oh lawdy oh lawdy i know i'm late to the table i know that pretty much everything that might should have been said done been said might should have been told done been told

don't you know

but i gotta say i gotta just ask i just gotta get this part off of my chest but cindy baby and baby it ain't just you but i got you there now standing there on my see en en right there on the television screen got that floppy hat on out there in that hot texas sun i bet it must just fucking stink down there in the middle of bumfuck texas in the middle of august i just gotta ask i'm gonna say

what were you thinking

in the first place why did you let your baby put on that uniform why did you let your baby pick up that gun why did you let your baby think it was oh kay to go shoot someone ain't no momma should be letting her babies be putting on that uniform picking up them guns thinking it's oh kay to go off shooting someone i mean i mean i can tell you right now i can tell you that stella she ain't about to let oldest son one and only daughter youngest son hell you pick one take oldest son she ain't about to let him be putting on that uniform picking up that gun thinking it's oh kay to go off shooting someone i can tell you right now that stella she would just as soon borrow a gun shoot him in the foot sneak up behind him and slice his achilles heel come into his room while he sleeps the night before his physical take a goddamn needle and inject heroin right into his goddamn dick scramble some elle esse dee in with his eggs the morning of his psych test i'm just telling you right here and now that shit just ain't gonna happen at our house stella she'd just as soon

go to jail

what kind of jury going to send a momma to jail for fucking up her son not much just enough to keep him out of uniform what kind of jury going to send a momma to jail shit stella she ain't putting up with that army shit if every momma if every momma would just raise her babies under the same threat of bodily harm if every momma in this entire world would just say to their babies say ain't no way you going to grow up put on that uniform pick up that gun think it's oh kay to go off and shoot someone

cindy baby what the fuck were you thinking

oh kay oh kay i got that off my chest i got that part off my chest i'm sorry i know cindy i know you didn't think about that i know you loved your boy you just didn't know you could really do that shit you just didn't know that it's oh kay to do the smack down on your baby if they think about that kind of shit i know miss cindy i know

and i'm sorry

because i can't think of anything worse i can't think of anything that would be so horribly worse to have my baby die there ain't nothing worse my heart would freeze and break into a million million tiny shards of bitterness and deepest depression damn damn dig that grave and climb in their with him that shit just wouldn't be right

what is right is taking responsibility what would be right if that motherfucker george dubya bush sat down with every single mom that has lost a baby sit down with every single mom that has lost their baby and hear their grief

sit down and take it like a motherfucking man

and i ain't just talking about the eighteen hundred you esse soldiers that have given their life that would be a good start but that cocksucker needs to sit down with every single soldier that has given any part of their life taken a bullet taken a little shrapnel took a hit to their psyche he needs to sit down and hear their grief he needs to sit down with every aa rab momma that has lost a baby and listen to their grief 

the cocksucker needs to be a man and take responsibility for what he's done 

some people out there complaining out there saying that cindy she ain't speaking for them hell she ain't speaking for me either but then again my baby he ain't going to eye raq i can guarangoddamntee that sht but hell it don't matter if cindy ain't talking for them it don't matter who cindy is talking for all cindy got to do is talk for herself and that boys and girls hell and that my friends hell that's fucking enough the motherfucker needs to do the right thing and walk down to the end of the driveway say take a little stroll down to the road don't he have to go down to the mailbox anyway check the mail what if some important piece of paper is being delivered you know he probably needs to make sure no letters from putin are coming in i mean he's got to go check the mail anyway while he's down there he could just saunter over say hi to cindy say mind if we sit you got something to say to me and i'm going to sit here and listen to you

then he's got to tell cindy he's got to tell cindy why his own babies ain't put on a uniform picked up a gun and wandered off to shoot people

the cocksucker needs to be a man and take responsibility for what he's done

if those other momma's if those other momma's they don't want to talk to the motherfucker then hell they don't have to but the motherfucker he's got to make good with what cindy wants after all her baby he wouldn't be dead if george dubya cocksucker hadn't sent her baby off to eye raq

the motherfucker he done a bad thing jesus ain't going to save him he's going to burn in hell anyway but i gotta tell you i gotta say he needs to try and be something of a man right now he's got to try to be a man and make good with this shit

the right thing and all that

a roach scrambles across the sparkling dull stainless steel counter as i reach for the milk to pour into my coffee i blow hard through puckered lips the pitiful creature slides silly legs dancing like a trotter in the fifth out at roosevelt fields my coffee slides from black to tan god i love new york new york city

last night i jacked off three times couldn't find elimidate i hate a fucking hotel with limited viewing options settled in on back to back episodes seinfield and arrested development ah jesus if elaine only knew hell i'm sure she does three is such a beautiful number the trinity don't you know father son holy ghost stretch and pull stretch and pull and all that shit the grey hairs in my pubic region sprouting through the brown looking closely i'm convinced i declare out loud that they sprout in the pattern of arabic letters

if i could only read arabic i'm sure that they are the finest the most romantic verses of omar kayam

by the way as a note of digression and speaking of omar kayam go fuck yourself kahlil gibran if you could have then you would not have thought to write such pious drivel i have a theory it's a personal theory mind you that anyone yes anyfuckingone who quotes uses reads prints on invitations or otherwise mutters the writings ah shall we say musings ah shall we say scribblings of said poet lebanese syrian whatthefuckever he is was i don't really care you would think that whatever nationality cultural heritage that he claimed would reject him anyway i have a personal theory yet unproven in any scientific or statistical study of any significance a theory that says that these people that borrow from kahlil gibran whilst saying their weding vows this wedding is doomed to end in a miserablefuckingdivorce i once fucked a girl a woman in college she used to read said so-called poet i didn't marry her i had not yet developed my theory but i already knew in my gut

stella she quoted joey ramone

and i was sold three is such a beautiful number i visited three temples while in new york yes yes i'm sure i'm confident that there are many many more than three in this magnificent city but you know you know i've already said i've already declared i'm already a believer that

three is a beautiful number

don't you know don't you believe so yes i went to church yesterday wandered through the church of the populace of new york new york city granted my ventures were pretty much limited between bounded by forty-second street fifth and third avenues and central park that boring cramped arena of midtown blahs enjoyed by touristas and business jerkoffs like myself but i felt the love i felt the rhythm i felt the gods of the netherworld escaping from beneath the ground i felt the gods of the mighty towers that surrounded me i felt the gods of the japanese consumer in the form of a great big fucking plastic komiguchu-looking

elephant

complete with komiguchu looking cute little pile of elephant turds piled up like a kid's plastic ring toy one two three yes is it a coincidence this magical tertiary piling three one two three i think not plastic do do all piled up beneath its pastel tail i went to church today wandered up madison late afternoon around five thirty it's a gorgeous day in the city the sun is out there is just the slightest of a breeze it's not really what i would call hot i entered the park where the elephant and elephant child were standing i stretched people pouring out of the gates pouring into the gates i did my quasi pseudo yogi kind of stretches next to some guy who had a rack of john lennon photos

some middle age guy i'd say he was south asian darker skinned greying at the temples our eyes met he pointed at the john lennon photo i smiled he smiled i wonder if he ever listened to lennon i wondered if lennon ever listened to him

lennon is god is jesus he gave his life for our sins

i opted out of purchasing a photo despite the temptation to consume as taught by the elephant i reached to the heavens once more right arm extended upward left arm left hand holding up left foot behind me bending forward until my dick hit the ground i picked it up and ran down the hill through the wildlife center up through the east side of the park up to the reservoir and around and then on around and then on around

i felt good

but i'm always intimidated when i run in new york i'm just doing my lazy one two three down the path i get passed by guys doing the fucking carl lewis doing the hurdles over the dead bodies lying in their path spitting on them if they're paying half attention they're obviously non-believers these dead guys maybe they're not dead maybe they're just resting running like fucking jim thorpe all muscular and beefcake doing the forced practiced breathing and worse they're good looking guys right off the cover of playgirl magazine that still around anyway they're probably gay

not that there's anything wrong with it

the women running by are all beautiful and bursting out of their running bras how many women in this great country really do have breast implants i just wonder i just wonder are they all running through the park with me today or am i just a natural tit man

i decide it's the former i mean yeah i'm a tit man no doubt about it but but but i love it all tits ass throat ankles wrists shoulders thighs calves ears eyes hair teeth but but but if i had to choose if given the sophie's choice i guess i'll select what's behind door number three bob

i dig the throat

i finished my run as i was coming down the dirt and gravel road along the west side of the park slowed to a jog slowed to a walk sweat pouring i sweat like the horny man i am that i remain back when i played a little round ball that's the orange round ball basketball for the uninitiated back when i played a little weekend basketball that was before i had my little string of concussions yeah something like four or five of them within a two year time frame never let it be said that weekend ball is for pussies not our game by fucking god back when i played a little round ball no one liked to cover me because i

sweated profusely finished my run opened up my little baggy of surprises that i had tucked away a twenty dollar bill my hotel room keycard a pack of matches and a fine gentlemanly joint imported from california i fired it up strike sizzle inhale cough breathe sigh ah yes walked through the coolness of the tunnel that went beneath some road going across the park going either this way or that out of the tunnel into the blue sky and lush greenery that is the park in august wandered through the great lawn

sat and watched these guys jamming freestyle on the disc bright green dayglo discs that floated spinning zzzzzz on the tips of their fingers as they danced across the lawn they were good most poetic i tripped memory lane shit back to my college days then my twenties when i jammed when i floated the magic plastic disc on my fingertips when i danced across the lawn then

i got older and didn't feel quite so limber maybe yoga will help

i watched for a little while then i watched their girlfriends for a little while then i wandered on back through the park headed south back out the way i came in i left the park i left this temple built by man for the gods above for the gods around us

wandered down through the streets weaving in between those leaving work and those not leaving work those heading somewhere and those not heading somewhere wandered by saint patrick's cathedral the doors were open people were entering and leaving i decided to be among those who entered

a marvelous structure a gift to man from god above from the goddess below assuming you accept this missionary position of the god's fucking some may argue the other way with the bitch riding on top me i like it anyway i can get it but especially like it when i take her from behind

more leverage don't you know and that little jack horner moment i like to stick in the thumb pull out a plumb baby

the ceiling went up to the heavens the sun from above striking through the stained glass a thousand ten thousand candles were lit flickering all around the edges a rack of candles positioned in front of the altar a sort of diorama really in front of the altars of various assorted saints and patrons of the church my favorite being the virgin mary the lady of guadalupe who appeared before juan diego himself one day many years ago in mexico my favorite being the virgin mary herself celestial patroness of the americas empress of the americas star of the new evangelization the mother of all mankind

we must heed her call to love

i sat for a while in one of the pews and took it all in the wonderment of it all the mysteriousness of it all this temple built by man for god here in new york new york city i sat there for ten minutes maybe a half hour i don't know i went up to the altar of the virgin it was in the back it was in a special place i was going to light a candle but there was a box there and on this box it said candle lightings were two dollars and

all i had was a twenty

i mean it was the honor system i probably could have lit a candle and not paid i saw others do it but as a law abiding citizen of the world i opted to forgo the lighting and instead said a simple prayer

oh holy goddess trapped in stone and plaster in this temple built by man for god thank you for taking me into your arms rocking me gently and delivering me back to shore

it is the only prayer that i ever truthfully murmur one that i whisper as i float on my back at the end of every swim in that beautiful body of water that i call the san francisco bay it is the only prayer that i really know since i made it up for myself i should know it it's the only prayer that i know so that's the prayer that i whispered there in front of the virgin mary there in saint patrick's cathedral in new york new york city

i wandered further down fifth avenue smiling at everyone i met i mean we were not properly introduced so i do not mean met as in hey how're you doing but more in the we have met the enemy and he is us kind of way wandered further down fifth avenue felt the oncoming pangs of dinner hunger ventured into grand central station the priests and bishops of protection stood guard all around straps on shoulders fingers on triggers of their em sixteens

my friend charlie kay back home when i was growing up in south georgia he used to hunt deer with an em sixteen but it wasn't the same kind of gun he said smiling he would say that his was different because his was only a semi-automatic not fully-automatic charlie he knew a lot about guns he should have he must have had about three dozen of them sitting in his house

charlie kept the guns loaded never knew when the race wars might start never knew when the feds might decide that guns and militias no matter the second amendment that guns and militias were a bad thing try to get rid them black helicopters secret service united nations all that shit but we all know

that's crazy talk

people were rushing down this side hall and that side hall as trains were called heading to connecticut to new jersey to scarsdale wherethefuckever they seemed in a hurry can't say i blame them there are motherfuckers with loaded guns and uniforms standing about if i had half the brains god gave a donut hole i'd be running screaming as well

panic in the streets

running and screaming myself but i'm hungry and have other pressing things on my mind i should have gone to the oyster bar gone and bellied up to the oyster bar and all its

cultural heritage

but i still had on my sweaty tee shirt my sweaty running shorts my new nike free shoes just like running barefoot so goes the marketing hype i head down the stairs down another set of stairs and into the food court red and yellow black and white they are precious in her sight food from china to lebanon to texas to india and back to new york i go with indian

a little vegetable curry a little rice and a potato samosa

i pay twenty-five cents extra and buy a new york post complete with the gotti chick on the cover god i always wanted to fuck a gangster's wife daughter whatever the fuck she is but i don't think i can fuck her i might cut my hand as i grab onto her hair and push her down onto my cock that hair looks like a shredded fiberglass helmet just waiting to draw blood

i read all about gotti and her breast cancer false alarm story to get publicity for growing up gotti read about this killing and this kidnapping and this guy getting arrested for indecent exposure like sure like we all haven't committed the crime of pulling out our wankers in a public place i mean

how else does one show their pleasure of meeting certain special people

grand central station a marvelous temple built by man to please the gods of the suburbs

three temples central park saint patrick's cathedral grand central station all i had time for today just three but three's a beautiful thing don't you know it

three temples and all that

 whipping through the eucalyptus stands in the presidio up the curvy hill out the arguello gate

gotta go get my baby ring ring she say stella say she say i'll meet you there

toyboat on clement my man the toyman not there but his coffee and scones are i sit in the window stare out at the saturday morning grey grey day been pretty grey the last few days some say ten days some say two weeks i don't count i don't mind i like the grey fog i like a grey morning on clement steet

it bustles like bugtussle on saturday morning

they used to call it little chinatown maybe they still do ducks hanging in the windows across the street little dim sum shops bean buns in steamers fruit and vegetable stands big ol' fish laid out on ice guys in white coats with knives cutting them according to the chop chop demands of the customers

a cacophony of mandarin cantonese english russian spanish even the car horns have accents toyboat on clement my man the toyman not there but his coffee and scones are i sit in the window temple eman-uel right up the street

saturday morning need to go say kaddish

toyboat waiting waiting services start at ten thirty today's parsha the shema adonai elohaynu adonai echad yeah right speaking of only one god the goddess herself she sits in the booth back in the corner surfboard short board on the bench across from her fins propped up on the black vinyl pointed tip leaning up against the black board where the toyman has his colored chalk menu

all the rage don't you know i know this girl that's all she does she writes nice pretty letters in colored chalk on black boards all day long does it in her apartment i imagine it's quite chalky her apartment i wonder if she brought home a young man late one evening had her way with him

would he leave the next morning trailed by a powdery day glow aura

goddess herself sits in the booth back in the corner she wearing her mukluks on naked legs naked all the way up to that raggedy baggety sweatshirt lovely throat coming out poking out the other end classic surfer's shark's tooth on leather cord tooth hanging sitting right there right there at the bottom of the windpipe taut yet oh so smooth so soft so strong so frail and

vulnerable

short dark hair wet combed back loosely over the ears

strength

sweet goddess of strength and beauty

she is everywhere i look this morning sweet goddess is everywoman earlier visited my own temple swam in the dark flat waters fog resting just above my stroke way out in the middle of the cove in the middle of the opening i run into the deacon of the ark he who is named for the building of the great vessel we swim out toward fort mason catch the tide back in nice push she grabbed me by the short hairs and dragged me to shore

me and the deacon we hold morning services the church of the roof of the southend rowing club the pelicans fly over the gulls flap and sing from the choir loft the tourists huddle below chilled to their bone by her foggy august sun me and the deacon of the ark

the herb is smudged kyrie ellison we share the sacred

tangerine

walking back along the water the wildness of rubber snapping onto triathletic womanly bodies broad shoulders strong backs legs long and black thank you goddess for blessing me with such a rubber fetish i must stop and stare i don't mean to stare but i know of no other way to take it all in

they so frown upon my tasting

wander around from toyboat to temple eman-uel runners blonde brunette redhead striding up the arguello hill spandex running bras holding them together taut tight little bellies sporting cute little belly buttons flashing by as i saunter down the hill past the senator's house

yes we go today to say kaddish on the day that they will talk of the shema ain't it funny we go to mourn life but we can still celebrate life there is so much so much so much and it's all so beautiful red and yellow black and white they are precious in her sight don't know if i can abide by that

one and only god

thing i mean look around you i'm looking out my window right now little urban garden rhododendron blooming red some other big green thing hanging long purple tubular bells right beside it who are we to say that two different gods different opinions on form over fashion style over substance they compromised each took their own shot at it

then there's the lightening bolt guy

and what about santy clause and the chick who designed the black widow spider you know it was a woman come on the bitch eats her fucking husband after fucking him there ain't no what a way to die thoughts going through this worshiper's head nosirree bob i'll keep my mind on the beautiful things this morning thank you one and only god sure tell me tell me who made the

tangerine

and who made the porcupine i mean you got your basic fruit and vegetable guy then you got your god dudes sitting around hanging out round the tee vee sniffing glue and thinking up strange creatures yo man yo dude just listen up i got this idea like let's make this fucking little rodent like thing you know and and and just for kicks let's put a bunch of fucking quills sharp motherfucking quills all over his body that would be so fucking awesome

dude

yeah then there's that motherfucker blessed me with my rubber fetish i don't know about this

one and only god

thing that's oh kay that's all right don't mind mixing it up a little bit don't mind a little bit of dis a little bit of dat the kellog's variety pak of gods and goddesses

i remember when i was a kid i'd get one of those little boxes of frosted flakes cut it open right down the middle of tony's soft white underbelly crack it open slice open the wax paper lining pour the milk right in right there in the box

i'm a box of frosted flakes for you stella cut me open pour in the milk i'm all you need i'll stand beside you while we say kaddish i'll stand and say the name with you whisper the name of the sister who weaves leaves of grass of physiology from top to toe i'll sing

from kaddish to kiddish from tears to smiles from mournful chanting to happy talk

one god two gods red god blue god snap crackle and pop and all that

i saw a dolphin in the midst of a feeding frenzy didn't see the whole dolphin but i saw a fin i saw a blow hole not to be confused with a glory hole i saw many fish jumping to get the fuck out of the way

one fish two fish red fish blue fish

i saw a brown pelican several egrets and a blue crane flying over the mangroves i did not see a manatee but my nephew told stories of manatees stranded in roadside water-filled ditches that line the side of the lonely roads cutting across the state tamiami trail and such i saw probably ten thousand seven hundred and forty-seven geckos i did not see any alligators but we me and my nephew we told alligator stories

we both wondered if there really are ten foot alligators sliding through the sewers of new york city i said yes i'm a believer he doubts it said it was an urban myth methinks he probably suffers from the effects of too much education too much education can blunt one's faith

we walked through the mangroves that line the water that form that loose boundary between air conditioned condo high rises and the brackish water that seeps into the gulf of mexico walked down a trail to the water to the naples pier that jutted out into the water the sign said naples pier but we were in fort meyers don't know how that happened i guess it could have been some holdover from earlier days but i don't think so things don't last so long down in that neck of the woods

ol momma earth she seems to reclaim her own whenever she gets the chance

walk through the mangroves akin to walking through a foliage laden steam bath sizzle sizzle szzzzzzzz geckos dancing i remember i remember used to be such a wild place wild wild place goddamn i will the mangroves to rise up rise up and take down these condos pull them down into the swamp suck them down into this brackish mud

everything so fucking manicured disney and jeb bush down here in eff elle aay

i stood on the end of the pier looked out over the flat flat water all i saw at first all i saw in the beginning ripples appeared many ripples many many ripples little big water nipples popping up all over the fin cruising toward the rippling nippling brackishness rounded going this way going that way arcing snort out of the blowhole fish jumping leaping

panic in the streets

the breeze picked up late afternoon heat lightening flashed all around snap it baby crackin' it good and crisp clouds built up brother-in-law he says afternoon rain every day sometime between four and five still can't wash his sorrow away fucking noah's floods could sweep down carry away the whole state it's never going to be clean this place

the stench of death hangs over this place like mudflaps on a swamp buggy nothing can be this scrubbed and clean and not be dying sweet jesus the funeral home was white miami vice white with a big open foyer complete with skylight glowing white light a white fountain spewing white water our room stella's sister's room off to the right it's white too white with white carpet

death must be white

death dust me white

not many people there family mostly couple of their friends they hadn't lived there long don't know why how they picked this miserable fucking corner of the world to live they weren't old they had made a little money in the old why two kay thing both being in the software biz made a little money they could have moved anywhere maybe they knew something maybe they knew something maybe they just

understood

the way of the world the way of the universe knew that god had a waiting room called florida thought they'd make it easy on the old guy on the old lady take your pick maybe moses himself had taken a liking to her had whispered into her ear pssst hey little girl bet on bonita to show in the fifth move to florida don't worry about the hurricanes i'll take care of you

hurricane charlie came sweeping in a little south a little north right on the money then popped up north at the last minute moses didn't lie in fact but he might have lied through omission

who knows maybe if she had known she might nada moved there had she known who knows seems to me that she might have seen that fin sliding through the slough

other brother-in-law he spoke he cried we cried stella she spoke she cried we cried she chanted kaddish yit-gadal v'yit-kadash we followed along some of us chanted with her i chanted some i mumbled some stella's sister's spouse he cried we cried stella's sister's daughter she had a baby girl eighteen months she stood in her daddy's lap and laughed giggled we smiled stella's sister had eighteen months of sunshine breaking through the clouds cumulus nimbus motherfuckers that they were

that was good that was a good thing

one and only oldest son he was only a little older when stella's mom passed on one and only daughter she was a little younger when my mom passed on i guess i'm an orphan stella's sister's kids they are orphans now stella her old man he lives in this place outside of dee cee but thinks he lives in the bronx sometimes thinks he lives in brooklyn sometimes thinks he lives out on the island sometimes stella hell she's all but an orphan

what the fuck maybe we'll adopt

i can't stand florida i'm not a vengeful guy i'm not but if there's a vengeful god maybe just maybe i am in love though i'd follow stella through snake pits i'd follow stella through hell itself i guess a couple of days in florida falls in line lot's of food sent by friends we sit around the condo many floors above the mangrove air conditioning blowing played many games of scrabble other nephew beat me something like eight games in a row

getting him stoned didn't seem to work but it did narrow the gap

we had bagels we had lox we had brownies we drank coffee many beers were drunk several bottles of wine were drunk all very civilized when my old man kicked i opened his bottle of knob creek passed it around when my uncle ben kicked we drank a bottle of wild turkey poured another bottle into a creek where he hung as a kid lot of process flowing through the room the very white room my family never did much processing of death

my grandfather kicked they say god took him stella's sister didn't go so easy didn't go so easy into that night stella's sister's spouse was there she was fine that morning had a good morning he said then it wasn't so good came quick he said the pain he cried telling us about the pain we cried hearing about the pain i'm crying writing about the pain no god of kindness would invoke that kind of pain waves and waves and waves

until it was over and she was dead that ain't right that ain't the way it should be not even time for a cup of coffee before she left just thrown onto the conveyer belt ashes to ashes

dust to dust

vengeful god wrathful god fuck you god dolphin in a feeding frenzy and all that

Yit-gadal ve-yit-kadash shemay rabba (Amen)
Be-al-ma dee vra chi-roo-tay ve-yam-lich mal-choo-tay
Be-chay-ay-chon oov-yom-ay-chon
Oov-chay-yay de-chol bayt Yisrael
Ba-agala oov-iz-man kariv ve-imroo amen.

Ye-hay she-may rabba me-vorach le-alam ool-al-may al-may-ya.

Yit-barach ve-yish-ta-bach
Ve-yit-pa-ar ve-yit-rom-am ve-yit-nas-say
Ve-yit-hadar ve-yit-aleh ve-yit-hal-lal
She-may de-kood-sha (B'rich Hoo)
B'rich hoo.

Le-ayla min kol bir-cha-ta ve-shira-ta
Toosh-be-cha-ta ve-ne-che-ma-ta
Da-amiyran be-alma ve-imroo Amen

 

yeah sugar sugar let me lay it down for you let me slide you a sentence murmur some words let them roll off my silver tongue over my lips dribble down chin drip drip drop let them dance in the air splatter so sweetly onto your

tummy

dance dance splatter puddle words all a-jumble sentences all out of whack in some sort of william esse burroughs cut up strewn across the room in some sort of manic approach to find meaning a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wonder white bread all smushed up turned inside out red purple brown white turned in and among itself swirls still magically delicious lawdy lawdy still sweet still sticky still sticky sweet

how do i make sense of it all

swimming in these words watching them dance do the boogie ballet on your pretty pretty tummy they these words they stretch the imagination they stretch the truth they hell they stretch your soul turn it in and among itself swirls still magically delicious stretch it baby they these words they these words they ain't lies they ain't the truth they just be

story goddamn

come on baby just let me see you express yourself

word goddamn

standing up in the pew dancing in the aisle hands up palms facing forward shimmy shimmy shake speaking in tongue yah jah i be speaking in tongue guttural channeling the lord oh lawdy my cock tall as the tower of babel itself word after word after word babelizing baby i know not what i say don't believe a word i say i will lay down a word i will lay down a seven-letter quilted atop a triple word score that connects a zee an aitch a jay connects my finger slipping inside your

womanly lovepot

wiggle words how do you make sense of it all you can't you don't just let 'em float down and dance on your tummy i mean they ain't malicious these words ain't nothing bad ain't nothing evil ain't nothing but love lust whatever you get what you came for i will whisper if you want i will whisper if that's what you need i will growl these words if that's what you want if that's what you need i will utter them teeth on tit if that's what you want if that's what you need i will i will grope grab grip your curly locks and scream them to the masses as i steal away your innocence thrusting maxims pumping proverbs baby do as i say not as i do if

that's what you want if that's what you need just let the words wash away your sins how do you make sense of it all i'll gather all these words i'll sweep them up clean them up slide them up me phatjohn the baptist i will take you by the throat throw you back plunge you into the river jordan save you from your own fucking self i am the rapture darling don't go looking for it under some rock don't go looking for it up on some cross don't go looking for it atop some mountain

read my lips

words darting forth spreading you where you need to spread opening you where you need to open let my lips lead you down the path to righteousness darlin' you so righteous ain't nothing this wet ain't nothing this sloppy wet ain't nothing that tastes smells so sweet ain't nothing like this that ain't righteous baby you be so righteous

let it linger let it last

let it mount let it build let it all spill out whore to my word slut to the syllables slipping down my chin collapse in the cum of acts one two and three such a climatic third act collapse into my love you collapse into dreams enshrouded dreams wrapped dreams held tight by me you us

words meaningless meaningful she loves me she loves me not she loves me and all that

 

 

stella's sister slipped away slipped away stella's sister slipped away

toodle loo toodle loo

stella's sister slipped away

she slid stella's sister she did i think she went to sleep she never woke up i think she may have been in pain lord i hope not but she was not well i haven't seen her hadn't seen her since one and only youngest son's bar mitzvah last december she went home she went to the doctor the doctor he said stella's sister you ain't well there's these things they are all over your liver

stella's sister she sought other doctors she went up to dee cee went to enne eye aitch no maybe it was gee dubya i guess i wasn't paying attention i should have paid more attention

stella knows but she's on a plane now

headin' to florida

ain't words funny bunch of sounds bouncing round inside your head bubbling up from within from without phone rings it's stella i'm down at a client's office i'm in an office there they've given me an office phone rings it's stella hey sugar how's your day

my sister died

oh baby i'm so so sorry damn i'm so so sorry

she says stella she says yeah it sucks it pretty much sucks

ain't words funny ain't they so funny couple three words dribbles off her lips my sister died shit stella's sister she did this chemo thing it didn't really help stella and her other sister the middle sister stella she is the baby middle sister is nine years older and oldest sister is was eleven years older stella is the baby sister

she my baby too and there ain't a thing i can do to make it better

stella's sister she slipped away she tried a couple of things mostly she just slowly slipped away stella went to florida to hang with her a little they talked a lot on the phone stella could just talk to her wasn't much to say about treatments wasn't much to say about being sick hell that was out there they just talked stella she can just talk she can get anyone to just talk

sometimes she kicks me when i don't want to talk stella she can get just about anyone to talk didn't say how

stella's sister was eleven years older than stella stella's sister had a daughter that was eleven years younger than stella i always liked the balance something about the symmetry just tickles my soul tickles my buddha belly stella and her other sister they've had a rough few months they look at death differently i guess we all look at death differently but they looked at stella's sister's death her dying they looked at it differently

she says stella she says yeah it sucks it pretty much sucks stella she's the baby she my baby too and there ain't a thing i can do to make it better

stella she's on a plan going to florida

i'm so sorry baby

dead sisters and all that

day one low trail river trail down a cliff side through these swampy woods so much water this year mosquitos thick as the air is thin followed the river trail up the side of a canyon then past garnett lake and on up to thousand island lake yeah yeah sure i counted them kind of lost count at twelve though take my word there's a thousand just keep looking

i lost my fucking nalgene

set up camp mid afternoon ate some snacks smoked a bowl maybe another yeah possibly a third went for a swim walked down to the lake crystal clear we can see the pass we're crossing tomorrow north glacier pass yeah the name fits the snow drops all the way down to the lake twenty five hundred feet below slides all the way into the lake so do we me my man pete my man joe one and only oldest son he one and only he says

hey poppa

he says why you gotta get all naked just to go swimming i don't really listen to him i don't hear him i mean i can't really be hearing such nonsense i'm naked as quick as you can shake a stick i mean we are in the middle of nowhere in the comfort of the cunt of my goddess my earth she has opened herself to me i will not offend her i will offer her myself wholly and unselfishly but i don't say that i just said gotta get naked in the mountains it's the rule i swim out to one of the islands twenty forty feet deep but water so clear you can see bottom

scrub myself down with doc bronners

swim back to the rocky shore slide up and onto a big slab of granite lie down arms outstretched legs spread year of our lord all i'm missing is the loin cloth that and the bloody holes of course i'll skip that this round lie down on the slab of granite probably the same way i'm going to look when i die down in the city morgue stretched out on the slab the pathologist leaning over saying probing the red smiley slit slicing my throat saying

damn that woman she had passion

in that stroke the way i'm going to look when i'm dead and gone of course if stella goes and kills me in such a way i know i won't fault her but i gotta admit to being a bit squeamish around blades i mean i know that i stand a good chance of dying a violent death but this knife thing is the one that gets to me i know i know probably worse ways to go i definitely don't want to go by fire don't want to die from a toothache ain't nothing worse than a toothache but something about the sweaty nervous feeling i get when i think about dying by blade

damn that woman she had passion

about dying by blade yeah that fucking gets to me lie down on the slab of granite probably the same way i'm going to look when i die down in the city morgue stretched out on the slab no matter how i die no matter how stella decides to end it all for me no matter how i know that i'll also have a big ol' hole in my heart as well

stella you can kill me forever over and over do me by any means necessary mix it up for variety or go all zeus on me prometheus style hanging on the rock zeus would not have tortured him so if he had not loved him but baby but baby please just leave me my heart don't leave a hole where my heart should be

how else would i love you don't you know

pinch pinch a bite here a bite there then another on my ass ah shit i notice i've lain on a big old slab of granite that also happened to be popular with the six-legged crowd including some kind of wild ferocious man-eating mountain ant i jumped up

decided

it was time to get in the water again so i did i lost my dick just fucking disappeared didn't think that i had purchased the detachable kind but i lost my dick water so cold i mean it's only a fucking melting glacier of a lake i guess one and only oldest son doesn't have to worry about being embarrassed i mean officially technically

if you can't see my dick i ain't naked

next day next day that'd be day two up and at 'em up through the pass trudging up first through the meadow then through the rocks then through the snow all the while that motherfucking pass just standing tall up there at the end of the canyon standing tall at the end of the hallway flipping us off fucking tired everything in slow motion yeah yeah i know it ain't some fucking climb up everest into thin fucking air but kicked my ass hyperthermia set in one point i looked down into the snow thought shit that ain't such a bad place to stop and take a nap looks kind of comfy

but i don't

finally get up to the top shivering the guys reach into my pack bring out some dry clothes my man pete provides me with some homeopathic love arnicum something or other choke down some crackers gatorade some dried fruit we continue on we ain't even half way there dropped down around fucking tallus i hate fucking tallus i wrote a haiku about tallus

oh fuck you tallus
tremendously large phallus
stuck right up my ass

tallus fucking everywhere going up going down going around the fucking mountain to twin lakes ain't no getting there without going over this fucking tallus my man pete he says he's still having tallus nightmares step after step after step after fucking step through a keyhole and across this river had to stop and take off our boots ford the fucker lots of water of course we pick a place to ford not thirty feet upstream from a thirty forty fifty foot water fall said fall going down

don't slip motherfucker i ain't carrying your dead limp body home from here this will become your own little personal river styx

we make it through ain't no turning back now ain't no turning back we made it to twin lakes another two three bowls a colder swim some chow some whiskey some stars my man joe gives us an astronomy lesson how in the hell did those motherfuckers figure those things out can't tell me they weren't tripping their sacred butts off

tents sleeping bags toasty toasty snooze good night's sleep and all that

 

 

oakdale for breakfast not this morning sunday morning this morning i sat in the lower haight had coffee double shot depth charge really had a scone blueberry low fucking fat too to boot sat there with my bloody toes still kind of hurts to put on shoes probably didn't help that i went for a run fucking feet forgive me for i know not what i do people walking down the sidewalk tres hip chicks and dudes still wearing last night's leather i can see them glancing down at the bloody stumps that used to be my toes hard to be sunday morning hip and squeamish all at the same time this was san francisco lower haight but last week ten days ago oakdale for breakfast oakdale california central valley

i miss ma's can't find a real ma's anymore yeah yeah even ma's ain't ma's anymore what happened to the ma's of the country used to be used to sprinkle the roads the highways the crossroads way back when back in south georgia we had ma groover's pig and pit one time when i was in college i had this girlfriend she was from canada i took her home to valdosta took her to a real diner took her to ma's meat two vegetables biscuit iced tea peach cobbler three dollars and twenty-five cents took her to ma's down on south patterson south forty-one my girlfriend anna from canada and i we sat a a little formica table i chewed on my fried chicken anna she chewed on her fried chicken then she dropped her chicken she said grabbing my arm in that concerned way they do in the movies she grabbed my arm she said

i think ma's sick

i turned around saw ma leaning over the sink near the stove behind the counter ma round this time this time being circa summer nineteen seventy-nine ma round this time being bout one hudred forty-three and half years old saw ma leaning over the sink big drool streaming out of her mouth i said nah she ain't sick she's just chewing tobacco got to spit somewhere i ate my chicken anna she went out to the car she didn't want to give me head later that day don't know why she got pissed off at me i mean i didn't chew tobacco

i chewed tobacco back when i was thirteen chewed tobacco the summer i was thirteen that shit'd fuck you up put a big old wad of redman stuff a big old chew up in there that shit go straight to your head riding on back of a tractor one day cousin ben driving a tractor through some peanut field holding on to cousin ben's shoulders standing behind him big old chew in my mouth spitting big old streams off to the side cousin ben hit a big old bump that big old chew went down my throat in a big old gulp

sick for three days i decided to quit chewing round bout that summer

my grandma ran a small diner breakfast lunch restaurant down in southwest georgia cuthbert georgia ran it for a while breakfast lunch best fucking biscuits the secret being the lard shit i reckon money i hope woman named mattie worked in the back she made the biscuits salt flour lard what else do you need mattie made the cobbler too sometimes left out the fruit just called it butter roll she made the cornbread too made it in a skillet in the oven flat greasy dip it in turnip likker mattie would get to the restaurant around four in the morning maybe earlier during deer season she'd make these things called scotch eggs take a hardboiled egg wrap sausage meat round it deep fry it wrap it up in foil deer hunters'd take them keep their hands warm sitting up there in their deer stands then they'd eat them keep their insides warm

around lunch time once off the stand a mighty shit was guaranteed i took the winter off from junior year of college hung out at her restaurant just sat in a booth drank coffee until it was time to drink iced tea until it was time to drink beer talked to the folk took notes on the side my grandma she'd point over at me say that there's my grandson he's trying to write a book he thinks we might give him ideas thinks we might be some sort of character might get his writing gears in motion so's he can be the next faulkner except she didn't say faulkner my grandma she never read faulkner she just knew that i found her customers including herself to be subject matter i don't think she took to that too kindly

don't blame her young folk they think they know everything then we never outgrow that i never wrote my faulkner book hell i never even wrote a poor facsimile of a walker percy book i might write a story one day one of my grandma's customers this redneck named earl he liked to sit at my booth and tell me tall tales told me he went bow hunting one day and shot himself in the leg as he fell down a tree because he got drunk sitting in his deer stand told me how he had to pull out the arrow just like they did in the movies had to pull it all the way through and then crawl back through the brush three miles to find his truck but he lost his keys when he fell out of the tree so he had to hotwire the truck nearly killed him to drive since it was an old sixty-three chevy with three on the tree meaning he had to use his wounded leg to use the clutch

my grandma told me i was a damn fool to believe anything earl told me then she'd pour us both a cup of coffee

nine of us left san francisco around nine in the morning ten if you count scottie our driver we hired scottie to drive us to mammoth we decided on oakdale for breakfast we used to stop in escalon in escalon they had this old country restaurant with old country food but they closed it a few years ago so now we just to oakdale but in oakdale the so called old country restaurants aren't that much different from denny's they all used the same old formulaic shit the primary difference is the decor i mean

where can a man get a decent fucking biscuit

for breakfast maybe a little sawmill gravy that ain't out of a fucking can the world has been denny-ized in valdosta georgia when i lived there we had a denny's but before it was a denny's it was a sambo's you know as in little black sambo the whole theme of the place was the old story you know the tiger said little black sambo i'm going to eat you up

scottie only had three fingers on his right hand two fingers really with a little faux thumb in the middle when he shook your hand felt like the little faux thumb was goosing your palm i had biscuits and gravy at this faux country restaurant in oakdale the faux gravy came out of a can our man scottie drove us in a big van he scottie lives in mammoth came down picked us up we told stories the whole way up in between breakfast farts wasn't the smell quite so much as it was the green mist that burned our eyes

misty misty burn baby burn

riding through the central valley cowboy museum in oakdale folk art stores paul's indian art burl wood art large carvings of bears standing on their haunches beavers cougars with claws extended hot as hell in the central valley triple figures ain't rare cowboy museum brings up tales about favorite westerns me i dig 'em circa nineteen fifty-five to nineteen seventy wild bunch rio bravo magnificent seven i like 'em in color although the man who shot liberty valance black and white classic together for the first time john wayne jimmie stewart my early heroes

lee marvin he be so fucking cool

nine of us on the trip never been up on the mountain with a group so big me one and only oldest son my man pete his kid his kid's friend my man joe this dude gee his kid as well my man pete's nephew we're heading up to do part of roper's route it's in his book get off trail quickly stay that way most of the trek it kind of goes like this we start in mammoth agnew meadow on trail to thousand island lake off trail through north glacier pass around banner peak down to lake catherine up and around to twin lakes up around to bench canyon the most beautiful place i've ever lay my head up up around blue lake through blue lake pass down around the final snow-cupped glacier down down down catch a trail then ford lyle creek up up then down down to merced lake through lost forest down down misty trail to yosemite valley a cross between camp gucci disneyland and four aitch camp stay in a tent cabin take the train back to san francisco

all in all maybe fifty sixty miles seven days a day of rest in the middle giving thanks in the temple of the goddess wandering about bench canyon in a mid-trip head-trip soul-trip kyrie ellison our man scottie he drove us to mammoth that's what he does he drive people to and from and around mammoth he lives there does community theater something about euripedes we stop a couple more times on the way up gee man needs to smoke a cig i need to take a leak we stay in a cheap motel in mammoth first night econo lodge gee man gets a kick out of doing the indian accent of the owner patel motel that it is the kids get their own room i knock on their door half hour later

fucking deer in headlights

just got caught look in their eyes all sheepish like this will be one of those ten year later stories hey dad remember when we went to mammoth that time you came in our room betcha didn't know we were rolling joints i'll say get outa here no shit hey don't ask don't tell i guess they'll laugh i'll laugh oldest son is going to college in the fall moving out of the house he's a man i guess that's what men do

they move on

we walked around mammoth got acclimated to the altitude bought some muffins pastries bear claws hey had to buy a couple of bear claws chocolate croissants because oldest son totally digs 'em for breakfast wandered off to dinner came back read some i was finishing slaughterhouse five so it goes segueing into pete dexter's deadwood made sense to me studied some maps fucked around with my boots folded up my favorite purple bandanna it's been around my neck the last ten or more years smoked a bowl went to bed big hike started in the morning

moving on oakdale scotch eggs mohammad on the mountain day one and all that

my old man he went to korea in nineteen and fifty-one he was twenty-two he had two years of junior college under his belt they made him a sergeant when i was twelve in nineteen and seventy-one i used to wear one of his old army shirts as a jacket because

that's what was cool

i'd walk down the street wearing the olive forest green shirt with my last name sewn over the pocket the sergeant stripes on each arm the third army patch on one something about the eighty-fifth something or other on the other ragged jeans dragging through the dust carrying my steppenwolf album singing don't step on the grass sam not really knowing what the fuck i was singing fashion is so transcendent we also use to run around the countryside creeks fields woods trails that were our neighborhood with bee bee guns pretending we were soldiers sometimes we chose up sides and shot each other the fucking bee bee's hurt when they found home i'm lucky that

i didn't put my eye out

but one time davey scheffler shot at me shot me on the inside of my thigh he was hiding behind this horse in a field i crossed that field holding my own gun crossed the field in that stalking crouching kind of walk that we had all learned in the movies learned in movies like patton and the guns of navarrone and the dirty dozen how fuck did charles bronson go from being wladlislaw to having a fucking death wish he davey scheffler ambushed me i turned for some reason i could see the fucking bee bee flying through the air at me i just watched it coming at me fucking mesmerized i was it didn't come straight at me but rather in a kind of reverse curve like the cocksucker had been on the mound throwing a slider i stood there open stance my own bee bee gun going up to my shoulder slowly too slowly still watching the gold copper brass ball sail twist scream through the muggy august afternoon watched the motherfucker pop me right on the inside of my thigh inside of my levi's

pop

then it dropped into the dust i picked it up and put it in my pocket wasn't going to let the cocksucker know he hurt me that's not how it was played because i knew what was what i knew

that's what was cool

my old man he went to korea never said much about korea except how much he hated korea when i was growing up in the sixties when i was just an impressionable little asshole in the sixties nobody ever said anything about korea about vietnam all the shit was still about germany and japan and dubya dubya eye eye i mean when we played war when we roamed around the neighborhood shooting the shit out of each other we were either americans otherwise known as the good guys or we were the krouts jerries japs nips otherwise known as

the bad guys

the battle of the bulge stalag seventeen the great escape hell even bridge over the river kwai never mentioned korea we never heard about korea never had any concept of korea much less the korean war kind of a non-war kind of a non-place all i knew was that my old man went there there was a war there he was a soldier he was a sergeant he wore an army uniform with sergeant stripes on the sleeves he didn't really care for korea i guess you could say he hated it there

my old man never took me camping said he did all the camping he ever wanted to do he did in korea so

i hated korea

too sometimes i went camping with my buddy craddock's family they had one of these tent trailers i felt up his sister in that tent trailer she was a year younger she had a crush on me i didn't have a crush on her but i had a crush on feeling up girls she was a girl still is i assume don't really know many many years ago hey i was am only human when i got older when i went away to college i still liked to feel up girls i figured out more things to do with girls i figured out how to get my finger wet i figured out how to check the lipstick on my dipstick i started backpacking up in the mountains i liked to go to tallulah gorge up in north georgia i liked to go up springer mountain and onto the appalachian trail i liked to go to cherokee north carolina

i loved to take a canoe back into the okefenoke swamp do mushrooms and talk to the alligators

it was kind of disturbing when they talked back big teeth and all i just liked to be outside i just liked to roam through the countryside barefooted i thought myself a disciple of jesus himself except for the praying and church part i had had enough of the praying and church part funny thing was when i did go to church they used to recite this affirmation of faith they had the apostle's creed and yeah get this they had

the korean creed

i never could figure out that one but it was right there preacher would say hey let's shake things up a little bit let's not do the apostle's creed today lets do

the korean creed

what the fuck i've been away these last few days this past week or so i went to the mountain the mountain would not come to me i went to the mountain i climbed the mountain i sat on a rock high up in the mountains in the sierra nevadas i carried a heavy pack i slept in a tent i ate freeze dried food and spam i smoked copious amounts of

marijuana

i spoke of things material and spiritual i discussed things material and spiritual i swam in streams that had been glaciers moments before i lay naked on big flat rocks i trudged across snow i balanced on tallus i marched the death march for many many miles i think that i even learned to fly but that's a secret one must use power wisely remember icarus you know motherfucker got too high

it can happen to any of us

if we're not careful i took care i took notice i took a lot of notes but best of all i took my boy took my one and only oldest son with me he's eighteen he climbed the rocks like a man he carried a pack like a man we stood on a rocky ledge together midway through the trip we stood on a rocky ledge just on the downward side of blue lake pass standing on a big rock almost twelve thousand feet above sea level and at least a couple thousand feet above the lake below i kissed him on the cheek i told him of my pride i told him that the moment that very moment could possibly be the happiest moment of my life he said

thanks poppa

and i cried a single tear that the wind swept away he bounced down the mountain like the fucking billy goat he turned out to be i tried to follow

when did he pass me

korean war korean creed happy moments and all that