Straightforward Poems for Straightforward People

What’s new on the site:

5/17 - “salo (jeff buckley is dead)” has been exhumed from the catacombs of MySpace and is presented for your delectation.

4/27 – new poem “highway 99″. Poem and my best Billy Gibbons impersonation.

4/20 – new poem – “student and lesson”

4/19 – Do I see the extraordinarily talented and astonishingly beautiful Katherine Shirley amongst my subscribers?  Peeps, y’all need to go read this woman - http://katherineshirley.wordpress.com/  She’s grrrrreat!

4/7 – new poem “the poet wife”

3/1 – “the 10,000 species of the orgasm” has been added to the blog. It was an oversight on my part to have left it off, I’m afraid. For. if nothing else, it is the first blog I ever had to top the MySpace blog rankings, way on back in them heady days of ’09!

1/24 NEW POEM -  ”the secret lives of the saints”

1/12 “COME TO CALIFORNIA” has been brought out of the archive. Nice!

I’m just going to put this out there – I don’t care much for the new “reader” panel.  I would rather see the blogger at the top of the listing, not the bottom and the emphasis on over large pix is very distracting and displeasing

1/7 – NEW POEM ‘ “a., me.”  I’m hankering to put up a voice recording of this one as it is a real fun poem to read (Try it. read it out loud in your best Ol’ Sebbie accent) but i haven’t the wherewithal to do it right now. Soon, soon.

beijomacio5@yahoo.com

salo (jeff buckley is dead)

My lover lay naked
beneath dime store linen.
She moaned to me low
like a moon-mourning cat.

“lover, come study my body”
“lover, trace the shape of my mouth”

I peered at her
through the smoky orange light
that somehow managed to
permeate this tomb-like North Hollywood motel room.

“lover, come finger my triglyphs and metopes”
“lover, come roil in my loins”

I was suddenly unsure
of her form, though my hands
had barely left it
in the preceding days.

“Lover, tell me you don’t love me as you undress
for me as you would for your doctor and his bourgeois eyes “

I was suddenly unsure
of the oils I should use
to loosen those hinges
that open her up.

“Lover, come bite me and suck out the terror
my antic cunt quivers, it speaks not my tongue”

Our history was tiny -
it was semen
folded in a Kleenex
Our legend was negligible,

“lover, we left behind shells and possessions
we are mere simulacra, living in Salo”

20 miles and two weeks
from venice to ventura
Our romance was ridiculous –
it was refuges in rapture

“lover, come share my hallucinations
of the red ore and grey, frozen lake.”

My lover examined herself, nude, in the mirror
the television mute, in the corner
me, shriveled and sulking;
she sang to herself as she stared

“lover, there is a wolf that lurks in muddy water
and he devours all that is beautiful and good”

highway 99

This here is the story of two brothers,
Jake and Randolf Crewes,
who thought of themselves as
the last of the independents.
They found themselves one day
holed up in Calaveras County
on the last, gleaming edge
of the American frontier.

Calaveras County
is a low-down hole, good
for nothing but going out
and getting lost in.
Kind of place a man can find some
lonesome ravine,
park a double wide
and cook up some nasty shit.

Sudafed, iodine, Sodium Hydroxide
they get it out of Drano
dry ammonia, match-heads,
Coleman camp fuel
stripping out batteries, lithium in alcohol
shake and bake crystals, HCI, ammonia
keep them coffee filters
get you higher than a bastard.

Jake and Randy made a
reasonable product upwards 50 pure,
in time they came to see themselves
as American entrepreneurs
in the time of the
Zerobama economy.
Demand was strong up in Vallecito
but the local money was weak

It is not in the nature of the brothers Crewes
to nickel and dime
when the serious money
was waiting down the highway -
so a deal was struck with one Henry Lee Rook
way on down in Tulare.
Two-bit critty for the armpickers,
6K a pound.

The Vasquez boys, Marcos and Castel
did the heavy lifting,
drove the package down Highway 99
to Mr Henry Lee Rook.
Things were going good,
money rollin’ in like snow.
The Vasquez boys, though, they could count
and they got a little entrepreneurial theyselves….

When the count came back three bills light
the first time, the boys figured
the market was slow.
Shit happens.
and when it came back three bills light
the second time, they cursed
Mr. Henry Lee Rook.
It was the third time that got their attention.

A cold Sonora November dawn out off
the Big Hill Road,
the Vasquez boys get called in for coffee.
The package run is delayed
Meanwhile, Randy’s haulin’ ass
down Highway 99
to discuss some pressing business with
Mr. Henry Lee Rook.

Last time anyone seen them
Vasquez boys alive
they were gassing up
at an Arco just outside Madera.
Just off that Golden State Freeway.
Just off that highway to the good life.
Just off the mainline.
Just off the “hope” and “change”.

The moral of the story,
such that it has one,
is that we live on a new, thin edge
of a different American Frontier.
One where, if you want to get ahead
you ask not who will permit you
but one where you bare your teeth and you ask
who exactly the fuck will stop you.

student and lesson

 

I did not know how to fuck
until you taught me.
I knew the science surely.
But you showed me the art.

You showed me how the body
connected to the canvas.
You showed me light and shadow
over mere color and stroke.

You revealed to me that tone
is more pow’rful than the note – and
that a slew of clever words
will never make for true poetry.

I learned that the dance is the flesh
not the music and that, sometimes
it is good to be proud
to be ashamed of oneself.

I did not know who to fuck
until you taught me.

the poet wife

…for you have been
a poet wife
and slept beside a shadow. For you have clutched
the poet’s claw stained by ink
and cheap tobacco
for you have kept the poet’s hearth in a mansion
in the ghetto, for you have heard
the poet’s wail
its piecing, keening echo.

for you have been
a poet wife
and kissed lips where form lies’ cancers. You have sat
in the poet’s rooms where lust
stalks you like a panther
Why, you have played the poet’s whore in the
service of a gangster and you have played
the poet’s whip to his
cadaverous midnight ramble.

for you have been
a poet wife
and fed yourself with forage. While you have bared
the poet’s mark, a tattoo
scratched in prison shoe polish
for you have been the poet’s faith betrayed and
too little acknowledged, you have dealt and borne
the poet’s pain
that vital, silent bondage.

for you have been
a poet wife and tried
to steer the purblind. Yes, you have been the poet’s path,
his light on the
Georgia shoreline
for you have been the poet’s truth, the pure breath
in the bloodline. And you have been
the poet’s letter
from home, sent during wartime.

the secret lives of the saints

every time we made love
i would take off my life like a coat
fold it neatly over a chair
like I expected to return to it in the morning.

and that is no way to make love.

every time you would kneel before me
and scrabble me out
of the folds of my cloth, i would absorb
every nuance of your face and gesture of your hands.

when my eyes should have been closed in prayer.

every time you shook and gasped
i would lift your ass in to the air
and dig my nails into its soft expanses
and die a little. A little at a time.

die slow. be pretty. rehearse your sainthood nightly.
the lies we told each other
endure more now, than these truths.

a., me.

That freckled Yankee skin
pinking up in the sun,
her left foot tap tap tap tap
tapping on the grey-weathered front porch boards.
Some cocky young buck in a wife-beater,
sweats in the dusty yard
clanking on a seized-up
3-five-0.

That was A. back then, but that ain’t now

She used that perfume soap
and conjured up her own
undoing, all for the Lord’s
abomination or hardshell church’s scorn.
But sure as you’re born her johnny-on-the-spot
was makin’ her all flighty
hither, tither like some dark eyed
junco flits.

That was A. back then, but that ain’t now

Ah, but time got away,
like taillights down Carsins run,
all’s gone to Jesus, amidst
whirlwinds and wires and she met herself
a woebegotten angel who smote her
thigh and hip and that was that…
she was done with reckless and
breaking mama’s rule.

And back then became back then, and now was now

No, the A I know got
her brass buttoned tight, she
no longer runs with the rivers,
all wild, the left arm tan line’s faded
with time and she’s figured the
bow-legged rooster the knock-kneed hen
may run together but they
ain’t no kin.

and what was then was then and now is now

Ah!, but I still imagine for to
give her her rightful druthers
she’s be fixin’ me up for
a trick bag, for just one last midnight ramble
all wrapped up in a sou’wester and a
fine new bombazine cloak.
and there’s, A., Me, and the wild run rivers
of my dreams.

whiskeytangofoxtrotsierraechobravo

Ladies and gentlemen,
good burghers
of Pikesville, Maryland -
pecking at your ham and kale,
hurried glances at your watches,
I won’t hold you here long,
I swear, right now I’m so full of holes
that I peep like a pennywhistle.

But bear with me,
knowing apostasy is
a sin more vile than murder.
You see, my eyes are all jammed up
with judybugs and I may backslide
and signify, here and there.
So board up the windows and hope
that the levees hold and hear my story

For tonight I am lonesome as a post office,
southbound on the Route 7 pike,
all gone gully boppers
for a blonde-headed girl.

the holy ghost moves through baltimore

the holy ghost moves through baltimore
pissdrunk on aliceanna
his heart, a rancid piñata
full of writhing maggots
transfigured over pussville
bravely blessing broening manor .

the holy ghost moves through baltimore
slides down e madison, his harpoon
quivering with delight, anticipating
big nothing and banking on the
rush of wind. he has no faith
in anything but maps.

the holy ghost moves through baltimore
consumed by awesome rhythmic
voodoo, outside red emmas,
juju snake flagrant, a cadaverous vampire
outlaw. an oum’phor, a landlord
deity in guise of storefront preacher.

the holy ghost moves through baltimore
feasts on pork in druid hill each sunday,
he barely escaped the whorehouses
of egypt near the redhouse on west branch alley
his god tells him subdue the world
and i will attend to your next of kin.

so when people say “seb, have you met the holy ghost?”
i tell ‘em i come from baltimore.

that gets them off my back.
they mind their own business
after that.

three nasty, nasty haiku.

1. Batman

Batman ain’t shit, man
Dirty Harry’s 44’d
jack him up big time.

2. Alternative Vocation (a double)

If, on reading a
poem, you find you learn more
about the poet
than you learn about
yourself, perhaps the poet
is missing the point.

3. Fuck this Shit

Fuck this shit, I’ve had
enough and I am going
to get a taco.

from little rock to memphis

there’s a sweet little girl
in pulaksi county.
her old man works
at the air conditioner factory
high-school basketball
tore his ham right off the shinbone
she stayed with him all these years out of pity.

her passion burns hotter
than high july,
in a world frozen colder
than bad old december
she’s pretty as her daddy
but got her momma’s temper, i met her
in little rock, on an overnight to memphis.

she said “look around this bar
i ain’t exactly the most beautiful
and the guys ‘round town only want me because
i work in pharmaceuticals”
i said chemistry is fine, but physics is better
she said “i prefer ballistics. take your shot”

later, she told me, through
a haze of grey green smoke
“somedays it hurts to feel, it only
feels good when everything is burning or broken”
i told her “burning means nothing is
left behind”. she said “you ain’t fucking kidding”

she coulda packed all she owned
and lit out with me to memphis.
what else is life if not a series
of ill-conceived adventures? but there were
ties that bound which had not yet been burned
or broken or bargained to nothing.

so in the town where the
strip malls praise the name of the lawless
in the pink, glaring light of the
cinderella whorehouse
she’s still fogging up the windows of her ford
explorer and i’m still driving from lil’ rock to memphis.

a conversation between two crows

Take these rings off my fingers
and make them wings.
I will meet the bluff that bears
your slow sighing west-bound wind.
It will be a meagre union
that hillside, to my sea -
but in this world of strange arrangements
sadder birds have flown as free

I don’t fly like arrows gliding
through the canyon,
my path is guided by the
earth below.
You don’t feed sparrows crumbs
or consolations -
your bird must outlast the end
of the eternal world.

I came dressed in severed strings
and rags of shadow.
You, you hopes all feathered
from conversing with a crow.
Ah! then, I am your black jewelled jackdaw
strung all along your wire…
Let us commit some murder, Blondie.
Let’s get all up in the sun.

i had forgotten

until your face, turned away,
reminded me.
the luxury of your flesh
beneath my fingers,
the brush of your cheek ,
low against mine.
of ghostless miles,
of unclouded skies,
the sigh and the arch
and the low, burning rumble.
how the weather changes
how you took me in.
the mysteries of knots,
the rapture of flesh entangled
your soft thighs against
my hip bone
i went searching for flowers
mingled in your hair
i found pearls
and a hurricane
and the confidence between flesh
was a shining necklace of sins
i had forgotten.

the pony

You wanted a pony
He bought you lame one
He asked you your price
He begged you to name one
You asked for some water
He gave you some rye
You said “let me live”
He said “first you must die”

You wanted a husband
You got a career
You needed him closer
But he disappeared
You wanted his children
He wanted your sister
He makes love to you
But he prays to his mistress

You wanted a pony
You got a pale horse
He gave you a chastity belt
You wanted divorce
He wanted mystery
And you, explanation
You sought an abortion
But were sent on vacation

You wanted white fences
He wanted grey walls
He wanted his manhood
You wanted his balls
You sought the death penalty
He wanted life
You said “I’ll be your lover”
He said “first be my wife”

You wanted a pony
He bought you a piebald
You rode it to Memphis
To sleep with his rival
You said “love knows no limit”
He said “love has no fear.
You wanted a pony.

The pony is here.

ass

I’m not into ass,
although yours is a fine one.
I’m more into
shadow
and curve
and corner.
But don’t get me wrong.
Ass is ok.

I’m in to
color and
contour and context
and thickness and thinness
and the wholeness
of flesh.
But don’t get me wrong.
Ass is ok

I’m into dimple
and goosebumps
and crevice
and scent
and surprises and
blindfolded taste.
But don’t get me wrong.
Ass is ok

Oh, ass is fine
and yours is a fine one.
Don’t get me wrong –
I mean no disrespect!
It’s just I’m more into
layers and slow revelation
and movement and stillness
and the points where you

shiver.

miss b turns her hand to erotica

Miss B, 46,
so sadly neglected
since her new Spanish gentleman
abandoned her on Thanksgiving,
sits blankly forsaken
in the midst of the harshest
winter in Spokane
in 95 years.

The move to the north-west
did not revive her, as expected -
the field not as fresh
nor the grass near as green
as even Savannah,
that man-barren wasteland.
Now, some carnal distraction,
she fiercely craves.

She takes up her pen
its weight in her fingers.
How quickly it warms
to her uncertain touch.
Montblanc 324,
1935 Brown marble,
black veining piston filler –
and a Moleskine Cahier.

O! my dreams, oh my long nights
Oh my stories of travelers
Wrapped in my arms
as the silky oaks cried.
Ink glides from my pen
like his fingers through my hair
like his lips on my thin
and translucent flesh

And from a Stanley Bali
fruitwood chaise,
Miss B turns her hand
to erotica.
Just teasing
at the edges,
a script to a play
she never will act.

Bait for a hook
she never will thread
for fish in a dark and
far-distant sea.
To be cast from a ship
that is vanishing sunward,
its sails shrinking dim
in the sunset.