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City of Damaged Men (Warped!)
CITY OF DAMAGED MEN
Where I expected to find heroic statuary guarding the doors, nothing
but lumpy mashed potatoes. It's a cold spoon. So all at once I feel
like Hell, I don't get to stay HERE very long either. Another roadside
resort which will not be allowed to become my home. What I want
doesn't seem to have a whole lot of effect on the things way things go
around here.
The tiger with my face sleeps with one eye open. My monk, puffing up
winding mountain paths points out a stairwell cut into the cliff's
face; transfixed like Spielberg extras, spittle hangs from the corners
of our mouths as we watch an inscribed tablet descend from heaven. I
swear this is no ordinary card. I see funny dots in the foreground,
fine like sand on a beach. Now follow the maharishi tramping through a
handful of street children. Clear winter Paris afternoon. Jealousy and
rage. It was a lie, at least I thought it was a lie. In-house
laboratories. An honest deal every day for fifty-five years: since the
end of the war. Luscious lipsticks: nothing you don't. Nothing you
don't want. Slogans, not concepts... her last role. The Heartbeat Of
America.
The cap fell off my front tooth, and I couldn't help noticing that
there were no roots left on the stub to anchor it to my skull. The
stub itself had actually dissolved entirely. No one where I work was
the slightest bit interested in this although I was disgusted with my
body's sudden decision to decay in a public place.
I told you:
I left town in cruel disappointment at the world, life's empty roads
and empty cups. I felt loneliness well up inside me, tearing my mind
like it was wet tissue paper. I felt The Panic then rising up in cold
black holes where my heart used to be -- the cold of space, the cold
of fear. It has eclipsed my mind and erased my futures.
Once I lived in a tenement building. A gray spray-painted brick
airwell served me for a courtyard. I walked on green-black carpet that
had been soaked too many times in beer and vomit. Stupid iron bed. I
had to listen to him practice his saxophone in the evening, EVERY
evening: "Misty" and "Windmills of Your Mind (Theme from The Thomas
Crown Affair)."
There have been more incidents with John the Dishwasher.
John the Dishwasher lives on the street.
John the Dishwasher's life's so complete.
John the Dishwasher don't take no guff.
John the Dishwasher: he's really tough.
The women powder between their breasts with pink powder. It's very
sexy. My mother and my sisters were lost in their rooms. Endless
convolutions of silk and nylon hid them from each other. I stood in
the motel doorway in my underwear in the blue twilight watching the
cars on the freeway. I said, "California..." quietly to myself and my
heart leapt up in my chest with a surge of impossible pure hope. For
the moment I was happy. I saw the drivers of the oncoming vehicles
watching me watching them. I ran back to put on some pants. First I
picked up the blue ones that I wear to work, but finally decided
against them and in favor of a pair of khaki slacks. Then softly, I
began to softly sang a Grateful Dead with the chorus, "California, I
been knockin' on your Golden Gate..."
If I see a line of action, I follow it. Abe Lincoln used a lot of
downs. Who will remember my static dreams for me ? Mosaic. I dreamed
someone was massaging my spine and popped a vertebra in line with a
painful thud. My thoughts cleared up immediately. Big thick hairy
hands.
I saw this sprayed on a wall: "LIFE IS LIKE FUCKING
IT HURTS
MISS KRIS."
...little hearts dotted the I's.
I'll have a Blue Xmas: one thing's for certain -- but I don't know
what that could possibly be. I could return to Kentucky but why
bother? How can it be the same now ? I've catapulted out into the
void; there's nothin' to see except where I end up. I travel, I stay,
my adventures must be cheap ones.
Gone to California with an aching in my heart. Places come and go, but
My Pain does not. I call it Unfulfilled. I've come to believe I don't
take big enough chunks out of life. Not out of brainlessness, just
crazy is all. No life seems worth living; no ambition is worth
pursuing; I can't say why... Take MY picture, please. Not so I can
start my own cult; but out of desperation: make me BE here. Please.
Prove it to me. Gone to California with an arrow through my heart.
Come and (maybe) have cleaned up my act. Waiting for Fate's Telegram.
Vampire doorway and refried frogs for dinner. Relax and the whales
surround you. Rely on nothing. Sit still... All these twins. In
Argentina. The result of a three generation-long breeding experiment.
They weren't twins, actually they were cousins. You can lose your
mind, when cousins are two of a kind. They held a convention. Two
paths reaching the same destination. Just like 1979 & 1987.
So there I was: cleaning off the stove in that institutional kitchen
so that I could paint it, and all these peas and carrots
(freeze-dried) were caked into this one burner. Somehow the stove was
at a height just slightly too tall for me, I felt I had to stand on
something to do the job. Prevaricating, I reorganized some shelves so
I could clean them better.
It was an all-star cast I've seen before. Larry Hagman is very funny
as a man who wants to avenge me-as-a-young-lady, only to fall back
against a nail, paralyse his back, flip over the stair rail and die
violently in the church pews below. Meanwhile Dick York as my older
brother agonizes over this, crying, "Daddy! Daddy!" A comedy of
errors. Scenes from my childhood. Of COURSE I get blamed. Oh yeah: his
wife lost some expensive jewelry. The action takes place in a tiny
town where a suspiciously large segment of the population works
directly for the government.
Bloody teeth, and the making of a Hall & Oats video from Big Bam Boom.
I am aware and blaring on all frequencies, a relaxed being of body and
light. Corridors of blackness pass sourly through my head to psychic
spaces no longer apparent. I think I should move.
Q: Could I?
A: 46 becomes 32. Useful work. Preparing and building. Travelling
toward the south brings good luck. There is nothing to blame and it is
time for action. Loss of money in the fall.
Dazed and confused by complexity all around, still I sense that each
thing is merely what it is. However, I drift. Always my course moves
too slowly, I can't pass up the chance to examine each particle as it
floats past my consciousness. I feel the change in the air, I smell
the end of things... It appears that I've already HAD my day, puny as
it was. IT ISN'T ENOUGH.It wasn't then and it isn't now. Naturally
enough or not, I look outside myself for answers. I know that my own
discarded maps are as good as anybody's, and one hell of a lot more
specific about the terrain which I personally inhabit. Still, I find
the illusion of objectivity to be a valuable one; and bringing in the
Ching or the Tarot for consultation is usually in some degree a
successful tactic. As always, it is questions of motive that hobble
me. The search for them led me to conclusions like: 1) I want to be
admired. 2) By my friends. 3) Which is my reason for wanting to return
to Lexington. But when I was there, I hated it.
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