Mandrix (Soap)

We called them
‘Soapers’
Or
‘Softies’.

I used to get
The Quaaludes
From my friend Barry
Who had them smuggled in
From Germany.

For a little while
They were my drug of choice.

They made us
Feel so beautiful
That we would kiss them
To our lips
Before putting them
Into our mouths
And swallow
The small lathery tabs.

They delivered.

Plush
Slow motion
Fuzzy at the periphery
Images
Hours long
Of delicate paper pages
Turning in the breeze
One
At a time
Like Super 8
Shutterbug
Film
Clicking through the
Projector gate.

Celluloid spools spinning
In euphoria
Lessening the slack.

You could fuck on them too.

My girl
My best friend
And I
Got down on them.

The three of us
Went at it
With Quaalude-drunk
Abandon
And soft focus
Intuition.

We moved tenderly

While the day
Slipped away slowly
Like the last bit of lather
As it meandered in a trail
Towards
The drain.

Moth

I understand
Your battle
And I feel
Your pain

As I watch you
Fly into the sun
Again and again
Hitting the hot
Thin glass
Of the lightbulb

Ping...ping

I watch as your
Torso falls
To the table

And it is there
That I draw the line

Monsieur Grasshopper

The cat plays
With your parchment
Green corpse
Upon the white pine
Floor

The microbial universe
Of motor skills
Genetics
Electric sparks
Of intelligence

The hind femur
Once
Stroking the fore-wings
And abdomen
To attract a mate

Arrythmia

Your once
Leaping body
Has become a toy
For a senile cat
With a short attention
Span

Television

I could tell
That there wasn’t
A hope in Hell
That
This thing
Was going anywhere.

I was just geared up
For the ride.

The TV was on
When I arrived
And it was still on
When I left.

The intermittent prime time media network babble
Interrupted any honest conversation.

The box
Watched me
While I kissed her
And pulled her sweater
Above her head.

It talked in many character voices.

It played various theme music
While I tugged at her jeans
Down over her ankles
And got down to business.

Her performance was poor.

No Golden Globe Award Nominations
For her.

Her unresponsive skinny body
Pale bright
In the flickering lambent bloom
Exploding from
The television.

She had cable ready eyes
Empty
Preferring to watch
Anything
Other than her own reality.

Even that right before her.

I walked home
That evening
With a depressed feeling
Taking notice
Of all of the windows
Showing the same
Desperate
Electric
Resignation
To life.

The Day That I Won’t Be Able To Get It Up Anymore

I have concerns
About the day
When I won’t be able to
Get it up anymore.

The grey hair
More hair
Slightly paunchy stomach
Don’t bother me so much
About middle age
As the foresight
And inevitability
Of not being able to get
A hard-on.

I love women.

I love pussy.

I love women
And pussy
And more importantly
Everything connected to them.

They are exceptional.

I love the arch at the top of the thigh.
The slope of the breast
Meeting the underside
Of the nipple.

The sinews of the gastrocnemius
And peroneus longus
Carving
Like rivers
For thousands
Of years
Into the curve
Of a warm ankle.

I really appreciate
Pretty feet.

Pretty feet
Are ‘arte eccezionale’.

The cascade
Of the spine
As it pours
Into a perfect
Heart-shaped
Ass.

All of this I love.

The sculpture of the arm and back
As it meets the neck.

Hair falling
Tangled and wired
Framed around
An oval face
And wide lips.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Breakfast in the morning.

I’m making it.

Homemade pancakes
With fresh fruit
And maple syrup.

Crisp bacon.

Stovetop lattes.

The sun is up.
The weather is undeniably perfect.

And I will be totally obsessed
With why I couldn’t
Get it up
The night before.

Death Of The Typewriter

Hemingway’s first typewriter
Was a Corona #3
Given to him on his 22nd birthday
By his then fiance
Hadley Richardson.

It was a durable
Compact typer
Perfect for a roving reporter
Sending dispatches.

600,000 sold in it’s 30 years
Of manufacture.

In a drunken rage
Hemingway
Proceeded to throw
The Corona #3
Out of the window
Of their fourth floor
Paris apartment window.

He spit after it
Cursing thunderously
Watching it
Corkscrew to it’s death
On the cobblestones
Below.

They divorced shortly thereafter
And he switched to a
Corona #4
Followed by a 1940’s Royal
When he was in Cuba.

He kept his ‘Lady’
In the bedroom
On a small shelf
By the window
As he preferred to write
Standing up.

The ‘Lady’
Sold just recently
At auction
With the original leather case

For a paltry
$2750.00.

She died in the hands of a collector.

Orwell wrote “1984”
On a Remington Portable
(Model #2)
Nicknamed
“Right Hand Man”.

It had a retractable toolbar
To lower the profile
For easier travel.

By the time
His now famous novel
Was packaged to send to the publishers
His physical health had declined
To the point
That he never wrote
Nor used the “Right Hand Man”
Ever again.

The typewriter died of neglect and old age.
It fell into disrepair
Keys locked up arthritic
Ribbons dried and crackled.

It eventually retired to the curb.

Kerouac was a wiz
On a 1930’s Underwood Portable
And a Royal Standard.

Ginsberg swore
That Jack could type
A staggering 110-120 wpm.

Legend has it
That he sat and typed
“On The Road”
In three weeks
On a single roll of paper
While visiting his friends
Neal and Carolyn Cassidy
On THEIR typewriter.

His last typewriter
Died just before he did
At around 11:00 in the morning
On October 20, 1969.

He was drunk from whiskey and malt liquor
And felt sick to his stomach.

He got up to go to the bathroom
Swaying dizzly
Falling into the cluttered table
Knocking the machine
To the floor
Throwing up blood
All over it
As pieces fractured off
And typebars became
Forever entangled.

Burroughs either wrote by hand
Or used a typewriter.

He wrote in detail
Of composing on insect typewriters
And of Soft Typewriters
That would write our lives
And books
Into existence.

Some pretty serious hoo-haa
That went to that
‘Great Big Fix’
With him.

Bukowski
America’s greatest poet
Tapped away on a Model HH Underwood Standard
And an Olympia SG Model
At different points
In his career.

The machines nestled in with the disarray
Of bottles
And ash trays
And a radio
That favored Mahler.

Neighbors
Could hear the keybars
Hitting the carriage
All times
Day or night.

On Christmas Day
1990
He received a
Macintosh IIsi computer
And a laser printer
From his wife Linda.

He even took classes.

Gone were the golden sounds
Of click, click, click
In the courtyard...

Hunter S Thompson
Took his red IBM Selectric
Out into the fields
Of Owl Farm
And shot it.

He did this several times
Each time replacing it
With the same model and color.

One time he used a stick of dynamite
“To really get at that fucker!”

His last typewriter
Was witness to his suicide
With the word
‘Counselor’
Typed onto the vellum
Scrolled around it’s barrel.

After completing his novel
‘Beautiful Losers’
In 1966
Leonard Cohen
Tossed his typewriter
Into the Aegean Sea.

William Gibson used a Hermes 2000 Model
To complete ‘The Necromancer’
And half of ‘Count Zero’
When a mechanical failure
And lack of replacement parts
Forced him to
An Apple IIc computer.

Harry Crews hammered away
On an Underwood II
A Royal Desktop
And an IBM Selectric
And in 1976
Unleashed ‘Feast Of Snakes’.

When it was time
His typewriters
Were beaten in a fair fight
And died a low-rent
Death
In a Southern
Ignorant
Country
Kind of way.

In 2008 it was reported
That New York City purchased
A few thousand typewriters
Mostly for the Police Department
At the total cost of $982,269
With another $99,570 spent in 2009
For the maintenance
Of all existing typewriters.

At the close of 2009
A heavily weathered, light blue
Lettera 32 Olivetti manual machine
That Cormac McCarthy said
“He bought in 1963 for $50”
And clacked out about
Five million
Fairly renowned words
Including
‘No Country For Old Men’
Sold at Christie’s to an unidentified American collector
For $254,500
More than 10 times it’s high estimate of $20,000.

Mr. McCarthy
Chose not to use the opportunity
To move into the digital age.

Instead
A friend of his bought him a replacement typewriter.

The same Olivetti model
For less than $20.

On April 29, 2011
The world’s last
Operational
Typewriter factory
Closed.

Godrej & Boyce
In Mumbai, India
Closed it’s doors
After a 114 year run.

The world gets forever noisier
But will now be
Somehow
More silent.

Creationism Begins In An Unmade Bed As The World Outside Ceases To Exist

Waking up
Muscles tight
Hair in knots
Breath stale of wine
And carnal injestion

The outside world
Broke apart throughout
The night
Crashing like the seawalls
In a violent storm

We
Lie in the bed
Vertiginous
Limbs
Enclosing torsos
Like grapevines growing
Sinewy

Unaware
That everything has been washed away
Evolution never
Existed

Each one of us
Wondering to ourselves
Simply
Who
Would go downstairs
To make the coffee

The Undeniable Face Of Howard Stern Found Upon A Moldy Vegetable Pulled Out Of My Fridge In Hopes Of Using It For Dinner

I took out the half used squash
From my refrigerator
To make the rest of my dinner.

There on the cut end
Mold had formed
And I swear to God
That it was a portrait of Howard Stern
With his long kinky hair
And big hooked Jewish nose.

Cross my heart and
Hope to die
It spoke

“Babba Booey”.
“Babba Booey”.

I’m a private person
And certainly couldn’t handle the celebrity
Of calling the New York Post
To announce
That I had the exact likeness
Of Howard Stern
Portrayed in blue-green fungie
On a vegetable
That I had just pulled
From a drawer in my fridge.

Front page news.

Plus
I’m in Jersey
So my rationale was
By the time they got their
News squandrons out here
It might not look anything like Howard Stern
At all.

“Save yourself the embarassment”
I thought.

So I cut off the moldy part
And threw it away.
Then I sliced up the firm bits
Adding them to the pan
With the rest of the vegetables.

I sauteed that squash
And thought of strippers
And porn stars
And money.

The vegetables caramellized
A nice golden-brown in the pan.

I thought about
Howard Stern
Being as big as Jesus.

I thought about
A missed opportunity.

Jesus walked across the water.
Howard Stern appeared on a vegetable.

I started digging through the trash
However embarrassing
As that might be.

Dominos

I walked up to them and their game.

It was on East Road at South Concourse
In Fairmont Park.

It was behind a rusted, beat up, white Ford van
That they had a busted, beat up card table folded crookedly
Off level
Four players at a time
With about 8 onlookers waiting their turn
And more pulling up and parking on the side of the street.

They had worn plastic coolers and were drinking.

The group was loud and surly.

Big black hands shielded ivory tiles from view.

“Dang! I ain’t seen this since Puerto Rico!”
I said.

“Puerto Rico!”
One of them yelled at me.

“Nah. This is Jamaica mon.”
Another told me proudly.

“They play dominos everywhere down there! The city, the beach. It’s the national sport
besides baseball. Shit! They’re into dominos, I’m telling you!”

“Nah mon. We donnah pley like dem.”
“Eet’s deeferont.”

They all started laughing loud
From deep inside their guts.
It was baritone
Hollow
Echoey laughter.

They offered me a beer.

A cold dripping ghetto fourty, shorty.

“What? No Red Stripe?”
I asked.

More deep laughter
Went around the group.

I stood and hung out with them
While they played dominos.

I could tell that they were ribbing on each other
And dissing
But
Between their dialect
And the speed at which they spoke

I understood little of what they said actually.

It had been years since I drank malt liquor.

I got a buzz on with them
As they laid down their tiles.

The group became bigger
And to the newcomers
I was in question
The only gringo present
With my pink shirt
And white pants
And fucked up hair.

But we got along well
Shooting the shit
On a breezy August evening.

I announced
That I was going into
Chinatown
To get some dinner.

“Why mon?”
“There’s a Chinese take-away right over 'dere.”
One of them told me
Pointing his long black boney arm over to
Parkside Avenue
One block over.

I could tell that it was
A hole in the wall
Greasy
MSG laced joint.

I couldn’t tell the difference
Between
Jamaican dominos
And Puerto Rican dominos.

But I could tell the difference
Between the Chinese food
Served at the Parkside Avenue
Chinese take-away
And the healthy, delicious Chinese food
That I would order in China Town.

“Nah.”
I said.
“I’m going in.”

“You play?”
One of them asked.

“It’s been awhile.”
I replied.

“We be here ‘til dark if you wanna come back.”

“Bring back some ‘dem eggrolls, mon.”

“Thanks. And thanks for the beer.”

“It was cool hanging with you all, but I don’t think I’ll make it back before dark.”
“Seriously.”

“You’re just afraid to play a Jamaican.”

“Nah dude. I’ve been playing with Jamaican’s since I got here.”
I held up my can in a peaceful salute.

More rowdy laughter.

I walked away in the dusk
Listening to tiles being shuffled
And loud Jamaicans
Going on with what they do
On a Friday night.

King

She winks at me
Again.

And I smile
And start laughing.

“I love when you wink at me”
I tell her.

Then I lay back in my beach chair
And let all of the good stuff
Wash over me
Through me.

It feels not bad at all
To be me
In the sun
Right now.

I am a king
In this small universe.

Fresh Water Mermaid

“Catching anything?”
I asked.

I was drifting downriver
In an old school
Black rubber
Innertube.

As I approached him slowly
I could see he had a beach chair
Submerged
In about two feet of water
Several yards from the stoney shore.

He sat in it
Water up to his thighs.

A leaf and a bird’s feather
Rounded him with the current
Before I did.

He had a fishing pole
In his hand
And an exploded cigar
Jammed in his mouth.

His tackle lay on shore.

The line was out and loose.

His face was scrunched up
From looking into the late afternoon sun
High up
Making it’s descent
Over the tree line
On the west side of the river.

I might’ve been just a moving shadow to him
Then
Amidst the bright light reflecting
Off of the moving water.

Small birds flew
Low upon the shimmering surface
Swooping down
Gracefully
To catch
Imperceptable bugs
For dinner.

His response was slow.

Slow enough
That I could take
ALL of that in.

“Whadjoo say?”

Cigar moving
Between his lips
Ash falling.

He was a HARD
Middle age man.

50 looks like 60 or 65.

“I said”
And I repeated
“Did you catch anything?
Besides sunrays and a few winks.”

He smiled
His cigar smile.

I was closer now.

“I caught me a mermaid, but I let her go.”

“A mermaid?”
I asked suspiciously.

“I thought they were salt water.”

“Nope. I caught me a fresh water mermaid.”

“They’re a tad bit smaller, but still put up a fight.”

“She had a nice ass too. An apple bottom...but I let her go.”

He took a swig of his canned beer.

I smiled at him.

He was at peace with the river.
No agenda.

I was now drifting downriver
Away from him.

“Why did you let her go?’
I asked.

He laughed.

Hacking.

“She was a fight coming in. Can you imagine the fight if I kept her?”

“Heh, heh...”

“Heh, heh, heh....”

“Heh, heh, hah, hah, hah...”

‘”Cough”

“Heh, heh, heh...cough...”

Then coughing.

I watched his cigar
Jump out of his mouth
Falling into the water
By mistake...
A miscalculation.

Whereas...

A real fisherman
Would not let that happen.

I watched his grey shadow sitting there
In a beach chair
Cursing
About it being his last cigar
As I drifted away
By late afternoon currents

Hoping to see him
Reel in his next catch
Sometime
Soon
Before he was smaller and gone

Not to be seen again
As my tube
Rounded a bend in the river
And I turned my attention
Back to the birds.