Small Song

Small Song
copyright @aladreth antoinette brown


"No medicine in the world can do thee good." - Shakespeare

We love our tragedy,
our shots of bourbon,
distance and madness.

So, here's your mirror,
stones,
here's your adulteress,
nun, and us;
cathedraling,
bewitching, snarky, scrappy,
knotting, museuming,
foraging on cherished victories


our odds are
slim, baby, slim,
slim to nothing,
knee high
to oceans throwing
over our backs,
begging a Thou Art coming
of age,
packages of resolutions
in a tiny jam jar.


Level the angles,
level the house plants,
Damn, let me respond!
I called him, "sweetie,"
when I meant something else.


I've had to pesticide
My prayers (I MOUTH)
as dapper as they may be,
the weight of sod on my wall -
spray on it,
funeral it,
exist in it,
that tiny jam jar
of destiny.

Heaven's Ball

picture 2012 copyright, @aladreth

Heaven's Ball 
copyright @aladreth antoinette brown

"Women need a man to get over another man" - TEXT received
"I write and write and you never respond. Get your shit together" - TEXT received

Sunflower Sister,
Colorado River Daughter
woke up in a
strange bed
with a new tattoo
riding hot to her skin
in a fire landscape,

no little sleeping
in the desert
she's ripe to sacrifice

ruined in death
and lovely prisons
the wind winds around
            ... around

she's come back
praying at the Madonna
sucking on your fame

God love you and your name

you've come back
folded free and easy
ripped canvas kissing
shouting, playing, binging
and when I touch,
vibrate, fly, paisley bandana boy, fly

your face is all i see
at the moment of drop
                 box felony
sing your heart into the sea
we got old in between

now we bird watch,
yes, and cut (it) out
calendar pictures
for Alzheimer's patients

i calculated 2000 would never come,
then 2020... and certainly - when i'd
be _____ (fill in age)
never would come
... never

now who cares - after the
end of world party
at the wine cellar bar
where our gourmet pizza will be
delivered from the cafe
across the street

yes, it'll be Heaven's Ball

In Front of These Books

In Front of These Books
@aladreth antoinette brown



"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet..." - Shakespeare

in front of these books
i feel quite wrong,
so very much in need
of help

in front of these books
woe is me,
slight
and undone,
i wonder (vulgar)
i wander
far off

in front of these books
phantom's thunder
savage schizophrenia,
paranoia -
horns in my eyes


in front of these books
full of disease and defect
my proverb of genital scanner pics
are sick,
even sicker than you think


in front of these books
how tacky every one of me
sits in
alcohol, roulette wheel,
fishing pond,
omelettes, and pet goats


in front of these books
in some dowdy
highway landscaped
in plastic 64 ounce drink cups
i'm hoot-owling
goodnights to all potential fucks


in front of these books
i am so wrong

Damn the Chinese Stick

Damn the Chinese Stick
@aladreth antoinette brown

you were the nurse
who knew better

***

you always came to me
every Wednesday
for your fortune

you'd pull from the
ghost cup a red tip,
do a dance wishing
with your eyes
like a little girl,

and if you didn't like
the fortune I would read
in rhyming voice
you would put it back
and beg me to let you
pick again.

Today when I was told
you were going to die -
(one of our doctors said
you had every known
illegal drug
in your system
when you were found
unresponsive on the floor)

I pulled your stick for you,
hoping number 45
would be something good,
something that would tell me
something different,
something positive

I read it quietly and alone,
it didn't say anything about
your liver and kidneys shutting down,
your mother apologizing for your
bad behaviour,
or massive heart attacks
and brain swelling,

No ...
It talked about a dark lover
being jealous of you,
The stick talked about working
in metal,
mining and trade industries.

It talked about taking a day of rest
and not overworking yourself mentally ...

And then it said, and
I'm so sorry, dear,

"Getting your wish is doubtful."

This Ovum Never So Red

Disclaimer: "OMD! It's a story!" - said by ? 
Oh, just said by everyone in the entire world who wants to read it!!!
"YAY! A story!!!" - said by ME ...and you.
P.S. This story is not about anyone you know.  Including me.  Only the stars
tell the truth.

This Ovum Never So Red
copyright @aladreth antoinette brown April 02, 2007 to current


"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."  - Hebrews 10:24, The Holy Bible, NIV Version

"If things on earth may be to heaven resembled,
It must be love, pure, constant, undissembled." ~~Aphra Behn 
(1640–1689) from "And Forgive Us Our Trespasses"


My name is Justice.

My parents had a weird sense of humour.

All of us girls were given names like Charity, Faith, Love, and Hope.

Do I get a nice, positive name?  No, I get Justice.

I guess with justice comes truth so I have to be truthful with y'all and admit these weren't my real parents.

These were foster parents.  So, when I got to be of legal age I decided to try to find my real parents.

They lived in Sierra Vista, Arizona and that's what brought me here to the fricken desert.  No one comes to the desert unless they are lost.  Or, looking for something. My real parents had seven children - not counting me who they had given up for some reason or another.  They had a farm and an old fashioned horse and buggy.  My mother looked a lot like the mother who played on "Little House on the Prairie."  Seriously.  No one believes me when I tell them this stuff, but it's true.

Me?  Well, I grew up in the foster care program in Cerritos in the Los Angeles Basin and I became a writer and an artist.

If that's what you want to call it.

I'm nothing, if not truthful, in regards to my ability to con.

Someone told me once they had googled my name.  I asked, "Oh, yeah?  What popped up?"  They told me, "Wreckage."  Of course, they were in a 12 step group and that's the sort of words they use.

Wreckage, family of origin, family of choice, one day at a time, the BB, and all sorts of other stuff that sounds like a cult, if you ask me.

I just sighed and said, "Oy."

I remember a Mensa contest where the winning prize went to the person who wrote a newly created word and definition: "Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid."

And boy, did I do some foreploy on you.

My mouth was bigger than my trousers, and my trousers were really big.

Over the years, I've made a lot of inappropriate comments to musicians.  It's like I can't resist telling them I did S & M to their music.  Most of them just look at me like I grew another head.  Maybe I have along the way, maybe I have.

***

Back to this foreploy.

Yes, you and I ended up in a play, alright.  At least it seemed like it was.  Right, straight in an Pre Broadway Play.  That's what they call it.  It's not "Off Broadway," no, it will be going to Broadway, but not for a couple of years.

When I look back on things, it just seems like a dream.  Maybe when I was happiest was when I was lost.

I remember seeing a kitty who had jumped on a pit bull one time.  It was a bloody awful mess.  So much for saying those dogs are harmful.  The cat had done that poor thing in.

Someone jumped on me once too.  All that grinding was fine.  Hell, it was real fine.   Until the lights came up.  Then I ended up kicking him right in the groin with my boots on.

The light brings a lot of things out.  Light, truth and justice, they say.

I don't know.  I'm not sure I've ever really been given justice myself.  I am always getting the raw end of the deal with things and people are constantly telling me to just be grateful and look at all the stuff I have and to stop whining.

You promised me so much, but you could never deliver. I heard how badly you spoke of other girls, or how goodly, if it be the case.  If it suited you and your foolish purposes, you could talk a good right streak about anyone.

But, I invited you anyway to a convention I had to attend for work.

My suite was the largest and I was to be staying alone.  At least that is what everyone believed.

Next door was my "office enemy."  Well, they kept telling me she was trying to take my job.  I would have let her have it, so it didn't bother me.  She had to share her suite with four or five other girls so I'm thinking she wasn't too happy with the arrangements and how it must have seemed I was getting special treatment with my lone self in a nice suite.

No one knew you had met me there.  We were quiet.  That's what gags are for.  No one knew I had you wrapped up in plastic next to the bed.  No one knew how we fucked long and hard, just like we had never done it before, just like we had never touched another person's skin,  just like we had never even seen someone of the opposite gender before.

God, you smelled good.  And your voice whispering to me in the early morning hours was superbly convincing.  Your voice could coax a coat off of an Eskimo or get an Arizona girl like me to buy condos in the suburbs of Hell.  I would buy or sell anything you asked for in that voice.  I knew heat.  You had it.

Then there was the morning when you kept interrogating me why the caths full of orange juice were there, not cafes, but literally, someone had been drinking, injecting, main stream lining, veining all sorts of disease under our sofa.

You said there were so many secrets and hidden bags under the duvet.  That's what you called it because you were English and that's what they call a comforter. It's fancier to call it a duvet.  It's more posh.  And one thing about the English; I know it far better than any other American woman, (other than Madonna, maybe) ...is that their men are quite polite.

It doesn't mean they love you, though.

But, those orange juice caths, someone else had put them there.

I was showing you so well how to fasten the glue, tie the corset, keep things bricked in, you know, put up walls.  That's the way I like things.  Let them come at me with a sledgehammer if they want in me.  And my soul?  You may think you are eating at it, but you aren't.

Oh, sure, this one blond girlchick in California keeps popping in to my head now and then.  I think she offered to suck my soul out with a straw once; but, no... I pretty much try to keep people out of my brain.  This addiction I have.  Yes, guarded and protected; vulnerable and fragile.  That's me.

Once I read of a man who said all writers were either physically or mentally inadequate.  That is why we write, he said.  He may have been right.  I can accept my shortcomings on both levels.  Can anyone else?  I hate to find out.

A potter told me stoneware is not strong.  You would assume it was, but, no, it's the most delicate!  The fragile bone china is the strongest. The fragile bone china everyone is so worried about breaking, that's the strongest of all.  It may chip occasionally, but survives most traumas for generations, unless it is struck on just the right point, and then it shatters.

Stoneware *feels* safer, but can break in two just with the weight of all the other dishes around it.

I wonder if we are lot like bone china, much stronger and durable than we may appear, worthy of special treatment, but easily shattered when hit at our vulnerable fault line.

These things I wonder about when I tell stories about you.

One day you said all my stories were about you.  Yes, you were right.  They are. You are the reason for my very fabric of existence.  I wait to be rid of you, even watching the news for serious accidents in your neighborhood, but, no, I know in my heart, I will die the day you die.

The same day.  We are that connected.  You can ignore me.  You can talk to me.  You can touch every part of me.  No matter what you do, you will always be the one who controls my living and my death.

But, now.  Why wax nostalgic?  For, it seems I'm already dead sometimes.  Let us get back to this trip.

The door to the other room unlocked and all sorts of bodily fluid was on the little sticky mat they put in the tubs in some seedy motels.  Oh, but this was a high class, up town hotel and I was so accused, excused, fired up and down.

So fired.

Yes, I lost my job over you.  Over the orange juice in those IV or enema looking bags, I lost my job.  Or come on, let's get serious.  Maybe no one from your work cares who you screw and that's not the real reason I lost my job.

Who knows why I lost my job.  It could be because I'm hard to get along with.  It could be because I smell.  It could be because they are jealous of me.  Yes, that's what I'll say.  They are just jealous!  Those bitches!

And, there's Bernice, walking straight through our hotel room suite, she's got to be 92 now.  Or a ghost.  Didn't she die years ago?  I introduce you as my husband, while pinching your behind.

You glared at me over your shoulder and when she is finally gone you pull out the clay heart necklace from under your soft shirt and ask, "What does this say?"

You don't wait for an answer.

You answer yourself.

Hell, I know what it says.

I gave it to you.  Bought it in a little upstairs shoppe in the village of Sedona.  Way back when it was called a village.

"It says friend."

Gotham was never so high.  This Ovum never so red.

How About Judith's Cauldron

How About Judith's Cauldron?
originally published by pseudonym S. Strict 02 Jan 2009
copyright 2009-2012
@aladreth antoinette brown




hey french kiss girl, my, oh my
snowcake on Harbour Street
oh, darling, you're my lily savon,
demon in the dark, angels delight
pink lady,
hellow buttercup,

I wish I  had you tied
in a little hex a come
next to my bed, your morning bath,
secret stash
secret melt (meat), be my vanilla
foundation,
happy pill, massive mango,
magic orange blossom honey
sexy peel trap, creamy candy

so grande, dream time,
render me immortal with fever
in a marriage of tahini paste
massage in a past due font,
hot milk time,
it's business time,
up you gets!!!
(tramp)

men-men-men - make up your *mind*
there's a perfect storm
coming, sunny side coming
us angry housewives
snap the black currant whip
on the pathway to hell,
yes, my little rock chick wild child,
the devil made you do it ... again

She's Got Her Bobby Back

She's Got Her Bobby Back

copyright 2009-2012
@aladreth antoinette brown

(previously published May 8, 2009)


'Look at all these gadgets. You press a button and factories go up.  Or you pick up a telephone and tankers set out for Persia.  Or through a Dictaphone you say, "Buy all of Cleveland and move it to Pittsburgh."  You must be clever.' ~~ Audrey Hepburn as Sabrina in "Sabrina"



Arizona, you've got a lovely daughter
and she has her bobby back,
her bonny, doll drod,
bathroom buddy back,

she's a thin, worn out horse,
wicked harridan,
decaying strumpet, that ill
favoured girl

but she has her bobby,
her song of Baltimore,
and Latin words,
deliver light from light

she has her scorecards of
sex.gossip.death,
blaring fishwife rows,
evening news jaunts
her code, her ESP,
public waving,
first person waving,

she has her feast of night
loudly weeping, shouting,
"I'M WITH EVIL"

she has her tight purple sweater,
melon breasts,
fastened black stockings,
flesh touching God,
bathroom walls,
"HE WAS A FAKE"

yes, now she knows what
the morning means,

what twenty years means,

and how social networking sites
can find your ex ...
the one you had an abortion with,
the one who lost his wife in a fatal accident.

By God, she's got her bobby back.

Sizing Up My Halo

Sizing Up My Halo
copyright 2008 - 2012
@aladreth antoinette brown
Previously published July 1, 2008




Remember that time
on the hood of a car
in Sedona,
you sang to me eno,
sang me the stars,
played me steve in "The Jerk"
complete with banjo and hay in the teeth?

you bought me books and opium,
you ran to kill
something
that would make me taste
vinegar for a week
if it bit me

we were
"serious practitioners" of the
alternative arts -

We bought Walmart.

Well, you can't buy Walmart, can you?
It's sort of a monopoly.

But, we bought cases and cases of
toilet paper, plastic flowers, confetti,
and barbecue sauce.

We needed everything
anyone would buy.

We were so damn smart, but still,
dirt poor and bare foot; stealing
pharmaceuticals from our jobs.

We saw george carlin,
(since everyone is talking about him now)
he used the "f" word a lot

We saw a horse farmer
who said we should be married
so I said
I would drive you through
the Elvis Chapel in Vegas
and marry you.

I don't know why you were so scared,
for pete's sake, I was already married!

I recall being very stressed out
after sex,
worried if ultrasonic waves
would kill the crickets in my house
Way after you were asleep
I snuck out
of the bed
and unplugged the ultrasonic thingies
you had so proudly purchased
and I hid them from you
because crickets in the house,
are good luck, you know

Remember, I threatened
to kidnap james spader
and fuck him silly?

you said you would bail me out
if I would be indebted to you
and let you see me behind bars
(it was a fetish of yours
left over from Danish
"Educator" days)

Remember when we shared a waitress
in a cummerbund, cucumber, and chardonnay?

One night, you told me,
"You have some low down friends"
you said,
"You are sizing up that halo, Girl,
dealing with them guys, 'cos
your friends are rotten-good-for
nuthin' snakes."

All your friends said
you ate creativity for breakfast,
because, well damnit, you are creative,
you sing and play the guitar and make music,
hell, you make covers, you make
salt packets, you make Indiana purses,
you make sunflower duvets bow, you make me
steal Sardax,
you tied in the trees,
the trees;
my dress,
you make me doctor it pinkish red and
you make the dog bark when he hears your voice
sound like a cow of memories on the X-files synth

I make a horrible sound ...
such a horrid, scary sound
driving up and down your street,
looking for your new red car,
smelling for New York style cheesecake
humming the song you taught me with orbs,
creeks, colours, and cranes.

God, if only again,
to lay in your arms again,
to size up my halo

Bruised Brian

previously publised Nov 28, 2006
Bruised Brian by @aladreth antoinette brown
copyright 2006-2012


A few years ago (yes, I know all my stories start like this; it's my trademark, you see) Elise and I gave a poetry workshop at this run down former sanctuary for writers.

It was in the mountains on Interstate 74. My old car's engine nearly died trying to make it up that steep road, but boy was it beautiful. It was so nice. Brian was there. He was one of our 'students' and he was quite nice too.

Brian was 28 years old, far younger than Elise and me, but he was still old enough to know better. Old enough to know the difference between bad and good. Old enough to know the difference between good and evil. And Elise and I could be evil. We had our moments.

Brian, on the other hand, could be very sweet and subservient. Yet, he could be quite brazen too. This made me take notice, yes, I took notice of his mood swings, his silliness, and beyond all of those things, he was a brilliant writer. He wasn't the kind you hate. He was the kind who didn't let on he knew he was so convincing and clever. He just wrote for the sake of writing and that was refreshing. He would write about herbal magic in the bible like everyone should just know there's herbal magic in the bible and then he'd write about belts, whips and canes just like everyone enjoyed getting hit by them. He mixed things up a lot and he always seemed to be putting his best effort forward.

The first night all the writers and writers-in-the-rough arrived, we went to this country-style-casserole-dinner-place down in town. It was right at the base of the mountain. We drank sweet ice tea and laughed and talked until we closed the place at 11pm.

Writers are not normal but we can pretend to be. It's all part of plotting adventures, I guess, writing that script, spinning that wheel. I felt normal that night. I knew, though, I was not.

The next day we had a break. A time on our own to hike the mountain, sleep in, meditate, take pictures, clean our rooms, or do whatever we wanted to on our time off.

During this time we were to compile five new poems and present them in some type of book form the following morning. I was leading that first meeting and it was quite informal. I invited everyone to sit on the floor among the pillows and old blankets and rugs and we would discuss our work.

I held the entries from the writers on a beat up aluminum cookie sheet and Brian's was the second one in the pile.

I got through all the formalities of reviewing and reading aloud and showing the first writer's work off and then I showed Brian's work. He had taken one of those ten page scrapbooks from the store and put a poem on each page or two with some art. It really looked like a proper scrapbook and I was impressed, not just with the words, but the artistic creativity he showed.

The first page was dark blue with white squiggly lines and there was a box on the top in the middle. In the box; five lines. I'm not a real fan of short poems, but this was a good one and the box wasn't totally square and I knew that meant something. We all discussed it. Brian was sort of silent during the whole process but I wasn't too worried.

Then I opened to the second page and immediately stopped.

I took in everything at once, the deep browns from scraps of our menu at the restaurant, the crazy arrangement of everything, pieces of everything. Brian had ripped menus up and wrote on them in dark black ink the things people had said or the jokes they had told, so next to "Meatloaf $7.95" would be a description of the conversation Elise had with Michael or there would be times that I smiled. "She smiled at 845pm and it lit up the room," it said. There were things like, "She laughed with the waiter about her order." Silly things like that but very complete and accurate about all of us and the time we had that previous evening at the good old country diner.

In the center of all of this - it took up two pages - was a green strip and in a very light lime green tricky psycho looking font he had wrote his poem.

It was called "I Will Follow You" and skipping to the bottom of the poem, there was my name - he had dedicated it to me and he had used my real name.

I looked up at him in the front row sitting with his legs crossed and pressed the scrapbook with cookie sheet holding all the other efforts of the writers to my chest. I took a deep breath and stared in to his knowing eyes. I said, "Let's reconvene this after lunch."

I heard sighs and murmurs that we had only just started and hadn't even finished the second book and little questions of what might be going on.

I got up from the floor where I was sitting among many pillows and put the cookie sheet holding all the efforts of the writers on the bar stool to the side of me. I took Brian's book and left the room.

I was down the hall when Elise caught up with me.

I asked her, "Can I speak to you in your room?"

Elise said it would be fine. I stood behind her as she opened three different locks and we entered a three bedroom suite with five beds.

"Elise, what do you need with all these beds and all this space?"

She shrugged.

"There's nothing here, just beds!" I remarked, shocked again at the way her room looked in comparison to mine and the students.

"I just lucked out, I guess."

"But, you are alone in here, right?"

"Definitely alone."

"So, why the five beds?"

"I just like my space."

"Okay, alright," I messed with my hair and twisted it back.

"So, what was it you needed to talk about? Why did you end the session so quickly?"

I guess I couldn't grasp why Elise's room seemed so different and she had all these locks and doors and beds and it was overwhelming. Sure, it's not something to get all worked up about, but what was I doing there talking to Elise when I needed to talk to Brian.

I brushed off my pantsuit, "Oh, nothing. Sorry.  We'll just get back together after lunch. All of us."

I left Elise's massive three bedroom suite with the five beds and went in to the hall where the student writers were chatting and there was Brian leaning against the wall.

"Brian, can we talk?" I asked as I walked right past him down the hall.

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied, all obedient like and he followed right behind me, right in the footsteps of my high heeled boots, it seemed.

There was a room on the left no one was staying in, so I twisted the old door knob and the door popped right open and we stepped down in.

The room looked exactly like a college dormitory room and smelled just like one too.

We went to the center of the room and Brian was the first to speak, "There are dead fish in the aquarium."

"Yes, I see that, Brian, does it concern you?" I was still holding his scrapbook of poetry to my chest.

"Not really," he looked down, "The carpet is dirty."

"Does that concern you?"

"Maybe a bit."

"Well, we are only going to be here for a short period of time to discuss this, so can you pay attention?"

"Is anyone staying in this room? Because the fish are dead."

"Brian! You seem awfully concerned about the fish! There is no bed in this room, so I doubt anyone is staying in the room. We can take care of the aquarium later this afternoon, how about."

He looked at me with his soft childish eyes. Maybe I was being too harsh. I was like the stern, strict teacher who had called him out for being naughty. Everyone would know that it was something about his work that had stopped the session. His hair was long and to his shoulders and he was wearing a brown tweed long coat with jeans and work boots. His turtle neck was black. There was something very interesting about him, you know.

"I'll stop worrying about the fish," he said, but he said it with somewhat of a whimper in his voice.

I came a little closer to him and showed him the page with the poem that was supposedly dedicated to me.

"Can you explain this to me?"

"It's a poem."

"Yes, I see that. Why don't you read it to me because the font is weird and the colour of the print is blending in to the dark green paper."

"I will follow you," he continued reading the poem in his barely audible voice and it was about stalking me.

I just kept staring at him as he continued reading, "I will kneel to you," then the poem shifted to submitting to me, the person he had stalked.  No, he wouldn't be 'scary' anymore, he would just totally submit and do anything I wanted, and so on, and so on.

I interrupted him, "Then do it now."

"What?"

"Kneel."

"But the carpet is dirty!"

"Do it, Brian."

He did as I commanded, and as he had said in his poem he would do, he knelt and he knelt on the dirty carpet.

I took the scrapbook from him and bent over, my face to his face, my cleavage right in his face and I whispered in his ear, "I will get you. You just wait, I will get you."

Then I turned and walked out the door and left him kneeling there.

Dirty Douts The Light

Dirty Douts The Light 
previously published Jan 16, 2007
copyright 2007-2012 @aladreth antoinette brown


"Is there no way out of the mind?" - Sylvia Plath

"Now... When it comes to you, and us, I have a few unanswered questions. So, before this tale of bloody revenge reaches its climax, I'm going to ask you some questions, and I want you to tell me the truth.
However, therein lies a dilemma. Because, when it comes to the subject of me, I believe you are truly and utterly incapable of telling the truth, especially to me, and least of all, to yourself.
And, when it comes to the subject of me, I am truly and utterly incapable of believing anything you say." -- from Kill Bill 2


dedicated to the spirits of the old wild, wild west 






My volcanic ash dusted player boy,
dirty is as dirty does boy,

I know you better
than you know yourself.

I know your lies.
I know your truth.

I know your make believe world.
I've lived it with you.

you traveled the long washboard night,
Italian girls whined you led them on,
glasses clinked at the old wood stove,
spunk filled beer clashed couch
taunted and teased the sports fanatics
The sun sets, wind blows
it's harsh fucked-up bother,

I tell you,
classy names
don't make fame

I'd make bigger
noise
if anyone
cared to listen

Midnight chimes
master steak chef Herb
in his leather coat,
drunk on margaritas
takes a picture with us

We tour the
heavy safe
standing
through it all
"no, I won't drink, I won't"

dance floor covered
in wood chips,
ash and piss
"but I will fuck"

I'll say it ten times and
do it twenty.

Our clipped wings rub
in restored red room,
tin ceiling mirror
our imperfect bodies
at end of thin hallway,

The Wild, Wild West
awakens right out
of Box Canyon
and Skull Valley.

Once, this place
was a Station Stop,
later a Bordello.

The ghost of the Madam Mary
laughs at our naive repertoire,
inexperienced silliness,
and trust.

She was killed here
a century ago
by an old man upstairs.
Her beautiful face
has appeared in the wood,
fire fingerprint,
stained and slobbered,
a cross between
gallant glinting nipple ring and
gaudy Elvis.

But I see it,
it's got to be fake, baby,
'cos I see it.

We know how to
rid(e) the spirit;
A bell,
book,
candle,
and a few chosen words,
but we can't be serious
in such spiritual matters,
so, we toss and tumble
on top of the words
and I feel
impending apocalypse ...
I'm losing you ...

slipping, sliding
your aromatic soap
on the tips of my fingers
nature's rosy spines
spires
raging pores open
curvaceous sweat
dripping from your hair,
on to my body,
you've got me whipped,
all you have to do
is spell it forty ways
to Friday.

It's that easy.
I'm that sleazy.

I talk a good game,
but I don't know shit,
I can be absolutely everything
and obsessively nothing -
Just like one, Charles P. Stanton,
illegitimate son of an Irish Lord
and a Dublin University graduate,
the richest man in Arizona;
drank blood,
ate fried rattlesnakes,
and fought Mountain Lions,
according to the 1892 Prescott newspaper.

his rule, short lived,
blown down by barrel one day
by Christeros Lucero
because good ol' Charlie
made a pass at his Sister

Make a pass at me, dirty boy,
Seduce me ...
dout the Light.

Every single demeaning,
degrading,
humiliating,
pathetic thing,
I'll do for you
and you'll do for me,
as part of The Drawing

The dirty, dirty,
dirty Drawing ...

Dementia, that filthy artist, traced in
permanent marker on your chest

And as we cry,
we'll stain

our  whore sheets

Raunchy Dark,
even,

black ...

Professional Princesses

Professional Princesses
copyright @aladreth antoinette brown
(previously published)

"I am friends with very, very few current poets." - James Wright


So much depends
upon
a good mackerel
sea change
pouring
weekend galleys,

It takes your whole life
to arrive at this moment,
you'll be a salted pigeon
or live up to
your professor's daughter
little beauty status

So much depends
upon
filling the best seats
with silly photos,
the words behind the words
of Saint Judas;
who was no saint
but a dull and flat
kisser;
a little weasel,
really

So much depends
upon
Louisiana sand bags,
obnoxious windbags,

our obituaries
we write, almighty father
constellation mathematics, bells
dull iamb crackling fried pieces
in the temple steeple
virgins, light your lamps,
here we come ...

this will be our
one noteworthy cause

So much depends
upon
the will of grass;
if it bends or breaks
it's not funny
(okay, it's sort of funny)

So much depends upon
being slim;
not from AIDS
or meth,
but expanded
search functions
on our browser button,
slim, slim, slim
vapourous men
burning white as they march,
and women of uit
(I can't read
my writing here over a
polar bear's ass)
ah, wait, I mean
"women of wit"
princesses of the bomb,
the hit

This week
someone came to the
Ephrath Land
took the holy bull head
of the camel back
mountain - and now,
he's the Holy Ghost.

So much depends
upon ...
Him.

I don’t get shrugs. They make no sense to me.

I don’t get shrugs. They make no sense to me.
copyright @aladreth antoinette brown


It was on a beach that
the skies became dark.
Aircraft named
"D-E-L-I cious"
 flew over,

Suddenly
there was an alien invasion,
hovering crafts
spinning,
turning the skies
to green and black.

There was a major
attractive woman
in a shrug and flower dress.
She had a cigarette hanging out
of her mouth,
a designer bag on her shoulder,
snappy sandals on her feet.

It started to rain.
I saw it all before
(shhhh) it happened,
psychotherapists
would ask me later
"Who did you want to kill?"

There was a gas station there
and I was backed in to a janitor closet,
ass against
a skeleton and a mop,
my glasses were stained
with my tears
for whenever I would bow my head,
"God please make the alien ships stop,"
the salty liquid mess hit the lens.

This reminded me of when I taught
Sunday School
and I'd tell the children
to bow their heads to pray before snack
and Sarah in her pink church dress
would say to me
"I don't know how to bow my head."

It's funny the things you think of
when you are all out of love,
out of searches, out of options,
but damn him to hell, you have a poetry book,
and a sexy post card saying he's still in love.

And this, my dear lovelies,
this, is why I am still not over him,
his passive aggressive
head games
get me every time.

I could drink pure carrot juice,
70 calories
a serving
and not lose anything.

All my gambling got me
no where,
that road rode out, baby.

Finally at the day of "no hope"
I took down my song
about fire hydrants,
hairy chests,
and wheels.

The number is up now
in blue mesh stockings
and bleeding tongue chains
in the court room,

I tell you
the beach,
castle with the beach,
sunset in the chair on the beach,
eruptions on the beach,
The beach is empty now,
orange broken over nipple, gone
bawdy, broken lips to thorns,
so very gone,
the woman's advocate-boy feminist,
long gone
My hands are stained with
gold vein paint,
clay under my fancy claws.

I made a beautiful bracelet
with the clay - half African,
half Australian.

All the inmates
commented how
capital G-R-E-A-T it was
and I felt pride today
because prisoners,
my love,
prisoners know.






previously published May 13, 2008

Three Days Notice

Three Days Notice

© @aladreth antoinette brown



If I traded it all, if I gave it all away for one thing, just for one thing, if I sorted it out, if I knew all about this one thing, wouldn't that be something? - Finger Eleven


"It's hard to get by when your arse is the size Of a small country." - Divine Comedy





Three days notice

how about three and half
in Native country

drawn, drowned in tears

bounder
blounder
blunder
fleet
sleep

Take aspirin.
It's good for the body.

Eat banana.
It's good for the body.

Mark lines,
chase me,

never leave me

I remember that
Sunday morning
on the way to church
my atheist boy and me

It was sunny and hot,
the air was fresh,

we stopped at a bagel shoppe
and I ordered lox

he warned me against it ~
even wagged his finger
in my face

"You'll hate it."

"You're wasting your money."

But I like salmon!

And I'm stubborn.
When I put my mind to something
I will not give in

so I ate the nasty lox

and anyone who tells you
it ain't nasty,
they are lying

(I don't care
how posh they are)

Even the trees swayed
to hypnotize
as we sat on very small chairs,

much too small
for the size of our arses
(even tho,
you are right!
you do have a tom cruise arse!)

It was such a beautiful morning

and that afternoon
I loved you so hard
I pulled a groin
in my muscle

(or the other way around -
when you are a captive of
love, nothing makes sense)

that night we sat on top
of each other,
listened to the garden sing
in harmonicas and banjos
and teased the johnny
who poured our drinks

you returned to
that shit boygirl boy
who watched you while you slept
and sat bare bottomed
on your chair

I came home
and tried to live without you

you can see
I make a miserable
bloody mess
of that

Today I discovered
someone I really like
lives in the most god-awful
ugly blue house

and I like them so much,
they are so damn cool,

but I'm stubborn,
so I'm going to still hate
that ugly blue house.

Hallelujah

Hallelujah
copyright @aladreth


"Daddy sang bass,
Mama sang tenor.
Me and little brother would join right in there.
Singing seems to help a troubled soul.
One of these days and it won't be long.
I'll rejoin them in a song.
I'm gonna join the family circle at the Throne.
No, the circle won't be broken.
By and by, Lord, by and by." - Johnny Cash "Daddy Sang Bass"


We decided we would go to karaoke at the old wild west bar in Cyanide Springs in October.  Karaoke is 2pm every Sunday out at a place called, "Yesterdays." They make the best food too. We would go when it was cooler in the middle of the day.  Yes, we would go to eat and karaoke.

So far, I have only sung one song karaoke style in my whole life and it was "The Rose."

I asked you if  perhaps we could sing "Stuck in a Lodi Again" together and you said we could, and we would.  I asked you to promise me and you promised me.

I remember many years ago, I was wrapped in sunlight shining through ripped drapes in mid-June.  I was laid in the arms of my then svengali.

It was in a cheap, sleazy motel in Las Vegas; I made him promise things too.

He made me a promise I believed, trusted and knew to be true.

At least at that moment, I knew it was true.  I guess I knew it was true for a few years.

Shant I say different now?  Yes, it turned out very different than I thought it would.

We are not together.  And though, I think of him often, we have not been together in a long, long while.

I won't say what I asked him to promise me, but suffice to say, he could not keep the promise if we were not together.

He sent me a text recently asking me what I was "doing tonight." I could not answer the text because I did not know what to say.  I felt so weird.

Now, thinking of the promises you have made me, there is no way we could not be together for you to keep your promises.  We would *have* to be together.

I trust you.  I trust you far more than I did that previous master of my life.

I simply trust you.  You have been my dream.  Then you came true.  We met and we met a thousand times after that in the sky.

So, I know we will sing "Lodi" together, one day, right after eating fried chicken livers and drinking a good Sam Adams harvest ale.

I had you repeat all the promises I have asked you to make.  You rattled off a ton and I did not remember any of them.

Save one.

I did not remember making you promise any of those things except one thing.  I knew I was growing up.  I knew I was not the weak little child I used to be.  I would never know if you kept the promises or not because my mind had already left me.

You reminded me I made you promise these things after I was in a 'state' of orgasmic happiness.  I was peaceful and loving -- and you told me you would always promise me anything I requested.  Oh, how sweet that was to hear.

Well, except... except that time I asked you to promise you would let me tie you to a cactus in the middle of a wash in the desert.  That you would not agree to.

But, you would marry me and you would paint the eaves on my house.

You added to my fantasy of karaoke at the old wild west bar in Cyanide Springs, by saying we would sing "Handel's Messiah" to tease my mother who says I think you are the Messiah.

I told you no one in this podunk town knew "Handel's Messiah."


                                               ***

One of my friends knew I was getting things ready for "The Messiah" to come and she said, "Well, he *is* the Messiah."  She can't wait to meet you.  She needs a Messiah too.  I told her maybe she could borrow you for two weeks.

Then I dreamed of so many things.

I dreamed you left me.

It felt so real.  It was very scary to me.

So scary I laid flat in the grass on my back wondering if I would die.  I was sure I would die and I watched the gold and green leaves fall on my legs from the birch trees above me.

"They will cover me over.  They will be my coffin.  Who gives a fuck about my favourite season of autumn, if I am dead," I said.

"If you have left me, I will be dead," I moaned and I didn't care who heard my cries or witnessed my insanity.

I saw you coming and I got up and ran through the University grounds.  I could not see you again.  I could not speak to you ever again.  You tried to catch me to tell me it was a mistake and I only "thought" you had left me.

How could that be?  I am not a stupid woman.  I know far more than I let on.

I could not understand anything you were saying.  None of it made sense.

I ran from you, straight to my crazy friend, Pat, who operated the snack shack on campus.  She had two broken guitars.  I said I needed them because you could fix them and they were yours anyway.

Between serving half priced soft drinks and packages of kettle cooked chips, she gave me the guitars and I dragged them to the car.

You would need them.  I knew you would.

Even if you *had* actually left me, they would be there.  A blue and white broken electric guitar and a small brown thing missing part of its arm.

Waiting for you.

Waiting for you in the home of a psycho crazy hoarder, because that would be what I would turn into waiting for you.  I would hoard every broken item that I believed was yours.

I thought back to one of the times we had met.

I remembered the feel of you holding on to my thighs when you were on the floor and I was sitting in a wicker chair.  How deeply you dug your hands in to me and how you held on for dear life.  I knew it had to be a nightmare you were leaving me.  It could not be true.  How could you go from needing me so badly you had cried and begged me to stay with you - to this ... to this horrendous dream ... where you left?

The pain was deep in my gut.  My mind would not focus.

I had to go back to the clinic where I had once worked for seven years.  A doctor-lab-type-man was coming to take over my desk and he did not like all the knick knacks and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons I had left all over the place.  He was strictly a computer-logical-spock-type-man and didn't want any of my shite on the desk and walls.

I brought my dear Shauna with me.  She was dressed in a peach outfit and was happy and bright and copying down old family recipes she wanted that I had kept from her.  I didn't tell her how to make Gramma's grape juice dumplings or Aunt Minnie's Poor Boy Pie and she was quite excited to find them in my desk drawer.

She was helping me pack everything in plastic tote boxes and I stole two pretty owls made of ceramic from another girl's desk.  I remembered then, how you had made fun of me because I said some people are afraid of owls and you said they were not.

"Owls are not snakes," you had said.  You said they were just owls and no one was afraid of owls.

I begged to differ.

No matter, though, I was proud of you that you were not scared of anything.  I needed you in my life.  I needed someone who wasn't scared.  Someone who wasn't fearful.

I bought you, I mean, I stole you, a pretty ceramic owl. I would wrap it up in shiny gift wrap and give you it for Christmas. I was so excited to know you would be sitting on my couch, looking unafraid, opening the owl package.

The man who took my desk over, began singing, "Handel's Messiah" - then the whole office began to break out in the melody and harmony of the classic.

I stumbled and fell back in an office chair absolutely dumbfounded.  The people in this podunk town knew the song I had told you they did not!!!

I reached for you in my sleep.

You were there.

Thank God, Goddess, the Universe and all the faeries.

Thank the wood elves you love so much, and Gollum.  Oh, yeah, I love that Gollum myself, feel sorry for the poor chap even, since he lost his pretty gold ring and all that... so thank HIM too.  Thank everyone I had ever met or imagined in my whole entire life.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

YOU WERE THERE.

Hallelujah.

You had not left me.

We could sing.

We would sing.

We would sing "Handel's Messiah."

We Are All Prisoners

We Are All Prisoners
copyright @aladreth

"A man's history lies in his own hands; where he finds work for them is his home." ~ Taylor

In prison, we are shamed from being there.  We hold everything close.  Furtive.  No matter our crime of murder or our crime for stealing a loaf of bread, we do not want to share too much for fear of ... well, who knows what our individual fears are. I am not here to analyze that.  I am here to tell a story.

I am all wrapped up in stories - that is what I really need ... I need your story.  You may think I am only interested in sex and getting that "feel good" feeling from you.  Perhaps I am.  I don't know.  I'm trying to figure this out right now.  I am being tested it seems.  God, Himself has offered me the opportunity to heal someone if I take on their own illness.  Is my love strong enough?

I am no Mother Theresa.  Talk is really cheap.  We all know that.

It seems I must play a game of hide and seek to get my stories.  I must pretend to be aloof and not care and that is when they will come to me.

This morning, I heard Robert's story between red and swollen pains.  He was a prisoner previous to this new life of his. Perhaps he is still a prisoner.  You will decide for yourself.

Some girl took him in.  She wrapped her own story around his.

She weaved her story around his own story of once gentle hands filled now with hard labor scars from work in the prison. He could tell you the story of each scar's day.  This was the day the pipe fell too hard right above his right hand's index finger and this was the day a broken shovel handle scraped his life line on his palm.  So on and so on.  The prison was serving old fashioned, "shit on a shingle" both of those specific days.  The things we remember, huh?
 
All his hands had touched before his prison stint were ancient manuscripts.

He was a smart guy.  A guy who studied history.  His crime that sent him away to prison for five years was more of a social nature.  Nothing you or I should be worried or concerned about.  we shouldn't sit around pondering, "Oh, my! What if he was a murderer?"  In a social land or some type of place where revolution was still favoured, perhaps he threw plaster and paint over the statue of their King.  I didn't really care about his crime, so I didn't listen as well during that time of his tale.

Mainly I listened to him cry.  He cried tears of hurt like a bitter blanket sent to warm him.  He clutched his misery tight to him, crying for all the things that were lost to him.

Rejection after rejection.  No one wants a prisoner.

After he was released from prison, the revolution did not want him. Truth be known, they didn't want him to begin with.  He only convinced himself he had something to offer to their cause. They definitely didn't want him now.  Who would want a gentle man with hands so weak?  Even with five years work in the prison, he was not a strong man.  Years before his cell time, always bent over the ancient manuscripts, had not given him strength for sure.

People had warned him about the girl.  The girl who would take him in, she was known for being controlling, and had her own struggles she had to get over.  Her mother did not like Robert; said he was a derelict drifter.  She replied, within her heart, "I am as well.  I know the verses written on the jail walls too, Mother."  She wouldn't dare say it aloud, but she was already in love with Robert and didn't give a hill of beans what anyone said about him.  She was going to take him in.  She would parade him right down the middle of the village if she had to, just to prove her point that love conquered all.

Robert had his own naysayers who counseled him, "You know you are just leaving one prison for another one, Robert?  Well.  You are!  The work will be hard, the fields dry as a bone will need to be nurtured and fed water.  There will be hornet's nests to move, you know.  After that, all you will have is the girl to come home to.  Oh, she will see to that."

He knew this and asked her straight away as she guided him along the dusty streets to her home, "Will there be ancient manuscripts there at your tent?"

She put a finger to his mouth, perhaps to hush his worries, "No, you silly boy-man."  Then looking down at her dirty feet in rat chewed sandals said, "We will make new history."

THAT'S FROM THE 60'S - CAREFUL YOU'LL BREAK IT

THAT'S FROM THE 60'S - CAREFUL YOU'LL BREAK IT
copyright @aladreth

Inside me I've got: "World peace, 2 rainbows, light from 4 stars, 
green stuff, milk, some dog hair, and a raisin."  - Seen on a Onesie
designed by Gwendolyn Gardner

I want to write
thoughts that lie deep
and move at 32 miles a second
on your ham and cheese dinner
and bourbon drink,
your, "You aren't
going to believe this,"
and, "You know
what I mean?"

I want to write a
letter so big with
Christmas decorations,
moonlight maidens,
and swans ... there have
to be swans.

I want to write car crashes
in Rhode Island,
abductions from Northern Arizona
clinic parking lots,
I want to write
your, "You have to stop the 'bad'
thinking."

I want to write you right
into bondage cuffs and
ceiling fans littered with
bullwhips and fish net body suits.

I want to write lunatic, monotheistic
governments sunny,
green and black jelly beans,
evidence at
murder trials,
and laundromats

I want to write forgetting,
forgetting the evil and
remembering how we chose
the dog we adopted from the
shelter - you asked me, and
I can't remember right now ...
I think it was because she
beat up all the other dogs.

I want to write Burroughs,
The Marquis de Sade, Paul
McCartney, and Charlie
somethinaruther,
Parker, that's right, yes!
I want to write your
nightflower eyes, your
"I'll be your slave," eyes,
kissing in back alleys,
Stevie Wonder
"Part Time Lover" songs
I want to write Rita Hayworth
and my Mother, the spaces
between lovers, beautiful boys
with bright red guitars,
stars, orange jackpot express bears,
hallucination of dead folks,
week old suicides,
I want to write,
"I LOVE YOU, YOU FOOL,"
on the matinee board
at Stadium 9.

I want to write.

Love Helped A One Eyed Gelding

Love Helped A One Eyed Gelding 
copyright @aladreth antoinette brown
(shorter version previously published 2008 or 2009 - I can't remember and it's not like it is that important because who would want this story as their own, anyway?)



All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or undead is purely coincidental.  But, I did use real names.

Love Helped A One Eyed Gelding 

Nothing happens until I tell you about it.  So, here goes.

I met a clairvoyant today at the hair and nail salon where I had my fingernails painted the colour, "Avalanche."

You would guess that colour to be white, but it's more like the colour of Mount St. Helen's ash mixed with silver glitter.

I said aloud to all of the women in the salon, "God grant me an avalanche, but without too much damage."

A couple of the women replied, "Amen."

There was a dead crow in my yard and I knew bad things were coming.
 
The clairvoyant.  Well, you would think she would know bad things were coming and would warn me, but she just kept talking about, "Clara," the dead little ghost girl who held her hand on a ghost tour in Colorado.  She walked and talked with her for a very long time and then when she released her hand, Clara kicked her in the ankle.

I tried to catch the eye of one of the other five women so I could smirk, roll my eyes; you know, do something disapproving.  Maybe make a motion like, "She's crazy," but they were too busy talking and laughing about the parties in Wales where men dance with paper loch ness monsters and the bobbies wear their badges on their leather jock straps.

Since the crow was a harbinger of danger, I laid down for a nap when I arrived home.  I thought, "I must go get cucumbers for my desert tortoise when I wake up."

My dogs laid next to me on the California King water bed. I laid my hand on my older dog's stomach several times to check her breathing.

I dreamed a lesbian had her own, "Google."  It wasn't called, "Google."  I used it and found all sorts of pretty images of flags and intense looking women.  I found updates on "Jon and Kate."

Half asleep, half awake, I recalled Shannon and my favourite games when we were young.  We would pretend we were witches with gold mirror boxes full of nails.  We never used the nails but we knew they would come in handy at some point in time.

We were Kate Jackson.  Kate was the one we liked best.  The one of the three witches.  I mean, angels.  You know Kate was hot.

We were crazy old women from nursing homes.  We would stand in the utility room dressed in night shirts eating peanut butter cups.  We would put our hair in curlers and then shake our heads making the curlers hit us hard on our temples.  We would make weird noises with our tongues and pretend we had escaped from our rooms.

Finally, we would turn our eyeglasses upside down and mimic the stork's voice on the Vlasic Pickle TV commercials and say, "Did you skin yer elbow?" We would reply to ourselves, "You didddd?"
We would say, "Hey, sonny, ya got any money?"  We would pause and then finish, "To help an old lady out?"

Sometimes we would tie up Jamie.  He was a neighborhood boy.  We would hog tie him and whip him with his own belt when we played 'house.'  I would say, "How dare you steal your father's red Corvette and drive it to Vegas!"

There was no red Corvette.  We were poor.  The most exciting thing was that Jamie's parents owned a Dairy Queen.  It didn't help, though, as there were no favours (or free ice cream) given us.

If we only knew then what we know now.  We could have bribed fourteen year old Jamie, somehow, I'm sure, since we knew of his extracurricular activities.  Imagine that.  Letting girls tie and whip him.

I was so young.  I could see it all ahead of me.

I would say things like, "I will be a cool old lady."

I wanted to be old; my mother's sister, instead of my mother's daughter.

I kept trying to remember that green was green and orange was orange.  My father, before he died when I was 12, had confused me for years.  He teased me unmercifully telling me orange was green and green was orange.

To this day, I'll say things like, "Please hand me that green thing over there."  And it will be orange.

I fell in love one time.  He was a sweet blonde boy from Las Vegas who gave me a gold bracelet of the "Ten Commandments" in the back of a church van.  He kissed me.  It was soft.  He wasn't like the other boys.  He dressed in proper white dress shirts and black slacks.

The Pastor separated us.  He said I was getting too "boy crazy."  It really should not have mattered as we didn't even live in the same town, but I was forever known as the girl who got too close to boys.  I was made to  ride in the front of the church van between the Pastor and the Pastor's wife.  They were in their 70's, I think.  I was bored out of my skull as I sat on that hump that housed something mechanical, I'm sure; with Pastor's thick veined, desert tanned hand on my knee.

Sigh.  That sweet little innocent boy in the back of the church van.  Does he remember me like I remember him? Does he tell his girlfriends all these years later about me?  About how he bought a stringy haired bony girl a bracelet and softly kissed her.

Maybe he stole that "Ten Commandments" bracelet.  That would definitely make a good story.

Even now, I lose my breath for a moment, thinking of him.

I still have the bracelet.  I will be in a nursing home shaking my curlers at my temples, talking about the bracelet.

That is, if I make it to nursing home status.  

Oh, I had another boyfriend, but it was not love.  It was obsession and possession.  We took turns being door mats.  Dirty door mats we would wipe our feet on many times and nasty wet mats that would get soaked by the rain.  If it had been true love, I would still think of him and how he grew up to be an airline pilot in Alaska or a police officer who shot at hobos on the train.

But, I don't think of those things.

I try hard not to hold time on the head of a straight pin.

I try to find the lights in parking lots late at night in the summer so I can see to write in my car.

To write - to cure this one eyed gelding.  She's no longer a bony pony girl.  The old girl is quite fat and half blind.  I will make the other horses wear bells to help lead her.

I write to remember my finest hour.

It was not when I was a cool old lady, but when I was 12.

Directly after my father died, my half brother came from California for the funeral.  He made enchiladas and picked up some of my dad's guns.
 
More than a dozen years before, he had been to Korea as a Communications Specialist.  He was the same age as my mother.  He had seen things.  He had a dog, a beagle, he had to leave over there.  The Army never let the boys bring their dogs home.  He gave my dad the pictures of him and the beagle and now I have those pictures.  Being a dog person, myself, I think the Army must have sucked back then.

He had a daughter three years younger than me who wouldn't eat anything except pancakes with mustard.  He had a new dog named "Charlie Brown" who would wake me up whenever I would spend the night when we visited him in California.  Charlie Brown would jump on the bed and lick me in the face.  I loved the smell and feel of that dog.  He was blonde and fat.  It was a loose fat, and you could get your fingers lost in the soft folds.  It was attractive on the dog.  That dog was like a voluptuous woman.  Getting woke up in this manner; it was downright exciting.

My half brother had a wife who was a paralegal when she wasn't a horribly depressed nut case in a terry cloth robe glued to the living room couch.

He had a pool, a Jacuzzi and a really nice back yard.  His front yard had a huge Magnolia tree.  He had a truck with a camper on the back.  He listened to country music with harsh language.  He had lots of coins in his ashtray.  He wrote large checks to animal rescues like Doris Day's place.  He bought me bright yellow perfume they called "toilet water" and powder with soft satin puffs and told me I was beautiful and that my eyes had pretty flowers in them.

He hated his job.  That's what adults do.  They hate their job.

He dropped me off at the county fairgrounds.  "Go find your friends,"  he said.

I did not see any of my friends or any kids I knew, for that matter.

I was by myself.

He dropped me off anyway.

He put more money in my jean's pocket than I had ever seen at one time before.  It must have been about thirty bucks.

The dusty fairgrounds behind that chain link fence enveloped me.  The swirling lights of the carnival rides, the screams from the top of the Ferris Wheel, the smell of the small animal stables. Wind flapping the white, red and blue ribbons against the wood, the cries from the dusty fairway to lay your money down, the smell of the corn dogs and Navajo Fry Bread, the free things in the booths (how I loved the free things!), all the wonderful displays of houses made from match sticks and the town's largest pumpkin.

"Go have fun."

Fun must continue.  That was the feeling in the air.  Pretend nothing devastating has happened.  Your dad didn't just die.  You ain't just twelve years old.

Grieving can be postponed.

I learned the hard way this is not true.  I should never be left to my own devices.  I should never be left alone for any amount of time.  I should never be forgotten.

No one should be ashamed of me or embarrassed of me.  But, they are.  I am always "too much" for people.  At the same time, I am easy to forget no matter how crazy I pretend to be.

I become invisible.

But again, let's not dwell on this.  Let us remember that one hour.

My finest hour.

Oh, really, it was.

My finest hour...and the winning of a beautifully decorated cake in the Cake Walk.  And getting that dime straight on - in the carnival Fenton glass.

I'm.

So.

  Twelve.

Scattering

Scattering
@aladreth antoinette brown


During the night he screamed.  She ran her long nails along his back and then tapped on him, "You are only dreaming.  Wake up."

Because she knew he did not fear anything, she wanted to know what he was dreaming.  What could have made him cry out in fear?

He told her there was a man at the third story window grasping to the screen. He had just climbed up and was staring in at them like a peeping tom.

"He was some type of killer, murderer, oh, something like that," he said.

"And, you were scared?" She asked.

"No, I was not scared," he protested, "I was screaming to warn him away."

"Well, I think you were scared," she smirked, "It sure sounded like a scared scream."

"You were standing behind me, so I was protecting you," he remarked.

"What did he look like?" She wanted to know so she could keep an eye out for this man should he appear in real life.

"He was a white man," he replied.

Well, that explained it all.  White men were to be feared.  Look at all the atrocities that have been done by white men.

Geez.  Men in general.

***

There was a boy clown and many other boys.  They were walking with Goddess and me.  Goddess was a tad bit older.  She had "sparkle" in her name but her sparkle was fading.  It did not matter to me, however, because she was still Goddess and had a way of grabbing me by the womb.

I liked it.  She could be rough and persistent and I preferred it that way.

I suggested the boys go try to fix things.  That is what boys do.  I like watching boys fix things but I like being with Goddess better so I suggested I give the boys a few trinkets and gadgets.  Maybe they could go and try to fix things.

I gave them a cardboard box.  I did not want to give it up because I thought it might be better suited for something of mine, but alas, they could have it if they would just move along.  I gave them other things that would keep them busy.

I had many doubts they could do anything.  Especially the clown.

Goddess reassured me if I gave them the magic stones in my jeans pockets it would help them to complete a task or two.

I didn't want to give up the stones.  But, I wanted to go.  Go somewhere with Goddess.

I took the stones out.  They were smooth, circular, and rose quartz.  I tried to remember what they stood for.  Peace, love, happiness ... something good like that.  No matter what they stood for, they were magic and would help the boys to fix things.

I kept the best stones for myself.  Goddess and I would need them on our walk back home.  We were in Butler.  Anything could happen in Butler.

***

He had not cried in months.  I knew he needed to cry.  I was slightly worried that he had not cried in so, so long.

The other night I asked him if he loved me.

He said, "Yes."

I asked, "Do you love me so much it makes you cry?"

He cried.

He cried on command, it seemed.  

I like this fellow.

But, I did not think it would be so quick.

It must have given me power.  His tears gave me power, for I went on to find relief many times in his capable hands.

***

It was a story.  An old story.  It was all the rage in France.  I had never read the story but I had heard many things about it.  I asked this fellow I like to read it to me.  He obliged.

I think he has read dozens of books now to me.  More than anyone has ever read to me.  He moistens his mouth, clears his throat, and reads.

Sometimes I am irritated if the book is getting in the way of sex.  Like that Annie Dillard novel was always getting in the way of sex.  I like sex and hate to be interrupted from having it.

Sometimes I am overjoyed to have someone's voice as I do not like to be alone.  The sound of his voice comforts me.  Even when he reads Edgar Allen Poe, I am truly calm.

Sometimes I am so engrossed in what he is reading that I cry.  I cry, shake my head or nod in agreement at what is happening with the characters.  What the characters are saying or going through.  I agree.  I concur.  I went through it myself.  I am going through it now.

But, most of all, his reading aloud is an answer to a fantasy.  A fantasy of a man in chains at the end of my bed, holding my feet while reading me a nightly bedtime story.  Sleeping sideways until I undo his chains and allow him to crawl up to me.

Well, this last book he read was that story that was all the rage in France.  We liked the first chapter and then we hated the rest of the book.  We hated it together. That is a strong emotion to contain.

We once read a book where a woman was in handcuffs for the first 246 pages and we liked it better. We kept wondering when the author would let her get out of those damn handcuffs.  What power authors have.

I told him he did not have to continue reading the French book as it was frustrating him.  He felt it was, perhaps, the translation from French to English.  I told him, "No.  The book is crap in any language."

But, we had it under our belt.  I think it was about 3am when he finished reading it and we sighed but I begged him to 'fix' it.

"Please, love of mine, fix it."

"Fix the last scene."

"Fix it, fix it!!!"

He obliged and he retold the last chapter of the book in the form and manner it should have been told in.  A little black rodent of the age of 15 was pecked at with the talons and teeth of a beautiful majestic owl as she swooped and danced breasts flinging two and fro.  And I had a powerful orgasm.  It was a wonderful fix.  A fix to end all fixes. I forgot the evils of the story.  I forgot how it had frustrated us both.  It was like there was no more story except the story he had told and within minutes all was well with the world.

It is much like that now with him.  I remember telling him of the hope I had when I saw a bee on the two toned pink flowers of the desert willow of the run down and neglected home.  He said nothing.  But, I felt he knew as I have figured so recently that 'nature finds a way.'

At times I thought I might be tricked and that he was not a man.  He was Jesus.  I was sure I heard the voice of Jesus in his voice.  My mother says I think him to be the Messiah.  I now jokingly call him my Messiah.

Make no mistake, at the end of the day, I know he is not Jesus.  I know he is not the Messiah.

He is just a little clown boy who fixes things.

Sheldon and his Sweetheart

Sheldon and his Sweetheart
copyright 2007-2012
@aladreth antoinette brown
previously published 2007

Sheldon Perry was a very attentive man, so attentive that if he let up on one thing he did for you, you worried he was slipping away or maybe had lost attraction for you.

Some men you don't expect much from.  Sheldon you expected superiority, you expected everything from Sheldon, because that's what he brought to the table.

When he slowed up, you thought he might have found some deep, dark secret about you he just couldn't live with.  You wanted Sheldon's attentions.

Everyone wanted Sheldon.

Sheldon Perry, however, was a hard man to read.  Oh, if you asked him, he'd tell you, "What you see is what you get," and "I'm telling you everything, honest."

All the same, and not to be cliche, but every person is like an onion and you must peel back layers to see who they really are.

No one is an open book, even those who seem to be very up front.  People answer some questions, "I don't know," but they really want you to force the answer out of them, because they do know.

Sometimes I feel like Sheldon is my son.  Sometimes I feel like he is my father.

Sometimes he is my equal.

Hard to admit that because my mind and even body is not accustomed to just a straight line between two people.  No, I think there are too often times where the scale tips to favour one or the other.  One is dominant, boss, controller, and one is submissive, servile, obedient.  One is the top, one is the bottom, and whatever side you fall on for the day, week, month, year, or even your entire life, you have to play it to the maximum.  You are a star and relationships work better when there's some type of rules written, if not on paper, at least on your heart.

This morning, Sheldon Perry and I made love.

Maybe my mind thinks in an analytical, logical way and yes, I can be the cynic about love, but I like to detail things down to definition.

Oh, everyone knows what you mean when you say, "We made love, we screwed, we had sex, we got down and dirty," but I like explanation, step by step session information.  Was there kink involved, who was on top, how long did it last, what was said, and so on and so on.

But, I want to try hard to stay away from that 4/4 beat of music and play jazz with Sheldon.

Jazz is all over the place, you don't know what to expect, you don't know what line is coming next, what beat, what flow, but somehow it is all in synch and grooves together.  Sheldon and my lovemaking is like that.

My mouth was hurting from the dental surgery a week ago, I had some eye pain, I had been up for thirty hours, no sleep, so I was in a half-dream state and I was laying on my left side under many covers and blankets.

Sheldon was propped up on his elbow and facing me and it all began with his hand on my stomach.

I have a girlfriend who says when a man touches her thighs, she knows he loves her.  She knows he accepts her because she thinks her thighs are the least attractive part of her body.  I beg to differ, but that's how she 'tests' men to see if they are 'real.'  If they pay attention to her thighs, then they have her for life.

I want Sheldon to want me.  That comes from a song in the 1980's, I think, but don't we all want to be accepted for who we are with all our flaws, imperfections, and faults?  In some cases, our very freakish, almost fetish-like appeal is what we want taken advantage of, worshiped, and loved.

So, his hand was on my stomach and that is how it all began.  He took his hand away and then placed it on his own flat stomach and then back to my tummy, definitely not flat, full of stretch marks and several years of hateful abuse to myself, but he laid his hand there, he touched me there and that is where he started.

And, after this, details, are really a dime a dozen, aren't they?  You can pick up any cheap porn magazine or log on to numerous sites on the Internet to get details of love making.  Even some parents still sit their kids down to tell them, "The Facts of Life," and "The Birds and The Bees."

So, to skip ahead, I had an enormous orgasm.  Normally I can only get out half of his name.  I scream it as I'm ferociously coming, "Shellllllll...," but this morning, the wave lasted so long, I was able to say his name at least four times, "Sheldon, oh, God, Sheldon, uhhhnnnn, ohhhh, ahhhhh, Sheldon, Oh, love, fuck, God, Sheldon," all in one high wave crashing and cramping the shore.

Then I started crying.  I hadn't cried in years after an orgasm.  I was embarrassed, scared, and vulnerable.  He immediately started saying, "Wait, wait, wait," as if he could stop the steady stream of heartache, pain, anger and fear all mingled with satisfaction, joy, adoration and love.

He calmed down quickly though and he let it roll, brushing my hair off my forehead, my wet hair, catching my tears on his lips, kissing my eyes, licking a salty tear off the corner of my mouth and saying over and over again, "I'm not scared, sweetheart, I'm not scared, sweetheart, sweetheart.  Sweetheart, I'm not scared."

Execution

Execution (copyright 2012)


"The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction" - Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice



EXECUTE
Execute a stored procedure or function.
Syntax
 stored procedure or function
      [EXEC[UTE]
         {
           [@return_status = ]
              {module [;number ] | @module_name_var }
                [[@parameter = ]
                   {value
                   | @variable [ OUTPUT ]
                   | [ DEFAULT ]
                   }
           ]
             [ ,...n ] [ WITH RECOMPILE ]
         } [;]
Character string
     EXEC[UTE]
        ( { @string_variable | [ N ]'tsql_string' } [ + ...n ] )
           [ AS { LOGIN | USER } = ' name ' ] [;]
Pass-through command (linked server)
     EXEC[UTE]
        ( { @string_variable | [ N ] 'command_string [ ? ] ' } [ +
...n ]
           [ { , { value | @variable [ OUTPUT ] } } [ ...n ] ]
        )
        [AS { LOGIN | USER } = 'name' ]
           [AT linked_server_name ] [;]




Execution
@aladreth

Well, then ...
Let's meet
in Mexico
during celebration
for skeletons,
soul enjoyment,
skull chocolates,
and special brooms,
our skin wet
with winter ice
melting lust
in our altar room


I need your voice
to fan flicker,
whittle out alphabet
on my tip
Mitla stone,
carve me out
break this brick, baby,
say the things
you say
in this center of awe


work through
your heart
and hands
build sacrifice
to join earth
and sky


"Bienvenidos Difuntos"
Welcome Dead
Welcome You
Ah, death,
that impeccable
swan wing
on lake of cemetery,
yes, death,
treats all humans equally


And you.
you wanted scary.
I gave it to you,
this execution,
your death,
your rebirth
in orange prison jump suit
my psycho bob babble fucker
please say you
are mine
all mine - and I'm above all
these church bells sing,
our tears mingle with
mezcal,
corn on cob,
extra, extra butter,
avocado,
spring onions,
and marquesota
food our ancestors lick
the lime and salt beer flowing
festooning our bed grave
with flowers
purple tomatoes brought
from hills of Tennessee,
their hardy,
forgiving nature
vitality at all costs


My bruises so present,
My teachings with clothes pegs
so well learned,
I wear my amethyst bracelet,
pray in silence
you'll want me
over and over again


you say it quite harsh
I will not trust anyone,
yet in ancient Egypt
the amethyst stone
was associated
with intellect and wisdom
Perhaps then I am smart
to never trust


When this bead
adjoining knots
over my fingers
becomes an
execution prayer,
execution,
prayer execution,


Don't say
you'll come
to talk,


Say
you'll come
to come.

More Dead and Dry Flowers for Me

More Dead and Dry Flowers for Me
by @aladreth
6-26-12


"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson






You tell me you love my mind.  You tell me you will do anything for me.  You say you know that might involve quite an act because you know how my mind works.  I smile.  I do think you know me.

Last night I dreamed.

I dreamed all of our memories were kept in bright plastic eggs.  They floated light and beautiful in the air. None were distinguished as good or bad.  There were no dark and scary memories.  No!  They were all pastel or bright.  Like Spring and Easter over and over again.  It was quite a sight.  All those lovely floating plastic eggs.

You were there.  With your 'withered' hand, as you call it.  You spread homemade lotion from sunflowers on my skin with both of your hands.  It mattered not if your hand was numb or if you could feel with this hand.  I could feel.  I knew you were there.  I knew you were on me. I knew your hands were on me.

This is not translated from another language, my boy.  This is the way it was.

I am thin and light when you are around.  You will not read of perfection.  You bring perfection to the ordinary or mundane.  My wrinkles smooth out from your special touch.  Stretch marks disappear.

I am soft and pliable with you.  Your fingertips dig deep in to my skin.  We are our own porn movie.  All worries dissipate.

There was an angel in my dream.  Her name was, "Brittany."  Not, "Gabriel" who appeared to so many prophets throughout  time.  No she was "Brittany," and she was overweight and I did not trust her.  It wasn't because of the size of her hips, it was because the size of my doubt.  My faith is strong, I like to think, but when you are face to face with belief or cynicism, you will take the easy way out.

She offered me two choices.  I could step out of this basketball size courtroom, out into the night or I could step down off a blue carpeted incline - straight in to the unknown.  There was no indication of how it would be.  I could not see in advance.

At least the outside night air was breezy.  I could see great lit parlours in the distance.  I could hear carnival games and roller coasters going up, up, up and then crashing down.  People were laughing and mingling.  Perhaps not all were happy but I knew what was going on outside the open door.  Life, it seemed was going on.  Just.  Life.

I would chose the easy way out.  Brittany followed me out the door. By the way, I hope you are not thinking of the famous singer by this name when I am writing this.  I should describe to you that she had dark hair and she was in her 40's, I would say, if angels had ages.  

She grabbed hold of me after I captured the horrors that awaited me in the previously presumed wonderful night.  She flew.  I could not.  She had to drag me with her.  It was all too much for me.  I asked her pitifully, "Please slide me gently down the side of the brick wall.  Give me a place to rest my back."

She was kind enough.

Harsh, too,  "You took the easy way and it brought you to this.  The easy way is not always the better way."  She asked me if I wanted to try that stepping off the blue carpet incline thing in the basketball court.  I have tasted too many tears, I thought.  What if it is worse?  Worse than this night air.  Worse than the dust in the air.  Worse than these horrors I see.

There were flowers.  The flowers were special, because even dry and dead, they had powers to transport the people lost and confused in the wind to places they wanted to go - away from here - just away.  Some wanted to go to Alaska.  Some wanted to go to Hawaii.

I wanted to go the place where you were.  I didn't care where you were.  I suppose I will be picky someday.  We know I can be.

I love Halloween.  It is my favourite holiday.  There were booths of Halloween performers, actors - people who were dolls.  Dolls who were people.  It was creepy.  All the people I used to know who are now dead and gone were there and dolls were chasing them.  There were pictures of my mother in breast pasties and grey striped bikini bottom.  Her pasties were silver stars.  She was a star.  One of my Aunts was trying to dress her.

I had many pictures and plastic eggs and Christmas ornaments and I had to find the right one.  My mother didn't look too bad, by the way.  So, this was in her better days.  This picture.  She argued with me there about the picture.  There wouldn't be a picture such as that because she did not do such things.  Pasties?  To be sure.

Every time I would pass from one area in the booth to the another, zombie style creatures would grab me.  I supposed this was only make believe.  It was not real.  It was somewhat fun.  Chase me, zombie, chase me.  I would play the game.

There was a porch too.  A porch on a house I wanted to get into.  I assumed you would be in the house.  I wanted you to be in the house.  I needed you.  I told you before I need you more than you need me.  "I doubt it," you said in the sweetest, most innocent voice I had ever heard.  You were in the fetal position when you said it.  You were cold in 55 degree temperature.  Your bones were aching.  My old man.  You may be 'old,' but, boy, can you still fuck.

Your voice coos like the dove I watched for hours yesterday. Well, in between reading about two serial killers.  View dove, read a bit more about dismembered bodies.  View dove, read about a bag of something brushing against the leg of an innocent bystander.  View dove, read about black sooty snowflakes falling from the top of burning rooms.

View dove.  

In my dream, eventually everyone began to figure out the magical powers of the flowers and everyone began to take them.  I collected my own bunch of flowers.  Some dry, some half alive.  My guide, "Brittany," advised me to put them in an old jam jar of water right at the front door.

"Even the dead ones?"

"Yes," She was getting frustrated with me, I could tell.

Yes, everything would return.  Everything would come back. I was giving up if I didn't believe that.  Wasn't I ready to go?  Wasn't I ready to take those flowers and transport myself to someplace different?

The people surrounded the porch.  Some of the people were the half zombie types I referenced earlier.  Well, what was acting, what was real?  I wanted this dream to continue so I could find out.  My fortune cookie yesterday had said that the person I was with was faking it.  It made me laugh.  I knew there was no possible way.

Zombies.  Everyone is writing about them nowadays.  Well, I tried to lie and tell the people slash zombies the flowers meant nothing.

I told them I had been to the great and vast beyond and it was fucking scary out there and they didn't want to take any of the flowers to transport them out there.  Ah!  What horrors awaited them if they used the flowers.

They were skeptical at first.  But, it was true.  I had been out there.  They seemed to open up to the idea I might know what the hell I was talking about.  Many left the flowers for me.

More for me.  Yes, more ways to get out of this place.  More dead and dry flowers for me.