"Soul of Miss Lonelyhearts, glorify me.
Body of Miss L., nourish me.
Blood of Miss L., intoxicate me.
Tears of Miss L., wash me.
Oh good Miss L., excuse my plea,
And hide me in your heart,
And defend me from mine enemies.
Help me, Miss L., help me, help me.
In sæcula sæculorum. Amen."
-Nathanael West, from his novel:
'Miss Lonelyhearts'
Dedicated to Chris, without whom I would not have been able to write about such subject matter so soon.
{Prologue}
As I sit writing, a beetle flew past my ear and hovered over
my ash tray, filled with ashes from cigars and cigarettes and
my pipe; it landed on the edge of the ash tray, proceeded to
dive into it, dug into the ashes and disappeared. There was
no further movement, though I sat and smoked my pipe over
two hours watching the ashes, thoughts swollen in my mind.
Finally I went inside, when I returned to the ash tray I decided
to empty it; I poured out all the ashes and with them, the
beetle tumbled out as well, stiff and dead. Something about
how that beetle made an effort to bury itself in ashes as it
knew it was dying made me think....
{Marketed Tragedy}
We are the mannequins we wish to be, with teeth made of pharmaceuticals;
Guided, placed in gums by gloved hands. With mouths of plastic and child
proofed. We are the bagged; and if we dance, we rattle, like an engine
ready to give. Put the cars and keep them in storage units; We'll count the
mileage with our feet and taste the sun during the day- and night we'll bathe
the trees with light of lanterns. The alien glow of an efficiency bulb makes a
shadow show that is acted out by animated ink blot tests-
What do you see?
What do you see?
What dost thou seest?
The world projected on the back drop of your mind, do you ever see visions?
Like images spliced into a film; a flicker, of horror and pain, for but a fraction
of a second? With thoughts like these, uncomfortable, scary, probing
curiosity, the mind wants to search for a home, yet it only finds houses,
houses, houses, like meaningless faces in a crowd. In our TV lives one begins
to ask the Really important questions: Pads or Tampons? Handling a period
is handling a means to an end. It happens just like this.
{Epilogue}
Insert insightful introspective movie montage. Give me: contemplation.
I look at the screen of my smart phone and it boasts 18 missed calls & 26
unread text messages-
The heart asks the mind if this is mourning.
Lost in translation between the chest and head the mind answers:
'No, it's the evening'.
Doodling is not my thing, but here I sit drawing broken things;
The pen I use advertises a funeral service. It just happened to fall into the
bag that boasts yet another ad for the same business, along with an
expensive belt that he will never wear again.
I was there when he bought it,
at a little store in the nowhere town that my grandmother still lives in,
where my mother came from. I watched him choose the right belt among
so many, he had the man behind the counter engrave his middle
name "Lee" where the belt designated the branding should be. Now all
that remains is the belt, which no one can wear without seeming weird
or if they have a "Lee" in their name. It seemed so sensible at the time...
The heart asks the mind: 'Is this irony?'
Before it can answer the digestive system interrupts with
a sickness fit of vomit. The body ran but it could not get to the
toilet in time. 19 missed calls, 20 missed calls. Puke burst from my mouth,
projected, splatter met the wall mirror in the bathroom, tasted of
chemicals, all over the pristine silver faucet. I looked at the mess
and thought: just like when someone puts a gun to their head and.....
which is all I think about as time becomes something beyond meaningless
almost insulting.
27, 28, 29, 30- 30 unread text messages. Flowers for the dead.
In my cell I am a castrated Abelard without even the comfort of my
Heloise. For we have become so detached, that caring is creepy; and
thus becomes a trend. Couldn't we then simply say: To hell with it all!
Let us be actors, always, the stage of life; when a character is killed
off they simply disappear- yet, we'll all meet again at the end of the show.
We'll meet for drinks and out-act one another's sincerity in complementing
the other's performance, displaying newly prescribed smiles that are
just placebos.
In which instance, perhaps, these dreams are not our own.
It was toward the end, before I knew that there would be an end, that two
souls that are dear to me confided in me that they no longer remembered
their dreams, not as they did in their childhoods- there is such a sadness
in that. Worthless words, could I have but torn out my own tongue,
screaming while flogging myself with the useless muscle as I choked on
the blood gushing from my torn throat. I couldn't talk to either of them
toward the end, though had I known, I would have tied them down with
with my arms, I would have held them so hard our ribs would bruise and
the only reason I would let go would be so they did not die from crushing.
We all felt the same pain, I had no companionship to offer in the selfishness
of depression. If only they were as absent in my mind as they were in my
life- if only. Often, however, a light shower will turn to a heavy storm.
Tell love, tie your hair in knots, as the models in the hair treatment
Commercials do to portray strength. Split ends, doll, sounds like a personal
problem. Photographs to identify the dead. Meaningless procedures,
As if his own mother could mistake the corpse of her son sitting there in
his apartment.
Tell love, I had a talk with a voice from a past life, from a screen pressed to
my face spoke the voice of the mother of Jesus' son, who I once loved, who
died in Jodorowsky's mythical city of tar. In a martyr's fashion, he died too.
Often he and I would share a bed, as we often shared the invite with many,
lovers first and foremost in life. All of us so yearning needfully of human
heat; the heart of a girl ever ready to swoon with me in cozy hidden corners,
when love was easily sung in a darkened car. One final heated embrace, a
scene of lips and hands that searched the passion of which Hollywood
Can only dream of capturing on film to be exploited for profit. The the brief
coldness of parting, yet to find a warm bed, with spun opium dream clouds
and the savior's dear son would show me how Judas kissed his father.
So tell love, give me Doris Day circa "The Thrill of it all" 1963- in the background
Kennedy loses his head.
The mind and heart are incinerated, their ashes are mixed into the soil for potted
peonies all for her.
That time we simply drove off, we both smoked like steam engines, with
the whirl of the wind as we sped past Cypress trees that shaded horses;
sun-baked brush waiting to burst into flames, here and there a creek slithered
through the valley and we found cows upon cows awaiting slaughter
like wizened beings in the shade of huge ancient oak trees that stretched out
their limbs all covered with moss. It called to mind another time with
that unrelated brother when we sped through Joshua trees, almost becomes
the same, the nothingness of these states, London bridge in the middle of
the desert, landmarks, very exhausting. Goats munched, heroin and a scorpion
stung, hydrocodone and confused bees; all that our country knows of ruin.
How your spirit soared that day, you were my anchor, everything that was
thorns in my mind, you helped me to walk through it all gracefully; we were
impervious, we were brothers. Now I wish I had let him know all of this-
thus the anchor breaks its rusty chain.
