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“I’m not sure if night is ending or day is beginning.  What time is it?” She asked as she opened the door.

“Its about 2:30” I answered.

She was pacing about slightly bobbing her head as she spoke.

“We're sorry to disturb you beloved.  We're conducting a homeless census. May we ask you some questions?”

“I don’t want to be put away”  she said.  “I have to be outside.”

“We’re not here to hurt you.  We’re here to help.”

"Where do you come from?" Ally asked.

She didn't remember where she was from and was uncertain why it mattered.

She knew she wanted to leave Paterson but was unsure about where she wanted to go.

She kept her eye on the McDonald’s across Market Street.  

"As long as the light is on, I know its still nighttime and I'll have a place to go if the cops kick me out of here."

Here, was this evenings lodging in an ATM vestibule.  

"I can also get something to eat when I'm hungry."

"What time is it?"

"Its about 2:30."    

She earnestly wants to know what time it is.  

"I don't want the people going to work in the morning seeing me sleeping here." she said, "It's embarrassing."

Her papers were scattered on the floor.

She had one shoe on and one shoe off.  A white sock gloved an indeterminate number of other sock layers warming her shoe-less left foot, sufficient protection from the balmy mist of this late January evening.   The orphaned shoe lay on its side in the corner of the Wells Fargo foyer.

White, black and yellow plastic grocery bags filled with the content of her worldly possessions lay atop the shelf housing bank deposit slips neatly stacked in cubbyholes.

A woolen hat circled her head.  Her tiny face shone through the gray skull cap tightly tied under her soft chin.

She looked to be in her 50’s.  She spoke in a pale uneven tempo with a quiet anxious voice.  Her eyes were clear.  Her pursed mouth bracketed by a trinity of long chocolate crescent winkles. The sounds floating from her mouth were gently angelic and the kindness of a tender smile was filled with demure submissiveness.

She swaddled herself in multiple layers of coats and trousers bulking up a waif like frame.  Her outermost cloak, a gray trench coat was secured with a tightly wrapped knotted cloth belt.  The coat was thoroughly soiled by a life of sleeping rough in the urban outback.  The fabric boasted a consistency worthy of an Abercrombie and Fitch oil finished coat.  The bulky layers rounded the frame of her shoulders.  She resembled a small granite headstone.

"Whats your name?" I asked.  She was reluctant to tell us.  “I don’t like my name”.

We gently coaxed her.

“Carmen” she whispered.

“That's a beautiful name.  Its the name of the most beautiful operas ever written.”

“I know.  I’m gonna change my name someday.” she answered.  “I never liked it.”

Ally finished taking the survey, leaving more questions unresolved than answered.  

We gave Carmen a blanket, gloves, a hat.  Some hot cocoa, two sandwiches and a chocolate bar. We implored her to visit our pantry when it opened in the morning for cloths, referrals and food.  She was very grateful; but I don’t think she’ll ever make her way there.

I gave her my phone number; but I don’t think she’ll call.

“You are not forgotten beloved.  You are deeply loved.  Please remember that.” I said cupping her calloused hands within my palms.

“I know” the dainty caged bird cooed with a submissive smile.  

“What time is it?”

As we left Carmen, I wondered how to count a person wishing to remain invisible.

Music Selection: Bizet’s Carmen, Habanera

Maya Angelou: I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings

Paterson
1/30/13
jbm
Part 8 of extended poem Silk City PIT.  PIT is an acronym for Point In Time.  PIT is an annual census American cities conduct to count the homeless population.  Carmen was a person we found and counted during the census.  Silk City is a nick name of Paterson NJ.
SøułSurvivør  Nov 2016
failing
SøułSurvivør Nov 2016
the ears
which savored
Bach and Mozart
Beethoven and Brahms
Handel and Hayden
operatic voices
as angels
lifting up to the
very thone of
God
Wagner
Puccini
Verde
Roccini
and
Bizet
.
.
.

deafening
cr­ashes
of kamikaze
coming down
on ships
all around him
.
.
.

the boom
of his cannons
as they shot
them
.
.
.
down

now dead
hearing only
a shushing sound

the inside of a shell


the eyes
which beheld
The Great Books
loved the work of
Mark Twain
and
read
voraciously

loved art

and saw
The Bomb
being
dropped
on
Enewetak
Atol
.
.
.

now becoming
dull with
diffused
light
.
.
.


body
wizened
and
shaped
like
a

?­

I am
watching
as a brilliant
beautiful
man

SLOWLY

DIES*

pieces
of
me
fall
in­to
the
grave

as

well

.
.
.



SoulSurvivor
(C) 10/11/2016
I love my mom & dad.
I'm going to bed now but I'll be reading
tomorrow morning God willing.

I REALLY DO LOVE YOU.

♡ Cathy
Pianos and keys
ink
and the words start to play

She's down with the beat

Caffeinated dreams where Rachmaninov
seems really quick,

Sheet
music
from the music box maker
take a look inside the factories
pianos and
keys
ink by the litre
I meet her
at ten
pianos again
key's in the door
she
plays me some more
Bizet
she'll say something
I'll hear her,
comfortable and confidante

In the stuffed easy chair
content to be there
with her
the piano
keys
she's
comfortable too.
Clouds,
snaking silently across the sky,
the howling wind is rushing by,
a bit like life
the reason why
I lay awake and listen to Bizet.

Resistance only tires you when
the end, inevitably blue
the colours always stay the same
grey, black ruins on my window,
what's the pain you feel when
Winter comes, when
daylight runs away and
snaking silently across the day
the clouds all seem to laugh as if
to say,
We're free as birds but have no wings, we
fly and you can only pray.

The winds that blow,
the trumpet sound, the trenches we dig,
underground,
I lay and  watch the clouds that fly
to me they're still snakes in the sky
and I remain
unsatisfied,
a bit like life and
then it died.
Joanna Garrido Dec 2018
The dark waltz

I love the dark waltz - deliciously midnight
The Phantom, the opera, the dark lair
the gothic, the mystery, the moonlight
The ethereal spirit of night air
I love the sensual, the star crossed young lovers
The tragic, the dreamer, the doomed
Shakespeare, Lord Byron and Sylvia Plath
Great poets that I have consumed
I love Tchaikovsky, Odette and Odile
Carmen by Bizet, Miss Saigon, Les Mis
The music, the poetry that make my heart feel
Nothing inspires such as this
Spinning me round to the beautiful sound
Of the dark waltz into the abyss

26.12.18 JG
How to finish the war
with strategists words
the beautiful country still struggles
with valor and  resistant art
to the neo-barbaric invasion
a red and black banner
color of war and my passion
my courage heart  stands firm
love is a rebellious bird
sang Carmen in Bizet  opera  
one of the most famous music
Mateuš Conrad Sep 2022
no, today it wasn't Danielle, it was... Denise... she's the cousin of Mona... Mona is away in Romania... this plump plum of a beauty... i've been with pretty much all of them... i'll be running out of girls to **** in this brothel... i'll need to find myself a new one... today it was Denise... my god... love at first sight... ol' raven hair very much in the vein of Khadra... eh... Turkish, Romanian, Turkish-Romanian, Romanian-Turkish... she told me she had gypsy blood in her... my god... i go: WILD when it comes to Roma girls... i don't understand ******... why he figured: only the steel-blue-eyed blondes are the best thing going... well... they are... if you start diluting black boy genes with white blonde girls... i look at black men and don't have to wonder why white girls might find them attractive... it's a bit of a shame that i don't find black women as attractive as white women finding black men attractive... call me crazy but it's nearly impossible for me to find an attractive black girl: attractive i.e. to my liking... but i understand the interracial aspect of white girls... i need some dilution... after a second generation of interracial breeding either white or black will pop out... but second generation? what neo-Egyptian copper-necks are... very curious... so it was Denise the Gypsy today... it was Marie the other day when i was underperforming... Louise, Sandra...**** knows: it might as well have been a Casandra... i don't care...

some men put forward the question: is the lemon worth
the squeeze?
oh my god... is it?! Denise was your typical woman...
some parts of her body better than the others...
just like your atypical man...
her ******* were sagging... tiny little creatures...
but her ***?
once a year i admire horses... the assess of horses:
just before the Grand National...
that *** turned me on like a blonde *******
a Hindu doing that: ******* in light-bulbs dance...
oh hell yes...
the lemon is definitely worth the squeeze...
any Roman ******* the "menu" is me being brain-frozen
or are least brain-fried...
there's nothing better than coming from a shift
having stopped over at a brothel for a good ****...
you relax... you: sigh you ah!
mind you... it was a stressful shift at the Wembley
stadium today...
i had to intervene with these 40+ year old "dudes"
picking a fight with these idiotic 16 years olds...
i was thrown in the middle of the confrontation...
the 40+ year olds were adamant: these 16 year old colts
should have been standing on the fifth level!
yeah: and they should be drinking when underage...
help us help us! they're putting us in choke-holds...
help help!
fear is wild-eyed... one of my fellow stewards almost
had his fingers dislocated trying to break
up one of these skins trying to choke a colt to death...
screaming: i'm going to ******* **** you...
technically i'm not supposed to touch anyone
but i had to step in and calm everyone the **** down...
it's hardly a massive hard-on on my behalf trying
to intervene... but when you have to...
you take the colts to one side... protect them by "hugging"
them to the side... while talking to the skins
making a big ******* fuss...
luckily no one was hurt...
well... to an extent...
but i don't need that sort of stress...
i knew i had to decompress...
i travelled home (well, to the brothel first) with a bunch
of fuckless and faceless men...
me? i have no moral obligations: what comes,
is the same as what goes...
but i was stressed out...
by A. today's shift and by
B. my previous performance at the brothel...
i hate under-performing...
i was missing at least one of my aphrodisiacs,
i.e. tiredness... i need that more than anything...
i was coming from home and i drank
a little bit too much cider...
that's another aphrodisiac of mine...
perhaps i don't know my self (reflective)
all too well but i do know myself (reflexive)...
i.e. my body... i know what turns me off and what turns
me off...
KLEKS-KAKASHKA... a **** that's also a little ****
that's stored in my **** for an entire day...
to have *** i need to be completely emptied...
i need to **** anything remnant,
i need to **** the last remaining ****-flinging ****
out of me...

oh but there's nothing better than finishing a shift...
stopping over at the brothel...
getting your brains minced and listening to
the echoes of your footsteps at 3am...
the foxes are roaming: you just ****** Gypsy queen
of the underworld...
i realised something...
upon encountering regular ***...
i really... i really just need to have a regular access
to food... drink... a shower....
so i can pamper myself...
hmm... seeing pointless male drama of emotion
surrounding sporting events: intervening in them...
and regular ***... oh... *** is part of a necessary
existential diet... you can't live without it...
maybe that's why i try to limit my interests...
there's one video game i play...
but it's an online multiplayer game so...
since i abandoned PS1 narrative games...
Tenchu... Final Fantasy VII... Metal Gear Solid...
i'm rather fond on this: waiting for an interaction
gaming dynamic... i wouldn't pick up chess
even if you asked me: pretty please...

but a great **** requires me to write this little snippet
and then roll myself a DOOBIE...
a spliff... after a great **** like that i "fear" it's necessary
to smoke some marijuana...
come on... a Roma girl?! ol' Raven hair?!
saggy ****... but an *** like a cross between
an orange and a plum...
love at first sight...
i like women who feel it necessary to moan while
performing oral ***...
and this one was different...
her cousin liked to perform with her eyes closed...
Khadra wanted to perform with her eyes open
and looking into mine...
Denise kept looking into the mirror...

i wasn't trying to perform... not after last time:
under-performing... my mind was swallowed up by
a giant squid of irritabilities...
i went limp... *** is complicated...
but imitation ******* allowed me to sweat ol' Marie out...
Gypsy love... Bizet...
i finished early because i ******* felt like it was
necessary and we just sort of lay there...
caressing each other before one of us pretended more
than the other to fall asleep...

what, a, beau! i seriously don't think there's anything
necessary for man to appreciate beside
good food, shelter, and a good *******...
ah... but this one didn't give up her lips up so easily:
she didn't! cheeks! jawbone... eyelids and ears...
but not her lips... well... some women just need more
convincing than others...
i'll steal her lips the next time i see her...
i don't need anything more!
i'm rather content...
as we parted two girls were already in bathrobes
saying: bye bye while i kissed Denise on the cheek...
well yeah: bye bye...

the lemon is most certainly worth the squeeze...
but... as a man...
you really have to have very limited interests to
have an interest in women...
you can't be a comic book guy...
you can't exactly enjoy movies... apart from
the Godfather Part I... you can't...

hmm... women....
  what a splinter sub-cell of curiosities...
esp. if she's the one initiating tenderness...
akin to: don't kiss me on my lips...
just my entire face...
i did that "little " quirk of pretending my
index finger were the holy trinity:
of: hour by the count of the father,
minute by the count of the son...
and holy spirit by the count of the second...

the pains and aches of a ginger...
not exactly a Roma gypsy "queen" of: pristine ***
and: hmm... um um ums' ...

over the years i've built a strange lactose intolerance...
yesterday was a pristine day:
a shift at Wembley getting into a scuffle
trying to break up these bulks of men
in their 40s trying to choke to death these group
of colts... i was in a sniffing's worth of distance
seeing it first hand: how football makes people
truly irrational... as he was choking the poor
boy he was screaming: i'm going to **** you...
obviously i had to intervene...
one of my colleagues also got involved...
almost had one of his fingers dislocated as
we tried to calm the situation down...
break up the feud...

technically i'm not licensed to touch members
of the public, to rough them up...
thankfully i have acquired pretty good talking skills
with a good enough language of the body...
i inserted my hand between the two feuding parties
and separated them: the older guys started talking
with excuses about how they brought their own
children: one was a football coach for the young
blah blah this... all because the younglings protested
when asked to sit down...
they were clearly obstructing the view of the game
of the people sitting behind them...
as young boys do... they started their hysterical fits
about how the world ought to be X
and how people : esp. in relation to older men
they ought to be treated in an Y sort of way...
i had a burning thought in my head:
pooh-bear... that's not how the world works...
i grabbed this other boy trying to get him to calm down...
i put my arm around him and led him away...
again: we were supposed to get some support
from licensed SIA security guards...
we didn't get the response team we need
but we managed to somehow calm everyone the **** down...
but... i felt stressed...

thankfully she was there to do just that...
prior to i hovered around the brothel...
tweaking my body for some casual *** with a stranger...
i know my body well enough to know what
makes me perform *** and what doesn't...
i need about three aphrodisiacs...
tiredness from working...
i need to smoke a few cigarettes...
and i need to drink at least 6 units of alcohol...
that's either one strong dry cider... 500ml at 8.2%
and then two sips of whiskey...
or 500ml of 4.5% of a sweeter cider and 4 glugs
of a whiskey...
and i need to clear my head...
anything more and i need to ****: i get a ****-block...
the last time i got a ****-block it was because
i didn't measure my chemistry tools properly and
Khadra was there and i didn't choose her
and i heard her walk into the next room with another
client and i didn't hear much pleasure exuding
from her *******... no wonder i switched off...
but nothing equivalent to anger could have gripped
me from under-performing...
i performed in a different way...
after all... i did manage to get her sweating all over
her body as i sat on the edge of the bed
and she sat on top of me and she enjoyed the music
of my choice: whirling her pelvis in what's
imitation ***...

i'm only writing this because i know what under-perfoming
during *** feels like...
it's a lot different when you don't over-think it...
i know how that too much exposure to *******
can create a sensation during *******
where you don't actually realise that you're
the protagonist and not a ******...
that much i know: you have to repeat to yourself:
this is me, having ***...
no... this is not me looking at someone having ***...
this is me, having ***...

and i have to admit... i landed my zenith of "fetishes":
a Romanian gypsy girl...
she said so herself...
                        maybe that's another thing...
whether looking at pornographic movie materials:
always with the sound off...
some of the classical Italian stuff is dubbed anyway
by voice actors... so it makes little difference...

its a bit like the reverse of what happened to
Vilma Banky, Mae Murray and Norma Talmadge,
i.e. the actresses who didn't make the transition
from the classic Hollywood silent movies
to talkies...
                    with ******* it was sort of reversed:
in classical ******* from Italy and France...
you had to have vocal actors impersonating
the onomatopoeias of moaning from the seen actors...
who continued their careers...

after all: i did start in the classical sense of buying
magazines of **** women at an early age...
most of the guys were already sifting through
free online material... i thought it would be necessary
to actually find that void of "shame"
and share the grey-area of sexuality of what's
a purchase of a magazine... no *******...
take any Walter Sickert ****, for example: as comparison...

only today i felt the consequence of such a fulfilling day,
whoever tells you that *** is not important
is lying... not when you have it on a regular basis...
you finish a shift from 2pm through to 11pm...
you buy your aphrodisiacs already carrying one
in the form of tiredness... you mentally prepare yourself
to not get a limp **** during the act...
you take to the back alleys and try to fuse yourself
with the shadow and the night...
you walk up to two chicken shop workers having
finished shift... one of them looks at you
and tries to appease you because you look intimidating
enough: while carrying two pizzas he turns
around startled and asks: would you like a slice of pizza?
and you, in your most friendly voice reply:
no, no thank you mate... but thank you...
why? you don't want to have a full stomach when
having ***... you want to be hungry...

something else was added to my ritual...
i told myself once that i would never go back to smoking
marijuana...
well... things changed when the Queen died
on the 8th of September when i went to the brothel
and met an Afghan "Jamie"... who gave me a decent worth
of bud... would it be the same quality as in
Amsterdam? i did wonder...
lucky for me i performed that night...
i was drinking on the way back...
then rolled myself a joint...

   i went to bed and in my mind: i was glowing...
my heart was something abstract with no relationship
to the science of cardio medicine...
i felt this emptiness of release in my chest...
there was no heartbeat... just a heart turned mouth agape:
sieving through stars and the death of stars...
i suspected this for some time:
black holes, i.e. dead stars...
are 2 dimensional objects in an otherwise 3 dimensional
space... but you can hardly call the universe
a 3 dimensional space...
i've seen it simulated: in the original Tomb Raider
game on PS1... i used to stop Lara at the ferns...
those two dimensional ferns... 2 dimensional in
a 3 dimensional labyrinth... as you walked up to them
and started twisting the view... the ferns would twist...
turn... i imagine black holes to be like those ferns...
but... spinning really quick...
almost imitating the grandiosity of what was once
present... they are black "holes" but at the same time
they are hyper-anti-gravity of spinning
i think they are black orbs... not holes...
i think the whole idea that they are holes is wrong...
i think they are holograms that spin very quickly
since... well... does anything orbit them?
hence: they have to orbit around themselves...

— The End —