the last pages of my notebook

went to a party

women in skin tight dresses

cocktails in hands

well groomed men

 

then there was me

bottle in hand

worn out walking shoes

un-groomed

nothing tight to show muscle might

met with eyes that didn’t hide

disapproval

 

i was asked questions

snided,

“ask me no questions

i’ll tell you no lies”

 

walked away

returned to

the dark streets of decay

 

even the host who had invited me,

had bought my book,

“the dark streets of decay”

could only say

he’d got five poems in

and couldn’t read anymore

it was so deep

he couldn’t grasp

 

oh for fuck’s sake

i was just singing amazing grace

for those of us who know

all love is conditional

 

every street sign on

the dark streets of decay

reads,

“leave all hope behind

ye who enter here”

 

and when you speak

from a perspective

pointless and unprotected

is the armor that i wear

 

at some stairs

a sign,

“there’s a bar up there”

i ascend

enter in

 

no one pays me no never mind

just the place i was hoping to find

 

i grind

into a barstool

bartender breaks out his tools

builds me a double shot

and a mug of beer

 

from here i can select songs

on the jukebox

 

button press

i select

“look on down from the bridge”

by mazzy star

 

the woman next to me asks,

“do you think lake titicaca

was the first transgender?”

 

i’m so floored by my adore

i take her hand and kiss it

then tell the bartender

i’ll be paying her tab

 

she says,

“speaking of tabs”

and shows me two

perfectly cut squares

it’s been a long time

since i’ve seen a tab of acid

 

we each decorate our tongues with one

some rationale still remains

“we should probably trip

somewhere more equipped”

i settle our debts

 

we descend the steps

our hands become conjoined twins

we turn left

linger in the labor of legs

until the layer of lies

are peeled into skinless vegetables

 

at a store front window

someone has posted

a “missing” sign

i take out my pen

and write one word

 

“why ichabod?” she asks

“it means abandoned by god”

she takes my pen

writes,

“ichabodess”

 

we go to kiss

but burst into laughter

at the absurdity

of happily ever after

 

light cigarettes

take out our phones

stomp them into permanent

silent modes

 

invisible we reload

by draining my flask

which i toss in the trash

with both of our phones

flip off a drone

 

take out my mp3

put a plug in her ear

and mine

select

“are you experienced?”

by hendrix

 

take her hand

and lead to the ocean

which has more culture

than that party

still contained

on the cascading hills

of california

 

depicting the lack of substance

that defines los angeles

 

i’ve chronicled this consciousness

all the way onto the hard backed cover

left my long time lover on the

surreptitious sands

as my co-conspirator and i

have stripped and slipped

into the waves that erode the shore

we’ve just abandoned

 

***

 

 

 

 

memories of the forgotten

the dark streets of decay

are not just words i say

but a lifestyle

 

woke to a darkened sky

had a story in my eye

wrote until i ran out of ink

couldn’t think of an ending

anyway

so i walked to the nearest bar

ordered a double shot

downed it to hasten

intoxication

then slowed down with

one of their 36 oz mugs of beer

when it was absent of

its life saving liquid

i went out on the patio

for a smoke

 

somebody spoke

i wasn’t in the mood

until i understood

it was a girl

whose style made you

notice her brown eyes

and brunette hair

before you noticed her breasts

 

she invoked a light for her smoke

though i suspected she had a lighter

our conversation were trinkets

in store front windows

enticing enough that we both

went back inside

where i ordered us each

a 36 oz mug

 

back on the patio to partake

of more nicotine

a sudden santa ana wind

was making a scene

so we went into the alley

to light our smokes

 

one, maybe two tokes

and her tongue was inside my mouth

i’d barely reciprocated

when her hands were

unfastening my jeans

near a putrid dumpster

i came clean

deep inside the draperies

of her thighs

 

the cigarettes didn’t compare

with the sex we just shared

but we smoked them anyway

 

she kissed my cheek

walked away

i finished my cigarette

drained my flask

walked the opposite way on

the dark streets of decay

 

*

 

returning to my ruins

i’m in rare form

on the verge of being chloroformed

i stopped at a bar

 

the woman whom had earlier

shattered me into shards

was there

 

we stared until she motioned me over

with a jerk of her head

 

before her next sip

she kissed my lips

and i ordered whatever she was having

 

we drank without words

that weary me so

until she said,

“smoke?”

 

they didn’t have a patio

so we were in another alley

i pulled my pack from my pocket

she knocked it out of my hand

slammed me against the wall

i didn’t have to recall

the taste of her tongue

as just another memory

but this time she dropped to her knees

as she, once again, unfastened my jeans

 

i wondered if it was narcissistic

that she could taste herself still on me

 

complete

she retrieved my pack of cigarettes

did a select

of one for her, one for me

i offered my flask

which i had refilled

in the time in-between

the last time it was her and me

 

before she could walk away again

i put my hand behind her head

pulled her tongue into mine

wondering if it was narcissistic

that i could taste myself still on her

 

she felt my phone in my pocket

pressing hard against her

she fished it out

found it was on my music app

“what you been listening to?”

i put a plug in her ear

the other in mine

hit play

yael naim’s cover of “toxic”

saturated

our tongues re-engaged

in a moment so filled with bliss

i felt the audience should experience

the film fading to black

 

*

 

woke in her arms

i could tell it was a hotel

but i didn’t know which one

but the phone had a button

for a direct connect to room service

ordered coffee then handed the phone to her

where she ordered the greasiest breakfast

they could serve

a tall order for this health obsessed city

 

the los angeles sun severed the sections

of the day

as if the windows had no curtains

and i finally learned her name

taking us to the next level of commitment

like slipping a ring on a finger

 

***

 

 

 

 

a song from the shadows

spinning on the ledge of a latter day saint

i reacquaint with the taint

of a girl i knew in high school

 

she would tell me sex outside of marriage

was a sin

then with both of us clothed

she would lie on top of me and dry hump

till she was satisfied

then chide any efforts on my part

to satisfy need

 

we dated for a year

parted virgins

 

when you reach a certain age

so many things happened so long ago

and a lot has happened since

 

and i doubt she has thought of me

even once

 

i wrote my first poem about her

she lives forever in my memory

but then, they all do

any girl who twirled within the swirl

of my love for her

 

there weren’t that many

until i started on this

self-destructive path called

the dark streets of decay

a few years back

 

since that start something

will trigger my memory

and i will remember a girl

from some night and think,

“oh yeah; what was her name?”

 

i was so desperate to be loved

those “pre-decay” relationships

lasted quite awhile

hence why there were so few

 

now

i’m still desperate to be loved

i just know it will never happen

and treat the moments i’m with a girl

as a means to enjoy the moment

just like i treat music, movies

cigarettes and things that anesthetize my mind

 

now if i could just get poetry on board

with the idea of being pleasurable

instead of it grabbing my throat

refusing to let go

until i write it all down

all would be well

 

in my languish i turn a corner

where a man is holding a huge sign,

“the only dope smoking in hell may be you”

a person next to me says something

disparaging about the man

 

i shrug

turn away

disappear into the shadows of

the dark streets of decay

with my memories of every girl

that went away

including the ones whose names

i can’t remember

 

***