Forbidden Fruit

We met through mutual friends

Instantaneous attraction

A years worth of flirtation

Playing out sexual motives

In bars and houses

Always with friends

You were forbidden fruit

But I loved the attention

That night at the bar on 5^th St.

Frustration took our hands

We snuck away from our friends

First you then me around the corner

That car ride to my apartment

Was so nauseating and excruciating

Once we got in my room

Pent up passion overtook

That year melted away

Into passionate intimacy

The crowd came home

And over the balcony you went

Home was your destination

To confess to your wife

And then you migrated

Far away from me

Angry

I watch the news and

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why do the Janjaweed

Rape and mutilate

For land

Religion

Women treated as animals

Children starved

Holy fuck and all we care about is

Gas mileage

DVDs

Football games

Getting enough turkey

Christmas presents

And all they want is not to be raped and mutilated

Not to be fucked out of existence

From the hills I came

Listening to mandolins

Spewing sweet melodies

Floating down that river

Swaying and creaking

Cane pole feeding and pushing

Sitting in limbo

Watching for the delta

To spread before me

Sunsets and sunrises

My only companions

On the Mississippi

In stepped Clara

Normally not an issue

But you cared for this one

Fucking bitch

My reality became

A question of your devotion

My soul mate

Intrigued by another

Sunshine girl

Jealously finally spilled

And my last words were

“Fuck You”

As I hung up the phone

Two weeks later

October 6, 1995

Day before my 21^st

I worked

And my coke dealer

Had special plans for me

I spent the entire night

Snorting the best coke ever

Then there was that flat tire

At 5 am

Got a ride home

Borrowed a vehicle

Went to work

It was only an hour when I got a call

“Are you OK?”

“Sure! I have been up all night

But it’s my birthday

I’ll be ready”

Greg’s voice slowly saying

“Oh shit you don’t know!”

“Know what?”

“I am so sorry, but I cannot be the one”

“They are looking for you”

I finally drag it out of him

Tears filled my eyes

By body was not my own

The phone dropped

Stumbled through the kitchen

All I could say was he’s dead

Early on the 7^th

With a bottle of whiskey

In hand

Chuck sat on the tracks behind his house

Tucked his head down and quit

This tragedy will continue…….If you are just starting go back and read the other two. There is one installment left. But I am getting emotionally drained. I am crying again after 12 years…….Be patient

Spilled Wine

a dropped
bottle of wine
pooling
and
r
u
n
n
i
n
g

down the driveway
smelling of muscadine

“Goddamn I declare have you seen the light?”

From day one your smile impeded breathing

Every morsel of awareness addressed my way

Predestined living or dying

A thousand deaths

In my father’s house

I told you about this

Fucked up feeling inside

And you had it too

Goddamn, one year was all I got

And I did not even appreciate it

I took it for granted

Slept around (as did you)

I think that was the agreement

I remember the little details

The Spanish Harlem

Snorted up our nostrils

Hunting trails

Smoking bowls

Lying on the hood

Keg parties’ tequila and cheese

Climbing three stories

Instead of the stairs

Keeping your socks under your bean bag

And dead roses scattered everywhere

Charlotte ’95 encoring

“The Mighty Quinn”

Wrestling and fucking

So turned on by this bizarre

Energy that just crept up

On us every time we came

Into contact

Together and separate

I learned the ways of the head

Jerry my divine intervention

A manifest destination

Of love and peace

No longer just the dealer

But the lover of you

It was indeed

The happiest year of my being

Nevertheless

In crept strife

C. Part ONe

I lived on First Street, Apt. A

Knowing all the people

Loving all the crowds

As long as the drugs were flowing

And the jam bands playing

Life was perfect

I lived from place to place

Drinking smoking snorting

Tripping my balls off

Promiscuous and thriving

Caring and still staying distant

Dying on the inside everyday

And not even knowing

What it meant to exist

Thinking good beer, music, and smoke

Is all I needed to live

Joe and Greg said

You got to meet this guy

You will love him just open your mind

And he will buy and so will his hippie friends

It is a whole new outlet for your market

I was intrigued by their words

But I hated dirty hippies and the smell of patchouli

And their vagabond gypsy customs

And their undying devotion to Jerry

My would be put on the standards were on the edge

But I went to that Apartment

On the third floor at Fifth Street

And met you head to head

In that small empty apartment holding an

Assemblage of “H”eads sitting on the edges

DEAR YAHWEH those eyes grasped me

Eyes like yours have never penetrated my exterior

Staring back at me with such supremacy and trepidation

Stealing my oxygen and my whole being

Rendering me incapable of singular thought

As I looked in your eyes and saw your dark soul

I knew from that moment that I would never forget

I was petrified and vulnerable in your gaze

Paralyzed into slavery, you acting as master

I knew I would not leave you, unless you pressed

You loved me instantly and unconditionally

As I loved you with the same terms

But your soul was dead barely shining

Lost forever to something unspeakable

And there I started my race to save it