Poetry arrived to me at an airport,
lonely and longing waiting for
lost luggage. Suddenly, a line. 
A pen, a page.  Though to word, 
words to line. I began to write,
something, new or different or in-
between. Writing to myself
 0r the page. Maybe the page
 to me. I began to decipher my-
self.
 

The words came, the pen moved,
the scene changed. A purpose
unquestioned. It moved, I
moved and the words too.
We changed. For strangers,
for baggage, for self. A line.
Something that I called
Poetry that I may no longer
call Poetry but I did then.

I sometimes wonder
about these words;
If they wander towards me
or if they must be plucked from
the branches of character bushes.

when the high noon sun

can’t quite reach its height,

When the brisk winds are

a tickle to the cold sensors.

A time when I don’t

have to worry about

the context of my life.

Money spent glowing orange

and serenity, no one here

to enjoy the simple thrill of

swings, but me.

Everything makes a little more

sense, in a personal public playground.

            I’m not usually this bitter. You might think it’s because I know I’m going to die, but I don’t know that I’m going to die at this point. All I know is this: I’m out of work, the sun is rising, the birds are squawking, and I’m getting pissed off because there are at least seven us here waiting for the light to change. I have approximately sixty-seven dollars (plus loose change) to my name, which is all that I have left from this week’s paycheck.  It’ll buy me a bag from Juniper, and breakfast for both of us…another morning spent getting high and hanging out at Denny’s. She’s a simple breakfast kind of girl: coffee, black. Hash browns and bacon, both extra crispy. Usually I can tell when she’s in a bad mood because she starts ordering fucking fruit salads and skillets. I hope its not one of those days. Me, on the other had, I’m a glutton for pancakes. All kinds of pancakes! Blueberry, strawberry, chocolate chip, pumpkin, banana, the list goes on and on. If they created steak pancakes, I would be the first to try them. So Juniper knows that when I start ordering waffles, shit is going to hit the fan.

            She isn’t just my dealer; she’s my big sister with best friend tendencies. Actually, she’s been attempting to play the playing the delinquent mom role as of late.  She’s not remarkable, not some stunning beauty that deserves the covers of magazines and other superficial shit. She’s a real girl with real blonde hair and a real attitude problem (it goes along with the mom-complex that she’s been developing). It’s her attitude that makes her astonishing: I’ve seen her get in the faces of wasted men at least four times her size, and they always back down.  You’ll understand better in a bit, when I take her out to breakfast.

            They are greeted by the Santa Ana winds and Officer Saunders. The police cruiser is sitting silent in front of their little slice of suburbia, and a splash of semi-familiar head of purple hair resting against the window in the back seat. “Are you Mr. And Mrs. Laughlin?” he asks them politely.

Disgruntled and incoherent they nod yes. “What seems to be the problem officer?” He asks.

“I’m afraid there has been an accident.” He replies, the regret only slightly noticeable in his tone. She grabs her already disheveled hair with a priceless look of horror covering her face.

†

            I had met up with Avery half way through sixth period. Lunch. “The beauty of the Cali schools,” he told me, “is how easy it is to slip out and around unnoticed.” It had something to do with the layout. Open campus and palm trees. I guess back in the Midwest they stayed inside all day. No lawns to lounge on, lockers were built into the walls…all kinds of crazy shit. Not that it matters. High school sucks wherever you go.

             So we met up at lunch, sat around like we were being good little school children eating our lunch and talkin’ about school related things. Really, he was telling me about how he had taken his dad’s car that morning and hid it in the back of the strip mall down the street. “Of course he knows about it! I just didn’t park here ‘cause I don’t have one of those stupid permit things.” He assured me, yet he didn’t look at me. I think. I was busy watching the teachers surveying us like prison guards. ‘Maybe they always walk with their hands behind their back like that because really they’re packin’  ‘was the thought I was lost in. He might of said something else important, like his dad didn’t actually know he had the car, but we had a way out and I wasn’t about to pass it up.

            At breakfast she admired the newly blooming violets outside her window, it a silent appreciation that spring had finally been welcomed into the world. But here again, as she dazes off, the distinct perspectives appear to blur like the brush strokes, beyond the texture of the world that has materialized in front of her. Even the chocolate in Josephine’s coffee has altered its form, the swirls more defined and deliberate that she had noticed before.

            It became increasingly difficult to concentrate in the shower, because she imagined the water droplets turning into the stubborn oil paints that she knew were so in-washable. As well, she could see the Lavender scent of petals of her soap materialize into form as she washed away the suds. Down the swirling drain were the precious purple the so invigorated her senses.

            She dresses without complication, far too aware of the concrete nature of her bedroom belongings. Having had such a permanent staple there so long, she could no longer believe in the beauty of things that held so much weight on her being. Yet, she glances at the poster of Paris, dreaming again of an escape. After a moment lost in yet another blend of painted reality, she snatches up the Lucy Bacon notebook/diary she so cherishes, and maneuvers out of her crystalline jungle.

            Josephine knew she wasn’t like the rest of the daily commuters – she knew that their visions weren’t as colorful as hers. She was also well aware that no one so desired the education of a closed down art school the way that she did. All those that she considered mental companions went to the famous Parisian art school Academie Colarossi. Home of the impressionists, my world, and my mind.

             The bus jerks forward as she pays her toll, and she takes an available empty seat, as far away from the window as she can manage. This is the anxious time of Josephine’s day – the over-decorated world of actual reality is far to overwhelming for her creative instincts. The bombardment of advertisements and statements crowds her senses.  She can’t remember the semblance of noise they call music, and she couldn’t recollect the formulas required for scientific discoveries. She could, however, remember the way the light passed through the orange juice pitcher at breakfast, and the way her curtains illuminate up the fading light of sunset through her bedroom window –

that you came so

close to my window?

Now naked, standing

like a frosty light fixture;

Icicles as designs,

Diamonds, and light.

With the wind nodding

to say hello, friend

even to the street’s light.

Isolated in this haunt,

wandering souls ignore you.

Your nude limbs-

You see what they wish

you to be, posted

there on the corner.

We don’t like these words.

They snag, lag, and glare at us.

They are stale and lethargic.

They won’t move to the wits

that we send them to.

They won’t twist into shapes

of the dreams that we portray.

We want to see with the words,

But they won’t sing or swing or sway.

They won’t embrace the sick fame

and they won’t entertain the elite.

We will push these words

to those impassioned poses.

Since words have no room to speak.

pictured stars through oak scaffolds

as the news traveled over

the chairscape like a stain.”

                April 13, 1865 by David Berman

I inherited a political graveyard

through my stage and through my name,

for it was my kin-in-law who lodged

that bullet through the hat and in the skull.

So I will divorce Asia and become

an Actor.

Through years numbering sixty-seven

I found scripted visits and parting curtains

to escape the letters printed in New York.

A one month interment,

time away from the stage.

Only my sloped forehead

will show my wisdom.

“You wasted life, why won’t you waste the after-life?” – Modest Mouse

She brushed the hair off her forehead, whilst leaving evidence of her purple paint choice behind.   Stepping back to put the creation in perspective,  she began to understand the flaws…She saw the wit and white between the strategic layers of paper, canvas and paint.

It was irritating,

frustrating,

     and in the end,

       a relief.

Abstract deserves the cracks.

     And reality deserves some fading light, stage left.

But this latter realization would  come later.

For now, there was the painting to deal with.

   Sophia caresses the sunlight on her pillow with sleep-covered eyes. Oscar greets her morning with a purr, and a stretch. It would be another simple   day at the   gallery , should she will herself that life existed    outside of her bed   at that moment.

     15 more minutes….

I swear…

The gallery calls promptly at 10:16.

Punk A is on the line with the request that Sophia not miss another day at work,   especially on a day when there was supposed to be  an opening….

Friend of the owner….big deal…..right….I’ll be there….

Just 15 more minutes….promise.

  Oscar simply goes to find his food bowl, leaving Sophie to her excuses.

     11:09

The phone rings again.

This time it’s her step-sister. Another mini-crisis with the wedding across town.   She wants    Sophie to provide some rare   art  for the  reception hall.

Fortunately, this is dealt with by the machine , and Oscar is too distracted with food to notice that Crazy still hasn’t gotten out of bed.