a
collection of work in verse
1983
— 1994
by
Joel J. Rane
©1995.
All rights reserved. This work is unpublished.
LOVE CAN OCCASIONALLY BE WORSE THAN IGNORANCE
I like to be at home to tell her
With my city watching at the window
The breeze in my hair
The light in my eyes
Her eyes always leaving mine
It’s been too many years
The termites say as they eat me (burp)
So why not give her some agony
Now when she is left alone
Leave her as she did me—for dread.
I wanted to tell her I loved her
Twenty years before (Kimba the White Lion)
I got a small white card in the mail, RSVP
Dear Heart, come touch my white dress (Walgreen’s)
And lay envious eyes upon the body, the soul
That will now never be yours?
Never! (Well…)
The pen scratched out a small quiet no.
I sit at the window hearing dim bells (BELLS BELLS BELLS!)
Put down my drink and my cigarette
I wish you love, my darling girl
I will just sit and wait
For the three of us to fry (fly, die, ask “why”? etc.)
ACTION IS CHARACTER. (go
FUCK YOURSELF!)
August 1983
FOR HOLLYWOOD’S SAKE
Neon! Neon!
The drummer drums and the knife falls
Screaming sirens and flashing lights
Sunset Boulevard
Striped skirts and striped hair
Everything in color—night on night
Light and cold stones in the alley
A Cat scrambles over broken glass
Hair dripping with rain and sweat
A thousand dancing gyrating bodies
A thousand lines of white powder
Hollywood!
Hollywood! Give me your money!
I have found your soul! Your money now!
Bloodstains and half a face
Flickering flame and men shrouded in blue
Obvious lust on Sunset; buried lust
in a heart slowed by alcohol
Guards at the gates—let us out!
The cops will soon pull over a
Thrashed Volvo in Beverly Hills
August 1983
THE SILVER STRAND
(for Miss Barbara Sootkoos)
Tonight the moon is full and the air is cold and my hands
are gloved.
San Diego Bay is silence, deathly silence swallowing
the hiss of jets and cars into black water.
I crossed the highway,
however, I could hear the pounding of the surf on the Strand.
The Strand, ½ mile wide and five long,
all gray moonlit dust.
Low and narrow. A freeway, light poles
in an irreal constellation,
the lifeguard stations abandoned for the winter. No one is there.
It is the place to take a lover, holding hands and
swinging arms,
tripping into kelp and McDonald’s, death and decay. Some rhythm, like
the pounding, eroding surf.
The tide—ripping up sand and burying parking-lots.
And yet, at the Coronado Cays young people dance on, for
this is
their city. They are unaware of it. I have the eyes of a stranger,
the ocean, tearing, ripping, eroding, using and driving off again
into the darkness. San Diego, where once
nets hung from tuna boats,
I have been away so long. It is not San
Francisco, or Los Angeles.
That is the secret.
No one is there. The Silver
Strand, the city
has no character, it is just there. The
Silver Strand, it is not
famous, it is not Malibu.
I was the only one on the beach tonight.
It is just there. I
am
gone.
December 1983
TWO ASHTRAYS
A jet rips across the ocean sky
I’m dressed in black, uh huh
Black like my mom used to wear
What fucking scum told you about color?
God I hate these whining voices
Black is strength black is brains black will take you
Death is fearless get out of the hall
Music is a drug like cigarettes, black smoke
I have two ashtrays and no ashes
What the hell—normality.
March 1984
COMPETITIOUS
Steve came down from San Francisco, beard and bandana,
plane ticket paid for with stolen credit cards, seven hits of acid
Daniel frenches a beer can on his acid.
A technical sunset behind neon palm trees, and
sheriffs on LSD
cruise…a collection of ideas on torn pieces of the future.
A busy signal at Stacie Kaufman’s, the stars wink brilliantly
in
time, at Malibu, above glowing cigarettes.
Los Angeles is old old old, we’ve seen it all
before. But still
the endless subtlety of the nights, to fill in the empty cracks.
June 1984
PISMO BEACH
Seafood appears in little dumps, graffiti attacks the
beach,
Let’s eat and see what happens.
A rickety pier broaches the Pacific.
Seedy vistas are everywhere.
Morro Bay in ten years, Half-Moon Bay in twenty.
Bumpkins under the influence of city slickers. No hope.
July 1984
SAN FRANCISCO AND BACK IN ONE SECOND
One long line of speed, and buddy ready to go!
You wanna talk action. I’ll give it to
you. Baby.
Zip over to the SOMA with a girl in black, five dollars at the door,
dancing whirling bored bodies and flashing neon light. Drinks.
Tars, the Bus. Back to Berkeley, back to back. A fight on BART.
A faggot on the A Bus.
“Show it motherfucker!” “Oh, your
dress is
fabulous!” “Suck mine!” “Elizabeth Taylor, reeeeally darling?”
Don’t touch but write write write eeeeeEEEEYAH!
More SPEED FOR REAL WORLD MY ASS BUDDY YOU FUCKING COLLEGE STUDENTS THIS
PREPARES YOU FOR REAL WORLD DRINK YOUR BOURBON AND GO TO BED BED BED.
Oh boy for a bed.
October 1984
SHE HAS BLACK EARRINGS AS WELL
(for Miss Rosanne Kennedy)
You really had to be there. It gets commonplace for me.
They understand, sometimes, that they must dress
darkly. Usually
Not. Then the
tie-dye—but no sympathy here.
You figure the cat would be all black—but no…
A patch of white here and there. But mostly black.
It gets boring sometimes.
But not many people do show it. A
lot
Feel it. Right? It’s not L.A.,
but it is a city of sorts.
Boy is it screwed up. But you wouldn’t know to look.
It’s running like clockwork tonight. Food—snack at
Barrington Hall. A
bummed cigarette. Hot Coffee, Cold Beer.
The kind with the puzzles in the caps. Hollywood memories.
But there is no Hollywood here.
A swish, an ungainly step. They read, sure they read a lot.
And they take speed, oh, a lot of speed.
But it gets so boring, everything so clockwork. The clock
Speeds up, yeah boy, then it gets interesting.
It defies description—the bullshit does. But it works.
The music is loud and heavy—not romantic.
Or very.
But it works.
She comes by for another cigarette. Another smoke, screw it.
I’d love to stay longer but snack is over.
They play Hendrix
And Andy Clay busts a bottle. Calm
down. It works.
October 1984
MARISA HANSELL
You watch, but you can’t change the channel any more.
A clear night, the lights of Oakland
looking out a window, looking
as a girl bounces quarters into a glass of rum
and sings in French, into dust.
(Is there something to be said for being negative?)
Love is shit
now, the color of the heroin being collected before me.
A vein, New York fills my head.
Marisa, Marisa, don’t die just yet Marisa,
the Manhattan gutters are filled with needles
Temptation and Discipline are going to fight
I avoid marijuana but cigarettes rule me
Alcohol is strong.
Forgotten cigarette butts crushed in ashtrays
Cassandra, Dianna, Kathleen, Linda, Leslie…the list bores me.
Your hands are so beautiful, your cloudy hair,
Your glowing eyes and your laugh like a record at the wrong speed.
Your smile is gone.
I drink to the void.
I speed on the freeway. I touch the
hypo. (As in Sodium Thiosulfate)
The mirror broken, the dream interrupted
The rest is easy.
The rest is boring.
Marisa, you have left me no chance to become bored with
you.
Your soul fled first to New York, and then within
to escape the falling bodies of your dreams.
The day you left,
I wore black and meant it at last.
At a circus of punk rock I drank two quarts of malt liquor
the falling bodies landed on my face.
I stumbled out of the can, screaming at the singer,
“Hey Rollins, Lydia coming up from L.A.?” laughing,
blood dripping off my chin, feeling nothing
Lydia Lunch being in New York also.
A ruin is always a ruin,
restored only to collapse, devastation.
The rest are so boring, it is so frustrating
if you die, your soul burns my heart shut.
As if you haven’t already done so
Alive.
December 1984
ODE TO ALLA NAZIMOVA
(for Miss Adelaide Leventon)
Black hair, heavy over
eyelids, heavy with eyeshadow
you could have been anyone but you
were Madame Nazimova, Nazimova of Stanislavski,
Nazimova of the silent screen.
In silence you pursed dark lips
devastation in silver nitrate.
A mime, a Rembrandt,
no depth but for your dark eyes.
A Salome in the dress of Beardsley
your pennies to art, your violin
from the theatres of Moscow
the dust of the Garden of Alla, Hollywood
The dog-eared pages of a picture-book.
The Great Nazimova abandoned all words. The
whining voice. Time is gone
and stopped, a body and face devoted solely
to celluloid.
The dope was fine.
The lovers were fine. The lights…
Shadows, black and white. Flickering. Heavy lids.
You were made for it.
February 1985
PATENTED NAUSEA
A Quaalude will halt decay for a while, but it won’t erode
it for good.
This is something beyond drugs, this is something only people will do
and they just won’t do it. They
won’t. So a Quaalude.
The point of wine dinners is, of course, to get fucked up
just screw around, all night. Barrington
is too small to play.
The people who play are gone, everyone is dead.
I’m trying not to die, but having a hard time.
Alcohol
tastes like death. The blue soda tastes
like defeat. Pot
tastes like hell. Every cigarette I
smoke brings tears. There
is just nothing interesting about listening to Mozart and watching
television. This must be the low point,
stupid animal,
stupid animal, school and Barrington Hall,
so easy. It’s easy!
Listen, man, that white jive won’t do shit for you.
What’s wrong with you? You don’t look
happy.
If I take this bottle of wine to the roof, then I can throw the bottle
off, rather than myself. Things work out
better that way, I can go
downstairs and enjoy more torture. Happy to survive.
One good burrito on Hollywood Boulevard, that’s it.
Are you fucked up? Boy, you look
trashed.
We might as well stay up, we’ll feel worse tomorrow.
Pass the wine and the speed, everyone else in the building is asleep.
Malcolm was really psychotic, tell him Andy.
Did we tell you?
Sorry to be rude, but…
You’re just fucked up. Oh, I wish I was
messed up. Things are
happier that way. Wake me up when things
look brighter.
Some people don’t go out in the sunlight.
March 1985
RENO NEVADA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
It only takes a car and a lot of money.
Last night in San Francisco, a minimal escape, now this is more like it.
Reno, decadent neon palace of Rome, a post-weekend junket.
They named their child “They Couldn’t Help It.”
First night: “Magic Fingers” and a
joint. X on the radio.
Next morning: Police on the radio. Wet kisses on the mattress
and everything on the floor. Broccoli for Psyche. Plenty of open
full beers. I am back in it, deep
deep deep.
Lake Tahoe, the hotel once blown up resurrected sheathed in gold.
I should only be so lucky, but for the feeling of crazy love,
desperate,
love that clutches and seeks
but will not find, will not want, will not reflect.
I feel sick every morning. I hope I will
not in Berkeley,
I want to die in Los Angeles, alone alone alone.
This isn’t as much fun as I had hoped.
The trap isn’t pleasant, it isn’t even a trap.
I have created everything and I must finish it.
I WILL NOT let it finish me.
Lake Tahoe is so beautiful in the spring.
The sun sets behind
snowy mountains, with the vast lake foreground.
There is love in every tragedy.
As Psyche said, “American culture is making something out of nothing.”
April 1985
THE DANCER
After an eternity in San Francisco
The dancer came back to Hollywood.
He had been up there, dancing.
First year they take fifty out of two-thousand
Second year seven out of fifty. He was
that good.
From his townhouse in the hills,
all of L.A. sparkled and danced.
He lit a joint and warned us about
Artists. He said a writer
would suck the soul from all life.
A painter would take the emotion, and a poet both.
The actor would reduce humanity to a wink,
the musician to a note.
The dancer to a move, the most thoughtless
of them all.
The soul of art, he said, immortality
of art or artist, the crushing
of the human race into a psychedelic clock.
I told him of San Francisco
He told me to watch out. He would never
dance again.
“Here we do it for money.
Up there we do it for keeps.”
May 1985
HEART BLEEDS INK
Suppose you could seal your heart in an envelope and mail
it to yourself.
I dialed New York and heard lonely static.
I won’t use my address book again.
Pain means less and less to me. I will
become a typewriter.
The world will go directly to paper.
Batteries are loaded, stamps licked.
(Still snow in Tahoe.)
June 1985
THE SUTRO BATHS
The view from the Sutro Baths, where slime grows onto
flowers.
Why fight over cities? They exist. And money? Always there.
More control, that’s the answer. Women. No inspiration,
no cares, no worries. What am I doing?
Paradise—death.
At least something new.
June 1985
THE LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
The white ceiling is high and empty—sky. A tropical rainstorm
behind us. Katherine is a small
blonde hooray.
The whine of jets and Andy Hunt eating his apple.
Danny watches me. Katherine
smiles. Everything is okay.
Rosanne will not reveal her secrets.
Our city will be great, but it will never be good.
July 1985
SPORTS
Speed, speed, Greg Gray says, his eyes rolling,
his mouth
laughing explosively, his body spotted with watercolors.
A girl sits in her empty apartment, the TV soft, smoking and drinking
white wine over the Sunday comics.
Occasionally she traces the outline
of her mouth with her index finger.
Nothing is worth dying for, except maybe life.
“There is no philosophy in nitrous!”
Joe Curren screams, a balloon in
each hand. Now we slowly pass
out, nitrous and acid and beer and
weed and cigarettes and MDA and speed and coke and DMT and
mushrooms and vodka and heroin and Jesus if I haven’t done a lot of
drugs in my time. Fuck. I look into the future. Fuck.
Fuck.
Listen: the magic word is “fuck”. One
night Cheetos and Ranier.
One morning Coca-cola and Susie-Q’s.
Things are not looking good, but I don’t care.
Living on the bottom,
who said that? I won’t shave my head, no, I’ll wear a suit and throw
a big monkey wrench at the world.
Everything is fun.
September 1985
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG CORPSE (PORTRAIT OF THE CATHOLIC AS A YOUNG HYPOCRITE)
Barrington Hall downstairs at midnight—NEVADA he cried.
DISFIGUREMENT
LENDS CHARACTER.
(New York
subway—bad trip new year’s eve 1984)
(also
a bar at Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas 3 am.)
being polite I take my exit.
Once I woke up in Santa Barbara.
Sometimes I’d laugh at the young queens, but usually I just laughed at
myself. You can’t be a good nihilist
without first being a good Catholic, because you can’t be a good atheist until
you’ve been a good Catholic. Remember.
REMEMBER THE
VENTURA FREEWAY AT RUSH HOUR?
October 1985
THE AMARGOSA DESERT
The old man of my past is still laughing, still casting clouds of gray sand down around my head. Death Valley, 7000 on one side, 12000 on the other, a stinking hole with campers racing across it. The mountains just glare, the sun, only sage and creosote know home. I am home. Los Angeles is a desert still. The planet in silence grows lips. I understand. You DO NOT fuck with the desert. All else is open game. (Open game of Highway 93, 28 Sept. 85—Whomp that sucker!)
A cinderblock with cop lights flashing at the corners reads SHAMROCK BROTHEL. I am reassured. I remember waiting for the bus at Hollywood and Vine on humid nights. In Berkeley trapped, in Nevada abused, in California set free. My pretty state, I never should have forgotten the American Dream. America lies all to the east, all mystery, but I have met her people—no mystery there. Atomic bombs melt it to glass, the Amargosa is as far as I go east. (Nevada sucks—take the kids.)
October 1985
THE GIRL WHO WORE WHITE
YES, INDEEDY, the girl wore white, it came up around her eyes, it was rolled up around her ankles, she looked through these eyes out of the past, me, man, someone who never looks at a calendar, I was terrified. I ran to Los Angeles and then I ran to silence. Nothing worked. She let me go a thousand times, but she still wore white and her eyes still spoke the past, except now it was my past. I let her eyes take me prisoner, our eyes set up our cute little bars that only violence could break. I refused violence, because the girl wore white. I wish for the strength to free myself.
What is love? Love is day and night, a 7-11 of pain pills and stale burritos and flying apples and very, very cheap beer. There is a kind of warmth beneath it all, the unasked-for touch of a hand, of warm lips, of soft eyes that speak nothing but the present. Yet I cannot find it, how desperately I wish not to wear black any more, nor the sterility of white, nor the lie of colors. Just to wear nothing at all.
October 1985
MADNESS AT 3.24 A.M.
It’s unfair, being asked to analyze books
that justify suicide
when no birds sing, and everything is pitch-black
including your clothes and eyes
and postcards are sufficient to answer twelve-page letters.
Letters cross continents, tongues are out of mouths.
311 calls 211, Barrington calls a house on Blake Street,
the U.S. of A. calls West Germany, and nothing is said
except what is unimportant.
But everything is unimportant, so let’s have another drink.
Oh, you fool, reading Virginia Woolf at three in the fucking morning,
listening to Wagner, you asked for it, you got it.
Your whole life flashes before your eyes, a wrong turn here
a wrong turn there, knocking on doors to empty rooms, full ones,
forgetting to write phone messages on the little yellow notepad
with the sticky back, or the plastic cardboard with Hello Kitty on it.
America is such a wonderful, well-ordered place.
Time is running out, and you, my dark-eyed fiend, have run out
on me as well. For you I write, my
bitter sweetheart,
run, run, run to your room, to the wine, your
tall Nordic surfer musician boyfriend. Play,
eat, drink,
and be merry, for it’s finals week again
and your connection is out of speed.
Tomorrow the sun will rise again—time will pass, but WILL YOU?
My great passion, my great love, she sent me a postcard.
December 1985
EVEN THE SKY LOOKS FAKE
I am a puppet in the suburbs, hanging on telephone wires.
Burbank may not look the city of broken hearts, but
the telephone poles and the Carl’s Jr. signs and the
parking lots full of cars prove it is so.
The asphalt in the parking lot is the lake of fire
and Dante wends his way across
the Valley.
24 December 1985
GHOST FROM THE PAST
(for Miss Kara Bjornlie)
Is this L.A., my tomb, my tomb, poor Kara half-buried
in red leather and cigarette smoke.
The plane leaves at seven, back to hell, back, to hell,
don’t take cuts, wait your turn in line.
I may have gotten it
all wrong. Kara, were you ever a
dreamer?
The game it swayed, back-and-forth
and nothing more was said.
The price nothing less than your WHOLE soul.
I kissed brown lips; black palm tree silhouetted
Neon blue sky. Stars. Moon.
April 1986
THE BUTTERFLY
The Chinese Philosopher said:
Last night I dreamt I was a butterfly
but did not know for certain if
I the man dreamt of being a butterfly, or
I the butterfly dreamt of being a man.
At six in the morning, at Dave’s Coffee Shop in Oakland,
reality becomes clear; Joel and Joe and Robert and Gene order up
Blueberry pancakes with onions, the Burger, the Chili
I ordered the Frenchburger, fried on speed and sunlight, I asked
what’s French about it?
The waitress sends us into her own private oblivion, saying
it comes on a French bun
Robert begins to mumble, French dressing, French meat, or French cook…
After the biorhythms nothing seems to matter much.
The next day we went out to the USS Missouri, and gray and
flags
sparkled in the sun, San Francisco in all its old lost glory
yelling, Have a happy racist holiday! over and over,
or
Don’t be brainwashed! to which a sailor replied, Too
late!
I’d rather see my son dead than grow up to be a scumbag like you!
These sentiments I find depressing.
Ralph and Anastasia take in
the scenery, the cops popping authoritative wheelies
Crissy Sullivan has a small exploding sun on her shirt, an
exploding sun which has absorbed much of her body weight
as it has to Steve Gonzales, David Verba, Leo, Bill, Andy, and
god (or Vince) knows how many others.
The Butterfly goes into its cocoon as a caterpillar.
Barrington Hall will be open, but six of us will apparently not be
“good”, no, we are “bad”. Cindy wears it like a medal, but me and
Gene and others are tired tired tired, we want to wear an exploding
sun on our chests, we want to go to Castro Valley or L.A. or N.Y.
or in these times, even Salinas for the summer, but Berkeley has
caught more lobster in its lovely gilded roach motel
Confirmation from above! The Butterfly
would dream, emerge but not
completely, waiting for the Final Check-out Slip.
Reagan hits the button and the Earth is VAPORIZED. Whee!
This time only the Missouri, the Statue of “Liberty”,
the
Mexican Navy is invading Daly City, whee!
A self-proclaimed
“middle-class faggot” at Elsmere is raging about the Supreme Court
telling Louie about the pyramid of drug dealing in Barrington Hall
Tanja, by the way, may be organic but that’s no turn-on
Crissy is also pretty organic but in that case certainly does it
in a more Dionysian fashion, you know, dope and alcohol and the
method that I have decided upon, for Berkeley, sooooo TACK-EEE.
And in West Oakland, Louie cried out, Why aren’t there
any bloods?
Patrick asked the box at McDonald’s what was in a Big Mac, like the
idiot he sometimes is. The joke is that
the box didn’t know.
Every asshole from Nevada east coming
here to make it big. The
Butterfly, fly, fly, fly to Eureka, to Samoa, to Arcata, I don’t
want to fall in love again, not with someone who might give it back.
Nope, the Butterfly must fly, can only dream of being a man,
I must fly. Whoops, Barrington Hall; my
feet are encased in LEAD.
Party party party party party party party party arty arty arty arty
Bonnie and Clyde, rushing across the empty Texas plains
May 1986
SAN FRANCISCAN CHARM
Sitting on Market Street, talking to a bottle of Southern
Comfort.
Telling it: Hungry and very, very
unhappy.
September 1986
THE CALTRAIN SERIES
I fall into deep gloom and melancholy
When I survey the scene of human folly,
Finding on every hand base flattery,
Injustice, fraud, self-interest, treachery…
Ah, it’s too much; mankind has grown so base,
I mean to break with the whole human race.
—
Moliere
San Francisco—O glorious city of light! Coming out of the subway, the sky is blue, buildings tower and sparkle all about me. Bands play on Market Street and crowds of tourists gather multicolored at the Powell Street Turntable. The west breeze is fresh and cars spin madly along. I paused for a moment to soak in all the beauty, but then I had to walk south again. The train pulled into the station, beautiful silver snake, I entered the mouth willingly, a Fitzgerald novel under my arm, and a smile on my face.
Twenty-Second Street—The City collapses into solid gray stone, freeways shadow and junkyards rust, the commuters wait with mirror precision. Fitzgerald grows dark at
Paul Avenue—and I open a ragged copy of Celine. The train is going faster, my face pressed to the glass. What have I missed?
Bayshore—Civic
madness fades and desolate hills open up before us, the fog adorning San Bruno
Mountain. Yes, there are others
here. I learn names, places, faces,
dialogues, languages, secrets, bridges, tunnels.
South San Francisco—Golden jets drift across the ocean sky, and we celebrate
our passage. Processions
of angularity, intimidation and gaiety.
I juggle John Fante and Nathanael West, and Romance and Precocity devour
me.
San Bruno—Green cold trees and rows of sparkling alien cars. The train is more subdued. Is this doubt? Our addresses conflict.
Millbrae—The childish clicking of rails intoxicates me. In another carriage people yell, hypnotize, anthropomorphize, induce, vandalize, pirouette, seduce. I am strangely attracted. In my lap a poem of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I swallow Classicism as I would swallow Listerine.
Broadway—Yes! The Bay Area is my playground. Jessica Savitch dies in the Delaware Canal, philosophers ask for spare change but I digress, mein Kopf, Ihren Kopf, what the hell—normality. Geometric streets sweep by, glowing stucco, and I eye the door to the other carriage.
Burlingame—Enough of pruned green trees already. The other passengers do their nails and drink bad beer. Nobody smokes.
San Mateo—A city rises up around the train, talk of croissants and foreign cities and David Bowie, I’ve got to move. I get up and walk into the other carriage.
Hayward Park—Sounds of running water, marijuana smoke everywhere, a loadie beside me chain-smokes and reads the Bhagavad-Gita, what the hell kind of mess is this? Someone spray-paints a window so the conductor sees nothing. The conductor wears paisley and tinsel.
Bay Meadows—Crowds of color writhe and gamble, no need to get off, we pull our own slot machine and come up with four bars. Long-haired elves with movie cameras film all and no one cares, people suntan, people dance. Get with it!
Hillsdale—I awake dreamless in the aisle, the conductor poking me playfully. Strobe lights and lava lamps twirl through the smoke, the carriage behind dissolves and is forgotten. Another cigarette as I watch two preppies shoot heroin. Uh oh, I feel around for a parachute, but the only escape is to the last carriage, divided into small, gray cubicles, tattered satin curtains across the windows whereas here the curtains shimmer new as leaves in rain.
Belmont—Hills drift slowly past the windows, mirror hills of bodies fondle each other inside, cats jump about. I slip and fall on piles of Quaaludes. The commuters enter nervously, suckling briefcases and purses and Bibles and machine-guns, most of those run away but the few dance and stay.
San Carlos—Now actors are shaving their heads and slamming into the walls and diving off the luggage-rack. I lean out the door for air, then back into the smell of puke and fake redwood, rollercoast into grams of cocaine, piles of pills, a Goodyear of nitrous oxide, enough marijuana to keep an American Bedroom Community stoned for a decade. I read Nietzsche and understand him at last.
Redwood City—A hypodermic syringe flies across the carriage vibrating nervously in the seat a foot from my head. Empty wine bottles float past the conductor. The police run from broken chairs. I dive under the seats as some jump through broken windows. All right, who the fuck tied my shoelaces together?
Atherton—The screams of Europe-bound jets and Lou Reed wrecks the carriage, the Dead die and the living die, syringes fly like African darts, books spontaneously combust and sentiments rust. I crawl to the door and at
Menlo Park—I fall out and hit my head on a “USA Today” rack. When I am awake the black commuters are reading my last rites from Las Vegas motel Bibles. Ouch! Time to walk.
Palo Alto—Dentists and auto body shops. Neat apartments. Green tree streets. Fog everywhere.
Stanford—Yellow foxtails pierce my socks, broken glass cuts my nerve. Tawny buildings with bloody roofs wall me in.
California Avenue—Shopping centers, falling money. Where is the train? I’ve already lost half my brain.
Castro—Thumbing madly through scrapbooks produces no effect, some kind of defect, the way to survive is to stay alive.
Mountain View—Country-Western grows cactus in my ears. Ignoring the blood does no good. Mexican food and beer keep sanity.
Sunnyvale—The train pulls in slowly. A pile of unused plane coupons litters the dirt as I pull out my train ticket. The conductor is wearing paisley. He will not take my ticket, I get on anyway.
Lawrence—Is this the same train? Faces look familiar. They paint, talk, laugh among themselves. I sit and wait.
Santa Clara—I sit and wait. Faces from the past run along the train and scream at me to get off. From the next carriage I am invited in. I sit and wait. No one speaks to me.
College Park—Smog cloaks white stucco. Hot air awakens old spirits. I sit and wait. No one speaks to me. I sit and wait. I sit and wait. My high school yearbook smashes the window and hits me in the head.
San Jose—I get off, rub the cut in my head. The Caltrain pulls away, back to San Francisco, it goes sadly, I forget to lay my head on the rails before it. An Amtrak train pulls in going the opposite way, L.A., the conductor in shorts and sandals with a surfboard. He invites me aboard. I feel for a parachute but find only this notebook. Laugh and I begin to write.
October 1986
VIVISECTION MALE AND FEMALE
Under fluorescent ice cream lamps a man and a woman sit
blood running sweet and clasping hands sweat
Say you that broken bottles do not litter hills overlooking cities
decadent neon palaces of Rome, vibrating motel beds
cable television, shy touching hands of dead years
reborn in soft lips, burning
Say you that lovers do not clasp on dark beaches, hanging on
rather than fall up into that vacuum of grave-sparkled night
lifeless ocean, barren earth, or concrete-towered city
Say you that hair is not soft and perfume is not pleasant
hands are meant for pockets and bodies for desks
eyes for books and feet for shoes
beds for sleep and earth for burial
Say you that talk is cheap and truth is lie and love is death
and life is death,
Say you that and I will die for you.
On hills overlooking cities stand alone,
the fabric of a million lives spun beneath your feet
know no connection but your eyes, no life but your own
and call yourself happy
In crowds of dancing drunken people stand alone
a hundred bodies twirl in a sweaty ballet about you
sink deeper into your winter coat, your winter aura, no flesh but yours
and call yourself fulfilled
Say you that we are but snapshots, a pose here
a partner there, another partner here, a mood, a moment
staring at the past and laughing, regretting
rejecting the present and forgetting the future
Say you that we must certainly die alone anyway
and I will believe you,
and I will turn and walk away.
October 1986
THE COFFEE SHOP
(for Ship’s Restaurant, Glendon and Wilshire;
after Mr. John Abbott)
A crowd of thousands, daily
once and forever, teenagers all
stab the penpoint through the paper
remove the handcuffs, decisively
demand the shaving brush, expectantly
and order a la mode, incredibly
often they sweat in the heat of mid-August
the money-wise, sneer and cry “Fiddlehead!”
the stride of Sunset Boulevard, abrasively
the green and brick through a microbe wall
never knowing where the blow may fall
and afterwards a cup of coffee, spiritually
October 1986
PERPETUAL NICOTINE
(for the American Tobacco Company)
This cigarette kills the taste of 8 am Corn Flakes.
This cigarette watches endless television.
This cigarette waits on a bus bench in the rain.
This cigarette ponders city lights on cocaine.
This cigarette takes plane flights at sunset.
This cigarette feels the salty breeze of the seashore.
This cigarette fills desk lamps with a strange fog.
This cigarette endures the hottest and most humid of days.
This cigarette glows in the back of dark nightclubs.
This cigarette keeps you from dying of boredom.
This cigarette irritates you when there’s no ashtray.
This cigarette can’t be smoked in ( ). (Fill in the blank)
This cigarette is incense.
This cigarette makes you cough when you’re sick.
This cigarette is for writing poetry.
This cigarette is for your friend.
This cigarette is for some fool on the street.
This cigarette rots in a beer bottle full of cigarettes.
This cigarette entertains you in front of strobe lights.
This cigarette loves the Pepsi Generation.
This cigarette knows where your children are.
This cigarette will make you want another beer.
This cigarette will make you want another cigarette.
This cigarette will make you give up smoking.
This cigarette will mellow you out, man, hopefully.
This cigarette cost you your last dollar.
This cigarette controls you, or you it?
This cigarette has nothing to do with philosophy.
This cigarette is your next to last.
This cigarette is your last.
This cigarette is deadly.
November 1986
POINT FERMIN
(for Miss Alexandra Stephens, Miss Cristin
Sullivan and Miss Cinderella Walker)
If you fall asleep on the train, they usually do not wake
you up
High upon the cliff in the lifeless morning, the sea
barely visible through a thick fog, the very sound of waves
muted by the gray coffin, I stand silent and watch.
The fog clears, only for an instant
Across the harbor stretches a row of empty tankers
rocking
gently on the black sea. The lighthouse
beats halfway to the moon.
Long Beach, invisible, divisible, hidden from the world, black satin
The gaily lit city’s a deity supreme
Below a tanker as the rest
Broken and beaten on the rocks of Point Fermin
the rest rocking rocking as blackbirds on a telephone line
or doves at the feet of the sleeping men in Pershing Square.
Further down there is a woman on a lower point
leaning on a railing, mocking me
a narrow inlet of the sea separating us, nothing compared
to the nervous motions of our hands.
She wears sunglasses, round and black, she looks back
Behind the same gray emptiness I can see behind her frozen head.
The fog returns, hiding the barren ships, the sea
even as the hum of Terminal Island dies like mosquitoes at dawn
then the woman grows fuzzy, until all that is left
is a pair of black sunglasses and my own black coat.
I would cut my wrists just to have color again.
I stand silent and watch from the tip of Point Fermin, looking down.
The woman will surely come over to me,
but this time at least I will be gone.
November 1986
CURSON LOOKOUT
The Downtown skyscrapers cut so sharp, so black, painless
hurt
The only thing on TV is Scott Baio and professional golf.
December 1986
HIGHWAY 126
In Fillmore at night you can see the stars.
December 1986
SANTA CRUZ
In San Francisco, rain and fog, a cloudy, downbeat day
Madness eats the City, you need to get away,
Your habit it is calling, and you haven’t got a dime,
Well brudder, listen to my song, it will advise you fine.
Take the green Pacific Highway, it winds you know not
where,
When you smell the Brussels sprouts, you know you’re almost there,
Past the pounding breakers and the surfers puffing reef,
Far from the City’s psychos, deviants and freaks,
And remember, when you’re feeling blue,
Tonight, there’s a full moon over Santa Cruz!
Santa Cruz, you can breathe the air, you can buy a
cappuccino
From a les with green hair,
Santa Cruz, we can go to the Mall, or maybe just sit and
Stare at the wall!
We can surf, chat, drop tabs, have a fling,
Go hike in Ben Lomond, ring-a-ding-ding!
We can get punks to suck our toes,
Oooh, it’s so erotic, don’tcha know!
We could go to skool, sell our souls, save a coupla bucks,
Go to a show, we could see Camper Van, we could have some fun,
Man, Pizza My Heart, I could puke up my lunch!
We could hitch to Salinas or Berkeley,
We could even go to Watsonville and strike the Cannery!
So girls and boys, gather ‘round if you don’t know what to
do,
Your uptight suburban friends have you feeling quite uncool,
You want to have some good clean fun, with tan lines not a one,
Just remember, when you’re feeling blue,
Tonight, there’s always a full moon over Santa Cruz!
April 1987
HOLLYWOOD
I’m not from Fresno, Sacramento, Gardena or Mission Viejo,
I’m not from the Heartland, I’ve got an attitude that just can’t fail.
It was hot that day, when we went away,
I was sweating like a pig, or so you said,
We put the top down, on the convertible,
We looked like movie stars and maybe we should,
‘Cause we’re from Hollywood.
It was a dark night at the topless show, the Ivar was
packed,
Babe, I don’t know, the girl went home from work
And put her lava lamp on, she had a poster of Andy Gibb on her wall,
She ate Granola kept in a Hefty Bag,
She had a kitty, but she fed it to her snake,
She was creepy, but she looked okay,
I suppose she should, she lives in Hollywood.
An agent’s party, man, what a fucking bore,
Wait, check out her lip, she’s got an open sore,
Hell, bring out the cocaine, do it up right,
We’ll drive on Mulholland, off the cliff to the night,
Society I love you oops goodbye,
Beverly Hills is not the place for my kind of guy,
I like low rent, I shoplift cologne,
I wear a Walkman, fuck leave me alone!
I want to please, I’d be on my knees, don’t you think
that I would?
I live in Hollywood.
August 1987
THE EXPLODING SUN
Squatting at a smooth bar,
the world spins the sun into our faces.
Helicopters spear the city with their searchlights.
The black-and-whites swarm as gulping fish
at Melrose and Normandie, waiting for their fantasies of us
to materialize, and ours of them.
Great roaches and rats, devouring the garbage below, cats
watch above, licking teeth, I kick over the garbage cans
and send them flying, controlling, waiting, powerless, pissed,
happy. Nothing seems to shock any more.
Maureen is talking about suicide and it sounds quite erotic.
We chat happily of the failures of our friends, a great
communal psychic burnout, we’re all sailing a great happy
stoned ship of speed and heroin and grass from Berkeley
into the Golden Gate sunset. Suppose the
sun exploded?
Our karma would be instantly leveled,
Beverly Hills and Willowbrook, Laguna Beach and Pico Rivera,
cops and criminals, housewives and the strippers at the Ivar Theatre,
UCLA professors and the lobotomized women in sundresses who scream
on Hollywood Boulevard, me and everyone in soft-focus, black-and-white,
all reduced to ash.
No more driving off great imagined dead-end freeways
into an exploding sun, no more Jim Morrison, no more Hendrix,
no more elbow-to-table drunken frustrations,
no more explanations about what Louie or Charlie or
Karen or Alicia or Ellen or Robert or Crissy actually meant,
because meaning is not crashing this party any more.
Suicide is outski; the Statue of Liberty frozen in
copper.
The sun created this mess
and the sun will have to fucking end it.
November 1987
BORN IN TORRANCE
(for Miss Alicia Orner)
Land, sea, and sky, oh yeah
Horses, trees, paths, TV sets on all the time, for sure
When yogurt drips on your shoes: Del Amo
Fashion Center
When mountains crumble into the ocean:
Portuguese Bend
Boats float, cars drive, houses sit on hills, people fuck
You watch
Everyone looks down on a flat birthplace
Moon a dying headlight in Palos Verdes
Formica is an easy clean with a wet sponge
A glance, anger, frustration
Disappearance. The virtue of travel to
distant cities
never to return to Palos Verdes, the cliffs,
Redondo, the white sand, or even to Torrance; the kids say
Hey, let’s go orchestrate some damage in Torrance
Everyone looks down on a flat birthplace
November 1987
MARGINALITY
(for Miss Maureen Upton)
She reaches across a Formica table for the stem of a glass,
its precious intoxication glittering in the Santa Monica sun
The flat city revolves past our window, gray maze
later rushing past an automobile window for what must have been…
How many times did we smoke?
Lips sought wood, lungs seeking pleasure,
brain seeking unconsciousness.
We looked at each other occasionally, my city rushed by.
Television was watched, movies watched, friends watched.
Our parents are conversed with, subdued, lied to; phone calls made.
I am far away from the summer crowds of life, writing and
watching
and sometimes my fingers brush your sleeve.
Anger and
confusion and desire
are laughed away. We roar into the night,
city rushing by. Lights out in elevator,
Spanish for distraction
Your red hair is still the same.
In early morning sun we awaken to unconsciousness
A friend sits in her house, trebled by mirrors, glaring
A babble of nervous relatives, every picture on the wall
seen and unseen, smelled and unsmelled, touched and untouched,
fucked and unfucked. We see but go
without
change the channel, hang up the phone, get out of the car, the
soaps are on, we count the minutes, arrange hair and schedules,
slam the doors behind us, the race is on
waiting for someone
to drag us off
to hell
or home
November 1987
PICTURES OF ELLEN
(for Miss Ellen Read Baird)
Waking up on Venice Beach, sticky with spray, the ocean’s
cool hand
burning with the western sun, lighting my first cigarette
of the afternoon, alone, it tastes of salt
I look at pictures of Ellen, black and white
lighting cigarettes, typing, looking into the camera
at the man behind it, always black and white
and beside her Bruce eating, Louie staring, Megan sleeping
John drinking, Dan waiting, Belinda driving, James smirking
my friends trapped, reflected through my glasses
like a prism bending light into rainbows, yeah, that’s it
I a satellite, orbiting, over Los Angeles at times,
Berkeley at others, looking down on them
Looking at Barrington Hall
loving it from far away, hating the near
loving Ellen from far away, hating the nearest
myself I suppose, orbiting like a goddamn satellite
spying on them
falling into the atmosphere and
burning up
November 1987
THE CENTURY FREEWAY
Weeds are now sprouting from dry earth
where the Century Freeway shall be sown
The stems and leaves twist, interweave
coalesce into houses, roads, fences, cars, people.
Every hundred years the Century Plant of the Andes sends up
a thirty-foot shoot, growing, hardening, dying, scattering seeds
The stem hardens into black towers, scatters seeds of light
The root hardens into gray channels, binds miles of earth
On fallow ground, houses fall; roots come in, the stem soars
hardening, concrete conducts, glass reflects
from Inglewood to Norwalk, a new root grows, already giving, taking
Weeds are now sprouting from dry earth
where the Century Freeway shall be grown
waiting to be uprooted
by the greatest weed of all
November 1987
APPLE OF HIS EYE
She comes and goes redly, yellowly,
prancing the halls like the great drunken Queen of Babylon
and all the while the Sun drags the Earth round
trees drink from the mossy banks of the Santa Ynez
the Mokelumne, and she mustn’t flush the toilet
and disturb their equilibrium
just because
a certain shade of light green hangs low in the sky.
A certain neon sign over Broadway is flashing flashing flashing
Everyone has given up hope of ever being.
There she is again, laughing and laughing, with some other hippie,
proving all hippies look alike to some people.
Driving screaming laughing,
the apple of his eye, the apple of my eye, the apple
that spins on the Beatles album as crinkled foil drifts
drops drops drops sparkling, burnt
measuring time and silencing mouths, making payback
screaming driving laughing
somewhere (maybe Hawai’i?) palms are gently swaying
Las Vegas billboard charm on the Highway to Heaven Happiness
looking at the trees and saying, you you you, me me me, nothing
can stay
but everything else must disappear. Go
like the apple itself, oblivion, whole, smooth, encapsulation
rotting
and then, you know, she will, grow anew.
May 1988
THE MISSION
The Phoenix arises from multicolors, brick and wood
fanning the cold breeze, bringing light and sound
and happiness to all in the Mission
drawing a net from hill to hill, brick and wood
Walgreen’s, shopping for batteries to power
Sharon’s electric vibrator, camera, meter, existence, hanging out
the dark, recent scars, musicians, beard, train, rush, bustle,
of 16th and Mission
hungry, hungry, walking amongst double-parked cars
the rush of air from the subway, untuned motor
rushing, rushing, from high ceiling to high ceiling,
gilded mouldings, glittering neon, the great brown snake of eyes
coiling down the Mission, Quetzalcoatl, tourists, the mission,
saving, dancing, serving, being, feeling, ordering, wondering,
walking, laughing, loving, puking, knowing, begging,
bringing happiness to all, bringing light and sound,
on a plate, arroz y frijoles
a red apron, crooked teeth, soul, glittering neon
stone-deaf in my collegiate agony
I reach for the tequila
the bell rings out, San Francisco melting into the night,
dark, light, the time when it always assigns
the task, the duty, the obligation, the trip, the need,
the Mission.
May 1988
HOLLYWOOD HOPELESS
(for Councilman Michael Woo and the CRA)
Closer, pal, closer, can’t hear proper over the
jackhammers.
Are you friend, foe, or absolute chiseler?
Do you live within walls of stucco, or the great hot boundary
of sea, sky, smog, subway, street, sympathy, sun, substance?
A great disaster has befallen Hollywood, California.
Every drunken biker, prostitute, madman and executive
of Paramount (last of Them) knows it is so.
Great brick edifices, defaced, crumble to fool’s gold and neon.
You fellows in flowered shorts, do you feel the power in your feet,
to turn, walk, buy, convert, demolish, develop?
To demystify the Tick Tock, banish the Broadway,
raze Hotel Hell to its venerable foundations.
Tunneling worms, surface! Link the city, cripple the spirit
of everything that was. The Red Car,
gone, Whitley Heights,
divided, whores, busted, men, salaried, sidewalks, washed.
Spirits that remain, hovering, fade into haze and memory.
Pal, you can’t imagine a dry martini west of Vermont any more.
A name, a place, a concept, an attraction, a planet, a galaxy,
a plant.
The name and the plant remain, up in the hills.
But down below, as usual, is only money.
H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D.
Thank god for the Mexicans.
Pink, gray, blue, brown. Gold. Silver nitrate.
As Kenneth Anger said, sooooo TACK-EE.
October 1988
CHILD’S SHOES
(for Miss Cristin Sullivan)
Racing bits of flesh, by car or plane
entertaining thoughts of victory or gratification on the Interstate
in cheap San Diego motel rooms, in our own minds
living for closed mouths, brains, feelings
knowing not then or when but only now are suffering the possibility of youth.
We rode a drunken Volvo across spans of steel
into the lights of San Francisco
kissing, touching, forgetting, scheming,
but we mustn’t be unfair, no never unfair to anyone
no matter the cost to ourselves.
She found a pair of child’s shoes abandoned in a
playground
shaking the sand off like evil spirits
consulting the cards and finding doubt and destruction
discovering degradation in self-knowledge
fearing the fate of the child, her shoes cast off
in San Francisco, animals prowl, the back seat of a drunken Volvo,
letting fate abuse, people misuse one.
And after years of shattered faith and love,
interspersed gyrations of dying suns,
to say farewell and cast me off like child’s shoes
may be right or wrong but never possible
as a drunken Volvo under drifting stars, consulting the cards for chaste advice
living and loving and tossing aside,
if the shoe fits, wear it!
October 1988
DIANE LANE AS A SYMBOL FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE
Sheltered from the rains in a cold womb of Malibu
I wait for dirty Kathy to slide across the dark pass
Fleeing from our dirty Valley.
An imported beer and a cigarette provide small diversion
For my gloved hands, as I observe Them
Sliding their credit cards, clinking their drinks
Chewing their steaks, while cautiously keeping tabs on me
A representative of the City come to haunt them
As if the Seventies had melted into the hard rain.
I am not from Malibu.
I have no connection to it save the road I entered on
Where I remember only the calamities I saw in my
youth.
Blood everywhere, gone by morning, and often
On a night like this, and Kathy is late, and to be
late
On a wet Friday bides the end of everything.
So this is Ali McGraw’s place, I’ve heard
But that represents nothing but heavy bread
And abundant cocaine and overplayed death scenes to
me.
In Malibu as in Van Nuys, but played out grandly
An Olympus for us mere mortals to sing of
The thick walls shielding Caesar from the mob
Demanding the music of the poet, as the mob
Goes about its business.
And here’s Diane Lane.
Diane Lane, I think, another one of Them
Perhaps fresh from a strange interlude with Emilio
Or River or Nick or Mickey or Matt.
Or maybe your horizons broaden with impossibility
You crave to follow the Sufis of Hyderabad
Make the rocky climb from Searchlight to Fort Piute
Touch Mabel Normand’s house on the Kill van Kull
Cast for trout in the Idaho wilderness
Or maybe just have a moment of anonymity
With the comfort of an imported beer and a smoke.
Kathy, you are really late.
And here’s Diane Lane, my feet stuck in clay
Put up on a coffee table, entranced
As you tap the counter in boredom, waiting for a table
Between Those envious of your success, They the blasé bread
And You, as we say in the Industry, are the hot meat.
Maybe I should enter the fracas, nothing ruthless, mind you
Just the urge to hang around and sample
Piles of designer drugs as if it was
The tiniest bit different up at the top, or the middle
Or whatever position you have been handed this month.
We may be just alike, Diane Lane, but I will not
Stride upon your Olympus.
I am lost in Malibu, and I choose not to enter
With the slightest hope of toasting to Ali and Mike
And Ryan and Barbara and Martin and all the rest.
I have just recently vacated my own Olympus
A gray cloud of dying friends and dope along Avenue C.
I can smile at you knowingly
And you can smile back knowingly
But what we know is the impossibility of our smiles.
Maybe, Diane Lane, you have flown high in Lear jets
You have breathed fragrant Paris and Istanbul
You have sat in the Taj Majal, seen the Sigue of the Dogon
And caressed the breeze from the top of the Spanish Steps.
I have crossed Death Valley in August
And dropped acid on Kitt Peak
And shared the wind of the Sespes with the rare Condor
Swooping low and away from my rope-slung mortality.
So we are not so very different, just merely impossible.
I will not dine beside Francis Ford Coppola
Sipping champagne with brandy at some Industry bash
And you will not argue with a bum and a junk dealer
About the Lakers at Sixth and Main.
Today the dilemma holds me, fear and jealousy and anger
And pettiness, as I wait on your turf.
I smile, and you smile back.
I appreciate the gesture.
And Kathy, I wish you would hurry up!
June 1989
THE LEON TROTSKY
I am addicted to drugs.
I am addicted to the Leon Trotsky.
The Government knows my name.
I know every dealer in Berkeley
and a few people who don’t deal, I think.
The Leon Trotsky is a shot of vodka and a shot of tequila
(or more than a shot—be creative. Ponder
it.)
The revolutionary spirit and warm Catholic decadence,
Russian glasnost and Mexican pussy.
Chile peppers to taste.
Can you dig it?
I am addicted to the Leon Trotsky.
The Government knows my name.
Why not give them yours?
November 1989
WHY DO I CARE WHAT HAPPENS IN BERKELEY OR BERLIN?
I got the worst sunburn of my life