Nelson Gary: California Poets Part 7, Five Poems

Nelson Gary

July 1st, 2024

California Poets: Part VII

Nelson Gary

Five Poems

My Co’& Clonazepam

In explosions secreting seconds

Without them screaming to be

Measured by this mangy monkey

With manicured nails, Simian Simon

Says, who plays marbles with relative

            moments,

I found a way to be intimate

Without my co’, but freedom faded fast.

I definitely did not dig the surge

Of the randomness, maybe only

The unexpected, but, at any rate,

Inconsistency kept being accountable

Impossible. 

The bleeding fog rolled in,

A decapitation from the inside out;

Wrinkles went to waves, weathering walls of hospital.

Yet there’s excitement to blitz

Beyond boundaries, calamitous or fortunate.

Chaos reigned supreme when comfort

Was exposed as quicksand sculpture.

The embrace of sacred stability didn’t

Last eons, the grim panel of elders;

Pocket change in recycled trousers,

Alchemy of ephemera, the dollar, my co’s

Cut, from the Emerald Tablet, as we

Made the commitment to build the habit.

Hazy Uncle told my co’, who’d ripped

Out some bird’s guts—saving the brain

Clawed from skull for sun’s starving

Rays—that Bukowski blew off writing

For a decade because it got in the way

Of his drinking: mostly beer.

The track, broken leg. 

A bomb & firearm fast, Bible belt, I added

A hole with a butterfly knife bought black

Market, pierced fauna as profound as a Gospel,

Punched it in the Tenderloin, a slow poke,

Stamina, teasing, then taming the tantalization

To that timeless satiation.  This mercy killing

Cranked out quality consistency, thoughtless

Revelation until the hampered heartbeat

Hammered this newfound passion

Wit’ purpose, its hardness, indeed,

 Hard to imagine,

Found only in the Zen rock garden my co’

And I made disappear!  Clockwork anatomies,

Time bombs in a town of tics.  In profundity’s

Bargain paradise, my co’ fixed the picture;

Then I creamed not conscious experience

Unprotected

                    but split-second perspicacity,

Fractions in metered, muscular flux structured

By precision, sufficient to sneak by undetected when

Cops came to claim that we’d replaced the bathtub

Plug with a drum owned by a hunter down for a rub.

Second time, numbed and drained, our dictionaries

Torched, flickers in cinders of recapitulation, I

            now

Keep my co’s soft, full lips busy, because beauty

For me is kicking Klonopin; a Benz I don’t

Want anyone to buy me, a suicide squadron

Bettered by Captain Jack, who seethes with each breath

Of dearly departed Gitanes, smoke spiraling in Palace Piaf.

This is a fetishistic flash of famous nervous

Systems, veins of Gaia in leaves, auguries in tea,

Strong, hot.  Evidently, there are pin numbers for clones

Bequeathed to my sleepless savagery.  I’m gone in grand

Style—smashing!—as a clod to velvet Prague after my people book

The best suite available for my co’ and me in the Golem Inn.

I need security in duplication, indestructible

Proliferation—yessir!  Now, there can be order

From the pack’s rat, also the hoarder, to the broke

And alone, shadowy boarder, but for my co’

Come the piranhas in body fluids, metabolizing nerves.

They’re not buried all that deeply beneath the skin,

Though they bite close to the bone, as closets

Of conformists cliché their tightly knit, clandestine location.

It’s a kick that comes close to alcohol withdrawal

            for wet brains.  There

Really should be dummies devised with intricacy

That fluctuates spontaneously, naturally

Within the parameters of unbroken consistency.

All the rituals rooted in ruin, thick cosmetics

            wet—redemption, my sin.

This is definitely when Captain Jack must assume

The role of seaman, give the winged monkey organs to grind

Because amidst the misty fog—all along—it was the sinister

Plot called intervention . . . orchestrated and engineered

            by my repentant, reformed co’.

The Drunken Boat’s Metabolism

I.

Giant gurney of guts, glory storied, you

Were an easy mark for the wrong birds

Peckish in Piazza San Marco, not pigeons,

But Brazilian buzzards: psychopaths, lads

From a distant land, Copacabana chupacabras,

Their features, those of Sea-Monkeys, for which

They’d ventured to Venice to earn extra

Clams for many surgeries (modifications),

Hooligans who’d worked beaches, abducting others

To make them viscera donors for 24-7 hospital-casino

Slashers to eviscerate for more and less than signs

Of existence recycled.  Failed once to save you

More than the sight of this beef rolled

Into billiards balls and stuffed into tubes to make cues;

You, fashion plate, framed for breakfast eggs

Benedict epiphanies, pancakes with sides of sausage,

Some twisted, tied off with twine to make links,

The flavor, the scent of anise, naked lunch meatballs,

Tomato juice, blue nude specials complete, traditional

With three vegetables; scraps of hot cross buns,

Sweet, fresh cakes fed to pigeons shitty to the bronze lion.

Failed as your redeemer, global village bicycle

            of the roundabout

Wheel of life, of fortune titanic, zoetrope,

The whole zoo, a massive windup on the restricting

Leash of intestines linked as the Great Chain of Being

Wrapped around Father Time’s diamond cutter—a cock

            ring.

Planetary Burmese bells for balls chimed with the soul

Of the Bow Bells tolled, teasing my backyard’s hole.

He did please all my faerie nymphs and this dodo—diddled

Deliriously in sacrifice to save our Domesday Book

From getting cooked by wrong chefs in this donnybrook.

First and foremost, I hooked to get you off the bloody hook.

II.

For their collective betrayal, I’ll burn down every

Bloody city until they keep our lot’s living quarters pretty,

Save Venice already sinking.  It can drown

Tomorrow in my Chinese water torture of tears

If tomorrow returns to me this sorrow aged years.

The world works against me, and I pull, with migraines,

For the Earth, its minerals and plants and things.

It’s not impatience but sound mind that prevents

Me from repeating the same error twice.  Merchants

Of not only sacred meat, I can’t trust ever again. 

Ye, man, ya!

Starving, I saw your ship sail out, judgment

Against you.  Addictus!  Your debt to be paid

To all unborn, all living, all dead burned and laid.

Woe! my reputation ruined to regain your freedom,

Which was not restored as promised for prostitution.

But love, hope, and desire remain unhindered

Through taking refuge in your sea song remembered.

This very Last Princess knows more than your kiss,

Which contains Earth, world, Heaven, and Hell as bliss.

Holism is my timeless taste, even with its abyss.

III.

Perfectly silent, still now on the raft of Medusa, whom

I had to swallow as a bitter pill, hence headstones,

My passion for you is almost as mercurial as Claudel’s.

It’s the rational twist of an internal tempest I possess

And gracefully explicate to find myself damned

And blessed, not the least bit, no, not at all depressed.

Though I’m not where I belong, I’m with whom

I have rest.

Even premium, choice salvation has its twists.

Tolerantly, I know this, my fingers curling into fists.

When do these thugs leave me alone (hence less tense)

To accomplish what they cannot do in recompense?

“Good Lord!” the master shouts.  “He was not kidding,

The young buck, but, indeed, quite serious in his defiance.

‘This is the pimp line, for I have been sold inside and out,

As if no more than a drunken, nameless lout,’ he said. 

Get his heart to break, so that he cometh

Down mad and with great wrath to remove him from this

White throne of judgment, his and that of mead, his bliss.”

The proverbial tables turn when I

Attack the ship with a jolly boat-shaped grin And declare, “Addictus!” as judgment

Against these faceless, ruling imperialists

In downsized drag, decked-outsourced

For the globalization masquerade ball, exploiters

Of poor workers and loose labor and environmental laws:

Marauders, slaveholders—at bottom, fear−control junkies

With debts to be paid for crimes against humanity

And the Earth.  Their chaos, our liberation in turning them over

To themselves to seek their own salvation.  Their vessel docked,

Just another worthy urn for Lady Fortune—not shocked

By the decree’s result as karma.  A thousand, similar ships

Were once launched in commitment to this morning star magus.

IV.

It’s a sudden lock, deadbolt,

Your body enfolded by mine,

The aftermath of yours unfolding, such is

Vision and breath to the rhythm of maithuna:

Again and again, unfolding the splendor

And glory of you, my twin, your sweet maple

Bar and doughnut holes.  How can such a thing be? 

It’s a mystery revealed in stages and cannibalized by curiosity. 

“No fair,” they say, and, of course, that means no foul.

V.

In this midsummer evening’s green room,

The kilim rug unrolled, the mint tea sweet sipped

From skull cups.  Leaves are angel wings soaked

For one green world after another to be coaxed

Into fitting on stages.  Lampshade of goat hide screens

Saharan sun to softness.  Beyond demonology scenes,

Beyond genii granting the wishes of human beings,

You hold me more than meaning, opening later this evening.

A genie’s only wish is for another genie as a lover.

Beyond the jitters, we transform as twins together.

It doesn’t much matter how our passion does burn,

Even if it leaves us as ashes in an emerald urn.

Jar

The visions pour,

                            but

                                 there are

                                               no more

                                                            revelations

From these

                 that are core

                                     to the closing

                                                          of transmission.

Inventions are envisioned

                                         in the pluck pretty

                                                                      pasture

Where rests

                   an alabaster

                                      jar. 

                   The healing is future

Kneeling

To this presence perfect in motion

Outside

And inside

Me

With the dives

                       I have

Taken

         for the talk

                          of the block

                                             that prevents hints

From being

Noticed

In the saddled grief

Gone

Along

The strong pharmacy

Beaten

To pulses from bodies

Saved

From the grave.

In the sepulcher story of glory,

The glare of the light frightens those uptight

In a flurry

For this hurry to hustle

                                     the heaven

                                                      known

                                                                 by leaf

And stone.

I own

         the lonesome

                              relief

                                      in the beliefs

Of the burned in the urn,

                                        jar,

                                              turned toward

                                                                            taught

Lessons lived

                      in the love

                                      of the dove’s

                                                           descent

                                caught

To capture these colors

                                reflected

                     for the numbers gathered.

I have collected wages

                                    from the sages

                                                           who still

                                                                         matter

As the rain

                  patters on

                                  this spatter:

                         the bloody door of sunset.

I was a bullet train of thought

                                       shot

                                 @ this blank

                                state of the wet

Where I am now

                          rendered newer

                            than the blue

                              from which

Forever appears

                    the news nightly that does

                                   jar

                                 more

                              than a few.

Lady Inside

Jarred by the ignorance of graceful gestures,

I recover in equal time to express the stifling,

Old (ghosted) moves of etiquette, then I acquit

All consciousness before its quiet—if not, silent—

            consignment to the nondual supernatural. 

Through potent magic improvised, mixing original

And ancient rituals, instinctual and ancestral,

            in the moody moment, I quit

My compulsion for questions and answers, release

Myself of judgment for being so fiery in spirit.

The night’s murky haze shadows my complexion

And the depth of all that leads to some sort

Of gilded craft; my cradle, at last, will it be.

Ancient souls, such as mine, are or once were

Munificent with noble carriage in waiting flesh—or

Deportment, demeanor . . . to be more current.

Having seen too much death to be anything

But decadent, you’ll have to forgive me

I have yet another caller here for my wise brain

To gnaw, and you can trust my words will stick

With him where you are with the bone I threw you.

You look so eager, spirited, dolled up in baby blue.

Bowed from the neck, not the waist—good boy,

He is—his protocol pretty close to perfect.  Perhaps,

I fancy him more, however, for his charming, folksy

Lack of refined manners.  Even still, I detest his swagger

And imbecilic presumptuousness under my banner.

I wonder if my demanding, seasoned guidance

Would meet

With greenhorn,

Backwater

Recalcitrance.

I’m really neither up to snuff nor ardently desirous

Of entertaining another energetic chump, chatting up

Such a chap.  Marvel no more, lovers are just tea leaves

In my skull cup, good finds in these visions’ debris.

Heart of a victim, mind of a killer, spirit of a healer.

Of the human race, who’s to judge or play the squealer?

Noire Creator of the Cosmic Pulp Ache

Cleverly, I do everything just askew,

So there are fate and chance to view

Free will as it sparks the timeless void

With the genesis of adieu in dimensions

Unfolded within balance measured by fortune.

This ledge is where legions have leapt alone,

Hallucinating a spiritual destination or

A character trait elevated and labeled as an edge.

Repeated is this mistake by the masses, the hordes:

Heavies and lightweights, buddhas and angels.

Mudras with swords, blood dripping curvilinear

In birth, battle, and death—no angles ignored,

            all feared.

Ritual then is this heartbeat.  It’s neither

Harrowing nor boring to behold belonging

                           to the midwives

                            and middlemen

Who plot and plant scandalous stories about me:

            attempts to ghettoize me. 

They call me everything from murderess, Mab the mobster,

Fake, mountebank, soulful brain, magnetic maven, and

Crazy wisdom goddess, when, after all, honest . . .

I am no more than noire creator of the cosmic

Pulp ache recycled drenched, then dried

Of all energy mine long before Eve cried.

Maybe these egregious extremes are

Popularly railed at me more than scars

Of bone orchard alphabets set in words

Incised into organs eternalized in ether

As constellations encyclopedic for either

This reason or that—one, two, or three . . .

Countless causes maybe.  About the innumerable,

            the untold,

Many would agree—I won’t analyze. It'd risk What you may

Deductively misconstrue as a portrait

In puzzle pieces of many lives traceable

To wasting much else as merely raw material in a process

Not as inevitable as the turning of epochs, the gush

Of my chemical upheavals, which can shock

Even the most docile into wild deliriums—

Though no miracle worker am I when the “mute” talk.

Moon most apocalyptic of mine did flow mead wine.  All

Cried, who hadn’t died in a raging war I ended

Peacefully through my period as Lady Rainbow

Untouchable . . . mended—knickers once in a twist

Discarded into the Krishna blue as a dove of bliss.

I’m known to be impervious to time—lock

Of my hair, resplendent bow serpentine

tied

      in spring

                    as clockwork

To more than cleverness about the sweet entwinement

Of the unending eroticism that is Mother Nature

And Father Time embracing in glory and grime

To fashion the blend that veils my visionary visage sublime.

O, their sexual servitude in more playful

Positions than creation, preservation, and destruction!

I exalt their nonstop embrace as praise most shrewd.

Though it may be my candor about violence

And kinkiness constant quantum and macrocosmic,

The climate is more exotic, subtle, subdued to confuse

And highlight my war paint softer than candlelight

In return to romance, for the revolution over melting

Pot and cauldron has been won in the West.

At the plateau of this razor-shaped canyon,

I’m here on solitude’s precipice, which overlooks the ocean,

Though location has little to do with the bitterness

I have to battle on account of how I massage Lady Fortune.

In this lodge, above the primordial juice now polluted,

Evolved divine legislation’s responsibility,

Then it descended to the diabolically imprisoned

In human flesh as a Gnostic fetish with flares

That flashed in possessiveness to ignite all hellish cares.

I am less the custodian than the cause

For this slipshod, ramshackle appearance of a lodge

Under renovation to be more chateau than mirage.

Author Bio:

Nelson Gary's works include XXX (Dance of the Iguana Press), Cinema (Sacred Beverage Press), A Wonderful Life in Our Lives: Sketches of a Honeymoon in Mexico (Low Profile Press), Twin Volumes (Ethelrod Press), and Pharmacy Psalms and Half-Life Hymns—for Nothing (Mystic Boxing Commission). He is an award-winning poet and essayist as well as a 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee (poetry). His work has been translated into Spanish and published internationally in numerous journals, magazines, anthologies, and newspapers, including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder's Mouth Press), Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, Cooch Behar Anthology, BlazeVOX, Americans and Others: International Poetry Anthology, El Observador, Los Angeles Times, and Desert Sun. Nelson Gary has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from California State University at Northridge and a Master of Arts degree in Forensic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.