A TRIBUTE TO MY COUNTRY: A road trip through a life

A TRIBUTE TO MY COUNTRY: A road trip through a life

CHAPTER ONE: A return to my home town

Eyeless wonders in spanish towns, looking up at the stars while $85 hookers suck on pencil tops, scarred with aged knives, soulless wanderers in arid lands, finding nothing but truck stop coffee and pickled eggs.

Beer by the galons.

Gasoline cocktails, sitting by a pool, neon sign blinking, half off, EAT AT JOE'S.

We were driving down that highway, mile 185, when the bombs began to fall, only in our heads,Jackson was driving, 95.

"Shit!!" He cried slamming on the brakes, "we lost....that word....."

"Our minds?" I replied.

He nodded.

We had lost our mind, 1993, just out of college, one last trip to see ourselves drown, in toxins, 1953, a good year for such a disease.

Las Vegas was a sell out, Corporations trying to gain a buck ninety five for a spin around a tree.

Traps, roadside signs, SEE THE TWO HEADED SNAKE!!

BEARDED LADY, FIFTY CENTS!!

Two drinks out of a clown's skull, a miracle of science, fiction, realization you're dying one minute at a time, living a few seconds as the miles tick away.

The road kept going, cities, towns, little villages in desert suns, rage, lust, a cigarette in some cheap motel.

Use the swimming pool at your own risk, we don't have a life guard on duty.

Ain't that life?

Drown or swim.

Fail or suceed, still treading, the waves crashing in on us, not waving but drowning.

I have tried to drown my demons but they have learned to swim, maybe in college?

There, in the light of the silver moon, she sat, that vision of painted fece filled tub of garbage known as my hometown.

Saints died trying to bring civility here, this godless whore, as my mother called it, it wasn't her town but some shit town she drove into back in 1969.

She never left.

She said it was hers, a shitty drunk lover, but hers.

And hers alone.

I adopted it when she passed away.

She was buried in St. Ives Garden under a weeping tree, right next to father who died before I was three.

We stayed at the Fleabag Hotel, up the hill, crack head behind the counter gave us the key.

$69 a night, all the meth you could dream of, just two blocks down the street.

Nuns were handing out flyers, JESUS SAVES, in big bold letters.

"Do you need him?" They said, handing us one.

We shook our heads no and entered our room, decorated tastefully in 1973.

Dirty tub, smelling of bleach, as if in attempt to clean, the toilet black, moldy smell coming from the ceiling tiles, dried cum on the sheets from multiple drunken, stoned fucks.

Paintings of palm trees to brighten the smoke stained walls.

Walls thin, hearing the next room's activities.

RCA COLOR TV IN EVERY ROOM! FREE! reads the sign outside.

Three channels, all broken snow filled scenes, in color.

Black and white are colors, the lady at the desk says.

I laugh.

She's right.

We fall asleep, like babies, in a crack house on Arizona Street.

WANDERING THROUGH THE MIND: A Mother's misery

Wandering through the broken streets, late at night, 3 am.

We saw the minds, madness, imagery, blasted on the TV screens, drunken rants, now televised as great intelligent thoughts.

On a Friday afternoon, barely pass noon, came the awful news, the sounds of the room dulled to a roar.

There, she sat, before she fell, that paper, the telephone in her hand, her young boy, that little face child of hers, laid dead by a shooter's rage.

She did not cry, she did not utter a word, she died that day, there on that playground, down fifteen blocks.

Though her body remained, her soul, her life did leave, she was not the same after that fateful day.

ARE YOU OKAY? A random poem in memory.

ARE YOU OKAY? A random poem in memory

Mister, are you okay?
Little kid,
Standing on the street,
Silent night,
Oh what a night,
1978,
Bombs bursting in air.

She, that horror love story breakup tease, nightmares in clever monotone speech,
Candles burning in solemn refuge,
Seamless, scenes, cut out of Time magazine,
She lies in pale moonlight,
Pale skin,
Star brushed blue eyes,
Sacrifice,
Eight rows high,
First kiss at a ball game,
First blowjob at a swap meet.

Mind fuck,
A disease,
To find,
A bitter end,
Quickly released
Into the wild.

A warped sense of destiny on your knees,
Laughing at distorted images,
Projected on the screen.
Just finding myself,
On that road,
To misery,
To light,
To happiness,
To sorrow,
In memories.

Oh how I wish it was me,
Who made her smile,
That special day,
2003,
Vacations on the moon,
Love beyond that midnight sky,
Looking into heaven,
Plans of future,
Shattered.
Broken like glass,
Ripped apart,
Thrown to the winds,
Like seeds,
Dead upon arrival,
Dawn to days,
Back to evenings,
Squares trying to be hip,
Standing in the square,
Snorting coke off mirrors,
Dollar bills,
All alone in a flat,
You okay?

6 am,
Saturday mourn,
Licking old wounds,
With Jim Boom,
That cheap shit,
City dead,
Sleeping in a cardboard box,
Rejection letter,
Five minute read,
Too long.
So long.
Final notice,
Overdue,
Lettuce wilted,
Got it from a garbage can
From behind the Safeway store,
Same with the meat,
The world too.

So long,
Live well,
I shall see you,
There,
On the hallow streets,
Free,
Wind beneath your wings,
Making it, smiling,
Wave,
Then run away,
Fly away,
See the sea,
Dear John,
Goodbye....