Farthest Aisle

Housed within a beige cubicle, Jay and I alternately enter data into a shared computer. In tandem we push file carts along a grey carpeted maze of legal documents. The depositions, court reports and affidavits that we pass are deadwood testifiers to naked greed. These volumes are lawsuits against C.N.A., the insurers of Owens Corning/Fibreboard, the purveyors of asbestos, soft killer of hard working people, vampire of dedication, effort and breath. Our employer.

Outside, wild rainbow youth swim upstream through

Financial district streets.

They yell: Fight AIDS, Act Up, Fight Back!

Bathed in florescent lights, corporate goons dress in drab. They ring bells instead of calling us by name. They never look us in our faces when assigning duties.

There is no lack of work. Asbestos’ snake-like fibers lacerate their victim’s lungs at alarming rates. People that loved these workers sue. More suits, more files, more jobs.

Outside, wild rainbow youth swim upstream through

Financial district streets.

They call: Fight AIDS, Act Up, Fight Back!

Inside the walls of morbidity, Jay and I take a break . The cocoons that rest in our busy bellies arise as beautiful butterflies. Fluttering wings of day-glow pink, blue and orange light up the lunchroom and descend upon the sheen of linoleum as we speak of art, music and life. We share words of lust that make us shake, and our mouths singe and smoke.

We prance in hot pants through the khakied halls of bad vibes. Back where we won’t be found. We lay down in the farthest aisle, far enough away to make out unmolested for 10 blistering minutes, and faux fuck amongst the dead.

Elvis, Aaron Cometbus and the CMJ

The cameras rolled.

They would have to stop regularly because he would burst into laughter.

Sustained spurts of giggles were finally held back.

He made great strides, to the point that his acting seemed real. He would spend most of his time faking it.

Show him what you can do lover, I say to myself from backstage.

I have a fever of one thousand degrees

I’m too sick to drink coffee

He comes up and says hi, I have strep throat

He finally asks if I want a ride

Just the two of us, but I sit in the backseat while he drives.

He is loud and dumb

I exit at forty miles per hour

I miss the connecting bus, and the stores I go to are closed.

I walk past the railroad bridge near the shooting range.

I meet a very important lady.

She’s been discharged from the army and has a story to tell.

Prior pursuits prepare her for a first showing.

Her paintings beg nagging questions.

Are they really art?

Fifteen thousand dollars per piece?

Why do they cost that much?

Others spill their whole lives for song.

For nothing.

In a needing world.

She wants.

I lost my best friend.

Topple

Into the moat of shoes that surrounds the shaking palace, I kick off my mine, and climb the steep drawbridge. Through the inflated door I gaze and drop down to the floor that is not made of marble, but of billowed rubber.

My crouched legs spring into stretched action. I notice others in the room; some launch, some lob, all beam with hundred watt smiles. I feel the foundation shift between my sock covered toes as I become the rise and fall.

As I catch breath, maneuver, roll, and jump, I see a motionless world out of the cellophane windows. Larger bodies wait outside, their noses pressed against the plastic panes.

A thick thud radiates my skull as it hits another.

I rub my sore spot and greet the next wave of attacks. Plucked from midair, my fifteen minutes are up as this carbonated world goes flat. I return deflated to the back of the line.

House and Home

Five, in a grey box house with a chain link fence.

I saw a boy in a red shirt crouch and aim both hands at my face while

he closed one eye to see sharply through an invisible scope.

He squeezed his trigger and yelled pow.

Nine, in a brick house in the belly of a cul-de-sac.

I ate tomatoes right off the vine while I breathed in the exhalants of a city pesticide truck.

Fourteen, in a two-story cookie cutter home.

Between an emerald front lawn and a sapphire swimming pool, my grandmother put down her bible and held me by the wrists while telling me no one loved her,

not even my father.

Twenty, in a railroad flat with a black bar bedroom view.

I broke up and made up with two girlfriends and one boyfriend.

I wore lipstick when I was with him.

Twenty-two, in a garage behind the DMV.

On a cement floor with a mattress in the corner and exposed plumbing for a wardrobe hanger, I listened to a verbal abuser tread upon his wife.

Twenty-three, in a two-bedroom with Garfield curtains.

A forgotten cigarette left on the porch turned spray cans into color grenades. I came home to a fire truck with red and white lights flashing,

and a hovering helicopter blowing in the faces of my roommates who were high on LSD.

The landlord was not.

Twenty-four, in a one-bedroom with a dirty carpet.

I witnessed from the window a man getting his gun and person removed by the police. His crew later sprayed five rounds into our apartment.

Twenty-eight, in a flat on the third floor.

A red-haired stunner with a fresh tattoo around her navel lie below. Her mouth opened wider than I liked when we kissed. I never complained.

Thirty, in a converted one-bedroom.

With an overbearing roommate who liked me too much, I worked from my room selling useless insurance to senior citizens.

Thirty-two, in a two-bedroom.

I humanely trapped mice and let them go in the subway.

Thirty-four, in a one-bedroom apartment. I lived with my fiancé above an unstable gun collector. He had garden access, but let the fruit rot on the trees.

Thirty-eight, in a condo. My wife, new baby and I rocked, sang, danced, and hushed.

Forty-one, in a three-bedroom home. I see a boy in a green shirt crouch behind my couch, he aims both hands at my face while closing one eye to see sharply through an invisible scope. He squeezes his trigger and yells pow.

Beige Carpet and Black Streamers

I hide behind the metal folding chair because my mother, my mother’s mother, and my mother’s mother’s mother all stand at the open casket to pay respects to my great grandfather.

To pay respects includes touching the lifeless body.

As I kneel on the beige carpet underneath the black streamers, my mother spots me, shoots a look. Her mother and her mother’s mother crane their necks while weeping loudly into handkerchiefs.

I step up to the casket but I can’t reach. My uncle picks me up and dangles me above the open box.

I flutter as my tears wet the lapels of the ill-fitting suit that never belonged to my great grandfather.

I touch his hands.

I return to earth to find my mother, my mother’s mother, and my mother’s mother’s mother smiling three smiles.

Lynn Purcell

Lynn wants you to kiss her after school

Terrified, I keep the note’s contents under wraps.

My blood tingles and introduces me to my body.

Already passing public school sex education, I know this:

A kiss can not get Lynn pregnant. No threat of rearing a child at age 10.

I swoon and cringe, knees almost buckle at this invitation, I also worry about the man idling in the parking lot. He is pleasant enough, but he does not have much patience.

The stale smell of freshly sharpened pencils is now a bouquet of chocolate and cinnamon.

I wait as the the second-hand leapfrogs over the minute and hour-hands.

Clanging of the bell interrupts the beautiful mayhem behind my eyes.

She wants me.

I slowly walk out of the classroom after the galloping hordes.

I find Lynn.

Her cheeks are red. She leans against the double doors. My smile hurts my head. Her bangs rest atop her lashes and frame her face.

I say Hi.

Honey giggles in my already echoing ears.

I pole-vault towards Lynn's lips that glisten, quiver and pulse.

They taste like Dr. Pepper.

Our smackings are sweet bombs softly exploding. They were lit by fuses of gummi bears and maraschino cherries.

Our tryst has to end. We dizzily draw away from one another.

These sensations are more powerful than my father’s El Camino that drives me home.

Zipper, Snap, Collar, Patch

Zipper, Snap, Collar, Patch---Tom Galbraith

Endurance sewn into her stalwart sleeves

This skin of reason, this tether

Left upon beds, in strange cars

Returning to beat back weather

Like a reed in a storm that topples trees

Bent not broken, soft yet spoken,

Above the gusts of unblinking eyes,

She remains

Still

Standing

Since 1985

They, the world, peers, their ilk, misguided, fixed on prize

Should bow down, kowtow and curtsy

To her fabric, character, weight

To this steadfast testifier warmth shall gravitate

Some call it need, some say folly to this purchase that I cling

Some say it’s not the song, rather the lyrics the singer sings

Either way is fine by me, I never wish to bicker,

With my love, my life, my confidant

Our blood could not be thicker.