the blue mamba

Packed into this little ballroom on 13th once I saw a thing. Something. I forget the name of the venue but the ceiling looked like the renaissance. We were in rome. Portland oregon. The drinker, I go for drinks at one of the barstands. The show had sold out and everybody's toes are involved meandering to and from and homeward. Looking for C w a gin and tonic and two double shots of scotch pinched in theright for myself, half expecting to find some meathead chatting her up by then I immediately drain one for backers on the way back. Returning I find her still going it alone. Must've fished a middle finger out of her pocket for the lot of them, I'd been away at sea for half an hour. I don't deserve this girl.



Conversation is impossible and we play the charades for a few minutes and hear every word before giving it up. The main act arrives, they play their newer stuff and it's kind of slow and lame. The band is letting me down bad and I her, and on fifty dollar tickets we're just standing it. So I take her hand and dancing backwards into the crowd lead her closer to center stage. Kind of in the mood anyhow with vessels dilated on all 4 rounds. Nobody cares how rudely you push by when it's madlad adonai in his workshirt ferrying an atom bomb over. Catherine of irishland and the snowplow kid.



Still, the music is shit and we try but neither one of us can really get into it. We persist and get a resounding.. "eh". In a manner of apology I finally kinda just rest an arm on C's shoulder. Well then. Like you would your stud in a chapel full of pussy. Baddest in the house.



..Unless?




Bored, I look around and over my shoulder. Sea of faces. There's movement directly behind, over a few heads and I turn. I spot a couple, each in all black and matching derby hats, spanned off a ways in the middle of the audience looking like doc holiday and his poker beretta fresh out of the saloon. I scan the eyes behind them and nobody seems to notice. Odd.



I look down at C, look back. The lights are swimming the crowd and his hat and shoulders blaze over hers, red green blue red. It's almost psychedelic. Surreal. And I begin to wonder if maybe somehow Id been slipped something. No, I don't think so. I nudge C to have a look. She sees them too, thank god, laughs and says something inaudible. Yeah I guess that's what we'd call getting down huh. They seem to be hearing music from another stage somewhere, stepping triangles in this insane waltz, woven together like a couple of mambas. Fucking. Muted, synchronized, sublime. But to have brought a spotlight down into them like in the movies would have killed them flat. I'm certain they would have shriveled into a plume of smoke and mirrors, ghosts. I didn't know what to make of it and turned away.



The show ends. Anxious to get back and reset the mood to something good like meat puppets or skip james, or anything, we make our way out ahead of the crowd. I take her hands and ship her through, plowing backwards again. My bad, my bad, sorry. Didn't see you there. Step aside and go to hell. Both you and your shitty music.



Looking back through the mass I spot the two in black again, the lights now dimmed. Still there, slow dancing alone on a floor all their own. A dance floor from somewhere else altogether. To something nobody heard.



To that something, whatever it is, I tip my glass.

the janitor

chuck steps outside. the air feels good and the sun is warm. theres dust caked w sweat to his collared shirt which he glibly unbuttons as he unbuttons feet first into the light and flings it away indiscriminating.

'i relinquish thee'

'did I bring my ID?

'the smoke smells like cinnamon. i hope i dont have a brain tumor.

'in any case i will be expecting one. why is it the shit that smells like a shopping mall when it heats always the shit w carcinogens?

'i wonder where laura is. she hasnt called in days and she has my caddy.

'keys... i forgot my keys

'thats alright you wont be needing them today

chuck spots an incoming bird and flails his arms hoping it better recognize and rechart.

'..because i cant, move it or lose it buddy

'oh my god. so many people out now. i hope i look good. dignified.

'i forgot to check a mirror.. guess i left that too. ah well.

'god look at that runner. i bet shes got a great ass. 

'one for the books.

chuck veers to the right a little, fighting the wind, tentatively working pink panties into the trajectory for a future reconnoitering.

'the intersections are all crowded w people now. not just ants.

'was there a parade today?

'pink panties doesnt seem to mind.

'ill bet shes got a really nice ass

'look at her go...

chuck feels something warm at the fly and realizes his own ass is on fire.

'fuck. i really liked these dickies. my only good pair.

the inner monologue stops as he struggles a moment and pats the flames out.

'wish id thought to bring the mug of joe w me

'its ugly and a throwaway piece of shit much like myself anyhow, im sure laura wouldnt ve minded

'how is it that the distance always so much more than you planned for?

'why does the dog take so long. why so many traffic lights for that matter. why not more underpasses? questions for the initiated.

'a sandwhich wouldve been nice too. fuck. im not even halway there.

'cancel that appointment and get me a handjob

'and a cup of coffee while i pontificate on the mysteries of dog shit and inconveniently synchronized traffic stops i think i need to think life over a few minutes.

'there was never any time. and somehow now theres too much of it.

'god is the great con artist. 

'not the thief, not the faithful. god is the crook.

'i know this because all of the fat boys and preachers and grifters between venice beach and venice italy are too stupid to ever have written in a world as heinous and farcical as this one.

'thats how i know god exists

tell them. tell the faithful their god is real and he hates us all equally

'better to get up on your horse, preach, your pulpit and preach up a storm of how to build a world without god. one with pens that dont dissappear into thin air under the table, children that dont grow legs and walk off the planet, workers that really work, banks that still run on holidays. food that doesnt cost an arm and leg. relationships that dont break, and break everything in their path. lets build a god bunker and start from scratch without all raping asshole in the sky driving everybody screwy.

'that might be a first step in the right direction

'the second to to go make merry w the underdogs down below and screw eachother over in peace

'yeh, first things first. it could work. im headed there now anyhow.

'i hope hades likes leather oxfords bc thats all i got now thats worth a room.

'i think the cat pissed in one of them.

'come to think of it that dirty bastards been pissing and shitting everywhere but the litter box

'he should be the one sprawl-eagled out here

'i wasnt even working today, for godsake, i just forgot to lock the mop up and figured it an excuse to the misses while i hit jackson on the way back for a few drinks w this gal i met in the lobby

'blame the cat. 

'and god. theyre both rotten

'my name is charles bukowski and tell that dirty son of a bitch i hate him.

charles bukowski checks his watch

'...christ it is a long way down.

'stick that in the ledger, motherfucker!

'they say they die of heart failure first. just my luck... not a flutter. i dont think, and i should think weve passed that stop by now. still pumping good, baby. how do you like that.

'guess there is still the question of the flashing of life before the eyes... guess ill find out soon enough

'i think margies onto me.

'i think this because we started having sex again. and its been really good. and i know that because she hasnt turned on the tv

'i should call sarah let her know i wont be making it. sarahs been good for our marriage.

'sarahs been good for everyone.

'no time. here comes the pavement. get out of the way, you shitheads!

'wheres pink panties at now i dont see her. 

'my moral support has gone MIA.

'im probably too old and ugly for her anyway

'id arch my arms and really dive like the silver surfer but im afraid id come in too hot and really hit someone. im a novice goddammit. havent got my wings yet.

'fuck id go for a pig if i could.

'id... what the hell. here it comes.

'tell sarah she needs to shave more. my cock has had enough sandpaper.'

when he hits the ground it isnt very dignified. and each leather oxford shoots a 30 foot course respectively. one hitting a cameraman. there is otherwise no further cruelty and no bystanders are injured by charles' flight from floor 77 of tower one. but many of them will be in the proceeding 30 minutes when it too comes down.

the letter

greenback morning 

the pane is roaring

have a word w the phone

a cigarette to wake the blue rise

west and fairbank a 

piper at the gate 

please write if you can 

i do like the mean look in your mind

carrion men at the 5am stand

wait in fedoras and cinder silk ties

gaucho one in them

move to shake your hand 

grace keep you in the white of his blind eye

temples ten stories pillage the dories that 

syphon tall tales back from the skies

dragged and beaten 

some shark that cheated 

slips into the dark again wearing a smile

let the two lights 

of los cruces you find

nightly be shown from its good side

as the girl at the bridge 

burning both ends

the owls swear they found christ in her lies

screaming his bowls

hounding of hounds 

I heard one hang once stripped to the chin

in life a mother 

saint of a stalker 

death wings like no other no friend

bloodlet the coward

w a cold lupin arbor

let your dreams knife arteries and stain the last mile

find waters still solemn 

w stones at the bottom 

w loves beneath those beyond where or when

let whats tenderly sewn 

at the lip of a rhone

rip tailors ride sailors crossing the sea

and monday morning 

i wont be calling

but the main is alive 

and i love you, i love you my child goodnight.