XXIV

blue hill avenue,

where the reds turned

you know what

you know what it means

to go back north?

you know what?

i found a house--all dead and such

I went in through the back basement

and found rotten shoes everywhere

what was that dead house doing with all those goddamn shoes?

No shit, no bodies, no days

No animals either

My yellow hair in the mirror

It made me put ‘I’ back into my shit

And prowl or scuttle

catastrophically drunk

Like a little girl chasing a pigeon

In a green, green park

Green and yellow

Also blue

A sham, a horrid joke

A grand trash can I peeped in

saw my yellow hair

all over the place

I'm blessing every strand

every strand a sleepy sheep

and I’ve got the staff

(just like the bad ewe!)

(just like inside jokes with myself!)

(laughing all by myself)

(or with distant folks)

*who might not laugh

even if they werent distant

waving curses at the north

fleeing Harvard croquet games

really, nobody sees me run

because, you know

they don’t look at me

blue hill avenue,

give me back my garish yellow hair

and my bastion of dirt

where I cast princess smiles no more

(remember when I smiled at people on the street!)

(I might as well have had a magic wand made of marble teeth!) lol california!

swabbed and serene north,

boston isn’t really the north

what about blue hill avenue?

Catastrophically drunk, illiterate

When I got there I heard the shots

Monday afternoon, too early to get shot,

Putting ‘I’ back in my shit

Should I keep taking my pills?

goodbye adoring 16 year olds

goodbye friendly freight train black snot

goodbye black cypress bayou

(with black lipstick, still!)

I’ll rememememember numbers

Hang onto a patch of yelelellow hair

And take all(all!)(all!)(all!) of my daily pills

im on the bus to

blue hill avenue------smiling shaky

(like a werewolf tied to a viper!)

XXIII

based on what i read,

the guy who gets the girl

usually gets shit on in the long run

the guy who doesnt get the girl

gets shit on first,

then later thinks he isnt going to get shit on

but after that he gets shit on just as heavily

maybe even more heavily

you better hope that you just get the shitty girl

but you'll probably end up occupying both

of those roles

anyway

probably just hope for the girl anyway

because the shit always slides up on you

might as well just call it time

XXII

where my sweeties?

where my future?

where my past went traipsin

past the paths of sweeties,

where the little daisies

all had their heads bowed,

like they were carryin

some heavy things

where they were carryin

some heavy things

my sweeties were growing heavy

XXI

when you're homeless its really homelessy yeah its the most homelessy feeling

when you're trying to sleep under a bridge and

you hear some teenagers laughing in the night and

coming closer

then you hear one of them say loud

"theres someone sleeping under there"

then they go away

XX

"okay everyone, whoever started the rumor that sean paul died really ought to step up and confess because we are having problems."

XIX

you know the far guy at the far end of the bar who sings this song?

hes 47 or something and always brings his own cup to the bar

you'll see heads resting in far end hands remembering

"i want you, i want you, i need you, i need you"

two eyes that stayed blue meowing and

running under memphis in snake boots

singing at the far end for a missy as such

"i want you i want you i need you i need you"

in a past life wake up with

snakes sleeping in the sleeping bag

snakes that fate might make boots of

in my other past life id go to sleep in pools

that were just shockingly blue

that made you wonder what was going to go in the water

but anyway

you know how far forward you remember in past lives?

'but there aint no way im ever gonna love you'

'but there aint no way im ever gonna love you'

remember that all the way back to the ice age

or back to before you were human

and you just lived in muted grunts

future is far far

t

at the end of the bar so you can bring your own cup and even put ice in it because it gets inferno hot in memphis and the 48 is somewhere further down

XVIII

like that bastard cherry blossom
i was born laughing

middle of life's false floral,

get touched by something

jump a fence and siege a pool

try to find your skin under the dirt

no mames, security coming

find you looking up at all those

those clumsies, those confoundeds

those imbecile buildings




singing all like that you know?

oh its been found out!

exposed!
come to light!
like a filthy sewer rat swimming in classic trash

dissolving in pinks that were sadder memories,

running grimes in the chlorine that were like orchards


i rose to the top of the pool
just like a falling leaf
just like a blossom rat

XVII

that was black cypress bayou,

crouching probably 30 mph

and all that swamp yawns

all those blacks

some blues


them frozen blue vines,
poor guys, thems
thems pity freezy vines
jes in that bayooo


but might quiet,
might still
cept wings beating and buzzing
no listen tho
when a says,


"pity you black cypress bayou"
"give you a hug black cypress bayou"
"black cypress bayou, no more black lipstick"