soundtrack to the dark streets of decay

was at a place

open mic night

didn’t read

sat in back

drank

listened

 

acoustic guitars, vocalists

poets

words and lyrics

talking about their generation

or rebellious subculture

 

i left

more cause i needed a cigarette

stood with my toes

slightly over the sidewalk curb

and as i smoked

i never felt so alone

realizing i don’t belong

to a group, a movement

a cause, a generation

 

about as counterculture as i get

is that i don’t own a car in los angeles

not because i’m an environmentalist

i just don’t need to replace

an empty bottle in my hand

with car keys

 

but then i realized

i was simmering in the solace

of my singularity

and started walking

there is nothing i share

that anyone else would want

to partake in

rally around

identify with

make a cause

 

lately i cough a lot

pack a day

so i suck on cough drops

because that’s my solution

to too many cigarettes

 

the aftershave of addiction

that really doesn’t make

me smell any better

 

compulsory education taught me letters

that i now line up on a page

i always sat in the back of class

and my high school english teacher

learned to cover her ass

with the clip board she held in one hand

any time she had her back turned to me

because she learned the only lines

i memorized were the seams of her slacks

 

i would often ditch school

to sit by the railroad tracks

and read poetry by leonard cohen

or rod mckuen

 

the hardest thing about being an artist

is how you always seem to be a disappointment

when you’re young

you rectify the rejections by calling for revolution

if you linger long enough to be old

you realize it’s nobody’s fault but your own

the real cause is art

it will always set you apart

from those who don’t get

it’s all you want to do

they think writing poetry meaningless

while i think that anything other

than writing poetry is insincere

 

when i sat by those railroad tracks

i use to romanticize the hobo life

but as an adult i’ve been so poor

i would have seven dollars a week

to buy food at the dollar store

i got so malnourished my skin turned gray

and my belly was swollen like

a starving child in famine africa

 

as kristofferson said,

“freedom’s just another word

for nothing left to lose”

being cold and hungry

is not very romantic

 

so anyway

at one a.m.

tomorrow is already today

congress can pass a law

that doesn’t reflect

the true character of the congressmen

but when you read sacred scripture

you are looking at

a photograph of the divine

and as i write each line

i realize my poems

are nothing more than a selfie

 

***

 

 

abandoned essay

(and that the sidewalks are empty while full of feet

- charles bukowski)

 

before i twisted the top off a bottle

i domesticated

did dishes

did laundry

scooped the cat box

recharged my phone

 

then read poetry by charles bukowski

was struck most by his poem

“starting fast”

which opened,

“we each at times should remember

the most elevated and lucky moment

of our lives”

 

i remembered a moment

i documented in my first volume of

the dark streets of decay

 

walking l.a.

passed an outside bar making last call

piano player playing her last song

“hello” by evanescence

and when she sang the line,

“don’t try to fix me i’m not broken”

i tilted my full flask

and drained its contents

before continuing on my way

down sidewalks l.a.

dark streets of decay

where lately all i want to say is,

“fuck you all”

 

i’m going to continue walking

because this is me

and if i clog your chakras

dim your aura

then depart from me

for i never knew you

 

i will continue to do

but now i am comfortable saying,

“fuck you”

 

this morning i started an essay

a desperate effort to convey

my philosophy

explain me

stop your vacant stares

and endless rejections

 

but i will no longer ask for permission

to be me

if you don’t like what you see

don’t try to fix me

i’m not broken

 

***

 

 

 

 

walking west while the winds blow east

soaking wet with rain

been splashed by cars going by

streets are flooded

heard said this is the worst storm

l.a. has seen in decades

but i don’t put much stock

in what people say

 

on my way a sign sways

in the wind

“hatha yoga”

crowd going in

i walk against the wind

 

i could only imagine

what their spiritual master

would make of me

an aura of dark energy

 

my wellness pose

flask exposed

lit cigarette

a pill i took earlier

along with the weed i ingested

in the form of hard candy

shaped like a duck

cherry flavored

by all i tasted was plant

 

i keep walking

blow by the sign

like the wind

it becomes a blip

that doesn’t register

on my radar

 

man, it’s hard to light

cigarettes in a storm

i could take shelter in a bar

but i don’t need more

i’m sufficiently basted and glazed

i’d even turn down purple haze

in this purple rain

if it was offered

 

tangerines for the coffer

and i am taking flight

on this l.a. night

like a kite

aided by the wind

 

l.a. is someone else’s dream

that i’ve invaded

knowing things

only the dreamer should know

 

i don’t believe in souls

but l.a. is an eternal essence

that no exorcism will ever expel

 

***

 

 

 

i am not a work of fiction

(the lock on your cell

in which you are imprisoned

you created

you swallowed the key

and when it passed through your bowels

and came out with the excrement

you saw only your own shit

justifying the reason you would

not dig out the key

and set yourself free)

 

at a bar

don’t know which

don’t know where

was walking by

went in

ordered

 

there were several men

wearing suits

don’t know much about such attire

but i could tell they must have cost

some serious coin

 

white, young, clean cut

cover of GQ

 

they started talking to me

one had heard of my poetry

started treating me like a celebrity

 

invited me

to where they were moving this party

i rode along

till we rolled unto a very long driveway

talk about a multimillion dollar home

 

inside the place dripped of money

lines of cocaine on a table

(what is this? the 80s?)

 

a breathtaking beauty of asian descent

sat on a sofa

she didn’t look happy

 

i accepted the offer of a beer

one of them stood near

a roaring fireplace

i could hear him on his phone

setting up the private jet

to take him to san francisco

in the morning

 

other conversations drifted to my ears

and i began to understand

all these men belonged to a crime syndicate

 

one of the men walked up to the woman

caught within the confines of the couch

he unzipped his pants

she took him in her mouth

and i realized what she was there for

 

couldn’t take anymore

pulled out my cigarette pack

 

“i’m gonna step outside”

i said to a man who had just

snorted a line

no one objected

this was not the place for cigarettes

 

i closed the front door

inhaled smoke

exhaled

started walking

 

never been in this area of l.a. before

walked the sidewalks

like i was lost in a maze

till i realized i was on beverly

got to doheny drive

made my way to santa monica boulevard

hit a bar

drank to forget events of the evening

and ignored anyone

who tried to talk to me

 

***

a fabric without any threads

(truth does not exist in the form of absolutes

there is just an individual’s ability to perceive

according to the senses acquired

by hereditary genetics

garnered through evolutionary development

from a single cell organism)

 

looking out at the loneliness of l.a.

sea of faces erases

the constituency of a drop

 

my companion is a cigarette

the rain

and the pill i took to quiet my brain

music so mellow it makes whale calls

sound like rock and roll

 

everyone else finds the grind

measured by time

i do not believe in measurements

the moment does not even exist

so i subsist on the alteration of my mind

until i am tailor made to convey

nothing matters

 

i am found underground

where no one can unearth me

the directions are written

in a language

incomprehensible to anyone but me

 

euphoria is silence

un-saturated with wordy rejections

accusing me of wrong doing

but all these flavors they are brewing

cannot find the seasoning for recipes

when i say

there is no such thing as right or wrong

 

there just is

and then there isn’t

and that’s all there ever was

without a because

 

until this moment

this sidewalk

this cigarette

this rain

do not exist

 

i take another pill

to further vacate

the landscape

of your understanding

 

forced to accept

you believe the sun never sets

on your expositions

 

i am an imposition

only because you create

a cohesiveness that congregates

my impose

 

while all i disclose

is there is no point to conversation

obliteration

is the only way you will see

the scattered atoms

that really have no molecular structure

just what you perceive

 

subatomic particles

are in the eye of the beholder

cold space will be colder

when all that remains

are unexcited photons floating

in the frozen temperature

of empty space

 

i do not wait for things to not matter then

i’m at the when where nothing matters now

 

***