Handkerchief Woman
1
Between the song of a mockingbird and Lebanese be Ing spoken, below the buzzing of aircraft: un Der the orange tinted sunglasses, two eyes blink Ed. Split hairs on the sidewalk; a big smile and "father, Son, holy ghost." She says, "This is the place to be a person," a
Street light goes on. Hanging from the window and making faces At people down stairs, hyperventilating, irri Table, "But none of this was mine," a memory: "Adjust the right first, with the left eye closed, then the left With both eyes open,": eventually, in due course, someday
Ultimately, a walk down Broadway will yield a new Stereo-head phone radio: down to Seventh, in To an alley and leaning against the wall, sing "kum Byyyy...ya," my lord, don't speak, sit down, stand up, sit down, back on Broadway and left down Fourth, "east is down" or off Broadway on va
Grant, "one squeal, two squeals," a hairbrush, a pa Per towel: one creation becomes a walk to a dead-end, climbing the Walls and into someone's window to find people that are unknown And speaking at the same time; at the same time: back out the Window and down into the alley, facing into the street. A trash
Can rolls across the alley blocking the way and say's, "Remember the Pebble in the BMW tire?" One wheel squeals, "I'm the BMW and you are the pebble, two eyes climbing up the wall, Rolling into bricks and mortar rows again, light dark, light dark, "Who are You?" A pair of eyes and a head with a headache and black eyes, light, dark
Pushed into a corner between two fallen bricks and there: Existing in a square area 2 inches by three inches - when A person walks by - staring eyes follow and become That painting, that mask, that outline outside the line, no Talking, no fires, or eating; a fly lands on the page...
6/20/2003
6/19/2003
p & cheese
flattened hair, reaching back under the coat to get a piece of cheese, "what will I write on, a co py of dramalogue?" breathing out, in, out. scrap ing out, in, out. scratching my crotch, "don't wake up," sleeping a
alone, an ant crawls up p's thumb an stops at the knuckle, little arms waving and searching for a nother pair of waving arms, "don't blink, don't. forget that each pair of shoes is an underval
ued piece of junk. the ants move up the scar a cross the upper thumb knuckle and meets arms that are not mov ing, longer and dead, p breathes a gain, out, in. the ant asks, "remember, me?" the ant waves its arm.
"I'm your deactivated soul, wake up and move over to the other side of the street," stomach ache, two eyes open and float up a bove the street light; ants have formed a line on spring street east of
second street and surrounding the l.a. times building. floating up above union station and look ing north; mount wilson lights: a fire is burning pasadena: a single spot of diesel fu
el holds two eyes reflected around oil ly colors, red and purple; the ants begin to move, car rying eggs up to hill into the metro and descend to: the eyes turn over in the oil.
6/18/2003
p's eyes and ears
Eyes open, a leather jacket with silver Studs: stars a metallic noise; someting scraping. Not clear. Hearing works better in the morning, Hearing, a moth flies into P's nose - rubbing and poking. Sitting
Then standing. The moth is fleeing through the dark Tunnel, up. A motor starts. And rests around the corner, wings Lighting and periodically beat Ing (P's face tickles). The motor stops and sputters for several
Seconds. Moth, "Where is this allusion to Shakespeare, you're thinking about?" P cannot move, wants to and The motor starts again and is shut Off: one minute to seven, P says, "I have to re-think the cri
Sis in Lear," the moth beats harder and cannot Move, want to! Stuck in fluid: Vibiana's bell beats seven Times: Gone, P's hearing it again, or Again hearing something like a hammer against a sewer hole co
Ver. "Convinced that no effort will have val Ue," lasting or otherwise, pleasure as opposed to wis Dom, intelligence, knowing the dif Ference between an ant and a termite - nothing about the con
Crete is safe. One more hand comes up over the ladder, the Ladder, the goal, the proper pace and position yielding The pain as it pushes against the Seams in the concave circle of rusted metal wrapped outward,
"The making of reality is the es Cape from the hole," the release in transition and arguing "You can take words and not mean," not once, Open it, take one or many. The additions are the divi
Dends: one waits at the back door, blue eyes and Gray hair, "Will it produce pleasure?" The edge is cracked from wa Ter and age, "Dismantle thought and go Under the door," under the red pine trees glowing in the dark.
6/17/2003
p & beard
the beard rests on the shirt. among the teeth are pieces of bay leaf across the street a concrete barrier to protect anyone from fall
ing debris, immobile: one corner for two months one corner for two months, "do you remem ber how these trees find water?" his head, at the foot of a wall
is bent to the side: snor ing into the concrete sidewalk, stuck to the saliva around the collar on the coat - his knuckles are
bruised from pushing a way from rolling into the street, a knuc kle becomes a brake; head in place without feeling the tears in the
skin, the tears streaming down around the lips onto the chin a gain looking up at a building an realizing my gums are bleed
ing - the eye protru ding from the beard and away from the face onto "my" hand. responsible: let me tell you, a cat walks by
no longer standing free ly and by their own muscular effort dangle from in visible strings, head knocked off and bent to the
sides; changing from effort. from volition - the car drives itself down the hill a be ing until stopped by an oak tree; say it's
bludgeoned to a mes sy pulp and left to rot under the leaves, the oak leaves and an acid residue - action does not take place.
6/16/2003
San Pedro
3
On the pie, sideways: no sides, no wall Yes concrete slab, spread out in a receding long Closing V (touch my toes with my fingernails) Color can be a key, a gray envelope And a white eight by eleven, evenly
Folded in thirds, piece of paper: writing is Spanish: Nuñoz, Marin, Guadalajara, Chihuahua. Place a dinner mat on the glass table and reach For a fork - the asparagus spears form a long Branch, the off shoots with tiny red
Flowers, at the upper third of the branch a Dwarf or owl sits, "I wish I could turn my Head like that," somehow the, one way a, Signature of; take one brown leaf and paint it This is ochre even though it has a gray tint.
What are these? Colors? H said, "Tomatoes Are delicious," and I said, "H leads to Head us to the same place to pee, why?" Mulholland and I take turns shitting and covering For each other, "I lost my cup," what was that?
Mulholland stood and sat down, stood up, sat down, Walked to the fire to spit and walked To the fire and said, "I alone watch this burn." "Why," asked H? Parking in a lot with drying Sweet cilantro flowers and eating them, fingers
Tied together, "Does it make sense," H asked, "To plug the cable into the wall or to Bring the wall here?" Mulholland walked to the Fire to spit, I got up, too. "I can see it Burning." What is important, melanoma
And hands and burning the skin deeply enough to Remove the cancer; H was asleep, Mulholland Opened the last beer and stood up and sat down Where the water moves through the street a light Reflects against the bus. The bus, it must be five
Thirty. I can't see it. What reflection in the Memory of Mulholland seeks to point north? Free the guilt: one set of dinnerware is in A sideboard that is in another room, reduced to "Will begins in the grass blade pointed north and the
Jay sits in the elm,"
Mulholland clenched his fist and internally Attacked his liver again, again. A Gain, where H works for moments, I got lost in.... Lost in inertia, no action: wish becomes the Extreme corner: the microscopic section where
The taped wall painted over yields a Small hole: bubbled in painting, in painting, Paint: red to dawn to yellow, a rat turd has been Encrusted with millions of ants; tiny heads stick- Ing out - external - out; H waits for moments
To speak; "I think I saw a big pig," when it Looks pink: Mulholland says, "I can't force myself to Feel your pig; your pig!" H stands up, sits down, stands Up: the concrete wall is hard; his forehead sweats Sleeping: fades the thought to another picture
Against the light, Mulholland has his body. Has His grip and a newspaper truck roars by, speeding. Without, outside I waits for force to move Coffee donuts week old bread. Mulholland says, "Tofu causes cancer." H asked, "What?"
Tense, stretch out, relax. Burn a few calories, then Relax again, "tambien, otro uno, Viente uno." Yellow sulfur lights up Under a giant eucalyptus tree; the moon Is so bright I is nearsighted, however
Taller H seems, I walks away, waiting. Not waiting, walking away, a protestant.
6/15/2003
San Pedro
2
Do not empty. Dogs on leash. Do not litter. You Bastard. I doesn't see my face in the long deep Store front window; tuxedo's, and state employ- Ees, Mulholland takes H by the arm, "Don't focus So hard, H," your eyes bleed sand: your ankles get
Sore from the journey, the concrete pie won't Let you pass, turning around, I smells tacos, my Mother's hand is in the dishwasher and the glass is Clear, dark spots on my arm, H waits for the Signal, and slowly, crosses Seventh at Broadway.
Mulholland slips out of his clothes and lays Down on the concrete, next to curb, next to the Water that, in the street, is splashed by Thousands of grinning "happy faces", slugs And a watch band, slugs that are not snails
And know the ocean only as molecular memory Where Mulholland went I followed and H spent Money; money that leaked into the strug- Gle, Mulholland ate roses and if hungry The color of the street changed to azure,
Wait. Pushing the cart forward I slowly walked Up Third to Hill; across the street: in the one Minute since H disappeared; a rainstorm. Once is happy face, created, brought up between A thousand birds in late August and Chinese
Elm leaves, the tunnel is a place to stay; On the other end I waits for Mulholland, waits for The ficus to bloom, waits for the rain to end. I is sweating, I's hand is burning after falling On the pie; the reflection is a wed
Ing dress, gown: anxious feeling in my feet where Each toe is black, my pants are black, shirt is black. I looks in the window; the mirror reflects the Cars behind me on the street "El Jesuchristo" Universal redemption, a marriage;
Couple walks past into Elvira's wedding chapel. This is no marriage; no reconciliation, Years, minutes, days of love, but abandonment, where Alone: the room is square, in the closet are Fire crackers, on the dresser is a bowl
Containing flies and chameleons, dying just before The trip through New Mexico, Arizona, To Los Angeles, Sepulveda road, "thinking That San Pedro would be the perfect spot for his life to end," but forced to a house with
Another yard and death in a motel in El Paso. A small grain of sand is rubbed into The corner of Mulholland's eye; next to the Nose around the curving lip of the tear duct, into The hole, plugging the hole, so I saw a face
In the window and H pulled I up. H walked toward I; homunculus: the man With little legs looked at I from the street, no Sidewalk level, (my eyes sideways) sweating And drooling on the ground, I is drooling…
6/14/2003
San Pedro
1
Approval is the stretch between Slausen and The one ten; harbor I can't sense a bay Or a harbor or a sea, from brown and Black stucco lies in a stair step that has a wood A plywood pile. H stops. Here he sits, green pants
And small baseball cap sweating cart garbage Truck haulers; with a tank turned over behind a Rusted fence the wood is ply and torn corners Piled on the stairs stucco with red pencil Lines airbrush pictures of geese flying in long
Lines; gray night twilight the light stays until now 11pm this city sits; a basal Cell cancer on H's head, spreading ever out Ward eating away at never evolving piece Of wood some burned, some burning others fresh from
A fire circle that smells like burning plywood and Oil, eating an apple; trying to think of The antonym for laxative to press crowd in H sleeps lightly; no, and there is yes "no, and." The head isn't what this is all about and it
Implodes in crystal slabs, one sitting down and Easy to talk about. How incorrectly, to Ward the blackened trail head, yes blunt and skew Ed sentence, the "third" person in a poem. The lie, the all, the lie's where points might be
Made. The tall grass growing in clay, where no notice, Loud raising of eyes in wooden stairwells Slowly going away to death and a variable System of deduced non-verity or what? Truth? You ask "Till the sand is tamped down hard,"
Packed with iron and one's actions Translated into fate, ah! fate "destiny" in Inevitably, crouched behind a low wall wait Ing for you one dead man and countless more under A layer rocks, gravel, clay: the two year old is
Screaming this is a schist, a parallel, the Direction you turn when facing the sun at sun Rise, brushing his hair H faces south, the blue Line is up some stairs someone is playing: marines Hymn and the piano is out of tune dust
Layered into the corner of the stairs The south side, the cracked stairs, ants flow out in a Single line, baseball cap off and rubbing his head H mumbles "figure this out, once I didn't Wake up, I was forcefully slapped awake
And someone with blue eyes dropped me on my head," Parting the wigs on the left H stood back; a grin Across his stomach protruded "happy face", Laughing happy face. The donuts disappear And the portable toilets fill up; fill ...
6/13/2003
Higgins Building Pissing
Shut you up you asshole shut you you shut ass Hole up fingers pointed at the ground then pointed at The ground it's not a moment where you say figures It's only figures tightly between thin tightly held white lips Shut you up asshole you shut shut you you asshole Up mutter at the hotel sign while pissing on the Wall the corner one way pink the other gray angled Vertical plaster ripped away between streets disappearing into deep tunnels The rails signal to the objects the objects describe themselves Detailed on a 3x5 card, shut you up asshole
No form here Say goodbye and disappear Blank table The cigarettes and sunlight as Cloth of white They choke down choked Linen D waits Down those words approved By the door No By the deed One walks out Excised removed expelled to "No money no Follow home the repellent No honey" singing Hangs from the wall the
Circumstances H swears under his breath "shut up you ass" Impugned against impulse while waiting for for each letter that Resides on the table to appear definitions are read out loud "Humiliate, demean, degrade, debase, abase" synonyms you know well that Knew steps from the kitchen to the bathroom from the Cardboard bed to the portable toilets catching words flying through The air in a long curve one, arm, length, wise, at, Right, angles, paired, with, a, pencil, note, book, scribbled, writing, Read, it shut up you up you shut you you Asshole hole ass up you shut you up you you D stands up the wall leaning against the door
6/12/2003
Broadway
4
The broken concrete is placed three inches from The wall and two inches from another Broken piece, the gutter placement sits low to The roof and the water pours over and onto
The road where the sign to show the road has been lost In mud and vegetable debris, where The last piece of decomposed sediment Rests, while Goodyear rubber splits and careens away
Tracking and bobbing along the highway, Sixty. Tulsa is in the past the past, the small Stone from the crushed concrete rolls over the Tulsa moon, Tulsa sun, on my way to Dallas
By way of Little Rock, I took my Pepsi and Sat by a window, window with panes, the Trees sang until one thirteen a.m.
6/11/2003
Broadway
3
The lack and/of chicken head. Where for $1 I can get A key made and a watchband put on at The same time, something rings on the light, central To the smell, dead pork flesh; polio skin, "¿dónde hay,
Buen?" This is a watch face or a concrete pillar Or cotton faded from the pants leg up From the shoes and heels collide. Hear the reason Some art work is banned and death comes to those who
Remember to clean the flood control grates on north West corners. With paint, a signature is My symbol, my life today is a rougher Version of a 35mm snap
Shot taken when asphalt is poured and raked. The curb is broken here; one sign says "men Working". The 2 by fours are in place and the Cement truck is red and the giant bucket spins.
The scrawl swings by repeating what looks like the word Nor, nor what? ¿dónde hay, buen? The lack Of a chicken head sits by the door and blinks At my inseam, and I scratch and scratch the lumps on
My head. Where J.J. Co. rang sales ringing the skates split Splinter into metal shaped around the Sidewalk. The sidewalk is glue, I'm glued to A poster, against a tight leg and smell equals...
My head poking up from the moved cover, I Am a sensation, no bus rolling or Finger crushed and a trapped arm under Gum dropped in the afternoon sun, squirming to
Get to 2nd street. B gave me back the mirror And... The key goes in and/but pulls back to roll Open. The cylinder is wide and round and The neoplasm works its lines on the curve
Under the ear. Hearing what? No relative ease, Yes, tumor in conjunction as a Celestial sphere, a basketball game for Speakers wrapped in a tight wad, spat out where
Drops sit on the counter next to the phone/address Written on a pink post-it and where dust Has settled lightly on the water surface. There is still a red dot reflected from the white
Volvo parked on the street.