Patrick Fealey's Blog, page 8

January 10th, 2013

what it’s like

 

it’s hot

it’s a hot and stormy night

indoors

the paint on the walls

peels

as if there is a fire

behind the plaster

or maybe in my room

a lucid fever

and a fast head

i lay down

i am trying to sleep

it’s a joke

i get up

and light a cigarette

the match cracks like a gun

and burns like a blow torch

something ain’t right

so i smoke the cigarette

while the paint peels

i go back to bed

i lay there

i hear music

it is a large choir

like the tabernacle choir

outside my window

i get up

and press my face against the glass

the singing stops and

i see nothing but

a dark street and the darker

silhouette of a pine tree

i go back to bed

the choir starts up again

i run to the window

and it is gone

i go back to bed

the choir starts

it is heavenly

i leave them alone

i listen

until i am asleep

acrylic on paper

typing high

typing high

"what in the hell are you doing?!" mimi shouted.
  mimi was in the doorway. I looked.

I’d done something.

She didn’t sound high. i had to look away.
 i saw the screen: what’s this?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
  z had been making tracks while i was out,

the night running away from me,

four lines i’d gotten off with my cheek

while nodding.

i remembered nodding and pulling myself out

a few times.

I could not have been out for very long

when she found me, three and a half rows

into my tale, drooling over the characters.

time of the assassins

time of the assassins

a nation

of hungry people

who have a lot of guns

cars and computers

with which to express rage

at the excuses the rich

come up with

to hold onto 99%

of the nation’s wealth

the vanderbilts

built a summer home

mansion with gold

ceilings and faucets

off profits

made by working

mothers and daughters

to their deaths

in Philadelphia textile mills

in 1970

the nation’s wealth

was its most evenly distributed

in history

one could afford an apartment or house

the arts scene exploded

children were not left in daycare

what happened after 1970?

harvard business school’s schemes

reagan

bush

clinton

bush again

high infant mortality (docs don’t go into it for medicine anymore)

record homelessness

better jet fighters and aircraft carriers

more wars

decressing wages

astounding CEO packages

we’ve been plunged

back to the

guilded age of robber barrons

life requires exploitation

time to represent ourselves

the missing accomplice

the missing accomplice

“my friend kevin told me to give you these,” i said.

“i know kevin!” scott said abruptly, an unanswerable ass working in a laundromat

kevin was an artist and skate punk

and my housemate and friend

he was illustrating my short stories

we once shared a 12-foot by 10-foot room

in a rooming house for months

kevin drew and i wrote

and we went to the tavern at night

where he laughed

at the whores i got myself tangled up with

kevin had the personality and talent

to be whatever he wanted

he had brains and he didn’t believe in anything

he skated the east side at night

and got to know the skaters and cops

kevin dumped the

sexy

smart

shy

funny

blonde quickly

for an

obnoxious

fat

showboater from rhode island school of design

who asked me

one morning as i was headed

to take a piss

“what are your views on art?”

i wondered if kevin was afraid of love

he hung around with the possessive scott kid

and had less to do with me

he played pinball at the laundromat

where he got a job

and stopped drawing

and posted the high score on adam’s family

when i became very sick

kevin avoided me

and bought a plane ticket

to Hawaii

he later said “i was afraid of you”

kevin moved back to san francisco

and got a job at wells fargo bank

he was promoted and promoted

after playing horse shoes with the vice president at a company picnic

and married a rich chick

with a name as pretentious as the last one

and moved into her house on portrero hill

i saw our failing as my fault

i don’t know why

but maybe he changed too much

or wasn’t who he was yet

or wanted to be

perhaps he had been rebelling

against the resistance

he faced when trying

to sell out

and now is

(or is he?)

love is the accomplice of art

and maybe i mistook him for an artist

when his truth was his money beat soul

the grandfather

the grandfather

 

they met in a conference room

at a chevrolet dealership

on staten island

and i wasn’t to repeat anything

i heard

or talk

my grandfather owned

a construction company

and knew

these people

many people

everyone

he told me he was

“liaison & expeditor”

whatever that meant

seven men

talked

around the big table

about

a car wash

and “importing”

everything

was about money

for three hours

it was duller than school

and church

my grandfather was

in a different role

and i didn’t

like it

nobody used words

like

launder

hit

protection

extortion

kickback

or even hollywood

and i  never

saw a gun

it was like going

to a meeting

of the zoning board

i was maybe 13

and i left the big table

and wandered

among the new cars

in a dark showroom

daydreaming

about the day

when i would have a car

and wondering

when i’d get my

grandpa back

rehab

rehab

 

we talk

like

intimates

because we will

never see

one another again

it’s that kind of

openness

sometimes addresses

and phone numbers

are exchanged

we talk

but mostly

they are strangers

spilling their gutts

to people they won’t have

to live with

5 kids at 22, 3 fathers,

1 estranged mother

a robitusson addict

a manic-depressive

victims of

domestic violence

alcoholics

suicide attempts

the coffee is weak

the sandwiches

not enough

but they clean that place

until it shines throughout

every tragic day

reflection off a rock

reflection off a rock

the full moon glares

through

the treetops

like i’m

obligated

to watch

a cadaver rising

i don’t

care

about the moon

the moon is dead

everything

you ever heard

about the moon

is sentiment

even man

on the moon

is one big sky-fuck

no surprise

initiated by kennedy

have courage

don’t look

at the moon

it’s never worth it

it’s a dead rock scam

you’d be

better off

looking

at a grass blade

on your lawn

if you have one

pissing on our own graves

pissing on our own graves

it’s a feat to stay in beer

when you are poor

like sending your kid to harvard

greg and i have held yard sales

on moving buses

exchanged foreign notes

we found in an old box

written bad check

after bad check

panhandled and scrounged

and let pawn shops

and bookstores

seize guitars and first editions

modigliani

utrillo

bukowski

or greg and john

drinking in the cemetery with me

all bums, you see

until you step up

to our informed disregard

we have degrees

& we’ve had careers

& wives and women

& we are experienced

& we have graduated

to sitting on the grass

with beer

& marble

greg paints and writes

and can talk to everyone

but his ex-wives

john flew dope to the east coast

from columbia and jamaica

in the 70s and 80s

and later became the driver

for raymond patriarca sr., a mob boss

who liked the soaps

me?

i showed up drunk

the night of the pulitzer ceremony

and dropped a whiskey bottle

in the middle of the big speech

we are for simplicity

and we are against

obscurification

which is what society

runs on

we’re sitting here in the grass

leaning on marble

the sun on the living

and the dead evenly

when

greg stands up and

goes to piss

on the governor’s grave

life is not a piece of shit

man is

reeking, twisted with ambition

and lies

the master of unnecessary death

who constructs forgiveness

scenarios

for himself

we’re confident and cheerful

standing up

or lying down

 

paris

paris

a man sat on the bench

beside me and opened the tribune

i looked at the page

there was a photograph of a tank

the headline said iraq had invaded kuwait

the united states was getting involved

more murder in the middle-east, peacemakers

jumping into mercedez-benz limos outside gorgeous villas,

arriving at the u.n.

kuwait did not mean much to me

so long as it wasn’t near paris

war was an age-old business for cowards

they could keep their greed far to themselves

i leaned back on the bench

i was the owner of two baguettes and a surfboard

i was surrounded by roses

and waiting for the surf to come up