Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

cookie man could always score
always
if the eastside was dry
we'd hit the west
didn't matter
he knew everybody
lester and snooky
tidy bowl and john-john
cram into the red fairlane
sherry would drive
met her at a party
burnt out on flakes
sitting in a cabinet
under the kitchen sink
talking to herself
when she was twelve
she got a's in latin
warmth, intelligence
in that photograph
crazy sherry, she told me
at least a thousand times
about her uncle carlo who
took her to the tarzan movie
at the carlton where they
tied a native to a couple
of trees and cut the rope
and was split in two
and carlo put his hand
between her thighs and
the native was split in two
and the blacks went jungle crazy
pounding hollow logs and beating
drums in sweaty heathen madness
that just wouldn't stop
over and over and
if she was doing coke
lookout, sherry's tale
of ancient and irreparable sorrow
would rise in pyroclastic indignation
foot smashing the gas pedal
red rocket on 95 swerving
past the point of no return
into the eastern avenue exit
how many times
a thousand permutations
distilled
into a gray, tepid mush
that you want to spit out
but coats your mouth
like that sick taste you get
when you're coming down with something
after an hour or two
you wanted to blow your brains out
but only after you blew her brains out
back at cookie man's
we fired and got loaded
fucked up in a bad way
got the shakes - cotton fever
laid down on the couch
as sherry leaned slowly into my face
droning on and on about
tarzan and uncle carlo
i begged her to stop
i looked into her cigarette ash eyes
and asked her for the love of god
to please shut the fuck up
i'll never ask for anything else but
please shut your fucking mouth

wow, dino
no ordinary sink situation
wow
carlo and trees and heathen madness
hope she's managed to shut up by now

what a day

what a memory

glad you're writing them down

(i should write mine .. hmmmm)

brilliant writing... you pulled me in... i was with you... (no i am not sherry)

one comment about these long trips down the page is that i have a hard time reading them straight through because i get lost .. on the screen... can't tell which line i was just on... but that just might be the nature of the internet... maybe i should print them out to read them... was gonna suggest a few stanza breaks... then again, that might screw up the stream of consciousness storytelling style... i donno.. think about it...

i'll shut the fuck up now.

poor girl. so many tragedies in the naked city.

you make an interesting point doreen - one that i've thought about. i could write it in paragraph format - sort of like bennie does, but i like the breaks. the line breaks give me the opportunity to play around with ambiguity and emphasis. still, i see what you mean - i'll experiment around.

No, I didn't mean paragraph format. It's definitely not prose... it's poetry and the line breaks are important.

I was just suggesting stanza breaks.

Sorry I usually don't critique ... you know that. Just thought a few stanza breaks might help me as a reader reading on the screen. Was being selfish. Also could be a good way to change scenes.. as there are a few scene changes in this. (well i wouldn't call them scene changes but you know what i mean.. i hope)

gawd this site is slow today... i push submit and it takes a minute before it actually posts... i wonder if it's the site or my connection or what

amazing details captivate me to the point where I feel like I'm in the car, along for this quirky ride through drug use and a life style that
can't help but produce interesting stories...I agree with doreen, that
you should try to document these events that are such raw, potent
images....the aside stories really carry this, dino....tarzan, uncle carlo...
details that make the story compelling.....very effective stuff....

powerful work, my friend....

chris george has made that suggestion to me before - sometimes i can see what he means. for this poem, i don't want to separate the factors involved, but blend it into one feverish melange. but, when you hear the same advice from multiple sources one has to consider things.

thank you steve.

nice piece, dino
I can't even hear the term cotton fever without getting the chills
quite authentic

now, I'm laughing because I know what would have happened if I had published this piece under my name....doreen would have been on me like stink on shit, rebuking me for glorifying drug use.

yeah, one time the fever hit me and i got this pulsing throb in my kidneys i guess. i dropped to my knees and grabbed the couch waiting for them to explode.

enjoyed this read a lot, dino... well done (but think about a break or two..?)... reading it is like being on some speed trip that never lets up... buzzing, buzzing, buzzing... my head twirls and spins... just like days i, too, have had and would just as soon forget... but can't.

Clay, I don't think this piece glorifies drug use. On the contrary. It tells it like it is. Painful. Nauseating. Not fun. Plus I can't get Sherry's stories outa my head.

doreen, I can't count the times you have scolded me for even mentioning dope or using a drug metaphor in a poem. You have said things to me like, "I don't want our site to be represented this way."

I guess you don't know dino well enough to scold him.

My poetry doesn't glorify drugs either.

Look, I'm not going to argue with you on dino's thread or anywhere else for that matter.

Your poetry often DOES glorify drug use.

I've written quite a few pieces myself referencing drug use. But I don't glorify it.

Again, this piece of dino's speaks to the ugly life it is. It doesn't talk about it like it's FUN. It's NOT fun.