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.

riverboat chorale

i pulled the leaks clean out that white fleece hovering
thrown the reeds clean mounds in the dried grass covering


sew them good
sew them good mind the greens


larks bringing clouds to the fulled
mouth of tennessee
deleware river the catskills
full-send forever seeds

sew them good
sew them far south roxbury

let my girl go proud let her go in the spring
when the ferns come on 

innertubers laughing in the breeze

where the distant dawn drove dires and fauns
wild streets beckoning

miracles
singing rounds sweet st louis

the carillon

in the islands north on a crescent of day i took a long road that wound where they stayed, through the winded leaves that slept on their stakes on a break in the rain. on the way stood a door clear and tall as the trees, a great golden sail that loomed in the halls and it breathed, and it walked and it shimmered and spoke to me. like some far away thing that watches all the time and lives on in a stream. 

carillons a musique, they made a road that winds south at eastsound.

ive heard stories about the key that lies in the center just off the beach.

but unlike the trees you know time never sleeps, so as the sail died i stalked through it and knew it was mine. because those words that still stand, though dead others who died, those words were a mans and the end of the night.

the huntsman

Drifting through this press of castellated steel and concrete, there's been word of the old cat I met back at the gallows. I don't know what he's up to these days, some have seen him watching jeopordy in the dinner hall in a hospital bed malaised, some working in the 5th street garden they said in a ball cap and cordoroy or puffing a cigar, streaks of gray whisked round his head. Or playing hangman at the park on the bricks in sidewalk chalk, in a crowd of lunch kids tall as a corn stalk. Myself I thought I saw him on front street once stood in a window striking a match, turning round only found a young attorney in tweed checking his watch. 

And in the papers they say there's danger on the edge of town, I hear shouts in the alleys and the parking garages, loud sirens calling up the 90 or on broadway or paramount. They've seen fires at the precinct and I heard a clerk say sams bakery is also gone up in smoke, I think. I don't know what it's all about, and I keep hearing 'crazy times these' and 'funny that', but today I'm wondering about that bloke the one with the bow tie and cane. With the wheezy stare and a wheel of fortune grin. Where is that old man, whatever happened to him.

A flodgin peddler wandered through yesterday with the tribune. Thats watches rings nickles and knives, and three dollar bills that rhyme with plumes. I asked his name he said ben, ben from everclear and I kicked down a wad of fifteen fins. Offered a seat he pulled up a chair tossing me a luckystrike and set his derby down over the fare, 'Remember that Lorie w the trunk you know I think they called me up the other day'

I asked him what about, but saying nothing fished into his pockets and presented a rock his hand stretched out, just some rock and says there's danger on the edge of town. 

'you still on the mephedrone, guy? what was it about'

'can't you see it writ there, fires, and a lighthouse'

Squinting, I motion warily for the bottle and he throws the duffle up on to the table next to the hat.

'I was seeing my brother about a gun out in Roanoke. Two quarts and an old coach. He lives up the drive on a few acres of trees. What's a roan billy fish hawk like you need with a hitch I said and he says he's got a couple out to buy his ford and they want his wood too. And I say but no gun huh.. "Protestants".

What's a city slicker like you need with a gun. Look, move along with your news we're not all daft, I can read too, and no more passages from the sunday oatmeal, I think I've got something I have to get to now..

'We went out to the back to fetch the piece and there's deer, a whole family of them maybe ten or fifteen, grazing. I said these your animals? they don't look scared. He says the rivers been right flush with the buzzards since the tackle shop down the way closed up and "wait watch this, hold on and you just watch".

So he loads it up..

'No. He goes inside and returns w an apple. Walks out to them casual as livestock and sits down at the first stump, ten or fifteen feet between and with a bowie knife in hand offers the apple up in the other'.

12 31 2016

Hitched down into austin tx this time from Temple. A lot less picturesque than the first go round, when I had rolled in out of Hearne / Houston / conjunction Kirby and san anton. And not nearly as much fun. I lasted like five days total after reaching austin, and then changed my mind about everything. Mission failed successfully.

Had been told before to look at slaughter siding for camping spots. And came in w the intention of doing so while I tried to go unbreak my bank account for a little while.

Under slaughter bridge there's a whole pack of riders. like ten of them. it was like finding leprachauns.

Two of them have got the kind of train grease on them you'll only see on the genuine articles that've been riding since regan and probably carrying more narcan in their packs than anything else. I still have the girls breakup texts to her babydaddy on my phone.

I sit down in a circle with the other six and give a nod to each, exchanging names, and set a fifth of sailor jerry in the middle next to somebody's pack of smokes. They're all good kids, roughly my age maybe slightly less but I don't look but half my own in the first place of course. With the exception of Mr tough guy hawaiian shirt to my left who claims to have just completed a tour of the south and looks like he could be my fat cousin. He does most of the talking and I let him.. Raising him only with the bottle every couple minutes. I'm surprised with how well I get along with the other four and we seem to want me to go along with them to san marcos and wait for a northbound there for a moment. 

There's an even better looking girl that left down the tracks searching for her boyfriend, who I already know I'd seen leaving the other direction, the one I'd come in from walmart. They'd had a group of blacks come through shortly before I arrived.. apparently they zero'd in on boy toy up the road for their opening act and slapped him around a little to exercise authoritah.. If I was smart I'd have followed the girl down the track with the pretense of telling her she was going the wrong way, but I"m not that smart unfortunately and was more about sitting down and getting drunk in the sun.

I gave hoola man the two tabs of leftover acid in my wallet. I warned him they were real, but of course he insisted my dare was good and he ate them immediately. Boasting that his awesomeness level only increases with every tab. He didn't say it like that but it was something to that affect and that's when I decided I was going to finish getting drunk and leave instead of watching him finish making an ass of himself.

Later woke up in the dark on the other side of the tracks, to shouts of beligerant threats and intermittant gunshots. Assuming the gang of blacks had returned for round two.. but it could just as well have been fatass losing his shit all by himself. I was 200% trashed still unable to stop the stars from spinning. And very glad I had the sense in my inebriation to disappear while I was still able to walk.

Not a minute of sleep for what remained of the night. After gunshots I thought it wise to move along north somewhere and find somewhere more quiet. But the first spot I found had a dog on the other side of the fence. The second, further up, there was yet another gang of rather violent sounding young black folk who heard me in the bushes through the dark and had come searching for me, specifically me no two ways about it, keen on discouraging homeless from staying anywhere on their turf. And spent the proceeding 2 hours running from them. Jumping fence after fence through suburban backyards, a few dogs on the way, to afford myself a headstart. Later dissappearing into yet another greenbelt full of trees, next to the tracks.

And there, just as I'd bedded down in the pitch dark and before dozing off, I heard what I could only assume was a bull elk or a very big worthog. Passing through, not 30 feet away. I could almost feel it's hoofs hit the ground. It made it very clear for me too that it knew I was there but was not sure just where.. stomping and blowing air out it's nose very loudly. I suppose its possible it may also have been a horse. But the thing sounded too angry and I could only imagine a moose, although I knew that was impossible too.

I waited for the thing to leave me 50 feet slack and then scrambled away back to the tracks.

I scouted the tracks for another few hours until the fireworks quieted and the dawn crept out. Nothing good. Nowhere to lay low and leave my things.

I gave up and doubled back to slaughter. Seeing the headlamp of a train down on the siding. And said goodbye to texas. 

Road to memphis. Just over the mississippi... Explored the city, and then left the same night on a train straight back to Socal where I fucking belong. Hitting Sweetwater Texas for a brief layover, to avoid getting pulled off by border patrol in the middle of the desert on the intermodal out of Marion. 60 hours by general manifest, from there to LA, stopping just about everywhere. 5 hours outside of pecos. 3 in alfalfa yd in el paso, 3 in santa teresa at the border, 2 hours each in one ghost town and another.

One hour, staring into the blue sunbaked miles between pillar after red pillar somewhere in southern arizona. 2oz of water left. The sand smells like my ex's panties.

welcome to ehrenberg

We filed quietly onto the open grass

Dawn calls first dimly down

violent at the ramparts

somber in the first and jade fingertips

I like to remember.

Drenched in felt

swallowed 

as the sun stricken in stone

each of us alcoves alone  

smoked and

silent as no ember

badges at our breast

elite and numberless

as the the foxtails 

chests full of thistles and florets.

Sure as the burs on the bull in the heather

as the pride of all our savior fathers

as the flood of the love

shoulder to knees

for our daughters and mothers

and lovers back home

to whom we'd sacrifice anything

or ourselves dive readily
drop like alkaloids out of the ether
black as a sun behind the ramparts
I like to remember.

Some rumored us cloven statesmen

or barons 

in town they ruled apartheid

Some said we came from the forest 

others 

smugglers from the lower rhine

Gamma rushed first

Delta thrice behind

The hairs on my neck stood

when they met the north wall

circling down over the open side

The rest we went west to find

A straggler or a visitor

a naive or a slave 

however meek 

however blind

We filed quietly into the vacant halls

Zeta calls first, a grim sound

Violent in the silence and somber

It was a disappointment

I like to remember.

There had been a coup

And the dissenters we believed

had come here to pray

I put my hands in my pockets 

anstatt hof watching walked away

the only remaining occupant 

was a hanging bolshevik 

wrong castle, wrong day

the gift

Asleep, I held a small child in my hands, six weeks six months
We were at the beach, I think, and I said things to rouse a smile

The babe looked very happy, and I handed it back to its mother

I then dreamt I was myself a small child, no more than six

Sitting alone in an old porcelain bath, the room very quiet

I held a large gem the size of my hand. a flower cut into quartz

With small motions it seemed to hum and play a strange music

Sounding like windchimes or a dozen windup carillons
The craftsmanship seemed infinitely intricate, I marveled

And gently handed it back to the water

The shuffled deck

A drunk native w a revolver in his hand
Told me there were six spokes in custers throat
beneath bighorns last stand w six fingered ribbons
preserved in parrafind sand
And that a rose sleeps in the Gemini.

But there was a couple kissing in heaven
That looked maybe seven whose hands held only five
And seven were their daughters singing
That the eight hides where the spades reside
And a rose sleeps in the Gemini.

Elephants are good for many things, poachers
Use nightscopes, Kenyans cable snares
Tanzania cyanide
They take them down before the ivory is gouged
From out the living brow
And a rose sleeps in the Gemini.

Baileen too, whales are used for collars and glue
For them there is penthrite or a cold harpoon
I watched one die smiling in the rip tide
good blubber gone all down its spine
And a rose sleeps in the Gemini.

Less lucrative though no less necessary, debarking a dog
Although easier I hear just taking the ears
Sticks and stones w nothing to mind,
They incise at the throat
And a rose sleeps in the Gemini.

Others in the courtroom or bed blow for blow
w leashes or sometimes lines of coke
I like to reign them by the hair and ride
dig an elbow in, or over a chair until they’re broke
And a rose sleeps in the Gemini.

Like the temple I’m looking at now, a chancel fire
Against the clouds, looking more like a giant well
Or some ancient lighthouse somebody felled
From whatever brimstone sea from begone seas
Of places and purpose whose name escapes me.

And the fennec descends from the morning light
Like a blood born bard to Eurydice twice
Like Jerusalem in etamine when Judith came
Defenestrate w the head of epimanes
And Ive already robbed the sun dye.