an
old friend of mine
asked
me to come over
help
him pull weeds
he
lives in the heart of suburbia
his
name is jose
and
his wife with whom he’s
been
with forever
is
maria
he
calls me juan
i
call him joe
even
though
back
then in the eighties
i
was already published
they’ve
never read my writings
or
followed my literary career
which
is why they probably
still
call me a friend
he
had pacifico
but
i passed
drank
peppermint schnapps
from
a bottle made of glass
and
with the aid of a spade
rooted
out the weeds
jose
played with stereophonic aid
synth-pop
the
same music he and i would listen to
back
then
o.m.d.,
when in rome,
thompson
twins
which
we washed down with patron
in
the home he still lives in
maria
makes these homemade
tortilla
chips and salsa
i’ve
always called
the
nectar of the gods
and
her tacos
are
the meaning to life
i
did a lot of sweating
under
that l.a. sun
which
i usually never see
since,
mostly, i sleep all day
walk
all night
jose
kept stacking the extended plays;
howard
jones, talk talk, bronski beat
for
an afternoon i didn’t know the defeat
of
being a self-destructive poet
listening
to what i call happy music
reminding
me of a simpler time
long
ago
it
wasn’t lost on them
my
friends
how
i kept lighting
one
cigarette after another
and
hitting my bottle
maria
kept bringing me
bottles
of water
and
stood there till i drank it all
nor
was it lost on them
how
i really had nothing to say
i
wasn’t going to offend
my
catholic friends
who
have never been anything
but
kind to me
with
stories about
the
dark streets of decay
which
that day
made
me realize
how
much i’ve lost my way
a
writer in l.a.
who’s
mostly read by people
in
europe
the
birth place of nietzche,
sartre,
camus
but
anyways
this
is about a day
with
happy music
friends
that
came to an end
when
around 9 p.m.
i
walked to a bus stop
rode
the bus until its last drop
bought
a bottle
took
off the top
and
woke up
next
to railroad tracks
with
erasure’s
“a
little respect”
in
my head
and
memories of maria’s tacos
***
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