i was impaled on the iron rod fence of your anger
while your best friend tried to drown me
in a bathtub filled with your tears
cold, hard steel accessorize my wrists
marks from the backseat and a broken bottle
i reek of an old .38
the one from your mother’s purse
while the whole time they were downstairs
watching black and white television
throughout the drive from jersey i heard one more time over and over and we timidly changed out of tie dye after entering easy rider country as i recounted the hippie myth of the koa murders the things that happened later in waco are fuzzy in my manic depressive mind lithium or xanax or effexor clouds what little memory survived of being 19?20? in texas with a giggling fairy mother who i once shared a tree with there was a mega wal-mart and a children’s soccer game a dog with diarrhea and a recreation of a nightmare from my youth and on a hot night she quickly sketched an infinity symbol that the lazy inker haphazardly slapped on the both of us
later i can’t remember when i deigned to have it covered in philly by professor ouch at philadelphia eddie’s it was a gift from my parents when anything else would be sold for rent or oxys and i don’t remember why i chose to cover it why i would hide a friendship that has lasted over a decade my solipsistic nature erasing histories of infinite love with drug-fueled narcissism my laughing buddha sister is about to be a mother again in cali and i am childless in amsterdam it’s hidden sammy-o but my everlasting connection is just there under the surface of the misshapen lotus a reminder that i have a friend on the opposite side of the world who every once in a while thinks of me
for brian ledoux
we were on top of the world
we were partners in crime
we were young and beautiful
i see you:
24 years old, joint in hand, broken angel
squinting in the sun like jesse james
laughing at the latest irony
quoting j.d. salinger
eight-year increments of space and time
two presidents, another war, a great divide
the ashes of your existence were scattered but
i was not invited so
i baptized myself in the mediterranean
i capsized on the sea of despair
i analyzed the importance of altruism
it does not slowly saw me in two
these images, flashes of life
before the great fire
i will remember your gentle energy
your divine spark
like seymour
like zooey
like buddha, a shaman, the little prince
the myth of sisyphus and the cerebus flanked
by gemini and kaya
i can no longer speak to the stars
in the hopes that you will hear me
i have come to terms that you cannot
we will never smoke
we will never laugh
we will never implode
with each other again
the long walk
the short pier
the short drop
the sudden stop
i must confess i lied when i said
i would never love again
those things we say in grief are too tall an order
now that i can feel again
i want to feel the way i do now
in his arms
in his presence
in my heart
accept my apologies
you were the impetus
you were the nexus
you were the roofbeam carpenter
goodbye
goodbye, atlantic ave.
goodbye, hill st.
goodbye, streets with no names
goodbye, five ladies and one little man
goodbye to the revolutionary street rat rapist
we should have never let in
goodbye camper, tmbg, and gbv
goodbye to the dead and all of our marleys
goodbye midnight runs and 4am phone calls
lavender, candlelight, nag champa, patchouli
i may never forgive myself
but i have forgiven you
for taking my youth
then not taking me with you
we weren’t strangers in the night
we were rimbaud’s ideal
i cannot put flowers in the place where you rest
i’m too far away from that barren forest
in heart
in mind
in miles
instead, i put these words to
the universe
the multiverse
verse
i love you and i always will
like father
like paka
like hunter
i reserve a table for you in
the tavern of my heart
i’ll meet you there for pounders and pizza
whenever you have the time
laters
farewell
goodbye
hey lady light a candle because i’m on the road again
i’ve mislaid the pope’s st. chris 3x
but the mojo seems to be working
because i haven’t been arrested yet
i met a guy who reminds me of jesus
so i am recreating the myth of mary
and anointing him with oils
i realized on this day in the year of our lord 2016
that there was a moment you set me down and
never picked me up again
it took an ocean to cut the chord
but i do not want to be a disappointment
as i stumble around a foreign place
thumbing a madman’s mother’s rosary
our lady of perpetual worry
fear not for all the bs i sling in your direction
at least i can do it in three tongues and various media
oh mother
i wanted to ride on a riverboat, touch the statue of liberty, and be an artist
at least i accomplished the latter
1976
according to legend, the tropical parrots escape and start their own colony in vondelpark though some accounts say they were set free
the version of liberation is perpetuated by the hippies, the ones who started the movement that set san fran ’68 in motion
but don’t call them parrots to people outside of amsterdam because they are actually rose-ringed parakeets
the romantics among us like to say they are monogamous though this author has not verified these claims through a second source
implying that two lovebirds escaped and built an empire
it is also said these birds can mimic the human voice much like the jackalope of the wyoming high desert; they can hear a word once and sing it back it the same intonation
2016
a cowgirl sits in a’dam wishing for a friend
back in the old days, the wild west days, where she was born
the jackalopes would answer her cries of loneliness with the same sad phrases and she was comforted, reassured of her connection to this world
this calamity rose sits on a balcony 3000 miles from her home and hears birds echoing her lamentations
chartreuse wings against the azure sky
not belonging but there nonetheless
what is mythology? what is reality? does it matter?
histories intermingle and the book is written by the victor
whether i am a tyrant or an angel
a mata hari level liar or anne frank in my purity
i won
i write the books that define an age
perceptions of what is important here and now
