I woke up and had a dream that went bad but it was social. On a vacation or a trip or something with my girlfriend (it was my ex-girlfriend who was now my girlfriend for some reason but I accepted it). We did a lot of hiking and lugging clothes to a remote house or cabin in the woods. I remember suites and dresses on hangers and we made it in the cabin to meet up with families we knew and children running around. I had a bad feeling but my girlfriend was feeling fine. We hung out for a while and then it became a scene out of The Hills Have Eyes, the remake not the original. It was like some kind of horror movie with savages or cannibals suddenly attacking.

I tried to protect my girlfriend and the children but I was so afraid when suddenly these men that looked like huge skeletons. Some had dark black skin and others had albino skin. Every time they came to attack us the children would rat something and they would back off like Frankenstein’s monster from fire. It was a beautiful chant I wish I could remember. Instead of attacking us they stole our belongings. Most of them. I saw some of my suits left trashed along with my girlfriend’s dresses. She clung to my arm and asked if we could leave and I obliged. Her friend came up to us as we were in the clear and near the car. He said we have to leave because of Laura. I had no idea who Laura was. I woke up.

I fell back asleep and ended up in a house with guys I knew in my dream but not in real life. They were drug dealers. Big white bald guys that reminded me of skinheads. I was hanging out with skinhead drug dealers that could kick my ass and I felt very comfortable. I wasn’t doing drugs or anything I was just talking and watching television. A couple of times the police came in and couldn’t find anything. The second time they came in I went up stairs and showed them a small throw rug in my hand and opened it up innocently to show them I wasn’t carrying anything. I accidentally covered for my “friend” who was holding crack, cocaine and heroin. He showed me once we got upstairs. I remember thinking he only sold weed because that’s what I bought from him. He disappeared into another room and I found some cats to play with.

I wandered back downstairs when I heard the police leave. There were several guys hanging out and they were different then the previous guys yet looked the same. I tried walking out and back in different entrances to see if they would change. I finally gave up and walked outside and the sun was out and I was just below the street standing on stairs. I looked up and saw what looked like prostitutes above me. They started pulling fishing lines with baggies of crack up the stairs to sell. There were so many being pulled they were hitting my face and went in  my mouth. I kept a little in my mouth and put the rest in my hand and wandered down the stairs trying to figure out how I was going to smoke the remaining rocks oblivious to my surroundings. I woke up.

I sat and reflected and started to fantasize about doing crack and it wasn’t good. I thought of my heart and the dangerous places I’d have to go to get it. I prayed and went back to sleep.

I had several other dreams through the night that woke me up but can’t remember. I finally woke up at 5 am for the day in a good mood despite the bad dreams and the fact I was awake 2 and half hours before the alarm was set. I felt better than I have for this entire week. Odd. My low energy depressive week passed and I feel up and ready to go. I’ll probably take a nap later.

My brain is functioning yet my body can’t move. Glued to the couch unable to even change the channel with the remote. I want a cigarette but can’t lift my arm to light it.

I can feel my insides shake nervously. Rapidly. My heart is beating a mile a minute yet I can’t move my body. My head is unfocused. The television is in front of me making blurred sounds and images.

I pray. I cry. I take deep breaths.

Finally, I can move just enough to get to the pill bottle and swallow anti-anxiety meds, I manage to sit up and wait. I fall back down.

It passes. Now I am worn out from the experience. Tired.

Whew.

Ugly people making

An Ugly neighborhood

Uglytown

Someone tapped y head walking the neighborhood

He made an uglier face than

He already had and ran ahead of me.

I was scared for my life, wife and money

We were together

My new wife and

My Best friend

Shopping on the border of

My ugly town

Uglytown

With ugly people

I spot Marie

Walking with a younger

Handsome me

She waves to me

From outside the store

I tell my girl who knows her

And we go outside while

Marie is inside another store

On the border of

Ugly town

Uglytown

We meet up with Marie who is with 2 older

Heavy men, one older I find out

One younger version of the older

Looking inbred and dirty

Assuming one of them is Marie’s boyfriend

We made a wrong turn and almost ended up

In ugly town, my town, my home.

Uglytown

We were at a restaurant of some sort in a mall

A mall with a view of an ugly town, my ugly town

Uglytown and

It’s ugly people

It was me, myself, my girlfriend with no name,

My best friend with no name, Marie, the guy

I thought was her new boyfriend and

What or who looked like her boyfriend’s father

It occurred to me that the older guy whose scraggly hair and beard kept growing and getting grayer might be her boyfriend

The film crew was set up and a new arrival besides the crew said

“Action”

The show officially started as we suddenly found things to talk about as if I knew my lines for a film or TV show I had no idea I was part of. I looked at my girlfriend and she stayed in character

Asking what the inbred dirty redneck friends of Marie do for a living.

I knew my friend and girlfriend were waiting for an answer hoping

The answer was something I could do and get me in a real job

The younger guy who was touching Marie said

They started a business installing lights or something similar.

I was going to ask him more and out table got distracted

By a fight breaking our down below in the food court

Children fighting children

Ugly children fighting

Pretty children and

In between children fighting

Pretty children fighting ugly children

In an ugly town, my Uglytown

Uglytown

The war has begun

I woke up

I went outside and lit a cigarette

I heard gunshots

I saw police lights in the distance of the ugly town

My ugly town

My ugly home

Uglytown

I heard the voice on a megaphone

Telling someone to drop the gun

I finished my cigarette

Business as usual on a Thursday night

Back to my

Safe little room

Escaped in a book

Oh ugly town, oh Uglytown

I’ll miss you one day

Uglytown

It started on some sort of shopping spree and she was taking me to different places buying me things and holding my hand and I was confused because she wasn’t in her guardian angle form. Not that she ever is. I call her my guardian angel because she has lead me away from negative situations and helped me out in previous dreams. She is based on a real girl I know in her mid-late 20s that I rarely talk to and see online once in a while. I named her Carmella the first time I wrote about her in a blog titled Dream Girl is my Guardian Angel but her name is Bailey. She won’t read this and if so . . . well I’ll deal with or not then.

So Bailey is taking me to familiar and unfamiliar places and we are happy. I felt the way I used to feel when I was on vacations with previous girlfriends during the courting or just past the courting stage. In the back of my head I was confused. First of all, she has a boyfriend and it seems they’ve been together since high school.  She would rarely give me the time of day in real life. Not to say she was or is a snob. She just never had a reason to talk to me. I’ve admired her from afar. I also didn’t know where were in the dream. It felt like Philadelphia and New York with a touch of San Francisco. Maybe my writing about hanging out with a few girls in San Francisco in my next novel is rubbing off into my dreams.

We ended up kissing on the sidewalk wherever we were. Heavy making out. I felt her tongue hit my tonsils and loved it. I haven’t had a kiss like that in almost 2 years. We hugged and then hurried to our hotel room. In the dream I went with it as if I knew there was a room. I settled in the room and saw her take her clothes off and she came to me again and kissed me wearing her white bra and panties. I was still in shock and thrilled to realize it was a dream. It was more real than being awake. She was dressed again. And I followed her outside to the sidewalk. Her boyfriend was there and she looked at me in a way I knew she was going to give him another goodbye talk. Then she took him into my room at a new house and we were no longer at the hotel.

I let them have their time. I was overall confident that Bailey was mine but still was anxious for him to leave. It reminded me of when I dated a married woman that was separated and the 3 of us hung out. I walked into the living room and it was a combination of a few houses I’ve lived and my aunt and uncle’s house in Michigan. My grandmother was alive and there with aunts and uncles and cousins. My blood relatives and my adopted relatives were all there. I was so distracted by having my fantasy girl, my dream girl after going so long without love I had trouble enjoying my family. Everyone was talking to me. Someone said that I was going to miss my flight home. I thought I was home and Bailey and her boyfriend were in her my bedroom. I felt love in the room but I wanted the love in the bedroom, forgetting Bailey has appeared as my guardian angel in the past.

I thought of her kiss, closed my eyes and smiled. I woke up and it was only 11 pm. I felt happy for some reason even though I never resolved anything in the lucid dream. It will come to me. It always does.

Also read my poem called Guardian Angel Protection

I woke up inside America’s asshole. The curves of the genitals bounce and I feel them. Cry. No cry. I lick the squirrel’s tail with the leopard skin and howl at the Sunlight ripping me apart and sunglasses don’t help except if I let them but I don’t let them. I just sit and cry. No cry. Juggernauts of fur fall from the clear blue ceiling painted for you before you left me for a better Country.

Constipated America has me trapped. Anxiety and Seroquelian dreams. I’ll take my rest and panic anywhere I can get it. Pills. No more pills please!! I wait patiently for an answer. A fart. A rumble. Something. You. Sorry, no visitors up here down there. I’m tender and cold. I light a match to America’s colon only to see more darkness. Oh I wish I had a Magic 8 Ball. Medium. Ghost hunter. A smoke. Candy.

Drip, drip oh dearest America. I hear what’s going on outside this infernal sphincter of yours and laugh and cry. No cry. I’ll just sit and wait.

Barry

One Sunday I went to the Baltimore Museum of Visionary Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art. I went with a girl I work with named Janet, her friend Lenora, and their Museum Education teacher Barry. Although I’ve shared a few rides and a few cigarettes with Janet I was riding for two hours with relative strangers. Janet picked me up in at 8th and Market where the Patco Speedline (Jersey to Philadelphia train) dropped me off. I got in the car and we made our obligatory introductions. “Hi. Good to meet you.”

I sat in the back seat next to Barry. Janet drove with her friend as co pilot. Barry was pretty cute. She had most of my requirements for a fuck fantasy. Cute face, skinny, decent tits, and long legs. But she’s probably an idiot. She was dressed very normal. Trendy jeans and standard shoes and jacket. I started to write everyone off as an idiot when I first met them at that point in my life. I was also willing to change that if I had to.

Janet’s friend, Lenora seemed to be one of those babbling women. She picked up where she left off before I got in the car. Something about her workman’s compensation not covering her tuition and who she wants to sue. She’s already got a few strikes against her for being beastly looking. I don’t want to feel like this but I do.

I especially can’t stand women that incessantly complain.

When the topic finally switched to something else thanks to Janet, I was still bored. Janet brought up seeing the band or performer or whatever it is called some name I can’t remember but sounds like she’s saying Herbal Essence. “They played on David Letterman and it was the greatest thing in the world and I can’t believe Letterman made fun of them. ” “Let’s put on the their cd.” “I think I have it right there.” They put it on and were singing along and I can’t even describe the crap I was hearing.

I came prepared for something to read. Jim Goad’s Shit Magnet was definitely great escape from this ordinary madness I was trapped with. I read for about a half an hour before Barry wanted to look at the book I was reading. I gave her my best watered down version of who Jim Goad is and his influence on me etc. She was surprisingly interested. So the ride perked up a little.

Conversations became more interesting and so did Barry. She was twenty-nine years old. She has an under graduate degree in Art History. She was working towards her Masters degree in Museum studies. I actually like people that are cultured. I wasn’t used to it on my personal life.. She was also down to earth. She wasn’t pretentious but she knew her shit.

I guess I’ve become a bit of an Art History common sore myself. I’ve learned a lot more than I thought I knew working at the Art Museum for a year. Enough to carry an intelligent conversation to a certain degree. I’ve also gained an interest in outsider, folk and self-taught art.

I couldn’t wait to see Rev Howard Finster’s creations live in person at the Museum of Visionary Art. He was best known for his Garden of Eden junkyard installment in his own yard. Sam Doyle was a nice surprise. I discovered him at the American Folk Art Museum in NYC. Real raw paintings of people on pieces of steel. And I found new artists to drool over. Elizabeth Layton, an eighty something year old artist who does these detailed cartoon style drawings that are almost reminiscent of Alice Neel, another old lady self taught artist with national fame. Barry and I bonded a little more and we seemed to end up together separated from Janet and her friend. Either I was following her or she was following me. In my head I still kept my distance

The Baltimore Museum of Art was also fantastic. The Modern contemporary exhibit is so much more extensive and intense than the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There was plenty of Warhol, and Raushenberg,art etc. Barry introduced me to and explained Zoey Leonard. Zoey Leonard takes fruit and sews it back together after eating the fruit inside. It represents death and decay of humans. I enjoy someone explaining some of the art to me and she was a good teacher. When she took off her jacket I thought that she was a great teacher with a nice ass.

We went through the Cone exhibit.

“In the early 20th century, two Baltimore sisters-Claribel and Etta Cone assembled one of the most important art collections in the world. Visiting the Paris studios of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, they acquired an exceptional collection of art, which they displayed in their Baltimore apartments. The sisters also collected paintings by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, and Renoir, and a variety of textiles, jewelry, furniture, and African, Asian, and Near Eastern art. Cone Wing galleries provide an intimate setting in which to view these masterpieces as well as insights into the sisters’ diversity as collectors.” A tour guide said.

It was pretty amazing. They also had this virtual reality touch screen that’s bigger than my TV. You can navigate your way around the collection on screen.

We’re all got pretty hungry by five o’clock since none of us but Barry ate all day. I had a pretzel but that doesn’t count. A fellow patron at the Museum suggested this Italian restaurant that I can’t remember the name of. We hit the gift shop then headed on our final mission together to get something to eat.

We pulled up to this Italian restaurant and it was next to a place called Moe’s Seafood. We thought since we were in Baltimore we should try seafood so Moe’s it was. The second we walked in the nasty stank of bad fish hit us. We looked around and it looked horrible. Dirty tables. Smoke filled room. We left and went back to the Italian restaurant. After all, a Baltimorean recommended it so it must be great. We walked in and it was the opposite of Moe’s. It was fancy and we were under dressed. We waited ten minutes to get seated and another fifteen at the table. We were starving so we left.

We walked the streets for another half of an hour before we ended up on Broadway and there were so many restaurants we panicked. So Barry fixed her eyes on a place called Bertha’s with a big sign that said “Eat Bertha’s Muscles”. It was telling us what to do so Bertha’s it was.

Bertha’s was a just a bar when we walked in. There was nowhere to sit. We were going to give it up but I spotted the sign that said Dining Room. We squeezed our way through the bar to the Dining Room. We were seated immediately. The service was fast. The food was awesome. We shared muscles and the laughs. Great conversations and I felt our bond growing even more as Barry shared personal stories and experiences. At one point she touched my thigh while laughing at some joke. I caught myself thinking about her naked. I caught myself thinking it’d be really different to get with a woman that has her shit together. I immediately dismiss these thoughts because they usually lead to nowhere anyway.

The trip home was comfortable. We all spent an entire day together and still liked one another. We were laughing and joking even more. The flirting and the connections were growing stronger and stronger. I knew better. It would all mean nothing to anyone here after a week or two. I shook her hand goodbye and said “it was nice meeting you.” I got out of the car and left Barry behind me.

I never saw her again and it’s better that way. The attraction. The flirting. The exchange of personal information. The temporary connection. It probably meant nothing to her. Sure she’ll say “Pete was a nice guy or Pete was cute.” but it really doesn’t mean anything. She’ll forget about me. Times like this used to mean something to me. Now it’s just what people do. We share moments. We share blocks of time and whether we bond or connect only mean something for that short time. I still remember these times but I don’t feel them anymore.

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Rose Colored Goggles (for Joe B)

Speaks slowly as if expectations are for you to savor every word

When he’s not too busy exercising his inherent talent for listening

To the ranting, venting and complaining of others.

The secret mystic patiently awaits his turn to react and advise Wisely his positive spin on whatever it is

I am self absorbedly going on on on and on and on about persistently like an ADD child demanding attention

Intuition and listening are his gifts yet unrecognized because of his

ASSociations with the mentally challenged or selfish, self absorbed people in his life.

He has answers but has learned through the years to wait to share them

We are not always ready for the answers

As you get to know and love him you realize he is human too

Moody, judgmental and self righteous like the rest of the world

Showing this side to only the closest of allies

We and or I accept this for all he has endoured with our friendship

Through years upon years

Relationship dynamics change as with all intelligent free thinkers and sometimes we grow apart and then grow back together stronger

A selfless man in actions sets the example I strive for.

Well grounded yet spiritual, mystical, creative and verbally expressive.

I call this man

I repeat man

As my best friend

And a major contributor to society and God’s world.

Not like Martin Luther King Jr

Probably not

A nightmare

Did Dr King have nightmares?

I do

Not often that I recall

Incisive nightmares

I am a prisoner for a crime I never committed

Imprisoned in jails, institutions, and basements

I was a prisoner in a house

The house in Camden I grew up in

Didn’t grow up but lived there

Only access to the house next door where my cat, Betty

Was held prisoner also

I knew I would get out

I was innocent yet I felt guilty

Depressed and optimistic

My adopted mother was a prison guard of sorts

Not listening to me

Judging me

She always thought I was guilty

When other mothers said “not my son or daughter”

My mother would say “It was probably my son”

I was afraid and confident amongst fellow inmates

I knew from elementary school

From high school

From college

From the internet

And you were in the next cell

Laughing madly

I snuck next door in my Camden row home prison to

Visit Betty

She was happy to see me but afraid of getting caught

She gave me a kiss and hid under a bush

I was happy she was alive

My only love in this world had returned

I snuck into the house to find my valuables hidden in the basement

In a crawlspace

Rotted books, records, art and clothes

I held up a t-shirt covered in rusted buttons

For some reason I felt that I was being held against my will

As a result of my books, records, art and t-shirts

Contraband in some minds that lack freethinking

I woke up in the prison of my cozy bed

Sweating

Relieved

Until I looked out the window and the view

To the outside was the same

NOTE: HOURS OF VISITATION ARE FROM 12 PM TO 8PM WEEKDAYS AND 8 AM TO 10 PM ON WEEKENDS

Please drop by and bring cigarettes to trade for food

White boy trapped                      on a bus     on the first floor of

Social Services

On the second floor of                 Social Services

In the basement of

Social Services.          Too many people

Too much NOISE. NOISE. NOISE.

Black people hollering,

Hallowing in their phones and

At each other across

The over crowded diseased waiting room

Puerto Ricans speaking in tongues

So fast and loud it hurts         while the Mexicans Remain still watching their children

Jump from chair to chair to chair

Eloquently                              Annoyingly

Too much NOISE. NOISE. NOISE.

White people scream at their children

Children cry. Cry. Cry baby. Cry babies everywhere.

Every floor. Every waiting room.

On the first floor of                                         Social Services

On the second floor of

Social Services.

In the basement of               Social Services.

I try to hide in my books                  Hide in my head

I want to scream until I get relief

Relief when my name is called.

When I leave I walk speedily to the bus stop to face mre people waiting to

Overcrowd the bus and I get claustrophobic.

On the bus. My goal is to get off as soon as I can.

White boy trapped no longer.

Jumps off the bus several stops early and

I walk home almost in peace.

No muggers.

Just beggars.

“Gimme a cigarette?”

“Do you gots a quarter?”

I open the door to my home and feel relief and brief

FREEDOM.

I realize I am still a white boy trapped in

My own home

As the sun goes down.

At least there’s not much noise here.

Translators of Tomorrow

To wrap inconstancy in dimension

a continuum to itself

by holding a moment to the glare

as translators of tomorrow

All goes on

but in grasping some back

a touch

so compelling

we breathe both

the air of now and before

as in unison.

The renewal and the change

blend

in a new configuration

of what must be said

to be forgotten

and remembered.

Somewhere echoes speak

for some

they float – always waiting.