Patrick Fealey's Blog, page 11

penis sculpture

innocence & experience

innocence & experience

 

we shared a table in 4th grade

me and Elizabeth Nightengale

her penmanship was

a declaration of independence

and she sat upright

while the other kids talked

about her

elizabeth nightingale was a blonde

painted by mystery

who made me nervous and happy

she sat next to me every day

the most beautiful girl

i had ever seen

talking, the two of us talking

i began to ride my bike across the highway

to elizabeth’s house

after school

we walked and talked

i was always catching up to her

mind

and she ran

faster than me

we climbed a tree

and straddled a great branch

face to face

when she said:

“do you want to hug?”

the leaves hid us

she was warm and solid

in her denim overalls

and i felt her body

in 5th grade

they put elizabeth in one class

they put me in another

they separated us

i saw her now and again

i noticed her body

she was different

she had grown

she didn’t talk to me

or anyone

and kids gave her space

in 6th grade, elizabeth did not show up

her family had left town

elizabeth was pregnant

the father was her father or

her stepfather was the father

someone mentioned a southern state

keeping tabs

keeping tabs


the problem

with this woman

is

she saves the tabs off

aluminum cans

for the ronald mcdonald house

and she wants me

to save tabs,

which means

pulling them off

every single fucking can

her first night here

-- a dinner date with

my housemate

she went out on the deck

and grabbed my boxes

of cans

and

dumped them out

on the dining room table

and commenced

pulling off the tabs

one at a time

my mother says

my nephew does this

and gets one cent

for every hundred tabs

i prefer to believe

this woman

is doing this

for the ronald mcdonald house

which must have a better deal

with charitable

soda and beer companies

this woman came by

again two days ago

to see my housemate

and asked me

if i was pulling tabs

for her

i said no

but i would

and she looked at me

skeptically

as she should have

so she came over

when i wasn’t home

and pulled the tabs

herself

getting sore fingers

pulling tabs

so a homicidal restaurant chain

can boost its p/r

is not a healthy philosophy

pulling and snapping tabs

for a place

that gives back

what it should

not have taken

has me sweating

a do-gooder

my housemate

wants

to fuck

judgement at the hats off church

judgement at the hats-off church

this minister asked us

what he thought

was

an ethical, moral, and religious

question

he wouldn’t let us eat

the church’s food

until six had answered it

“would you give money

to a bum who

you knew would spend

the money on booze?”

i was starving and wanted to get this over with. i raised my hand.

i do, i said.

i went on

and told the minister

that i even help

“bums” who are banned

from liquor stores

by going in myself

and buying

the “bums”

whatever they wanted

the minister frowned

and stiffened

not because i buy “bums”

bottles of port

but

because

i didn’t kiss his high ass

like the other hungry souls

who had raised their hands

but it was an answer

and he had spoken

before his god

that he’d let me eat

his mashed potatoes

mimi

all of all of them

all of all of them

 

a heartbroken man dances into midnight

on the gunwales of a stranger’s boat

sucking on a bottle of grain alcohol

while sid vicious sings “my way.”

a heartbroken man awakens in the bed

of a strange woman

the floor is littered with condoms

and wrappers

he recalls she was on the boat

a heartbroken man gets out of bed at 4 p.m.

when his desire to die

is surpassed by his desire to

get the hell out of the house

a heartbroken man relents to dinner

with the strange woman

and she says, “what are we?”

the heartbroken man says, “having fun.”

the strange women doesn’t like the answer

she now looks heartbroken

the heartbroken man eats his steak and salad

while the strange woman sits in silence

a heartbroken man sleeps alone at home

and he dreams of the woman he once loved

he is with her in the backseat of a car

she has no head

her head has been erased

but she has a neck and body

a heartbroken man wakes in the morning

to find his flannel shorts are wet with semen

a heartbroken man wonders about the dream

and finally decides it was one hell of a steak

cheeseburger

cheeseburger

my parents

don’t return

my phone calls,

but i ran into them

at the pharmacy today.

they’ve been “out” a lot.

since they got $40,000 last week

and are now eating out

every night

driving around

and going to the pharmacy

they’re habits and avoidance

are a sure sign dad got his money

for being an expert witness

defending a company

from a lawsuit

which i had listened to

for a month

so they avoid me

until i caught them

retrieving medication

and they invited me over

for a cheeseburger

and then they took me

to a seafood house

where they forced me to

order from the half portion menu

because they said they’d

spent all the dough

catbird

catbird

the cat

has killed

a cat

bird

i didn’t need

to talk

to anyone

anyways

the train rolls north

and the train

rolls south

a catbird

who has not

been killed

calls from a tree

the conversation goes on

and after a kill

the cat

is social

and proud

someone is shooting

a gun

and i have $291

in my wallet

the cat climbs

into the front seat

of the pick-up

because

it’s not

going anywhere

and other loves

                                                     & Other Loves

They hauled Greg out first after checking our licenses. They searched the fuck out of him and threw him into the back of a cruiser. He is a known cop hater and they hate him back wherever he goes. He once pulled a gun on a cop – the cop’s own gun. They took Tami out of the car. I knew i was next, so i slipped the rig into a box of eggs (we’d just gone shopping.). The cop came back to the car and talked to me through the window. I was in back, Tami was outside with the cop. He told me they had called in a search dog and if they found anything in the car, Tami would be charged. “Now’s your chance to come clean,” he said. I thought of the dirty syringe in her grocery bag and it was aw fuck. A question on Tami’s face, doubt, on the verge of collapse, “Paddy! Tell them ‘no!’” she plead. He repeated his threat and promise and i told him about my syringe. Tami cried and turned. He yanked me out of the car and fondled my balls. There were three cruisers by now as i sat on the ground cross-legged in my nirvana sweatshirt with traffic rubbernecking by at five-miles-an-hour. A cold wind cut the gray April dusk. They questioned us endlessly. Repeated the same questions. “Where’s the dope?” Separately, Greg and I told them “there is no dope.” And separately they told us that the other had said there was dope and each was assigning it to the other. Tami sat innocently in the second cruiser. The cop in charge put on a pair of rubber gloves and searched the car on his knees, saving the eggs for last. He found a roach in the ashtray, which Tami said belonged to her ex-boyfriend. Add this to her unregistered, uninsured, uninspected car she was driving on a suspended license with $3,000 in unpaid parking tickets while high on 100 mg prescribed Oxycontin. They took Greg out of the cruiser and threw me into the cruiser and a  supervisor cop showed up with a gold badge. He did not have a dog with him. He barked at Greg and Greg took it. Greg knew how to handle cops better than i did. He stayed calm and went along. Before i was thrown into the cruiser, before i was told to sit on the ground cross-legged, when the cops were threatening me with prison time and insulting me, lying their asses off about what Greg was telling them and lying to him about what I was saying, i had given it right back. “Nirvana?” The second, short, Italian cop had said. “Is that your name? Your friend told us there’s dope in the car.” “You’re fulla shit.” “That’s officer.” The cop in charge said: “Is this the way you want this to go?” Reaching for the cuffs. “No,” i said. After delicately removing the eggs and finding the syringe, they threw me in the cruiser and there i waited until they abruptly told Greg to walk. Sometime later, they let me out, they recited some Latin to me, something about the truth setting you free, and let me walk. They took Tami’s car and she stayed behind. They said they were taking the car in to search it with a dog and if they found anything, we’d hear from them – more bullshit. They’d made a big deal about the heroin, but in the end all they had were traffic violations on a $400 Toyota, to which Tami could now add towing expenses. I met up with Greg down the road, where he was waiting, and we walked. He had angst over leaving Tami, but he walked with me to the nearest liquor store where we picked up a six. We had a walk home in the dark, cracking and drinking along the road during lulls in traffic. Midway up the steepest hill, we bumped into a thin brunette who said hi and we stopped to talk. She was selling Oxycontin 20s for five bucks. We bought two and drank them down. The sodium vapor streetlights sprayed us home, Greg’s high-rise had no edges. Inside i sat on the couch while Greg went back and forth with Tami on the phone. She was pissed. She hung up on him. This was all Paddy’s fault. Also, Greg had lied to her about using drugs. He told her he had not and she somewhat believed him. She put the question to him: “What are you going to do about Paddy?” He’d known her three weeks! He said, “Nothing.”

what ants make

what ants make

i can make $1.40

in two hours

trolling this town

for aluminum cans and

plastic bottles

ants are also scroungers

and opportunists

who work 12 hours per day

collecting earwig heads,

bread crumbs, worms, etc.

i can eat enough off

my $1.40, which is 70 cents per hour

the ants work 12 hours for that

base existence

which means

that an ant makes 11 cents per hour

to maintain my standard

of living