We came in together, the men looked up, the one with red hair, in particular. He asked, What y'all want with us?
I glanced at Precious, who cocked an eyebrow. She does the other one, I thought, and we're in the soup.
We took a seat at the counter, near the door. No one came to wait on us. Red said it again. I looked at Precious, her eyes on fire with the sun sliding under the door. I said to Red, I'm gay, hombre, can't you tell?
Why else would I be looking at a handsome dude like you? and muttered to Precious: Cracker. She smiled with both eyes and quickly I led her out to the car. I saw Red get up and start toward the door, but the window turned into a door. He and his buddies were coming through the door as I was shifting the Healey into third and then fourth when the tachometer said I should. We flew down that two-lane Alabama highway like passenger pigeons not only out of season but far from home now they were extinct.
Why'd you say that to him? she asked.
Seem'd like the best answer to his question.
That elicited one of her trademark chuckles that never failed to remind me of her half century of Southern speech . . . brogue . . . the word I learned from my kinfolk. Also long ago . . .
But you don't fight . . .
No . . . the hands, honey, I can't afford to bust my hands up.
She didn't know me well, but that was good enough, she didn't go on to ask what she must have wondered: Look at this big guy with his Cherokee eyes, why wouldn't the Irish and the Welsh and the Scots in him throw down? And I knew she'd never care now that we were out of there and happy, even with the top up and the rain beginning to pour down, fogging the windows so much I had to pull off on a muddy road, find a place to park out of sight, reach over and pull her to me, and every reader, North, South, East, and West, knows what happened next. It's nobody's business, Billie was singing on the radio . . . It's nobody's business if I do . . .
(17 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
Last Days in San Angel
"A postmodern iconoclast who believed in the discipline of the classics."
Jeanette Winterson
When she learned she would soon die,
she took a plane to Mexico City.
She would write the rest of her novel
in San Angel, near La Casa Azul.
She had learned to put up with addicts,
malcontents, and cops, untrustworthy
like me, said she. Here she could stay
out of range of the cartel wars.
She wrote of the twenty-first century
speeding backward to 600 A.D.,
starting in Manhattan, her home,
ending in Mecca, the planet dying.
She drank after working and liked
to fuck the neighbor boys who had
the time when she found them in.
Fucking she never got enough of.
This was her novel of shame and gore.
The religious wars. Blood and money
when neither would matter anymore.
She thought to call it "Cross of Bone."
To end with, she gave up needles
and reefers, sipped El Pacifico,
pulque when she needed the jolt.
She hung around the carnaval
across the grass and in the cantina
until the taberna opened its doors.
She called all her friends at home;
those never there she gave up on.
Amassing a phenomenal phone bill
when lucky enough to get through,
she listened more than talked, proud
of keeping out the words of death.
Her book would prophesy the clocks
stopping to begin the red rivers
flowing. She climbed into bed naked,
her ink slowing to its crimson shade.
(13-16 August 2014)
copyright by Floyce Alexander
Jeanette Winterson
When she learned she would soon die,
she took a plane to Mexico City.
She would write the rest of her novel
in San Angel, near La Casa Azul.
She had learned to put up with addicts,
malcontents, and cops, untrustworthy
like me, said she. Here she could stay
out of range of the cartel wars.
She wrote of the twenty-first century
speeding backward to 600 A.D.,
starting in Manhattan, her home,
ending in Mecca, the planet dying.
She drank after working and liked
to fuck the neighbor boys who had
the time when she found them in.
Fucking she never got enough of.
This was her novel of shame and gore.
The religious wars. Blood and money
when neither would matter anymore.
She thought to call it "Cross of Bone."
To end with, she gave up needles
and reefers, sipped El Pacifico,
pulque when she needed the jolt.
She hung around the carnaval
across the grass and in the cantina
until the taberna opened its doors.
She called all her friends at home;
those never there she gave up on.
Amassing a phenomenal phone bill
when lucky enough to get through,
she listened more than talked, proud
of keeping out the words of death.
Her book would prophesy the clocks
stopping to begin the red rivers
flowing. She climbed into bed naked,
her ink slowing to its crimson shade.
(13-16 August 2014)
copyright by Floyce Alexander
Meteorology
Butler drove down alone to see her--what was it, 23 mile, 25 . . . ?
Bought her what she wanted, little enough. But not what
he had. I swear, the other couple happy, between us.
Took all night, most of the next sun. Then back to a state of ire
unlike the night before's, sky clustered with milkweed,
birds roosting in trees, nests repaired before they flew.
She felt better--who wouldn't? Having denied nature its human due
years and days and hours, sleeping alone, no man was sane--
and why not? Lives ruptured, all she wanted was happiness
in all this rain--these tears--lately fallen behind a curtain of space,
wept in dust now mud. Who didn't know there were many cosmos
clouds don't reach? cousins of stars, shirt-tailed comets,
the family tree tragically felled before roots had plunged
deep, to drink. Memory looms before he goes away.
(15 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
Bought her what she wanted, little enough. But not what
he had. I swear, the other couple happy, between us.
Took all night, most of the next sun. Then back to a state of ire
unlike the night before's, sky clustered with milkweed,
birds roosting in trees, nests repaired before they flew.
She felt better--who wouldn't? Having denied nature its human due
years and days and hours, sleeping alone, no man was sane--
and why not? Lives ruptured, all she wanted was happiness
in all this rain--these tears--lately fallen behind a curtain of space,
wept in dust now mud. Who didn't know there were many cosmos
clouds don't reach? cousins of stars, shirt-tailed comets,
the family tree tragically felled before roots had plunged
deep, to drink. Memory looms before he goes away.
(15 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Peaceful Valley
Before
I was over there
one night, his place
wired for sound
. . . Lockjaw on sax,
who with I don't know,
Lonnie's teaching me jazz
and right now I'm out
of crystal meth,
veins hungering to
slow down and sleep.
Peaceful Valley is named
for a war yet to come.
Lonnie says he needs
money but pussy's okay.
That's how I got pregnant.
I'm too young for a baby.
In a canyon of L.A.
the abortion happens,
then I'm happy,
then sad, then forget.
After
I love her,
ask her to marry,
it's been a week,
I can't look far
from her eyes.
Time contracts,
love overflows.
I love my luck,
I love her
for her gift.
She wants me home,
wants life like it was:
coming home for lunch,
to bed for dessert,
our flood of happiness
contagious. I back out
to East Webb. At the door
she hikes her dress,
shimmers with joy.
I still taste her flower.
(12-13 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
I was over there
one night, his place
wired for sound
. . . Lockjaw on sax,
who with I don't know,
Lonnie's teaching me jazz
and right now I'm out
of crystal meth,
veins hungering to
slow down and sleep.
Peaceful Valley is named
for a war yet to come.
Lonnie says he needs
money but pussy's okay.
That's how I got pregnant.
I'm too young for a baby.
In a canyon of L.A.
the abortion happens,
then I'm happy,
then sad, then forget.
After
I love her,
ask her to marry,
it's been a week,
I can't look far
from her eyes.
Time contracts,
love overflows.
I love my luck,
I love her
for her gift.
She wants me home,
wants life like it was:
coming home for lunch,
to bed for dessert,
our flood of happiness
contagious. I back out
to East Webb. At the door
she hikes her dress,
shimmers with joy.
I still taste her flower.
(12-13 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
Monday, August 11, 2014
Her Lightning Cracks His Thunder
Of nothing we made this, our trembling.
Don't hide the fear, already shared.
Nausea, nausea, give us respite,
bring bread with a rack of chiles,
black and Spanish olives, and water
once the sea salt is boiled, tested, gone.
If there is hope, may it remain precious.
Let stars fall, holes open become black,
moon be trampled, sun yield to cold,
another day to follow; nights, bodies
and you riding me as far as the mountain:
Hymn of the body--Flee like a bird
to the mountain; dancing near the peak.
(5-6, 11 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
Don't hide the fear, already shared.
Nausea, nausea, give us respite,
bring bread with a rack of chiles,
black and Spanish olives, and water
once the sea salt is boiled, tested, gone.
If there is hope, may it remain precious.
Let stars fall, holes open become black,
moon be trampled, sun yield to cold,
another day to follow; nights, bodies
and you riding me as far as the mountain:
Hymn of the body--Flee like a bird
to the mountain; dancing near the peak.
(5-6, 11 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
My Bright Sun
My brazen skill is better off shut up
I don't recognize the salesman in me
So close the door when you hear you're the blue
the sky shapes my tongue
Stars never baptized have no name
There's no holy water to pour from clouds
Away from windows you are my bright sun
(10-11 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
I don't recognize the salesman in me
So close the door when you hear you're the blue
the sky shapes my tongue
Stars never baptized have no name
There's no holy water to pour from clouds
Away from windows you are my bright sun
(10-11 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
Friday, August 8, 2014
Two Failed Poems
Two Failed Poems
1
I thought I might live forever. But no,
The poet Olson advised, "Limits are
what we are all inside of"'; Albert Camus said
eloquently much the same of limits.
Methusaleh must have known in his heart,
his concealed heart, there was a limit to taking
the Bible seriously. The Old Testament claimed
he lived on earth, when one year counted
as two or more. But it was a fine story in
a book of stories, some better than others.
The New Testament is the tale of a man
with more to risk, though it too is fiction. For
how could you comprehend the miracle
of ascendance arriving with dawn following
Golgotha, a day and night on the cross
he was cut down from; and the ladies coming
to seed and root his body's soul, thinking
that as he said, out of death comes new life,
only to find him gone, the big rock rolled away
from his tomb, the cave's mouth open.
Where is he? they wondered, and he appeared.
2
How bear such praise mixed with venom
she suffers from men whose need to be stained
to validate her heart's honesty
can kill love, a simpler task than giving birth.
Ecstasy ends. Nothing to believe. No need
to start over: The soil is leeched with death.
He is careful to the point of paranoia.
She tells him to stop making excuses.
Surely, the lady still loves him.
May she let him love from her lips
to her toes, their bodies filled midway down
with all they imagined still between them.
The black-eyed susans love morning glories.
The cedar is home to squirrels and blue jays.
Pigeons arrive to eat and fight sparrows
first, as they must, the earth growing fallow.
Wait until dark after a long day ends.
The tongue is more convincing than the body.
Bring food you have tilled all your life to give
to her, and she has waited all her life to eat.
Now you are too old, man. Her skin is young,
a beauty still, who called you Father or Lover;
you might be both if seed and ovum would
find each other to live even longer.
So she never answered what you asked her!
So you lost your temper! You're not alone;
no hurricanes, not even warnings where
you are high up in the middle of the west.
(15 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
1
I thought I might live forever. But no,
The poet Olson advised, "Limits are
what we are all inside of"'; Albert Camus said
eloquently much the same of limits.
Methusaleh must have known in his heart,
his concealed heart, there was a limit to taking
the Bible seriously. The Old Testament claimed
he lived on earth, when one year counted
as two or more. But it was a fine story in
a book of stories, some better than others.
The New Testament is the tale of a man
with more to risk, though it too is fiction. For
how could you comprehend the miracle
of ascendance arriving with dawn following
Golgotha, a day and night on the cross
he was cut down from; and the ladies coming
to seed and root his body's soul, thinking
that as he said, out of death comes new life,
only to find him gone, the big rock rolled away
from his tomb, the cave's mouth open.
Where is he? they wondered, and he appeared.
2
How bear such praise mixed with venom
she suffers from men whose need to be stained
to validate her heart's honesty
can kill love, a simpler task than giving birth.
Ecstasy ends. Nothing to believe. No need
to start over: The soil is leeched with death.
He is careful to the point of paranoia.
She tells him to stop making excuses.
Surely, the lady still loves him.
May she let him love from her lips
to her toes, their bodies filled midway down
with all they imagined still between them.
The black-eyed susans love morning glories.
The cedar is home to squirrels and blue jays.
Pigeons arrive to eat and fight sparrows
first, as they must, the earth growing fallow.
Wait until dark after a long day ends.
The tongue is more convincing than the body.
Bring food you have tilled all your life to give
to her, and she has waited all her life to eat.
Now you are too old, man. Her skin is young,
a beauty still, who called you Father or Lover;
you might be both if seed and ovum would
find each other to live even longer.
So she never answered what you asked her!
So you lost your temper! You're not alone;
no hurricanes, not even warnings where
you are high up in the middle of the west.
(15 August 2014)
copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander
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