I couldn't

display my daughter's pictures
when I lived with HER;
oh, one or two
out of HER direct line

of vision - -

God forbid one should look
upon the likeness of
a beautiful smiling child - -
not in HER universe;

NOW after

humping my belongings into
my own living space
fresh from three years of
holding my itchy, self-righteous tongue

I find

my favorite framed cherub grin
absent so long
whispers almost audibly
of long distance love and failing



child support






09/07

a rocky reincarnation



shoveling my life’s accumulations
inside an old garage for rats to shit upon,
I then crawled into
a friendly and sympathetic vagina...

after eight months gestation,
my time as a reclusive and bruised
forty-something fetus ended
with an agonized final push,
emergence into harsh desert light,
and a hard slap that made me cry
so I might breathe on my own...

first a colicky graying baby
weaned on increments of self-reliance
and permanent ejection from
now-frowning and dry vertical lips,
I presently stumble about - -
a stubbly toddler - -
bottle-fed with Zoloft and Clonapin
and long to fit comfortably
inside the adult clothes that never truly fit me
in past incarnations...

waaah.




2006 by ATB

Attempt at Writing Something New


fear of hitting the keys...
minutes stretch between short lines - -
afraid tappings will
amount to fingerpainting
with ineffectual transparent shit

and the lonely grey-and-white house cat
feeds me a line,
boldly stepping upon rows
of contemporary glyphs:

0000000000000000000000llllllllllllllllll///////.///

- - then jumps away to stalk
a light brown date-sized winged cockroach,
leaving me on my own
to finish

this.




2006 by ATB

... like everyone else, this coming Tuesday I'll be trying to get through the day without singeing-off the majority of my ass-hair! A fun July 4th tip dug up from my mental archives: buy a healthy quantity of "Screamers" or "Piccolo Petes" from your local "Red Devil" or other fireworks source; rip off the plastic platform, take a hammer, and give the end at the opposite of the wick a few well-placed whacks, until it is fairly flattened. Then light, wait until the wick is close to igniting the precious pyrotechnic device, and throw with great velocity at an object of personal scorn; watch the surprised expressions of others and experience your own sense of exhilirating delight as this device - - originally engineered to entertain and thrill with a shrill screaming whistle while firmly planted upon the pavement at a safe distance from human onlookers - - explodes like a miniature roadside insurgent-bomb, scattering undesirable party patrons, authority figures, and general innocent bystanders alike with sure-fire results. Ah, being a sociopath has a hell of a fun side, to be sure!!! (NOTE: THIS IS PURELY ADULT FUN - - WAIT UNTIL THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN PUT TO BED [and you have sufficient money in your checking account to cover your bail]!!!) Take care!

Atomic XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Howdy! Hope everyone is doing well... I've been spending my days working and going to the gym, trying to metamorphose from a Jabba The Hut-like creature to a slightly better-looking Jabba The Hut-like creature... I'm keeping an eye out for places I might consider moving to (right now it's L.A. [where I have family and which I love], Fort Worth [where I have a very dear friend], or Savannah [which is near my daughter...])... mostly I'm just keeping a low profile and working on some personal goals... blah blah blah! Wish I had some new writing to post, or something exciting to pass on (well, I've run into Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde in and around Joshua Tree (where she lives) a couple of times - - she's really very friendly, and has a great figure [yow!] - - that's about it). Anyway... talk to you later!

Sincerely,
Atomic

Howdy! Finally over my jet lag and a bit of post-partum melancholy... I will develop the film from my trip soon... I have a habit of taking rolls and rolls of film and setting them aside for sometimes up to a few months... I hope to break that habit with these new pictures. Now, if I'd only lay down about 150.00 for a digital camera, I wouldn't need to deal with this quirk of mine; I'm just a freak for my super clean, mint condition Minolta Maxxum 7000 (circa 1987) - - a REAL camera... ! Anyway, blah blah blah. Thank you all for your interest and your words; I suppose I'm not the best friend on Tribe when it comes to staying in daily contact... I just allow the challenges of life sink in a little too deep for my own good, and I can be just an eeensy-teeensy-weeensy bit self-involved, if you know what I mean... anyway, thanks again! Oh, and while on my trip, I visited the local satanic Wal Mart and had some pictures developed and put on disc from last Dec., right before my daughter left for the east, taken at the Los Angeles Arboretum (along with a roll or two I'd taken some months earlier in the desert - - told you I was bad at developing pictures), some of which I'll put in my Tribe photo album... I don't believe any shots of me made it into these rolls - - all the better for any unsuspecting viewers, as a glance at my likeness just may lead to blindness... buh-bye!

Sincerely,
Atomic!

... finally going to visit my sweet daughter, Juliana, from 04/27 to 05/02, who now lives in Rincon, GA, which I suppose is essentially a suburb of Savannah. If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd eventually have to fly to Georgia to visit my daughter, I'd have thought them mentally ill. Ah, but who knows what surprizes the future brings... From what I'm told, the town is composed of housing tracts, lots of trees (well, you can't go wrong with trees), a "Days Inn of Rincon" hotel (in which I'll be staying), and various other establishments such as a Mac Donalds, a Sonic (I suppose I get to try the food after seeing commercials for the damn place on cable in California, where none of the goddamn things exist), a mexican restaurant, and I suppose, a few gas stations. The nearest library is in the "next town over", so I suppose internet access will be unavailable. Yet, for 5 glorious days I'll be able to run around in the trees with my daughter, catching bugs, frogs and lizards, we'll swim in the hotel's pool, and generally bask in each other's company... this will be a slice of what I call heaven! And, even consciously living within and enjoying each present moment to the limit, I'm afraid that it will be over all too soon...

“heaven exists, just don't blow it”



i know a woman that, sandwiched between two blackened eyes
wears a surgically-altered nose, transformed into nasal Nirvana
by carrying another's grafted DNA into unexpected extended existence,
most likely the only after-life experienced by the deceased donor - -


and although the "giver's" cognizant vision of Heaven would conflict
with reality's inferior location and finite duration, at least it can be touted
as an after-life receiving sporadic visits by the Master of the Realm
in the form of, it could be said, "the Finger of God".




2003 by ATB

"stalking the periphery"



insecurity equals emotional terrorism:

trapped in a suspended rusted iron box with
rats biting flailing feet,
breathing the fumes of your own demise,
gagging on the rotton taste of
a decaying ego;

eyes spinning like pinwheels,
fingernails ripping while clutching a
jagged precipice,
dangling over the distilled boiling
congealed puddle of you - -

the you of isolation and fear,
the you of the abandoned child,
the you of the adolescent shadowboxing abuse,
the you who allowed seduction by
sadness,
helplessness,
hopelessness...

the Ness sisters;

you never could find the right crowd.





2004 by ATB

Dealing with varying degrees of almost daily depression, from mild lethargy to crushing hopelessness to anxiety biting at your heels like attack dogs... therapy is a good tool for issues, and medication can offer a measure of relief from the symptoms of "chemical imbalance", yet the spectre is always there - - like a dark and festering discoloration, which only you can see, that seeps into your psyche and is painted across your face every time you look in the mirror... it can squash creativity, leave you immobilized, transform you into an empty vessel, with impotent thoughts just fading echoes inside your hollowness... weightless and untethered, you dogpaddle in a void where you can gain no purchase, build no momentum, and after awhile, you tire of these flailings and simply hang, until the time when you again feel the soles of your feet pressing down upon the earth. I live for those times.

"sweet nothing"



"i want someone to
love my tenderness, love me tenderly"
she said - -


"you are like an ocean so deep
i could never know all of you"
she said - -


"i could fall in love with
you and your daughter"
she said - -


"that was the most intense
fuck i've ever had"
she said - -


"you are a good man,
such a good, good man"
she said - -


"in ten years i wouldn't find
another such as you"
she said - -


"i absolutely
adore you"
she said - -


"i give myself
to you"
i said...




"this wasn't ever
meant to last"
she said.







2003 by ATB

"love's serenade"


I want to be loved,
I want to be missed,
I need to be fucked
and bitten and kissed;
I want my face rubbed
like a furry round fruit,
I'd like my flute blown
with a blast, not a toot;
I want girl-flesh pressed
to my form late at night,
and not have her barf
in the soft morning light
at my gnarled drooling visage
peeled fresh from the pillow...

ain't it too much to ask
for this simpering young fellow?




2006 by ATB

“Skeletor’s coup de grace”



a pillow-buried visage
comes up for air
gasping, trembling
“what are you DOING to me!?!”

never face-up,
never to look in my eyes,
yet eager for the drunken fuck
she licks my left forearm
like a blind liscentious serpent
to spur onward
the continued rythmic
slow-grinding probes;

and one speech-slurred evening,
engineering our last tryst,
she gives me what I crave
yet a set-up to fail,
on HER terms...

eyes finally locked onto mine,
she demands to be jackhammered
to bruised satisfaction
into the livingroom carpet,
a feat for which this man
possesses no stamina;
mimicking rape
to the letter
is not in my
repitoire.





2003/2005 by ATB



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"Skeletor"



i fell in love with you again today
after reading a poem meant for
your last lover,
a crumpled discarded scrap found
as i cleaned out the garage shelf
that with your lover
you slept on for awhile;
you said you'd burned
everything you've ever written - -
did some unexpected spasm
distract from this dilligence
for these words to escape fire,
words too perfect
for a world so unworthy
of you or your thoughts - -
you so unworthy
of your words so perfect,
your anger/bitterness your sentence;
alone, you are always alone...

i fell in love with you again today
while not really having stopped,
my love being the "pedestrian"/"weak" love,
the love you loathe - -
you preferring indifferent sporadic attentions
to focused sincere affection,
for above all you desperately need
not to be needed
by anyone
at all...

i've fallen out of love with you today,
for being in love with you is
to waste certain precious intangibles
that would be better served
by a strict emotional budget...

yet i can't be sure about tomorrow





2003/2005 by ATB

“disappearing act”


it’s harsh - -

hurting my lungs
with unfiltered tobacco,
my sensibilities raw
from your unfiltered
indifference;

your cat in my lap
curled during your absence
while your affections
curl about another’s
limbs;

cuckolded by your associations
that clear my emotional astigmatism,
while you remain blinded
by what is just another newer
other;

it’s harsh - -

you distracted with ratpures
yet depending upon my attentions,
arriving home one day soon coming
to find your safety blanket taken
away

without

a

trace.

2006 by ATB

“the answer”



what becomes of one
when one is forgotten
by one’s former lover?

do not memories
have a life - -
not unlike a form
of sentience?

just as death
is nonexistence,
does not the similar apply
to a discarded memory?

are not former lovers
swept from the mind,
like mayflies
swept from the skies?

or are they like
outdated billboard ads - -
once holding relevance
then gone, replaced
by new campaigns?

what becomes of one
when one is forgotten
by one’s former lover?

one simply
continues...




2003 by ATB

"can't even hide in the shitter"



dim light
plays upon mirrored glass
throwing my face
in my face - -

"look at me!
look!!!
either find life
or
an expiration date
but find
something
because i'm sick
of you looking at me
this way."

so am i.




2003 by ATB

"Your Lucky Night"



The two of you are pressed together like spoons, and with a lubrication of sweat, flesh slides hot against palms and pads of fingers - - pale hands upon breasts the color of rich, fertile soil...

This gateway of birth, covered in soft lush tangled curls drenched like a rain forest, allows entrance, as strong fingers cup the back of your head, pulling it downward to mash your face against sucking lips textured with the smoothness of areolae, brilliant white biting teeth, and a long glistening succulent tongue - - all working neck, ear and face in an absolute riot of abandon like a ravenous cat feeding on one who’s skin secretes a rare, sweet and delicious milk...

Atmosphere void of illumination fills with the gorgeous music of two tone-deaf soloists reaching almost simultaneous crescendos, vocal release enhancing that of the physical, as the darkness behind your fused eyelids plays host to small explosions like soundless firecrackers, while the pith of being is bathed in sensation so concentrated that at the moment of discharge you falter, muscles momentarily failing limbs in a semi-conscious free-fall...

You awaken naked, alone, in the blackness of a hot San Fernando Valley night; a bottom sheet sweat-soaked underneath clammy skin prompts rolling over to a dry corner of the large mattress, this wet essence of a spectral passion holding the vague shape of your body like a crime-scene marker - - and watching the physical remnant of the dream lover you were slowly vaporize into the dry nocturnal heat, leaving behind little tangible reminder of the phantom tryst save a fading, urgent anatomy - - an inward sigh echoes as a numbed mind whispers to itself with no great revelation... “I’ve got to get out more often...”.






2003 by ATB

"Hang the D.J."



A chilled, pale yellow-amber ribbon of Glenlivet (smuggled in a lidded paper hot-beverage cup) slides down your throat leaving its signature trail of equatorial heat through chest and abdomin, radiating outward from its destination like the effects of a mellow neutron bomb, the soft detonation mirroring the fires remembered from embraces past with one whom you long to embrace again... but it’s not going to happen, and you know it... and Charley Rich, singing the sad sonic reflection to your drink’s effects - -

“Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?”

- - slowly fades out; this prompt setting your hands in motion to segue into “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” and the cat-in-heat moaning of Xene Cervenka...

Standing behind the equipment and catalog of music, in the corner of the small, mostly empty coffee house in a smog-filtered sunset washed North Hollywood on your weekly-scheduled Monday, it’s easy to cast sight upon some near and meaningless object while allowing the familiar music-fueled vortex to form, emotion serving as eyes trained inward over immesurable distances while meat and bone stand detached as a mute sentinel... this landscape invoking a meandering of mind, a sailing vessel upon windless seas dragged by sluggish, viscous and doleful currents... then you’re plucked out of this bleak sentimental sargasso by another segue - -

“When I was young, I never needed anyone, and making love was just for fun... those days are gone.”

Je-SUS Christ! It’s a good thing this place is almost empty, judging from the seeping, sonic emotional pus your turntable-turned-spigot has been spilling into the room - - and judging from the looks given you by the barrista, who surely seems to find little entertainment value in the wallowings and wailings of your set this evening...

Yet, awareness of surroundings then slide back into dimly-lit caverns that echo mostly-ignored questions such as: what is it that keeps driving you? Surely more than just your physical body - - with its womb-encoded expiration date most likely shortened by more than occasionally ignoring its directions for ensuring optimum freshness, yet still an adequate vehicle for chauffering the sloshing-about of your psyche. Ambitions? What ARE ambitions - - the ideal resulting actions from supposed motivation-awakening clarion calls sounded by past parental harangues and well-meaning but flat-falling pep-talks from friends who know your exterior yet have no window to your core being? For fuck’s sake, even YOU have no window to your core being! And the sharp rocks of self-loathing are brought ever closer by currents of melancholia, waiting to claim your listless vessel... Another segue - -

- - into a familiar voice singing... this time speaking directly to YOU, trying to wake you up from your torpor and tail-chasing ruminations... a storytelling taxi driver mired in a malaise of his own that smacks of familiarity - -

“Oh, I’ve got something inside me,
to drive a princess blind.
There’s a wild man, wizard,
He’s hiding in me, illuminating my mind.
Oh, I’ve got something inside me,
not what my life’s about,
‘Cause I’ve been letting my outside tide me,
over ‘til my time runs out...”

Those, it seems, afflicted with terminal romanticism coupled with malignant cynicism rarely accomplish with success this society’s mundane, mechanically sterile and pedestrian ambitions, the “heart” and the filter surrounding it becoming what a club foot is to the sprint runner...

How many times have you heard this song - - yet, how many times have you really listened to its empassioned cry of resigned anguish, sent out to, perhaps, awaken a kindered, tortured soul...

And right now, the most pressing of ALL your questions is - - “How many damn requests will it take to get some money in my fucking TIP JAR???"




(songs/portions thereof and their artists: “(Hey, Did You Happen To See) The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” by Charlie Rich, “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” by X, “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen, “Taxi” by Harry Chapin; all used WITHOUT ANY permission... so THERE!)




2003/2006 by ATB

“Oh, I’ve got something inside me,

to drive a princess blind.

There’s a wild man, wizard,

He’s hiding in me, illuminating my mind.

Oh, I’ve got something inside me,

not what my life’s about,

‘Cause I’ve been letting my outside tide me,

over ‘til my time runs out...”


(excerpt from "Taxi", lyrics by Harry Chapin)

"wetness shared"



cold drops of water spackle my face
bourne upon a chilled midnight wind
dimming the fire of my cigarette

while

hot trails of spittle soak your lips
mixed with another’s blistering midnight breath
stoking the flames of your sexmaking

me - - crying, dripping wet and shivering.

you - - crying out, sopping wet and superheated...

and not coming home tonight.






2006 by ATB

“of beauty and beasts”



they all see themselves
as sanchos,
lining up at
this decaying hotel’s bar - -

the drunks weaving and
liquor slickened,
filled with warmth
and 80 proof courage;

the gangbangers smooth and
dead eyed,
looking to own
her and the house;

the addicts abscessed and
free falling,
married to substances
forgotten with her gaze;

the security guards and
their paychecks,
soliciting cheap dinners
and nights of dancing;

... and she’ll have none of it, not even from me:

engaging yet depressed and
living here,
the room above
no place for rendezvous;

yet half-priced gimlets
crown me
“lesser of beasts” - -
they feel like kisses...


sadly.




2006 by ATB

This is dedicated and directly attributed to my tribe friend Lori, who urged me to get at the "back story"...



Echoes of Home


“Mother FUCKER!” he screamed, spraying spittle like the detonation of a wet, nauseating fragmentation grenade after I’d stepped on his foot with one of my heavy, steel-toed motorcycle boots, unintentionally, as I dragged my duffle bag, filled with clothing and a few other personal “traveling possessions”, into one of the elevators of the Alexandria Hotel, situated in the diseased heart of downtown Los Angeles.

After a wearying series of bus rides and a final “home stretch” stint on the subway, here I was, checked into this decaying, monolithic structure inhabited by hundreds of denizens living at the bottom of society - - of whom I was now one. Still, this seemed better than the alienating and shaming art of couch-surfing I’d endured with the friends who had offered to endure me, until, at the risk of permanently distancing those I cared for, a decision was made to keep my habitation problems - - resulting from a sudden, messily-disolved roommate situation - - to myself, and trudge headlong into this new, and fairly alarming, skid-row adjacent world.

Then - - after having been shown a choice of two dilapidated, bug spray and bleach-scented rooms by one of the desk clerks, and finalizing the transaction at the front desk with the one-hundred and two dollar weekly rent, here I stood in an elevator resplendent with ripe residents who I intended to avert my eyes from, by perhaps blankly staring at the closed doors, to remain as inconspicuous as possible - - until I mashed the sneakered foot of this man, now bobbing and spraying obscenities in my face, his disheveled and grimy patina coupled with a rabid demeanor pointing to a possible mental imbalance. “You stupid fucking cracker BASTARD! Did you come all the way the FUCK here today from wherever you was at just to FUCK with ME?!?” Muttering a very brief apology, and training my sight on the seam between the two doors, watching my ascent into this hell through the crack as floors passed downward, the feeling that embraced me was anything but inconspicuous. And as the profanity continued, inwardly bracing myself for the possibility of physical contact... for a moment... I experienced a curious deja vu that took me away and brought me back to...



“You little son-of-a-bitch bastard, you little cock-sucking mother-fucker - - wait until I get my hands on you...” Nails on a claw-like hand grab your forearm, and tear short, shallow trenches in the soft freckled skin covered by a down of darkening hair which serves as one visible sign that you are no longer a little boy. You quickly pull back, as always, sometimes inadvertently causing the superficial wounds to look that much more dramatic. “You’re just like your father - - you’ve got his face, you’ve got his mouth... just like him, through and through!” Heard innumerable times, these explosive rants have lost their “literal” meaning - - the profane words themselves have no effect; as one in his mid-teens whose primary universe is his bedroom containing a comic book collection, record albums, a small stereo, a cheap drafting table and art supplies - - all purchased with money (after contributing to the household) from a job at your uncle’s donut shop - - you are, even if in no other aspect of your life, SECURE in the knowledge that you are NOT a “cock-sucker”; while possibly the son of a bitch, you are no bastard, and most certainly not a “mother-fucker”. These words are only the “meaningless” release of the woman who bore you: the harsh, bitter menopausal mother who cannot believe that her life has turned to “shit”; divorced, with three kids, and having to scrape together an existence. You love her. And, of course she loves you. Yet this is the dance. She likes to call her particular application of pseudo-psychology, “negative re-inforcement” - - the more horrifying and berating the harangue, the more it should make you want to behave to her standards, make you want to “prove her wrong”. Sadly, this logic is lost in translation, and negativity is absorbed like a dry mop dropped upon a puddle of bile. It seeps into the psyche, negates esteem, and proclaims that, essentially, no matter how hard you fight to repel these attacks, there is something very much wrong with the person they are directed at; so wrong on such a fundamental level, that, unbeknownst to your teenaged sensibilities, it will take years of future self-sought therapy to allow the luxury of feeling as if you rightfully have a place in the world...



And, coming out of my silent reverie, that rightful place was inside an ancient, peeling, reeking elevator being hoisted, to the sound of cranky machinery, up to my new residence: room 1019 of the Alexandria Hotel. Once again fully aware of my surroundings, the individual whose foot I’d stepped on had silenced his assault, and the indicator light for the ninth floor lit up with the simultaneous toll of an anemic bell. As bodies moved around me to exit, so did my unintended victim turned would-be victimizer, without so much as a backward glance. With doors closing and upward motion resumed, I was somewhat chilled at the thought that this... place... didn’t seem so foreign to me as I’d at first feared.





2006 by ATB

Just found this in my notes from the past, and decided to clean it up a bit and throw it out into the world... this is a "first re-working" of the material... blah blah blah!





Intersection



July fourth. You’re on the Metro 163 going south on Hollywood Way in Burbank, headed to the Hollywood and Vine Red Line, ultimate destination - - The Alexandria Hotel.

On this day, in a city of six million souls, you are alone.

The Bus is taking an odd, circuitous route through heat-reflective concrete San Fernando Valley Hell, passing landmarks - - a coffee house... a bar... a garage... a bus stop - - notable for scenes of recent personal infamy - - these memories awakening grieving, enraged, supporating seige engines which breach the structural integrity of your emotional bulwarks, and through the ensuing cracks, freed ghosts fly.

Ghosts of the living haunt with a special fervor, for not only do they live with you, travel with you, invading and coloring your consciousness with a palette of distress, they are simultaneously living out their existence across town, across a continent, doing whatever it is that they do, whatever it is that you miss of them, whatever it is that you loathe them for, and doing it RIGHT NOW, at this moment, with someone OTHER than YOU. It burns like holy water to the unholy, which is what YOU have become to THEM.

Then... like an intervening cherub sent to perform an exorcism with seemingly devine punctuality, a baby boy of perhaps a year old, perched upon his mother’s shoulder, locks his sight upon you with such ferocious delight, there is suddenly no more room in your flesh-and-psyche vessel for the likes of your ghosts - - stuffed back down into the pit of their issuance and clubbed into unconsciousness by soft fuzzy hair, fresh unburdened eyes, candy pink gums sporting tiny white teeth, and an honest gaping smile that explodes in your face with a concussion that rivets, cleanses. For a moment, you feel... holy. No ghost - - living, dead, nor enabler of such, can survive this onslaught or diminish this holiness.

Unchecked moments pass under a state of beautiful hypnosis, until suddenly you, baby, and mother are exiting the bus at the same shared stop; he toted away in an opposing direction, after travelling the short span of his existence to momentarily intersect with you and deliver his joyful unspoken message - - and you, travelling a distance many times that of his short life span, to meet the power of his gaze, a reminder at the very moment of your need, that you still exist, and that the existence you call your own is, somehow, prescious.

Turning, after a handful of steps, a final time to drink of this sweet fountain... and from your sight he is gone - - as so now do you go, forward to your destination, and to your ultimate end, with all of life along the way ready to meet you; and for the moment, you go with thirst quenced.




2006 by ATB

A friend asked to read this piece, and I'm happily obliging so she doesn't have to dig through tribe message boards to find it; thank you for your interest, Lori!





“My ‘Long Dark Night of the Soul’, Cont’d”


I’m naked, lying on “my” bed, covered by old bleached semi-translucent sheets worn rice paper-thin, stretched over a pounded-down cadaverous mattress, its coils/bones gouging my damp flesh as I twist in darkness broken by sputterings from a white, mostly-spent seven day votive candle perched on an ancient, battered and mean little bedside table steeped in burn marks, like small charred fingerprints passed on by previous similar entities: cigarette and crack pipe entries on a lurid guest book of sorts, camouflaged (complimented by distance) as if in a poorly-executed leopard skin motif. A sad somnambulant illustrated Jesus decorates my dying little beacon, tired arms spread in an apathetic-esque shrug, turned to face the corner like an errant child in a school room whose only lessons are to be of a dark brand of midnight enlightenment. Four days prior, before lighting the wick (and using a dead ball-point pen), I inscribed into the top my usual horseshit litany of impotent pleas for a safe and stable home, enough money to bail my pathetic emotionally crippled ass out of my present state of self-fuckery, and above all an exceptionally naive, frighteningly delusional prayer for one particular individual, whom I loved, to think of me/want me/come to me, come to me, PLEASE come to me - - and knowing all my desperate “last ditch”/ “last gasp”/ “last chance” faux-superstitous-masturbatory-mummery-hocus-pocus mewlings would get me as close to this person as would taking a nice long stride off the edge of the chipped, rotting eighth floor windowsill of my room in that ninety-plus year old crumbling, mildewed, twelve-storeyed necropolis - - where those who accept that they’re already dead are better-off than the other inhabitants mimicking life: the 4 a.m. zombies; the complaining ghosts; the disembodied who haunt the hallways, the elevators, their rooms, the lobby, and the surrounding streets of this monolithic echo of past opulence, now disintegrating into towering, stinking, stacked catacombs.

It’s easy to cry in this room. Surely, certain nasty spectres of former occupants, who no longer own the necessary physiology to be seen by me, must find fleeting satisfaction or relief in my torment-of-self... good for them. I feel none. In a room boasting options-of-consolation including: “necktie-asphixiation-sprinkler-pipe-Nirvana” and “ninety-foot-window-swan-dive-face-plant into the ‘black pillow of eternity’ ”, how would YOU spell relief? While lying in this choking atmosphere, thick with viscous loneliness, I see a taunting vision of my former “lover” in the brittle half-sleep that leaves one vulnerable to such visitations...

It starts with her voice, in the hallway outside, hissing like a punc-
tured gas pipe and seeping through the cracks around my door,
through the cracks in my consciousness, surgically manipulating
words like blades with its inflections... baiting me... shaming me...
daring me to open the portal to my room, in her personally-branded
low, vicious, abusive tone... then changing, to her personally-
branded sweet, concerned, apologetic affection-drenched lure - - a
demented bait-and-switch shell game with sanity-challenging loss
the only outcome, as she had often played when she was drunk and
out for verbal carnage - - in perverse fashion momentarily easing
the pain of her bitter existence by projectile vomiting black stinking
plague onto me, who fell short of “expectations”... lying still and
quiet now - - mutely ravaging my reserves of control, which have
already been withered to near-nonexistence by their complete prior
devotion to the clotting of my ever-present emotional hemophilia...
I’d loved her - - I’ve not seen nor spoken with her for weeks - -
I’ve been starved from the absence of her catastrophic presence,
her sub-zero touch, her eyes vaporizing great trenches of flesh from
my skull with every meaningless glance my way... therefore, I can-
not repel this savage, corrupt assault - - I want her, even as tear
ducts squirt saline rivulets and vision blurs in unfocused terror, and
I heave and choke on wretched cries too vast and barbed to rip their
way out to freedom - - in this state I arise, shambling like a defect-
ive marionette, lurching to the door, plastering my face over the tiny
grease-smeared view-hole, my head a weak and shaking hand,
holding in its spasmodic grasp my right eye, at once greedy like
stale bread to soak up the gruesome congealing dregs of a long-
finished nasty repast - - my sight blasts through the shallow tunnel
into the red paint-slathered hallway lit by a bone-stark hundred-
watt light bulb, and smashes straight into the blanched, gaunt,
green-eyed, grinning, freckled, mouse brown-haired death’s head,
teeth gnashing, head bobbing, in all-consuming cataclysmic fury - -
she knows I’m up and watching her - - and as her harangue breaks
over me like hell-broth tempest-over-shore... a smile - - yes, barely
perceptible in kinship to the usually accepted range of muscle-action
associated with such an occurrence , yet nonetheless - - a self-
satisfied smile flirts with the edges of her razor-lipped mouth... she
loves her work; she’s a master of evisceration, she knows it, and she
enjoys the “smell” of her victim, her victory, but there is also
something I’ve not seen before - - a look of uncontrived, unsated,
raw appetite smears her features with broad, slapping brushstrokes,
and from somewhere within my frozen enrapt swoon I understand
what is to befall me: having been so often fuel for her rage, I am
now to feed that rage a final time, and in consent I throw wide open
the door to my lonely room... her eyes from red slits blossom into
wide orbs of anticipation and ecstasy - - she can FEED - - she
reaches out and grasps with nails penetrating sweat-slickened flesh
(as they would, to lesser degree, during our trysts) and I feel shat-
tered by arousal; her body taut as the steel trip-wire of an anti-
personnel land mine... it mashes against me and my throat finally
disgorges its sonic blockage of glass shards embedded in a melon-
sized block of concrete wrapped in barbed wire - - and I shriek
mourning the loss of our past intimacy, and I shriek with joy from
my former lover’s embrace, and I shriek with final relief knowing
that her claws that puncture my sides and her piranha teeth that rip
my neck will quickly, with savage tenderness, end the existence that
I had no stomach to end myself... no pain past the initial rending of
flesh... feel a wonderful flooding warmth... I’m safe... I’m home... I
love this woman, twisted friend, one-time co-conspirator in coitus...
and, satisfied, I lose consciousness while looking at her sweet,
sincere face, showing a compassion fashioned of her own unique
talents, and glistening with my bright arterial blood...

I’m fully awake. Sitting upright. Decades-old wrecked bed-springs possessing just enough resiliency to translate into vicious attitude are mercilessly gouging me back to my little foxhole in the here-and-now, my slick flushed skin prickling with faded phantom sensations, and... I want to look through that view-hole. To glimpse, perhaps, a shade of the phantasm that still resonates around me, and ruminates within... and, with more disappointment than I think I will ever admit to myself, I don’t. With merciful help from a sudden bone-saturating retroactive weariness encompassing many years of emotional self-infliction, masochism, and a shameful penchant for self-pity, I drop - - like a freshly-stunned kitten in a burlap sack - - into the blissful river of “death for the living”, that dreamless sleep so closely and lovingly akin to nonexistence, it teasingly allows us, for short delicious periods, to lick the black lollipop of void which patiently awaits us after our turn in the dentist’s chair.




2003 by ATB

"The Incoming Tide"



All of the windows are open wide, allowing - - upon the clammy night air that you breathe - - a signature sound of tires on macadam one hundred feet below; to whisper in the dead atmosphere of your darkened tenth storey room, infusing the false imagery of hissing surf into dormant senses dulled by emotional fatigue - - a momentary placebo of relief from the ever-present muted rustlings of the human rodentia that inhabit the surrounding twelve floors of this monolithic and crumbling mausoleum for those not yet dead.

In between these faux-oceanic surges, your mind unwillingly seeks to separate, and, occasionally, identify - - what should be, for sanity’s sake - - harmless bumps, scratchings and mosquito-like keenings that seem to seep out of invisible pores in the ninety-plus year old time-sullied walls that loom over your limp, prostate form...

Bumps and low blunt thumpings become a flipper-launched flesh-and-blood pinball whose probable methamphetamine intake leaves it racking up untallied points by rolling over every surface of its encased space...

Scratchings become a collector of lead paint peelings whose uncontrolled interest in this pastime directly reflects an absence of certain habit-sustaining fuels, gathered during boon times when payment for such has been attained by methods better unspoken, yet weathered during the lack thereof by denuding a residing space of decades-old toxic navajo white strips, a poisonous scattering of dandruff that passes the time until the means for acquiring more satisfying poisons becomes available...

Mosquito-like keenings become the thin liquid whines issuing from a gaping mouth connected to a body whose musculature functions are being reduced to the responsiveness of meat underneath a tenderizing hammer by the ever increasing lunging actions of blind pounding copulation, crescendo after reedy crescendo swirling like eddies above your pillow-cradled head...

And suddenly, with a merciful, cleansing surge of white noise, the incoming tide of tires on macadam washes away the nuances of the ruminant night (perhaps allowing for the barest lull in the low and constant cacophony from these catacombs), where inside of which may be found a sudden merciful steep drop into the indigo silence that carries one, with the sucking of a riptide, into a temporary, humane, dreamless void.




2006 by ATB

"public transportation blues"




meanness...

vitriol...

seething apoplectic apocalyptic
insanity - -

ruminating
like three infernal evangelists
on speed
with Tourette's
broadcasting concurrently on
three overlapping frequencies - -

(okay, just take a Clonapin)

desperation
from lack of insulation;
mass-murderer, serial killer, vigilante...
pest control - -

when
"today is the first day of
the rest of your life"
is an insidious, heinous
threat
from the hoi polloi
and
"Miller time" becomes
a kiss
on a boo-boo
that happens to be a
compound fracture...



WILL EVERYONE PLEASE TAKE ONE STEP
TOWARD THE BACK OF THE BUS!!!






2003 by ATB

This piece is the finished "second half" of one previously posted in Bad Blog Entries (Feb. 4th '06 entitled "The Lunatic Is On My Grass"/"Thought for Food" excerpt) - - just finished it, and it is meant to complete the entire piece which runs in toto under the title of "Thought for Food". Those with any inclination at all to view the first half will be privy to the "where's", "why's" and "who's" of this one, and it will therefore make all that much more sense (if such a thing as THIS can make ANY sense at all... ). Buh-bye.





"Thought for Food" (part two)


Approximately two mouthfuls of tepid jaundiced beer, displaying sluggish and anemic streams of carbonation and showcased within a scratched, smudged glass vessel, indifferently await the swilling action of my right hand... and as I silently suppress a slopping overflow of anxiety, a new sensation tugs at the corners of consciousness: hunger.

Swallowing my mouth’s last evidence of alcohol-flavored saliva, it seems that my id has prepared me to venture out into the surrounding suffering streets in search of a digestible morsel from some as-yet undiscovered little late-night greasy spoon; with relief that comes from leaving the scene of an accident, I abandon the cracked red vinyl of my stool and approach with hope and creeping trepidation the doors that open on the dimly-lit corner of Fifth and Spring.

At the end of the bar sits a simianesque security guard, and before walking out into 12:30 a.m. homeless-owned streets, I chance an inquisition into the probability of some type of culinary sustenance - - the location of an imagined awaiting “burrito or something”. The guard - - emaciated, scarred, disheveled, unshaven, strung-out, mongoose-eyed, and feral in a way more hostile and obvious than my bartender/savior - - nods thoughtfully (or nods in whatever substance-or-mongoloid afflicted state he’s experiencing that masquerades as “thoughtful”) and says, “No-ayn-nothin’-roun’-’ere.” Accepting this deflating response as guttural gospel, the moment finds me spinning on my heels and then heading for the door which opens into the hotel’s lobby where a piss-spattered elevator ride awaits, that is in actuality anything but elevating.

Just as I reach the lobby’s threshold, however, the shiva-saturated sentinel of security has stealthily appeared behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.

“’Ey - - ’ere’s-a-guy-sellin’-food-rye-outside.”

Turning to face Mongoose-Eyes, and deciding that his good samaritan display requires a follow-through on my part to show appreciation (and to stay on good terms with “the house”), I troop back over my previous departing footfalls to arrive at the street entrance which showcases a moonless night enveloping a desolate post-armageddon scene, assuming that I’ll find an ecoli-cart-swilleria-on-wheels; looking right and left and scanning emptiness, I ask my hovering benefactor “where?” - - the tone of this question betraying subtle undercurrents of demand, as patience for him, my current lifestyle, humanity and all creation is nearing an apoplectic end-of-endurance.

“RYE-’ERE!” blasts my skid-row culinary pimp, seemingly equally exasperated with me, his cranky, ungrateful “john”. And... in the shadows of a depression in the wall outside of the doorway... stands a man.

He is perhaps six feet four inches tall, on the very hard and worn side of his early fifties, wearing, at a glance, a soiled beige pork-pie hat, brown plaid-and-smear flannel shirt, dark slacks whose shape has been worn, stretched and sweated out of them, and hard shoes I cannot see but hear as his feet shuffle and scrape the pavement while standing in place. He has a little metal two-wheeled grocery cart like the type one’s grandmother might bring to market, which is filled seemingly with his life’s possessions.

“I’m sellin’ dis here food, man - - I got sardines man, sardines! A granola bar! In here (referring to a black plastic bag-wrapped styrofoam “to go” container resting on the palm of his left hand, said container acting as platform for the other stacked food items, together resembling a dumpster-ecscavated ziggurat) is a chicken dinner with rice - - some o’ the chicken already been et, though.”

At first, I have no reply. Then, after what seems like a very pregnant silence, I say, “Sorry, I wanted something like a burrito.”

Now, generally, I had come to the conclusion that I could walk these “mean streets” and use my minimal level of street awareness, hiding behind my facade of “ten thousand pounds of compressed I don’t give a fuck” to pass-off my charade - - and, maybe this was true. Yet, being someone who has willfully inserted himself into this emaciated environment as a means to a more hopeful end, ultimately, I know nothing of what these impoverished people go through - - how they feel at the end of every day; I am an unwanted visitor, a poseur in their world. And, I have just offended this man.

He was told by the guard that someone was hungry, and hunger to the man standing in front of me is most likely a crippling need - - put off only, perhaps, by the hunger produced by another, much more costly crippling need, the early withdrawal throes from which he seems fairly immersed in at present. On another day, he might knife someone for attempting to steal the bounty he now offers to me... for the price of two dollars.

I told him that I was “more in the mood for a burrito” - - now he is more in the mood for kicking the shit out of me for my casual arrogance - - unintentional to be sure, but in his world, insulting arrogance all the same.

Understanding what I have done moments after my remark does not mean that I can retract it, just as I cannot stop the trajectory of a rock thrown at a window the instant after it leaves my fingertips.

But, this man (not bum, not transient, not drug addict) whose face initially lit up with outrage, is in possession of grace, of tolerance; he displays the ability to communicate across the barriers of divided worlds, divided realities. He not only does this well, he excels in these abilities, just as I have exposed myself to be disturbingly deficient in the same. He visibly restrains himself verbally, swallows what he was poised to spew, and with a measured sigh and look of - - forgiveness - - understanding - - or of just letting it all go because he’s bone tired and I’m not worth depleting his valuable energy reserves needed for survival - - he looks at me with soft eyes and speaks with softened tone: “Man, dis is good food. You hongry, dis food is good.”

Completely shamed by my own ineptitude (only the latest installment among the innumerable), feeling water leak into the corners of my eyes, then swallowing the jagged brick suddenly lodged within my throat, I croak, “Thank you for the offer... I appreciate it. You hang on to it... ” and hand him the few dollar bills I have wadded in my pants pocket. Is it insult to injury in not taking the offering? Is this apologizing for my idiocy? Am I buying some brand of puny redemption? At this moment there are no answers.

I spin on my heels and then head for the door which opens into the hotel’s lobby, where a piss-spattered elevator awaits, that is in actuality, like this entire evening: anything but elevating...








2003/2006 by ATB

... this fuck's had innumerable heart attacks and keeps on tickin' - - the real evil behind this administration, imbued with Satan's protection and agenda for the exchange of his fucking worthless little mosquito of a soul - - I believe the Devil passed over Dan Quayle because he was so inept that he most probably would've blown his wad of power quickly in the shape of an "accidental" mushroom cloud after, perhaps, a casual tour of NORAD... this one - - he's older, smarter and inherently sociopathic and controlling (and he's got a gun!) - - the perfect human vessel for "Mr. D" in the absence of a real anti-christ... hold tight, everyone - - the great finale is still to come (Iran, N.Korea... a smorgasbord of choices!)... okay, no more politics, I promise.