Bud Smith's Blog: Bud Smith , page 25

Street Parking

I looked everywhere
still couldn’t find my truck
there was nothing
between 176th
and 163rd
no sign of it
the river. the bridge.
the hydrants. the park.
me walking, one hand
in pocket, the other
clicking 

a useless plastic
panic button
beer bottle popper
keychain
who would want
a forest green
1997 Ford Explorer?
what kinda sadistic
fuck?
I stop on a bench
and watch a pigeon
then
3 white sweat-suited 

women
doing tai chi 

on
frost covered grass
in the distance
a man in a brown leather coat
plays himself at chess
he keeps getting up
and walking around
to the other side
of the concrete board
considering his next move
On broadway, I cave
first I call the cops
they say, “Don’t have it.”
I call the tow lots
“we don’t have it either.”
It’s gone to car heaven.
It’s floating on a cloud.
Oil is still leaking down
like rain, secretly on everything
When I call the cops again
to report the thing jacked
long gone, stolen
chopped up, eaten
they say, “We got it.”
“What?”
“It’s on 177th.
Didn’t you see the signs?”
“No.”
“It was neon.”
“Everything is neon, “ I say.
“There was a movie.”
I walk over there
head down
birds suddenly singing
all trash levitating
the street sweeping machine
rounding the corner
and the driver shouting my name
there;’s my truck
on 177th
parked the wrong way
on a one way street
with a neon sign
that says, ‘Towed by NYC police
Do Not Ticket.’
I climb inside

I turn the key
it comes to  life.
Life goes on.

Current bio: six foot one. Prefers his eggs sunny side up...

Current bio: six foot one. Prefers his eggs sunny side up so he can dunk stuff in them. Joy Division on cassette. Twin Peaks on VHS. Talking. Poetry. Size 34 pants. Size medium t-shirt. 200 lbs. Likes pussy and dogs.

Yo! Happy Holidays, peeps. Today is a beautiful day in m...

Yo! Happy Holidays, peeps. Today is a beautiful day in my apartment. Drinking limoncello with my family from California, and getting ready to head out into lower Manhattan for drinks and walking around.

Today, also received in the mail the new book from my crazy talented poet buddy, Robert Vaughan his new book. It’s got some of his absolute best writing (that I’ve seen), collected together in this great book, Diptychs + Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits,

Out from Deadly Chaps.

Nice!

Pick it up immediately. here

New Poem at Olentangy Review

The new issue of Olentangy Review is up for Winter 2013. I’ve got a poem in there called “A Crushed Pepsi Can Floats Down”. Other work in the issue by Gary L. Hardaway and Carol Reid, among some others, niiiiiice.

click here

Thanks to Daryl Price who does a real swell job putting this together. (There’s a pretty great satirical photo essay about marriage).

Other news: it’s Christmas time and I’m wrapping stuff.

X-Mas on the 700 Block of Avenue D

It was snowing those flakes that look fake; perfect ones landed on Dave’s jacket as he unlocked the trunk of the LeSabre. Heather ran up the steps with an armful of pink and blue wrapped gifts. He said, “Be careful! You’ll break your neck!”

“I gotta go,” she laughed, unlocking the door, disappearing into the building.

They’d sat in traffic out of the mall parking lot, on the road that serpentined towards the turnpike, after that they’d endured brake lights all the way through the tollbooth and off the exit, over the bridge, Heather squirming, “I gotta pee.”

“Wanna bottle?”

She’d punched him on the ball of his shoulder. His leather jacket was stiff, a simple armor. He’d smiled. “Not wise to hit a boxer.”

“Stop the car, I’ll run into those cattails over there.”

The Buick’s brakes squealed, metal on metal. Presents in the back seat shifted. “I was screwing around, man. Keep on moving!”

Her cheeks were pink. Her jean were tight. His hands were scarred. His nose had been broken only four times.

On their block, the stoops were empty. It was too cold. The basketball court by the housing project was vacant. No one was even on the bench waiting for the bus.

“Silent night, holy night,” he muttered.

“All is calm, all is quiet.”

He saw the light flicker on in the bathroom upstairs and felt stupid that anybody looking could see her shadow sitting down on the toilet. What a neighborhood.

The trash cans were frozen to the sidewalk. The brownstone was only half brown where the wind hadn’t blown the snow off. The windows were all barred to protect children and to keep out the Devil. Christmas lights ran in a bright matrix across the roof of Ropollo’s Deli, casting the block in a blue, green and red glow. Dave carried gifts up the steps, the snow crunching under his work boots. She’d left the door ajar for him, that was love.

He dumped the gifts on the couch, pleased at how many there were. Most years, there wasn’t any money for gifts. He’d gotten lucky the previous week. In the kitchen, the interior of the fridge depressed him. There was no beer. There was no food. In the cabinet, he pulled down a bottle hidden behind the canned beans and drank deep.

Walking back out, he saw tracks in the new snow that led to his Buick. Two men were pulling presents out of the trunk.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

One ran immediately. The other shuffled his feet as Dave bounded down the steps. He punched hard, a box with a red bow tumbled in the snow. The man fell. Dave skidded out on ice, crashing into the fender of a neighbor’s truck.

“Where you going?” he yelled at the other thief’s retreating figure. Snow streamed down in the street light.

As he got to his feet, the other man was rising too.

They faced each other, toe to toe in the dull glow of Ropollo’s Deli. In the distance, a dog barked. Jingle Bell Rock came from some half open window on the block. The thief spit blood on the street.

“You fuck …”

He lunged at Dave, clumsily. Dave stepped to the side, as an arm flailed wild—perfectly, he struck ribs, wrapped the man up, and brought him down to the street with his full weight used as a weapon, knees and elbows falling heavy.

A whimper.

“DAVE! OH MY GOD!”

Heather was on the steps. Dave hit the man again. Then Heather was back in the house. He hit again and again. She stumbled out with a portable phone in her hands, “Want me to call the cops?”

“Fuck no!” he yelled, in ragged breath. “DON’T CALL THE COPS.”

He sat up. Blood on his hands. His face. His shirt. His jacket was almost ripped in half, it’d split up the seem from his waist to his left arm pit.

“This dumbass was stealing shit outta the car.” He pointed at the dizzy man, as if there was any question.

From the opposite direction, the other thief appeared. His knife was out, and it went through Dave’s hand. He lunged at the attacker, but he’d backed off. There was a lot of blood. Heather screamed. She dialed the police.

Both thieves were on their feet, moving away. Dave was on the ground, his t-shirt was no longer white. His wounded hand was clamped deep against his own heart, as if the blood would pool there and it’d all be alright.

An ambulance came. The police took a report at the ER.

Dave sat on a paper lined hospital bed, waiting for the doctor. Heather was on the chair, saying, “At least

it was your left hand.”

“This town sucks.”

“All towns suck,” she said.

“I’m gonna wind up like Charlie Bronson.”

“Oh, don’t say that sweetie.”

“Deathwish. Just like Deathwish.”

“Babe,” she said, “You start up with that vigilante justice, blowing people away, I’ll have to divorce you again.”

A christmas wreath behind her head was made out of blue surgical gloves, cotton balls and sterile syringes.

The doctor came in, overwhelmed and short for time.

He unwrapped Dave’s hand, complaining about the job the nurse had done, wanting to know her name.

Dave knew it, but didn’t say. He wasn’t a rat.

“You’ll need a lot of stitches for this.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“A fight?” The doctor had treated Dave a few times, and when he said fight, he meant, in the ring, or he meant, street-fight.

“Two guys stealing from me.”

“Presents,” Heather said. “Stuff for our nephews … and for my sick sister.”

“Oh.”

“A knife. Fucker had a knife.”

“He beat the ever living piss out of one of them,” Heather said, “Guy’s probably even here. Right now.”

The doctor got quiet. The doctor got weird.

Dave said, “Is there a guy here … about five foot six. Mustache. Purple hooded sweatshirt. Nikes.”

The doctor smiled, “First let me sew you up.”

“Then what?”

“Merry Christmas. He’s just down the hall. He’ll be there all night. You didn’t hear that from me.”

Poems, “Just Some Things You Say”, “dead”, “sat. morning”

Just Some Things You Say

No more poems

about girls

who don’t wear underwear

or waiting for a bus

that won’t ever come

or winter.

All day I thought

of a direct ride

to somewhere

other than here

I imagined

everlasting spring

and long-legged

deep-lunged girls

taking the stairs

slowly

all the way past

purple clouds

spilling up

forever.

I slept on a bed

of every book

I’ve ever read

shredded down

softer than heather

with my record player

at less than

arm’s length

and the radiator

chanting

dead

probably not by machine gun

most likely nothing thermo nuclear

light will just blink out, ordinary

a vinyl record ending

the automatic arm

returning to its plastic tab

probably not going to Heaven

probably not going to Hell

life is a weird rumor

somebody somewhere started

blue sky fatal

salt sea brutal

green fields

bisecting lifetimes of brick walls

there’s a chance

my fossil will be mistaken

for something else

when opening seashells

check for IEDs

and pearls

Saturday morning

While you slept

I was very still

this other room

another world

and while you dreamt

I wrote sideways

with shaking hands

music like demolition

and a slow headache

Waiting from 7 to 1

for you to almost-wake

eyes like hummingbirds blink

and then I’ll start

the ritual of coffee

and the worship

of bacon and eggs

Amen.

The gold and green

crushing through

our brick wall home

when you call my name

I’ll leave my desk

and come back to bed

setting the blankets

on fire

Some Top Ten Things About 2013

Well, it’s that time of year when (due to high demand) I reveal my Top 10 Best Things About 2013. Without further adu … adoo… adobo?

1. had some pretty good marmalade

2. found $32 in a porta-john

3. Threw away 175 tons of plastic

4. bought a book explaining about different kinds of rocks and minerals, threw that out too.

5. went to 7 flea markets

6. Escaped flu-free

7. voyaged to the Swiss alps in a dream

8. A friend have me a Byrds record that I like

9. Found a 1/2 broken Herman miller Aerone chair in the NJ garbage

10. Was told by a mail clerk that I am a model American.

A review of my novel Tollbooth is live at Metazen.

Today at the lit site Metazen, there’s a real thorough review of my novel Tollbooth out from Piscataway House.

You can read the review here

Things I’ve been up to:

1. Read Tampa by Alissa Nutting, enjoyed it.

2. Bought a 1 watt tube guitar amp that’s pretty great.

3. They bought 3 dozen bagels or 10 people at work this morning.

4. Been working on a collection of poetry that should be coming out in the early spring from a press I dig.

5. Did some push-ups and pull-ups.

6. Been listening to a hell of a lot of Arcade Fire, the new album, edited down as a playlist (there’s some weak spots on the album)

7 just about to start rewrites on my Noel F-250 coming out this summer from Piscataway House.

8. Christmas shopping.

9. Christmas shopping.

10. Fuck it. Been drinking a lot.

3 NYC poems

If The Fire Is Not In Your Apartment
If you get crushed in New York City

that’s your own problem.

careful where you step and cross

we’ve hailed taxis through the lava

to traverse a cold street

occasionally, stopping to dream

on benches or church steps

anywhere with shade.Through the walls, I hear the opera stop

and down below, soon,

the hydrants will burst open

check your palm on the door

The fire is not in your apartment

It’s everywhere elseBe forever patient

crawling through the smoke

your building was built

to withstand the bombings
but no planes dropped letters

the only mail you got

in your small PO box

were notices, maybe from Hell

so leave.

leave the perfect angels in the radiators

leave the kingdom of blue-ball mice in the walls

all thousand generations of them

leave the graphitti of your neon-non-children

and your neighbor screaming out the schedules of

alternate side and third rail alive

slide through the tunnels

crossing beneath the water

come up in the swamps of New Jersey

you, a random tetrapod,

looking for lost turnpike coins

in the slot between the seat

and the floorboard

the ocean, still rumored,
lays ahead
—————————————————

Music
got drunk on your birthday

got full of weird light on tuesday
and again on All Saint’s Day
whenever that is
god is in a bad band
that gets booked wherever we’re drinking
his angels drown us out
bathed on stage in hot pink light
this smoke machine spells your name
up towards all the gooey stars
beyond the roof

the sky got less lame

got behind on the rent
got a worse car
got a battery for the fire alarm
all the words I know to all the best songs
are the wrong lyrics
when you tell me the right ones
I no longer like the song

update: sobered up on my birthday

—————————————-

Manahachtanienk

I’ve dropped my phone a million times

but it all worked out

this case is made

to protect me from the cults

of the famous and the dead

Buy Now With One Click.

It’s too windy in the valley

between remaining metal mountains

I search every alcove

and brick lined alley

for the man selling used books

and records and sometimes photos

that show this city

when it was flat marshland

full of fish and birds

and little else

I settle for bells and tea kettles

in a chinese trading shop

on the east side

where the PA system plays recordings

of musical wind and wolves walking through snow

I know the studio tricks

Forever  am I sorting through

strange racks looking for my next plain black wool coat

The maps of this city are dissolved

the phone booths

and the crime are gone

“It’s considered good luck to dream

of an eggplant on New Year’s Day,”

a woman says, walking in the store

with snow not in her hair.

Out on the street, the silver truck arrives

selling hot coffee and falafel

and fried rice

and Belgium waffles

I do not hover. I take the subway

beneath us all is another city

peeking up from the drains

Thursday

Last night I got a bottle of st germain and bourbon and got adequately drunk with my prize-of-a-human wife, Spout. We’re down here by the beach in New Jersey and the wind is all wild and weird, the grey tabby won’t shut up about being let outside. Her parents are worried though, to let the cat out. There was a hawk at the bird feeder.

This morning, I made coffee and sat at the table with blue freezing feet (’cause for hours and hours I don’t go get my socks out of the room where Spout sleeps, in fear of waking her up). I wrote a poem about the movie Beetlejuice and drew some doodles on a slip of notebook paper, then went upstairs into the 1980s-style-wallpapered guest room, where I laid flat on my lazy back reading Nabokov’s Pale Fire for hours. And that’s where I’m at now.

I just let the tabby outside. The hawk might be in the trees. Or it might have headed off. We’ll see.