Drawing by Amy Mascena


it rained in the morning

it rained in the afternoon too

it rain the whole evening

until I came back to you

the road is painful down in my feet

it hurts me so to know how you cheat

Thorns, spines, and prickles all shivering in my veins

Lies, riddles and inventions sinking me in pain

Who’s that howling?

Tell me who's that howling?

It’s the west wind grinning, baby

just the west wind grinning

Willie Mae was a lonely woman

Cotton eyes, wooden skin

She was accused of kidnapping the most famous secret twin

Maybellene she died for our sins

in the disturbing parking lot of a motor inn

mute and deaf she rests in pain

for all the love in vain

all her love in vain

who's that howling?

tell me who's that howling?

It’s the west wind grinning, baby

just the west wind grinning

You know Abe he had to roam

till he got to the door of the funeral home

oh Cain, oh dear Cain

you know Hattie Carroll was kill with the same cane

Abe, brother,

Abe, brother,

Walk with me for an hour

till the earth turns sour

till the rain tears down the tower

who's that howling?

tell me who's that howling?

it’s the west wind grinning, baby

just the west wind grinning

Jim the Apostle

and his little Southern Rose

there were born by the Mississippi,

in the outskirts of a town called Lows

Until early one morning

licking his coffee from the cup

Jim said, looking at her very briefly:

"Darling, I will be better off if you move up"

who's that howling?

tell me who's that howling?

its the west wind grinning, baby

just the west wind grinning

"Look pal is nobody's fault but mine"

Said the voice in the dead hot line,

“You are going to hell, there’s nothing you can do

I know every answer, sir, even who made you”

I can talk to Jesus; he writes me letters from time to time,

But I don’t tell him anything ‘bout that sweetheart of mine

28 miles east of Waco

I wasn’t there but I was near

So I decided to stepped in for a beer

I cleaned my gun, I said my prayers,

Best things in me are hidden under layers and layers

who's that howling?

tell me who's that howling?

it’s the west wind grinning, baby

just the west wind grinning

“If I had my way I'd tear the building down”

Said the saint to the believer

“If y’all don’t change right now

you will die from a bad swamp fever”

Sam Hopkins stared at me

A cigar coming out of his mouth,

You can say whatever you want little scout

But things are different down here in the south

who's that howling?

tell me who's that howling?

it’s the west wind grinning, baby

just the west wind grinning

Crow Jane sure was a fine looking woman

She had the money and the looks

She could make you feel just like a senseless crook

But you know honey, everything goes away

And all the gold you own turns into clay

So don’t be stupid, don’t be plain

Treat your lover like he was desert rain

Baby, like he was desert rain

about ink

Universal Decimal Classification

by Amy Mascena

is your loneliness, my love
what keeps me coming back to you
again and again 

moon after moon
wind after wind
life after life


your loneliness,
not your silver like skin
or your vietnamese tattoes
or the way you used to kill all those chickens back in the farm
no,
is your ice-melting mountain-top-bending knees-breaking
paralizing
serenity
my love


it was the last thing on my mind when i left the village
it was over my tired eyelids when i flew over the heads of my enemies
like dirt,
it was on the bright surface of my knife
when i cut my throat
and in my dried up hands
like old rotten fake maps of the future
aging in the millenary dust of this galaxy


your loneliness
my love
your riddle-like eyes
your blood


ties me to your half open mouth
like an iron anchor
finding it s way through the dark
turbid
north sea waters
deranged like a mongolian thirsty warrior at the golden doors of budapest
frosted
with his canine tooth out in the humid danube dew
smelling the scent of the incense pyre
and the silky beds
and the sweet-tasting lips of revenge,
seeking for the heart of the sea
and your flesh
to bust in
to bleed it out
to survive


you
my moon like lover
my only untouched dream


you revolve in my uneasy mind tonight
like a pagan psalm
while all these lights are falling from the sky
to haunt me
and i keep hiding
whispering your name a million times
like a secret jungle spell
to keep me alive,
under the leaves
and the shades
and layers of oscillating
music
soaked to eternity,
waiting for the storm to stop
shaking my guts out
expecting to break into pieces
asleep
walking slowly in the memory of a dog
tired
useless
in this neverending sweeping white fog
in which i loose my consciousness


abandoned wooden houses
for the mosh
and the sins
and the single cab drivers
who have a hole in the stomach
and a mouse in the brain
eating the inside of their eyes
and thinking about the clash of civilizations
while i dream about the arizona highways,
and the rain in washington
in an endless loop
on that summer day in which we fell in love
just as if we were sinking in the sand
no words in our mouths
no sounds in our ears
black cloth in our eyes


keep the motor running
while i clean the weapons
turn the damn tv off
and light up the cigarette


to stare at the window
and think about Brando
underneath this beautiful light rain
that comes down like hypnotizing trojan sparks


and go back
and think of you

plain

sun comes up and down,
in and out
blinding me
through the clouds

i cannot sleep very well
since she said goodbye for the last time,
since i saw her tiny feeble body walking away
in the greasy dark city night
like a paper bird on a pond of oil

i stand there
dispatching that tasteless cigarette
I begged her for just five minutes ago
leaning on the cafe wall

still feeling her rose perfume lingering in the freezing polluted air

remembering the days of the getaways
and the hotels
and the powder, the ponies, the cold plains

in the village everybody is eating dinner,
small time whores by the coliseum,
while uncle Fed shouts from the top of a tree
for a few dollars more
in the very streets you roamed when we still didn’t
know each other

and i wish they would come back again
and come out of that thick fog in my brain
and stop haunting me,
wishing me dreams and nightmares
in the subway
just like i was missing an arm
or an eye

gotta write that song
I forgot about,
a damn song in two hours
about my loneliness
and my decay
and about the war
while the orchestra is waiting
and her words still hammer my ears
“We should be playing softly,
building homes,
pretending to be good kids”

But we can’t
And we wont

these anti-love story
about doors, and showers, and radios
and fear
shot in 800 ISO
all grainy and out of focus
and unbalanced

i wish those days they would come
even though it seems like i am leaving her
even thouh she loves me
even though i love her

i think i told you

i cannot sleep very well
since she turn that dirty corner around

The Complete Lyrics

November is lingering like the white smoke
Of a dirty truck
In the wet
City night

Days go by unnoticed
Hiding under blankets at night

Winter is coming
Finally

Christmas are coming
The end of the world too


And I recall I’ve been by your side for so long now…
While all the faces
And the cities
And the nights
They all blurred up

And I know
I know
I lost her
I lost all of them
Running away
Hunting
Diving for more
Getting away
Going back to you


You


I watch you while you get dressed through the half open door
Of your room
Through the mirror
While I wash my face
With this aching freezing water

I look at your round and tender ass
Your black pants
And the window is cold already
And I realized that the world is just another fifty something white fat guy
In a white SUV with his finger in his nose
And the other hand checking out his blackberry

And we know it

But we hold ourselves anyway
Does not matter if the phone rings
If the numbers go fast in the computer
If that damn thing works or not


And the interstate
Is empty at this long hours of the night

Filled with burned out memories in calcined forests

Riding in this blackness

Through it

Just the engine on
And the headlights

And all the rabbits heads
In the bushes
With electrical pulses shining in the deep mighty well

And that tiny trembling in my right feet
And in my ears

Eternity
Salvation
a cherry pie

people
Finally leaving
Waiting for buses
Or taxis
Or plastic flowers in the village cemetery

People that buy plastic watches
And Nobel prizes that walk with their hands in their coat pockets
And war photos

And a huge sun on a nail hard Saturday of
Anxiety and beer
And me carrying you in my arms
3:00 am
Under the light rain
To your cold water home
To your warm clean sheets
Where each time you cross a door
You gotta close it down
Because all the kids are running up and down the streets
And all the phone companies are out there
with them knives out in their hands
and you know you’d better hurry boy


a Sunday
to tell you how much I like stealing old photo books from second hand bookstores
inside my Brooklyn polish grey coat

all those NY raindrops inside
and the East river
lost in the long long
never ending
train stations at night
Like pieces of silver getting rotten in the streets

And no real place to go back to

cowboy

Maxi DIA

Today
Someone
In the bright light
Told me it is raining in Paris

Pullovers
Raincoats
Raindrops falling from the noses of the grey statues at Pere Lachaise
And all that…

Today I left the place,
Still stoned under the Texas stars ,
Just after she buttoned my shirt

It was 4 am
And she called me to tell me she was missing me
Blowing between the scars in my chest,
Feeling how the sun sets
pale
all that dust in the face
at the Thunderbird’s swimming pool

I am felling like an angry leach in this department store
with some fat girls trousers on and your boyfriend’s pseudo sailor t-shirt on
luckily I still have my black cowboy boots and my old underwear on
so I can check the bras with some distant feeling of dignity

I am looking for you like a big city kid looks for UFOs in the cotton night
numb fingers
bad thoughts
not even seeing the signs
mistaking the airplanes for huge polyester insects
in the stoned black sky

There were white helicoidal galaxies in the shower
storms in the big dry plains
a huge orange sun at the edge of the blade,
some cut up Coney Island memories,
a car going 120 miles per hour,

this could be the end of my days
the beginning of yours

Einstein is sad
a new infinite day for those travelling pigeons
with shinny silver smiles
and golden credit cards

Brian Jones is sad
and crippled mothers
and half closed eyes
at the end of the song
Mississippi John Hurt
whichever song

a poem inside my guts for months

under a pile of rain drops
and plane wings
and caffeine cans
and endless phone calls

in a ship
watching Manhattan on the slide
her white and blue dress giving me a weird Marseille like blindness

broken shells in her bag
the horrible apartment buildings in Long Island City
plasma TVs
dirty schemes
on the pristine East River
a dark scary humid shadow

this poem

would never get out

until right now
until this very night
in the middle of the roaring desert