Trash & Crash

Poured myself off a Greyhound bus in North Las Vegas that was a three day drive but took five. Free wi-fi, free butt cramps, free willy. I had to get rid of the sea legs so I went walking around to see what I could see. Partied hard with some cats at a local hostel...trashed, crashed. I woke up one morning and wondered where the hell I was. It was in some sketchy strip club neighborhood and that was its good point. Forced down some pancakes with some local Nevada syrup in the morning even though my stomach was screaming bloody murder. There just wasn’t enough coffee to drink to clear my head. On a whim of some kind, I went over and used the swimming pool at the Stratosphere and hung around to see if there were any rich cougars prowling around for a guy like me,you know disheveled and with a couple of dollars in my pocket...no such luck. I fell asleep and burned my face off...that’s OK, I never liked it much anyway. Just five minutes from Fremont Street and the ‘Fremont Street Experience’ where I shopped for cheap souvenirs and people watched all day. There was a cheap, uh I mean inexpensive buffet. I can’t remember the name of it now to save my life, but they had good real good fried chicken--some mashed potatoes with gravy, roast beef, ice cream and coffee...went for the kill and got my fill. I listened to a knockoff Pat Benatar singing at night. Just a few minutes away from the Heart Attack Grill where you get free food if you weigh over 350 pounds. The RTC Deuce bus reminded me that they were gonna follow some special schedule or something for the upcoming Christmas holidays...OK...It took me slowly to the other end of the strip like a soldier crawling on his stomach to where all the glitzy casinos are and where the women with six inch high heels and short tight skirts strut around. I don’t know how the driver didn’t run over like 100 people on the way, I would have. There were just mobs of people crossing the streets and when I got off, I pretended I belonged there. Sat up against a blank white wall with a flask but it was too much to ask and after a while some bastard security guy who looked like he was ready to give birth chased me away, so I hung out by the Bellagio fountains and watched the fountain show a couple of times. I found a Burger King across the street or so and that fit my budget--then over to the Miracle Mile to walk around and wish I had the kind of money needed to buy anything there. Made a stop at some Irish Pub back by the Luxor hotel and pretended I was a soccer fan of some team or another and some drunk Irish guy bought me some overpriced Irish Whiskey and we listened to the house band and watched the game. Soccer ain’t so bad when you’re drunk. The next day hungover again, caught a tour bus over to Red Rock Canyon where I tried to communicate with nature but there was no answer. Basked in the warmth of the sun...nice after freezing my ass off. I didn’t know Vegas got so goddamn cold in December. Gave some thought about going out to the Grand Canyon so I got another tour bus and after a really llllooooooooonnnnnnnggggggggggg bus ride, got there just before dark--wow, thanks tour company. I snapped a few pics...too many damn tourists...had absolutely the best turkey I ever tasted though at this place we stopped for lunch in Williams, Arizona. It was at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and the place was called the Grand Depot Cafe. The hostess was super nasty. She obviously didn’t appreciate my sarcastic smart-ass humor but that turkey!!!...I mean that by itself made up for the miserable 16 hour bus ride back and forth and the horrible movies they played that I tried to ignore by staring out the dirty window at the Great American landscape zipping by...squares of color blurred like looking at a Cezanne painting at 55 miles an hour. The restaurant was by a train track that went where train tracks go and I would have been happy to go with it but I’d already paid for my luxurious bus ride home. Later, I found out that we were on Route 66 in Arizona for a little bit so I bought some cheap sunglasses as a token to Americana at a gas station and pretended I was cool cruisin’ on the mother road.

Here's To Bobby Sands

drinking a bottle of scotch while watching the British Open

this year being played in Northern Ireland

wonder what Bobby Sands would think of that

I.R.A. P.G.A. AFL-CIO FBI ASCAP BMI ACLU

stymied in life, out of bounds way too often

or missed my tee time altogether 

too many clubs in the bag, not enough clubs in the bag

too much canadian club sometimes but never enough 

three putts a plenty snowmen 

I’ve always been a fader, she’s a hooker

I’ve been doing the big fade since I was born 

fading to black like the director’s cut

in some art house film shown at the McVickers theatre

i met her at a bar on the south side 

you know, the baddest part of town

I just wanted to be what she was drinking

to quote the song

we weren’t soulmates, we’d sold our souls long ago

for some cheap liquor and beef jerky

and were just trying to get out of the cold rain

running down our backs to the wall

laughing at silly things ultimately meaningless 

drinking together but alone in bullet holed dives

filled with kindred spirits and distilled spirits 

knowing we had no future 

or at least one we wanted

CRASH CRASH CRASH

johnnie walker in a glass

my brown sugar going down

guitar bouncing off my brain

can’t get loud enough-neighbors might beg to differ

they’ll send the Gestapo over soon

SS schugan shaffan or schnitzel or schutzstaffel

i could use some schnapps schnell schnell 

red baron-i like your pizza

go for the moon, end up in the stars or something like that

daddy long legs crawling up the wall

people forget when the pretty girl smiles

my painting-my masterpiece-my artistic delusion 

tuesday afternoon i’m just beginning to see i think

made my reservation but i probably won’t get there

over the falls in a barrel CRASH CRASH CRASH

blowing my mind out again-the lights had changed

seeing double in triplicate one hand over an eye

don’t know what I’m looking for but I’ll know it when I see it

mother road, father road, brother in-law road

cheap old motel in prairie dog, illinois neon god

CRASH CRASH CRASH into the pillow don’t care anymore

Salt Power

Some people throw salt over their shoulder for luck

some throw it into the air and read the pattern it makes on the ground

people who do that are practicing alomancy

they probably don’t know it’s called that

I throw salt on my steak and chicken too

salt in my soup, on my celery, corn on the cob

i always add lots of butter just in case that’s good luck too

salt is a natural with a margarita or tequila

that’s my biggest source of salt intake I would guess

you can throw rock salt on the ground to melt ice on the sidewalk

or the little mailman won’t walk up to your house and give you your mail

you know, bills, bills, more bills, letters from companies you owe money to

letters from scum lawyers that are addressed to you

maybe you can throw rock salt on the sidewalk and interpret

the pattern that the salt melts the ice

they say too much salt ain’t good for you

so I balance it out with pepper, garlic, and cumin

a little jalapeno and sriracha can’t be bad for you either

Empty Heads

people are always talking--empty heads talk talk talk

mouths full of empty words--fake camaraderie

a little yin, a little yang, some ice in a glass

no olives--make it a double bartender

i’m just tryin’ to stay on the straight and narrow

and out of the muddy roadside ditches I usually find myself in

alongside my pathetic dreams splattered  

but no matter what pointless points of view you hold

the way of the world chugs on down that track

diesel engines churning, coal car burning, steel wheels turning

judging a book by its cover 

read the first page--that’s what I thought

be natural-au natural-pure crystal clear

zombie phonies run rampant, false fronts--fake facades, false bottoms

ya need what you need but you don’t need what you don’t need

don’t fall--eyes bigger than the stomach syndrome

playin’ games I wanna play and not the ones

the man tries to make me play

full moon fever in fashion, know when to say when

too much this too much that--it’s all too much

I give up I accept

the world is a messed up mess full of empty messages and messengers

Ass

kickass rock and roll 

kicked ass and took names

pain in the ass

that's badass

he's a badass

she's a badass

rode her motorcycle coast to coast--well all right then

that qualifies as badass I guess

but baked two dozen cookies, uh, no

everything can’t be badass

it’s a dumbass saying

lazy ass thinking 

get a piece of ass

get an ass chewing 

bust your ass for what?

then they tell you

don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out 

and oh by the way

good luck in any future endeavors 

LMAO 

at the silly ass British dandy

a smart ass, I admit guilt your honor

ass whipping ass whooping 

CYA cover your ass

lost my ass in Vegas hitting on 16

don’t like this poem? kiss my ass!

52 Jokers

got a card reading from a deck with 52 jokers

my whole life has been just a joke

that I’ve never been in on

odd man out, third wheel, third man in, third man out, always the third man 

heliotrope bouquet on an old upright piano from another time

dematerialization, decomposing, declassified

skin and bones, skull and crossbones

sticks and stones have broken these bones

clothes hanging on those bones

raggedy clothes hanging on by a thread

throwing those bones and seeing what lies ahead

dark corners of bars and apartments

where the buffalo like me roam the golden landscape

glancing at the watch i don’t have no more

and looking up at the storm blowing into town

rock bottom geologist with a major in sharp stones

thrown at glass houses long since unoccupied

mountains reaching towards the blue-gray sky

negatives hanging from the ceiling

nobody wants to see those kind of pictures anymore

sun bleached abstract forms in black and white

dead images of dead people dead wrong or dead right

they are dead D - E - A - D all the same

Walking On Velvet

Smokin’ funny cigarettes to some Indian music

you know the country India

not comanche apache rumble sioux south dakota 

sitar sending me to another world

of colored prints and beads and rituals

transmigration to a room with louvered doors

fans lazily circling above

eating some ice cold watermelon

off a cerulean blue plate fresh off the palette

on a hot summer night

when you sweat getting out of the shower

krishna krishna

green eye blinking fast at me

purple eye glaring at me from the side

scotch or vodka what’ll it be

ah, scotch on the rocks of Newfoundland

with a twist of snow and winter

mushroom tripping across the continent

sand in my hair, sand in my mouth

sandalwood and patchouli in my eyes

dusty trail, barefoot walking on velvet

a higher consciousness and all that

UHF

UHF

just listened to ah leah! 10 straight times

ice melting in the glass kaleidoscope light

dog laying against my leg

reflections full of color flash and dash and smash 

against against the glass of the french doors

mind drifting back to some place somewhere

parties at friends houses

long forgotten names and faces

unremembered aspirations

but not what I was drinking

organ and sitar coming on strong

dialin’ in the UHF channel 32

sitting in the house I can’t afford

deep water me by myself and the ocean

jazz in the heat of the garage

a long distance voyager on an endless flight

take a trip around the moon

champagne star smashed by hand tiny bubbles

paintings coming alive on the walls

a week less--a lesser weak--a lesser week

a feeling of excitement--a feeling of feeling

then boom boom BA-BOOM!

the next door neighbors’ rocket project 

just exploded into smithereens

shiny metallic pieces on the ground 

falling into the ocean

I’m tired—time for bed

White Magic

saturday slurring words into a twist

under a bourbon in a glass spell of white magic

table tipping spilling my drink

interpreting the ice patterns on the table

dreams melting away into mahogany forest

neon nights of yellow blue and green

loud jazz rattling the inner acoustics of my mind

some dark soul studio time

off someplace I don’t know where 

dixieland shuffle back beat ska 

musical bars all that’s holding me up now

st. charles street trolley rolling up

all too cheerful for my taste

hanging on the rail for my life

taking me down home away from home 

voodoo hotel spirits in the room with me

slap into the pool 

full moon psycha-craziness on display

who dat I see

some mardi gras cajun queen shadow of a ghost 

Home I'll Never BE

they say you can’t go home again

somebody said that, I don’t remember who

some guy in a black hoodie 

calling from some dirty pay phone in the dark

if you never had a home you ain’t got one to go back to

been on my own since I’ve been on my own

after being swatted around like a shuttlecock

in the world championship matches

from Jakarta to Glasgow to Copenhagen

except nothin’ that exotic

livin’ out of a rucksack jack 

home on the road

high-rise money metropolitan meccas no

down on the farm where I befriended some cows no

from big lit up cities to small one horse towns

where the horse moved to the big city 

I just never found one—a home in the darkness maybe

I found a few bars that were as close as I could get

mom was german schnapps and dad was scotch 

loved to hug and visit with them all night long

didn’t do much talking, just sat around together

passing the time away-nothing to say empty nights away

in the bars of the New Orleans, Chicagos and Memphis’s of the world

from one side of the net to the other