the boys

Bell Jar

I've had an overwhelming desire, after visiting the library, to read Plath. Does anyone have a copy of Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar." I've never read it. If so, send the copy with a return address, if desired, to Daniel Cosentino, P.O. Box 31552, 14603-1552. I will return the favor.

This is best, the exchange. Rose.

Black Dogs

Moments after I learned that Buttercup's meat was malignant and cancer I asked Luna to make this picture. I paced the gardens as she delivered the news. Butter seemed strong. Breathe Rose Breathe. I did that. I could no more see her now than I could walk through that wall. "It's hot above your head but the wall is beautiful." "Then you got it." I wept and we left and held hands the short ride home. 'Tomorrow I'm going to walk through that wall', I thought. 'Not with anger,' God responded. 'Then lift the anger,' I quipped in return. Silence. 'You lift it,' said the other. I listened and made no response.

West

In Oregon, a rental car and salt water sturgeon;
a comet, the halle-boppe and wine before wine was a study
On the coast, the best of me turned to butter and the butter turned bad.
Specifically it turned into an argument and a general unrest, right there in the dark redwoods, in the green tall redwoods, on the tsunami coast, in the little silver rental car. I said, “Mama, I don’t want to.” And she replied with low curled smile, “Baby, just this once.” So we did and stayed, instead of in tent, in the coastal hotel with no one there. When we made love that night, she shit the bed on orgasm. That was her thing. I didn’t care plus she was so embarrassed that it was a virtual non-issue. The shit was always cleaned up before I woke. When she finally left after attempting the impossible over a year and poorly planned birth control I locked up in a panic and settled my score with the undead and brought it to the journal and the nurse, who listened. For two years.

Back home, on Buttercup’s porch, we sat and smoked cigarettes. I watched her wincing.
“Fuck,” she winced in pain.
‘Fuck,’ I think. The indignant pain of the eye.
Fuck.

East

Vivid dreams followed me. I awoke, pulled on last night’s duds, kissed Buttercup goodbye, loaded myself on the bicycle and pedaled back across town in shame. Shame may not be the word for it now, what I was feeling was the unutterable lament of loss. I was about to lose her too even though I knew shifty nights in bars and slouchy highs would not/could not produce anything of substance. At the very least we were closer to a source there – I having become extraordinarily uncomfortable with the games that come along with suburban design. At least in the lowly mass of wood and sticky beer stench a man is more likely to bear his soul, revealing just what it is that keeps it all going – bestial acts (With Uncle Tommy Waits to thank and before he, Ginsberg, that beautiful fag). Half way home, between her place and my studio, on the lawn of her school and my place of employment I stopped to lament a dead bunny. Its head had been severed and placed like a composition about a meter to the east of the body. “Heading home with Mohamed to see Allah,” I said to its corpse. I spoke to the head and laid my fingertips on the soft rear end. Bunnies are Muslim. In the order of creatures God assigns religion with ritual we’d likely call instinct. Much of that ritual goes unnoticed but today it was clear – in the fractal moments before death an animal is given insight to its end, they always know, and bunnies will always face east.

comma, the latter

but you do too

Maria's Arm

stops, temps, stagnates

In the dark north winter
hits like a missile - It
forges roads for the mind. It
stops, temps, stagnates and
bores a hole. The hole is you.

"I think we've had more rain than Seattle. Do you think we've had more rain than Seattle?"
"Maybe. Probably." I looked through the old glass and watched it fall on asphalt and the scattered rooftops and scattered vehicles. To my right JL focused. I stared, he glanced up from his task. I look back to my task. Then everyone swarmed & I was glad for it because my task was tedious. "Daniel. Daniel, can you make sure I'm scanning these properly?"
"Yes. Now?"
"No, not now, whenever you're ready." It's an old machine, too old, I thought.
"Let's see." I went to address the concern.
The pages of scattered, printed information pitted my desk to a point where I had to clear a space. My notes on various pads - yellow lined, small white lines, folded back, dog eared. I rarely, if ever, review them or reveal them after writing them down. instead, that process is recorded in the moist skull folds. All else be damned. It's uncanny how they build.
"I've got it. I've got it," M says from behind her own similar pile. I barely budge.
"Good." She knew I was unhappy. She knew the situation - I was feeling used unhappy with tedious work I didn't sign up for. Each task an act of doing and undoing until it balanced on the page - boring, full of waste. My art waited like an expanding balloon, waiting to pop. Man, Woman, Child, Beast - the next piece stared at me madly, tickled my liver. I thought of it constantly when I looked at Jules, her eye now physically protruding from the tumor's pressure.
"Breathe. Breathe in the air babe."
"Just squeeze harder." I was fucking her and squeezing her skull to relieve the pressure.
"Oh, my god."
"Get it darlin'," I added as she came close to climax. Our pheromones matched so I stayed hard for hours and she just worked at it, the pills and pain delaying climax. Six to fifteen minutes is enough, get it. But this would inevitably turn to an hour or two or three, broken condoms scattering the wooden floors. Useless, all of it a risk. I finished and get up to check the weather and the total rainfall. Water is one thing we don't worry about here. The water brings the cold so I left the office for our night of drinks underdressed.
I watched the fire light the bone - chemicals delivered. "Where we heading?"
"High Falls. Is it far?"
"No. You could walk there." I delivered the path. We rambled on, out over the bridge, back again, beers, conversation, talk, silence, the tasks ahead weighing on.

Morning Bat

waiting

"I live with demons. I got demons"
"Well, cast them out!" Z exclaimed matter of factly.
"I know, I know, but I love them."
"Yes, I know." He added in sincere understanding.
"It's arrogance, I believe i can change them."
Z sighs. "I know. I love Satan."
"Exactly."
"God doesn't hate anyone. I believe I can simply stand up to them." I can't. No one stands up to demons and survives. Not as a drunk and not with this anger.
"I'll cast them out," I stated and with a brief glance I connected with Z scanning his tattoos. 13. The demon. The skulls. The fire. They lived with him too but he cast them out for the sake of his boy.
"I don't know. I don't know your job. I don't have a son."
"Uh, Daniel," the boy interrupted, always listening, observing, patting himself on the forehead with his palm. "Duh. Me. I'm your kid. Papa says I have two daddies."
I stared back with the biggest smile and barely able to breath.
"You are," I said in fact, still drunk from the wine. "You are... amazing," I added barely able to contain it.

I called her up, S _ _ _, and cast out the demon. I used her words, "You are a bad person." "You don't deserve my love." "Be gone," I added. "Fuck off." "It's your burden." And I turned in bed like I'd lost a limb. Like the devil, retreated with half my skin and bones. Like my entire right side was taken. But her other words stuck too - "Why can't you let it go. Everybody knows." Who's everybody? This is my deficiency. I can't know this behavior. I don't know this, simply can't see it. "Why don't you know this? I don't know this," is my silent response. "Bah! gay." And I move out to see Buttercup on the bicycle in the rain. Past houses, past luck, past bars. Wretched soul. "It's a wilderness, the ocean," like a mantra in my mind. An illumination from K, my mother-in-law for a few more days. All of this is a wilderness, I imagine, like the ocean. The reason I like to be near it. It's a wilderness.

I looked down, there was an Ant - I squashed it savagely thinking of Abbey and the stone hurl that killed the rabbit.

I went to piss to piss and squeezed a zit from my cheek and yanked a stray hair from my ear then squeezed the zit again, the fucker, like a madman. It popped out till blood and dabbed it with a hard napkin.

"Do you want another round?"
"No."
"Really?" Buttercup replied.
"Really. I know my limit, I'm not a real alcoholic." Even though I am. "I won't be able to process it. If I don't, I won't be able to write and I need to write."
The bar music blasted Pink Floyd in through the shattered outdoor speakers - "Breath. Breathe in the air. Don't be afraid to care. Leave but don't leave me..."
And we listened to the conversations around us, knowing our connection, waiting.

whores, hems and gawkers

Young Rose

"Keep your loved ones near and let them know just where you'd be 'cause others need you right near by just as you need me." Bonnie "Prince" Billie

I stared intently at two women in as many days and my crumbly little heart broke apart. I kept thinking, how much further can a man break apart? But I knew the answer was infinitely until death. "What a gift" I told Z in passing on the way out with the harem. "You know that crazy guy, the one from the flipside?"
"Yea, the big dude," I remembered clearly. "He's great," I added recalling his jolly hugs and smiles.
"He's crazy and he knows it," Z began "and completely spot on."
"How so?"
The boy interrupted briefly from his flirting with the girls to ask me if I wanted to throw the parachute guys. I nodded and held up a finger indicating I'd talk in a minute. I was making the girls wait to hear the story. Z was moved by something and seeing that I had just finished watching the Charlie Rose interview with Neil Young on his recommendation I wanted to hear it now - Young, Rose, the coincidence not lost.
"We were just talking out there in the parking lot and he saw those black dudes across the street blasting music. He crossed the street, asked them to turn it down and said, 'I love you guys' without the slightest hesitation and hugged each of them. You could tell at first they were posturing but they turned the music down and took the hugs."
"Nice," I replied understanding the observation, knowing he enjoyed it, knowing these connections make up a life.
"I told him my story." he said referring to the brain tumor and the recent suffering. Lately Z's had pain, massive pain that cramps half his crippled form. He never complains although occasionally he'll let me in on the facts. I told him the biblical story of Job, the connection obvious. "Just don't take my son," he added at its conclusion. The only thing Z admits to fearing.
"How'd he respond?"
"He said, 'No, fuck that. What happened to you isn't right. God sent me to you just as he sent you to me," he responded with a clenched jaw holding back tears. I looked him right in the eyes as always and nodded.
"Yea."
"Yea."
I opened the door and called for the boy who was having a Jolly time with Tess running about the asphalt. "C'mon, Papa's waiting," I said in mocked annoyance and left to make sense of the night.

At the bar I looked up and saw _ _ _ _. I was with the girls, my heart dropped. I thought about letting it go, again, but knew I wouldn't. No time like the present. No regrets. I ordered drinks and headed for her, consequences be damned. In the instant I turned from the bar there was X, Mack's girl, who knew the whole deal. "What's wrong?" she said. I wear my grief.
"_ _ _ _" I said motioning down the bar. "It's taking all the fight in me not to cause a scene."
"Let it go." That was good advice but didn't even make a dent.
"Yea, I know it." I stared.
"Do you want me to stay? I could stay for awhile and talk it out."
"No. I'll call if necessary. I won't make a scene. I know, I know."
"Daniel, don't do it. Text me." X left. I scooped up my drink and headed straight for her stool, tapped her on the shoulder.
"Hi."
"Hi."
I stared. She played it cool.
"Good to see you."
"You too." "You're wearing a purse." She was referring to my small black possibilities bag.
"It's a possibilities bag."
"What's in it?"
"Gun powder."
"I believe it."
Silence. The boy she was talking to waited. I didn't take my eyes off of her but there was nothing more to say, she had to say it. I cocked my head and walked off. And with a good mind to tear the place up but no one fights at this bar plus I wanted to keep it. From there the night drifted off.

Rose, Young

hangers on

July has been the hardest month, stay tuned...

photo by Buttercup (I think)

Secret Clay Pot

I awoke with heavy breath and bags under my eyes. My body wanted calories. I checked the frigde; Serbian plum wine and pasta sauce. It was early morning so I opted for the pasta sauce. I took a few spoons full and put it back disgusted. Wholly bachelorized. I managed to clean up, put on jeans and a black shirt (the uniform) and wander into the humid stolid heat.

After work, I went to the roof to catch a smoke with the weeds and concrete and oils of the rooftop garden where Z had the corn growing in his grid of certainty. When I knocked on his door to get the key, he was trimming his nose hairs. He looked up and motioned coy with tool in hand. I laughed out loud, not for the sight, although it was comical, rather for the ongoing conversation about nose hairs and how to dispatch them. I yank them out with fury. I like the sneeze it produces. In general I hate mechanical shit – all so primitive. I don’t care how long the batteries last, you still have to store the damn thing, maintain it, drive it, plug it in. I laughed at Z’s mock but felt exhausted. “I need the key, I’m fading.” He delivered.

From up there I watched that dirty moon rise and leaned on the brick running my fingers across the rough edges. I watched it again in sinister silence as it cut up the hazy sky. The heat was still rising from the rooftop. Along the pipes someone had affixed a sticker that read, “DO NOT: Defecate Here”. It looked like it belonged But I disobeyed anyway and made a turd right there on the roof. I felt awful about doing that so I scooped it up with some loose tar and flung it over the edge. It hit the asphalt before I got up on the ledge to see it land but I saw where it hit having separated from the tar flap on descent near the cabinet maker’s entrance where the pick-up is usually parked. I was glad the truck wasn’t there or I’d have to explain about the wild shit flinging baboon living on the premises. When the moon had risen past the golden hour I left for the bar.

I sat to watch the Baseball derby and ordered a tequila.
“Hi,” I said to the girl sitting on my left. We bantered and I looked for something keen or decent in the girl but instead we talked about tequila.
“Is it good?” I asked.
“Yea, I don’t know. We wanted the frozen kind.”
“Frozen is silly.”
“It’s what?” She didn’t hear me.
“It’s silly,” her friend added eavesdropping.
“It’s silly,” I repeated. “Plus that guy on the end of the bar just bought your whole round. You should of ordered premium.” Which was true, the guy, Ditch or some shit the bartender was calling him, bought the girls a round before they got to the bar. By the look on her face she didn’t know what premium meant.
“Do you come here often?” She asked. I raised my brow and smiled. She was young.
“I live close to here, so yes, I come here often enough.”
She didn’t know what to say next so I started writing this and watched the derby. I picked a good moment to do so as Josh Hamilton smashed 28 homerun balls in a row in Yankee's Stadium.
“Jesus Christ, this guy is hot.” She looked confused.
“This boy’s about to make a record.” The barkeep started talking up his knowledge about the Rays and drugs and all that nonsense. I was just happy to see him smash one nearly out of the park, never mind 28.
I had closed the tab but decided to celebrate with another round as the girls went off to table, Ditch in tow.
“Enjoy your night,” the woman added on her way past. I thought that was a nice thing to say, I wish she had started with that line.
“You too, enjoy it.” And then the new piece hit me.

july world

Dolls

The moon in mostly full fashion drifted slowly across the southern sky. Friends kept saying, “did you see the moon tonight?” And there it was drifting away. It mocked me. It also seemed small. Maybe it’s because I prefer to watch the moon overhead or north and definitely in the eastern sky. That may change if and when I move to the west coast.
“You should get something going.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. What are you waiting for?”
“Opportunity,” I thought. “I’m waiting for nothing. I have everything I need.”
“Well, then get moving.”
The insane always point this out. I nodded and turned to the guy wearing the loin cloth.
“You’re the only sane one here,” I told him and took a big gulp of beer. It was his beer I was drinking.
“I think so,” he responded confidently. His face was painted in some Braveheart type deal and his scrawny muscles flexed in the cold.
“What’s under the loin cloth,” my girl inquired.
“Nothing. What’s the point,” he answered. This intrigued her. I left to let her flirt.

“What do you do?” the tall dolled up chic asked me.
“I’m an artist.”
“Yea, but what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a designer.” I didn’t like her. “Do you appreciate art?”
“I don’t know much about it.” She must have been from DC with that what do you do line so I took a crack at it.
“How do you like living in DC?” I was bored.
“I love it. I work toward making labor unions stronger, teachers and nurse, that sort of thing.” It seemed like good work but I felt the system stink her up like an Asian kitchen.
“Yea? That’s good work. Keep it up.” I thought of talking not-for-profit stuff but let it go. I sat and niosely sipped on Bravehearts beer. The silence became uncomfortable.
“Well, my friends are over there so.” I pursed my lips and nodded.
“Good talking with you.” I turned to crack another beer and find my girl.

“Baby!” she was drunk. “Baby!,” she repeated. The night was a bust, I knew it. From this point out I was babysitting.
“Oh, shit.”
“Baby!” sigh.
“Oh shit. Slow it down.” It felt routine.
“Come smoke. Come outside and smoke with me.”
“Ok. Ok.”
I walked outside and smoked a 100. 100’s always remind me of my aunt and her harsh voice. She had something to teach and always asked questions. I hoped for that conversation now.
“You like her.”
“Who?”
“That girl you were talking to.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Baby!” I sighed heavily. “Grumpy man.”
“hmmm, grumpy.” I didn’t feel grumpy. “I’m not grumpy, you’re drunk.”
“Baby!”
The repetition of it was unreal, it was like a doppelganger of the last drunk chic. I kept it to myself and smoked the 100. Last call arrived. I felt my phone vibrate in the possibilities bag (the man-purse).
Text: Shots! (No substance, again.)
Text: oh, jesus. I’d belt ya in da dam mouth and drag ya home like a cavefag.
No response.
“Let’s go baby.”
“You got it doll.”

Buttercup & the Story of the Eye

remember you, remember me

stay tuned...

pop

I sat and listened to three albums. When they were done, I repeated them. When they were done again, I repeated them again. And likely I’ll repeat them again but after I grab a smoke on the asphalt here in the hotbed of dirt and sunshine and rain where I am certain. To each a love. A love to each. This one, the ones below, keeps me still.

silence silence pow pow

I’ll come for you. We’ll go to a dark movie theater in a dark town, not here.
Why does it have to be a dark town and a dark place?
It doesn’t, I meant a place that is unknown.
Sounds scary, I don’t want to go there.
Well then where do you want to go?
To a warm place, a bright place.
We can go there too.
We can’t go both places.
It was metaphor, we can go where you like.
I don’t know where to go, I’m lost.
That is why we go to unfamiliar places, to find ourselves again.
(Silence.)
Well? I want you to come out, will you?
(Silence.)
What is this?
(Silence.)
Choose something. Yes or No?
(Silence.) (Anger.)
You ARE lost.
(Silence.)
This silent treatment is gay, what’s it gonna be?
(Silence.)
(Silence.)
(Silence.)
(Silence.)

if, anything

when, evil

7th Level of Caesar’s plaza, Row 9, I said goodbye to the Serbs and Mosette and headed north with mom over the finely paved roads of the NJ pine barrens along the Garden State Parkway, past Long Beach Island where I burned in the heavy waves each summer, past Asbury Park, Tom’s River, past Woodbury and Roselle and Staten Island, past Jersey City and the Holland Tunnel to the north, to the suburban wilderness. We arrived to dog shit from someone else’s dog on the porch. My sister remained upstairs – I could hear her conversation with a bo, it was going badly for him. Mom and I poured wine and smoked cigarettes in silence still digesting the fat and gristle of Atlantic City. I thought of _ _ _ _.
_ _ _ _ sent a barrage of texts about her sick dog. When she needs something and doesn’t know how to ask she reaches out with fears about dead and sick animals or dead and sick second cousins or some such. I told her to feed him rice and lean meat; ground beef. This turned into hours of meaningless back and forth about where to buy, how to prepare and deliver the food. Then, as the night continued and the drugs seeped through her tiny spleen and liver I recognized a change from the displaced concern to self abasing apathy.
Text: somebody kill me please
Text: OK, Spill the beans
Text: no beans, just waiting for death
Text: death will come, not to worry
Text: hahahahahha, I know
Minutes pass
Text: you’re suffering a broken heart, you got it bad, you should just talk about it
Text: yea, for g maybe. Text: best to talk to no one. Hahahahhahaha.
There is now days of this, I thought. No substance. Nothing closer to heart. No sense of apology. I felt it bleeding me.
Text: OK, I gotta go babe
Text: Sleeping?
Text: Yes, travel all day tomorrow, etc
Text: OK, bye.
Minutes pass. I receive another text. Text: I’m just waiting for hell.
I return, Text: then hell is what you’ll get
This broke my heart. Our connection was still breaking my heart. I felt no hope in her and I recognized the sludge. Evil.
Text: that’s what I choose. I choose hell.
Text: that’s it babe, no more contact, good luck.
Text: you too. good luck.
Perpetually being handed into the hands of death, it’s the very definition of dysfunction. The feel of it is human stain.

At some point there was a struggle but _ _ _ _ had since given up that struggle to just plain go evil. On intention. Which is not violence or incorrigible madness but the long dull hoarseness of apathy and the measured waste that comes with it. The giving up. The stolid rhythm of heroine and oxycontin at an apex where nothing more could be added or subtracted to the utterly complete longing nature of it. I dragged on my cigarette and eyed mom who had little clue to the nature of my thoughts. I told her some but she couldn’t condone them or the danger which I expose myself to but at 60 and on the job market again and a survivor, a happy one, she listens and pays the tab when she can and even when she can’t. I thought this as I sent the final text asking _ _ _ _ not to contact me again. But she would, we both already knew this. I’d be asked to the deposition or to the reckoning or to the execution. I would answer the call eventually after she’d mustered enough sense to appease my need for at least the promise of hope. And we’d all go down. This, essentially, is the pure beautiful misery of it.

dancing tony, atlantic city NJ

2 serbs, city hall, Mosette

rose's cables

photo by Mosette

Philadelphia, Mosette

moments, later

I was downloading the new Bonnie Billy when,
Text: “Hi” _ _ _ _’s first contact in months. My heart dropped but I wasted no time.
Text: “Uh Oh” The last text I sent to her many months back is vivid, as I crossed the border over the Delaware Water Gap into Jersey. “That’s dumb” is what I sent, all the details to that moment awhirl in momentary refinement.
Text: “hahahahhaha”. Shit. I should walk away, leave it be but my dumb heart thumped.
Text: “Well?”
Text: “Well what.”
Text: “You have something to say?” Already too stupid, if someone wants to say something they say it. Poor girl’s too smart. Poor boy’s too bold, too stupid.
Minutes pass.
Text: “You just crossed my mind.” Christ, I should just let it be. My heart was alive.
I reply after some thought. Text: “Get back to me when you have something to say. OK? OK.” I thought of her mean wrath and the damn peanut chicken.
Text: “I think of you every time I make the damn penis chicken.” Jesus.
Text: “I love you babe. Be well.” I loved her. I knew it. The kind for great loves.
Text : “How?” I couldn’t answer, she already knew.
Text: “call or im, there is too much.” A risk and a stupid one at that.
Text: “messy” But it wasn’t. A life of lies is messy, not calling is messy. At least in my book.
The IM came moments later. I cracked a bottle and dug back in waiting for my train.

work

Luna