| Poetry and Fiction |
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| Scalp Feminine |
| Opiate Drive |
I imagine Joan of Arc heard the same echo of horses
stallions galloping right up to her renaissance ear
flies abuzz with memories such as
an unwanted cock in the mouth or the ass, it’s all the same
either way I too have raised guillotine blades
on materialized womanhood
sheared my hair brief for hoof-bruises, black eyes
a filthy fly on the inner thigh
but follicles still weave tiny in hard female skulls
knitting out manes long as forlorn centuries
stringing lengthy my very blondness and possibly for Joan
a dance of auburn ribbons at her helmeted chin
though all this doesn’t matter really
what matters most is that we both fought gallantly as fuck
with similar swords and I suppose exacting shields
however I must confess cause as a saint I know Joan can’t
admit to these yellow twines
now growing out past my ears
and how they muffle by degrees
the charging stampedes
raging below another scalp feminine
stallions galloping right up to her renaissance ear
flies abuzz with memories such as
an unwanted cock in the mouth or the ass, it’s all the same
either way I too have raised guillotine blades
on materialized womanhood
sheared my hair brief for hoof-bruises, black eyes
a filthy fly on the inner thigh
but follicles still weave tiny in hard female skulls
knitting out manes long as forlorn centuries
stringing lengthy my very blondness and possibly for Joan
a dance of auburn ribbons at her helmeted chin
though all this doesn’t matter really
what matters most is that we both fought gallantly as fuck
with similar swords and I suppose exacting shields
however I must confess cause as a saint I know Joan can’t
admit to these yellow twines
now growing out past my ears
and how they muffle by degrees
the charging stampedes
raging below another scalp feminine
the darkness in my room once again unbolts, earthquakes open
and a thousand rocking chair bones of my ancestors
shake forward out of every corner
gathered on the ceiling, their stony faces begin to crumble
granite tongues go liquid and wag their genetic spit
while I lie naked as history
my DNA locked-up like pebbles in a fist
caught fast in our lineage of an opiate drive
meanwhile, the racket in here has gone deafening
what with all the walls turned tombstone
and those dry tongues of my mother-language
licking like addicted children
any possible light from the air
though outside the sun still clicks merry on its very yellow axis
making Apollo-nods heard loud round the world
the altering of rivers, mixing of grasses
and how this bright symphony blares
exploded flashlights under my door
shafts of sing-song street noise now also chiming in—
honking delivery trucks, brake squeals—a clamor loud enough then
to scatter shadow and shift temporarily
this inherited gritty sand in my blood
and a thousand rocking chair bones of my ancestors
shake forward out of every corner
gathered on the ceiling, their stony faces begin to crumble
granite tongues go liquid and wag their genetic spit
while I lie naked as history
my DNA locked-up like pebbles in a fist
caught fast in our lineage of an opiate drive
meanwhile, the racket in here has gone deafening
what with all the walls turned tombstone
and those dry tongues of my mother-language
licking like addicted children
any possible light from the air
though outside the sun still clicks merry on its very yellow axis
making Apollo-nods heard loud round the world
the altering of rivers, mixing of grasses
and how this bright symphony blares
exploded flashlights under my door
shafts of sing-song street noise now also chiming in—
honking delivery trucks, brake squeals—a clamor loud enough then
to scatter shadow and shift temporarily
this inherited gritty sand in my blood
Outside it is Autumn, more precisely Halloween, and afterwards when he leaves a certain dew of sex still clings to his body
therefore the air for him is unusually chilly. In the meantime, an invasion of trick-or-treaters has by now spilt out onto the sidewalks,
float low and dark around him like snickering ghouls and since the neighborhood is indigent Hispanic these ghouls snicker loudly in
Spanish. Of this he takes note. Takes note Gerald Hansen, Esquire also does particularly, how many of these ghouls are wearing
Frankenstein masks. How strange that so many have versions of the same identical rubbery monster visage which seem to be
floating by him much more illuminated in the pumpkin glow of streetlights. Thus Gerald Hansen, Esquire deduces, with certain
degrees of self-satisfaction, that this neighborhood must share a common store.
All the while from above—from mapquested views of Gerald Hansen, Esquire scurrying along among these dots of costumed
children—panoramic god-vistas afford him the unfortunate look of an insect. Like, perhaps a beetle. A darting black beetle unsure
of itself as it scuttles along bald in tiny tweed jacket and even tinier professorial glasses. But then the beetle’s itty-bitty car has got
to be parked close by although from above the beetle doesn’t seem to be remembering. Has already collided with several specks
of the foreshortened Frankensteins just as if he were bumping around in a pin-ball machine. Grabbing his chest, the beetle is next
seen tripping over a pink dot of chiffoned princess and stumbling to hit pavement, he gets joined by a crowd of Hispanic mothers
who move in and hover over him like a tiny Pieta.
His hip hurts. Of this Gerald Hansen, Esquire takes note as he lay heavily life-sized upon the sidewalk breathing shallow, and
how this doubtlessly means that it will be raining soon. His shoulder hurts too, however. It is shooting sharp fatal messages down
from his pounding heart to his aching wrist-bone which in turn ricochet back up in forceful stabs at his skull. A series of flashes
begin as well on the backsides of his eyes and he scrutinizes how they are just lightning—he thinks—spectacular lightning, similar
to a painful orgasm or perhaps fireworks which somehow hurt. Images of his wife start to flash in, faraway at first but coming fully
into flickering focus alongside snapshots of his two grown children and cornflower-blue house suburban. Every fluffy dog he’s ever
owned, rough-barked tree he’s ever touched proceed after that to split open between the flashes and spread across his brain like
a misfiring atomic army possessed.
What is seen from above seldom occurs exactly as viewed below, therefore the god-vista overlooks all of this minutia of
interior lightning storms. Doesn’t obey natural laws either, so as a result Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s skyward celluloid may be rolled
forward or backward to offer a more far-reaching analysis. The god-vista choosing to perceive his tiny beetle form in a reversal of
this fixed collapsing moment on the sidewalk. His insect legs supernaturally propping him back up again to his prior stance as
those specks of Hispanic mothers instantaneously scatter, return to where they’d been standing and the beetle then trots
backwards, back past all those previous trick-or-treaters until he disappears finally into a monopoly-sized home on the shabby
block. God-vista vision bending natural law through the home’s earlier afternoon’s sunlit roof and there he is, Gerald Hansen,
Esquire, bedframed naked, his rotund hairy slick beetle belly and all mounted on a senorita alongside green flecks of cash on a
nearby nightstand.
Nevertheless, sprawled weighty on the sidewalk Gerald Hansen, Esquire dutifully remains in real time. And still towered over
by the band of screaming Hispanic matrons—with their Frankensteins in tow—his interior lightning storm continues. And stare he
does, watches, contemplates coolly the flashing flip of pixilated nostalgia as it unrolls on the backs of his eyes like a documentary
on his very own infinity. Without any knobs, switches or buttons however, he is unable to stop, choose or cross-exam any of the
flashing images. Except for one. One which keeps adhering together and presenting itself forward. A flickering image of a
waitress at Denny’s where he had dined several weeks before. This, the waitress’s visage halts, hesitates tactilely, even succeeds
in waylaying the lethal pains discharging down Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s limply outstretched arm. Yes, there she is, that sexy
waitress, bursting utterly into perfectly formed focus with her long brown hair and straight white teeth, her maroon uniform tightly
sporting a flimsy-looking zipper.
Although from on high, things look very different. Still in rapid rewinds, Gerald Hansen, Esquire—that is, the darting black
beetle of him—has reversingly located his itty-bitty Lexus and he is backing up out of the grungy Hispanic neighborhood.
Architectural-model-sized trees, people and buildings flank quickly past the car as the sun whirls back to its preceding mid-morning
position. Pausing for a few moments, stopped at a stoplight, molecules in the car suddenly begin to move and stretch, momentarily
bend and yield—all steel, plastic and rubber brought under control of anti-natural laws—and flattening themselves into collections
of transparent prisms, further eternities of Gerald Hansen, Esquire get revealed. Crouched in its bucket seat, the beetle is
reaching in with antennae arm to the glove box where it extracts an orange pinpoint of a prescription bottle. And pinching out a
grain of blue before the bug mandibles can even open to chew, a heavenward lens zooms in and spells:
P-f-i-z-e-r V-I-A-G-R-A
The Denny’s waitress is no longer merely smiling. Projected on the undersides of Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s fluttering eyes as
he lay upon the rough sidewalk with tickles of candy wrappers blowing around him like paper vultures, she is also seductively
undoing her zipper. And the zipper takes time, forever, an eternity elapsing while Gerald Hansen, Esquire grins from his sideways
position. The girl’s lips next part open in a throe of passion and she starts mouthing at him Os of seduction. Moans and groans
which, to Gerald Hansen, Esquire sound strangely as if they are rising in volume only to separate off into garbled syllables
although the girl is not moving her mouth at all properly for speech. Is it the girl, he wonders and he ceases smiling for a moment,
for those tones do sound rather crisis-laden?
The god-vista view has by now kept going. Speeded up and skipped past large chunks of the beetle’s history. Following
Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s bug-tracks backwards on its individual timeline, it has watched the beetle move in and out of many a
quick turnabout hours spent: countless days at a tiny desk scribbling away lawyerly paperwork—its little bug arms elbowing quick
with pen—or innumerable months passed flipping through specks of books on miniature oaken library tables. Back the beetle is
traced, followed. Back past its first, second and third marriages, the second bearing both son and daughter, even further past all
the paid-for sexual encounters and coerced trysts with subordinate coworkers. Every high school prank and stolen first-grade
pencil passes fleetingly by in vivid Technicolor. Until finally, rapidly unwinding back across a succession of highways lined in
Ohioan golden farmland, the god-vista travels, zeros in and comes to rest upon an infinitesimal square of hospital where the beetle
is born.
therefore the air for him is unusually chilly. In the meantime, an invasion of trick-or-treaters has by now spilt out onto the sidewalks,
float low and dark around him like snickering ghouls and since the neighborhood is indigent Hispanic these ghouls snicker loudly in
Spanish. Of this he takes note. Takes note Gerald Hansen, Esquire also does particularly, how many of these ghouls are wearing
Frankenstein masks. How strange that so many have versions of the same identical rubbery monster visage which seem to be
floating by him much more illuminated in the pumpkin glow of streetlights. Thus Gerald Hansen, Esquire deduces, with certain
degrees of self-satisfaction, that this neighborhood must share a common store.
All the while from above—from mapquested views of Gerald Hansen, Esquire scurrying along among these dots of costumed
children—panoramic god-vistas afford him the unfortunate look of an insect. Like, perhaps a beetle. A darting black beetle unsure
of itself as it scuttles along bald in tiny tweed jacket and even tinier professorial glasses. But then the beetle’s itty-bitty car has got
to be parked close by although from above the beetle doesn’t seem to be remembering. Has already collided with several specks
of the foreshortened Frankensteins just as if he were bumping around in a pin-ball machine. Grabbing his chest, the beetle is next
seen tripping over a pink dot of chiffoned princess and stumbling to hit pavement, he gets joined by a crowd of Hispanic mothers
who move in and hover over him like a tiny Pieta.
His hip hurts. Of this Gerald Hansen, Esquire takes note as he lay heavily life-sized upon the sidewalk breathing shallow, and
how this doubtlessly means that it will be raining soon. His shoulder hurts too, however. It is shooting sharp fatal messages down
from his pounding heart to his aching wrist-bone which in turn ricochet back up in forceful stabs at his skull. A series of flashes
begin as well on the backsides of his eyes and he scrutinizes how they are just lightning—he thinks—spectacular lightning, similar
to a painful orgasm or perhaps fireworks which somehow hurt. Images of his wife start to flash in, faraway at first but coming fully
into flickering focus alongside snapshots of his two grown children and cornflower-blue house suburban. Every fluffy dog he’s ever
owned, rough-barked tree he’s ever touched proceed after that to split open between the flashes and spread across his brain like
a misfiring atomic army possessed.
What is seen from above seldom occurs exactly as viewed below, therefore the god-vista overlooks all of this minutia of
interior lightning storms. Doesn’t obey natural laws either, so as a result Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s skyward celluloid may be rolled
forward or backward to offer a more far-reaching analysis. The god-vista choosing to perceive his tiny beetle form in a reversal of
this fixed collapsing moment on the sidewalk. His insect legs supernaturally propping him back up again to his prior stance as
those specks of Hispanic mothers instantaneously scatter, return to where they’d been standing and the beetle then trots
backwards, back past all those previous trick-or-treaters until he disappears finally into a monopoly-sized home on the shabby
block. God-vista vision bending natural law through the home’s earlier afternoon’s sunlit roof and there he is, Gerald Hansen,
Esquire, bedframed naked, his rotund hairy slick beetle belly and all mounted on a senorita alongside green flecks of cash on a
nearby nightstand.
Nevertheless, sprawled weighty on the sidewalk Gerald Hansen, Esquire dutifully remains in real time. And still towered over
by the band of screaming Hispanic matrons—with their Frankensteins in tow—his interior lightning storm continues. And stare he
does, watches, contemplates coolly the flashing flip of pixilated nostalgia as it unrolls on the backs of his eyes like a documentary
on his very own infinity. Without any knobs, switches or buttons however, he is unable to stop, choose or cross-exam any of the
flashing images. Except for one. One which keeps adhering together and presenting itself forward. A flickering image of a
waitress at Denny’s where he had dined several weeks before. This, the waitress’s visage halts, hesitates tactilely, even succeeds
in waylaying the lethal pains discharging down Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s limply outstretched arm. Yes, there she is, that sexy
waitress, bursting utterly into perfectly formed focus with her long brown hair and straight white teeth, her maroon uniform tightly
sporting a flimsy-looking zipper.
Although from on high, things look very different. Still in rapid rewinds, Gerald Hansen, Esquire—that is, the darting black
beetle of him—has reversingly located his itty-bitty Lexus and he is backing up out of the grungy Hispanic neighborhood.
Architectural-model-sized trees, people and buildings flank quickly past the car as the sun whirls back to its preceding mid-morning
position. Pausing for a few moments, stopped at a stoplight, molecules in the car suddenly begin to move and stretch, momentarily
bend and yield—all steel, plastic and rubber brought under control of anti-natural laws—and flattening themselves into collections
of transparent prisms, further eternities of Gerald Hansen, Esquire get revealed. Crouched in its bucket seat, the beetle is
reaching in with antennae arm to the glove box where it extracts an orange pinpoint of a prescription bottle. And pinching out a
grain of blue before the bug mandibles can even open to chew, a heavenward lens zooms in and spells:
P-f-i-z-e-r V-I-A-G-R-A
The Denny’s waitress is no longer merely smiling. Projected on the undersides of Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s fluttering eyes as
he lay upon the rough sidewalk with tickles of candy wrappers blowing around him like paper vultures, she is also seductively
undoing her zipper. And the zipper takes time, forever, an eternity elapsing while Gerald Hansen, Esquire grins from his sideways
position. The girl’s lips next part open in a throe of passion and she starts mouthing at him Os of seduction. Moans and groans
which, to Gerald Hansen, Esquire sound strangely as if they are rising in volume only to separate off into garbled syllables
although the girl is not moving her mouth at all properly for speech. Is it the girl, he wonders and he ceases smiling for a moment,
for those tones do sound rather crisis-laden?
The god-vista view has by now kept going. Speeded up and skipped past large chunks of the beetle’s history. Following
Gerald Hansen, Esquire’s bug-tracks backwards on its individual timeline, it has watched the beetle move in and out of many a
quick turnabout hours spent: countless days at a tiny desk scribbling away lawyerly paperwork—its little bug arms elbowing quick
with pen—or innumerable months passed flipping through specks of books on miniature oaken library tables. Back the beetle is
traced, followed. Back past its first, second and third marriages, the second bearing both son and daughter, even further past all
the paid-for sexual encounters and coerced trysts with subordinate coworkers. Every high school prank and stolen first-grade
pencil passes fleetingly by in vivid Technicolor. Until finally, rapidly unwinding back across a succession of highways lined in
Ohioan golden farmland, the god-vista travels, zeros in and comes to rest upon an infinitesimal square of hospital where the beetle
is born.
| Afterwards, When He Leaves |
| Past Publications |
| POEMS 1999, "Because of Sex" and "Red-Overflow", First Draft Literary Magazine 2009, "Scalp Feminine", FORTH Magazine SHORT FICTION 2009 May/June, "Remington", FORTH Magazine 2009 February, "Remington", Journal of Truth and Consequence NOVELS currently seeking publisher for novelette, "Miranda Begins" |
| excerpt from Miranda Begins |
Brake lights duplicate on the drenched pavement as my ugly bus eats up Franklin Ave. The HOLLYWOOD sign is behind now, out of view and obscured
by some foggy storm clouds. While the bus glides out onto Santa Monica Boulevard, then begins that dubious assault by the unending billboards announcing
their movies, pilots and D&G’s new bathing suit line. Standing guard like lighted sentinels in the slanting rain, the billboards straddle the road and overlap
each other: Brad Pitt on one side holding a gun while Angelina Jolie smiles down on the other as if together they could parent the whole of LA. Pausing their
2-D poses for a moment, we riders sit hypnotic, imagining secretively what it would be like if these celebrities were to peel themselves off all at once, climb
down and meet in the middle of the road for a quickie before scaling back to their posts. And a collective sigh fills the bus: a longing, an ache, a pining wish
for beauty as we all shift uncomfortably in our damp clothes on the hard benches trying hard not to look at each other's fantasies.
All the while that blue dot of a clapboard house draws nearer and nearer.
With the bus pressing on, closer and closer to West Hollywood where the clapboard house must surely still be standing. Where it all began. In WEHO.
West Hollywood, of course, being cardinal exception to Hollywood although most people mix them up. West Hollywood is Hollywood run through a washing
machine with a bag of silver dollars tossed in. It is clean. Crisp. Perfect and Rich. Like any other prosperous place with a generational history there is
however, an area of exception to this wealthy set-up: the Russian district. A string of streets caught in-between Fountain Ave and Melrose where laundry still
dries in front yards and old men sit outside in recliners underneath year-round Christmas lights. Most of Hollywood on the other hand, where I reside, is a
grimy neighborhood of the lost and wounded: failed actors, aborted writers, misplaced drug children. An entire dilapidated municipality sinking from the
weight of its own heartbreak...
by some foggy storm clouds. While the bus glides out onto Santa Monica Boulevard, then begins that dubious assault by the unending billboards announcing
their movies, pilots and D&G’s new bathing suit line. Standing guard like lighted sentinels in the slanting rain, the billboards straddle the road and overlap
each other: Brad Pitt on one side holding a gun while Angelina Jolie smiles down on the other as if together they could parent the whole of LA. Pausing their
2-D poses for a moment, we riders sit hypnotic, imagining secretively what it would be like if these celebrities were to peel themselves off all at once, climb
down and meet in the middle of the road for a quickie before scaling back to their posts. And a collective sigh fills the bus: a longing, an ache, a pining wish
for beauty as we all shift uncomfortably in our damp clothes on the hard benches trying hard not to look at each other's fantasies.
All the while that blue dot of a clapboard house draws nearer and nearer.
With the bus pressing on, closer and closer to West Hollywood where the clapboard house must surely still be standing. Where it all began. In WEHO.
West Hollywood, of course, being cardinal exception to Hollywood although most people mix them up. West Hollywood is Hollywood run through a washing
machine with a bag of silver dollars tossed in. It is clean. Crisp. Perfect and Rich. Like any other prosperous place with a generational history there is
however, an area of exception to this wealthy set-up: the Russian district. A string of streets caught in-between Fountain Ave and Melrose where laundry still
dries in front yards and old men sit outside in recliners underneath year-round Christmas lights. Most of Hollywood on the other hand, where I reside, is a
grimy neighborhood of the lost and wounded: failed actors, aborted writers, misplaced drug children. An entire dilapidated municipality sinking from the
weight of its own heartbreak...
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