Parade from Love to Lent Pt. 1

Here I go stretching
the boundaries of credulity,
adolescent cervix,
clenched camel toe to pass through,
eye of a needle. Sew what?

I am living out
of boxes that would make great boxes
if each could be unstuffed
of so much, such large
rubber-ball-gaggery I am giddy
to jettison bounce
out some astrological orifice.

I, believe me,
wanting to push you away,
push you back on your back,
asphalt cradling your rocking roof,
wheels burning while in spin.
Even then I'd pry back my pie hole
hot press my skin to your peeling paint
and suck out your car alarm.

YOU'RE HOME. GET OFF. (for Theo Eliezer, Jac Currie, Aubrey Edwards, Erik Kiesewetter, Katie Darling, & Jamie Chiarello)

I already have everything I want.

Living, now, is for making actual unrelenting joy of circumstances which I have both built and which have been built around me.
I have exaggerated all stereotypes and imagined even more. I, travel agent. Double back time-traveling agent. International travel is not worth the memories. Go home. It takes longer, costs less, and postcards can finally have pictures on both sides. I live the most fierce and turbulent life. A terrible plane ride. I'm on my way to where I can land. Or on my way to when the air might tear my wings off. Either way, I'll dive into a quiet. Kickback like 16-ton, lead eyeballs rolling back into a chicken wire hammock. Have a real hard rest.

I laugh so stupidly while my bicycle goes across town, past midnight, past my home.
I laugh at a world too stupid to know I've been playing marbles with its balls since I was 12.
I get ridiculous. This spectacle of self, diving hard from HA HA OH EM GEE HA HA to golden-studded sunglasses I snivel beneath & sob behind. Original Bawler, bitch. Fake bitch with a mouth full of mad ballers. They're not welling up. I'm swelling up. I come. I come with a soft focus option. Press this button. Not a trick.

I hate playing marbles. I hate life's balls, dropping like lead eyes that roll back inside a chicken wire hammock. I thought you were sexless or hermaphroditic. It's a lie, a smooth plastic mound; no orifice, no mind. You crazy. Tranny on my face while I ride through the dark, everyone will think I love you. Get off.

I love living. I want to live. Just live like an organism. Everyone saying they gonna do this gonna do that gonna do it do it do it to it.

Friends jammed up in internet traffic, I employ you, get off.

I dare you to set your alarm, wake, and spit on your sheets. Put your weight on your feet and make to move out. See if you can carry the weight of being loved by the place around you. Strap an electric collar on your dogged heart and fight the love of anything beyond the city limits.

Crushing. High School Crushing. Crushing like a cemetery dance.

Gravestone carving machines, punch this on a plaque for me: HE GOT OFF HERE.

I'm off to party with folks for the rest of all the years I have left, making friends of all the fish in one net, gutted with the same knife, breaded with the same flour, filleted and fried in the same oil, served up at the same table, smothered in the same sauce. All together consumed. We live this way for you. We have such unreasonable hope. Expectations. When will you come? I love everyone on their way here. I'll help you cut your heart out. I'll walk you to the fryer. Drop it in, and imagine how this ridiculous metaphor works. Home is stuck through with the cross stitch and lace making of good sentiment. I am also sure that Home is a fish fry. I've explained this above. That's why I want your heart in the fryer where my heart has been. Thin tall tongs to hold you under our long boiling oil; we share a fried taste. If you want to love all of us, if you think we should believe you, drop your balls in, let them roll back inside a chicken wire hammock, let them rest.

We wait and watch your plate. You're on your way. I smell it. I've always had that crispy heart-popping scent. Just sit down and drop your heart on the plate. Drop your balls, take the sauce. Drop your hair, drop your legs, it'll fit. I tell you, I invite you, I beg you to just drop your face on the plate and get off. Go home. Where you're special, where everyone wants a taste.

"New in NOLA" reading recorded

My Reading on October 20 with Nik De Dominic, Sara Slaughter & Paul Killebrew at NOCCA in New Orleans. Curated by Anne Gisleson.

I got beat up Sunday Morning, The Poem.

It was during this period that Claude first sensed his vocation to the religious life in the Society of Jesus. We know nothing of the motives which led to this decision. We do know, however, from one of his early notations, that he "had a terrible aversion for the life embraced". This affirmation is not hard to understand by any who are familiar with the life of Claude, for he was very close to his family and friends and much inclined to the arts and literature and an active social life. On the other hand, he was not a person to be led primarily by his sentiments.

Claude became noted for solid and serious sermons. They were ably directed at specific audiences and, faithful to their inspiration from the gospel, communicated to his listeners serenity and confidence in God.

His spiritual notes from this period allow one to follow step-by-step the battles and triumphs of the spirit, so extraordinarily attracted to everything human, yet so generous with God.

Claude dedicated his time to giving thorough instruction to the many who sought reconciliation with the Church they had abandoned. And even if there were great dangers, he had the consolation of seeing many reconciled to it, so that after a year he said: "I could write a book about the mercy of God I've seen Him exercise since I arrived here!"

-From the Vatican Website

I got beat up Sunday morning

'fore God woke up.

Just got down to New Orleans

Where I’ve learned to drink

from a half-full cup.

I got my zygomatic bones bruised.

I got my arms crossed ‘n’ wires fused.

I got off work and rode my bike to the Bywater.

Throw a cup of water at my face while the weather’s still warm.

Throw a glass bottle at my head while the air’s still thick enough to hear it coming.

Call me faggot while I’m still young enough to wear my pants so tight.

Get out of your truck and chase me down while the streets are still empty.

Pull me off my bike while I’m still happy to walk.

Punch my face once while I ask you why.

Punch my face twice while I ask you to stop.

Tear off my jacket while I wonder how long this will last.

Punch my face three times while I look at your friends looking at me.

Punch my face four times while it occurs to me “This is different.”

Those are your knuckles so devoted to my zygomatic bones.

Hard to turn the other cheek, face down.

I feel your fists loose faith, get softer.

Punch the back of my head once before you turn away while I imagine your license plate:

Romeo

Delta

Yankee

4

Lima

Uniform

Victor

RDY4LUV

It’s over. You left me there. You took nothing.

My bike’s busted. My buttons ripped off. My earrings beaten out.

I walk home. Oh I walk home.

A gay cop finds me on the corner of Esplanade and Dauphine.

I said a gay cop finds me on the corner of Esplanade and Dauphine.

He says we’re calling this in a 35. Hate Crime.

I said officer

I said I said officer

she don’t hate me, she just don’t love me.

My Zygomatic bones bruised.

Since you left me, I rode uptown in an ambulance.

I answered questions about my city, the year, and the president.

I said you can take your 10 grand CT Scan and shove it where the sun always shines.

Baby, I was discharged and a taxi took me home.

I got beat up Sunday morning

‘fore God woke up.

Just got down to New Orleans

Where I’ve learned to drink

from a half-full cup.

I got beaten up last night.

I need to recount what happened to me last night, not for sympathy, but to make anyone who reads this into a witness, if only after the fact.

I got off work early, and by that I mean around 2:30 AM. I rode my bike downtown, stopped off at home to change shirts and grab a coat, then road further downtown to Saturn Bar for the Mod Dance Party. I'd yet to make it to the Mod Dance Party, as it's always on a Saturday, and I often work until 5 AM on Saturdays. I was glad to be out and it seemed to be shaping into a good night.

Once there, I danced a bit, saw some friends, had a few drinks. Then I took a ride back toward the Marigny for a late night snack, after which I planned on heading back to Saturn Bar. I was riding down St. Claude, as it seemed faster and safer then cutting through the neighborhoods that time of night.

Riding down St. Claude, a white pickup truck pulled up along side me and threw a cup of water at me. I was surprisingly unfazed. The truck pulled off. I passed them at the light. As they drove by again, they threw a glass bottle at me, missing me, it shattered against the wall. They yelled "Faggot" out the window then drove off. I decided it would be best to turn off St. Claude at the next street, but they pulled over at the intersection. I froze for a minute. One large fella got out of the car, shirtless and built like a brick wall. He was about 15 feet away. I said "What's going on?" He said nothing and kept walking toward me. I began to turn my bike around, putting my feet on the pedals, but it was still in 8th gear, and I couldn't get it moving fast enough. He ran at me.

He threw me off my bike and began to hit me. I said over and over again, "Why are you doing this?" His friends, 4 others, stood in a circle around us. One of them began to hit my legs. The big one kept hitting my face and my head. I tried to relax my body and not fight the blows. I didn't resist, except to say "Please stop." He ripped my jacket off and continued punching me while I was face down on the ground. A care driving the other direction began honking over and over again. The car flipped around at the next intersection and pulled along side me. The group of guys ran back to the car just before it arrived. They dragged my bike halfway back to their car, breaking the chain and wrecking the gears.

The woman rolled her window down and said how sorry she was, that she'd tried to keep honking so they'd head off. I told her, in my confused and beaten state that I appreciated it, that I'd be fine. When she took off, I saw the state of my bike. Still not clear headed, all I could do was start walking home with my bike. I went a few blocks to Esplanade and turned left. What happened had just begun to hit me... I began to fall apart, in pain, but more frustrated at the pointlessness of it. They hadn't even tried to steal anything.

A few block down Esplanade, a cop drove slowly by, I waved him down, not knowing what to say. He rolled down his window and I quickly recounted the basic scenario. I think he was especially effected by the story, as he was gay. He had me sit on a stoop and called it in. I told him that I was aware that there was little that could be done, seeing as how all I could say was that 5 white guys in a white truck beat me up. Because of the "Faggot" comment, it went on record as a hate crime. Soon, another cop showed up, one that I know from the Quarter and who comes into my work sometimes. They called in an EMT to check me out. The EMT was worried that I might have a slight concussion and that my jaw may have been broken. They all agreed that I should go to the hospital. I was very reluctant, as I don't have insurance, but I consented as I didn't feel clear headed enough to make a decision contrary to that which was being suggested.

I took the ambulance uptown to Touro Hospital. My friend Natasha came with me, as she was only a few blocks away. I was admitted and questioned and had vitals taken. I waited until the doctor came. He wanted to have CT Scan done, as he said an Xray wouldn't convey a broken jaw. I inquired about the expense and was given a $8,000 to $10,000 estimate. By this time, some of the swelling had gone down and I could open my mouth a little more. I decided to refuse any further care and had myself discharged with a prescription for some pain medication.

That was around 6:00 AM this morning. I went home and slept much of the day. I've now been awake for a few hours, feeling better, but still in shock about this having ever happened. I know the bruises will heal, the swelling will go down, and my jaw will hopefully be fine, but I'm shaken up, startled by loud noises, and disheartened. Little things: the buttons torn off my coat, the ear rings gone, beaten out of my ears, my bike with a few hundred dollars in damage.

I remember riding in the ambulance with the EMT. I turned to him and said "I guess I picked the wrong night to wear tight pants." He laughed.

We spoke of New Orleans, with its ups and downs, with its way ups and way downs... a frequent line of conversation around here. I told him that I was happy to take that bad with the good. A bruised face in this city is still better than the lifeless faces in so many other cities I've lived in.

I would like to write a poem about being beaten up in such a senseless way, but I don't know why I would write it. Perhaps later. For now, I have so little to say about it. I suppose I simply would like some folks to know that it happened.

Home Is Where this Part Is

One month has passed since I moved to New Orleans.

Cassie Smith, longtime co-conspirator and fabulous friend, is visiting me.

In my attempt to convince her (and most everyone) that New Orleans is the best place to call home, I have also managed to keep us out until 6:30 am, sweating away in the world's most exotic dive bars, where exhaustion can't find you, as you're held up by the sheets of smoke that stack and rise in every room. Should you need to get from point A to point B, say the bar to the bathroom, or the dance floor to the patio, the rolling and rousing 60's R&B, 70's Funk, or 100 years of Jazz will aid in your crossing.

I've begun managing and training bartenders at a new bar/ restaurant/ venue/ club/ art-space called Eiffel Society. We grow a large percentage of our herbs, vegetables and spices on premise. The cocktail menu is focused on house-made cordials, bitters and infusions, aided by the vision of Alan Walter of Iris. The space was once the restaurant built into the base of the Eiffel Tower. We've only just begun, but the potential and the ambition are there.

I have a reading at NOCCA in October, along with 4 other recently transplanted poets. I am trying to write about the heart in a way that hopefully a few people might understand. The heart as container, carrying blood and baggage, moving it from here to there, lest it sit and drain itself of oxygen and worth. I believe I am failing at this. I am failing at this in the wrong way. Or the heart as computer, to reboot upon freezing, to reboot upon downloading software updates. The heart as de facto icon for all emotion in and all emotion out. Home is where the heart is. Where people move in and move out. Where rent is split. Where walls are painted. Where furniture reluctantly rests on floors, unfixed and impermanent. Where you go when you're tired. Where you leave when you're tired. I want to discuss a kind of structural surgery, the impossibility of fusing together the anatomical heart and the drywall of a home. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. This sickness, where we learn to love what leaves, expending proportionately more energy to love someone whose distance away from us is measured in days passing. Not "days until," but "days since."

This is not despair. This is not tragedy. My first love is living. The heart, before all else, is an advocate of life. Rather, this is grief or mourning. I want to dance blindly and awkwardly, breaking down my inhibitions. I want to accept the unsystematic occurrence of crying that comes as I walk through my apartment door, or when the food is brought to the table, or when fixing the chain on my bike. I want to let it happen. I have so much belief, and I would trade the world that I know for a place to put it.

Old New Orleans

After 3 weeks, New Orleans has begun to register as my home. I've spent most of my time shopping for furniture, painting, and generally decorating my 200 yr old shotgun a few houses in from the Cat's Meow on the corner of St. Peter and Bourbon in the French Quarter.

I frequently ride my bike to Mimi's in the Marigny. On Wednesdays, I listen to the Cash-like sounds of Gal Holiday and The Honky Tonk Revue. On Fridays, it's DJ Matty's Alligator Chomp Chomp Swamp Pop Dance Party. And Mondays, the sweet stomping sounds of Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns. Never a dull moment at Mimi's.

Then there's Frenchmen Street, with the likes of The Cottonmouth Kings and the Loose Marbles pounding out hours and hours of jazz at The Spotted Cat and D.B.A.

Having travelled the world and the states extensively as a child and an adult, I can assure you that there is no other U.S. city that feels more like a country unto itself.

Coming here has been and continues to be the best of a bad situation. Save for circumstances beyond my control, there is nowhere else I'd rather be. If your life seems like a little bit of hell, then New Orleans is the closest thing to heaven on earth. Don't think I'm simply star struck in my honeymoon with this city... I am well aware that this is also the city of heat, heartache and hangovers, AKA the blues.

The blues is about how to keep moving, how one foot follows the other, even when your heartbeat slows to a thump a minute. And jazz is about the body dancing rebelliously and spasmodically, even when the mind has somehow escaped the room through 2-ft thick masonry walls.

Highlights:

-Orchestrated a tasting room/ Russian experience for Tales of the Cocktail

-Performed as a panelist for the Tales of the Cocktail seminar, I Hate Vodka, I Love Vodka

-Hosted a housewarming party attended by the local milliner (hatter to all the mimis, fifis and post-debutantes, the city's premier bar man who showed up dressed as a knight, a one-time crust lord and freight train hopper turned bespoke bombshell ukellele virtuoso, a film industry costume designer whose best costumes are in her own closet, the local art world's premier designer who's also the hippest version of a southern gentleman dixie has yet to know, and my new band mate, a Floridian surfer girl turned soulful sardonic southland essayist, non-fictionist, and culinary critic.

-Began playing music again. Wrote several songs. Formed the Yankee Fire Band, starring myself on banjo, Gwendolyn Knapp on guitar, and the General (my drum machine).

-Ordered a hot sausage poboy (dressed + grilled onions and american cheese) from Gene's.

-Ordered far too many late night roast beef poboys from Quartermasters.

-Purchased a custom-made rolling bar from Greg's on Decatur.

-Purchased two old 70's paintings by "Richter" of clowns; they seem to me to be studies of what Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten might look like as sad clowns.

-Read the Confederacy of Dunces.

-Danced my ass off to Johnny Cash covers, the Cottonmouth Kings, the Little Big Horns, and whatever the hell happened to be on the juke up at the Saint.

-Attended White Linen Night, NOLA's annual opening of the art season, where everyone's clad in their whites, and the galleries get hotter than a creole kitchen on a friday night at 9.

-Got on my knees and prayed for everything from a job to salvation in St. Louis Cathedral.

-Began consulting for a new Garden District bar.

-Began talks of working for Bols Genever as a New Orleans rep.

-Purchased and actually enjoyed poems from 3 typewriter wielding street poets.

-Chatted with a stripper for an hour about the details of raising wolf-dogs.

-Saw a man weeping while taking brutal swings at another fellow yelling "I told you so" on Bourbon street.

-Heard Journey playing at The Cat's Meow karaoke bar more times then the band ever played that damn song. You know the song.

-Attended a No Wave house show in the Treme.

-Had a meandering birthday party, starting at Desperado's (the pizza place, not the strip club).

-Found a place that makes the best Egg-In-A-Hole I've ever experienced.

It's the laziest kind of busy I've ever been, and my soul is grateful for it.

Now I turn my attention to poetics and performance. I've a handful of leads regarding the locations of readings and various literary groups. I suspect that I'm about to delve into the rebirth of local lyricism. I'm actually enthused.

Here are some pics of my home: