dmseay

(diner on Lexington, Upper Eastside)

Pass the salt…

I told Sol….

Told him what…fucking egg salad…

Told him call you on Thursday…you could fit…

Why? pepper…pass the pepper.

Take the call?

What? from who..why’d you do this?

I’m obligated…

Fuck that….fuck obligations..

(Lunch at Mainchance Drop in Center)

Yo pass the salt this motherfucker got no flavor…..this is some bullshit…yo…it be flat and shit….

Watch your mouth….

It do be flat….(whispered) motherfucker…

That’s it…you out…I done warned you enough…

Fuck you and fuck this mother fucking place bitch…

You got five minutes to get your stuff and leave Mr. Brown….

Aint that a motherfucking bitch.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Sour and rancid…she drove the natives wild; bellowing, yelling, covering mouths and carrying-on; Christ put up with less.

Piss covered, spat upon….the fragile Latina smiled with arms outstretched…
A giggle…a wiggle…while servants of the poor poured powders and sprays; a vain attempt for whom?

Her laugh grew louder, louder, and louder with interspersed prayers, “save me Lord….save me Lord.”

And then, like magic the stench was gone, lifted from her brown wrinkled skin…leaving a glow upon the saint as wings lifted her higher and higher and higher and higher…..

To the least of my brethren.

Viera Wang sat next to me at the diner; a double take was took.

My wife wore a dress of yours, I told Wang…..lovely…just lovely.

Oh, thank you, she said; went back to The Times; coffee was stirred, cream was poured.

She left me for a Shylock; imagine that…Still, she looked beautiful in that Vera Wang Wedding gown.

The fashionista nodded politely, smiled, went back to the paper.

Your dress….that’s what did it.

I was mugged; smartphone pointed at my head, by an Ivy Leaguer sporting a business suit in Zuccatti Park.

Give me everything, he whispered sternly; I want it all..I gave…he took.

Within minutes all was gone; debit cards, visa cards, mortgage payments, my Metra card, Social Security card, Medicaid card, my hopes, my history, my pot to piss in….gone….gone…gone.

The shoes, he said. Give me the shoes too. And the belt…off with it…everything; left naked, frightened, angered, humiliated; ready to quit….why not?

The cellphone was removed from the right temple…don’t you even think about it..lips moving without a sound.

What’s in the bag? he warned. The bag…open the bag.
The Merchant of Venice was pulled out…he tapped my chest with the hardbound book.

I’m Jamie fucking Dimon, CEO of JP motherfucking Morgan you cunt….and that is how we roll…

I want equality….she said.
Spoken to, not shit upon….respect….Si?

Yes..got it.

The line has been crossed; fix it.

Alright.

Now….treat me like a lady.

Why not.

Thank you Father, Jesus, Mary, Muhammad, Vishnu, and Whitman.

Thanks be to Buddha, Bukowski, Brahma, and Bellows.

Praise of Miller, Mailer, Mamet, and Miles; special offerings to Mingus, Coltrane, Satchmo and Tatum.

I am grateful to Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, the wisdom of Fante; the old Grove Press and Riverside Records.

Dostoevsky was a saint don’t you know….while Joyce pointed out sins and misdeeds to be forgiven; what grace.

“We few. We lucky few.” You said it Bill.

I sit in Washington Square Park listening to a tenor sax while reading the works of Dugan….eating a banana like a monkey at the zoo.

I am at peace.

Curly blonde Sue delivered the news: she loved me.

“See, I was fucking this black guy…and the whole time we was doing it….I couldn’t stop thinking of you,” a lip-glossed smile, a direct hit.

No, I said. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have fucked the black guy, or the Polack, or that Irish prick, or the former Nazi hanging out in Brazil for that matter.

She looked puzzled…… twisted her hair… a lite drag on a menthol, a giggle.

The idea is an exclusive, an agreement; a goes to b; not c,d,e,f…and every other mother fucker you meet.

“Oh,” wine was slurpped, “sorry.”

my tits droop…
sitting naked in a chair…
belly exposed…thinking of pork chop sandwiches…

gun shots fired into darkness….

those niggers are at it again…

give me a bus pass…
leave …let the soul fly….into the arms of a whore….never shall we kiss…

crack lingers ’round corners…so do the smells of fried tripe and smelts…

they hate us and we hate them…,mutters a black girl with braids at the food stamps office…
white people smell funny. ….fuck dem’…,a pack of Newports hits the streaked floor…

calling 52….calling number 52…,eyes look down at white tickets… shaking heads…the wait continues…this wait continues.. 

my tits droop…
sitting naked in a chair…
belly exposed… thinking of pork chop sandwiches…

gun shots fired into darkness…

those niggers are at it again…

“I’m walkin here. I’m walkin here.”

To the drivers of the Lincoln Urban Assault Vehicles…the Range Rovers…the smarty Smart Cars my ex wife finds to be cute….I’m watching you.

Forcing cripples to move faster, old yentas to curse, and fat vagabonds second thoughts upon actions committed; a crosswalk is a crosswalk.

Swerving around turnabouts on Park, tight corners in the lower East side; maniacal driving on side streets as if in Paris….no one dares.

My message is clear. I weigh 300 pounds, disheveled hair, always foaming at the mouth when yelling out loud for a kingdom long gone……

I’m watching you.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Quiet. No talking, nor gestures; just quiet.

It is a silence that keeps waking me; no gunshots, no sirens, no blaring bass from an SUV; just a nauseating nothing.

This will change soon….it always does.

And, then what? A constant noise, never-ending, always a beat, a rhythm; forcing one to always be on the lookout as cops drive by and boys in skirts apply their trades.

Quiet. It is too quiet.
Don’t get used to it.

Posted from WordPress for Android