Stratagem

There could be harm
at either end of the
u-shaped dock
Dart back and forth -
from one side to the other, and finally
onto the craft full of murderers
old friends from school
a family reunion
Who knows?
Something rushes by under the river
combining movies and real emotions
Otherwise, it's plants painted with blood (blood-red)
concealing details
and thrown from a long night

Hans and Me

I
Those days
as was expected of boys
we were already becoming
the biography of
an old man

Completed
over time
and made for
a childhood
delighted

II
Diaries frequently mention how
around us
the most marvelous figures
became common
or more complex

        It was possible to
meet in the center
these fantastic, funny, sad, or scary
languages of daily life
with which we could buy ourselves almost anything we wanted

III
Many invitations to dine
accomplished something that was almost impossible -
great satisfaction and joy
I guess it was the same as being
and nonsense

We visited often
if only to walk around hungrily among
angels, mermaids, witches, and mosques
What else can be gleaned from these necessary patterns?
New clothes? Not really

IV
Clearly and gracefully unselfconscious
Snapping wonderful pictures
Writing poems, novels, travel books
Carrying everywhere enormous pairs of scissors
though no one knows how many

Horse-drawn carriages thundering out
lives of the "extraordinary men"
Together fabricating dolls and costumes
clothes for dancers
or theater clowns

V
My royal mantle is thrown
I'm handsome, at least
something to see and see again
        The cutting looks
were discovered in ways similar to this

Making sure that
lovely little figures
became afraid
like glass...
At least somewhere, part of the time

VI
The opening and closing of doors
The arranging of faded flowers against all hope
The retelling of traditional tales
that should have been worthy of
educated people

Swans, dancing clowns, and storks
were always the other side of the coin
And the most beautiful were always
the most troubling -
men, bakers, and swans

VII
Careers and personal matters existed only peripherally
Over time
what interested us most of all
was minarets, open windows
a calm sea by an exotic and beautiful city

Few other things
had the power to overcome the language barrier
impressioned and explained away by the images
For example
tribes, mountains, and seas

VIII
Wonderful Storiescould be cut out of our portraits
From these same sources: a life made
with scissors. And as a result
what you would get is angels, ballerinas, windmill men

One day we found the
serious literature
        My need to be noticed increased
In other words
this is how our story ended

Control Issues

1
sad reminds me of rage
where over dim-sum I strained
not to get up from the table to smoke.
The only reason for this

is because of you
saying something about a fender-bender
so the car went a different direction
when I got into it.

2
I had a chance to speak to you just now
a civilized conversation. I knew
it was too soon, but you wanted to meet
and to wait more wouldn't be worth the bet

I lost and had myself to blame for not
placing importance on memories
which neither of us has about where I was born
in any event, I wouldn't have chosen to be yours

The Moment Collector

            It just broke, the way a bubble would break. The reading lamp was on, there was no stopping the blood. From the record player came I Gave My Love a Baby That Did Not Cry. There were dark spots on the carpet that turned out to be chewed gum, severely punishable. A spider jumped out of an old Easter basket. All the lights in the house were on. There was a humming noise coming from a tree.

            My brother has a sting. My brother holds me responsible. It's hard to believe he's my brother, we look nothing alike.

            Would it be interesting to anyone else that a tornado drove my family into a pool of water? We emerged prematurely. Someone, most likely me, said, "It's not over." A house fell from the sky and bruised my wrist, but it was Kaposi's sarcoma.

            Our parents were weird about sex. We took it out on drugstore toys and cheap watches. We smashed them in gravel and on driveways, looked at their parts and insides. Seeing them like that made me sick to my stomach.

            I think that when I get to the hospital they will have no choice but to replace the pillow and blanket I've been dragging along behind me. I have $500 worth of Starburst. Anyway, I can run without exerting any physical effort. I'm so graceful, reflected in shop windows, naked. Winter is dead behind shabbily constructed emergency room walls. A platter of fruit has been prepared to mark the occasion. An orderly pulls back a sheet to show me and there are flies buzzing all over. The staff may want to keep me here indefinitely.

            There's some kind of urgency to get things back in order, and for a second I don't even think it's possible. I think if there's any hope he will take it away with him on the train, an article of clothing that doesn't belong to either of us. Whole days pass where nothing happens. It's like being on vacation - empty, erotic and threatening. But I could break things with my excitement. Everywhere I look something new and dangerous is being erected. Money down the drain. It's true that before there was only us in a room, and I didn't know how to react to anything else.

            John Rechy is sprawled out on the side of the road in the cruising area of Griffith Park. He's wearing his Speedo's and sunning himself on a folding chaise lounge. This is Los Angeles, 2003 or maybe 2004. I have no idea what to say.

            I loved sitting alone in the dark of San Francisco's Opera Plaza Cinema and crying to the soundtrack of Jonathan Caouette's feature film debut.

            John Darnielle moves to Tallahassee and writes about it in heartbreaking rhyme.

            I had never seen Johnny Knoxville's television show so I thought I was just talking to some random guy, haggard-looking but sexy. He bought me a copy of God's Little Acre and inscribed it, "Darren, Hope you like the book. Drink up..."

            I am being served a wilted little mouse the texture and consistency of a ravioli. I don't have the heart to tell my host I just ate about an hour ago. Where is the animal? I have neglected to check up on it, to look for it, to look after it. I finally find it in my scrotum. Its claws are tucked up to its face like a badger. It's between my legs playing possum. It's dead, it's getting rotten. It hasn't been born yet, it's a fetus.

            As wandered up the driveway you were young and fur shining. I had a long distance phone bill, I was trying to know who I was at every age. We undressed each other one button at a time for thousands of buttons. Something terrible must have happened, that's how beautiful you were. A talisman canceling out entire collections of moments, a prizefighter. I lived on a boat. I could fly. I couldn't scream. We should have been worst enemies, my best friend hated you.

            I am filling out my change of address card. You can write it in the same sing-song way that you say it: 21 Sparrow Lane. A beautiful boy is the same age as me. I move my hand across him like his body is a field of grass and I want to make the grass to lay down. I write the first letters of someone's name on a wooden ladder in indelible ink and then try to hide it, but it's too late. I count the seconds after hearing thunder, certain that lightning will strike me. I'm chewing this soft gold like it's gum. There's a big smile on my face that I'm not totally in control of. I am only breezing through town in a borrowed car. My head is on the horizon.

            The city is huge and glass. People are driving around looking for a place to have dinner. I find a ghetto blaster, something useful, and set it aside to take home later. I'm depressed and confused. Me and someone else want black lipstick. Mine keeps smearing so I use red. Someone with no make-up is helping me reapply my eyeliner. I have completely lost my motor skills. We have tiny gloves, one for each finger.

            Here it comes. A fake start. A collision due mainly to gravity. It's beyond shouting, whose fault the car accident was, whether you can shake him loose. "Here's something good." It's your idea but he's got you eating out of the palm of his hand. All the same, you could be doing it on your own. You count on your fingers the number of times he let his guard down. Meanwhile, he prepares for the next elaborate trick. Out of the corner of your eye, there's light - or shadow of drink. You think it will keep up with your moods, be more constant. But he shoots you that look again. And maybe he's posing, or perhaps he really means it. Either way, he's not exactly out of the picture.

            Dear One:

They wanted me to be a dad, a madman, a person. Faucet of webs, I thought I could do drugs.

            Love, Darin

            p.s. keep them coming

13 Murder Stories

1.
We are ice-skating when white wolves start running circles around the rink. They are crazy, you can tell just by looking. One senses my fear of it and attacks, engaging me in fierce battle. By the time I am done smashing its skull in with a stick, it is obvious that what I have killed is merely a sick dog, a brindle pit bull with a milky froth about its muzzle. When the murderess arrives, I am glad to be able to turn my attention to beating her with the stick. She is wearing a calico print dress with a pinafore and will be, I hope, much easier to kill.

2.
I am surprised to find that the house where my friend's dad lives is empty. Most of the doors are pulled shut and secured with lengths of rope. I discover him asleep in a tent in the yard. I shout at the tent to wake him and he asks me to climb in with him. He smells good and has a sexy body and I start kissing the inside of his meaty thigh. He raises a butcher knife and I tell him to drop it. I am seriously going to have to reconsider my attraction to him. After all, he is my friend's father, and a murderer.

3.
When I can no longer stomach the jackal-like screams of the teenaged boy being beaten by his father next door, I send my lover over with a shotgun. My instructions are clear: "In the head, in the chest, just kill him." I go down to the river and wait for the sound of gunfire with a sick feeling in my gut.

4.
I keep thinking that people I know are Mia Zapata. Only I'm not sure if I know that they have been murdered or if I know that they are going to be murdered.

5.
A man comes around to our side of the chain-link fence wielding a broken beer bottle, so I break my beer bottle to use in retaliation. Carrie doesn't think I know what I'm doing so she takes my broken beer bottle away gently, almost lovingly. That's when the man stabs me repeatedly in the gut with his broken beer bottle.

6.
Some very exotic and expensive flowers are on display in an artificial pond. I am trying to match them to their descriptions on the price list so I can decide which ones to steal. Then I go down into the cellar and attempt to break the shop assistant's neck. There's the loud crack of bone and then the soft sound of her falling to the floor. Another customer has witnessed the whole scene. When the shop assistant comes to, she's gasping for air, severely damaged. Even so, we have an unspoken agreement that she will pretend that I was only trying to help her.

7.
I've got a .22 and I could run through this field all night to the sound of some car door slamming in the distance. The film crew is lighting up the side of the barn, alleged criminals slept there. Run through the trees like hunters, like killers. Cuts on my face, there's trespassers on my land. I keep going in this riled up state and holler, "Come on, son." The script requires that I fall into a ravine and I think that if I lose my boy and just keep running I can come back later to find him. If he's that tired I'll just get on with it and he'll fall asleep in the tall grass. And though it may take me some time, I will find him after I've done in the criminals for good. It's a reckless feeling, this decision to leave my boy behind.

8.
The magician waves his cape across the water and a beautiful woman appears there, hovering in the steam. She is supposed to be famous but I don't recognize her. It's not really my scene so I step outside and ask the maid if I can roll a cigarette with the tobacco I found on the front steps. She rolls her eyes at me and says, "Oh, I've been looking for that." Later, at a bar across town, the magician doesn't realize he's talking to the murderer. The magician is talking about murder and the murderer has this grimace on his face like, "Who is this amateur?"

9.
Somebody has replaced the corpse I left on the side of the road with another corpse. Did they think I wouldn't notice? I don't really have time for this shit. Why did I even come back here? I'm already late for a piano concert and fretting over my outfit - a green polo shirt with some blue pants and those white Adidas that have the green stripes on them.

10.
In prison I am surprised to hear that Francis Bacon once occupied my cell. I wasn't aware that he had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for breaking a beer bottle in some trick's ass.

11.
These two guys have been shot in the head. They are using their t-shirts to stop up the blood and begging for mercy. It's kind of embarrassing. The gunman looks at me and says, "Either way."

12.
The heat is like a weight, not a temperature. The bed is in the bay window. I can't give in to sleep, which is more like gravity. Everything is still. Jacques is asleep and he wants me to be asleep, too. Someone horrible comes to the door. We are slow and alike but I know he is dangerous. He pushes past me and into the room. My voice is a hoarse and hollow sound. I have no way of warning Jacques. The air is too thick to use a hammer to kill the boy, the intruder. When I reach Jacques I realize that the bed isn't supposed to be there. The boy is right outside the bay window now. Jacques says, "Just let it happen." Sleep is so oppressive, too powerful to get out of. I finally feel a cool breeze. By now the boy has the hammer. I say, "Why is it like this? The bed shouldn't be in the bay window." But there's no changing it now, we are asleep.

13.
The ramshackle apartment we live in has thin, crumbling walls and cheap fixtures. I'm straining to remember where we are and staring out into the blackness beyond a flimsy window. The sudden sweep of a helicopter searchlight reveals a barren desert landscape. They've been looking for criminals all night. I throw a plastic tarp over the bed and throw an air mattress on top of that. It's complicated. I've learned to sleep with the straps of my backpack twisted around one or another of my limbs. It makes me purr like a kitten. My roommate is mentally unbalanced and possibly drug addicted. He's perpetually fiddling around with something at his desk. I think there's no possible way he will fall asleep, so I should be safe. Then why do I wake up with the criminal attempting to stab me in the chest? Two tries and he can't seem to make the blade penetrate my ribcage. Then he goes for the throat and the blade sinks right in.

The Mom/Not the Mom

Mental illness has turned
my mother into a monster
Years and neglect have
seriously altered her physical features
Her waist and head, so tiny
Her pupils dilate until the iris is completely black
Someone took her to the boardwalk
and left her where they knew I'd run into her
She was terrified of being all by herself
and wanted to let out a little whimper
but I cut it off before it could escape

Danny

There's some kind of urgency to get things back in order
and for a second I don't even think it's possible
I think if there's any hope he will take it away with him on the train
an article of clothing that doesn't belong to either of us
Whole days pass where nothing happens
It's like being on vacation
empty, erotic and threatening
But I could break things with my excitement
Everywhere I look something new and dangerous is being erected
Money down the drain
It's true that before there was only us in a room
and I didn't know how to react to anything else

Darlin'

            Everyone comes out into the yard like okies or hippies to see Darlin' off. We watch on with longing or jealousy as this good-looking German family piles out of a big old RV and up the front walk. There's an immediate and visible spark between Darlin' and the son of the Germans. The parents of both parties are working out the details, settling on a price. This prostitution business is a real family affair.
            Meanwhile the son is making busy in the RV, putting away pots and pans as several of us watch on in admiration. But something seems off. The Germans have this pinched accent that is starting to show signs of wear. The parents are hustling Darlin' away in another direction.
           It suddenly clicks. They're not even German. What they are is undercover law enforcement working a sting. But it's too late, Darlin' has been zip-tied into plastic handcuffs and carted off. Most of us file back into the house or mill about in the yard feeling dejected, tricked. But not me. I stay behind in the RV.
           When I am absolutely sure that no one is looking, I unleash my anger in the form of two swift punches to the bait's face and head. The face is soft with something brittle underneath. But the head is just skull under downy blonde hair. He's sprawled out stomach-down on the plaid upholstery of a bed that doubles as dining room seating. More punches fly, landing direct hits to kidney and spine. He is no longer moving or making any noise. 
           When I get all his clothes off, I spit on his ass and shove several fingers in. And that's just the beginning. I dig around in him with other things too. Only it isn't as exciting as I hoped it might be, raping a cop. I'm still half-heartedly violating him when I hear the two short blasts of a patrol vehicle siren outside the RV. Darlin' has been released, the charges dropped. There's been some kind of misunderstanding.

The Princess

            The princess' purse is stolen during her trip to America. While the British press is having a heyday, the U.S. papers won't even touch it.
            I'm traveling by foot with Wendy and Peter through the European countryside. We are on our way to the redwood cabin where the carriage driver lives. When we get there I pace back and forth under her window and smoke cigarettes, dragging my feet in the gravel and making as much of a racket as I possibly can. She finally emerges and her luminous body sends shafts of light down through the wooden slats of the balcony. I explain about our important mission, how we need a ride to the castle. She gestures to a rusty old Folger's can full of my cigarette butts and kind of glares at me. In my defense, I tell her that she did keep us waiting for an hour and a half.
            When we get to the kingdom, the carriage driver deposits us at the central office for filing claims to gain access to the castle. Sitting at the desk is a formidable old gossip hound, her hair an up-do of immense proportions, her glasses hanging above her breasts on a delicate chain. She can scarcely take a break from whatever juicy bit of information she is relaying. She looks at us sideways but that's about it.
            When I tell her that we are with the U.S. press and that we would like to speak to the princess about the purse-snatching incident, her ears prick right up. Now that we have her full attention, we open our bags to reveal hundreds of rolls of film and a microphone. For added emphasis, I point to the slim black camera with gold trim hanging on a strap around my neck. Her hand slowly disappears under her desk to ring a bank teller's silent alarm. Before we know it we are being ushered out the door and escorted to the castle.
            The whole scene is just like a theme park, except when you reach out to touch things--lamp-posts, windows, buttresses--it's real. A marketplace is buzzing with life. The cobblestone underfoot is all aclatter with the sound of horses' hooves.
            We meet up with some other people who have been granted access to the princess. They seem to think it's a good idea to lean out over the edge of this little bridge we are crossing to demonstrate how dangerously low the railing is.
            At last we are shown to a waiting room where we will be received by the princess in due time. I take it upon myself do introduce my traveling companions. Of course everyone already recognized them, they are the main characters from a well-known children's story. This is when things take a turn for the worse. Someone touches the side of my face like a mother, adding years to my age. An earnest conversation about free trade prompts Peter to crudely suggest trading phone numbers with one of the charming young ladies in our group. Wendy quietly folds her hands in her lap and stares at the floor.
            Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, the princess departs in a gilded carriage under a canopy of foliage through which the full moon shines. The night wears on. We have all aged quite a bit. Peter has even grown a little beard. We recline on couches and daybeds and sip our wine. Gas lamps all over the kingdom sputter out at timed intervals. The water dancing in the fountain of the circular driveway comes to an abrupt stop. Anyone looking in from outside could see us as though through a gauzy film. We are relaxing into a long wait, smoking cigarettes, growing old in whatever is left of the night.

Crutches

            His loping silhouette crosses to my side of the street about a block ahead and I'm wondering if I'll have to talk to him. But it turns out he's good-looking and the fact that both of his legs are in casts doesn't seem to be slowing him down any. Before you know it we're walking together and he's saying why don't we sit down a minute at the edge of this parking lot. It's around midnight, the foot traffic in front of the leather bar across the street is non-existent, I'm not in any hurry. I offer him a cigarette. Right away he's asking me questions - where do I live, do I pay rent. I'm already lying to him about staying at a friend's place where there's no privacy. He says his place downtown is $410 a month, but I would not be surprised to find out he's really homeless. So much about this kind of conversation challenges the conventional need for truth that I don't even question how much of what we say might be lies. He has brown hair, not too long and not too short. It looks course but turns out to be quite soft to the touch.
            A few minutes later he's leading me down an alley I'm thinking might be suitable. For security purposes, I'm transferring a hundred dollar bill from the front pocket of my army fatigues to the side pocket with buttons. He gives me a sideways glance but I pretend to be looking for gum and offer him a piece. I'm thrown off when he leads me into a well-lit back lot. We make our way over to a Dumpster pushed against a stucco wall and he hands me his crutches. I think he'll just sit on this old chair and start sucking my dick, but instead he hops up onto the discarded piece of furniture. From there he maneuvers himself up onto the black rubber lid of the trash bin with surprising agility. I think he might disappear over the wall and into a yard. But no, it's the roof of a Mexican restaurant, and he slips into the shadows and out of sight.
           I climb up after him with the crutches and find him over in a corner near a neat stack of red roof tiles. A single electrical cord is draped diagonally, marking off an imaginary third wall. We sit side by side, hugging our knees and facing each other. He's putting his head on my leg and nuzzling. The surprising texture of his hair, the handsome face I wouldn't be able to put an age on if he hadn't already said he's the same age as me. We are rock-hard and groping at each other. There are black crescents of grime under his fingernails.
           Then it's off with his black sweatshirt and my black hoody. His t-shirt comes up and the stomach and chest are looking really good, taut muscles, a dusting of downy hairs. The skin all over is like he was a surfer last summer, warm smooth skin with pale brown freckles. He's got tiny nipples I can cover up with just the tip of my pinkie finger and I can tell they're really sensitive. I lick them and of course they have that salty summer taste. Then I'm up on my knees and tiny pebbles of roofing gravel are digging in through camouflage. His mouth is matter-of-fact between my legs. There's the glint of the streetlight shining off the spit running down his chin. I don't know where the appropriate place would be so I edge back a little and shoot between his legs, somehow managing not to get any on him. I look behind me and there's a fresh apple core a few feet away, the meat of the fruit not even brown yet.
           With my pants still around my thighs I sit bare-assed in the gravel and he's wiping my dick with his t-shirt. He wants to look at my tattoos, seems impressed that I did the one on my leg myself, says something about a thousand dollars. Now we're talking about our alleged hometowns, punk rock shows we've supposedly seen. He's working one leg of his pants and boxers down over a cast. From out of somewhere he's unrolling a piece of fabric with a glass pipe in it. I tell him this is the second time tonight that I've had sex on a roof and he doesn't seem surprised or disappointed. He says he saw me looking over my shoulder at that apple core. I guess drugs dim some senses while heightening others.
           I'm ready again and he hasn't gotten off yet so we get down to business. We're 69ing under the stars that I know must be up there somewhere - but through the smoggy LA sky, who can tell? Tiny stones are working their way into my shoes and everywhere but I guess it's just part of the deal. In no time we are synchronized machinery, perfectly oiled pistons, giving and taking as much as we can. His dick and balls taste just like dick and balls, but his come is bitter. It slides around in my mouth, mercurial. Sheltered as we are in our corner on the rooftop, his mouth is barely warmer than the air. So when I cum, it's like it just disappears into the night.
           I won't say that I want to stay on this roof forever. We don't seem to have much more to say to each other and I may just as well be heading on. Getting down is harder than getting up. He goes first and I hand the crutches down after him. I notice his discarded t-shirt at the last second, smudged with my cum, his spit, whatever else. I hold it out under the streetlight but he says to just leave it. Back on the street I'm taking stock and the damage is mostly dust and granules of stucco that came off in my hands from bracing myself against the wall. He says maybe we'll run into each other again and he calls me by my initials. I'm surprised because I don't remember telling him my name. We take off in opposite directions and I put my hoody up to be undercover in the night. I feel something crawling across my face and when I jerk forward a centipede falls to the sidewalk.