Salamanders Green (part 2A) page 18

 

I am stifled by this house that once was but now is not my home. I am lonely but not alone which is a very hard way. Alone I am in bliss and can work my ass off but these days with all these people and upheaval I feel lonely and must devote much energy to fending off depression rather than towards creating. To solve the financial problem yet remain true to my self. The fantasy is to have enough money in order to work on my art.

The sun heals, it works it's wonders on me, beating the bar scene and no longer crying myself to sleep, emergence from the dark into the clear starlight of the day - the sun heals me from my own apathy.

I'm thinking about Autumn and winter and how I'd like to hibernate on Cape Cod.

I'm going to meet a girl at the park by the reservoir. She's young and brown her name is Terri and she plays tennis and we are friends. We met because I was trapped by the way she moved on the tennis court and so stood there leaning on the fence watching her and smoking cigarettes for an hour, until she walked up to me and asked me what my name was...

The kid is here this morning and also his mother. She wants to lie in the sun here in the back yard because today she must go to work early and won't have time to travel to the beach! Can you believe this shit? Anyway she can do what she wants, I'll be taking Sean to the park and maybe we'll swim in the reservoir. The day is sunny but I wonder if even the sun can bail me out from the bad feeling I get when I see Suli. She has ruined sunny days before with her sour face and sarcastic bitch tongue - I suppose she's just part of the therapy a lifetime throws at me. There are always things one must overcome in order to liberate oneself and find happiness. I must free myself from the annoyance of seeing her or else miss the opportunity to have a beautiful day with my son. We shall overcome!

My throat is killing me. I can't swallow a thing without extreme pain. Odd because it's only painful on the right side - maybe some glandular thing? Maybe I need some vitamins?

The little boy is playing in the green turtle plastic pool right outside the kitchen window. I look out over my coffee cup watching the beautiful golden hair boy who is my son reminding me every few minutes that he has not forgotten bout going to the park. Yes, yes , after breakfast, after breakfast.

Was quite happy about having written yesterday. I walked down the street so excited I just wanted to tell somebody - "Wrote six pages" "Wrote three poems!

I'd like so much to know someone who would appreciate the way I felt about having written a few things... I thought of you Maureen but you weren't around so I spent another afternoon talking with Terri, Terri of the tennis courts.

Just can’t seem to find the groove today. Yesterday I got a real joy from the act of writing but today... Perhaps it’s the pain in my throat or the pain in my ass Suli or maybe just too long a night before. Anyway am still feeling 100% better emotionally. Still at work on the therapy both prescribed and self induced and they are teaching me well.

Going to try and pass a cigarette past this throat of mine.

Yeah oh yeah breakfast is over and we go away....

salamanders green part 2A, page 12

1979-80

Bought Millers Rosy Crucifixion, spent the evening looking for all the sex part in the first book. I'm horny as hell to start with... My wife wants to leave me, can’t afford to live alone, feeling kinda broken, a discard, nobody can make me work. My own fault too, always left the good ones for the bad. It's going to take a talented woman to save me. The real problem isn't being without a woman or is it blistering myself with masturbation but rather not having a place to live. I just wish I could hole up somewhere and catch my breath. Some time a room to write, paint, just live for a while. I'm at my best when I'm on my own. Unfortunately for me my wife has drained a lot off of me. She's been my daily narcotic and now it kills me to live with her but I am afraid to go it with out her. It's going to happen though. One way or the other it is happening so, got to get my ass in gear. I'm a painter and a writer. I should be overjoyed with my new freedom. Instead I play the self pity gig. It does hurt about my son. I must in honesty say it hurts me that he won't have a family and I did want with all my heart to be with him as he grew.... Now is too late and does it matter whose fault it is? I have to live my life now and all I can give him is as much honesty as I am able, as I know it.

September rolling into Autumn, three o'clock running into tomorrow, cigarette smoke needles the corner of my nose, fuck it I wish I had some coke and fuckin’ Christ I been lonely most of my life and horny the rest of it - I must be due to catch a break. Can't complain about the weather today, so nice that even the wife couldn't get me down - I was happy today I woke up at five a.m. Venus staring me in the eye.... "Another cigarette pal? A little trouble with this writing stuff?" Now not talking to myself but writing to my self! Talk about masturbation I'm doing the literary version. Any way -

"Another cigarette pal?"

"Sure why not."

Damn the waters blocked for months.

So it’s like this, Sex is the Muse. No Sex = no production. If I just had a woman I could be with then writing would be easy. With painting all I need is a space, a room, a table, you know just give me the place to do it and I can always paint. I'm not passing the buck or nothing, I know I can get a piece of ass but what I really want is a true hot blooded romance.

Went to see my sister-in-law last night. Sat and watched a few movies, drank Marie Brizzard and got high. Have to get back with the car so the wife can go to work so I'm driving with a sweet breath and a nose full of cocaine and how nice it was to sit and relax to sink into being soft and comfortable at Terry's house...relax something I cannot do at home. I'm in bed high and feeling like a breath of fresh air, my wife even kisses me good-bye, a real shocker. It's late September and cold as thirty degrees but I'm warm and nice thinking about how falling asleep between the beautiful breasts of my wife's sister would be luxury.

Seven a.m. five hours sleep, a line of coke and a cigarette for breakfast, going to work, got that giddy cocaine hangover - don't give a fuck, don't have no cares, don't matter where I'm going as long as it's somewhere....

Turns out I was supposed to have the day off anyway. So I hang around the garage for a cup of coffee until everyone else starts then I leave before the boss changes his mind and finds something for me to do. Not feeling too bad today even without the coke I'd be feeling OK. Got a check the other day from some scholarship deal from the school, a remission of tuition scholarship. I mean free money in the mail, that's enough to put anyone in good spirits for a while.

Suli is looking for a place to live without me and I wish I could find a place too! Can't stay here even without her I couldn't - simply, can’t afford it. Besides the place is too cold in the winter and too wet in summer - my paintings get mouldy from the lake damp. All I want is a dry place where I can paint and do my poetry, a place where I can be alone, able to be myself. Also what makes it hard is not having a car so I also need to get a car or a place close to work but this little town doesn't have much to offer a starving artist :

WANTED

Good home for starving artist

comes complete with books and paintings

Packed my books yesterday, six large boxes of them. I suppose I should get rid of them but I just like to keep them around, even though I've read them all some even twice, but I get attached to them. Besides when I get settled if I get any literate visitors they can see how well read I am. All possessions are a boost to the ego, even books, which is all right with me, I need to booster myself. I mean I'd love to have someone look at my books and see me - can't you can tell a person from the book they keep? But no one seems to notice. It would be great to get a hold of someone who is interested in art and literature. You know I have all kinds of canvasses all over this little cottage, I mean the walls are covered with some aggressive colours - my friends though ignore them. It's like I have some terrible disease or affliction and they don't want to draw attention to it by talking about it. The only other artist I ever knew was Mary Brown, a dancer, a tragedy, a poet , a pre - Raphaelite - and of the spoken word? Well I never knew anyone whose voice was so hypnotic; I could hardly talk with her I’d be in such a state - the sound of her voice such a profound effect on me. I still find it hard to believe. Mary's voice in that small space between awake and sleep still makes love a timeless narcotic long after being unable to remember her face. I got her to write poetry. She got me to paint. I don't know if she still writes. She never saw me paint.... Christ, with all the madness I wish she was with me again.

Anyway, enough of the past, I'm hot for the future. I'm getting free of Suli, I've a chance to be happy, I'm getting money in the mail from people I don't even know and I can feel it in the air, I can sense it...And there is very definitely a woman on the horizon - I wonder who she is and how the fuck long it will take us to get together? But regardless of the bullshit there is a woman, only a shadow now only the bare essence of female soon though she'll take form. Physical features, personality revealed....

And the morning is young and I'm ecstatic - song sings from every pore, I'm exhausted, I'm energised - a snapped power line on my way. Today might be the day I find my next lover and if not fuck it there will be other days. And no Suli not even you my darling little slut wife, not even you are going to get me down today! This is my life my season my time - The wind and autumn sun strong like a crack along the concrete that my toes tap upon. I cannot care if I live in a tent this winter, I cannot care about anything now except I am free unchecked unleashed wild through the country side so watch out for your daughters and your wives....

Tomorrow might very well find me caged and shackled by my own self doubts but today I ain't gettin caught - Fuck you world go sit on a blind bulls dick cause you ain't gettin me - I'm on the way back to myself - Jail, drugs, knifings, marriage, shit somebody wanted to stamp me out but fuck you here I am! Maybe not exactly standing but I'm making an upward motion and in spite of anything I am happy about having lived and to be alive and there's no bullshit when I say that when it comes down to it I can regret nothing because I do love my life. I want to live somewhere. I can't paint and it's hard to write in this place. The house itself is oppressive to me, it’s just a down place besides it’s been too long since I moved, been here almost two years in the same place - dragsville. But I'm sure I'll live some where right?

salamanders green part 1, page 9

School

My wife is getting ready for the fall semester she's going back after missing a year. All excitement picking courses teachers figuring schedules I am happy to see her this way. Glad to see her excitement, her interest, her hope for something better and my own hope that this will get some of the boredom out of the woman's life. I've never gone to college but I remember my high school days the old decrepit down town building with its own unique strain of cock roach the first evolutionary change in the cock roach in over a million years - survival of the fittest. The hallways were warped the paint was typical urban grey maybe some military surplus form of battleship, the special grey of park buildings, jails, basements, garbage incinerators. A greasy grey and yellow brick building sometimes floors of rickety wood or bulging ancient concrete painted grey, anything not yellow brick was painted grey. And the girls, I remember girls every size shape colour from china, India, South America Africa French Italian and beautiful black hair blue eye shy Mobilia from Portugal - America you know every kind of girl ugly pretty dumb smart holy virgins blessed sluts any description you could give me I would find there a girl to match it and I suppose this isn't unusual I mean probably every city high school is like that but when you take a young boy who has never seen more than the little girls of his suburban little neighbourhood K through 8 school, the one every one could walk to, the one with ten or fifteen in a class, when you take that young boy and put him in close closed contact with these girls, first contacts with exotic juicy sweet women, the perfect situation stuck here in this building for six hours a day and its great because you get to show off in class by either being smart or smart assed depending on what the situation called for and if you be cool you could wise off but at the same time come off as being intelligent and if you didn't come on like the true pervert that is really you well then you could make out pretty good, fish in a bucket baby and if you were me it wasn't all that easy but you had a friend named Dave and most afternoons cut the last class or get early dismissal because we had a "job" and be downtown working on a bottle of wine that we pan handle the money for and had to get one of the winos to buy it for us because we were under age but once the government dropped the age to eighteen so that the boys who were old enough to die in Viet Nam were now old enough to drink legal we were able to buy our own as our long hair and beards allowed us to pass for at least eighteen and if you had this best friend named Dave and you each had a bottle of that cheap new apple wine you hung around the alley ways and on the green checking out chicks checking out drugs which were both just coming into our lives and we'd talk for hours about California and the great adventure of hitching across the country. (Contrary to popular belief drugs were not invented in the sixties it was just when you were introduced at a certain time and its pretty much been proven that drugs invent users not the other way around) - Any way the time of our growing the time of our high school days were the times of head shops and marijuana romance, I think that even though marijuana has been around forever it has never been so romanticised before or since somewhere it lost its magic but in those high times it was in full flower, the times of war and peace demonstrations, expanding consciousness LSD every one I was ever close to was into acid (LSD) a phase perhaps like apple wine like marijuana like high school days, a phase and to this day I'm not sure every one has stopped getting into acid so much as they grew out of it or that after the seventies the quality of acid simply sucked and it wasn't worth really doing any more. Any way it was the time of our lives as is everybody's high school days I guess and my poor mother thinking I was missing out because I didn't play sports or join the glee club, she used to warn me that I'd regret not joining schools activities and well to set the story straight Ma I had the time of my life although I couldn't really explain it to you how much I was involved in certain school activities - everything was moving new exciting possible, the town was full of freaks, at night there were open parties on the green and after school me and Dave were drinking wine and hanging out meeting people of all kinds from all kinds of places, hippies, hobos, artists, musicians people who came in with news of the outer worlds. One of our new best friends was the old wino Charlie Brown I remember one day we read him his obituary from the local paper apparently someone with the same name same birth day same home town just died. The rest of the day was spent showing people the obituary and trying to get them to contribute to the wake. I can still see the little fellow, pushing through the crowd gathered at the Palace Theatre waiting for some concert by the New riders or Quick Messenger Service and there is Charlie Brown getting the crowd to make way as he called his dog to come through, his invisible dog for whom he was trying to raise funds for the re-visabling operation, of course he usually did well with the concert goers in those days most of the freaks would have some coin for him. And when they put a man on the moon and it was all the front pages of all the papers wasn't there some slight bitterness in his remark " so big fuckin deal I been to the moon every night since the end of the fuckin war"

School the time when dress codes were thrown out and we were dungareed flannel shirted stoned little vagabonds safe and secure in the confined controlled environment of school but when you had a best friend named Dave and you hung around down town you were out there baby, living, experiencing flavours, languages, violence, rip offs, sex, smell, of a living city. You were out there with people, travellers, wanderers, explorers, exploiters, beggar men, thieves, people who were human people who were making it anyway they could desperate adventurous, hopeful, wonderful, brave, crazy, evil, frightened, amazing beautifully human .

salamanders green/ Part One /page 1

 Part One: Do you really want to go here?
River

Afternoon late spring clean water rivering golden sunlight drifts slowly graces full breezy trees, sub down silver gold sparks white water green water brass between rock and crumbling pylons water. Trout water clean fast life death water sparkle moments cascade flash blood scent spotted sating skin shudder pulse lightning trout flesh steel clean pain death dream river of sun of steel of rock pumping blood cold icy blood silt shadow lightning green brass white sun down water river.

Suli has freckles all over her body, freckles well not exactly covering but her face looks like a strawberry especially when she's sunburn, her lips chap Vaselined strawberry fresh fruity taste other glistening lips that never kiss yet smile a river of holy water down upon tonguing boys. Lips of swallowed strawberry fruits of other faces, lips of holy juices tonguing boys strawberry licking body down, sun down, tongue down, body down holy lips fruity inside with a taste with a scent with rivers and rivers of sweet flowing pouring into a sea of tonguing boys. River of blood life death ecstasy the Suli woman rolling roiling river queen all tongued down into pools holy water spilt down pale wall thighs tongue down boy watching windows reflect a sun down silky skin Suli silky silky run it through your fingers skin.

  Anxiety who wants to give up the trees, the river, for the city again? Who wants to break open the money bags piss away good cold hard almost legal cash – paying to return to the city. Cold cash for to see the cold city, cold people, hot people, hot/cold never cool or warm only angry suns sons and daughters. My dream does not see me there. I have no place to go there. Here is life and death, clean pure immediate; each being accepts their own responsibilities, each and every form of life raw open being face to face. Here is not the city, here is not the hiding masked man who can never claim himself, the concrete never stops the flood, the narcotic blood can never give the thrill of pure wild savage unadulterated blood as it gushes through the world, not the world of the city but the world of experience, the world of life of pure unadulterated orgasmic thrill. The icy thrill of a morning that does not begin with angry swollen suns sons and daughters.

I live by the river. I live with the river. I am the weeds by the side of the river. Fly as well as trout of the river. I paint in with the river. I write to with in the river. I make love to strawberry women in with by on the river. Animal amphibian fish reptilian whore-master whore Merlin Morgana of the river. My blood white water silt cans bottles logs sparkled stone bits unidentifiable biological material fish egg strider spider; all living, all dead, all treasure of the river are me and I them. All that is river is me. Dreams words skin sex stock barrel - we are river, we the living, we the dead. All flesh, no flesh; we the river. No river of life no river of death no river of things no river but the river. All that is all that isn't, that is the river.

The river is dreaming me here with radio and cigarette. I am a river dream watching the river sink into a liquid sky a million times reflected upon a sleeping river-dream. All things come from come, all things come, all things the dream of liquid sleep the river dreams. All things a myriad of simultaneous dreams, none greater or smaller only different all sourced from the river. The same river that feeds trout flows through all veins, the same river pours from Suli's cunt pours out of tonguing boys pours from swollen penises pours out the swollen sun, pours out the violent city pours out the whores the saints trees wind grass stone fingers singers words all as all as all is the one water one dream split countless facets gleaming countless suns sons and daughters of the same sleeping river.