Svelte Punk Chic

     I was immersed in the early punk rock scene for a period of time and experienced firsthand the inner devastation of fringe living.  Underground love left scarred hearts from sacred youth gone all bat-shit in a revolution against culture, politics, themselves and ultimately, nothing.
     There is a trilogy of verse from my writings at that time that circled around a couple of friends and their 3am confessions to the cave wall-dirty, pretty things from an unsentimental tribe.  Light a smoke, take a third shot of Jack and listen to a few notes from the dank night.

PLUMMET INTO BUNGLE

Wearing svelte punk chic

she was tearing down things

and her things

she would erect

instead...

Her toxic "I"

reigns constant-

poisoning caution's approach

in alteration to the host

and her eyes twitter mean.

"Bitch!" "I" cries;

"Whore!" "I" tumbles;

"Slut!" "I" turns to-

oh woman,

herself

immersed into.

Yet, she is not her lover;

just a random in happenstance

sycophant

melodious in sin expressed

softly

or harshly-

hardly a bother to please

or surpass

in expectation of pleasure

to her promise splayed out

amongst her discarded

regalia.

"I" had/she

has no

rhythm

lying there,

dirtying her push

as he retracts

and readies plunge-

unworthy, un-savored, unsane-

she reels in the catch

her toxic,

toxic "I"

must

arrange.

*

HOT, SEXY (AND DEAD)

          See

     the pretty girl run like melting snow

(a man fall like the sleet).

His woman

    has the heat (of an animal).

       He breathes

           like the hissing air of ash

              (from marihuana).

                  Passion garrotes her kiss

                      (like a hangman).

                          Their sweaty eyes

                              feed thirsting (for breath).

                                  A smoking silhouette

                                      of love's withdrawal

                                          (from flesh).

                                              A pang of nothing

                                                  left (in its streaks).

                                                     The moral diaries

                                                         their heads support

                                                            wane (and freeze).

                                                               Faith bathes

                                                                  in the sweat

                                                                     on gravestones

                                                                        (its death).

                                                                           The end

                                                                               (begins)

                                                                                  again.

                                                                                     A pretty girl

                                                                                        is like

melting snow

     (a man is like the sleet).

*

HUMP DAY

Wednesday

Tries to rule

Her Saturday

attitude

As she circles his party

With latitude for breathing-

Lust coiling serpentine

In her eyes' needy visage;

A stare war arises

In jaded,

Grainy remembrance

Of love's burning gone

And heart crushed

Like cigarettes:

Soled out

Like a snake,

Her body

Entwined

Like a snake,

She did animal things

And then lay in the shade;

A rest

For the reptile

Of loneliness within

Curled comfortably

Soothed

After miking from Man-

His slivers creating the darkness,

Teach her

To feed on the darkness,

And it sleeps

At her feet

Like faithful blackness

Should-

And her Saturday

succombs

To his

Wednesday

Afternoon.

*

Blind Man's Cat

     I once assisted another poet on editing her work for publication. She was attempting to put a sense of order into what to her was a collection of disorganized and disparate poems. They were all in her voice but she was so close to them she could not see their relation to one another in context of her vision.
    
     In reading the pieces I not only heard the music coming from the pages but also saw a subtext buried inside the words. Once I became a companion to that subtext I arranged the poems in my head into what to my ears and eyes was a linear theme that told a precise tale.
    
     She then allowed me to cut and paste her babies into this thematic context. That was a remarkable level of trust (ask any writer), especially as the finished edit created quite another animal than the one she had raised. I had been talking out loud like an inspired madman about my thought processes and the subtext I was following throughout the whole procedure. When I finished I read the book aloud from the first word to the last verse.
    
     She was shocked and quiet and silent for a long time. Then came the tears.
    
     I initially thought she was crushed at what I had done. That was far from the truth. In her estimation, that edit had not only streamlined her vision but told the story she had been attempting to tell in a way she had never visualized and could never had done. She was wrong.

     Her book was all there, story and everything in completion-there was nothing missing and nothing added. I heard her music and I formatted the playlist of her album. She was thankful but I was even more appreciative because it was a beautiful experience that taught me more about trust and editing than I could ever have learned on my own.
    
     Later on, she looked at some of my work. She pulled a forth a poem I had been stuck on and commented that to her it was an experiential description of sound. That was far from what I was attempting but it forced me to look at my lines with new eyes and listen further to what they were saying. As with her, I had been so close to it I could no longer hear it, but it was there...singing low.
    
     With new ears I finished that piece and many times since I think of lessons learned and music unheard. So Jolie, wherever you may be...this one is for you:

BLIND MAN'S CAT

Her sound

     seeps syllabic meter

          haunting

               auditory images,

her paws print

     cushioned percussion

          echoing

               ear cymbals preening-

all catwalking forward,

     back,

          then rising;

               heard symbols uniting,

          meow,

     meow,

meow.

Her beat

     and talk

          anticipating tigers

               or kittens

in a steady,
     measured tone to

          make verb

               or phrase
to a felt imploding
     sound wave-

          her  v-i-b-r-a-t-i-n-g  metaphor;

               his braille purr she sings.