decimals like bullet holes
the luxurious capers
we smiled like mad jackals
and fucked like minks
on the beaten leatherette
couch....
Eating cheesies and snorting
the crushed pills
our souls hovered like helicopters
taking tourists up about the city
the water the color of the
gutter wash
the light glittering off it like mad
fire......a poet friend would drop
in sleeping in a body bag
my only way out of Nam...
and save a few bullet wounds
of ghastly puckered scars
he was fine physically
but like us we were not

were pulled through the great
knothole a tangled mess
the mad desire hounding
us kicking us awake in a
barrage till we too could
feel the mud lifting with
impacts only he could
sense

we mowed down with our
old buick the remains of
the fence
and made peace by junking
it...loaning out free the space
to park the van from next
door....how we met our new
score....

she was a model and I was
an old whore
working the bars
massages and more
but the money was good
when I was a courier
but I got hit by a cab
the settlement ran out
and I never went back
ashamed of the scars
and the limp
the gaunt trauma
and skin grafts

somehow the only thing
we keep is the record
player
with one speaker
its not even stereo

the psych came and took
our friend away
so we bought some CCR
and weed in his honor
I wear his battered old
jacket
called us his kids
helped us with the rent

the ghosts are back
and Im throwing up blood
chinese red
cause we love the treats
dont take me in baby
I wanna die in your arms
but when I came too
she was with another
the bottle of Jack
that they shared
"he arises"
and they loved how
I look like Jesus
and it only made me
sadder cause he
was a great man

the moon came up
and I watched the telly
lightng cigarettes from
the hot plate..the stove
broke months ago
watching them sleep
like broken angels
the thirty eight in my
lap....carlos my neighbour
two doors down i can hear
we look after this floor
as best we can
the cripple and the illegal
How america was born my
friend!!! we toast the revolution
of death and living
love and all that is wrong with
love...

he works at the butchers and sends
us pork chops the only thing we
can hold down....

I play born on the bayou
and watch re runs of I love Lucy
bathed in the milky white of the
moon.....the city never sleeps
but I slip into dreams
like caverns of mist
helpless and terrified
until I become something
to survive..
something I hate...
something I love..