bad car parking decision is why the bucket murderer struck

So next time you decide park, and the owner isn't calm
Keep your bucket to yourself, pick it up within your palm
Or your bucket may succumb, too some sufficient harm
My bucket runneth over we don't want, or any other psalm

I don't want to die
But sometimes
I just want to disappear...

Run away from all the unpleasantness
The anger that flames
Burning into my soul

The loneliness
That never changes
Even when surrounded

Somewhere else
Would be nice
Maybe the moon? Or even saturn

I want to be free
Free of the crimes
Free of the tears

I want
Not to die
But to disappear
And never come back

I have witnessed a person break right in front of me. Break. And I remember the crack of a broken voice, the gasps for fleeing oxygen, the stone cold stare of pain...
It's funny... there have been many a tragedy in this cruel world. I have seen beautiful buildings, now rubble and ash. Entire forests, now ablaze, the smell of smoke intoxicating the air. Cities, submerged by oceans. The earth itself - split -like a piece of paper.
Isn't it funny? Or is it strange? How buildings, forests, cities, the planet we live on --- crumble before us and may never be repaired.
And yet, I have witnessed a person, break. Only to face the world the next morning without even a visible scar.
~ I remember my high school English teacher's words, "Humans, they have the innate ability to cope with unpleasantness." ~

I found you would I not
stumble in words once more
be swollen tongued deaf dumb
and blind
maybe
it is better
perhaps to
keep striving
to search lifelong for the end
of the rainbow
to have a goal a reason
to keep that bit of mystery
that longing
for if I were
one day
to find you
there amongst the tangled reasonings
the vines with thorns
thistles unpleasantness-
might I just die?

we started filling it up so long ago
it should have been for sailing
and watching dreams come true
but
how it began
is not how it ended
the water would never seem the same

there was too much unpleasantness
like a hard wind spoiling a sunny day
i kept wishing
for the sunsets you wanted
but
you thought I brought them with me
that’s when I lost you

a lake still needs a river
the doors were already open
the trickle at the bottom  made it so
but
when your heart started to empty
the lake fell
revealing what I already knew

bare naked trees
poking through the ripples
The way you kissed promised so much more
for some reason
i thought you meant it literally
but
it only lasted as long as you needed

i could hear bells skipping across the reflection
it was the promise
one person to another
We noticed how the wind tried to calm the rain
but
it wept uncontrollably
because of how shallow we had become