CONTEMPORARY LOS ANGELES POETRY AND FLASH FICTION

Dusk Was Falling 
Dick Barnes
 
As dusk was falling I came to a cabin: 
yellow lamplight fell from its windows 
onto the bluewhite snow, and inside 
were hospitable people, a man and wife 
who invited me "Come in and get warm." 
Fire in a woodstove, a kerosene lamp, 
shelves of books, that cabin odor--  
0, and coffee left over, that I took 
in a rustic comfortable rocking chair, 
hardwood branches bent to shape 
with the bark still on them, and shellacked. 
They were on vacation, but as we talked 
they let me feel what weight life had 
for them, and they felt mine. 
Their son had disappeared, they didn't know why; 
he started home from college in his car 
and was never heard from. It was the Lord's way, 
they thought, but couldn't understand. Would I pray 
for them, and for their son? I said 
I'd pray the best I could for us all, 
and lingered there for a while, cherished 
in their cabin, a son to their need, 
while outside night came on and it got colder. 
I had my own journey to go, and it 
wasn't getting any shorter; 
I believe I stayed about long enough, 
so they were glad to see me go 
and the cabin warmth hadn't got in me 
so deep a few quick shivers 
wouldn't shake it away, in the cold. 
There wasn't a moon, but the stars were close 
and the snow gave back their light; 
I could see my breath in the still air,
like a little friend, that I'd leave behind 
again, and again, and again. 

Brazil
B.H. Fairchild

This is for Elton Wayne Showalter, redneck surrealist
who, drunk, one Friday night tried to hold up the local 7-Eleven
with a caulking gun, and who, when Melinda Bozell boasted
that she would never let a boy touch her "down there," said,
"Down there? You mean, like, Brazil?"
                                                                   Oh, Elton Wayne,
with your silver-toed turquoise-on-black boots and Ford Fairlane
dragging, in a ribbon of sparks, its tailpipe down Main Street
Saturday nights, you dreamed of Brazil and other verdant lands,
but the southern hemisphere remained for all those desert years
a vast mirage shimmering on the horizon of what one might call
your mind, following that one ugly night at the Snack Shack
when, drunk again, you peed on your steaming radiator
to cool it down and awoke at the hospital, groin empurpled
from electric shock and your pathetic maleness swollen
like a bruised tomato. You dumb bastard, betting a week's wages
on the trifecta at Raton, then in ecstasy tossing the winning ticket
into the air and watching it float on an ascending breeze
with the lightness and supple dip and rise of a Bach passacaglia
out over the New Mexico landscape forever and beyond: gone.
The tears came down, but the spirit rose late on Sunday night
on a stepladder knocking the middle letters from FREEMAN GLASS
to announce unlimited sexual opportunities in purple neon
for all your friends driving Kansas Avenue as we did each night
lonely and bordeom-racked and hungering for someone like you,
Elton Wayne, brilliantly at war in that flat, treeless country
against maturity, right-thinking, and indeed intelligence
in all its bland, local guises, so that reading the announcement
in the hometown paper of your late marriage to Melinda Bozell
with a brief honeymoon at the Best Western in Junction City,
I know that you have finally arrived, in Brazil, and the Kansas
that surrounds you is an endless sea of possibility, genius, love.

You Get Comfortable and Relax
Stephanie Brown
Yesterday at work,
Pam said, I think it’s like slipping off really tight clothes, you get
comfortable and relax; there are all these
things to do. I said,
I think there’s real estate. No, I said,
I always imagined my Dad went first so he could find
A nice place for my mom. That’s the way he is;
This is a joke but not, you understand, and made her laugh.
She said, I would like to be wearing a great looking Armani coat
And lie down and choose to die
Like Indians. You know, “good day to die?” 
I said, I think that’s what they said before battle, not suicide.
I might not be right about that but I know what you mean.
I said, But you can’t do that. What if
It really is a sin to commit suicide? I said, All those
Near-death people who tried, they came back
To report the mistake, the grave mistake, I emphasized,
Trying to make it funny again. I love that we have
Conversations like this! she said. Me too,
And then we turned our backs to each other, back
To the computer screen, back to work. 
Manipulating the Husband
Stephanie Brown
The husband behaved badly. 
I am the bringer of shame, I am cross.
Yes, he will toss in the sheets while I sleep, and snore, soundly.
Oh yes.
I will not forgive easily, but I
Am incredibly polite. 
Now things get difficult.
The husband’s guilt, welling up behind the dyke
which the little Dutch boy is holding behind the wall
with one finger,

Will burst. You’ll see. 
I am the keeper of many things, including
Secret crushes on Halle Berry and the teenage girl
across the street;
I will cook a dinner even though I work
Much too much to support this family; I will
Make it taste like courtship again and tonight,
In the sheets, I make sure he wins. 

arrives early for the date   	
Harryette Mullen

arrives early for the date
to tell him she's late
he watches her bio clock balk on sleepy time
petals out of rhythm docked for trick crimes

flunked the pregnancy test
mistimed space probe, she aborted
legally blind justice, she miscarried
scorched and salted earth, she's barren

when Aunt Haggie's chirren throws
an all original ball
the souls ain't got a stray word
for the woman who's wayward

dead to the world 
let earth receive her piece 
let every dark room repair her heart
let nature and heaven give her release

sun goes on shining   	
Harryette Mullen

sun goes on shining
while the debbil beats his wife
blues played lefthanded
topsy-turvy inside out

under the weather
down by the sea
a broke johnny walker
mister meaner

bigger than a big man
cirrus as a heart attracts
more power than a loco motive
think your shit don't stink

edge against a wall
wearing your colors
soulfully worn out
stylishly distressed

mister arty martyr   	
by Harryette Mullen

mister arty martyr
a jackass to water
changing partners in
the middle of a scream

bereft of flavor
for lack of endeavor
he chooses a heifer
and loses forever

delirious boozer
he smoothes her sutures
removes a moocher
from her future

a thing of shreds and patches 
hideous scarecrow she
puts teeth in any nightmare
of the man who sleeps with matches	

The Ubiquity of the Need for Love
Ron Koertge

I leave the number and a short 
message on every green Volvo
in town

Is anything wrong?
I miss you.
574-7423

The phone rings constantly.
One says, Are you bald?
Another, How tall are you in
your stocking feet?

Most just reply, Nothing's wrong.
I miss you, too.

Come quick.

For My Daughter
Ron Koertge

She often lies with her hands behind her head 
in a San Quentin pose, arms forming a pair 
of small empty wings.

She does not slip from the bath in a loose 
towel, affording Follies' glimpses
of rump and thigh. She does lumber by 
in a robe of immense dunciness.

Her dates are fixed up or blind
often, like specimens, behind thick glass. 
She leaves late, returns by 12:00 afraid
perhaps that she will turn into 
something worse.

She comes to me and wants to know what to do. 
I say I do not know.

She comes to me and wants to know if it will 
ever be alright.
I say yes but it will take a long time.

L.A.
Bert Meyers

The world's largest ash-tray,
the latest in concrete,
capital of the absurd;
one huge studio
where people drive
from set to set and everyone's
from a different planet.

For miles, the palm trees,
exotic janitors,
sweep out the sky at dusk.
The grey air molds.
Geraniums heat the alleys.
Jasmine and gasoline
undress the night.

This is the desert
that lost its mind,
the place that boredom built.
Freeways, condominiums, malls,
where the cartons of trash and diamonds
and ideologies
are opened, used, dumped into the sea.

Quandary
Louise Mathias

All night I flew the dark recess of God's mind.
It was arranged like Iowa fields--
not a damn thing missing.
You ask how I survived.
I lived on a message, broad light
at the end of the world.
Words, they have so much in common with departure,
the clouds elliptical & nervous.
Why translate? It's just a revolving door.
"Chill wind" has seven
components. One is loss. 

Four Drives in the Heart of the Desert 
Louise Mathias

Went out to the edge of my life. Tumbled soft, 
by wind and by sun, by ocean, by elsewhere, Anza 

Borrego--  
Less of a schism 

between man and sky; less democracy really. 

Remembered the terrible theatre 

of the rental car, that summer, my father 
turning slowly into lava. This is the country 

they say, where no one can live. Shed it 

like shale. Where stars will refuse 

to fasten themselves to the sky, 
will stream down in contrails 

& stammer.				

I HEARD WHAT SOUNDED LIKE A SONG
ellyn maybe

It sounded like la.
I started to hum with the knowing melody.
Suddenly the voice got louder and it didn't sound like la anymore.
The voice said live.

I looked around and there was Joan of Arc.
She said Leonard Cohen got me right.
Music is the highest calling.
She said live.

I know it's not easy being a woman who knows the difference between Gene Kelly and Gene Krupa.  Miles Davis and Miles Traveled.
I know how men make women wear armor of all kinds. 

It's natural to think of blowing out your candles.
When you read Tennessee Williams many things go through one's mind.

It's hard to watch angels go to bed with wings and in the morning it's ash.

Dreyer got it right.
The soul is in the eyes.
Close-up.

She said I'm a trick candle.
They think they extinguished me, but I never completely go out.
Live.

My body is not my soul.  Of course not.
I know martyrs from all times and seasons.

We play mahjong in Heaven, we read comic books.
We are not 24/ 7 serious.
That's what really scared them.

Every them through history is afraid of what is brimming and can't be controlled.
When she spoke smoke came from her mouth like the grate of a Manhattan street.
Like a dragon.

She nodded it's my DNA now.
My descendant's wherever they may be.
They will recognize each other.

Of course we can tell the chain smoker's from the saints.
We are not naive.

Everyone wants a puff of immortality without having to die.
Death is a passing fancy.

Still for one glittering moment I wanted a knight in shining armor to rescue me.
Like Guinevere and Lancelot.
But I was King Arthur.

My hands were tied.
I assure you I miss the grass I used to walk on barefoot.
My feet were so much dust so quickly.

I was a girl who played hopscotch.
I was a girl who picked berries and had little girl crushes.
I was a little girl.

Live hung in the air like the notes you hear after the opera is over.
The reverberations last forever.	

Where I Come From
Eloise Klein Healy 

for my mother

I come from having a job,
getting up in the dark
and dressing in the dark
and trudging downtown
before breakfast.

I come from being the breakfast maker
and the “good morning” sayer.
I come from owning the stools
where they hang their heels,
owning the ear they buy
with their coffee,
silent as the silent money
in the tray.

I come from going home after work
to bake pies, pie crusts and cakes.
I come from eating standing up
because I’m feeding others.

I come from in the alley, meeting
the man from Kitty Clover potato chips
and at the curb getting the donuts
from the truck, carrying the receipts
to the bank, checking off with a pencil
figures the teller reads back.

I come from being busy all the time,
the customer is always right,
our coffee is the best.	

from City Terrace Field Manual
Sesshu Foster

FLOATING world, rivers & mountains without end, farmers burn the rice fields & brown smoke stalls traffic on 1-5, Dad worked on the railroad -with drug addicts & alcoholics, reading Zen manuals along the Eel River, Mom drove a bullet-nosed Dodge Rambler around those winding roads at night looking for him in bars, in steaming logging camps, over rainy bridges, coming over a pass & the valley below, smoke drifting off through pine & fir, mustard & watercress we could collect from puddles by the tracks & eat with leftover birthday cake from a railroad cookcar on cold wooden floors, unfurnished shacks with a mess of blankets, tinkertoys, squalling kids, a sister with rickets & my brother without shoes, highway 101 two-lane blacktop like Route 66, narrow road to the big north through fields of yellow mustard in Pacific sunshine, fog the sun fell through on apple orchards, catching crabs & eating them with smoked salmon on the dunes at Bodega Bay, no hurry & no job, selflessness leaning out of the void: anchovies fried crisp as Zen, followed by block chocolate cracked with a knife, cold towns & highways without end, dreams of semi tractor-trailers floating across moonlit furrows & dark pubic brush of creeks & the abstract ocean's immense pictures, travels, travel, traveling, after her broken nose, her broken hand & he's drunk again, proud I could wrestle boys to the ground in Los Banos, to wade in yellow mud out to the lone dead tree in the middle of the marsh, tramping miles with my brother collecting lost decoy ducks for a dollar each, moves, move, moving, this fleeting world going down, fleeing, flat, furious desires of birth & death: green tubes warmed up & glowing inside the big radio & only one channel came out softly, the furniture smashed because he smashed it & bleeding from thenose, she led us to the car & we watched & waved as state patrolmen cuffed him, he grinned at us & the world was floating down in City Terrace, rivers & mountains without end they ended in Los Angeles.					

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++		

ALL the breath went out of her when the firemen lifted the car off her five years old all the life went out of her the light was in her eyes THE END. What's that you got there in that bag the kid asked the man lying in the boxcar and the man sat up and said hey you come here a minute THE END. He was 17 traveling across the bare volcanic desert of northern Mexico in the backseat of a Camaro they took him to a whorehouse in Sinaloa they wanted him to fuck the girl the one who took out her left breast for examination and said she was going to be 15 THE END. You fucking bitch you goddamned fucking bitch you threw boiling water all over me goddamnit his father screamed I'm gonna hit you right in the face with this fucking frying pan his mother screamed and cried the neighbor kids repeated it all later laughing at him and his little brother THE END. Where's the bathroom? Do you have a bathroom here? THE END. They split up and later he went to the place where she agreed to meet him when everything was closed that evening and she wasn't there THE END. Come on come on I need help he told his brother I can't wait for you I've got to run to get help his brother looked at the blood all over his hands and said it makes me feel sick it makes me real sick and sat in the broken glass on the railroad tracks THE END. Even though he was exhausted after work he went to the place in Koreatown where the anti-war meeting was supposed to be but the gates to the building were locked so maybe they moved the meeting or canceled it because of the rain so he drove to union headquarters to make sure but it was locked too with a metal grate across the door and traffic moved very slowly down the avenues in the drizzle when he finally got to the Santa Ana Freeway it was starting to come down hard and his Toyota didn't run well in the rain it kept dying just as he drove onto the free-way in the pouring rain it died and he got out and pushed it back down the on-ramp as cars swerved around him and he managed to get it started by pushing it back and forth up and down the side street through water a couple inches deep and jumping in and shoving it into gear though by then he was soaked to the bone and made a puddle in the seat and even with the wipers going full speed he could barely see through the windshield when he got back on the freeway it was rush hour and there was an accident in the rain or something and traffic wasn't moving at all THE END.

+++++++++++++++++++++++			

HE comes roaring down Eastern Avenue toward the intersection in a big black Pontiac. He must've been having a hell of a night his whole week long. Drunk, of course. And just a kid, of course, hurtling down the long hill past the former fire station, damaged in an earthquake, that houses a Vietnamese family. The kid sees the red light at City Terrace Drive too late, or never sees it at all. Maybe he taps the brakes and finds they're gone, simply drifts to the right as he flies through the intersection at a speed you could blink and miss. Maybe he's dreaming then, dreaming he's already at the freeway overpass, turning right along Steele toward the Long Beach on-ramp. He slams into the back of a station wagon parked in front of Eddie's house. The Firebird accordions three parked cars and ruptures into two pinwheeling wrecks, cascading sprays of glass like diamonds. The explosion wakes up the whole neighborhood. As if all the formless gases, light, and energies across the vast night stopped for a moment, arrived at this edge of empty night and crystallized into a static collision of shapes-parked cars, apartment buildings, streetlights, City Terrace Elementary School. As if the kid accomplished this asleep at the wheel, dreaming for us as we rushed to our windows. Then it's over and time moves again. The red light blinks above the intersection. Universes spin off in different directions, into nights of their own. A sedan makes a rolling stop at the light and attempts a left turn into the swath of broken glass and oil, but is halted by the sight of the -wreckage. And people start coming out of their houses.						

+++++++++++++++++	

THEY told me to go with her. On a basement mattress, with boxes of old clothes and toys blocking out the light from one electric bulb. With her clothes tangled around her ankles, the little frill of her socks, she reminded me of a girl at school owho had peed on herself in class when she was sick. Everybody made fun of her. I made some excuse and left, glad for fresh air. Benny's sister heard about what they did and it made her even meaner to him. Xochitl was skinnier than Benny and smarter. I'd seen his face scratched and his eyes red after she'd made him cry, and when she complained to their parents, he would get a tic in his face. Then his dad would slap him hard, leaving red marks. Later, we were all sitting in Benny's living room because his parents were out, and Xochitl was playing scratchy Motown 45s in her room. She took me inside and shut the door. "Let's slow dance," she said, her hands on my hips. Catcalls, gritos, and animal noises came from the living room. Xochitl brought her lips to mine and something leaped inside me like a cat twisting in mid-air. She rubbed up against me and put her cool tongue in my mouth. She pulled me down on her bed. The next day, when Arturo tried to make fun of me, Benny hit him in the throat. Arturo gasped. Benny kicked him in the stomach and knocked him down. He was slamming Art's head with both fists when we pulled him off. Arturo was solid and he'd kept his hands up, but Benny had hurt his feelings so Art was crying. Everybody kept looking at Benny's stiff face. Even Eddie shut up about it after that.

SILVER
Doug Knott

I see its starry swath
trail off
when I polish knives and spoons	

Years ago I polished kitchen silver 
with a Tibetan Lama Rinpoche 
who spit, and rubbed 
and showed me the sparks that fly 
from the ends of forks and knives 
and then he whispered,

"Do you know what is
the most beautiful thing in the world?"
He smiled like a jade gate.
"It is–the woman."

I was both stunned and pleased 
and thought that he 
was either a real wise man 
or a very good comedian

And I have carried the buried ax-handle
of this knowledge until tonight
as I watch you take
off your clothes
and gusts of night-metal fly
off your body
you turn and the silver trap within me
snaps shut at the core

THE BEST YEAR OF HER LIFE
Gerald Locklin

When my two-year-old daughter 
sees someone come through the door 
whom she loves, and hasn't seen for a while, 
and has been anticipating,
she literally shrieks with joy.

I have to go into the other room
so that no one will notice the tears in my eyes.

Later, after my daughter has gone to bed, 
I say to my wife,

"She will never be this happy again,"
and my wife gets angry and snaps,
"Don't you dare communicate your negativism to her!"
And, of course, I won't, if I can possibly help it,
and of course I fully expect her
to have much joy in her life,
and, of course, I hope to be able
to contribute to that joy– 
I hope, in other words, that she'll always
be happy to see me come through the door–
 
but why kid ourselves–she, like every child, 
has a life of great suffering ahead of her, 
and while joy will not go out of her life, 
she will one of these days cease to actually, 
literally, jump and shriek for joy.

CURANDERA
Frank X. Gaspar

She burned curled leaves in a bowl. 
She walked from Guatemala to do this. 
She buried dead for a thousand 
miles and planted her own teeth 
in nests and furrows along the way. 
Her doors alone were clean of the glyphs 
and gang-sign that razed the long boulevard. 
Last week she healed a wound, and once 
she dried up a woman's sex to ruin a husband. 
Her breath was sharp with fish.  She 
asked fifteen dollars and took my hand 
in hers, felt at the bones beneath 
the skin.   She could have taken a knife 
and flayed me and nothing in her eyes 
would have changed.  I asked her questions 
about luck and the love of a particular 
woman.  Votive candles burned behind her head. 
On a poster the Sacred Heart of Jesus 
wept blood.  She had wrapped Rosaries 
around her wrist, the way my old aunt 
once did.  Motors came and went in the street. 
When she finally spoke to me, she said 
"You are too proud." I wasn't sure 
I heard her correctly.   "Pride!  Pride!" 
she said then in English.   "What more?" I asked. 
She smiled.   "There is a skull under your face." 
“And under yours, too," I said.  She 
liked this.   She squeezed my hand and rocked 
back in her chair and laughed.   "Now 
you are ready to understand me," she said.

I STUDIED PHILOSOPHY
Austin Straus

                                                     so long that everything I learned 
cancelled out everything else

and nothing rubbed off except a certain vague skepticism 
about the way most people think			

language a kind of trick bag, a tool that fools its users, 
a game with millions of ever-changing hard-to-state rules

I studied philosophy aiming to become the next
Bertrand Russell but the only resemblance is I marry often,

care about politics, do what I can in my little ways
to help people out, but I'm no Russell, not even a Bertie
and sometimes I wonder what good all those years of study did me 
writing complicated footnoted papers on all sorts of difficulties

most of which were created by philosophers 
who confused philosophy with life
and philosophy never paid one cent of my rent or got me one good 
fuck, never did me a shred of good, nothing but a line		

in my resume, something to brag about, my M.A. in philosophy, 
something to scare people with, write a poem about

on a quiet August night as I sit up at the typewriter
bored, fidgety, suspicious, angry, unhappy, itchy and grouchy

when I really could use a dose of philosophy
to get me through the next hour day week month year lifetime

of Los Angeles

This
Ralph Angel

Today, my love,
leaves are thrashing the wind
just as pedestrians are erecting again the buildings of this drab
forbidding city,
and our lives, as I lose track of them,
are the lives of others derailing in time and
getting things done.
Impossible to make sense of any one face
or mouth, though
each distance
is clear, and you are miles
from here.
Let your pure
space crowd my heart,
that we might stay awhile longer amid the flying
debris.
This moment,
I swear it,
isn't going anywhere.

from AMERICAN SONNETS
Wanda Coleman

        12.

        — after Robert Duncan

        my earliest dreams linger/wronged spirits
        who will not rest/dusky crows astride
        the sweetbriar seek to fly the
        orchard's sky. is this the world i loved?
        groves of perfect oranges and streets of stars
        where the sad eyes of my youth
        wander the atomic-age paradise

        tasting

        the blood of a stark and wounded puberty?
        o what years ago? what rapture lost in white
        heat of skin/walls that patina my heart's
        despair? what fear disturbs my quiet
        night's grazing? stampedes my soul?

        o memory. i sweat the eternal weight of graves

        13.

        — after Sergio Macias

        today i'm with you braiding hate into a rainbow
        picking up trash off the cement banks of the Los Angeles river
        human feces litters the corporate dreams downtown
        i already feel my soul's freedom hymns
        (i am drunk on disturbing things. hopelessness flows
        from the wounds of my negritude. when light reaches me
        i cringe and pray for darkness to return)
        i navigate through the streets, my compass broken
        smashed by a hunk of stormy history.
        i savor the stench of auto exhaust and unwashed bodies
        sweat stinging the unhappy eyes of my region. the
        illuminati enforcers mapping my deathwalk toward night

        the eagle preens above our bleeding bear

35.   	

boooooooo. spooky ripplings of icy waves. this 
umpteenth time she returns--this invisible woman 
long on haunting short on ectoplasm

"you're a good man, sistuh," a lover sighed solongago. 
"keep your oil slick and your motor running."

wretched stained mirrors within mirrors of 
fractured webbings like nests of manic spiders 
reflect her ruined mien (rue wiggles remorse 
squiggles woe jiggles bestride her). oozy Manes spill 
out yonder spooling in night's lofty hour exudes
her gloom and spew in rankling odor of heady dour

as she strives to retrieve flesh to cloak her bones 
again to thrive to keep her poisoned id alive

usta be young usta be gifted--still black

Sacrilege
Maurya Simon

If God is love, then who are you, Mister,
With your sagging biceps and blank palms,
With your toothaching vengeance and third eye
Poised like a laser gun, all ready to zap dead
The hapless (or hatless), the unsaved masses?

Oh poseur, charlatan, chameleon, and chimera
Dressed in the colors of awe, strip-tease artist,
Shim-sham in drag, shape-shifting braggart:
Are you a transmogrifying transplant from Oz?
If God is love, then why the armor, the spears?

I'd rather be dazzled by razza-ma-taz sweetness
And light, be blinded by a hot blast of mercy,
Than basted by your mustard-gas breath and lies.
I'd rather be man-handled daily by demons than
Withstand your polar touch, your cruel pity.

If God is love, then yours, Mister, is twisted
Into something monstrously heavy—a slavery
Of sighs, a paucity of spirit, the dementia
Forged from suffering, a locomotion of fears—
For your love betrays the world you devised.

from COUPLETS
Robert Mezey

II
The eyes close gratefully as the moment ripens, 
The tongue searches out its desire in the darkness.

And the arms reach to embrace their own rib cage 
And a red absence flashes on the walls of the heart.

You've read a thousand books and what do you know? 
Was there some membrane between your eye and the page?
You rummage through the alphabet and the blood 
For one word through which the world can be seen.

The odor of women, eyelashes, breasts 
Drift now in the starry smoke of memory.

Your eyes were open, but then, so are a blind man's. 
So are a dead man's.				

V
She thinks if she puts out, her sainthood will be recognized. 
He figures his wit and pathos entitle him to love.		

She laughs and cries, showing her small teeth; 
He lifts her dress and buries his face in her bush.

She loves somebody else, who doesn't give a shit. 
He does too, but that's different.

It was all good clean fun that had no future 
And now it doesn't even have a past.

Neither of them is even alive at this point—
There's just me, and you, I suppose, wherever you are.

What a mess, the meat burnt, the sink overflowing, 
The kid won't stop crying, he wants his milk.

XIV		
Sometimes, in the small hours of the brain,
I feel if I let go of these lines I'd fall to my death.

She's not the only grief, or the heaviest.
I've got ten more right here under my fingernails.

Yet when I turn them over, they're not griefs at all 
But far off lights, a town where we might be happy.

We come from the same town.   We used to live there 
And must have known once what it meant, without asking.

XV

Remember the depths of her eyes and swimming there. 
Remember the glistening festivals of her body.

Remember the sudden chestnut mare and the colt 
Running out through buckthorn to the high mountain lake

By which we slept.   Remember the fullness of the moon 
And the mountains drinking in that sea of milk.

Remember the long silences.   Remember the flute 
Answering to itself high up on the red cliffs.

Remember the rock floored with sun and two immortals 
And the white water crashing and frothing in the channel.

And her arms raised to her hair, lifting the small breasts, 
The flat belly, legs akimbo, tuft of fur,	

The faint shadow of the wings of the dragonfly— 
Remember everything. And now forget it.

POCKET MACH1NEGUN SHORTY
Eric Priestley
In Honor of My Father: 1905-1984

say hey sporty-olee
oh Louisiana boy New Orleans born
he say "hot stuff! commin' through!  come on!"
say "I'm five feet one inch & a half in my stockin' feet!"
hit himself in the chest
he say "& all man!"
he go "gimme a five-eights nine-sixteenths & a half-inch"
& "come on boy!  I don't mean next week!
lend me a hand!   gimme a vernier son
& that vice with a ring!"
gave him a wrench
you mean this thing?
he went "what the hell is a thing?
'na mind boy move out the way!
'clare for god
you ain't worth a nickel today! 'gimme a rat tail file!
& a carterpin! that's the wrong wrench boy!
I need an open-end! gimme' a pair of pliers
& turn on that lathe
know damn well I'm machinist by trade!"
with his Phillip's screwdriver big ring of keys
flashlight bicycle sprocket
down on his knees
used a ballpeen hammer
& his teeth were fine
tote a german luger
shot nine times! they said he run whiskey
when he lived in Chi stabbed in the thigh by a whore named Georgia
some say it was beer
most said it was rye
hit by a yellow cab drug nine blocks
claim he run the liquor for Al-K-Pone
oh Louisiana boy New Orleans born
went "hot stuff commin' through!  Come on!"
& "don't get to hoopin'-hollerin' my way 
'cause pocket machinegun shorty don't play!"
still you wanted to try 'em
go "say li'l daddy you gotta' a dollar?"
he'd turn on that smile
pull on his collar
say "yeah I got a dollar & good sense with it!" tough hombre li'l one
sure sky dove
where you at Chappy?
your country li'l home
he go "I know what you mean jelly bean!
hot stuff commin' through come on!"
old Louisiana boy New Orleans born
only saw once the year he died
winked me a smiie
& said "take it easy greasy
got a long way to slide"
can still see 'em
when I shut my eyes
best li'l daddy a guy coulda' known
old Louisiana boy New Orleans born
he went "hot stuff commin' through come on!"

MARILYN MONROE IS DEAD
Henry J. Morro

When Marilyn Monroe stepped on that iron grate,
her skirt billowing like a parachute,
I fell in love with her white skin and her blond hair,

and when I returned home
I broke the mariachi music on the stereo,
songs of women sleeping in buses,
buses filled with men lugging chickens and knives
through Panama and El Salvador,
migrating across the immense Mexican desert
to the fiery border.		

We had come to this country for the TVs and the Cadillacs,
for the money and the skyscrapers.
When I saw Marilyn's shimmering legs,
I was ashamed of my dark skin
and ashamed of the latinas
and their sweet fifteen debutante parties,
where girls became women,
without ever touching a man's body,
without ever touching my brown body.	

And whenever my Uncle Reynaldo
showed up with his blond wife,
his brothers would flirt with her,
in their thick accents,
in their best busboy English,
offering her their own English,
their own crooked words,
shaped while working 16 hours a day
in the kitchens, in the boiler rooms, in the factories,
working 16 hours a day
to break through the language.	

Marilyn is dead and I feel the dark
Indian blood that has run
silent for hundreds of years,
coming back,
and I feel the language of peasants and machetes,
of machine guns and priests,
the language of gold and silver,
of gods and flesh,
the language that built the pyramids and temples,
cathedrals and plantations,
that sacrificed virgins,
that fought the Marines,
that dangerous language is
coming back.		

Lineage
Jeffrey McDaniel

When I was little, I thought the word loin 
and the word lion were the same thing.

I thought celibate was a kind of fish.
My parents wanted me to be well-rounded
so they threw dinner plates at each other 
until I curled up into a little ball.

I've had the wind knocked out of me 
but never the hurricane.		

I've seen two hundred and sixty-three rats
in the past year, but never more than one at a time.
It could be the same rat, with a very high profile.

I know what it's like to wear my liver on my sleeve.

I go into department stores, looking suspicious, 
approach the security guard and say 
what, what, I didn't take anything. 
Go ahead. Frisk me, big boy!

I go to the funerals of absolute strangers
and tell the grieving family: the soul of the deceased
is trapped inside my rib cage
and trying to reach you.

Once I thought I found love, but then I realized 
I was just out of cigarettes.		

Some people are boring because their parents 
had boring sex the night they were conceived.

In the year thirteen hundred and thirteen,
a little boy died, who had the exact same scars as me.

Beyond B. F. Skinner
Gerald Locklin

i'm watching a rented video of 'round midnight 
with some local writers in a midwest city 
and the young french guy has just 
kicked down the lock of the door 
of the hotel room in which the black 
parisian landlady has been keeping dexter 
gordon imprisoned for his own health, 
not to mention his earning power,

and someone says, "i don't understand 
the point of all this,"

and i say, "the point of the film is
freedom and dignity, precisely those
conditions that b. f. skinner says
contemporary man must relinquish."
well, contemporary man has pretty fucking
well relinquished them, but this french
kid is saying that the jazz man must be
allowed his freedom and dignity, must
be allowed to be a man, even if such freedom
virtually assures his early self-destruction.
it is what existentialism was always all about.
it is what John stuart mill was about, it
is what clockwork orange is about, it is what
John milton and John locke and even Jonathan
fucking edwards were all about, it is what
billie holiday was about and John coltrane and
the bird and bud powell—it is simply what
JAZZ has always been about, it is what
FRANCE is supposed to be about and it is
what AMERICA was once about and maybe still
is but barely hanging by its fingernails.
but it's not what the insurance companies are
about, and it's not what communism or puritanism
or fascism or just about any "-ism" except maybe
existentialism or individualism are about.

existentialism in fact didn't just say you 
could be free–it said you couldn‛t escape 
your freedom, but millions of people are 
doing their damnedest to.

and a few weeks later my friend cowboy 
bob is quietly replying to a drunk lady 
who is demanding to know why he is always 
getting into arguments and fights, what 
exactly it is that he wants out of life,
what it is that he lives for, and 
cowboy bob tells her,

"i only live for two things.
the first one is freedom.
so is the second."

	
Somebody Was Breaking Windows
Luis J. Rodriguez

Somebody was breaking the windows
out of a 1970s Ford.
Somebody's anger, for who knows what,
shattered the fragile mirror of sleep,
the morning silence
and chatter of birds.
A sledge hammer in both hands then crashed
onto the side of the car,
down on the hood,
through the front grill and headlights.
This Humboldt Park street screamed
in the rage of a single young man.
Nobody got out of their homes.
Nobody did anything.
The dude kept yelling
and tearing into the car.
Nobody claimed it.
I looked out of the window as he swung again.
Next to me was my woman.
We had just awakened after a night of lovemaking.
Her six-year-old daughter was asleep
on a rug in the living room.
My woman placed her arms around me
and we both watched through the louvre blinds.
Pieces of the car tumbled
onto steamed asphalt.
Man hands to create it.
Man hands to destroy it.
Something about being so mad
and taking it out on your car.
Anybody's car.
I mean, cars get killed everyday.
I understood this pain.
And every time he swung down on the metal,
I felt the blue heat swim up his veins.
I sensed the seething eye staring from his chest,
the gleam of sweat on his neck,
the anger of a thousand sneers—
the storm of bright lights
into the abyss of an eyeball.
Lonely? Out of work? Out of time?
I knew this pain. I wanted to be there—
to yell out with him,
to squeeze out the violence
that gnawed at his throat.
I wanted to be the sledge hammer,
to be the crush of steel on glass,
to be this angry young man,
a woman at my side.		

COCKROACHES ARE YOUR GODS

COCKROACHES ARE YOUR GODS. YOU ARE WEAK YOU SHOULD PRAY TO THEM. THEY ARE A MORE PERFECT LIFE FORM THAN YOU. YOU ARE FUCKED UP, WITH YOUR IDIOTIC IDIOSYNCRASIES. YOU HAVE ANALYSTS, TRANQUILIZERS, YOU NEED VACATIONS, YOU START WARS, YOU COMMIT SUICIDE, YOU STEAL, YOU LIE, YOU CHEAT. YOU ARE WEAK YOU CANNOT SURVIVE, YOU ARE TOO BUSY HAULING AROUND THAT BIG BRAIN OF YOURS, YOU HAVE TO BUILD JAILS TO KEEP YOUR KIND FROM KILLING YOU! YOU KILL EVERYTHING. YOU LIVE IN FEAR. YOU COULD NEVER LIVE WITH THE SIMPLICITY AND BEAUTY OF THE ROACH. YOU HAVE ABORTIONS. YOU ENGAGE IN MEANINGLESS ACTIVITY. YOU ARE WEAK, COCKROACHES ARE YOUR GODS. YOU ARE NOT EVEN FIT TO KISS THE SMOOTH BELLY SCALES OF THE MOTHER ROACH, YOU ARE REPULSED BY THEM, YOU FEAR THEM. THERE ARE MORE OF THEM THAN THERE ARE OF YOU, YOU GET SQUEAMISH AT JUST THE SIGHT, THEY MAKE YOU SICK YOU ARE WEAK. COCKROACHES ARE YOUR GODS, GIVE UP YOUR PLATE OF FOOD TO THEM, WHETHER YOU DO OR NOT, THEY WILL SURVIVE YOU AND YOUR STUPIDITY. YOU TRY TO KILL THEM WITH GAS AND POISON JUST LIKE YOU DO TO YOUR OWN KIND, THE ROACH COMES BACK, STRONGER, FASTER, MORE IMMUNE. YOU WATCH TELEVISION, YOU LOCK YOUR DOORS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM YOUR RACE. YOU PUT NEEDLES IN YOUR ARMS, YOU SELL YOUR BODIES, YOU FIND NEW AND INVENTIVE WAYS TO MUTILATE YOURSELVES AND OTHERS. YOU ARE WEAK. COCKROACHES ARE YOUR GODS.

1984      HERMOSA BEACH					

DESERT  FIRE		

THE DESERT IS ON FIRE. THE DESERT IS BURNING FOR ME. SPIRITS RISING OUT OF THE GROUND. WHEN I SAY THAT THE DESERT IS ON FIRE, I MEAN TO SAY THAT THE DESERT IS ON FIRE! I MEAN TO SAY THAT I AM ON FIRE. I'M STANDING UP, WALKING AROUND AND BURNING DOWN. I AM INCINERATING. THE DESERT IS BURNING, THE SPIRITS ARE RISING OUT OF THE GROUND. THE SNAKES AND THE SPIDERS AND THE VULTURES AND ALL THE OTHER SISTERS AND BROTHERS ARE   ON FIRE, IT'S US. WE ARE BURNING.  AT THE END WE ARE PAINLESS, CHARRED, BLACK AND SILENT.		

1-25-85       SANTA MONICA, CA

TERMINATE &  INCINERATE   

WHEN I WAS 19 I WORKED FOR AWHILE AT A LAB FACILITY IN ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND. THE PLACE HAD MICE, RATS AND RABBITS. I WAS A DRONE. MONDAYS I MOPPED THE FACILITY, TUESDAY I LOADED DIRTY CAGES INTO A HUGE WASHER. WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY AND FRIDAY WOULD PASS IN SIMILAR FASHION. ONE DAY WHILST TRANSFERRING THE SOOTH BATCH OF MICE INTO A CLEAN CAGE, MIKE, THE HEAD MAN CAME INTO THE ROOM. HE TOLD ME THAT THERE WAS AN OUTBREAK OF A RODENT DISEASE CALLED "ECTORMELIA" THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE FACILITY. ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE FACILITY WERE TO BE DESTROYED AND INCINERATED. 
MIKE — "HENRY, DO YOU WANT TO DO IT, I MEAN WOULD IT MAKE YOU SQUEAMISH?"
HENRY — "NO, HELL NO."       
MIKE — "YOU'LL DO IT?" 
HENRY — "SURE."
FINE. BY ORDER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH (N.I.H.), 15 TO 17 THOUSAND LITTLE BEASTS WERE TO BE DESTROYED. FINE, CLEAN THEIR CAGES, MOP THEIR FLOORS, STERILIZE THEIR ROOMS, NOW I GOT TO KILL THEM, FINE. MOST OF THE STAFF WAS RELOCATED TO ANOTHER FACILITY, IT WAS ME AND THE ANIMALS PRETTY MUCH. I HAD A ROOM ALL EMPTY AND WAITING. I WAS TO GAS THEM. THE PROCEDURE WAS SIMPLE ENOUGH, I WOULD PUT 20 TO 30 ANIMALS IN A GLAD BAG, SQUEEZE THE AIR OUT, STICK IN THE GAS TUBE, TURN ON THE GAS. FINE. I WOULD GO INTO THE ROOMS AND PULL OUT THE CARTS THAT HELD CAGES, I WOULD WHEEL THE CAGES INTO THE DEATH ROOM. I HAD THE BAGS AND THE GAS TANK OF CO2- I WOULD KILL, CAGE BY CAGE, WHEN THE BOXES WOULD FILL UP WITH DEAD RATS AND MICE, I WOULD TAKE THE BOXES OVER TO THE BIG N.I.H. FACILITY WHERE I WOULD INCINERATE THEM. FROM 7:30 IN THE MORNING, UNTIL 4:30 IN THE EVENING I KILLED THEM. EACH TIME I WOULD GAS, I WATCHED THE ANIMALS DIE. HEN THE MICE WOULD BE PUT INTO THE BAG, THEY WOULD CRAWL AROUND, SNIFF AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY WERE DOING THERE. THEN WHEN I WOULD STICK THE TUBE IN AND TURN THE GAS ON, THEY WOULD LEAP UP THE SIDES OF THE PLASTIC BAG AS IT BALLOONED FULL OF THE GAS, THEY LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE JUMPING FOR JOY OR SOMETHING. THEY WOULD FALL BACK DOWN TO THE BOTTOM, GASPING, SOAKING IN THEIR OWN URINE. THEY ALWAYS DIED WITH THEIR EYES OPEN — ALWAYS. I WOULD LOOK THRU THE BAG AND LOOK AT THEIR EYES, THEIR BODIES, STACKED IN A HEAP. THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG WAS ALWAYS WARM FROM THEIR PISS AND SHIT. I WOULD TIE THE BAG OFF AND THROW IT IN A SPECIALLY MARKED BOX THAT SOUND, I'LL NEVER FORGET THAT SOUND, THE GAS HISSING, AND THE SCRATCH OF THE LITTLE CLAWS SCURRYING UP THE INSIDE OF THE BAG. THEY ALWAYS DIED THE SAME, WIDE-EYED AND WITH NO IDEA WHY. I WAS ADOLPH EICHMANN, I WAS ORDERED TO TERMINATE. I WAS NOT A MURDERER, I WAS JUST TRYING TO GET THE JOB DONE WITH MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY. I WOULD TERMINATE AND INCINERATE. I LIKE THE WAY THAT SOUNDS. YES, I BROUGHT THEM TO THECAMP IN CARTS THAT HELD UP TO 2,000 AT ONCE, EFFICIENT. I GASSED THEM IN ENCLOSURES, THAT CONTAINED THE BODIES, THEIR WASTES AND THEIR DISEASE. EFFICIENT! THE CORPSES WERE TAKEN TO THE OVENS AND INCINERATED, LEAVING BEHIND DISEASE-FREE ASHES, EFFICIENT. THEY CALLED ME A MURDERER. A SAINT MAYBE, A MURDERER, NO. AFTER ALL, IT WAS I WHO CURED THE ILLNESS. IT WAS I WHO STOPPED ITS SPREAD. I DESTROYED THE ILL AND THE WEAK, THOSE WHO WERE NOT FIT FOR SURVIVAL. CAN'T YOU SEE? I DID A JOB THAT HAD TO BE DONE. I TRIED TO GIVE RISE TO A STRONG, PERFECT, DISEASE-FREE RACE AND YOU CALL ME A CRIMINAL? I AM A HUMANITARIAN IN THE STRONGEST SENSE OF THE WORD.
INSIDE OF A WEEK AND A HALF THE FACILITY WAS SILENT. ALL WERE INCINERATED, EXCEPT FOR ONE LOAD THAT I DUMPED IN BURGER KING AND 7-11 DUMPSTERS. I QUIT THE MONTH AFTER AND STARTED WORKING IN AN ICE CREAM STORE. A WHILE AGO, I WAS THINKING THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ALOT MORE FUN TO DISTRIBUTE THE BOXES IN MORE INTERESTING LOCALES. HOW ABOUT TAKING BOXES OF DEAD MICE AND RATS TO A NICE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD AND PUTTING A BOX ON EACH DOORSTEP? HOW ABOUT UPS'ING A WHOLE BUNCH TO YOUR OLD HIGH SCHOOL OR GIRLFRIEND'S HOUSE. YOU COULD OPEN UP THE BOXES AND BOMB PEOPLE ON THE SIDEWALK. HOW ABOUT TAKING A BAG, PUTTING IT ON SOMEONE'S DOORSTEP, LIGHTING THE BAG ON FIRE AND RINGING THE DOORBELL. THE GUY COMES OUT AND STOMPS THE FIRE OUT AND ... GROSS — RODENT FLAMBE UNDERFOOT! YOU COULD FREEZE 'EM AND THROW THEM AT PEOPLE IN WESTWOOD - FUN!!! WITH AN OPEN MIND, THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

2-1-85      SANTA MONICA, CA				

SOMETHING THAT WAS  COOL

I WAS AT DEIRDRE'S HOUSE, DEIRDRE WAS ASLEEP AND I WAS SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM. THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR, IT TOOK ME A MINUTE TO GET THE DOOR OPEN WITH THE LOCKS AND ALL. I OPENED THE DOOR A MAN AND A WOMAN STOOD BEFORE ME. THE GIRL STARTED IN FIRST.
"HI, WE'RE ON A TRI-NATIONAL DOOR-TO-DOOR RAFFLE SWEEPSTAKES LOTTERY FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, DON'T WORRY, WE'RE NOT MOONIES!"
I STARED AT THE ROSE IN HER HAND AND WONDERED WHY I WAS BEING PUT THRU THIS.
"WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" SHE ASKS. "THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN."
"THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY? I'M FROM MARYLAND, MY NAME'S TINA, WHAT'S YOURS?"
"HENRY."
"ANDY? WELL, HI ANDY, THIS IS DAMIEN."
"HI DAMIEN."
"HI ANDY!"
"WELL, CAN YOU HELP US WIN?" TINA ASKS.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?"
"BUY A MAGAZINE."
"I DON'T WANT A MAGAZINE."
"OK, WELL 'BYE ANDY!'
THEY TURN TO LEAVE AND I CALL AFTER THEM "HEY, YOU SHOULD INVEST YOUR WINNINGS IN BULLETS AND SHOOT PIGS."
THEY LEFT REAL FAST, IT WAS COOL.

1-26-85      SANTA MONICA, CA

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