Recovery, and: Oxy, and: Relapse

Recovery

A hand stretches from deep space& taps you on the shoulder.You've been through this routineenough times that you no longer turn.You reach forward, into red light & bells.This is your take on Hollywood,a confession offered to the books.You elbow someone whom you vaguely recognize.He offers to modify his routine.He offers to perform the wedding.You stand on the deck of the Mother Louise,your return voyage through manic straits,watching the hull carve through waves,thinking you've revised the print,you're a new man w/a new karma.But causality dissolves at this point,each scenario starts at a different port,occurs in a different room, even if alltake place in a single beachfront buildingfated for demolition. Goodbye passport o≈ce.Goodbye Department of Romantic Processes.Department of the Death Wish.Who you were can never meet who you arecan never meet who you'll be.In any case, horns should be blowing.This is night-club, cocktail jazz, sexy.You've always liked the ideathat something larger, broader plays you like an oboe, squeezing out yourgolden notes, an exotic scale worthy of prime time.Here's your defining moment, & this timeyou get the joke: there's no way to take credit.Don't be surprised if you feel relieved.The Department of Regrets has closed.The Department of Egoic Affairs has downsized.Even the Department of Transcendent Concernshas reduced its hours. Soon the building will bequiet & dark. Soon you'll be alone,which you'll love & hate. Thenyour real work will begin.

Oxy

Oxy is patient, waiting in vials,in drawers, stuffed behind a shelf,secrets incarnate. There's a room,always. The Judas room. Oxy likemodel skin. Pulchritude that kills.I gorged the Sunday feed in a baron Magazine St. I ordered an oxysizzle, I changed my mind, I wasleft w/the news, strangers divingfrom a roof, fast food on the moon,Wall Street in flames. 10 witchesburned, 10 witches canonized, theoxy witch now an oxy saint, & myprayer in dirty spikes, each worda taper, kindling for a bonfire I cannever snuff. I keep apartments in7 oxy cities, stashing the crimesI've amassed over a decade. I lovemy Rasputin yellow. Borgia gray. Pilate brown. I'm the king of oxy,tangled in the world's dry dream.Each capsule of hope, I gulp my 1shot at replacing the 1 god, death& immortality are interchangeable.

Relapse

If you had to sit in a windowless roomprocessing fingerprints from 7 to 7,you'd want some action too.You'd dream of seducing a superherooutside the Salad Express.Not that Monday was exotic.Not that anyone with clout was dreaming of waterlilies.I signed up for the raffle.I needed new shoes, especially for the fire drill.See, I've always been a pragmatist.The wolf said, we should go somewhere cold,he packed the Subaru & drove us north,hitting the flask at every ramp.Get used to being thirsty, the bear said.Get used to having blood on your hands, the wolf said.From Levine's open mic to Shaquilla's kitchen,I've seen drama, buddy, & these distractions don't work w/me.You're talking to someone who regardsbills & newspapers as vaudevillian props.I was there when the Camco ice machinespit fire during Belladonna's happy hour.I recall the citywide spike in psychotherapy,that feverish crowd marching into the sea.I saw a champagne cork take out a moon.I saw basic math dissolveon the slippery slope of "1 final blowout." I know how it feels for Jupiter's vacuumto sweep through your plans.You'll find a Chippendale on Cooper's Bermin the Kentucky blue & jagged stones,I left a cigarette smoldering in a cereal bowl,the latest issue of Fanfare open to my favorite page.I know you'll make it when the frost clears.You'll be...