Goodbye, Dirty Machine (part 65)

Dean sharpe was rolling.   His usual reluctance to talk sex with strangers was fading away with the daylight…I ramble as explicit as possible to see what might happen, like bending the switch of oak to breaking point…and finally I was called on my cunning by the gymnast who deftly dared me to run the length of the dock in nothing but my skin with a very public audience of those present plus the boys at the bar who watched with Marlon our every move...having a certain tenacity and tendency towards drunk and disorderly conduct, I ,without thought of injury, peeled down to nada and bared my half hard cock & peeled down the dock at full sprint laughing laughing laughing…a merry sprint and damn if I wasn’t fast too, all drunk and nekkid, with that unfortunate piece of ham slashing back and forth on the thighs…and that had everyone in glee stitches and laughter, accumulating this quite rare experience, not remembering that pain is inherent in the process of accumulation…quite really all I was giving them in long-hand was later pain for these moments of inebriated slippage…I got back and re-clothed and we spit our drinks in merriment…

Not ten minutes later Sharpe humming “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do” was up and walking off with le gymnaste down the beach on a slow jog, arm around and head tucked in like old Santa Monica birds towing a fifties evening stroll and Candy staring at me with those big eyes…We know so little of each other but the ease of my rum tongue so fantastic in its hinges up and down and stuck out with gesture and fodder talk...god damn it was time for the language of courtly love and time to bring myself closer to Candy which she must’ve felt too and we slid into our own opposite direction saunter arm in arm...and be pleased it was only a few steps into it and she had made for my mouth with hers, skin pretty as snow, and we made solid the inevitability of tomorrow night’s fucking…Sharpe was back from his saunter, and it was clear we had a plan for the morrow night…we wandered back to the bar at Mata Chica as we had reached the curfew of our 10 year jun¬ior little virgins...so we fled after feeling up the girls a little during farewell like seven and sevens and two great streaks in craps.   Dean guided us safely back to the compound where we swapped stories and dreamed of top brass before going to bed sloshed and all grinned up...

-Michael Price

Medicine Show

A flock of bonsai seagulls
hauling stormclouds up the coast

The punctured waves plunging
(as behind the eyes looking
back

to peel apart distance & isolation like this

dreams, even

on Bleach Street where the traffic stutters
luring you back

or seawater with a snake oil chaser
penciled in beneath the architecture
of unconditional surrender

like a neon blade of sunset
paddling through your brain

Slight Return

The way the rain talks out of the
side of its mouth fogging the mirrored
sky
              a perfect imitation of which
in surround sound might keel over
                              or take a nose-dive somersault
              from the edge of your
heart where you’ve been spending
a lot of time lately
                              pitching tears into trampoline ashtrays
              dovetailed against narrow gray
                                                alleyways flapping
                              damp eyelids as washed out palm tree
              shadows (pale as anemic puddles)
                                                                strum the pavement

There Is No Now

varoom, clunk, kaboom

End of Part One

drizzle, flame
PRESSURE

somewhat unlucky raincloud thud

Part 3
we surface before dawn
like inverted cathedrals

Hamlet with a Hangover

A transient claiming to be a
covert military operative from Australia
was arrested Monday on the Westside because he was
drinking from a full-size beer keg and trying to sell
beer to passersby.

Someone called 911 after reportedly seeing him
drinking beer from a Mason jar
and urinating in the bushes.

Police searched his belongings and found about 20 grams
of psilocybin mushrooms and a
Camelbak bladder with more beer in it.

He also had a harmonica and a wetsuit with him,
both of which are suspected to be stolen

Handcuffed to Eternity

Morning sun a skatewheel
skipping between scattered
clouds (all dirty white with
violet staining underlit
& you can shrug your hips
at passionate accidents
in soft corners if you want
texting barefoot wine bottles on the
darkside of a Martian beach scene
semi-tropical & hyperextended
with lukewarm seawater filling your ear
like a strand of silky barbed wire
rusting in a tidal swamp
handcuffed to eternity

Goodbye, Dirty Machine (part 64)

We sped over a crazy hurricane wake terrain of broken trees, small bogs and trash…and we arrived at the resort via the north through the shade of coming night, parked the vehicle, and made for the outdoor bar, which sat next to a pool and upon an enormous deck that had two levels…the smaller level being down almost to the water's edge where green sea grass flowed in the shallows and an occasional fish swam by ...The barkeep was a black man of local youth and natty beard and all smiles and information...not surprisingly, Dean had his name already and he’d been treated well by him

‘Ey man what's going on—through small eyes and with the sandy hep voice...You guys here to see those ladies?—I saw them out on the beach today man...yah...they looked gooooood my friends—and with gracious wink nodding to us and we both saying "laugh laugh laugh...what're you talking about Marlon?   What girls?”—feigning a divine innocence and smil¬ing shit-eaten and coy... "We just came down here to have a beer laugh laugh laugh..." –Aw shit man, that's bullshit, I know you man...I seen you talking to them yesterday...Man you smooth...I know what you’re doin…you want a Belikan my white liars?—“TWO please Marlon and this is my buddy Price—Price this is my man marlon..."Marlon, I says, It's mighty nice to know you my friend, thanks for the beers and how did the women look today if I might ask? Did that fine Candy with the hourglass onions look extra nice?" Sharpe was giggling uncontrollably—Jesus Christ he was doing his Uzi chuckle carved deep with mischief, the laugh equivalent of our shit-eaten grins...-Aw man she had a big sunburn but those coconuts yeah, they be fine...and the little gymnast, oooooh wheeee she had the legs on her bra, you gonna got up in that piece! –“Ohhohhohoho shit, saith Dean, followed by the razzle chuckle, “Did you hear that Price?” “Indeed I did yessir Sharpe, this is gonna get weird...” Marlon said —That's right boys...and lookee here, I can see them now inside the bar there, they've arrived—and sure enough through the glass doors of the indoor bar and pool table we could make out the cut of two young tan women dressed in bikini top and sarong bottom that was so in fashion...”Oh um and yea Marion thank you we'll check you later” and looking at each other smiling large and walking across the wooden deck around the chaise lounge and glass tables, all the while eyes ahead on their posteriors…

So we entered and they turned and we all asked “how are you’s?” and smiled...Nodding Irishly, Sharpe angled towards the pool table and asked if we were up for a game and answering yes, I retrieved some quarters from the barkeep and loaded up that table and racked—Teams: Sharpe and Lydia, Myself and Candy and her enormous tits. What ensued was a drop forged game of truth and dare billiards…We laid it on thick, ducky, and strange and I took the dares into the categories of scat and lace and we all laughed and got drunk and had ourselves a time…

Fools we played and fools we finished ...and it was out into the opposable light to the bar where Marlon had fresh Belikans waiting and the stars said “@ midnight you must return to the compound”, but it was only ten and we were just winding up and the girls were putting back hi-balls of rum like coca cola and we sat just beside the dock on a round picnic table and continued the adolescent shiver and dive game of verbal sexual challenge…

-Michael Price

Controlled Substance

Disguised as a road disappearing into the fog
I was sure of one or two things
neither of which amounted to much more
than a refrigerator full of adrenaline
rippling in the dark

Dead Sea Strolls

Splash Zone
oblique tacoburger architecture
on the edge of the world
sand drifting thru the parking lot
beneath aluminum trees

Deep Water
The Inventory (within eye-shot):
1. Venice BAMBOO Calif.
              (in script) on the longboard
2. Royal Quiet DeLuxe
3. Pacific Coast Highway
4. DEEP BREATHING
5. A History of Violence

No Limit
Back then I drove a Ford Fairlaine
that looked like a pterodactyl
& the western sky was all
wrapped up in string