LIFE IN THE TRENCHES: Romance, Rebellion and Running Amok

Black Friday at The French Connection

This trip has been pretty good. The last time the four of us were together in New York (Cheerfull Bill, The Fascist Gardener, LP and Mr. Awesome. AKA; Yours Truly) it was so stressful that if I could break both feet off into my own ass to find my way to the yellowbrick road leading to the Jim Jonesian goodness of twisty straw glee - the kind you get for two sips of booze at an enlightened theme park to make the sticky less sticky and the bright idea of a nice day at the dream killer park revert to the original seed of "whoo hoo" that got you out of bed with a hazy head in the first place, i would have.

It was the time of the weeping quesadilla and the auditory goodness of psyche med withdrawal that would make little gremlins grunt like retarded wookies from the non
existent air duct in the corner of my parents bedroom.

That time was tough. There was a lot of private conversations in public places. This time not so much. I'd like to say more but I can't because I'm in The French Connection on my phone listening to music while writing this and I keep seeing the same pair of black and white converse stopping in front of me and the amount of ass and anonymous crotch floating like rainclouds in my general vicinity is going to cut this short.

For now I just wanted to put it down for what it is and how it comes and I find it to be one of the more uplifting of sides to tagging along on the blood hunt with the family on Black Friday.

With love,

The Gooch.

GET HOME. EAT CHIPS. SHARE CHIPS. FINISH DISHES. THEN “AH”.

Not returning calls.  Not responding.  Even if I want to.  Sitting there.  Looking at things. Like tobacco.  Or dirty dishes.  Or change on the floor.  Waking early.  Five.  Six a.m. Upright after.  Brush the teeth.  Rub my eyes.  Consider laying down again.  Two hours.  Three hours.  That’s all I get these days.  The head isn’t working.  In a half state.  Lot’s of shit to do.  Stare at the computer.  Read lines over and over and over and over.  Irritable.  Tight lipped.  Not bitter.  Pretty happy.  Broke.  Not afraid.  But broke.  I can fix it.  Good feeling.  Pick up comic book.  Read a few pages.  Turn on the computer.  Stare. 

I shouldn’t be going to New York again so soon.  But i am.  Try to use the USB modem to get connected.  Too slow.  Fight the score for a while.  Get up.  Go to the gas station to buy cigarettes, two snack sized bags of cheese-its (white cheddar and hot and spicy) and three hot dogs.  Feel shame when the guy asks me if I want a bag.  On the way home I think to myself.  I’m carrying my Saturday in plastic bag.  I feel sick. 

Get home.  Eat chips.  Share chips.  Finish dishes.  Lay the knives and forks out on a towel – perfectly spaced like a surgeon.  Makes me feel good.  Don’t give a shit why.  Do the same with glasses and plates.  Do it in stages.  At a leisurely pace.  Let them soak.  Walk away.  Saturday.  No scrubbing.  Feel they will do a biography on me someday.  Chachi The World Renown Dishwasher.  Amazing method.  The Secret.  Dry it.  Put it on the table.  One by one.  No need to put the pile away after they reach a nice state of sparkle.  I have two loads of clothes still folded up in the laundry bag.  It’s good to be king.

Sit down.  Smoke.  Don’t give a shit.  I deserve a break today.  Not Mcdonalds.  I don’t like the gas station.  I hate it.  Get on the computer again.  I’m all backed up.  Ponder things.  There are too many things I’ve let slip.  They are there locked up all nice and fresh like in notebooks.  Short phrases.  Diagrams that I may or may not be able to decifer.  Thoughts I may or may not have the energy to impart or explain.  Ever. 

Staring contest star who stares for the love of it.  There’s a blip that registers.  Back there. Weird.  Not responding.  Or returning calls.  Even if I want to.  Blah.  Shit.  Crap.  Glory.  Hallelujah.  Today I saw a girl in short white stretch pants who seemed to have no qualms or care for the way her ass proclaimed it. 

I don’t like crying in bars.  The other night.  Two, three people scribbling in notebooks.  Little ones.  Like me.  I have delusions of grandeur.  Me with viral vernacular.  Mr. Startle Shoe Twinkle Toes aka; The Eye of Calabasas.  Didn’t cry about them.  Another combination of thoughts fueled by familiar feelings that go along with the toaster oven, elephants, familiar faces, old time disappointments and avoidable events.    

I do some scribbling.  Bathrooms, benches, walls and candle holders.  I manage to write one in my note book.  I do my scribbling while watching one of the nice ladies do her scribbling.  i write about her doing it.  Fold it up.  Think about gifting it.  For sex and territory.  Instead I keep it.  Go home.  Tape it to the wall.  Rip pieces from a chapbook of poems given to me by a friend  – a living lady from Spain who’s boyfriend just got a new liver.  Benjamin belongs to Serika.  Serika belongs to Benjamin.  More tape.  Serika keeps the innards of my experience taped to the wall.  Arson on the left.  Alchemy on the right.  Wednesday in the middle.  Satisfaction. 

Turn on X-box.  Drink.  More.  Look at computer.  Think.  I’m broke.  I learn some things.  Figure some things that were baffling me out.  Ask questions.  Move slow.  Self taught.  Eight thirty.  The solution was simple.  Must be tired.  Very tired. 

Eyes
Heavy
Now. 

These days i listen to records.  Not mine.  I don’t have any.  Family had five records when I was growing up.  Jamaicans are gangsters with automatics who do things for family and sing about his hope that Mr. Cop will let him pass.  If he does his god will bless him.  If not, he will kill him.  This is the moment that has managed to slip between my ears as i sway in the room intoxicated and full thinking about the novelty of escape.  Gangsters.  I hear things.  Heart things.  Shot things.  Belfries and startle shoe twinkle pus things.  Communicating differently.  Answering the question with no pontification.  I say, “I don’t know”.  When they speak I listen and do not offer anything by way of objection.  I just “yes” when a responding which means that I’ve been living a fuck ton of a lot “no.”  No has a sunny disposition.     

Later.  Eat third hot dog.  Indian food earlier.  Given to me.  Grateful.  I keep getting flashes of an overwhelming love for this life.  Cold when I need to be but warm at the same time.  Yes.  Still angry.  Yes.  Feel myself closing up.  Don’t want to.  Don’t want no call.  Don’t need no response.   

No time.  No time for anything.  No time.  No time for napping.  Sit with window open with a hard on.  Nothing is wrong.  Acting strange but have clean underwear.  Wearing dirty ones.  The cutlery was spaced just right.  In a haze but not.  Tired but not. Overwhelmed but not.  Very careful.  With words.  With humans.  With everything.   It is my choice. 

I don’t like crying in a bar but it’s better I do than not.  This thing of mine has gone on for 33 years.  The first few were mindless, they say.  I feel if I could remember them they would provide me with consolable bliss.  The crying in the bar is not about the bar or what you are thinking.  No guilt.  No shame.  No regret.  Some drunks don’t weep about their sons.  This thing of mine is huge and has had many forms of self expression.  Why else would I take it this far?  I adjust and try not to stop.  I can’t understand why anybody else doesn’t scribble on the g.d. Walls.  It doesn’t make sense to me.  As far as adjustments go it’s the primary colors of good medicine.     

At the end, which is now I do some light stretching and roll some loose tobacco mixed with a small percentage of ashes and smoke it.  Take off my pants.  Take off my shirt.  Turn off the lights.  Sit at the window.  Pat myself on the belly.  I have drawn a line through my days.  My eyes are heavy.  I say nothing.  I say ah.  I think about recent advances in modern day dentistry and the 44th known as Obama. 

The End.           

THIS IS MY TIME

this is my time.  of untouched stories.  now.  like a ford truck commercial.  like Detroit.  like the poems of t.s. elliot that kept on growing with imagination.  elliot made it through.  not like other poets.  i don’t know much about elliot other than this is my time.  right now.  like a van halen song.  like a chick flick.  putting my foot down.  we’re not going to take it anymore.  like a quiet riot song.  but the time is mine.  and i’ve got a bunch of shit running through my head. 

i like my home.  i like how i’ve learned that not biting, reaction wise is still a reaction.  i don’t have to let everybody and anybody into my home.  i don’t have to spend it with the door shut either.  it’s good not to care.  other than having to keep my eye on the cat that keeps pissing on my belongings. 

i heard my sister talk about the orphan mentality the other day.  we were walking back to her home after one nice dinner.  actually, we were at a bar called sorrey’s.  they have a chandelier hanging up above the bar with a bunch of wishbones hanging from it.  it’s an old bar.  and that’s enough of that because the cat is trying to crawl in my lap.  i resisted minus a nice tete a tete head to head nuzzle.  it sat in my computer bag for a second then jumped off the table to take a look around my pile of dirty dishes. 

i get lost easily. 

i really do.

but, somehow – i make my way back.  somehow.  which is something that can go on for a very long while.  easily fibrolated by the nice ladies on the television with fantastic orange county hair. 

did you know i went to the wailing wall and prayed for my grandmother and the return of my voice?  most of the things i say aren’t really just snippets of weird shit.  nonsequiters.  silly fuck shit.  i went to the wailing wall and prayed for my grandmother and the return of my voice. 

i stole her morphine when she died.  i had a dream about her appearing in a beige Studebaker after she passed.  she told me to behold the red robin.  i saw a bunch of them.  one time, i saw one in a banyan tree.  that really freaked me out.  but i was thinking about her and the story – that i pen – and she was there.  staring at me.  rekindling my belief in magic. 

i believe in magic.  i believe in the solace of strangers and the love of like beasts.  i find myself saying, “i am grateful for my life.”  it’s weird because i never really thought that much about my life.  i have.  but it has been localized within me.  which isn’t life.  not really.  i mean, in relation to being able to shut the fuck up for a second and stand there in with zip shit going through your mind – for a flash – where you realize that broke, hungry, feast, famine, swagger, hopelessness – all those things that can seem like love or some other form of forever – or plan – is gone.  and things are better. 

kindness.  thoughtfulness.  intuition with out hunger.  this is how i’ve come to hearing again.  i’m a better person for it.  although, i don’t give a shit about how lonely you are or how you need a ride across town.  i’m not hungry anymore.  not like you. 

i guess this attitude may seem bitter but i don’t think so.  i think there is balls in this.  love in this.  hope in this.  great love in this.  to be able to say i want more and this is not right. 

i remember when i fingered my girl while driving in my xterra to buy my girl a big fucking ring in the jewelry district.

that is one of the things running through my head right now that will i will refrain from further comment.  it’ll take too long and i don’t have the energy. 

that’s enough for now.  i’m tired.  i have to piss.  it’s almost four a.m.  and i don’t care about the thoughts or stories or words or the feelings anymore.

they have passed. 

that’s the thing about being a writer.  my attempts are not limited to these lines right here.  many more will come.  but this is the best i can do right now.  and i feel better.  i should probably comb over it for spelling, clarity, punctuation and what not but i won’t.  i’ll immediately post it.  which is funny – or not because it’s now and not a line.   

 

THE MAGIC HOUR

irritated for a second i come to the time of day where light cancels out light and the lamps become powerless. the switch is flipped but suffers from impotence. it is not dark enough yet to enjoy the benefits of invention. this thing of now demands i pay attention to other things aside from that which holds my focus. i stop and give thought to the whole darn snikkity pussy willow switch that marks me. in the infinite wisdom of my 20/20 vision i’ve made the decision to neglect it. a – the – this kind of musing used to terrify me because it lacked the gymnastic dexterity that goes along with the high holy esteem of busting the bitch in the grill behind the cistene chapel. a tiny little broken molar of a war as implied as the ass i sit on. i'm talking about the magic hour. right now that little twit has yanked me out of my mammoth thoughts and dewy decimal aspirations to secure my place in the annals of forever. a dream that wants to give flight to the boys and girls of tomorrow to fuel them with the necessary confidence to shame the old cowards for their inability to slay paradox. i am one of them still. come on over here sugar tits and sit on my joint. let me enlighten you. the magic hour is the filth i track into my home with no mind for the street. it leaves footprints on my bed and reminds me of why i’m here. the magic hour is the disembodied dream of the futility of approval. the magic hour is the fat pencil that felt good in my hand in the early days of alphabet. those days when the crust of semen and cunt sounded like an ensuing air raid. duck and cover. big daddy is here. springtime is upon us. the magic hour has reminded me that anything worth doing and do in spite of the things i spew depends on my ability to concede to it. with no mind for the wrist slappers and the nods of electric gods and sheep i believe in you. boyhood, i salute you. the ever elusive peanutberry pulls me through. yes, the lamps remain lame and my ambitions have gone to the observatory with a box lunch which is just fine with me because i like to huff glue and if that means anything at all it is and always will be impervious to dissection. especially from the blank cape known as me and the you i project on it.

DREAM BOY BLAH. DREAM BOY BLUE.

dream boy blah.
dream boy blue.

i just realized
what’s been stirring
aside from satellites
and social anarchy.
checking out only amplifies
the underlying stress
behind everything.
much is not said. 
implied and natural.
the whispers are not mine.
leave it alone. 

i, the cannibal.
i, the compass.
i, the lover with cold
toes made of hope.
i, who licks his lips like a
paper coyote.
i, the brave.
i, the pedestrian.
i, the intergalactic
thoughts of my lord
and savior jack handy.
i, the elocution.
i, the meander.
i, the repetition.
i, who winks and
bats his eyelashes
at old hags and
puffed up men to
circumvent his hatred
laced with orphan
insecurity. 
i, the plot point.
i, the seer. 
i, the bloodhound.
i, the receiver. 
i, the light.
i, the minnow.
i, the preemptive strike.
i, the repulsion.
i, the cream puff. 
i, the laugh.
i, the humor.
i, the mechanic
rolling smokes
on the streetcorner. 
i, the meek. 
i, the mumble. 
i, the lunchbox.
i, the freak who defers
to the brilliance of the
windshield wiper. 
i, the stopwatch.
i, the time capsule.
i, the one who understands
spanish, monkfish and Italian  
but can’t speak a lick of it.
i, the omnipotent.
i, the hilarious.
i, the bitch.
i, the indifferent.
i, the idle question.
i, the insecure and
champion of the redemptive
force of confession. 
i, the fright.
i, the fury. 
i, the academic who substantiates
the claim through kangaroo anthropology.
i, the one who retrieves stray bits of
tobacco from his pocket as he searches
for a wad of crumpled dollar bills.
i, the pride.
i, the solution.
i, the contortionist who
snipes with feral empathy.
i, the averted.
i, the dismissed.
i, the deer in headlights, the strike,
the flash and the campfire with
the impeding victory of detonation. 
i, the warmth.
i, the joke. 
i, the boat.
i, the bridge.
i, the blanket.
i, the parable.
i, olive branch.
i, the prince.
i, the boy.
i, the prick.
i, the asshole.
i, the blah.
i, the day.
i, the night.
i, the cloud.
i, the promise.
i, the prairie.
i, the vinyl.
i, the one.
i, the dream. 
i, the me.

it, the kindness. 

i make my way
back to you.

i make my way back
to you.

dream boy blah.
dream boy blue.

i make my way back to you.

dream boy blah.
dream boy blue.

dream boy blah.
dream boy blue.

the whispers are not mine.
leave it alone.