HW6834 2003

In the first days of the month of February
things in Brixton A wing became a bit scary.
It seems Simon the Snake had pissed off someone,
so on the way back from the shower he was done.
Whacked wrong from behind to the head several blows,
227g of pineapples socked -- how blood flows!
A nervous morning for me, that much more for Si,
as fucked up as it was, no one batted an eye.
In no time at all he had returned to the wing
where every London rude-bwai was proving something.

Shortly thereafter, Ol' Si was moved to wing C;
A nicer place all'round; more quiet, sane, and T.V.
I was at the time in the chapel and praying,
"God please smite my enemies - that's all I'm saying."
When I returned to my wing and my cell again,
instead of Simon I found tobacco; godsend!
In his place later on a 'wag came with his kit.
By the time he was settled I had quite had it.
So I moved to the sunny side of the landing,
in with Tartaglialini to continue remanding.

Thomas T. came straight from the old boot of the south,
that Italian knew well how to keep shut his mouth.
The days flew on by us as we marathon read
enough crap garbage novels to do in my head.
Thomas spent 6 weeks in prison, sentence: time served,
for stealing two cuts of gammon. Was it deserved?
We would talk about what we would do when set free.
He said he would go back to junk, decidedly.
I understood him and could not say much with wit.
If a junkie wants junk then that's just what they'll get.

Now Thomas I imagine is on London's streets
measuring time, the greatest of all junkie feats.
Good luck to you Thomas, and godspeed to you, friend.
I hope you find some peace, and some good in the end.
When Thomas left I met the new man to the cell;
Rasta himself, he said my dreads came along well.
Up for a double, the charges spoke of a gun
But according to him, never even had one.
Sunny was laid back, every bit a nice guy;
we got along fine, the Lucian Rasta and I.

One stupid morning the screw came early with news:
"You are up for release.  Pack your shit. Grab your shoes."
The motherfucking bastard was taking the piss;
he looked too cheerful, something was certainly amiss.
He then told me I was now moving to wing C;
a small consolation for all this fuckery.
Threw on my trousers both legs jumped into from bed,
landed in my boots, grabbed my stuff, and scratched my head.
Looked around, said goodbye and bounced down the three flights,
happy to leave A wing's insane screams, blood, and fights.

The Bells

There are no clocks I can see, but I can hear eight working ones in the room, plus the bells of a church.  It's always dark when I wake up, and the light through the window is from a paranoid streetlamp.  I am tired.  I don't want to wake up, but once the gears start turning, the discomfort sets in & I know I'll be awake.  The eight clocks in the room, for LA, NY, BA, London, Berlin, Bangkok, HK, Tokyo, and the dead Moscow clock at night seem like a perfect train of rhythm, a locomotive pulling a slow heart down even tracks.  It isn't hard to fall asleep.  When I next hear them, they are quieter; my mind is louder.

 

I can hear every movement in the house, the flame of the heater, the fan, the metal clicking and bending with temperature, the creak of wood and more.  If I move, it will hurt, but I can't stay still.  Sitting down in flourescent light, putting on ugly trousers in the cold, I am unsure if this is life. 

 

 

Progress

i have no brain for famous names.




or even just people i meet's names



or tying my shoes.



i don't drool so much though



when i'm awake



anymore



usually

Paul Took Offense

He looked through his eyelids, eyelids that had stretched horizontally to frame the line between the sky and plain.  In the night, he heard lions.  Now that the sun was coming up, he could see the antlers twist in chorus against the wind.  They had appetites, these lions, and the gazelles were none the wiser.  Lions were sleepy animals, unless they were starving.  The morning was welcome.  It was cool.

One of the gazelles would die.  At least one would die, or the lions would.  Well, they all eventually would, but one or the other would suffer some fate in the process.  Well, they would all find some fate, but one may be more immediately painful than the next.  Paul closed his eyes. 

It wasn't his problem right now.  He had to walk to get there early to collect some rice.  Zizania, his daughter needed it.  Temitope could use the rest she was taking.  His wife had sleepy eyes like a lion.  He could work for life.  There were some old coffee.  It was mostly water, but even the dirty coffee water was good. 

As he set out, he looked across the fields again.  Gazelles were still there.  So were the lions, he imagined.  That's the way it goes.  At least there was water.  If he had a son, Paul would name him Wanjilanko.

On his way home, he saw the gazelles from well up the road.  It was warm and they were slower, and perhaps less nervous.  He would try to kill one of them.  He only had two rounds, and his rifle was very low caliber.  It was mostly supposed to be for protection.  Against what, he thought, more than being hungry, did he need protection?

When he got home, Temitope was pleased.  She was still a little bitchy though, exhausted by Zizania's antics. 

The Wheel of Destiny

I loved and lost
I frame my hours
With measured breath
Waiting my turn

Life is right now
Just then, just here
I dont command
What I can not

No one is culpa
No one is that
But when I am
I surely am

So take my blood
Number me then
Break me; do try
But dont get mad

I am savage
Its fear and pain
Not greed and hate
And I wouldnt trade

Not for the world
All thats in it
What would i do
With it anyway?

When I despise
The ways of man
It may be because
Im afraid of it

Let he who Is
Innocent cast
The first of the
Meteorites

Yes, I pray wrong
I pray for death
At least for me
My clock is fucked

How should I be?
Life sure isnt easy
What does it cost
To live life free?

Yes, Im a fool
And I forget
Gratitude is
An everyday thing

Should I give up
My dreams and hopes
And watch the news
And believe it

I dont believe
That I am able
Dear Citizen
To be your kind

Where then, I ask
Are the healers?
The lovers, the fearless
Macabre Dansers

Maybe it is sin
Honorable Judge
To take off skin
And dance in bones*

So Lexington
Prohibition
Hunt down witches
And make your war

I dont care, really
Really, I dont care
Water on the moon
Piss in the sea

Baddies and tsk
Owe society
A debt to pay
For pain and debt

Id kill myself
Except sometimes
Life warms me up
And shows me love

Even if you dont
So at my turn
Come, let me go
Far, fast, and wide

I don't know whose side I'm on. Maybe that makes sense.

Last night, trying to fall asleep, I watched Never On Sunday.  It was a Greek movie, and a very good one.  It kept my eyes open and my ears were regularly jumped by the Greek guitar.  The problem, as I saw it, was that a very idealistic and modern American loved the great beauty of ancient Greece, and, after a barfight, decided that a prostitute in the bar was the very corrupt beauty that was fallen Greece.  In a later scene, when Homer and Illia are fighting, she throws a globe at him and he throws a book past her head.  I liked that scene.

This woman, Illia, loved the Greek Tragedies, whatever they are.  I'm not terribly educated, but I have read Medea and it was clear to me that there was no happy ending.  Illia describes her as being very "sweet, but with a temper" and explains that everyone talks bad about her, calling her a witch.  Homer, as an audience to Illia telling the tale, almost loses it.  He had been warned, though, not to correct her.  Instead, he set out to try to reform her.  That is sort of how the book and the globe came into her apartment.  He, though, made a deal with No Face, a compromise to an end Homer saw as noble, for which he sacrificed credibility.  See the movie.

After that Look Back in Anger came on and I fell asleep by the end of that movie.  In my dreams, I was in a big theatre.  It was not a theatre though, it was court.  All sorts of things happened, and it was chaos.  I tried listening for my name, but it was like being in a stadium.  I spoke briefly to a woman who had three slips of paper.  She took my information and then disappeared.  If I could do anything at that point, I would undo what was.  Only in dreams do I have this power.  I don't know what I was arrested for, but it was probably narcotics.  In my dream, I didn't have any.  I hadn't had any.  I was just the man they wanted. 

Go Long

Maps fill me with longing and life.  I love the geometries, the seas, the vast spans and slim isthmus spans.  I love the archipelagos.  I love the little islands, the horn, tierra del fuego.  It's my world, and I belong to it, and if it is as promised by the cartographer, I have a sense of entitlement to it.  When I told Nanu that we were young, and couldn't die, I was wrong.  She, as god would have it, died instantly in a car accident in California.  California is on my map, with rocket skies and thin aether, sparkling lights of red and green topping towers, stars dripping down between peaks of rough hewn geology, a land of desperation and dreams.

If I am elemental, I am probably wind.  The sea is my friend.  I can deal with the magic of fire.  Earth, though, is my contest.  She is so large, encompassing, and substantial I can only barely touch her.  My head is in the clouds.  I don't know, and am repelled by the grave.  When I pass cemetaries it makes me want to spend time with the dead, but I don't believe they are in those plots.  The world can have my clay, but my soul does not belong here.

Petitioning g-d, I want the same thing I wanted when I was too young to know.  I saw the shape of Brazil, and knew I needed to go there.  I saw Madagascar and the name meant, "come here."  Cyprus, New Zealand, and Patagonia all mine.  I would spin the globe, watching the U.S.S.R. wobble topheavy and long, beckoning me to Siberia.  Let me know these places.  I suspect that one can find magic anywhere, but I don't like bowling allies. 

The part that breaks me is space.  Can man claim more than we have here?  It's a sport, an art, a science to choreograph the physics necessary to shoot the moon, but to what end?  In a contradiction, I wonder what's wrong with the Earth.  Probably the piggishness, perhaps, the social desire to claim more, more more.  More land, better land, land for oneself.  The land isn't mine.  I don't want it.  I just want to cross this road, and just the once for now.