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the year i carried a copy of ferlinghetti’s book poetry as insurgent art like a pentecostal carries and twists their bible

i
i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
thoughts of kissing me
sleep on disreputable futons
show up at hotel room doors
unexpectedly
.

just about the time
one of my gods said
i was coming close to my
howl
.

but i’m nowhere in proximity
.
upping the ante is perhaps required
my addictions too mitigated by motherhood
and the yolk of practicality
.

i’m not lesbian enough
i’m not disenfranchised
i’ve never been to france
i’ve never given anyone a hand job for a grant
ted hughes has not yet abandoned me
.

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends writing

janus smiles

the first morning of the new year
demands i take stock
of all my travels
around the sun
as janus smiles to a rolling stones song
even he agrees moonlight mile
is the best deep cut ever

i tell the old roman
this i know
the better a man wears a hat
the more fucked up he is
and he laughs

let me see
there’s the useless blue-eyed poet
who knocked me up at half-time
during a drunken super bowl
on a year my team wasn’t even playing

and the swaggering dick
who used to be a rock star
now living as a woman
except he can’t pull off androgyny
cuz he’s not beautiful like bowie
so it boils down
to old new jersey housewife

then there’s the one
who saw me run
screaming through the stained glass
of his victorian mansion’s door
saying fuck all
to white dresses and heavy yolks
sailing to greece
eight nights of channukah gifts
on top of my silly gentile christmas
and little italian sports cars
when he asked
if i would be willing to have
an organic vegan holistic
all natural drug free hoodoovoodoo
unshaved doula
chakra chakra
sanskrit wheat grass
water birth

oh my god no no no no

and california…
we don’t speak of what died in california
or his beautiful black eyes…

it’s somehow enough
that the man i truly want
but will never destroy with my love
occasionally gets drunk enough
to think of my face
in the middle of a tune
and long and long and long

i think it’s supposed to happen another way
but the older i get
the harder i bang my head
to a good song

to hell with it all

my hands are throwing
the whole shit load bag of bricks
down in a ditch

and

i’m starting a garage band

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

our devils come screaming

sister wearing my same shade of lipstick
i need not ask how your last name changed
as his stubborn bastard ways
are kin and blood
to the veins
which run through me

our devils come screaming
up that holler
the moment we find religion

just know
he couldn’t help it

we weren’t shown how to live right & properly

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

agreeing with an accordion

he strolls in
to the gray paged light
of kaldi’s coffee & books
seeking my table

it’s an old haunt of mine
down on main street
that’s no longer there

i nod to him
noticing he looks
hawaiian shirt out of place
this far inland

as he sits
the waitress materializes
liberating a beer from the table
that spent it’s time there
wishing it were a bourbon

promises are made about eggplant lasagna

we hear edith piaf
off somewhere in the distance
agreeing with an accordion

my lips have his eyes transfixed
as i tell him,

“You’ve turned me into your Yoko.”

he cackles up the side of bookshelves
laughter finally reaching the tin tile ceiling

“Why can’t you be happy with that, darling?”

“Because, when I arrived, it was already broken.”

“But you must pay…”

the yellow beeswax candle
the only fire on the table between us
extinguishes itself in the iron holder

“You should be grateful, all my characters die at the end. Besides, you’re more Idi Amin than Lennon…”

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

home from the war

i went out with my friends
all dolled up
in my high class call girl best
the night after we broke up

he was tall blonde beautiful and stupid
5 years younger than me

a marine

home from the war

on leave
the groom of his wedding party

we got bleedin’ drunk on 5th street
and stumbled back to the millennium hotel
buying condoms along the way

it was the place
you and i
had first met
and said goodbye
that sickening july

perfectly evil indeed
america’s favorite white meat

and i fucked him
i fucked him so hard

to spite you
to eat the world

to reclaim me

to kill anything of us
still holy

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

it begins with a waiting black screen

then becomes that dream
where your first reel image
is a fire eyed semi-truck

bearing down on you
twenty feet away from your windshield
hell bent into a head on collision
with your glass blown psyche

except
it’s not a metal wheeled monster at all

it’s a man
and the impact of him

leaves nothing behind

but one spiked high heel
a little black book
and a stack of love letters

burning on a highway
falling into the sea

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

two bedroom purgatory with a view of the bowling alley

he keeps me scattered
about the room
lacking a right angle

denied a proper burial
beside the ghost of a cherry tree

lost amidst
dusty poems
broken drums
unread books
ink sketches
and clementine crates

he never liked letting me go
not even from the bed
but his embrace
made for a happy cloister

i recall a breathable autumn day
a few months before we died

before i bled fuchsia nail polish
into the bathroom tile
horrifying the shower curtain fish

walking past the oil lamp specters of guernica silently
wearing my his place robe
hair wrapped in a terry cloth turban

he spoke softly into his black coffee
when he felt me moving toward him

“i decidedly like calling into the next room for you more”

in that moment we loved each other perfectly

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

shards

their cat slit it’s wrists on a monday
a day after
the dog ran off to join
the speed of sound tour

friends all pleading
break the fuck up, already

but no they insist

not while there exists
one shard more

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

joey ego and the amazing wonder cockporium

sweetie pie
baby cakes
honey lamb

you’re too old not to have learned
nuthin’

a big tool ain’t enough
in this life

it don’t even gitcha half way there

Categories
Jazz Music poetry Short Stories Uncategorized Urban Legends

take comfort in ritual

medium summoned
candles lit
your weekly seance
soon to commence

the trick will be
finding a woman
who can live
with my ghost