P A R (T) I (N G) S

by Amy Mascena

I am leaving for Paris tomorrow my love
and everybody is telling me that is gonna be cold
and humid
and unpleasant
this time of year
they say...

but i long for the long lines of bare trees
at the montmartre cemetery
the valleys of tombstones
the coats
the rain
the skinny loneliness that forms a thin cement like layer in your misty head
your tiny feet behind my eyes
each time I would close them

the sound of them in the wet sand
like a ghost
a smoke track
a half listened goodbye

all of them will know about
the quivers,
that last day on the town feeling
by the dusty loving bones of jeanne and her neverborn son
and that stone wall 
of the dying
and the moss and the bullets
and the cowards,
a hotel room is never home unless...
yes,
all of them know

you
nurturing life
me
looking for it on the road
like a waltz without the music
a horse without the straps,
San Bernardino in the light evening sun,
there are red velvet love affairs  
under the cobblestones
and it breaks your nails to look after them

How to miss someone without a face

drawing by Amy Mascena

Chinatown reveries
in a thin
fake
heart shaped necklace
golden as the day fades away
under the painted nails
and the fruit trucks
all dirty
all rotten
like a bounty killer
for your cloudy soul

downtown LA reveries
in the middle of the day
with all those wax gods
to thank and burn because of you
for the longing
for the words you said last time we had sex
for the words you don't say now

white disturbing plastic dresses to celebrate
that we ran away,
dime stores in the old temples,
collapsing echoes of the Hollywood goddess,
red letters hanging pointless under the curved
chilly
California sky

Children with plastic machine
guns
ice cream
dried tacos for the preacher man
monsters trapped in the swallow brea of your huge green eyes,
the pounding smell of the lilacs leaves
under my nose
and under my tongue
the taste of a tanned neck

this is changing me
I have been stretching the getaways
until I found the bottom
on that grainy morning
through a window in Brooklyn
far away from this cactuses
this rosemary love affair
that stays at night and is tender
and carnal
and distant
while I close my eyes under the shower

now all those days look beautiful in silver
like an old useless coat
at the salvation army counters

those lonely hungry days
in which there's nothing to do but walk around
and kiss someone blindly
and miss someone who
has a boyfriend and a kid
and all her lonely nights and fears

manifestos of the shattered remains of the human being-begging-sleeping
and the melodies for the empty handed
sisters of the broken hearted
linger in the dense air of the evening town
full of ashes, walls of smoke
and whatnot

A Governor's Island Lullaby

… rotten bananas and white bleach bath tubes
memories of old girlfriends and sting like headaches
some rain in the morning and
a bright night somewhere quiet...

your face is still there
in the mirror hall
motionless
like the faded colors of the squashes over the grey urban cement

berrie pie; blue painted nails, small chinese smiles when you turn
the corner,
… drugged, lost, fragile bodies
moving over broadway like they were carried by
a dusty wind,
all those yellow cabs like knives passing around them
leaving the smell of
hallucinated mouths behind windowpanes
and used up shirts
and unborn sorrows

the sounds of the subway beneath the feet
like the remote turmoil of an assassinated love affair
the heat wave coming from below-
it won’t die-
like the burning breath of some sad beast

it’s nice outside,
no sun
rainboots and hideaways
for your mistakes
your drugs
your lovers
your fears

sweets like
skinny black girls with yellow high heels
mud and gasoline
confusion and fire
sparks and a rainy summer day

iron works to keep it all together
words to one self
courage
a building that should have come down a hundred years ago
still standing
still trembling

Moons in the windshield

a deep silver road lost
and trembling
under the half-asleep rain

mercurial drops running through
numb love notes written in the backseats of used up korean cars
fake leather
fake cigarettes
never ending rivers
to the santa ana boulevard
shut up and count the shooting stars

a sticky summer goodbye
in jane mansfield’s barbwire eyelids
letters too close to each other in a white envelope
forgotten sender
a deadly curve over the pacific
red headlights
as ink stains in the horizon

a frozen moon in the windshield
sad mosquitoes looking for a mate
in the crispy chicken meat noon
indulging in my veins
and i can tell you've started smoking my brand

a red dress at the driver’s seat
falling like a rose petal in a dirty pond
mrs. dietrichson you are as beautiful as a dagger
inside these waters of la joya

beiderbecke’s blues all around my head
and a barbados skin
a woman in it
should i say a ghost
that comes and goes as it pleases
smoke coming in and out of the engines of the night
from deep beneath the fire and the lust

***


it’s too hot
jelly roll
and the trip is too short
my arm is half outside
come in
hurry up
he only comes up on the weekends

a small waitress with beautiful black eyes
and short dark hair
smiles 
and  the sun is setting gently at venice
through a dark mirrored window
and a brooklyn girl in my arm

genetically modified green grass that smells like plastic
and hurts
and makes your neck itch
inside the velvet room
where a body
another body
sweats and breathes
and pushes her nails all the way
in your vanity skin
some dogs bark on the outside
and a body falls down the montecito heights
such a nice island

people getting pregnant
at la brea
and the dream of a morning
with long gum-like palms
flying up in the air like
reflections of flying giacometti figures

the dense wind between the finger leaves
at the santa monica pier

a marlene dietrich song in a small can of tuna
reverberating a mellow train
lost feathers of a pink boa
tom waits in the laundromat
talking to a fish
fortune tellers
small bugs sleeping gently in their forgetting machines

and i know you are nice
and you love me
but your words sound like
broken watches
and roller coaster reveries
in a dive bar with oxes and armadillos
and aluminum spoons

***


the shivering halo
melting under a black blahnik high heel
a
daughter
you have never seen
walking through the corn fields

bits of dust
descending from the santa monica freeway

a painted wall with a blue tide
and a dirty mouth

 a motion less swimming pool


lynch’s white hair in a black cadillac limousine

***


elvis
judas priest’s roll of tens
cul-de-sac

the cohen brothers playing darts
thinking about robbing banks
dressed up as emmanuelle seigner
and edward g robinson

scissors,
crystal meth corridors
enlighten by the breath of the delicate orchids
in which you can just give up and die

hot tattoo parlors inhabited by the likes
of hunter, parrots and goose-like rappers
cold grapes in the fridge
seed-less
juicy
in the top of cocaine fueled lips
i'm fine, let's ride
these chimera thighs
they are so inviting

white dots shirts
a very expensive hotel room at the chateau marmont
nothing but a golden lamp
in an abandoned insurance company
and some silk dresses hanging from the ceiling
a phantom kiss in the inside of the wrist
in the envisage sunset strip loneliness

a maze morning the color of a chivas regal bottle
when it breaks
a stomach ache that contorts your face
while you buy sugar

a sun burn
a slow burn
a beach bum
two sizes too small
for that huge quantity of acid
while “the water runs down his chin and drips”
a melancholy bash

***


i prefer getting lost in the alleys
shirtless
a white cat shaped  like an ice cream
voices from the desert
and a middle aged woman
looking for a ride to bunker hill
thinking about

a gin-fuzz
a beer
and a tequila shot
under Django’s sounds

movie characters in disguise as actors
ant farms
fat guns
whip the heat of the power grid

broken sunglasses
a perfect hangover
scratched by porcelain nails
over the perfectly made 10 square feet bed

and old friend
vanishing in the foam
of the last wave

and

yes


“i can still remember the smell of honeysuckle rose all along that block”

Drawing by Amy Mascena


God made the matches
God made us fight
God made rice and barley
God was trying to do right

God made the caves
God made fire
God made the kind hearted slaves
That will polish your skull while everybody is singing in the choir

God made the roads
God made blues
God put in your head that me you had to abused
Yeah honey
God made you

God made boats
God made guns
God gave me two hands
So I can reach your throat

God made the summer rain
God made the pain
God made the heat
God made the love in vain
All the love in vain

God made the money
God made the sound
God made the plough
So I can bury you deep in the ground
Deep in the ground

God made letters
God made stamps
God made the swamps
So you can be drowned
Oh, drowned

God made the watches
God made the snakes
God made the poison
And your tongue that shakes
So they could meet in the night
And kiss
Just for me
Just for me 

God made the trains
God made the dice
God made the knives
God made the rye
And the bourbon for tonight

Cape City

Drawing by Amy Mascena

it's hot as hell
a trembling kind of humid hell
in these mediterranean shores
afraid of the mountains
that separate us from the desert
like medieval walls
you can even see the dunes shining above the red peaks

i think about california
it looks like california
when i look out of the window of the car

my neck aches and it's killing me
i am tired already
i am falling asleep madly over the keyboard

i need a massage
and a shower
and a little love tonight
but neither of that will happen
and the shivering palms will not shake until tomorrow
my dear

i will get lost in my huge and boring hotel room
and maybe go for a walk in the empty
dirty
post-industrial
streets
with lights at every corner
and show girls clubs
and cat lovers
vagabonds
of this vanishing town
this unresolved brick-adobe-like town
that looks like the tongue of a dying parrot

i think about Borgnine
and Lee Marvin
and about a red haired English girl
that reminds me of bob squarepants
with a small space between her front teeth

I think about trying to slide my tongue in there
like i used to do

but I am weak now
and she is somwehere else
and me too...
lost in my headache
and my cul-de-sac thoughts
and in my superficial talk

and in this lines
and in you

my

wounded

invisible

lover

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