Israfel Sivad's Blog, page 9

Cadillac Jack Speaks

Cadillac Jack Speaks
By Israfel Sivad

Here we go
one more time
on the roller coaster ride.

Don’t fasten your seatbelt.
Don’t back down.
Step right on inside.

The power dims.
The lights go down.
We’re in for a treat.

Someone special
sitting down
on the passenger seat.

He says,
“This trick is really sweet,
should give us all a laugh.
I fixed myself.
I fixed my watch.
Can I fix this broken glass?”

The man jumps back to Cadillac Jack.

He says,
“Boy, let me smack you up.
Ain’t on no bad boy trip...

“Salutations” By Ursprung Collective

Listen to the new PoMo Beat album by Israfel Sivad’s spoken word project Ursprung Collective for FREE today!

Tobacco Was My Key to Eternal Life

Beyond my memories of The Verb, I walked through McCarren Park. One afternoon, a girl there had bitten a chunk of her apple’s core off for me to drop into my tobacco pouch in order to keep it fresh. I thought that piece of fruit had come from the Tree of Life. Thus, that tobacco was my key to eternal life.

At the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Nassau Avenue, right on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, I stood outside that old apartment building where, once upon a time inside, I’d brok...

Back on the Brooklyn Side of the River

Once back on the Brooklyn side of the river, I walked with purpose up to Bedford Avenue, the heart of Williamsburg, my old stomping grounds. Strolling down those blocks, six years later, I could tell the neighborhood had changed. The clientele appeared to have more money. The fashion was more refined, but some things had stayed exactly the same. There was The Verb café. I remembered my last day in Brooklyn back in 2002…

When I’d thrown my phone away in a trash can at the edge of McCarren Park...

It’s Always Nice to Have a Paycheck

Things never happen quite like you expect them to. I was sitting patiently at my desk the other day when my supervisor stopped by and asked if I wanted to go grab some coffee with him and check in on things. Work’s been slow lately. I was relieved to have something to do. The company’s been trying to move me into a new department. Like I said, my sales copy hasn’t been pulling quite as well as some of the other writers’. But this transition hasn’t been the smoothest in terms of flow.

We stopp...

When Will I Get Back to New York?

I left my dad’s old car, the one I’d driven from Southern California to New Mexico all the way back to the East Coast at my mom’s place in Richmond. My stepdad offered to give me a thousand bucks for it, which was fine with me since I’d gotten it for free, and I needed the money. Then, he offered to drive me from there all the way back up to New York City. But first, he said he’d take me to Virginia Beach so I could say I’d traversed the entire continent.

At the sandy beach’s edge, I took off...

There Are Higher and Lower Planes of Existence from Here

Cora and I got into bed last night to watch a video about past lives on YouTube. Some kid was convinced he had a previously existent family on an island off the coast of Scotland. He even knew their names, but we turned off the video before we got a chance to discover if that previous family of this apparently reincarnated child had ever actually existed. It was after 11:00. I sat down on the hardwood floor to set the alarm on my phone so we could wake up in time for work today, and I hesitan...

I Don’t Mind Being Homeless… I Just Don’t Want to Look Homeless

In August of 2008, I decided to drive back to the East Coast from Santa Fe where I had just completed what would become my first master’s. That was the one in Asian Classics. The seeds of this trip had been planted a year earlier, when I’d first flown out to California to pick up my dad’s old car from my step-mom and drive it to New Mexico in the first place. I wanted to complete the cross-country trip. I had virtually no money when I left the Southwest. By the time I puttered into Charlottes...

I Don’t Mind Being Homeless… I Just Don’t Want To Look Homeless

In August of 2008, I decided to drive back to the East Coast from Santa Fe where I had just completed what would become my first master’s. That was the one in Asian Classics. The seeds of this trip had been planted a year earlier, when I’d first flown out to California to pick up my dad’s old car from my step-mom and drive it to New Mexico in the first place. I wanted to complete the cross-country trip. I had virtually no money when I left the Southwest. By the time I puttered into Charlottes...

The Real Goal Was Enslavement

I made it ten days clean and sober on the streets of Richmond back in 2009. Then, the vampires took over the city again. I believed the whole metro area was a massive sex slave factory. The women I saw on the streets, their brains were infected by some zombifying concoction. They unwittingly waited only to be shipped off into the possession of the wealthy masters who’d come in town that very weekend to choose their respective prizes, who walked side by side with their future possessions at th...