My muse woke with a hangover.
He didn't brush, shave or shower,
but slipped into dirty white gloves
with cut in finger holes. His black
fingers stood out in stark relief.
He sucks down a bottle of stale beer
& leaves the flop house on Beacon street.
Outside he scowls at asphalt and metal.
One eye closed---angry & swollen,
He stares in my general direction.
"Hey poet---I hope you are tired
of writing about city shit---I am sick of living here."
I turn the corner on San Pedro Street,
but he rolls up to me on his dilapidated bicycle,
and---as if---we had already been deep in conversation,
says: "Look at dese bitches on de boulevard!"
He waves an arm at a squat meaty looking woman
lingering near the corner.
"How can dese skags even give it away?"
I nod in casual agreement.
"What's up for today? How 'bouts
a trip to de mountains & trees?"
"I got a good feeling," I said, "about the street here."
"Damn you poet--this is all Maria, squallor and no love.
Six kids on de block think I am their daddy"
I push a fiver into his hand.
"There are other poets I could hook up with.
Good ones too." I add another five to his fist.
He smiles. His alcohol drenched breath
settles on my clothes. "Your last poem was. . . OK."
He pushes the fives into his greasy pants.
Surveys my clean & pressed duds
& suddenly smiles, Some important
bottom teeth are missing.
Eyes unexpectedly fill with tears.
"I hope you appreciate de sacrifice I be making
staying wit' you. I could have gone to Paris
& inspired poems on de Seine, lovers in de canals."
"Watch the truck," I shout. My muse dodges the truck,
smiles wistfully and says, "I'll see you at Clifton's Cafeteria,"
slowly he becomes one with the tangeled crawl of L. A. traffic.
DEATH DOESN'T BELIEVE IN EMAIL---SO
HE STOPPED BY ON A WINTRY EVENING
You smile.
You still have most of your teeth.
You cock your hat at a rakish angle
& tell death to kiss your arse.
Slinging your coat over your shoulder,
you walk confidently beyond the boundaries
of your hamlet.
You walk till all things
seem unknown.
Very tired
you fall asleep in a field of buttercups,
sheltered by flamingo-colored trees.
Under a red moonlight you rise refreshed
& walk through
purple mountain-fog & fields burning with flowers.
At last
You discover an ancient stone bridge.
One haunted by every traveler
who has passed this way.
Standing at the bridge's apex you stare
down at luminescent waters.
You fling a black stone in the pool,
it is swallowed without sign.
No concentric circles at all.
In the fading red moonlight
you can't find yourself anymore. . .
you are part of the bridge
and of the water
and part of the flamingoes
feeding on the purple landscape.
Now as the poem closes---you
are not moving at all.
DEATH ENTERS MY BEDROOM
"What do you want?" He points at me and nods.
"You know---I said---you look real familiar to me." He steps
toward me. I figure I better try to distract him.
"What is your name?"
He stops and considered the question.
"I've been called many things. . .the Prince of Darkness,
El Diablo---Satan----the Devil---Beelzebub, Evil Spirit,
Dark Angel---Keeper of the Underworld---Mephistopheles,
Gate Keeper---Prince of death. The cloven hoofed one.
I am sick of this shit!"
He slams a fist into the wall. Part of the wall falls down.
"Don't get excited," I warn him," I'm not going anywhere till I dress."
He growls & all the windows crack. "But remember, I didn't say I wouldn't go."
"NO I mean I am sick of this job---Being a collector of souls is a lonely business. I can tell you this--- a
demon gets lonely working his way down through the centuries---you know---never being able to keep
around to talk to---I mean keeping them around long enough to have a meaningful relationship. It never
happens. They all end up dead. Listen, it wasn't my plan. It was the big guy. Ah well----I deviate. But---of course I do---I am the devil."
"Well listen...ahh..what should I call you?"
"Just call me Smokey."
Smokey---I get it. I got problems too. Nobody knows the real me.. I've got people calling me the barded one, scoop, poet, scribbler, dreamer, deranged one, I've got a name too!"
"What is your name?" Death asked.
"DeFrance."
"You see, DeFrance, I just work here in this universe. And like you, I want to be appreciated for my
professional services. But you must know that people are by nature ungrateful. But that's the way it goes, if
you are as old as time, and I am, I can tell you---as a Nether World Worker--- speaking professionally --- a walk through the waters of most men's souls would barely get the soles of your feet wet."
He growls again. "Look Death---I mean Smokey---I can only die once---so knock off the threats."
I open my closet. Dressing for death wasn't going to be easy. "What's it like, Smokey, I mean where I'm going?"
Exhaling heavily on my neck he says:"COLD." His Stygian breath
reeks of grave dust & eternity.
"Let me ask you a question here, how are you going to make friends if you go around talking about eternity and grave dust?"
"Look DeFrance, -everyone hates me. Fire and brimstone. Pitchforks! Dante's Inferno. Mitlton's Paradise Lost, Marlowe & Goethe selling their souls ----well I could just puke!
Some days I just hate my job. Why me I ask myself? I could have gone into another line of work
altogether. I was always good with ovens though---maybe a baker or a meat chef---you know, something people would like. But I am getting to old to change now."
He reaches up and pulls the light socket and part of the ceiling down. It crashes to the floor smashing the
kitchen table.
He reaches up for more. . .
I choke. "Your amrpits smell of purgatory. Are you trying to gas me to DEATH or what?
He smiles & maggots squirm between his teeth, over his lip, wriggling up into his nose.
This was followed by a belching kind of laughter. The room seems to grow hotter.
The plaster in the wall begins to melt.
"So," I ask, "you like my little joke, huh?"
The phone rings. Its the manager. I turn to Death.
"It's for you." He snatches up the phone, listens and then emits a low burbling fart.
I could hear the landlord screaming as death noisly ate the phone in three bites.
He belches & farts.
"That's it," I cried, "I am not going anywhere with you." He reaches out with a claw to close of my breath. I
grab his hand...then after looking at his hand, I loudly berate him: "Your nails are a mess. Who does them?"
Suddenly ashamed, he pulls his hand back. What a break I say to myself.
He was a NEW AGE DEVIL.
I knew at that moment he was mine. "Come here!"
In the bathroom: I trim his nails, press his cuticles,
brush and floss his teeth, shave & shower him, and douse his body
in a sexy lavender body cologne.
I tell him about male crying
Social weeping
Sensitivity
N.O.W.
A..C.L.U.
Political Correctness
Men's groups
Women's groups
Male bonding
HGTV
A gender neutral society
The New World Order
AIDS
Iron John
Swine Flu. . .
Soon we are bonding.
I held him---he held me.
He cried---I cried.
He really wasn't a bad guy after all.
A bit tough on the apartment.
I offer to go with him.
He refuses.
He says he hadn't realized
how ugly things had gotten
up TOP.
Suddenly, fire squirts out of his nostrils,
and smoke curls up around his tail.
He is agitated.
"The DEVIL take it," he cries.
"If things get better, I'll be back;
so for now,
the only infernal thing is
FOR YOU TO STAY HERE."
He left in a fog bank---even though the evening was crystal clear.
Since I'm dressed, I walk to the corner
to see if I can find a drive-by-shooting,
or perhaps
a homeless person to spit on.
