Patrick Fealey's Blog, page 2

the car won't start

The car won’t start

 

i want to be brave

what pulls me to destruction?

i can imagine

i still lie to them

it has gotten easier

i’m beyond honor

he befriends woodchucks

he helps out nesting turtles

he knows the eagles

they say he’s lost it

but our green money can be spent

he goes on with life

you, death is coming

you didn’t ask to know when

here it is, friday

you’re out of money

and the car won’t even start

your friends won’t answer

a gang has moved in

you’ve been assured you’ll be killed

you play the good host

a punk draws his gun

the gang leader washes hands

how about a song?

the revolution,

it will not be televised

-- or realized.

Morphine Home

Morphine Home  September 1, 2007)

the cops were looking

i’d never seen them before

but i saw them first

the boneyard is done

they’re on to our ritual

deader than dead is

their evolution

it’s a quiet place to drink

kill off the thinkers

but it can’t be done

we’ll move it from here to there

it’s the grateful dance

there’s always a place

big love, just so many cops

to be used like that

the willingly ignorant

and the goddamned fools

the motivated

the voluntary cowards

they do it for kicks

and the reluctant

the idealists who needed jobs

they split their favors

it’s simple and so overt

i just walk on by

while they search my bags

they tear apart my wallet

and x-ray my balls

the syringe is safe

it is long and very sharp

john is on the bus

assuming the bus did come

john may be pissed off

gino throws bottles

gino shouts at people there

why do we have cops?

i am still hungry

but the girls like it this way

what are they serving?

it’s hard to sit here

beside greg’s bag of morphine

but i’m high enough

i’ll wear a dark shirt

they won’t see the dope through it

my face, no thinking

but all these gravestones

they don’t make me think of mine

except no graveyard!

today, mom’s birthday

got the answering machine

unavailable

and disappointment

sometimes she needs to create

the undeserving

my kids don’t call me

my kids didn’t talk to me

all there is just right

this son battles past

there’s no win in victory

mom ordains down, down

how does the kid curse

the best grandparents ever?

imagine the sins

nodding on the bus

nodding on the bus  (september 2, 2007)

nodding on the bus

the terrified forest

the full and the bored

why don’t the pills work?

i’ve been having too much fun

because the pills work

morphine beats ex-lax

the dope is going to break

where will my ass be?

mammoths at the sink

the ice is up to my neck

puddle in the street

pink, orange, parachute

he likes the vein on his hand

oh pins and needles

the narrow alley

drinking bricks and dealing sweeps

one more for pissing

i had to buy smokes

i have three cartons at home

i leave town with none

we figured it out

a bum’s life requires fifty grand

that’s with insurance

what am i thinking?

it’s not all this urban crap

my heart is smogged in

my friend will be free

my brother will be returned

time had taken him

more buses for us

the prison dies at the end

it’s world stands on stops

the sun has the game

you know it is september

just out, still in, sun

summer fruits of maine?

hit the road now for tucson?

cut out for the same?

i light a camel

because i have the power

to fulfill essence

morphine #92

morphine #92   (september 2, 20007)

it’s not a mind-wash

i’m fighting against lawyers

it’s more like

i’m a mental case

and i did it to myself

imported this fog

it’s easy to see

when you have been without it

sober contrasting

when you’re drunk two years

you don’t see what you’re missing

it’s the same morning

i’ve got a vantage

i had perfect clarity

a few days ago

i see what’s at stake

i feel how close the slip-up

the case of dumb-ass

i want some more sleep

but i drink coffee instead

universal

a pile of morphine

sits upon my compact desk

waiting for the con

beautiful slaughter

those inspiring flashes of fin

blues! hearts leap and cast!

cab to the island

1 am and twenty bucks

five minutes to sleep

i don’t let her sit

we take off from the city

her stop, one from mine

i gel my hair down

the roosta days are over

the mess is too close

monarch

I saw a monarch

landing on a sunny leaf

he didn’t stay long

the seagulls know it

what is it the seagulls know?

they know they’ll scream it

shelley was off course

i named a boat after him

the neighbors burned it

sidewalk cigarettes

they hold and humiliate

resigned to the street

the dead cannot see

the dead cannot move about

i sit with eyes closed

the sun dries the grass

the crickets chirp like it’s night

it’s noon in england

young men cut the grass

they make homes for granite

the roots move the stones

i found a sag card

it was laying in the street

i couldn’t smoke it

buddah looks solemn

but i say it’s a beach day

come’on buddah, chicks

boneyard #91

Boneyard #91  (September 1, 2007)

i am still scratching

two days entombed by morphine

like dirty clothing

birds of prey fly by

birds of song shut the fuck up

crows offer advice

a jetliner

slower than a dragon fly

eats up towns and states

i’m drinking again

at least there’s the appearance

but i’m really not

cemetery dogs

they back off and bark in fear

we are monstrous men

mom’s birthday today

i don’t want to call up drunk

she’ll smell just one beer

greg gets out today

they don’t tell him in advance

one last public shit

the breeze tears and lifts

poetry flies to the dead

the pen points to stone

the caretaker frowns

the bitch shakes his fucking head

ghosts are not allowed

i’d say i’m hungry

i was hungry last night too

a grand in my pants

dandelions hang

dandelions sure persist

dandelions seen

least noticeable

are the grandest plots and stones

find an old slate mark

tourism is big

helicopters show it all

but you can’t see it

Heading South

It took a month to settle on a mover. We're leaving California, where the educational system is a disaster, to Arkansas, where the university there is well-funded, well-equipped. While CA cuts -- the local university has cut its nursing program and the community college is considering allowing a cellular tower on their property to make money, as well as advertising on their school sign -- Arkansas grows. My girlfriend, Angela, is an RN, BSN, MSN and has been working in medical-surgical nursing for 18 years while teaching at the local college for 14 years, without promotion. The University of Arkansas has offered her an Associate Professorship and a free PhD. The salary is good and it is inexpensive to live there. A 2,000 square foot house goes for $145,000. That might get you a trailer in CA. We have a house here, near the beach, which we will keep and rent out. Shopping for a house in Arkansas has been fun, yet frustrating due to an FHS rule which requires pay stubs from your new job before they'll give you a mortgage to buy a new place in the town where you will work. it's a catch-22 and the cause of it all is the people who bought more than they could afford preceding and precipitating the great recession. Now FHA is so cautious that someone with a good job offer can't buy a house until they are already there and working, despite a great credit rating and an income of $90,000 a year. The banks will give us the loan, but the underwriters have become overly cautious and will not. If we must, we will rent in Arkansas, but it will require two moves. The first move will cost us $3400. The second will be a pain in the ass. We have searched the area in Arkansas (Fort Smith) on the internet, and with the help of two real estate agents, have settled on two houses that we like. If they sell before we can get to them, there are plenty of other options. It's a buyer's market there, for now. This morning, I got an email from my mother, instructing me to inform the family that there are rattlesnakes, copperheads, and poisonous spiders in Fort Smith. Mostly this makes me worry about our dog, Sascha, a 103-pound German Shepherd who has been known to chase and kill non-poisonous snakes here. If he gets in a tangle with a rattlesnake in the back yard, we might not know until he is dead. In my experience, poisonous animals know they are poisonous and are more aggressive than their non-poisonous brothers. All of this said, I am not too worried about encounters, except for maybe while I am fishing in the Ozarks. I have lived in Virginia, where I encountered only one black widow and here, where we have rattlesnakes yet I have not seen one. This will be a change for us. We are giving up the beautiful geography and Pacific in CA and trading it for a flat land dominated by cowboys in large pick-up trucks. We see this move as a temporary and necessary step in Angela's career. More experience, a PhD. Three years in Arkansas. I'm sure that I will get a book out of the place if I need to write one. As for me, I am a vagabond and have moved 18 times in the past 17 years and am ready for a change. Arkansas will be an experience in a very different place. We can always come back here, but the experience Angela will gain at the U of A will allow us to move anywhere we want, including Hawaii.

a moveable boast

a moveable boast

he hung his worn

felt hat

on the hook

inside the clean

well-lighted café

he liked

and sat down

to work on his

suicide

he was poor

and struggling

compared to scott

and was on

his way

to see gertrude stein

when he ducked

out

of the paris winter rain

to have

a couple of rum martiniques

and write

one true sentence

he finished his story

and ordered a plate

of oysters and

white wine

that washed away

the metallic taste

he and hadley

must go

to austria

and ski

for a few months

where there is no rain

only sun and snow

they’ll keep

the paris flat

in the hotel

where verlaine died

and rent a place

in the mountains

for more money

but he has the money

because

he just sold

three articles to toronto

in writing, he said

what you leave out

is most important:

-         his family is rich

-         hadley’s family is richer

-         he grew up with

five servants in the house

and has one in paris

for six months

in a rooming house

i lived on ramen noodles

writing my first novel

and contracted

scurvy

and eight teeth fell out

what i wish to leave out are:

-         the ramen noodles

-         the dealers

-         and imbeciles

-         and my most

frequent caller,

a guy who murdered

his best friend

trout fishing

i’m too malnourished

and tired

to pose

outside shakespeare & co.

i just sold

three articles

to the boston globe

paid rent

on this room

and put the rest down

on a life raft

August 26 (Haiku)

8/26/07

Always coming home

I’d get ill on the trolley

Thought it was the hour

Terror is the same

Balls cut off by a black gang

A great white eats me

Misunderstood first

Well understood by the fish

Come resolution

What you are seeking

My friend heard in the subway

It is seeking you

What am I seeking

Whatever these things may be

I seek you, seeker

Jane

Jane

In her sleep

She guards over

Our likenesses

I have found gold

In the blue riverlakes

Of her eyes

I borrow it

And call it love

Until

The day

She needs it back

We laugh

On the fire escape

With our red wine

We are new

And have all

The things

To talk about

We take trips

To new york

And explore

The state

Which she

Photographs

With an insight

That shows

No limit

But her father

Is attorney general

And she is a

Very

Rich democrat

With conservative

Tendencies

And family pressures

I was a reporter

And you know

What kind of money

They make

Honest, but not

Much of it

Yet the relationship

Persisted

Because of identification

She was much younger

And inexperienced

And dazzled by life

So when i became

Seriously ill

She took off forever

I ran into her once

While shoveling snow

Out of my

Driveway

She was walking

Up the street

There was nothing

To say

She looked afraid

Of me