Music isn't the same anymore.
The purity and grit are gone.
It's mechanical and cold.
I remember the days of
records and record players.
The crack and pop, the
sizzling booming bass that
rumbled in my soul.

I think of a song, let's say
something by Zeppelin.
I close my eyes and smell
the ****, see the
blacklight poster on
the brick basement walls.
I lift up the needle and
ramble on.

The efficiency room days were
the worst and the best.
Broke and bent,
sick and deranged.
Disheveled dreams, like
horses with broken legs.

There was an occasional
miracle.
A forgotten five-dollar
bill crumpled in the
front pocket of some *****
jeans, lying by the fake
plant and a copy of Hamsun's
Hunger, long overdue from
the library.
The fiver would buy a
pint of cheap *****.
My nerves settled for a
moment.

Friends seem to drift
away by the month.

"Where's Johnny?"

"He froze down at the Raccoon River."

"Oh ****, he was always good for a snort."

"Have you seen Sue lately?"

"The cirrhosis finally took her."

"*******, I used to get drunk and
tell her I loved her, while she gave me head."

Poverty and death drank with us in
those cheap rooms,
Singing sad songs and songs
of victory.
Battles were won and lost
and great debates waged in our
addled minds.
We took care of each other the best
we knew how.
Life was just a myth.

Writing is my lighthouse when
I'm lost at sea in the
dark fog
among the sirens singing their
seductive songs.
It is my net
that catches fish to feed
me when I'm starving and afraid.
An albatross silently looms, while
waves swell and break against my
raft.

The kraken yawns and waits,
but the words and lines tow
me safely to shore.

How distant do you feel from our ideal life,
and how hard are you willing to go, to get there?
You’ve got to pull a big swing sometimes, to get there, you know?
You’ll flourish in the aftermath.
What I’m carrying is joy.

Notes for an American student in Paris..

Be less intense
tone it down
pullback.

Enough scrappiness, hustle,
and intensity on repeat.

Sure, honesty is sanity,
but give them a better version
some ‘church girl’ energy, maybe.
win ‘em with winsome

Don’t welcome them, immediately, into your tense, inner world.
.
.
Songs for this:
Oh Honey! (I Love You) by Peach Tree Rascals
Nothing Breaks Like a Heart (feat. Miley Cyrus) by Mark Ronson
Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution) by The Bangles

A priest arrived by ambulance
to bless our sudden kiss

A doctor brought his bag but cannot
treat such things as this

My jewelry is just colored rocks
like pretty polished hollyhocks
in silver settings gone to curls
the same as any other girl's

but I could be your only love.

A flautist played our melody
in notes so fine and clear

That summer brought her midnights close
so that the moon could hear

the notes, the song so marvelous
the player played so long for us
the priest laid down his holy flask
the doctor blushed before he asked

if I could be your only love.

An urchin took a photograph
of you in uniform

You gave me spice and chocolates
to keep my fever warm

and lucky is the lucky bird
who calls and calls a wafting word
In this peculiar pregnant dawn
his curious and constant song

that I could be your only love.