Ghost

Somewhere between the debauched, pulsating city of neon and the desolate sea. Somewhere out in the dry, disenchanted blackness. Somewhere on an empty stretch of concrete... I zoom along on my TL-1000, pumping my fist in the air like Tom Cruise from a decadent 80's action film. Old army ruksack tied to my back, worn leather straps flapping away, containing a bottle of Jarritos guava, 3 apples, and a bag of flour tortillas I bought at a fruitstand in little Tijuana from a kind senorita with leathery skin and sad eyes. Leaning forward, full tuck, I twist the accelerator... 85... 100... 115... 125. The air becomes heavier and tears creep out sneakily tip-toeing across my face and then like little spiders leap into the wind to realize their dreams. One slip, one patch of gravel, one split-second screw-up, and I'm fucking dead. The poison running through my veins, the wake-up juice, the fire water, crystal meth keeps me one step ahead of the blurred lights and white stripes. Like a sniper I blend into the dreamy speed-scape, I'm one with the cylindrical, high velocity tick-tock roar of the thousand cc supersport V-twin.

I am the bodhissatva of torque.

And I heard on good authority from Awakener Avalokitesvara - he is the hearer and answerer of prayer - that I'll live to drink, laugh, and fuck another day.

Just for kicks I flip the lights off for a minute or two trusting the fact the road will continue on straight and true. I trust I won't hit a lizard or large juicy spider and skid out of control and be tossed off my bike into a jagged rock or better yet, be dragged along underneath the 600 lb machine, as the rocky cement gnaws away at my leg and torso like a hungy, late nineteenth-century industrial monstrosity. I'm playing with a revolver that only has one round empty. Tick-tock, tick tock, fade into grainy black and white, slow it down, cut the sound. Here I am, higher than high, hanging on to the giant hands of time like Harold Lloyd.

Tangled up in Blue

Rain pisses down in buckets. The sun went away and the whole city is pitched in a metallic gray and every car that passes is black. I lay flat on my back on the grass, reclined, with my arms behind my head and my legs crossed staring at the sky which stares back, not at me, but at the homeless junkie fast asleep 10 feet away. Despite the chilly wetness and the piercing wind, I smile, arrogantly detached in my black tank and raggedy jeans. Tiny droplets bead all over my prickly beard and freshly shorn scalp (#1 attachment and a pocket mirror - a homegrown deal cause I'm crafty and cheap) It’s really quiet except for the sound of passing cars which splash through murky piles of sewage and mud. There's also the wind whistling through the branches of the naked trees, producing a gentle clatter... a skeleton wind chime. I pucker up my lips and sing along with squinty, wet, wild eyes.

I think it's time to pack my bags, wrap my shit up in a hankey danglin' off a stick, and head back east for a bit.

the widening gyre

I think it might be over.

You called the police and I quickly left, not because I did anything wrong mind you. I simply didn't want to have to take an hour out of MY precious life explaining myself - clarifying my innocence - to a couple of dictatorial, asshole cops. In addition, I really can't afford to be late for work again because you and I decided to spend yet another long night "talking" about it which usually entails hashing and rehashing the same tired issues over and over and over and over again.

" All I'm trying to find out is what's the guy's name on first base.

No. What is on second base.

I'm not asking you who's on second.."

Like that scene in "Crime and Punishment" where the horse is beaten beyond death into the realm of the delirious... of the macabre... that is our relationship. Those are our "talks." That is my emotional state and well being right now. I'm really, really tired J____. Furthermore, the fact you dialed 911, on my cell phone, on my minutes, and requested an officer's assistance because you mistakenly thought I "might" become violent is preposterous and inexcusable... especially while my phone is roaming.

Yeh, I'm afraid it's fucking over.

To an athlete dying young

Three years ago today.

And there I am sitting in church, a troubled and confused look splayed across my face as if I'd just been bitch-slapped, asking myself over and over “what the fuck?” I look great, however, in that black Versace suit, hair slicked back, like a million bucks. And then there's you, dude. Lying in that casket there. Your face painstakingly reconstructed, in layers of thick make-up, as to resemble a younger, happier, more alive you - frozen in time in some old photograph your parents gave the mortician... and it's not fooling anybody. You look horrific. Like a wax figurine at Madame Tussaud's. Your body, once perfect (you worked out obsessively and some of us thought you even juiced cause you were just too big and too cut) now shattered and broken. The seventy-five dollar suit you probably wore to church every Sunday stapled to the front of you as your bare, rigid ass naps in the white satin liner of your new bed.

Everyone around us is crying.

Your best friend, Ed, is up in the front pew next to your confused-as-shit kids and your grief-stricken parents. There he is with his face buried in his hands convulsing with sobs. And here I am, seven rows back, wondering what the fuck I should do. How I should act. We were close but not that close. Drinking buddies. Clubbing buddies. Acquaintances, at best... but never friends. There's a distinct difference. Yet here I am because Ed and your parents requested I be here. Because you came to me before "it" happened seeking advice, looking for comfort, looking for an answer, and I didn't even know it. None of us did. You had it all man. Good looks. Charisma. A nice ride. Cute kids. Of course we weren't there that night last Christmas in Wisconsin when you came home from work early and found your wife butt-ass naked fucking some other dude in YOUR bed. Of course I wasn't there the following New Years in Vegas when you overdosed on Extacy and cocaine and spoke to demons and angels.

Life couldn't go on for you could it? And we all thought you were finally finding your way out of this funk. You seemed so much happier. Your shit was finally piecing together. You were dating a really nice girl one hundred times smarter, prettier, caring, and ambitious then your ex-wife, and she loved your kids like they were hers. It was right there in front of your face and you were just too blind, too stupid, too selfish to see it.

And here I am in my designer suit, tears trickling down my face. Not because I'll miss you, because I won't. It sucks admitting that but it's true. I weep because you had so much potential to become something great. No, fuck it, you WERE great. I weep because you were a dad, a hero, a lover, a son, and a friend...

... and you let a lot of people down.

talking to strangers

Some sweaty, sunburnt, middle-aged, yuppie investment banker wearing a light blue golf shirt, brown Dockers, and leather boat shoes complete with tassles and no socks sits on the stool next to mine pounding down glass after glass of Crown Royal, neat.

I can’t get over how much the guy looks like Pat O’Brien, glasses, mustache and all - a spitting fucking image.

I don’t know this dip-shit from Adam, yet, we’re suddenly best friends. He’s telling me about the multi million-dollar deals he makes or breaks on a day-to-day basis. He’s bragging about his ride, a brand new 700 series BMW, and how much 18-year old ass he pulls in it. He’s telling me about his cunt ex-wife who left him for a guy half her age. He’s filling me in on every intimate, inane, insignificant detail of his shallow life.

I never asked. But if you keep them Red-Bull vodka’s coming I’ll continue to be your ”buddy” - your…. momentary best friend, disposable as a condom. I’ll keep listening, nodding my head, and agreeing with your bullshit like some slack-jawed yes-man. I’ll continue to laugh at your two-cent jokes.

And As I raise my glass, with a carefree smile, and toast life and love with my new companion I can’t stop thinking about how sickeningly easy it’d be to take his ass home and rob him at gunpoint.

Mucus builds up on his bushy mustache above his upper lip.

Have another line Pat.

Bonnie Parker...

You ask me why I carry a loaded gun. You really don’t know me do you? I stare at you with dark eyes saying nothing. I can’t provide an answer – I’m lying, actually I can, but I don’t want to. The truth could hurt… it really could. But guess what? Although you think I didn’t see it, I did. It lasted for an instant, a passing flash, a microburst supernova erupting beneath your eyelids when I pulled out the gat and carefully set it up on your hope chest among your girlish, garish knick-knacks and cheap crap. Dilated eyes. Accelerated heart rate. A subtle flutter in your stomach spider-webbing north to your flushed cheeks and way south. Warmer. Wetter. Getting better.

Danger. Just a hint of it glints across your thoughts like a skipping stone across a murky pond. I take off my shirt. The fact my body is covered in scars and tats, a twisted windy road map, adds to the forbidden element of the upcoming act. You lay on your bed looking up at me with those innocent eyes… or should I say feigning innocence. Beneath the façade lies something dark. The teddy bears and pink sheets may hoodwink your piece of shit, molester dad, but oh no, not me.

We could write some amazing songs, you and I… songs to make you want to slit your wrists by.

Hand in mine, into your icy blues
And then I'd say to you we could take to the highway
With this trunk of ammunition too
I'd end my days with you in a hail of bullets.

Thrift store Indiana Jones

Wading through an undulating sea of knick knacks and cast-offs. I feel like Jacques Cousteau exploring the millions of miles of empty unknown searching for a glistening stone buried among the sifting sands. Or a rare fish flitting about the sweeping green weeds. The thrift store is not always willing to cough up it's treasures though. She's a hard mistress, no... rather, a nagging old hag who loves to talk, gossip, and look for meanings in the bottoms of cups. However, every once in a great while I get lucky and find a designer shirt, a kitschy, colorful artistic work, or a sturdy pair of good boots.

How does the phrase go, it's not the destination but the journey? It's the hunt. The relentless, obsessive-compulsive search for that treasure everyone has somehow managed to ignorantly pass up. Today I count myself lucky. I find a powdered blue sweater that zips up in the front. The neighborhood of make-believe awaits. I have a very important dinner date with Queen Sarah and Henrietta Pussycat, and I'm 24 years too late.

The illusion is so much dreamier than reality isn't it?

What we all don't know, but should, is Fred Rogers was a marine sniper with over 60 confirmed kills. All head-shots. Lucky for us he left the beast in the steaming jungles of Korea, in a bamboo hut, sitting next to Colonel Kurtz.

A mentally handicapped woman smiles at me as she painstakingly rings up my purchase. My treasure. My booty. My diamond. All the while I whistle “Lullaby” by the Cure and think about Daniel Tiger and King Friday.

Just a ragged clown

Muttering nothing, staring at the wall, I'm outside in the hall
Thinking about you, the road, and packing my bags
headin outside... into the rain... pitter patter, streaming down.
It's dark, the wee hours of the jingle-jangle morning.
Rocking away, hugging your arms, tears on your face,
pain replaced by more pain, in waves,
so sweet and heartbreaking and tragic and magic
Hey what do you say?
How is it you always manage to make me feel this way?

Play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

The miles race by, my only company in the drop top g-ride
gila monsters and spiders, snakes and stars, and itty-bitty spacemen on mars
Coffee and methamphetamine race through my veins. In my brain.
4 cc's running hard, no turning back, no looking back, no regrets or final thoughts... only the pain... so heartbreaking, tragic, and magic.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip

Bittersweet memories that's all we ever have in the end...

...oh and death.