Love Me

A liquor bottle bounced off the wall beside Jason's head but didn't break, landing on the floor with a thud.





"You never stay with me, you only want to screw then run off to your crazy chicken fights."



"Baby, quit that. Calm down what's wrong."





"You don't really love me, you never did. Your crazy fucking roosters killing each other, your gambling, your dope- you love all of that more than you love me! You never did."





"Baby, no", he says holding his hands low, just above his waist, palms down trying to calm her. As drunk as JoEllen was right now she was nothing to mess with.





She picked up a steak knife from the counter and tears, first from one eye then a moment later the other, slid gently down her dimpled cheeks. She was wearing one of those T-shirts that people call wife beaters, a sort of tank top style undershirt, it was tight across her ample breasts, and panties that looked like a little girls', pink with some kind of Japanese cartoon image on them and knee high tube socks with stripes at the top like basketball players in the 70's wore. Her hair was in total disarray and her eyes as large as a doe deers' were ringed black with yesterdays mascara, one slightly drooping from the effects of the alcohol. As he eased towards her he could not help but be a little turned on by both her beauty and her danger.





"You bastard I should kill you, you never really loved me."





" Jo, baby- Jo you know I love you, you know I love you more than anything. I will love you forever."





Sobbing now she began to shake, she let the hand with the knife lower just a little and Jason walked on over and took it from her and wrapped his arms around her , and held her.





"Shhhh", he said gently , as if talking to a very small child and pulled back slightly to wipe tears from her face.



"Hush now", he whispered and delicately moved a strand of hair from her eyes.





She leaned forward and he kissed her softly on her forehead, and her neck, and her eyelids, kissing away the pain that lived inside of her always. The pain that told her that nobody loved her, and that everybody she cared about would leave her alone in the end. Just like they always had.

"Come on girl, let me get us a beer", and he walked with her holding her hand into the back room to the tiny little refrigerator that was beside their bed. She laid down and he pulled out two Pabst Blue Ribbons and laid beside her.

" You always..." she started to say something but even the beginning was nearly to quiet to hear,then slowly she turned up the ice cold beer , drinking deeply from it.

"Do you remember when we first met," Jason asked, "Do you remember the night in KOs' house?"

" We smoked crack."

"Yeah, and she was gone, and the house was full of crap because she was remodeling and we laid on a mattress in the front room and made love."

"... And there was plastic covering the windows and the wind kept blowing and making the plastic pop and I was so scared."

And the both of them lay there and drank more beers and remembered that night, after the sex was done and the drugs had run out and it was just the two of them so far away from the crazy lives they lived a few blocks over, so far from the hustlers, and the kooks, and the thieves and the whores and all of the others that made up the circle of their association.And honest with each other for the first time they had talked. She had told him about her father and his friends and her childhood, and her scars. How when she had finally gotten old enough to resist and say no to him, and how she wished her mother had not died, and how when he tired of her saying no again and again her father had poured lighter fluid on her and set her on fire, scarring her legs and most of her right side and all of her heart.

And he told her about his wife and kids and how the marriage had failed and how when he could no longer see his children he had given up on life and sunk slowly into the self imposed darkness that engulfed him now. And the drugs, and the crazy chances that he took to insure that he never went without them.

" I don't want you doing stick ups anymore. You'll go back to prison and I will be alone."

"Well, I don't want you turning tricks anymore..."

" It's the only hustle I have..."

"Well what are we gonna do- get straight jobs?"And they both smiled because he may as well have asked if they were going to sprout wings and fly to the moon. So he continued to steal and she to trick and the rest of the time they drank together and fed other hungers and tried to pretend that they could have normal lives.
They got a place together , small , only two rooms. The front a sort of living room and the back, a bedroom with a fridge and a hotplate, tiny bathroom off to the side. Somehow just having a place besides the seedy motels where they had always stayed gave them both a feeling of semi- stability, something that he had all but forgotten and she had never had. She prostituted herself less and less, only doing so when absolutely necessary and he no longer smoked crack which is not to say that he no longer used drugs and didn't drink now more than ever but that one demon at least was behind him. They had money for cigarettes, and rent, and even a weekly trip to Taco Bell- JoEllen liked that. Jason made friends with the neighbor, Segundo, who worked construction and sent money back to Mexico for his wife and children. Sometimes they would drink Modelo in the afternoons and Segundo would tell stories about his kids. Some nights the three of them would eat dinner together, but never at Taco Bell. Other times Jason and Segundo would go to the cockfights over in the part of town where the Mexicans mostly lived. And JoEllen
only tried to kill Jason when she got really, really drunk. Most days she would drink a half of a gallon of vodka, Ariticrat or Heaven Hill, but on other days she would get into Jason's beer, PBR that he would buy in thirty pack suitcases and on those days she might still get violent. She had been into the beer today.

" I'm not going anywhere baby, I'm gonna stay right here with you."

She finished her beer and threw the empty can across the room and he laughed. She nuzzled closer her head laying on his chest, and he wrapped strong arms around her.

" Do you love me, Jason"

" Of course I do."

" Why do you love me?", she asked,"Tell me why."

" I love you because you are the most beautiful women in the world, and because you are so very sad, I love you because of the smell of your hair and the song of your laughter- I love you because you understand..."

"Understand what?"

"You understand... me."

" I love you Jason," and she turned looking up into his face and kissed him. And passion rose up in them both and they fanned it's flames, until, exhausted they fell over spent. JoEllen was fast asleep and Jason smoked a Marlboro Red until the filter crushed between his fingers then sitting up reached for his chinos, and felt to make sure his wallet was there. Quietly he dressed and slipped out the front door and went to watch the roosters fight.

Brand New

A little boy
His father
Or maybe
Moms Dad
Splashing
With earnest
In puddles
The boy in a
Green slicker
Brand new rubbers
Laughing
Yesterday
When I was
Five years old
I sat watching
A Charlie Brown
Special on
Television
In a brand new
Yellow raincoat
And my Mom
Took a
Picture

The Most Beautiful Girl

The light pierced the peep holes that previous guests of the scumbag hotel had poked and torn to ease or feed their paranoia. Oddly enough the perfect line of light found the clinched, closed eye of Griffin Banks, dust particles shimmered and danced in it and Griffin cursed. He threw his arm across his face in a futile gesture but knew he'd have to do better than that to remain asleep, sleep was a commodity that Griffin bought and paid for- once he was awake, he was awake. So like Lazarus slipping free of his death clothes, he slid from beneath the cheap stained comforter and reached for his straight shooter. Taking a straightened piece of coat hanger, Griffin pushed the Chore Boy screen from one end of the straight glass crack pipe to the other, scrapping the insides of it, gleaning the brownish residue of cocaine left from earlier. The wake-up hit was not blinding in its potency but sufficient to allow him to stand and dress. Griffin was a hustler and small time thief, the clothes that he wore as important as socket wrenches to a mechanic. Black slacks and button downs and the nicest shoes he could shoplift, and when the outfit began to show ashes and other dirt he'd go to a mall and steal fresh ones. Today though he thought they would do for a little while longer. Walking past the television, he hit the on button and looked at his image in the mirror. Wetting his hands, then running them through his hair he made himself look, as much as he could , like the television gangsters he admired so. Then he walked into the tiny bathroom to take a leak. That is when it hit him. Without flushing the toilet he turned back into the main room and saw that he had company, in the bed where he had just got up from, lay a girl.




Holy Crap some days are weird, leaning over her, trying to remember. Holy Crap. She was beautiful. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, but fate deemed their time was done. She was quite dead.







It came flooding back. Last night walking the strip he had seen her. New to him, he knew most of the girls who worked the streets here, it was a small town. She had smiled like some kind of animal: hungry. He didn't have the time then, backpack full of goods, brain gone dry of the substances that drove him. He noticed her none the less. Predator sniffing predator. Kindred spirits. She walked under the streetlights smiling a vendors smile carrying a half of a gallon of cheap vodka for the world to see. She followed with her eyes as he passed by.







Then later, walking back to the hotel, arm full of nod, head full of booze, and a hand full of crack -he saw her again.



Wanna do an oxy? slurring, one eye half closed.



He didn't even answer, never said a word, just looked up the road a block to the hotel and his room and she went with him, rattling the pill bottle as she strolled, oozing sexuality and desire.





They had enjoyed a buffet of drugs and booze and sex acts not for the faint of heart. At some point, satisfied, Griffin had passed out. Their had been plenty of the Oxycontin left at that point. She must have overdosed after.


Shit.


Shit, shit, shit!





Griffin didn't know what he was going to do but he knew what he was going to do first. Scooping up his keys and money clip from the bedside table he turned and opened the front door.





Hello. How you durin' today?


Flo, the house keeper. She scared the crap out of him!





Jojo in his room still?





Yeah he there,not for long though.





Don't let anybody in here, Flo, Ill be right back.





Trying to look casual Griffin walked as fast as he could to Jojo's room to cope a small piece of dope. Just something to help him focus, to figure out what to do. When he stepped back out of the room Flo was nowhere to be seen. Walking even faster back to his room, fist clinched and sweating around the twenty dollar distraction, he dropped his key clattering across the concrete and bent to pick it up then straightening turned it in the door.



His heart missed a beat, again , then he realized that Flo had brought the whole cleaning cart into his room. She wanted a hit. He could tell from the look on her face that she had seen the girl. Then she put her finger to her lips, so selfish that she hadn't noticed that the sleep would never be interrupted.


Here take this and go. Griffin broke her a little hit off and sent her frowning from the room. Then sat in the obligatory chair next to the bed that every crappy hotel room in the country had. Stuffing the gangster white into the end of the pipe, his hands shook as he pulled a lighter from his pocket. Slowly and with a purpose he breathed the chemical smoke deep into his blood rich lungs. And surely the smoke calmed him and killed the jangling of his nerves. A little closer now, sitting on the edge of the bed Griffin studied her face, her form. She was beautiful. Really not the kind of beauty that you ever get used to, exotic somehow. Lying next to her he finished the dope and wondered.

Later after a call to a great aunt that still trusted him no matter what, Griffin pulled into the hotel lot in a car that looked like it had been borrowed from a trusting aunt. Dusk had begun to shroud him, wrapping dark mother arms about his twisted life. Griffin gathered his meager belongings then walked into the room one last time and picked up the girl gently like she might disappear if he jostled and carried her and put her in the car. Not in the trunk, but belted in the passengers seat like a traveler overcome with slumber. He loved her and could not bear to part with her so instead he leaned over and kissed her cold lips and drove away never thinking of his aunt, or Jojo, or how strange this day had been.

To sleep

The smell of urine

Chokes me like a

500 pound

Gorilla

I am seasoned

And dry rubbed

Rolled

In Filth

Fuzz from give away

Blankets in the

Stubble of my

Shaved head

I fear sleep

In sleep the past

Creeps

Like mist

On water

Into my soul

In sleep

The past

Smothers me

Molasses thick

I will

Enter her

Only with

Assurance of

Kentucky grains

And

Whiskey rebellions

The day

Comes to fast

And I must

Move on

Someone Else

In the building
Where I stay
There is a
Jewish Cowboy
Who wants
To be
An artist
Or maybe
He is a
Jewish artist
Who wants
To be a
Cowboy
Or maybe
He is just
Jewish
Maybe
That is enough
Or maybe at
Night
When he spreads
His bedroll
He is
Unsure
Of
Who he really is
Knowing only
He wants to
Be
Something else
I have been
A fighter
But I
Always wanted
To be
A song
I have been
A junkie
But
I'd rather
Have been
A light
I wonder
Sometimes
If everyone
In this place
Would rather
Be
Someone else

Regret

Regret is
an overcoat
made of wool
and soaking
wet

It weighs
heavy
on me

Dripping
it ruins the
carpets of
the places
that I
go

I cannot
sleep
most nights
because
of its
icky itch and
its stench

Some days
I change from
it into
coveralls
of
guilt

Cowboys

I went to
A gunfighters
Funeral today

Not a
Cowboy hat
In sight

The glamour
Of toting
Pistols

Not quite
The same
Without them

The sad faces
And souls of
The men though

The same now
As a century
And a half ago

The guilt maybe
Or the things
They have seen

Or maybe
All the bandits
Then and now

Started life as
Scared little boys
Of desperado dads

Why Are Your Poems So Dark? : Poetry Everywhere : Video : The Poetry Foundation

Why Are Your Poems So Dark? : Poetry Everywhere : Video : The Poetry Foundation

Shared via AddThis

not happy

the briefest moment
really
compared to the three
score and ten
if typical
neither beginning
nor end
of personal timeline
of sadness
but the
saddest still
she looked at me
tears welling
"i'm not happy"
the next day
like a lioness
defending me
the bondsman cuffing me
sending me
to jail
and weeks later
the papers
dissolving the union
"not happy"
she said
crushing me
killing me
dissolving me
and all of
these years
the dreams
of her face
the tears
and the most
minuscule
portion
of time
haunt me
still
in sleep

All The While

Sometimes
i wear
a monsters skin
GREEN
jealous of
people
i knew
long ago
i was still
unburdened
Some days
i dont
BELIEVE IN GOD
though i try
very hard
and
i pray
that i will
And
Most days
I DONT FEEL
a(part)
at all
more like
a sad
goldfish SHOUTING
insulated by
half of a gallon of
water
half an inch of
glass
SILENT
This morning i
saw a five year old
POP open an umbrella
watching
and walk to
the childrens
museum
chattering to MOTHER
along the
WAY
and i remembered then
that I am
human still
I have been all
the while

passion

soft curves
bosom
and buttocks

tiny beads
of sweat
above candy lips

tops flung
across
the room

jeans hurriedly
escaped one
leg turned out

bed clothes
pushed down
knotted

and no cares
in the world
for now

rhetorical passions
spoken and
answered

The Night

My lover, the Night

Lays naked save

Jewelry of stars



She holds me

In darkest embrace

Caressing my broken heart



I talk to her

And she to me

In whispers and in dreams



Promises spoken

Go unfulfilled

Killed daily by dawns schemes

For Tami

I will

Remember you

Always

First Love

Simpler and

Purer times

Tinged Purple

As sunset sky

Sadly

Details fade

Each year

Your scent

Though remains

Forever

two rooms

we would


get


two rooms


one for


trickin'


the other for


geekin'





in between


smoking crack



i would wait

while she

my new bride

stolen

fresh

the two of us

from rehab

made more money

next door

getting mad as hell

like a little

boy

kicking and holding

his breath

until

she'd get back

with the cash

i would

walk/run

as fast as i

could

across the

hotel lot

to cop

again

and

we'd smoke

when the next

pick-up

truck

came through

we would

repeat

the whole dance

holy crap

what

takes her

so long

you get all kinds

sittin' in a
rock & roll
chicken shack
on a sunday
afternoon
when
the last mullet
in america walks in
wearing a fat redneck
underneath
who in turn
is sporting a
hunt often T
and a freightliner
ball cap
greasy
from the mullet

when the liquor
store
closes in the
bible belt states
you
get all kinds

bruised life

i saw her
walking from
an alley
downtown

wearing a halter top
and jeans and
hand-picked tattoos
another black eye

like fruit
ripened to fast
to soon plucked
from the vine

never maturing
developing
the sweetness
nature had in mind

the only value that
she placed on herself
the crumpled bills
serving selfish desire

and i knew
that this was
her life
a produce market

reselling the same
tomato until
damaged and bruised
no one else

would buy it

A Pox On You, Criminal

I guess
there are
pagan police
officers in
England.

They are
allowed certain
days off.
Summer Solstice.
Halloween.

I have
been cursed
by the cops
here in the
U.S.,

But never hexed.
I have got to
quit listening
to morning
radio.

Brother George Plays Ukulele

Brother George plays ukulele
Sings Hawaiian songs.
Smiling through the lyrics,
Soul laughing out loud.

People passing by him
Listen,
As he cries
Haunting notes.

I drink wine from
A coffee cup and
Follow rhythm
With my foot.

Brother George sings
Of a wonderful world
Somewhere over a rainbow
Back home.

coffee club

sunrise at the salvation army
i join others milling about
waiting for boiled eggs
and coffee
the saddest people
i have ever known
smiling
through strained sobriety
i see my friend and speaking
unlock the personality
he keeps
secreted away
proudly he shows me
an ezra pound screen saver
on a trac phone
and begins to share with me
the madness and lines
he has entrusted to
pharmaceutical mind
i nod
wondering
what they are talking about
at starbucks this morning

The Value of Poetry

In my senior year

Of High School

I met her and

She smiled

She studied English

Or rather how to teach it

At the local

University

I was quite smitten

Taken with her

She asked us to write

So I did

I wrote stories

And she read them

Poems and she giggled

I tried to be provocative

In puberties most

painful/beautiful way I held

books low and center

while we spoke

When she left

Eventually

I learned lifes

Most valuable Lesson

Love is bitter sweet

They all go eventually

And even bad poetry

Can get you laid