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Midsommar (2019)

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Let’s go to the other side. The view will be better there.

Cold War (2018) dir. Pawel Pawlikowski

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“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did.’”

Kurt Vonnegut

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The Love Song of J. Alfred Mailbox

Seen on 1st Ave @ 14th St, 5/7/11, captured by yours truly.

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Paul McCartney 1967

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Yellow Submarine

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You find my words dark. Darkness is in our souls, do you not think?

James Joyce,  Ulysses (via wordsnquotes)

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The Holy Mountain,1973 (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

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A Childhood

Jesus wants me to ring the bell

right on time

but my knees are cramping

from pillows laying on

the pulpit

and I just want to sit up.

 He says if I don’t wash the bishop’s feet

he won’t be sacred

but even as I wash, he does not smile,

doesn’t look me in the eyes.

I wonder if it is working or

if he can feel my hands tremble as

the holy water trickles

down.

 Father Neil has died

and Mom won’t tell me why.

He has died and nobody

is saying his name or

crying for his life.

A new man stands in his place.

His glance is unwavering.

He shrouds the cross in black.

 I’m told to stay with God tonight.

Stay, in a room with a lit cross

until 4 AM, the priest says,

4 AM when I can leave

but to sleep now, in this room,

would be unfaithful.

The priest tells me God is with me

but the room is black and I realize

I can’t see Him.

The streetlamp in the shopping mall

across the street makes claws and talons

appear on the wall. They strangle

the cross. I think I hear it snap.

 God is with me, I say but I’m scared.

God is with me, but I pray

that Jesus loves me enough to let me

go home.

 When my shift is done,

the priest pulls the wooden doors open

and the morning air pushes me to run.

Over the neighborhood’s roofs

the sun looks like it is rising

from the dead.

 I hang my cotta on a branch

on the outskirts of the churchyard.

The wind helps it chase me as I leave.

It will be fine, I think.

God might say it isn’t

but I am fine.

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The Joke

The joke is that you knew her.

 The joke is she wasn’t quiet at all

but aspired to be an actress—

she tap danced in the school show.

 The joke is that she had a pretty face too.

Sharp, simple but lovely.

Teachers whispered, “She will do well

for herself.”

 The joke is she did it because of her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend! How juvenile.

 The joke goes: he drugged her at Paul’s place.

Some people say she knew what

she was getting into.

Some people let it happen.

 Why? That’s the joke.

 The joke is this has become a rape joke

But we aren’t done yet!

The news got a kick out of this last part.

 The joke goes on to her expecting.

and all of the sudden she feels older than she seems.

And maybe wiser, but we will get there.

 The joke is that her daddy’s pistol was in an unlocked box

under the bed.

She liked the way the barrel was cold

on her stomach.

 And it gets funnier.

The joke lets her bring that gun to school

where she pulls it out of her dance bag

and shoots her boyfriend

right in front of health and wellness.

 Admit it, it’s funny.

 The joke ends when she turns the barrel

on herself and while feeling the hot metal,

she chokes for a moment.

 Ah, we made it to the punchline:

no one is stopping her.

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While Living on Burton Street

We had carved pumpkins

as big as our hands

because we could not afford any better

and when I said that demons

wouldn’t be afraid of something

so small

your boot heel

came down on the toothless grin

and seeds scattered into the cracks of the patio.

 Demons, you said, are only the things

we let grow inside us.

You have already let them in.

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Liverpool 2012

On the walls of Cavern Alley

names decay in the wind-worn brickwork.

The signatures are thin and smooth

and people have long forgotten to look.

A statue of a man leans against the same wall

with smug eyes as the tourists

climb around him for a photo.

Behind his back, his name is weathered

and sunken but still prominent from

its owners guard.

A shaky signature

of a young man

who didn’t care for peace,

but wanted to be remembered.

 On the other side of the city

sailors and factory workers

still trudge to the docks for the day.

The streets are landlocked

but seem colder and quiet somehow

and you swear you can hear

gray waves lapping at the shipyards.

People huddle in front of one town home

and the house’s owner

shoos onlookers away

as he grabs the morning paper.

Liverpool has done nothing for those boys.

He rattles the paper at the tourists.

Don’t expect to find anything left of them here.

With his final word he slams the door shut.

Ringo’s old home settles back into the street.

 Strawberry Fields is quiet tonight

but the graffiti is screaming.

There is no building,

but the walls of the orphanage still stand

and it makes you wonder how

four boys could make a town

feel immortal.

 Rain is coming down in a mist

and onlookers’ lips have turned blue

as they trace words with their fingers

into the wall.

As you stand there now,

watching people adore a decaying wall,

you begin to wonder if they would find it funny

because the fog says they haven’t been here

in almost a lifetime.

 Bless the four men who shook the world.

Camera’s flash to capture the words carved into the cement.

Liverpool is still.

The rain, relentless.

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The Dancer

I created a woman in my mind

who swayed naked in front

of family photos

that lined the walls and let

her sweeping breasts linger

at the scowling portraits of males

who pretended to not look back.

 She let her body shudder

as it curled itself under the fluorescent bulbs

and was convinced she found

the stairway to heaven in the words

“who gives a damn” and

looking at her apron, lying

spread eagle on the ground

she thought

that is what my corpse

will become

and kept swaying

down the hall

with thighs like

kissing cousins.

 And when the man slipped inside the

wooden frame of the home,

He ate, talked about his day, then walked away

satisfied

and she was too

because in her mind

for a moment

she dreamed the house was burning.

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The Bay Area, 11:55 PM

It’s the shopping district of Union Square

and a man lays his sack down as a pillow

in front of Jimmy Choo’s latest collection; the glints from the crystal chandelier make his lips

turn blue

from the loitering cold.

And with all things considered, yes-

I notice the man above me

leaning himself out of a bedroom window- or a parlor if such things still exist-

and holding against the frame of the glass with his arms so cold and quiet you can watch the

veins run to an unknown heartbeat.

 “Rest,” he calls. “Rest.” And I think the word

is for me.

but I take a second to inhale we are strangers, and when he turns his head back into the presumed

parlor light and

I have finished my breathing for the day.

 The other person who I do not know

clicks off the light and the man takes his strangeness

back into the room.

“But I’m down here.” I say,

but the frame has already disappeared into the breath of the city.

 Back down the block,

the man in Jimmy Choo’s enclave breathes like he is asleep

but his eyes are open toward the main display of the store.

The glitter-the glass- the crystal shrill sear holes in his sight.

Pockmarks appear as the chandelier turns: he closes his eyes.

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Lies

This is not a confession.

 I once got an offer

to write a groundbreaking editorial for Rolling Stone

Magazine. I told

my lover I would write the article about him, but first

they have to reply.

 I am organized. A jazz-tap prodigy.

My family celebrates tea time and

in front of strangers I have a British accent.

 I can kayak down the Colorado River, alone,

and capsize without fear.

 I am a virgin. I write every day because ideas are just flowing out

like some Kerouacian drug trip.

I am as happy as I seem.

 I love my family as much as Facebook says. I see

the point in going to college. I have no interest

in Beyoncé.

 I was throwing up in the bathroom because I was drunk. I am

drunk. My shoes aren’t the ones making those black marks

on the tile floor.

 I care about the government.

I know what I’m doing-it’s easy.

I have never watched porn.

 The other roommate clogged the shower drain. I understand what metafiction

means to me. I like the band sublime. I am a born and bred

ginger and I love the ones I’m with.

 Fuck domestic life. I take care of myself. I’ll be

ok. I sleep soundly. I speak fluent French.

 I can eat pizza without feeling guilty. I have lots of friends. There are

no problems but

I still lock the doors before I leave.