...rain...

I was dreaming of sleep
in the dark grey of the subway underworld
coming out of a recorded-like memory
of dark velvet and a girl, her eyes
melting into so many nights gone;
watching the rain through the windows

dreaming of sleep from nowhere
on trains, on the northbound going south
the twisted tracks forever bent and curving
the gray geometry of land stretching off trees
past umbilicus towers, the exoskeletons of
rusted highways, empty malls, dead museum bones
the metal like thick insect fur
everything a strange affair;
shapeless, amorphous, inchoate... moving fast
past twisting canals, roofscapes and prisons
drifting, dreaming
walking down back alley avenues
down thru dark autumn streets in Old Boston...
...a café on Newbury...
...the ghosts of Fenway & Chinatown...
...shadows across the brownstones, red graveyards...
...black trees...
molecules, windchimes, memories
her eyes jumpcut and juxtaposed in the glass
like an old silent movie
when that pain came bursting
from behind walls of hinterland hell,
in the horror places behind my sleep
like howling faces in train wrecks,
that empty rhythm that breaks
your heart. A dead sound
heavy, the metal door slamming shut
from the taxi as she rides away
and that door slamming again
pause, rewind, replay
(there is never a perfect sunset)
all you can do is watch

watch as the door slams and the sun dies
and the door slams again
over and over like a fucked up origami trick.

And a thousand times I see her wave goodbye
again, and maybe too many times
‘auf Wiedersehen, johnny’
as the seasons change thru black
chrysanthemum omens, nigrescent rivers
and drugged nights,
extended fugues twisted into new faces
shifted, shifting
suffocating down in fractal flowers

born of a sinuous feedback
slammed down like a new card,
a jack of spades or joker of knives
(tears blurring vision)
counting down to zero in odd directions
all those midnight gentlemen loser bars
something in a stranger there, inside that one
vacuumed in the pure image of beauty
silk dust and beautiful
the way she watches you with those eyes
mirror eyes, eyes of dark amber...
just another dancer
...but she got deep inside you

(I keep dreaming of sleep on that train
from nowhere, to nowhere
into exile
tracks like scratches across my eyes)

...knowing now you’ll be sleeping alone,
another cheap hotel
another lonely coffin
another lost archipelago of synthetic sunsets
spending the night naked down in all your
mist, your myth & your bruised mystery
the bloodwarm rain too real,
black jeans too tight; waiting
smoking stale cigarettes;
how she always caught your eye
somewhere beyond the moment...
tired smiles, tired soundtracks
warm & worn memory chips
etched around the steel and chrome edge
sprawling thru the dust and cities
all that gun-grey smoke;
the smell of dark suburban coffee
drifting across café rooftop gardens
you catch her reflection in the vestibule’s mirror
in each broken fragment
she stares back at you like an expensive hologram
silent, slow, smooth
stuck behind your eyes
and the thunder and subliminal storm of static
blows in from nowhere;
a gust of wet leaves
(the engine sound of a passing train).

You see her wave goodbye
and then she is gone
like a slip in a simulation program
a cybernetic glitch
as the matrix of night and jazz and alcohol
crashes down around you
burnt out and burning
(reaching for the slow-rewind button
reaching too slow)
her smile impassive, not really there
she becomes just another silhouette
black Italian shoes stepping inside
into the back of the black cabbie
electric light wavering thru the blue neon
as the rain crashes down, heavy
picks up the concrete smell of the streets
all that junk and hard candy
and tosses it back with the slashing wind
into your wet face-
there’s a pumping heavy metal discotheque sound
throbbing in your bones
pouring, pumping into your head
throbbing in your veins
a thousand bullets exploding into the night
seems to be coming right out of the sky;
the black cab drives away down the dark streets
the curved perspective peeling away
tyres’ splashing rainwater like profanity,
how many times have you seen her drive away
different flesh, different hair, different clothes
but always the same pair of eyes
she seems to like blue,
the colour of the soul’s departure

...falling...

You see her eyes in the rear-view mirror
against the black chrome of night
in the blue neon, beautiful
movie star eyes
(reminds you of Lauren Bacall
in Chandler’s The Big Sleep,
hard-boiled femme fatale eyes
always on the edge of being something else...
less than innocent, dark, nymphomaniac
behind a dusty haze). She looks thru you
always walking away, slamming doors shut,
waving goodbye... you just standing there
like a lost, confused, drunk comedian
incomprehensible
drowning in the afterglow
feeling the old skin and sins
of history weighing you down
a blank deja vu cassette wiped out by gravity;
spiritual vertigo gone hardwired
the wet streets turn you into another soaked rat
running with all the discarded rubbish
covered in the grey dust of sewer winds
and there she is, again, waving goodbye
how your time sinks, goes transparent
with each falling clock
each misplaced shadow
going into numb and fog; cracked echoes
with the passing trains and
wavering voodoo graffiti
rips at your heart like Sinatra singing Lou Reed
on a slow 45 rpm;
knocked down into another hell
like sleeping inside another country
exiled with no ordinary exits,
just another ghost

...bodiless...

the pair of shoes on your feet older than yourself
(‘damn’) No more whiskey, no more wine.
‘She finally put in a new pair of eyes,’ you mutter, delirious
speaking to the dirty sheep on the cheap hotel wall
wallpaper patterns, brown
feels like counting crows, counting murder
now you see her on the edge of your sleep
out there, somewhere, above it all
like she’s a fading hologram
sprawl of smoke and cities and dust,
cobwebs stuck behind your broken eyes
inside your messed up heart
blowing in some faraway wind
always waving goodbye
sleep pulls you down seven flights of stairs
down into the dirty streets, below
and there’s that cab
like the ferryman’s boat, waiting-
“Acheron Avenue,”
you grinned. You yawned, walking down
into the wild, drinking at the Dark Velvet
with all the other gentlemen losers
Steely Dan on the jukebox
a matte black .45 caliber
in your Raymond Chandler overcoat;
everything spins and goes into a blue blur
your heart a drumbeat off time
(...waiting...)

you know she’ll be walking into that bar
thru the black velvet curtains
thru that side door
just like she always does, swinging those hips
fantastically tempting
she’ll play you like she plays all the fools
all the losers and broken heart idiots
all the deep-seated sculptures
standing around with their thumbs
stuck inside nowhere,
and she’ll play you like another washed up country song
something out of Memphis
(and Johnny Cash sings the next song
and you wonder if there’s a reason
to the clothes you wear)
but this time, when she turns those eyes away
as you watch her in the bar room mirror
as she gets ready to shut another door
and wave another goodbye
this time you’ll be ready

you count the bullets up on the bar with the spare change
the bartender looks at you and nods
and you whisper to your bottle
flicking another Marlboro into your mouth
whispering to the flame
to no one, to anyone
and the blue flame dances
you see the curtains waver
the song ends, fades
and all sound falls away...

“Hallo, johnny...”
and so it begins.

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