LIFE
poems by ron androla (c)
some of these poems
have appeared online at the-hold.com, babel magazine,
& other cyberspace places.
2407 raspberry st.
life
i think i'm 48 & a half
but i may be two thousand
years old. i vaguely
remember
childhood,
just a sense of infancy.
maybe i'm
a goddamn
clone, who knows
what
reality
exists behind
this current
realism.
aliens impregnated
my mother
in 1954
on lover's lane --
her memory
is blank
it ever happened.
something
seems a little
fishy,
something
has always
seemed a bit fishy
about
being
alive.
realization
i have never
ever fully realized
the fact of the female
clitoris as something
tensed like antennae
tense against
a fleshy pre-storm
wind
whack me
shake me to my senses
ron ron are you ok
no i am not ok
no
it's like
a very little
cock almost
hard protruding
gristle
from the
guts of
love
how surreal
is sex
or that we
have
limbs of touch
bart smoking camel reds
it's around noon on a strangely
warm 50-some degree pittsburgh
day early march, cloudy, sunny,
cloudy, sunny, it changes like
that every 30 seconds or so,
& i notice bart's
patio,
shaded, is still filled
with ash-tipped mounds of
snow -- & the deadness of all
the trees & vines,
brown grass mat matted
down from a long winter.
everything outside is either
brown or a shade of blueness
& how blue can get
crazy
& i feel crazy
somebody else
another person
is inside my body
another mind
is in my head
other words
drop from
my lips
& nothing i say
sticks.
well,
the
let's
go,
let's
go,
ready
for the
road
again.
what a
drive
thru
all the seasons
for years
& years
100's of miles
on interstate
79
ann knits
i'm a swahili
terrorist conked
on 12
horse
ale
now
home
bart
that
was
fast
did i
say
hello
did i
say
thank
you
did you
listen
to the weber
cd yet
crime poems
& jazz
from his
albuquerque
radio
show
there's mark
there's todd moore
neither drink
anymore
isn't
that different
than what
we
do
day
after
day
after
decade
& various lifetimes
tami chain-smokes
capri cigarettes
bart does
camel reds
man i want a smoke
i breathe it
second-hand
like a
spy
but i won't
ever smoke
another cigarette
unless the NEAT
comet does,
indeed,
blast into the sun
this august
& we know it
& all cigarettes
are free
everything
everywhere
is free
we're listening to
arab music from the
HIDEOUS KINKY cd
there's a good
film for
the folks of
pressure
press to wit-
ness
& the soundtrack
takes us
home
in a land of dramatic
events & allah
moans beneath
miles of sand
fuck that
we're amerikans
we're amerikan poets
we're baby-boomer
products & consumers
consumed by the
dreams of amerika
memories of amerika
horrors of amerika
sadness of amerika
middle-aged
i'm guzzling
a longneck 12
horse ale
at 4 in the after
fuckingnoon
& it tastes
delicious
like william
carlos williams'
plums
a dollar cheaper
than rolling rock
we're home
we're drinking
12 horse ale
& listening to the
HIDEOUS KINKY soundtrack
ann is fixing supper
something with chunks of
beef in it
& i think i smell
mushroom soup
interstate 79
the sides of the road aren't
supposed to be so brown, so bare,
barren, dead & pressed down; there
ought to be green somewhere,
where's a stray pine,
a slash of cucumber like
paint like my own fluorescent
cum shines in our black
bedroom
last night
how BLACK the night was
in our bed
the street-light must be out
or the vapor-lamp on the side
of the adjacent apartment-
building is busted
it's never been so dark
in the bedroom
& my cock is richie
havens
my cock is richie
havens
southern gal
shut that mouth
upon this pole
of peace
of peacefulness
of a dream
maybe
i am richie
havens
my entire
6 foot
body is
cock
or a sheer
snake of
sperm
nodules
shimmering
hissing
the road
goes on
but erie
is the furthest
interstate
79 can go
then it's
just fresh
water
40 miles
across
canada
what i smell
certainly mushroom
soup
yes absolutely
& the chunks of brown'd
beef, garlic, generously,
like living in a generous
soundtrack,
onions & butter
popping in a pan
with ann standing
stoned on hashish
like a syrian
woman stirring
a pot of
rice
an appalachian
syrian woman
is making us
a meal
fit for
kings
queens
of the
universe
the entire
drunken universe
of couples on an
early saturday night
right
i can imagine it as
midnight
i cannot
i want food
i smell biscuits baking
i smell under ann's
arm
her ass-
hole
special
places of
us
what
we
flesh
we
accept as unity
look how
reality is
a linear
line from
baby-dribble
to alzheimer's-drool
grace slick
was edible
her fat
fingers shove
pills
thru my fat lips
the old buick
i've been meaning to start
it up since we haven't been driving
the buick. jeep, instead, what with
snow & ice. single digit overnight
temperatures -- i don't want
the old buick's engine-block to crack;
so i try to run the thing
idle in the parkinglot. well,
my intention hasn't manifested into
action until just a little bit ago.
key in, & vrroom, like a pro.
it's been a damn good car
even if the driver's side window
ought not be down
because it won't ascend
again. & yes, the body
is very much shot, holes,
whole back quarter-panel
is another shade
of rust. inspection-sticker
until this august,
& the tires are about
at their inner-tread limit.
still, only 88,000 miles
on a 1991 buick skylark.
it starts.
it moves.
if the gas-tank
is filled to full
it leaks gas.
oh well.
i went down
into the parkinglot
on a cold afternoon
& turned the ignition.
sit there
in my freakish
slippers
& heavy winter coat
& cars are driving
everywhere.
i sit there.
damn myself for
wearing slippers
& not having my wallet
else i might
rent us videos
for this evening.
that idea's
shot.
i return
to this warm apartment
after letting the old
buick warm up about
15 minutes -- i imagine
it's like blood-flow,
keeping the
blood
flowing
& heart pumping
by
simply
being
able
to sit here, idling.
standing in a side-yard
grandma? i call out
as i enter her kitchen
noticing only about
half of a wall resembles
the real kitchen.
it doesn't matter.
entire rooms expand
into cluttered ballrooms,
then the rush of familiar
& strange people appear.
i see priceless paintings,
crystal prisms cutting
light-rays, a glazed
fresco. i touch
the smooth surface
as if pollock
splatterings were
thickly,
coldly,
laminated. i veer
out a back-door where
my mom has a bee-hive
hair-do & she purses
her red lip-stick lips
very quickly pretending
to kiss aunt gloria
who just arrives.
aunt gloria is smiling
at me,
at everyone.
bill boy is at my side
altho i am sure bill
does not look like
this dream
bill, but we talk
& i even catch a glimpse
of sue ellen, who looks
like bill only as a
girl with longer
hair, smaller.
waves of conversations
all around,
waves of conversing
people i weave
around.
then i'm alone
outside
in weird cloud-cover
sunlight
thinking this is where
we played
wiffle-ball games
& football
with all my cousins as kids
i begin spinning in place
i look up into
the sky
as i
spin
& spin
grandma
androla
died
in
1985.
cousins
i want to phone
all my cousins
on both sides
of the family
just say
hi
how are
you
it's been
30 years
& not much
is new here
just life
& the various
tragedies
& overall comedy
of existence
packed with
these same
genes. a family
tree
branches
are
everywhere like a
lawn of
weeping-willow
& intense
gray clouds of march
over
ellport
over ellwood
city
over new castle
over beaver
falls
& every sunday
we gather
at sitto's
in new castle
or grandma's
in ellport
& anthony
& me used
to sneak away
drive around
getting high
get back
to the clan gathering
& eat
& try
not to
look stoned
i see my cousin
bobbie for a
flash in
a dream -- just
his face,
suddenly
startled
with recognition out of a
crowd.
drop the bombs
this very well-informed government
gentleman is saying yes
yes this is the most precarious
point the united states of amerika
has been in ever, that very
threatening forces are moving
against us simultaneously
from so many directions
we must not panic
stay calm
& true to the course
of freedom
we'll win
the future will be
prosperous
the future
will not
be prosperous
in fact
worse than
this
we'll wake
from the drugs
in the water
& notice
we are
slaves
we work
we consume
like always
but for
real
all along
we've
been wrong
jim beam black
i've just returned from a rainy
afternoon trek in the jeep. mailed
some bills, picked up my prescription,
purchased five $1,000 a week for life
instant lottery tickets
because i thought of it
& thinking of it
is maybe a sign of luck?
of rainy day fantasy?
well, next i hit
the state store
since it's friday.
jim beam black
on sale even,
bottle in a big black
collector's tin too.
sits on the kitchen
table, uncrack'd,
awaiting
the calm flurry of
ann in an
hour.
i'm having coffee
now.
i'm biding
my time.
picture us
throwing back
shots
toasting the war,
toasting peace,
toasting toast,
toasting jim beam
black, toasting
the first day
of spring.
& yes,
later,
we'll
be very toasted;
yes,
twin pieces
of black
toast.
first day of
spring
it's a toledo gray day,
drizzle or just wetness
in the shadowy air.
i'm going bald up on top
& behind my head, i
say look doc i'm losing
my hair he laughs
he grins big
says yeah
we all are
i say don't they
make something
for baldness now
he laughs
he grins like
he can't stop
grinning
let's not worry
about it
he chuckles
stethoscoping
my chest
for a longer
time than
usual
a perfect picture of
health! he announces
i laugh
yeah
maybe i
blush
that was
yesterday
& today
suddenly
it's
today
& i'm getting
balder
& fatter
& crazier
than
ever
why
why don't we strip
no first let's hit all the lights
one candle somewhere
then strip our clothes off
be fat & old & walrus-like
nude
after that, i don't know,
sleep
sleep good & deep
enhancements of
rem ga-
lore
somewhere
we cum
sap
-like
liquids
of love
& people
whisper
people
whisper
about
everything
nobody
cares
half the earth
away
allah
is decapitated
sloppily
a woman
moans
her children
are pieces
of children
dead
grandparents are all dead
great-grandparents dead
a slew of dead relatives
strange dead faces witnessed when an infant
there are dead infants
bukowski is dead
wallace stevens is dead
most poets are dead
dali is maybe dead
warhol especially is dead
jim morrison is certainly
dead
the dead mount in iraq
millions of humans are dying
this very moment fuzzy with the dead
from wild variations of dying
jfk is half a head dead
the aliens are dead & green
on ice dead as lost doors
walt disney dead? houdini dead?
billionaires dead?
me dead?
i'm not dead
you're dead
a thing about
death
you feel a dead person
spread thru you
altho they chill
in a morgue's
wall of vaults.
cold stone.
you blink, sway
with vision, frame
of focus shifts
on somewhat of a face.
you feel wet
with active biology,
electric brain
activity sizzle of thought,
of awe.
as if the dead
fly
up & become
air, they're here,
somewhere
close.
a burial
but the dead watch
from the trees
or in clouds
or over yr
shoulder.
after
some time,
natural morphine,
time,
things
become easier
& the dead
fade
with the rest
of memory --
a life ends.
all lives end.
suspend
from the thought
of eternity's
hook-like moon
kick back
be stars & the swirl of the milky way
the swirl of the milky way
5 a.m.,
eternity
up, out, up, out,
that's how i live
weekends,
out being asleep,
up, awake,
a few hours at a time
i'm up now
chugging a second
glass of molson's
30 degrees outside
in black
night
furnace blows
hot
heat
ann is
asleep
naturally
up at 3:30
in our black
bed she twitches
twitches
snores
mumbles
i'm half-
hallucinating
kangaroos bounding
across a grassy culvert
& folding-chairs
fall into a mud-puddle
so i bounce
my brain up
into the center
of space
fill a beer
then the cellphone
beeps
hello?
talk for an hour
to someone in texas
who has a vast
supply of cocaine
whiskey
kind-bud
xanax & crack
his sweet
girlfriend
is a little concerned
there's a mexican
drug-dealer
crashing there
she has to
hide her
purse in a closet
& i'm to tell
mister filipski
hello she misses
you
otherwise
jellybelly
wants me
to tell cait
he's sorry he didn't
submit to the hold
altho it's the first
time in four years
cait
under-
stand
maybe i can
squeeze a
third full
glass
of
beer
from the little
5 liter
keg-like container
in the
fridge
tilt it forward
gulp
it
down
as
dawn
spins gray light
across
our
red eyes
thousands
of miles
thousands of miles
the beginning
of this poem
i finish washing the dishes,
pans, silverware, glasses,
& cups -- 2 day's worth for
2 old people might not seem like
much, but it is, it is
when you eat like us.
a big, fat pork-roast
sizzles in juices & potatoes
in the crock-pot, smells
so good. the sink-top
is clean & lemony.
the silver jews strum
loud this late afternoon.
this late, gray afternoon
in eternity, rotating,
roasting in april rain-mist.
i don't even look like me anymore.
i'm someone else, almost
50, plump,
balding, jaded.
it's a sharp world out there
& when one spins from here
to there it's as if
time is a sloppy
lathe. clean dishes,
citrus-odor'd kitchen
welds to the smell of
pork-roast & onions &
the silver jews
sound somewhat lou
reed-ish.
"we've never been promised
there was
a
tomorrow".
oh hell yes we were.
ann shld be home
in half an hour,
& between then
& now i'm taking the garbage out.
this poem
will be complete
or what i deem
complete
'd.
you
you don't expect this poem,
this unveiling of actuality.
it isn't right,
exposing reality to the masses.
truth is subjective,
of course, & variables
octopus out a
thousand tentacles
like mouths of
big-mouth bass,
suck life & all the worms
from us.
that's the thing,
every insane moment
is a suction
cup,
gulping
what
we
even think,
& what
do we
think?
christ, it's
incredible
we feel
hate
regardless love
& loveliness.
you see the big
dipper thru yr car's window-shield
& inhale.
you
are
always
inhaling.
this is one of
those poems
there isn't much to say
about anything in particular
nor are there nails
tacking a grand statement banner
about eternity against the stars.
there really isn't a point
i'm trying to push
even if you feel pushed
down to this
next line
way
down
here.
sorry,
this poem
is uncalled for.
a poet must always
speak
& speak
well
because
language
is the tool
of truth
& poetry
is truth.
fuck that,
poets
are
loose-
lipp'd
fools
& truth
is more
momentary
than any
moment.
last night
i'm bundled on our old recliner.
ann is snoring on the couch,
has been for many hours. television
merges into dreams. i mean
my eyes are shut but things
appear visually, audible
too; it's past
rain pelts the window over my
shoulder, across from my left
cheek. a black, wet, windy night.
that's all i know: it's a
black, wet, windy night outside
& i am half
hallucinating,
half not, wrapped in a
blanket
back in a brown
recliner. that's when
the power
goes
out. no tv, no light at all.
ann continues
her nasal, beery symphony,
& i rouse up, stand up,
reach for & find a lighter
& light one of the 5 or 6
tall glass candles we have,
one with our virgin
mary offering
us grace, it's lit,
red wax, flickers
as i walk to the other
window & peek out.
across the street
the world is dead
too, not just our little
apartment is affected.
i make sure i got that
much straight. then i wonder,
a response
to
loss of electricity?
a terrorist
attack on the
northeast
i wake ann
& lead her
to our bed.
i walk out with the candle
& obtain a quick bottle
of busch beer from the fridge,
return to our bedroom
with the candle
& the beer
& go prone too. i tell ann
about the power
going out, she flutters
from sleep like an owl
spins & lifts from a
dark rafter in a cold,
broken barn. she is
flying over nests
of hidden rabbits,
nests like cotton
pillowing
a palm-sized twirling of
twigs & brown grasses.
it's that ear
we hear, as ann
wakes,
night. i gulp
a strange angle
& my stomach
gurgles like a
deep, country well.
then the sirens.
sirens & beeping
approach, blast
outside speeding
down west
descend, disappear,
re-appear, others,
more. that's when
i really consider
terrorism.
the place is getting
cold with the furnace
unable to
operate
in luxury.
i rattle on
about some wise
ideas in the candlelight
& ann mmmmmm's
& shifts &
hugs my free arm.
conspiracy
theories, jfk's
gist of a set-up,
wait,
oswald
was nuts.
ruby
was
nuts.
i'm imagining
nuclear
mushrooms as red
& as
black as
hell on the surface
of earth.
i'm waiting
for the great, vast
wind of
a bomb
blowing us away,
everything
in
crumbling, peeling
away
like wood-
paint & fire.
about 3 a.m.
electricity
returns
& when i
check the internet
i see it's an ice-storm
knocking
down
power-lines,
accidents
at over-
passes where it's
most
slippery,
branches breaking
under
the weight
of glazed ice.
this
isn't
i remind myself.
this isn't
ever again.
i blow
out the
flame.
how we die
cotton
candy
spins
around a tube
of soul
angel-wing strands
of pink & blue sugar
spinning
thicker like
a bee-hive
hairdo
like an evening
cloud across lake
erie like
fabric of the
milky way
a sun bursts
for a trillion years
we ejaculate
one brief moment
gnats
are not newts
nor is a cow
human idea
human
humus
heaven
garlic
varnish
vanish
a
vacuum
cracks
like
dead
poets
bukowski's ghost
he hangs at his house
now -- 9 years have passed
& he didn't dig heaven at all
& hell got so boring one can
scream for only
so long then it's just
a sizzle of
infinity. bukowski's ghost
blends into the paintings
on the walls, molecules swirl there,
the rest of all molecules
spin faster
than his
ghost spins
he feels
pelted by
thick paint-
whips of
paint
he lingers
drenched
within the fabric of canvas
his mentalness
filters upstairs
to his
room
his typewriter
his books &
papers
& half-smoked
cigar
with the ash still bridging
time
& breath in a glass ashtray
where the
world is
song-sprinkles of birds as dawn
brightens the blackness gray
english sparrows
great dog-size'd crows
waddle like charlie
chaplin down a quiet city street
wet with early
april chill
people are
yawning all over town
bend into
their colorless bubbles
of cars
george jetson violins up
into heavy
star traffic
putters
along
oblivious
he's a dream cartoon
we're like
that, oblivious,
puttering along
dreaming
as a friday
begins
on the dewy
surface of concrete
& black-top
earth
black saturday
don't i wish.
unfettered sunlight
white afternoon 46 blocks above
the plateau of lake erie -- ice
is disappearing on the horizon.
day of prolonged torture, hopeless.
as spikes rip up wrists
one must rise to
exhale, one cannot
constantly inhale, things
go very fuzzy with excrutiating
pain involved, serums
fill the lungs,
ya gurgle, moan, hallucinate
& try to rise which only
shreds thru wrist tendons more
plus involves furthering
the wound thru both feet
spiked knee-rise -- raise up
& flesh rips more, & you
must rise, nobody gives up,
completely decapitated
people, headless, pull
the trunk of the body along
searching for the upper torso
grab at grassy yard for a few
minutes until hopelessness
says fuck you
fuck you
fuck you you're done.
then don't this fuck
ascend & materialize
as ghost tomorrow a couple
thousand years ago
it's all very angelic
magic that continues into
our normal world of whining
& no wine, ann is getting
her shit together
not me i'm spreading my shit wider
circle of swirling light
visual spectrum we see & recognize
as reality -- nothingness, actually,
a very tiny experience
of monstrous existence.
what do we know but things
sprouting from our skin
that know our names
some of our secrets
& nothing about singular mas-
turbation turbo-powered technology
our skin rots off us like
wet red rags
when we are most
beautiful.
across the
street
portishead is what i want
playing on my death-bed, please.
portishead & morphine
& an insistence on poetry
tho i am very
bed-ridden: dictation please,
sweet-heart, shut up
& write it,
don't argue,
spin from yrself &
record
this intense, immense history
of a man
in the world,
across the street
a sun-glassed 30-something
successful large home-owner
is washing his large black suv
tinted black windows
with a green hose rolling out
cold erie water
on a 70 degree late afternoon
in the center of april.
i hate that fucker --
that suv costs more than
i make in a year busting
my sweaty balls
in a whirl of fiberglass dust &
poisonous resin shit.
fuck him, in green shorts,
long white socks,
black shoes,
a better-grade
t-shirt
with his wallet
in his back-pocket,
credit-cards
thicken it,
& cash.
he can afford a few luxuries
over & above
my breaking dreams.
i just want
a shack in the woods,
electricity,
modern plumbing,
paid-for,
a few acres of land.
no neighbors.
a good road.
a good jeep.
a good supply of
essentials &
plenty of booze --
a pound of kind-
est bud
& the rest of my
physical life while
still functionally
sane.
every reader
add me to yr wills.
send me
lottery tickets
or the winnings.
will me stocks & bonds &
left-over
drugs. everyone has
left-over
drugs.
freedom
sitting in checker'd boxer-
shorts writing this poem.
it's a curious supposition
what our great amerikan poets
were wearing as they
changed history to
this,
me, drunk off molson's
on easter sunday evening,
thelonius monk absolutely
is going nuts
in the surround-sound livingroom
what?
ann keeps cooking & cooking things
she is always cooking
something
turnips garlic horse-
radish radishes celery cumin
romaine lettuce leafy stuff lean
beef-cubes water chestnuts
olive oil canola oil green peppers big
yellow-gold onions red potatoes
half-whole carrots cauliflower-flowers
canadian beer i keep
gulping down as ann keeps
filling my mug up
between stirrings at the stove!
as i write in my boxer-shorts!
a most special poem to you!
i want to cry
i haven't wept in
a very, very,
very long time.
there are times
i shld have,
but didn't, backed
the tears
up like a
man. maybe
i'm
so
dry
now
i
can't cry
level'd
on
pills
level'd
on
tenuous awareness
horror
is
beauty
sadness
is
love
fuck
what if i
write a bad poem?
what if
earth's
spin shakes electro-
mag
net
ically?
let's
all
burst into tears
simultaneously
look away
let yr eyes lavishly water
bela
let's get lost in cyberspace night
the pirates are playing the dodgers
in l.a. in the tv-lit livingroom while
whirling here in our playroom
i come online -- ann's
sound
asleep, exhausted in our bed
in the other room, door mostly
shut.
it's an especially black night,
wet, chilly, a little
death in tree-shadows hollows
what echoes for
life blistering in my
head: boil of brain.
boil of brain &
all poets die
all of us
dust & worms
words the dead don't
ever hear
earlier plan nine
from outer space dvd
plays
we howl
we pause it
to do things
then return to ed's dream
bela
oh bela
bela lugosi
alive in 1955
leaves a state
hospital for morphine
addiction, cured, & the
questioning reporter
is a jerk
& the cameraman is
obviously
drunk
but bela
he smiles
black teeth
distance
from here to you
is different than
miles or a new
town beginning
another life with
another night-shift
factory job
maybe in maine
maybe a marilyn
monroe poster
is stuck to my
bed's head-board
& i call all
girls betty
a kid of me freezes
in the 1950's,
duck-tail'd,
oil'd,
curling a smile
like elvis
at life
i think
large eels
are whirling
around inside
my intestines
they gum
my stomach
open
i
leak
lady-like
menstruation
cancer of
the mind
enhancements
we see similar
ways
to be happy
it all means
money
it does
i don't care what
anarchists believe
or don't believe
capitalists
catapult
over
amerika
overdosing
if i want
or if ann wants it more
either way
we can depart
consciousness
this state of gracelessness
& ingest
things
to stop the
heart more
than 4 minutes
eternally
it's slightly
comforting thinking
it's possible
not to think
at all
ever
again
consciousness:
god
death:
god
or not,
nothing
a ghost
world we
slither
between
atoms
& buckling
molecules
& winds of
quarks
or not
a dead brain
thing
blackens
shrivels
as lives
continue
all around
what we
were
& we're
rubbed
away
we
disappear
nobody
conscious
cares
generations
from
this
moment
earth
sours
yellow
disperses
us
disperse
us