they closed the beach they didn’t close the fog

from kelly’s cove all the way down to the zoo whatcha gonna do running down the broad walk along the seawall just wanting to know what to know

there are so many things we just don’t know just couldn’t know never imagine knowing then don’t you know one day maybe just one moment serendipity she just lays it on us light bulb over the noggin a david byrne how did i get here smack on the forehead

eureka

just lays it on us sometime just a dribble from a dropper sometimes the old bucket propped up on the door sill poured all over us in some absurd surreal tom and jerry mashup

shit

most of the times though most of the times they’re just the odd sock lost in the depths of dryer hell never to escape the watchful eyes of cerebus never to be found again but fuck

we can’t ever stop looking

running along the beach but not on the beach the beach is closed to the gee pee bloody fucking toxins burst forth from a drunken sailor drunk on oil and our greed all our fucking greed addiction we can’t help ourselves we just can’t stop can we running along the beach this beach so desolate where are the surfers where are the bundled babes not quite nuns lo they have given up men to sit and stare at the setting sun married not to christ but to a daily moment comprised of that longing sigh disguised as spiritual contentment tantric sex with apollo himself not enough to make her sweat just a bit of perspiration beneath the lip the upper lip above the slightly trembling lower where are the dogs shitting in the sand one owner dutifully picking it up with just a wee bit of arrogance a wee bit of piety using his blue plastic let all the neighbors know the new york times is delivered here bag to scoop the poop another looking both ways before surreptitiously covering the defecant with small piles of  sand previously exposed to whale seal and fish shit

so desolate

barricades

little people in white haz mat suits carrying spatulas moon walking amongst the rocks wiping them down with white cloths a hundred hazels oh baby where is your feather duster

they closed the beach they didn’t close the fog she swept in with a seductive chill i want to do the hills are alive dance run around spin around naked in her cool arms i want to stand still atop the dune cock in hand let her icy lips slip and slide and stroke make me shiver and shake make me shake and bake kind of thing make me lie awake at night turn me inside out twirl me like a top make me do the snake dance in the aisle of the church sanctuary goddamn it’s good to be alive goddamn it’s good

into the shower rush to the bus there are cards to play there is lady luck to seduce there is the

thirty one balboa

all the way from the beach heading downtown up past all of china as we know it chinese neon saint thomas chinese catholic church chinese laundry chinese food chinese after school get ahead extra math store fronts all scrubbed clean

spic and span

stare out the bus window my reflection stares back how did i get here how did all these people get here did they take a boat did they fly were they born here fuck just who are these people hey it’s cool i mean fuck the thing is here’s the thing the thing is we really are different snowflakes are us baby i’m good with that spice of life and all that i mean shit the little skinny slant eyed motherfuckers are kind of cute c’mon oh c’mon don’t get all high and mighty on me wink and a grin you know what i mean oh my oh my macau memories the way she grabbed that bar on the ceiling all stretched out in her bronze nubile self walking tippy toed across up and down my back her dainty digits dancing kneading the muscle me needing her nakedness squiggle wiggle torturous tease

once you go asian

where oh where are you tonight i stare out the bus window sailing along images go whisking by dorothy spinning up and through the twister ah the kim sisters with cunts so sugary sweet and tight such a wild night in dallas me and my buddy from back home in the midst of a drive across country we drove the ten hours from saint louis to texas in one stretch hauled ass across scrub and scrunch passed a sign in oklahoma that said

warning hitchhikers may be escaped inmates

caught up with the kim sisters ah once you go asian sisters of mercy sisters of fire skirts hiked up to their willing smiles the smell of pussy don’t you know it alters my willing mind like some wild mushroom my dick spins around crazily like some compass needle set next to a magnet all ten fingers get erections my tongue gets an erection my nose is hard and throbbing barroom madness hotel desire i rip open my shirt whispering from between gritted teeth let the wild rumpus begin

once you go asian we hole up in this hotel room with the korean sisters a night a couple of days who knows who was keeping score some dope a couple bottles whiskey a bag full of condoms our cowboy boots and a purpose the fog it whips up memories in the dark i still get a woodie thinking about those girls goddamn goodness in the dewy texas evening the sign by the side of the road said

warning hitchhikers may be escaping inmates

i said sure baby you can call me james dean and i’ll storm across texas wearing boots and a white tee i’ll sweep you off your feet tell you lies about love and respect convince you to suck my dick and swallow i’ll swear to you that as soon as i get to where i’m going i’ll send for you i’m a man of means in the morning i’ll sing to you maybe read you a poem to show you i’m different maybe i’ll tell you another lie a better lie but you gotta remember you just gotta know when i’m gone tomorrow i will never ever not once have told you that i love you

we made it to california cocks in hand

my friend the great battini he too went over to the dark side got himself a job down in the south of asia good looking blonde dude male model handsome let loose in hong kong bangkok manila with a liberal expense account and even more liberal morals ah battini once he went asian dude never came back  became the foreign correspondent for the spectator sending back sordid stories of lust greed love greed lingering explosive moneyed mayhem jump for me girl love me long time dude came home wrapped himself in nihilistic nectar so sweet so sordid he became an artist of the ardent and absurd he had this most masterful collage ten fifteen panels of poster board comprised of thousands of carefully cut out pictures of women nay goddesses from hundreds of magazines delightfully naked women of all makes models thoughtfully lovingly placed on the board one over beside beneath the other a shrine to beauty as he knew it he would spend hours at a time transfixed immersed sitting cross legged in his room the boards spread about him cut outs surrounding individuals bunches scissors to match the task a cutting board a razor a bottle of glue a black magic marker his little richmond district sand box san franciso so tame after such shenanigans in the asia pacific once you go asian

wink and a grin the bus glides down eddy street through the tenderloin past filipino transvestite transsexual hookers from transylvania can they see me do they notice me or do they only focus on being noticed well i do i do notice i imagine i stare starving into the window calendars float from the roofs of the downtown buildings the evenings misty confetti soup nineteen eighty one me chrono atlanta five ludes between us maybe more we ate them all we drank beers chrono he drove we cruised peachtree street up around fifth sixth seventh did the loop we were flying the lights shimmered in the damp summer night streaked in the darkness as we sailed by weaving in and out of traffic i’m glad chrono is driving he’s high as a kite but so am i if he’s gonna drive i guess i should ride with him it’s only right it’s only righteous i’m a righteous man i’m a just man i’m just a nobody man with a cock hard and twirling scared for my life scared of the rest of my life fuck i’m only twenty two

cute buxom blonde flags us down we pull into a parking lot she leans into my window passenger window her tits all squeezed together upside down bowls of banana pudding waiting for my tongue teeth tantrum she says smiling shining teeth all big and white throat long and white hair long and blonde she says hey you boys want to play our methaqualone masked tongues mumbled a response must have been in the positive she slides into the backseat leans between the bucket seats her hands going to our soon to be liberated cocks she says well

there’s just one thing you should know

she whispers stories of who she was who she now is we nod an understanding drool slides down our chin she says i want you both drive that way chrono points the car in the direction of her extended finger we follow instructions like school boys mesmerized by the thought the possibility of having our way her stories evaporating into the humidity of the georgia night we follow her up some back stairway to some cliché of a dark studio apartment we blunder in she spins us around has us drop trou we are puppies after milk stumbling stumbling scrambling she unbuttons her blouse those luscious tits escape their bastille our sopor swollen lips mate with hard pencil eraser nipples she falls back onto the bed with both of us on top of her we are suckling piglets on skin so smooth so smooth slide glide we grope her like blind men she has us strip lifts her skirt pulls down her panties lay on her side a lubed hand strokes my cock guides it into her ass as her mouth swallows chrono’s cock we me and chrono do the pushmepullyou eyes rolling up into our heads he gives i take he takes i give over and over she is but a piece of meat a piece we meet the disco biscuits giving us the dance of our lives until until until

she is standing up she has her skirt hiked up

her dangling useless cock appears from beneath a crying game of our own me chrono look at each other look at her at him at we don’t know we’re innocents just out of college we had no idea we don’t say a word we don’t speak we fall down the back steps zipping up buttoning up a cool breeze a clammy breeze hits us as we turn the corner slip away into the car our own cocks tucked beneath like the tails of whipped dogs we don’t say a word we don’t speak until one night four or five years later i’m back in atlanta on a business trip me and chrono we’re playing pool in a bar he’s kicking my ass i suck at pool chrono leans over to make a shot he says looking over his stick glancing across the green he says

you ever think about that night

i grin i say yeah don’t talk about it but yeah i think about it he says yeah he says you regret it i say not really anything to regret we went wild we let loose we just went where we went he says yeah i wish we hadn’t i said wow sorry man little too late for that can’t change it fuck just embrace it

chrono never really had a girlfriend after that

fuck

the bus sails on through the fog on toward downtown the tee girls on the sidewalk i wonder if they notice me like i notice them i have cards to play no time to play with them tonight i have money to lose friends to berate pals with whom i can pretend to be normal i love them like i love the guys we’re men real men let us go down to coffee house to play a gentlemanly game of cards smoke cigarettes drink hard liquor and double espressos until our eyes bulge our teeth grind our minds focus on granular thought for fleeting seconds let us hone this fine edge with cheap beers strong on carbonation weak on taste until we vomit on the table piss in our pants reek of vulgarity let us toast our position in society let us drop our pants proudly display our limp hanging dicks thanking god that we’re men

real men

they closed the beaches but they didn’t close the fog and all that

me josephus a telescoping butane lighter a joint a cold apartment a brand new heater an unlit pilot two stoners seeking adventure

something just ain’t right about this whole scene

something just a little bit dangerous in that stupid sort of way

me josephus sitting around the living room of my new flat out by the edge of the world couple of blocks from the old playland at the beach up near kelly cove down the hill from the sutro bath ruins those ruins i ran through only this morning massive pools sparsely overgrown with seagrass and guano running through following the path of the charred foundation meandering along long ago determined right angle patterns carved into the cliff side holding remnants of tide pools a giant heron standing on one leg in the middle of the larger pool a nearly still solitary statue its head perched high up on a long silvery neck only its extended head and beak moving oh so slowly tracking me following me around the circumference of his not so private bath

me josephus sitting around the living room kicking back resting from the exhaustive tour of my new place my new abode mi casa his first time over me i’ve been here three weeks probably only slept here four or five nights myself trips to honolulu atlanta amsterdam london elle ay keeping me away exhaustion driving me into minor bouts of insanity is there rehab for idiots is there a cure now i’m back in san francisco josephus over checking out my new digs the new hood just a mile from the house where stella still lives where stella still resides stella who stole my heart stella who i still love stella whose heart i broke who broke my heart humpty dumpty fell off the wall just too many pieces king’s men king’s horses just couldn’t pull it off just about a mile from the old place the former homestead so close but so far away i feel like i’ve emigrated to a new country a new world populated by eff oh bee chinese and russians a smattering of younger surfer dudes their girlfriends older weathered stoners like me not like me refugee homeless driven from the neighborhoods and downtown out to the edge of the sea and the scruffy fringes of golden gate sutro parks all we need is a nice little temblor to simply be rid of them all shake ‘em off into the ocean like snapping a crumb laden table cloth off the back porch stubborn sticky flaky morsels strewn about the evening meal fluffy dry biscuits sopped with cane syrup clinging desperately to the cloth is home please don’t drop me into the vast backcountry of the backyard only to be hoisted up carried away offered up to some fat sedentary queen of all that is evil and good all that is sour and sweet white and black skinny and fat

oh jack sprat

me josephus sitting round the living room listening to tunes deciphering runes exploring the ruins the wasteland of love lost love found love rebound love a josephus joint a phabulous phattie enjoyed some hashish gifted stories talked possibilities played life less a game of chess more like drunken checkers randomly jumping around different angles always moving forward until we’re either wiped off the board or we reach that far edge where we can declare momentary victory singing king me motherfucker dancing wildly haphazardly back across the black and red field hokey pokey my darlin’ make sure to shake it all about make sure to turn yourself around throw your money down toss the dice pair of dice paradise lost

lost in america lost in translation lost in space i once was lost now i’m found amazing grace how sweet the sound

a phucking wretch like me

home again home again jiggety jig

paradise found

me josephus sitting around the living room a chill in the air sweeps up from the beach air with form with substance with gusto earlier that morning sitting at the counter at louis’ eating breakfast looking out over seal rock the potato patch the fog off in the distance the mist in the air bursting from down below spraying up from the rocks rolling tumbling crashing curls of water foam grabbing the jagged edges of the cliff and its children spraying up baptizing the windows a couple hundred feet above i meet rich the artist works with hematite we both suffer from the morning’s news oil tanker kisses the bay bridge fuck fuck dumps its toxic globules of heavy crude into my sweet swimming hole currents takes them all the way around to fort funston beach guess we’re all guilty we all drive shit touches home rich he’s a surfer he says he’s getting the hell outa dodge heading south he’s taking his board down to santa cruz where the water won’t melt his wetsuit

little black eddie
sat on his dump pile
fingering nuclear rubble
maybe he’ll fry
maybe he’ll die
maybe he’ll simmer and bubble

there’s some wild swell coming up from new zealand ain’t seen one like it in years waves breaking fifteen twenty foot faces might as well might as well fort funston beach is closed ocean beach is closed baker beach is closed china beach is closed crissy field beach is closed aquatic park is closed globs of shit floating in the water girlfriend gets the carcinogenic paranoia blues lectures about swimming she so sweet in that sexy school marm sort of way i just dig it when she ties me up scolds me swats me with the kitty crop goddam just her way of telling me she loves me rich he’s an artist down by the wharf been making necklaces for years and years

since the summer of love man

he started the artist coop it was all about the art then man now it’s about the money the street artists don’t put their soul into it any more fuckers down there opening up boxes stamped with made in taiwan in big bold letters i said yeah but what about the fucker who juggles chain saws rich he says he strokes his chin in that already been sitting on the beach for an hour pondering his navel before breakfast sort of way he says

yeah man the dude got balls

me josephus sitting around the living room the chill getting to us i toke thoughtfully heavy goose bump brooding on the shiver and shake i ask josephus through the cloud i ask him hey want to help me light this fucking pilot light can’t seem to find it like

trying to find the clit on a fat chick

takes love and patience and dedication to the cause we take the telescoping lighter we move to the hallway we scramble and slide down on the polished hardwood floor we poke around we find the little fucker tucked up behind a piece of sheet metal we toke once more to steady our nerves we huff and puff and blow away the remnants of gas

maybe possibly

we give it a sniff test josephus operates the controls the valves the on off me i am the torch man me i am the flame that eternal flame for your love she says to me girlfriend she says to me holding on beneath the morning covers moist lips warm breath on my throat she says darlin’ i just try to maintain that sunny side of the street spin it positive outlook i’m all about casting out the good vibe catching it as it comes back around but deep deep down don’t you know it’s all doom and gloom it boils and bubbles toils and troubles i just don’t know where to take it girlfriend she holds me tight i hold her tight she my main squeeze she my bowl of cherries she my skip to my lou i whisper through her soft skin yeah i know baby yeah i know that’s all right that’s oh kay i think i’m just the opposite all scabs and bruises on the outside down deep though i just figure i just accept i just know it’s all gonna be all right it’s all gonna be just fine it’s all good maybe that’s why we’re so good together maybe that’s why we connect

slot a tab b

a spiritual sixty nine love and rockets you a salve for my bruises me a shot of love hope and trust down deep in your gut i am your fire i am your flame come on baby let me light your fire i flick i click the telescoping butane lighter we hold our breaths our cannabis driven heartbeats dancing to the sweating rhythm of fear uncertainty doubt we are warriors before battle praying for the gods to accept our wretched souls should we perish in this mission of love and duty i wave the flame moses on the mountain charlton heston got nothing on me it flags down a ride catches a wave we hear the whirring whispering roar of natural gas set ablaze

we are men of the cloth we have cast out the demon of the cold cold heart exorcised the chilly breath of satan another lost soul saved salvaged

love and rockets
summer of love winter of my discontent fall back spring forward girlfriend she says you’re a man of the world she says you’re mine you just got to know you’re mine and i’ll share you with the world i say baby you know i’m yours i got the marks to prove it every night you leave a different mark on my skin a hickie on my soul

me josephus fall back spring forward to the couch the purple chair around the dope table the table of dope remote controls bud shredder rolling papers girlfriend’s world of drugs magazine james kelman’s translated accounts a scotsman free of form don’t you know that writing poetry after auschwitz is simply barbaric we’ve become mimes instead we play charades with our muse mary magdalene we are all whores so we must worship whores we sample wares we show off rolling skills each with our own unique signature he the more straight cigarillo swirl me more the cone of twisted rasta love clouds float about us i am saint peter at the gates making a list checking it twice the naughty the nice i am david copperfield on stage at the em gee em live in las vegas or is it memorex the clouds appear i disappear reappear restart reboot reanimate josephua rolls one for the road forgets he’s leaving lights another one just like the other one don’t bogart that joint my friend pass it over to me you’ve been holding on to it and i sure would like a hit

the room warms

the body warms the mind turns to mush why do you think they call it dope this is your brain this is your brain on dope sizzle sizzle just like my finger on your clit girlfriend the soft sizzle whizzle on the clizzle kiss my grits josephus he decides he needs to hit the road i have a plane to catch if i can just get off this ell ay freeway without getting killed or caught josephus he leaves i’m packing the doorbell rings two minutes later i’m thinking it’s josephus bound down the stairs smoking gun in hand it ain’t josephus it’s the man in brown delivering a package i sign he thanks me he says starting to back away pausing he says

smells like a good time being had by all

i say palming the joint shrugging the shoulders i say hey you know how it goes plane to catch don’t you know he says

don’t i know

he says laying down some street talk on me he says hey you getting quality i smile i grin i say young dude it ain’t worth smoking it ain’t worth toking unless it’s quality life too short to smoke shitty weed he says my man in brown he says dig that brother he says you need some good quality i got some good quality i look him in the eye i’m thinking to myself motherfucking you pee ess man he gonna bring me weed goddamn i love america this is such a great country i look him in the eye i say how much he look me in the eye he say how much you paying now

i should be in my suit the charcoal suit i use to close deals sit across the table adjust my cufflinks sip my water offer him coffee and chinese food laced with em ess gee bring him to the edge drop him off into the cold bucket of water i offer him nothing forcing him to lead with why i counter with ex lace up the gloves drop in the horseshoe just like bluto does with popeye gee aitch bee in his tea cuz i’m gonna fuck him and he’s gonna love it

he says i get it to you for three hundred i say is it diesel cuz when i say quality i mean i’m pulling diesel he says eyebrows raised a cheap negotiating ploy sucking up is so sales one oh one he says you smoking diesel saying like he has new found respect he says baby i get you just as good as diesel i say baby you got diesel at three you bring it on by you are my man in brown he says i’ll drop off some sample bud on

saturday

hot diggety damn lawdy almighty not quite as good as finding out your hot holly lab partner at school also likes to give blow jobs behind the bleachers on friday afternoon but it ranks right up there i always wanted a delivery man hell i’ll pay extra for delivery

i dance back up the stairs fred astaire and ginger in one old curmudgeondy body performing a spin and a bow at the landing i dip to the moon the plate and the spoon hey diddle diddle life is such a fucking riddle

i don my new cool sexy boots grab my briefcase my suitcase my journey joint my airport jaunt joint hop in the car en pee are educates misinforms reforms readjusts my balls for future pocket billiards click click engine roars zoom zoom zoom great highway skyline drive two eighty three eighty one oh one ess eff oh exit rooftop parking whip around down and through hurry up and wait take off my cool sexy boots irradiate them put them back on watch my toes glow green lighten up my spleen they take away my toothpaste lecture me about putting my liquids and gels into a plastic bag i nod in agreement he keeps telling me until he hears a verbal acquiescence

our first line of defense against the never ending war on terror making eight fifty an hour

but goddamn i feel safer it’s no wonder they call it dope

i catch a jet plane don’t know when i’ll be back again oh babe i hate to go and all that