VENICE ON FIRE (dedicated to James Douglas Morrison)

So she slipped right out of my arms
she called it a break-through
of
monkey business
sorts – June on jukebox sorts
sorta tired I guess of the hell-in-a-hole-hell's ass
casino & drinkbar
manipulated stipulations
& long-after-moonset
cafe
sway stayin'
starin'
jigjag dollface walkin'
while the city is all but alive
'cept
the bums safely stunned at the station
swarming their novel & poem excuses
for
seamless
monthly
relationship
whirls
& the winter lady hooker's
all-savage
all-American swing

this city looks more like an empty valise
a torn-apart coat
or a manic
stormy
disordered Frankie
blues
blow'd out of a slitherin' baritone
sax

de Sade sort of thing
I guess so
I mean the way your eyes
deliver
that cool filthy's whore
laid back gaze
& all your wicked
ventilator amusements...

the city locked it in so gently in you
the city amazed and locked in you in it...

we're hung so amazingly well on our tan
we're
acolyte acrobats
on the
chimney's swift
reality saber

at the Night Hunter's pen slide's end
& babe you will die someday from Miss White...

apart from the cool
anesthesia of dawn
& the bassman's ultimate boppy vipers...

apart from the sanity's final refrain
apart from the
2AM
father's death phonecall...

apart from the razorblade stunt
in the mirror
and the knife he's still clenchin'
a fist on the hiway...

& apart from the tangos I taught you
to play
& you did it
so well full of rum & still standin'
when Julio emerged w/ a broken typewriter
& said he's now writing
Arabic
only
right on his way
to the Persian dream's raptures

she the very next day slept
then took the next Sleepin' Village train
tip
early enough
I put a dollar or two in her bra
for
one hell of a
gritty
Latina
bartendress she was
on occasions
& the window I broke at her river-by-place
when no one could see it
I called her
Marrika
the true name that's written
in eye's
howlin'
trashcan
wonderin'
why this ain't
Venice

& the way she spoke of Verlaine
made me think of the
crickety summer
alcove
& pray that I was on the same
damn
train
directed into oblivion
& woodyesque
bald
disgustings

the one-man-subway-banjo-band
plays on
the rubber
band song

...woohoooooo... & the train's a-down the raildrain...

we went to the pier at the side of Melinda's cantina
we happened to manage to get there on time:
the goddam lake like a tyre
store room
a fact or fiction
perception
games for three included...

& a lost desolate post fuckin' office
stuffed w/ letters from India & China
dead postmen
& other
satorial
concerns
of
sellotape
spangled rotary prisms

the tricks she knew for the body
the means to end all
means
of
forgiveness
& put forth the biggest
sacrifice liver
 ever

she came for dinner once
left dirty plates
vapid six-year-old
coffee
chili soup
& tapers
seizin' rapists
in the white room
of Disraeli sunshine

where dyin' in Paris's the best solution
& all of our duties
come instant
resolvement

packed up the .28
jumboed
the .45
mingled like a black fuckin'
canary
sang some
James Brown
in a coma-like state
of
reservedness
& Gothic gospel
puta needles

she whispered through all of her cavities:
„too much of-a-Bogart you seem, my dear...”
„yes, and I love my dog...”
I added

„the books are a burnin'... your songs are all gone...
Petofi's all stained in
beer & semen...”

who cares for this easy Hungarian wolf
who cares
for beer
when there's vodka & Marylin...

now gone and mended at 4:56
got things to deliver
by New Year's Eve
got deals to deal
and a mean mean poker
to play durin' wartime
one hell of a bet
& a loser's
dispatch

& if all the cards ain't jokers
than my name's not
Swietzalsky
and that ain't your
deck by chance of ghost

the man I love must sleep now deep... sleep now sleep... sleep in the tub....
music boxes sometimes
gore
like a fuckin'
mantra
& go into restless stupor

choose a recorder...
the plates are all yours now...

as yours is the priest-handed
man in question...

pinch & turn
the sticky
mantrap jelly
full metal jacketly
glued
all together

the man I love must sleep now deep... sleep now sleep... sleep in the tub....

sleep as babies on butter
while they're cuttin' your head
fuckin'
off

while white death's creepin' up her thighs...
leavin' the mark
of the writer

how in the hell can the canary
sleep
here...

well, this is the story of Wislna St.
or very close
confined/confirmed

yeah, this ain't Venice fer sure
ain't Venice on fire
ain't all the time
death in Venice...

fine young men did sleep on her Islands
guided only by the rusty
crucifixes
of her
breast
& the soap scent
in the ever broken
hyacinth
bathroom

somebody said the city's a cunt
givin' birth to
one-minute
love-cracker
monsters

then swayin' along to some 11/8 vamp
jazz drummers panicked on 11/8 vamp...

the gunslingers frown for hangin' Matilda
on bo very diddly
chessboards

guided only by the spare part kindness
of her
sadistic
coolish
resolute asshole
in flutters

since 1974
five young men got lost in her tangles
of pure vapor sleeplessness
explored her back & hoped for a
sizzlin'
reward
while some of us called it a snatch

sweetie
I'd never be
the sixth
in the reptile house cruel assignments

not in my tower-of-song sort-a-thing
not when LC's
still
singin' out his aftershave lotion
& the time of the rovin's still young
& I see him at dive-ins sometime by the docks
discussin' immutely
the future of western culture
w/ sailors of seasons
& seas
too wild
to roam on a boat
even
his and/or drunk on the crappy old waltz
he delivers

voodoo dolls don't work on me
& spare parts
I got
a-plenty

you're not the Gypsy fortune teller's
or anyone's worthy confusion
daughter
you're not the tattoo
I wear
after dark

you're all tarantulas
& Diegos
I knew – dumb radio DJ's & boasted pancakes

same as the devil was
same as the devil's
got
hold
of
same as the sizzle of prudence
& gore

I traded my beercans for slipstreams of magic
for a buzzin' starlite
machine

I traded my songs for hepcat
uncertainty
of composure...

while all you've got's the TV screen sky
the passing car's
crash
puppy
Holly Buddied
love
the way-too-expensive ticket
& stolen Tibetan flip-flops

yep
the daisy dress makes it all look
more
like unlessly unusual

her body now shrieks for attention
but all she gets
are
carramba mosquitoes & flattened footballs
&
dead by mojo
partly neoned
Morrison
shithole
hotels
circa
1964

I'm hopin' one day to call it all quits
I'm hopin' one day to get paid
for my slaughterhouse
axe
& sandpaper
voice
above all

yeah, this ain't Venice fer sure
Venice's steady on flame all the time
Venice's high
on MC5
&
Magma's
meadows
of
steel

& yes
I'm the biggest
of spiders