Haunted

His Pa long gone, mama frazzled and
busy pulling cockleburrs
that refused to make way for
white tufted King Cotton, her nights
keeping shotgun shack spotless, and smelling
of neck bones and soup beans, finally
Top Jimmy scripture lit by coal oil lamp.


Nobody cared that the bastard
son of a suitcase sundry salesman
wandered, shiftless, down back roads
hot, sun baked sand squishing between his toes,
dressed in worn overalls, shiny at the knees,
listening to mid-row field hand voices
rising even as backs bent. Old slave songs
so sad that he felt unalone.


When he was almost a man, angst
gave way to anger fueled by clear homemade
liquor, the cotton patches of Black Oak
could no longer contain him.
In Memphis, he held a mulatto girl dear,
but she laughed and called him boy.
He hit her and she fell shimmy limp.


So he fled back across the river,
stealing chickens all the way to Little Rock
and started capitol life as a stick up kid.
After a pinch and a nickel at the Walls,
he went right back to the life and shot a
man while robbing an Esso station.
When he pulled the pistol, the fellow
with the bow tie and greasy finger nails had smirked.


By the time he left the general population
of Tucker State Pen, moving into Two Barracks
with seven other men who shared
Death Row-- two rows of four cells
and of course Old Sparky,
he had hand picked an ugly green tattoo
that read Ma into his forearm
with a safety pin wrapped in thread.


He had also suffered whippings at the
hands of redneck guards with wide leather belts
and been sodomized by a sneering
man named Chick and two
flunkies who laughed every time
he cried out in pain and humiliation.
The nightmares of his life haunted him
each night like shadows, unrelenting.



His neighbor. a disembodied voice called
Pop, thick as sorghum molasses, helpful
and kind, told stories of the ghosts that
Old Sparky had let loose to wander in
eternal unrest. The raspy sounds of
shackles dragging or soul piercing screams
everyone on the row heard  and knew
they were real.


Pop was set next to fry. Sleep was not easy.
Spectral tales told through low vents on graffito walls
next to toilet bowls, filled the time. Black Oaks'
own son sat Indian style on cold concrete floor and
shuddered-- no relief in sight, no rest for the wicked.


The unit, secured twenty-three hours a day,
echoed with successive slamming steel door sounds.
Sometimes the bare lights dimmed as if
 the sizzle chair had just made love to another.
The bulls came and shaved Pops cotton top locks.
The oily voice in the vent was quiet that night.


Whether the glitch was an act of sadism
by gaurds or poltergiest, Pop was being tortured.
His normal pitch thick voice rising,
"Mo'  juice, God Amighty, mo'  juice,"
writhing in restraints like a spring slug on salted sidewalk,
"Sweet Baby Jesus, mo' juice,"
finally giving up the ghost.


Alone again with the ghosts of his past

     with the smirking. bowtied Esso man,
    
     with the high-yellow girl he would have loved,

     with the absent father who'd sinned with his mother
with the sounds of clanging steel and the ghastly
smell that reminded him of his schoolmate falling,
hands out, into the Franklin stove years ago.



The gust of breeze that accompanied the
opening of his tumble locked steel door, cool
on the freshly shorn scalp, he rose and became
the dead man walking, shuffling between the
uniformed Angels of Death and strapping in,
alone again for the last switch thrown moment.

 Alone.

where we all sleep

i walk the wee hour
through neon lit
part of town

past the tattoo man

his machine buzzing

dragons and butterflies

and other ink dreams

into college kids who

have never been

here before

the angels of the sidewalk

pop their gum and yawn

strolling

slow as morning fog

then abra ka dabra

and disappear

into a strangers car

i wave at

mouthwash jimmy

his tired face split

open

a listerine smile

kicking hope

broken pipes

come to the place

where

we all sleep

tammy is drunk
and cursing
big baby sells his dope
the queers have
just started cruising
and red looks crazy
for cops


sleeping bags
and church handout
blankets stretch

corner

to corner

I sit down
on the curb
to untie my laces
the final encore
of a concert
at the ballpark
across the river
drifts

down on me

as i close

my eyes to sleep

Old Age is Carrion

Old Age is Carrion

 

Should have died young
like James Dean
or Jesus.
The coolest ones
die for the masses
sacrifice self for mob love.
O.D. watching
co-dependant, white pantied
cuties wrestle in the Jungle Room.
The shock value
of teen rebellion
followed by a lifetime of
anti-establishment; fistfights, and felonies-
fashionable leather jackets,
black T's,
flashfire love affairs,
girls barely legal,
women shockingly mature,
tattoos and

avant- garde attitudes
on art, and literature, and fornication.
Wasted.



Should have died in a motorbike wreck,
Martyred Hepcat
like Jesus or Elvis.

The old and the new.

The old and the new. Everything I have posted comes from my old blog. I went to prison again and lost access to my email address for inactivity. Without it I can no longer sign in to the other blog, so I will move that over a little at a time and post some new things as well.  Hope you like it.

2

Devils' Due

 

West 2nd Street was like a lot of other streets in the downtown area of big towns and small cities across the country. It was just past the "revitalized" section, it was old and run down and was a roach nest of people and buildings. There were adult video stores and filthy taverns. There were rent by the hour motels and bootleggers. It was the kind of place where you would not be surprised to find a man napping in a doorway just a little after noon, and the kind of place where police cruisers would roll right by a napping gentleman without stopping to check and see if he was dead. In the middle of the liquor stores and dope houses of West 2nd on the sixth block of this dismal place was a boarding house that looked like it might fall over sideways from exhaustion at any time, in front was a sign whose hand lettering had faded and weathered to the point of near invisibility. It read simply:


.

ROOMS

$100 wk.

666 W. Second.

Up creaking stairs, past crawling water bugs and skeletal remains of rodents was the room of Danny Weber. At present it was spinning in circles. Not really spinning but Danny had the distinct impression of a spinning room as he lay inebriated on the stained crumpled sheets of the roll away bed that he never rolled away. Danny was a drunk of the old school variety, spending each day of his miserable life coming up with drinking money, drinking, and feeling like shit. During these days of alcoholic stupor he would struggle to write page after page of bizarre testimony of his life and world- Danny was a writer. In his mind years before he had decided that along with his desire to emulate Hemingway, Kerouak, and Bukowski came an absolute need to be a two-fisted drinker and virtual chimney of stale cigarette smoke, and even if his writing had not been especially successful (at this point his only paychecks came from occasional day labor) the whole drinking and smoking thing had been something at which he excelled. The hangovers were the worst on days that he woke with no booze on his "bed side table", it was actually an upturned milk crate he had found in an alley and most mornings atop it, beside the ashtray that spilled over with so many butts you couldn't tell it was just an old tuna can, sat at least a half of a pint of the lowest quality vodka for sale in America. Unfortunately this day did not open with the usual hair of the dog and so Danny lay as still as he could with a cold sheen of sweat and a hundred dollar a week room doing an impression of a Tilt-a -Whirl from some sadistic carnival.. Recognizing the tell tale sign of salivary glands kicking in as a precursor to ralphing he sat up and rushed to the toilet, vomit leaping the last couple of feet and hitting the commode as surely as an NBA free throw, with only minimum splashing thanks to the poor water flow into the rusty brown toilet bowl. The first wave was always the easiest so Danny steeled himself for the next wave of nausea. He was tempted to gag himself with his finger and get it over with, just thinking about it proved to be sufficient and with a contraction of abdominal muscles that seemed like they would pinch him in half he continued to spew bile and yesterdays booze. Making a good deal of noise, Danny hunched and vomited and repeated.

"ARRRRRR EEEEYAK!"

"GRRRRRR ARRRR"!, splash

"GARRRrrrr", spit

"gerRRRAAAAAak" cough cough

"Yak",

and just when he thought that he might collapse and rest his head on the cool, cool white porcelain, the very air in the room split open with a crack and a brilliance of unnatural light and an avatar of Satan stepped through. Curls of black smoke peeled from his bat winged shoulders and ram like horns. His head was a horses skull and scales covered his sooty torso. The stench of scorched sulfur permeated the air, and with a booming voice that would make James Earl Jones jealous he howled,

"Who is it that summons me with incantations of the ancient tongue."

"Huh?", Danny said.

"Who is it that calls me in the voice of the oldest doomed?"

Danny had slid back against the wall sitting on his backside, his eyes were wide with fright,

"Who, who the hell are you?"

Then the beast answered back in a voice remarkably less dramatic, so much so the stature of the demon seemed smaller than a moment before,

"What is this some sort of inter dimensional wrong number?"

"Are you the Devil?"

"Sheesh, you think that I'm the Devil, Lucifer, the Prince of the Air and Ruler of Hell?"

Danny wondered if all demons were as big on the whole list of pedigree's but out loud he asked,

"Are you?"

"Dude hardly", then with a hint of pride in his once booming voice he added," but I can make certain deals under his authority, I mean I do work for him. He is my boss".

Dannys eye brow scrunched together and he turn his head a little to the side and down and asked,"What kind of deals?"

"You know like Crossroads"

"Like Ralph Macchio."

"Like Robert Freakin' Johnson."

"You could make me a great writer?"

"Well... do you mean like John Grisham great or William Faulkner great?"

"Faulkner."

"Wouldn't you rather be a rock star?"

"Why?"

"It would be a damn sight easier, I'd allow."

" No, I want to be a brilliant writer.'

"Brilliant no less, I could make you rich."

" I would sell my soul to be the greatest writer today."

" Listen I'll do what I can, I mean you seem like a good enough kind of fellow, but I am fairly low level you see, I mean I only work here- tell you what I'll run it past my manager see what he says."

"Okay" Danny said feeling a little like he was trying to buy a new car. And again the weird door between time and space opened and closed and the demon was gone. A brief time later he was back.

"Listen Danny I want you to know that I went to bat for you in there, I really did . The thing is you are a little upside down with the whole soul thing, I mean there has been a good deal of depreciation, you've got some damage there too. Bottom line is we are gonna have to take a pass."

"How about Grisham good?'

"Sorry..."

" Maybe just a popular blog...?"

" Listen sit down here with me", Danny sat with him on the side of the bathtub and they talked about what they could do.





When Danny woke up he had a shit taste in his mouth and the kind of strange sense of memory that you have after a night of disjointed dreams, this one had taken the cake though he wasn't sure he had ever had one that seemed so real. He sat up and saw a pint of bourbon on the milk crate along with a pack of generic cigarettes, neither had been opened. So, reaching he busted the seal on the Kentucky pain killer first and drank deep,
"What the hell it's not like I'll miss it", and tore the cellophane open on the smokes, shook one loose and lit it before crossing the room to the mess of papers scattered across his makeshift desk.

Hippy Buddhist Vegan Wren

My Buddhist

Friend studies

The words of

Men whose foreign

Names I can

Neither recall

Nor pronounce

She blesses me

Though with thoughts

Deep and filled

With meaning

Tranquility

Peace

Being  



 

She is brilliant

And wonderful

Consuming the

Meat of Philosophy

But eating no

Flesh

Just knowing her

Makes me a

Better person

Human


She freaks out when she drives a car

In the end

She is as

Screwed up as
I am
And I love her
That much

More

The Value of Poetry

 

In my senior year

Of High School

I met her and

She smiled

She studied English

Or rather how to teach it

At the local

University

I was quite smitten

Taken with her

She asked us to write

So I did

I wrote stories

And she read them

Poems and she giggled

I tried to be provocative

In puberties most

painful/beautiful way I held

books low and center

while we spoke

When she left

Eventually

I learned lifes

Most valuable Lesson

Love is bitter sweet

They all go eventually

And even bad poetry

Can get you laid

coffee club

sunrise at the salvation army
i join others milling about
waiting for boiled eggs
and coffee
the saddest people
i have ever known
smiling
through strained sobriety
i see my friend and speaking
unlock the personality
he keeps
secreted away
proudly he shows me
an ezra pound screen saver
on a trac phone
and begins to share with me
the madness and lines
he has entrusted to
pharmaceutical mind
i nod wondering
what they are talking about
at starbucks this morning

A Pox On You, Criminal

 

I guess
there are
pagan police
officers in
England.

They are

allowed certain

days off.

Summer Solstice.

Halloween.

I have

been cursed

by the cops

here in the

U.S.,

But never hexed.

I have got to

quit listening

to morning

radio.

bruised life

i saw her
walking from
an alley
downtown

wearing a halter top
and jeans and
hand-picked tattoos
another black eye

like fruit
ripened to fast
to soon plucked
from the vine

never maturing
developing
the sweetness
nature had in mind

the only value that
she placed on herself
the crumpled bills
serving selfish desire

and i knew
that this was
her life
a produce market

reselling the same
tomato until
damaged and bruised
no one else

would buy it

you get all kinds

 

sittin' in a

rock & roll

chicken shack

on a sunday

afternoon

when

the last mullet

in america walks in

wearing a fat redneck

underneath

who in turn

is sporting a

hunt often T

and a freightliner
ball cap
greasy

from the mullet

when the liquor
store
closes in the

bible belt states

you

get all kinds

The Night

 

My lover, the Night

Lays naked save

Jewelry of stars



She holds me

In darkest embrace

Caressing my broken heart



I talk to her

And she to me

In whispers and in dreams



Promises spoken

Go unfulfilled

Killed daily by dawns schemes

passion

soft curves
bosom
and buttocks

tiny beads
of sweat
above candy lips

tops flung
across
the room

jeans hurriedly
escaped one
leg turned out

bed clothes
pushed down
knotted

and no cares
in the world
for now

rhetorical passions
spoken and
answered

All The While

 

Sometimes
i wear
a monsters skin
GREEN
jealous of
people
i knew
long ago
i was still
unburdened
Some days
i dont
BELIEVE IN GOD
though i try
very hard
and
i pray
that i will
and most days
I DONT FEEL
a(part)
at all
more like
a sad
goldfish SHOUTING
insulated by
half of a gallon of
water
half an inch of
glass
SILENT
This morning i
saw a five year old
POP open an umbrella
and walk to
the childrens
museum
chattering to MOTHER
along the
WAY
and i remembered then
that I am
human still
I have been all
the while

Cowboys

I went to
A gunfighters
Funeral today

Not a
Cowboy hat
In sight

The glamour
Of toting
Pistols

Not quite
The same
Without them

The sad faces
And souls of
The men though

The same now
As a century
And a half ago

The guilt maybe
Or the things
They have seen

Or maybe
All the bandits
Then and now

Started life as
Scared little boys
Of desperado dads

Regret

Regret is
an overcoat
made of wool
and soaking
wet

It weighs
heavy
on me

Dripping
it ruins the
carpets of
the places
that I
go

I cannot
sleep
most nights
because
of its
icky itch and
its stench

Some days
I change from
it into
coveralls
of
guilt

Someone Else

 

In the building

Where I stay

There is a

Jewish Cowboy

Who wants

To be

An artist

Or maybe

He is a

Jewish artist

Who wants

To be a

Cowboy

Or maybe

He is just

Jewish

Maybe

That is enough

Or maybe at

Night

When he spreads

His bedroll

He is

Unsure

Of

Who he really is

Knowing only

He wants to

Be

Something else

I have been

A fighter

But I

Always wanted

To be

A song

I have been

A junkie

But

I'd rather

Have been

A light
I wonder
Sometimes
If everyone
In this place
Would rather
Be
Someone else

To sleep

The smell of urine

Chokes me like a

500 pound

Gorilla

I am seasoned

And dry rubbed

Rolled

In Filth

Fuzz from give away

Blankets in the

Stubble of my

Shaved head

I fear sleep

In sleep the past

Creeps

Like mist

On water

Into my soul

In sleep

The past

Smothers me

Molasses thick

I will

Enter her

Only with

Assurance of

Kentucky grains

And

Whiskey rebellions

The day

Comes to fast

And I must

Move

God and the Poet

 

that God

and The Poet

are

so often

at ODDS

is no surprise

at least not to me

you see

to Be a Poet

a REAL one

mind you

not some ass

looking for a couple of

words

that happen

to rhyme

NO

to be a real Poet

is to be

God

or a little god

at least

it is to be a

CREATOR

of worlds and dreams

a generator of

love and hate

laughter and tears

of human weakness

and heroic strength

but like that

most beautiful angel

fallen long ago

we are not

Him

at best poor plagiarizers

of His creation

and somehow

that

pisses us off

When We Are Rock Stars

i have a friend

a respectable women

a good wife and mother

who lives in a bastion

of knowledge and wealth

she is kind

of heart and deed

sometimes she comes to see me

AND WE LIVE

LIKE ROCK STARS

there is no limit to our decadence

we eat the richest deserts first then

dinner with heavy sauces

of dairy and drippings

DRINKING WINE

from the bottle without wiping

it's near escape

down our chins

WE SCREW

with reckless abandon

committing unnatural acts

in elevators of hotels

where we are not even guests

we drive to delta riverboats at three a.m.

and play blackjack and craps

I SHAKE DICE and

SHE BLOWS

on them making points the hard way

AND WE DANCE

early or late in clubs with pulsing music too loud to stand

still

AND WE DANCE ALONE

skin touching skin with no music at all

save what is in our hearts

and then after

THE FINAL CURTAIN

we are ourselves again

the homemaker and the hobo

until the next time that

WE ARE ROCK STARS

For Buk

 

the suicide kid

is

dead

and

gone

he

died

of natural causes

he drank himself

to

death

i steal and cry

and

crack
all
day

THE SUICIDE KID RIDES AGAIN

Fathers Day

 

I sat in

the

back row sweltering heat

while the lay minister

practiced on us

going on way to long to the menagerie

of home deprived hungrys

that waited for the

free meal

Pizza today I guess

nobody cared

to cook on Fathers Day

It might have gotten me down

since it has been a lifetime

without me having seen

the kids

but instead I watched as a

daughter

leaned toward her Father

toes tippying neck stretching and lips pursed at the ready

and he bent his head toward her and

at the second that the lips of those two generations

was about to make love affirming contact

Dad pulls away

She sets up again and again he pulls away

the sweet child postures pretending to be deeply hurt and

finally daddy leans in with a kiss

and she forgives it all

Relative Value

 

i don't own anything
i mean of any value
if i did i would
sell it drink it up

i have a twenty
year old van
that i live in
and get around

but last night
under the bridge
a breeze blew up
and stirred the papers

where i had written
the words that i birthed
nearly sending them scattered
across the filthy parking lot

you would have thought
a thief came by
and tried to
steal my child

i grabbed and
reached spilling
my drink as
i caught them

Flat Broke At The Shell ( On Broadway and 9th )

" Say young man
Could you hep me
Get somethin' to eat"

I think ' If only
I had a wheelchair
The money I'd hustle'

" I've a buck fourteen
I panhandled and
I need a beer,
Anything left and
it's yours"

" Never mind", he says,
" What kind of beer you want?
Wait in your car"

I shrug my shoulders
And walk barefooted back
And wait

Rolling out of the
Shell Station smiling
A few minutes later

He pulls an
Oil can of High Life
From the back of his chair

I hand him the change
" Now everybody gots
what they want"

I doubt though
That he bought
Something to eat

Dry Hustle

 

I stole a ladder
this morning
I needed gas

I ran out
On my way to
The pawn shop

I copped 20
Bought cigarettes
And 5 more in gas

BUT I HAD DIME LEFT

I drove over
To a trap
That I know

SPENT 10 BUCKS ON DOPE

Went to see a
Fat chick I know
Smiled and copped 10 more

I told a guy
At the station
That I was in

Quite a bind
20 more dollars gone
10 minutes time

Life ain't easy (but dyin's a bitch)

 

There is an old joke

About dying

" I want to go peaceful

In my sleep like ol' Dad

Not screaming and crying

Like the guys that

Were riding with him"

I try and guess

How I'll go

People often ask

Which Death I'd prefer

Invariably they pick

Sleep or freezing

Something they think

Will be easy

Screw that, I say

I don't want to go easy

I'd rather get beat

To death with a golf club

Or dashed with gasoline

Murdered by Zippo

I need to be relieved

Of life with panache

I suppose in the end

It doesn't matter

If your eighty

And shit the bathtub

Or if you're shanked

By skinhead Nazis

Who just can't

take a joke

Dead is dead

And that is

Only slightly better

Than a long stoned nap

On a freckled hookers couch

who has taken

The whole day off

To be with you

Untitled

At four A.M.

Mugginess lays

Heavy like a

Fat bed partner

Hogging the sheets

The night quiet

Broken only

Occasionally

By cars

On Markham

Even the river
Sleeps content
No tossing
Or turning
Or fitful dreams

The wind gone
Like a child
At Hide and Seek
While I close
My eyes counting

There is a magical
Strangeness about this hour
A still loneliness
Comfortable
Like old shoes

Secret Weapon

 

THEY USED

TO MATCH

ME UP WITH

GUYS THEY

KNEW WOULD

WIN

THREE

THREE MINUTE

ROUNDS

THEY KNEW

THAT I'D

LOSE

I'D DRINK

BEERS AND

SMOKE

A JOINT

BEFORE

EACH FIGHT

IT SELDOM

WORKED OUT

FOR THEM

THEY'D SCRATCH

THEIR HEADS

DUMBFOUNDED

I WAS

ALREADY TO

OLD TO

FIGHT ANYWAY

I WAS

UNSCHOOLED

BUT I

HAD A SECRET

WEAPON AND

AFTER I'D WIN

SHE AND I

WOULD GET DRUNK AND

FUCK

Friday Afternoon in Summer

 

I watch the girls

Walk up and down

Blistering sidewalks

Along the River Market

They all look so chic- so hip

In their shorts and heels

( calves like rocks from

toe holding high heels )

They pretend not to notice

The looks that they get

They are accustomed

To but not

Unaware of

The heads they turn

I watch as they push trendy

Sunglasses back on

Their heads cajoling

Long golden locks

Restraining them from

Obscuring their faces

At a table shaded by an umbrella

I sit alone and watch

But they do not see me

I am to old

to ugly for
their smiles

The Kindest Death

Glory Days

I like to

sit in the sports bar

and watch the

big fights

that are on Pay per View.

I sit drinking

Jamacan beers and

reliving past glories

to anyone

who will listen.

I drink

and watch

as the young guys,

their names and faces

change so fast,

slug it out

with each other

like naked greeks

slick with olive oil

in ancient games.

Sometimes I tell

the waitress or barmaid

how much better

it was at the

birth of the sport.

They smile at me

and crack open

another Red Stripe

and bending

flash a little cleavage

before scooping

up my money

and disappearing

like my

youth.

Cool Breeze Angel

No

Tangle of Words

Of Mine

Suffice

I Try

In Vain To

Tell Her

She Is

SUNSHINE

She is

A SMILE

Spread Broadly Across

My Weathered Face

She Makes

My Mistakes

Seem Adventures

My Doubts

And Weakness

Human

She Is

So Much More

SHE IS SUNSHINE

SHE IS A SMILE

No Jumble
Of Syntax

I Own

Will Do

I Cannot

Put It Into

Verse

She Is

A COOL BREEZE

She Is

AN ANGEL

Wings Flapping Madly

At My Jokes Sometimes

My Demons

And Darkness

Just Stories

She Is A Cool Breeze Angel

Singing Hymns Of New Sin Shared

Love Me

A liquor bottle bounced off the wall beside Jason's head but didn't break, landing on the floor with a thud.

"You never stay with me, you only want to screw then run off to your crazy chicken fights."

"Baby, quit that. Calm down what's wrong."

"You don't really love me, you never did. Your crazy fucking roosters killing each other, your gambling, your dope- you love all of that more than you love me! You never did."

"Baby, no", he says holding his hands low, just above his waist, palms down trying to calm her. As drunk as JoEllen was right now she was nothing to mess with.

She picked up a steak knife from the counter and tears, first from one eye then a moment later the other, slid gently down her dimpled cheeks. She was wearing one of those T-shirts that people call wife beaters, a sort of tank top style undershirt, it was tight across her ample breasts, and panties that looked like a little girls', pink with some kind of Japanese cartoon image on them and knee high tube socks with stripes at the top like basketball players in the 70's wore. Her hair was in total disarray and her eyes as large as a doe deers' were ringed black with yesterdays mascara, one slightly drooping from the effects of the alcohol. As he eased towards her he could not help but be a little turned on by both her beauty and her danger.

"You bastard I should kill you, you never really loved me."





" Jo, baby- Jo you know I love you, you know I love you more than anything. I will love you forever."

Sobbing now she began to shake, she let the hand with the knife lower just a little and Jason walked on over and took it from her and wrapped his arms around her , and held her.





"Shhhh", he said gently , as if talking to a very small child and pulled back slightly to wipe tears from her face.



"Hush now", he whispered and delicately moved a strand of hair from her eyes.





She leaned forward and he kissed her softly on her forehead, and her neck, and her eyelids, kissing away the pain that lived inside of her always. The pain that told her that nobody loved her, and that everybody she cared about would leave her alone in the end. Just like they always had.



"Come on girl, let me get us a beer", and he walked with her holding her hand into the back room to the tiny little refrigerator that was beside their bed. She laid down and he pulled out two Pabst Blue Ribbons and laid beside her.


" You always..." she started to say something but even the beginning was nearly to quiet to hear,then slowly she turned up the ice cold beer , drinking deeply from it.


"Do you remember when we first met," Jason asked, "Do you remember the night in KOs' house?"

" We smoked crack."


"Yeah, and she was gone, and the house was full of crap because she was remodeling and we laid on a mattress in the front room and made love."


"... And there was plastic covering the windows and the wind kept blowing and making the plastic pop and I was so scared."


And the both of them lay there and drank more beers and remembered that night, after the sex was done and the drugs had run out and it was just the two of them so far away from the crazy lives they lived a few blocks over, so far from the hustlers, and the kooks, and the thieves and the whores and all of the others that made up the circle of their association.And honest with each other for the first time they had talked. She had told him about her father and his friends and her childhood, and her scars. How when she had finally gotten old enough to resist and say no to him, and how she wished her mother had not died, and how when he tired of her saying no again and again her father had poured lighter fluid on her and set her on fire, scarring her legs and most of her right side and all of her heart.


And he told her about his wife and kids and how the marriage had failed and how when he could no longer see his children he had given up on life and sunk slowly into the self imposed darkness that engulfed him now. And the drugs, and the crazy chances that he took to insure that he never went without them.


" I don't want you doing stick ups anymore. You'll go back to prison and I will be alone."


"Well, I don't want you turning tricks anymore..."

" It's the only hustle I have..."


"Well what are we gonna do- get straight jobs?"And they both smiled because he may as well have asked if they were going to sprout wings and fly to the moon. So he continued to steal and she to trick and the rest of the time they drank together and fed other hungers and tried to pretend that they could have normal lives.
They got a place together , small , only two rooms. The front a sort of living room and the back, a bedroom with a fridge and a hotplate, tiny bathroom off to the side. Somehow just having a place besides the seedy motels where they had always stayed gave them both a feeling of semi- stability, something that he had all but forgotten and she had never had. She prostituted herself less and less, only doing so when absolutely necessary and he no longer smoked crack which is not to say that he no longer used drugs and didn't drink now more than ever but that one demon at least was behind him. They had money for cigarettes, and rent, and even a weekly trip to Taco Bell- JoEllen liked that. Jason made friends with the neighbor, Segundo, who worked construction and sent money back to Mexico for his wife and children. Sometimes they would drink Modelo in the afternoons and Segundo would tell stories about his kids. Some nights the three of them would eat dinner together, but never at Taco Bell. Other times Jason and Segundo would go to the cockfights over in the part of town where the Mexicans mostly lived. And JoEllen only tried to kill Jason when she got really, really drunk. Most days she would drink a half of a gallon of vodka, Aristicrat or Heaven Hill, but on other days she would get into Jason's beer, PBR that he would buy in thirty pack suitcases and on those days she might still get violent. She had been into the beer today.

" I'm not going anywhere baby, I'm gonna stay right here with you."
She finished her beer and threw the empty can across the room and he laughed. She nuzzled closer her head laying on his chest, and he wrapped strong arms around her.
" Do you love me, Jason"
" Of course I do."
" Why do you love me?", she asked,"Tell me why."
" I love you because you are the most beautiful women in the world, and because you are so very sad, I love you because of the smell of your hair and the song of your laughter- I love you because you understand..."
"Understand what?"
"You understand... me."
" I love you Jason," and she turned looking up into his face and kissed him. And passion rose up in them both and they fanned it's flames, until, exhausted they fell over spent. JoEllen was fast asleep and Jason smoked a Marlboro Red until the filter crushed between his fingers then sitting up reached for his chinos, and felt to make sure his wallet was there. Quietly he dressed and slipped out the front door and went to watch the roosters fight.  

A Pox On You, Criminal

I guess
there are
pagan police
officers in
England.

They are
allowed certain
days off.
Summer Solstice.
Halloween.

I have
been cursed
by the cops
here in the
U.S.,

But never hexed.
I have got to
quit listening
to morning
radio.

In the Mornings

In the mornings,

the dark blue van

That I sleep in

is splattered

with pigeon shit

Like the gray

speckled age

in my hair.

I open the door

and step out,

and stretch

and piss

Noting the

sticky

dried sweat on

My chest ,

back, and arms,

and smoke

a cigarette.

Only then do I

try and gather up

The hand written pages

and 24 oz. beer cans

That litter the front

of my rolling blue home.

I don't recycle the empties.

I don't rewrite the poems.

They are what they are.

In the mornings I read

what I've written down drunk

and then I walk

to the Salvation Army and eat breakfast.

walk on

rain falling washes

hope from me

rinsing away all

but desperation




tall buildings

bully me

lean in on me

square shoulders

barring progress





cars roar by

slashing puddles

in half

headlights staring

mocking me

laughing



i walk on
with my
soaking boots
playing
shhkik kashaw
shhkik kashaw
marking
my progress
like brushes
on a snare drum