Rent Money

One could clearly make out that Miguel was of Latin decent by looking at his complexion and his high cheekbones. His long hair was held back by a scarf of light satin originating in some poor country where textiles where sold cheaply. He spoke perfect English, I never did ask of his nationality.
I had considered buying some speed. It was readily available in every country in the world, at least the countries I had visited. Junkies were easy to locate by a trained eye. Caved in jowls and lips that formed their toothless crooked cock eyed smiles, not really smiles moreover untrustworthy grin. Miguel had warned me not to invite that devil into my life yet somehow I couldn’t resist. I think it was speed, not exactly an expert on the subject I suppose it could have been anything, never the less we snorted a few lines and then smoked some mixed with Miguel’s dime bag.
I reach for my worn pants that drape over the old wooden hardwood chair; into the pocket again hoping to somehow find the 1000 pesos I had previously discovered missing. A small packet of white powder in plastic wrap is all I find. Either I sell the packet or fall into the grips of addiction. A sudden knock on the door startles me as the landlord announces that he’s on the loose for the rent money, I’m only behind one month, which consists merely of fifty-five dollars. I petition the thought of whether he would be interested in the plastic wrap package. “Go away!” The pounding persists so I answer the door and explain that I’ll have his rent money this afternoon, no later than tonight.

Tattoo

I want a tattoo
but you don't know who I am
I'm a mad artist
and a poor writer
With art in the bowels of
that gallery
with Michael
that short
strange faced man
Telling me I'm
one of his permanent artists
As I suffer through lack of sales
with mad hair in the mirror
Someone said I'd be discovered
in Nelson
but I'm going to Jacksonville
to find myself
Where poets and freaks gather
where poets and freaks are the same
Where my friend will put music to
my word
In Jacksonville
they can give me a tattoo
All I know of this place
is a few pages of newspaper
and a friend
who can put music to
my word
In Jacksonville
they can give me a tattoo
I'll see you there
as I quiver on stage
if I make it
Maybe they'll remember me
and my friend
who puts music to my word

Dime Bag

I lie on my hard bed wearing nothing but black socks, flicking snot from my finger out the glassless barred window. Atop of me an old Mexican blanket faded by the sun. I’ve been carrying the savior of a blanket for years rolled affixed to my pack. It was my sole possession the night I left Reina’s closet apartment. A crusted rooster calls to the humid morning. I’ve been awake since 4:00am with the shakes and a rumbling sickness in my stomach. The morning finds me missing 1000 pesos. A radio loud and steady when the landlord awakens greets my day.
Miguel always said speed was the hardest to quit. I had met Miguel in the center of town, we both frequented the zocalo at night to drink alone and write sad poetry. That was the plan to sit alone yet it seldom ended that way. Miguel carried a dime bag of weed in his back pocket. It was flattened from sitting in the park on hard concrete benches that got cold at night. There he sat nightly puffing on a joint. It may have been the same joint night after night for he only ever had two puffs then put it away after snubbing the little red cherry that had only begun to glow. I guess that’s what brought me to meet him.

who could keep up with that

The night
was hotter than
a hash-oil hot knife
He just wanted to drink
and get drunk
that's all he
wanted to do
Her asshole looked like
it had been in a train wreck
it was hungry
with pain
Long neck wine bottles
and candle stick past
Who could keep up with that?
He just wanted to drink
and get drunk
thats all he wanted to do
His writing was getting dark
His art, piled in the corner
His truck was at the side of the road
with a crack in the glass
and a bottle half through
He just wanted to drink
and get drunk
thats all he wanted to do

At The Cabin

Thought we had grown out of that as the car drifts sideways then backward at an excess of 80mph. Dust pooling up over the rear window as the ditch approaches in a backward backwood skid. He falls from the drivers seat onto the dirt, his head scraped and red. He crawls to the firepit, laying on his side, he attempts to roll a cigarette.

Reina

I had met a young stripper in Mexico where Latin music played so loud to bruise the bananas and cantaloupes. She had led a painfully difficult existence. Thrown from her family at the tender age of thirteen to hustle on the streets of Mexico City where she pulled wallets like toll passes surviving from the riches of her tricks. Prostituting her unripe body to old horny men of the night. She had experienced life at a rapidly accelerated pace. When I first made her acquaintance she was no more than sixteen. I had been robbed of all but a few mere pesos in the hard luck city, which situated me in a desolate bar drinking my last cerveza. Reina that was her name, which in Spanish meant “queen”, carried no pretence to steal from me as she could clearly make out I had nothing but bad luck. She bought a few beers for us as she told me of her existence. The day fell into darkness as she lured me into her realm. I followed her to a dingy closet of an apartment to where we dined on one another for what felt like eternity. She had stolen something from me, my inhibition. She had thrown it out the one small open window through the iron bars that held us in. We performed unprotected sex for months on end until finally she became ill in the mornings. She told me she found a doctor who would gladly exchange a blowjob for an abortion. Which was about the same time as she aborted me from her life. I’ll never forget those days and nights in that dark apartment making love and drinking cheep red wine.

Lies

Tell me you screwed 30 girls in two years,
tell me you knocked out the best street fighter in town,
tell me you can outdrink any fool.
Just don't tell me something you think I wanna hear,
not the sad excuse why my parts are late,
not the line
that I'm next in line with a dozen in front of me.
What the fuck happened,
all of a sudden the world is free to these fucken liers.
Every service manager trained to lie.
I'm telling you,
it seems one needs a mediator
just to get through
the daily bullshitters
bullshitting you
about bullshit.

Further Than She's Ever Gone

She's never left the valley
Not since I've been with her
The old girl
did better than me today
Hit the bottle hard
the night before
had to beat insomnia for the drive
The 351 modified
purred over the mountains
Ditches filled with schitzo
white tail
Ready to leap
at me in 4th gear
at any instant
Nine bears on the trip
never stopped for a photo
Had to tape the
wiper switch on
As rain fell from
the Alberta sky
Stopped at Storm Mountain Service
on our way home
Bought a couple of
Vermillion Lager
and a V-8
She roared up the hill to
Boom Lake
to suck 'em back
That's when I
grew alive
All comes to life
after a couple a cool ones

Stuck Up Bob's Creek

Found the snow line
Backed into a muddy water bar
Drank Old Milwaukee
Cheered to being unstuck
Great day

Tire Tracks

Denny and Jack had been putting in long hours sling'n mud in the pipeline ditches. After twenty straight they were in for a four-day weekend. They loaded into the old white car that Denny had bought from some innocent family. The car they refered to as "The Shark". They had searched every nook and cranny of that old car, ridding it of roaches or anything incriminating as the plan was to cross the border into the land of cheap beer and girls. The border hounds waved them through easy, Jack was disconcerted that they had left all their stash on the Canadian side. So they hit the first gas station for a trunk load of beers. Up and over the Driving To The Sky highway. They landed in some small American town with more than one hideout to drink. The girls were mostly paired up with cowboys, they wore Wrangler pants and western shirts with sleeves rolled to show their tanned brown cowgirl skin. It was going to be difficult as neither Jack nor Denny resembled cowboy appeal. Well Denny wore western boots with his frayed denim pants, it was more of a seventies look than that of western comparison. Jack just appeared as a drunk not much for looks, but man could that guy string a line. It was working for ol' Jack he had cornered two single girls. He worked to accompany them at their table. Not sure how long it took for those two to out-drink the girls and make asses of themselves, but nevertheless they lost 'em. Off to the next watering hole where they had a rotation of women to drink with, but by closing time it was slim pick'ns. I can say they weren't the slimmest girls those boys left with. Denny had been driving, but he decided the girls should drive out of sheer chivalry. Jack hooked up with the one in the rear seat and Denny was sitting close to the driver, he had his arm around her and a smile on his face. Jack began to go crosseyed as he reached for a feel. Dizzy drunk on cheap beer and overweight girls, Jack passed out. When he awoke the following morning, The Shark had came to rest in a widespread field planted tall with some kind of wheat. Denny was passed out in the front seat with his pants rolled down to his knees. Jacks' first concern was that of the wad of cash they communally had rolled and stashed in the long tongue of an ashtray. "Hey Denny wake up, is the money still there?" Denny pulled the ashtray open to find it empty of the roll of cash, then pulled his pants up. "You stupid fucker, why did you let those girls roll us?" "It's not my fault you stupid drunk!" "Well you let them drive." "What's that got to do with anything?" I think Jack swung first, that's how I got the story, but Denny caught him a good one right above the left eye. It split Jack open to bleed on the red interior of the back seat. "That fucken hurt!" Jack said. Denny sat back in the front seat and lit a smoke. "Turn the car on, I'm fucking cold," Jack said wiping the blood from his eyebrow. Denny reached for the keys to notice they were missing, nowhere to be found. "That's just fucking great," Jack retorted. "Shut up or your other eye will be bleeding," Denny offered. Jack slammed the back door behind him and said, "It was a lucky shot and a cheap one at that." "What was that?" Denny questioned. "I gotta take a piss," Jack walked through the trampled tire tracks that had been left behind from the fat girls getaway vehicle, opened his fly and began to piss when he noticed the car keys in the long grass. "Holly shit Denny, look what I found." Jack prided the keys in his hand. Denny had been searching the seats for loose change. "Got enough to get us across the border." They started The Shark, turned up the heater and followed the tire tracks out of the field. Once at the paved road they had no sense of direction, so they flipped a silver dollar that Denny had found down in the crevice of the front seat. "Heads we go right." The coin showed tails. Luckily they drove directly into the little western town, topped the car off with $12.45 and headed for the border.

Hungry Drunks

Jack fell into a deep red wine buzz, pulling his chair near to the wood heater to stir the ambers about. The crackle of the cabin fire kept him close. The slight whisp of sun was falling into the snow-covered afternoon hillside. Jack had been writing throughout the dull grey day. It was evident, Jacks writing hadn't found certain fame. The publishing company had lost his manuscript in a pile of unpublished disappointments. Jack knew he was far from an exceptional writer, he'd have to wait in line. His fingers stained with black ink and saturated red wine. His old friend kept calling, filled with expectation. He felt Jack's writing was soon to be discovered. It was most likely because of his personal accounts within Jacks stories. Hopeful. Yet, fame hadn't shown face at Jack's door in quite some time. Not since the local authorities had drug his name through the mud to publish in the local rag. Something about "public drunkenness" along his way home holding dear to him his gin and tonic, not to spill a drop. Oh those cops couldn't bare to let such eloquent bliss go unnoticed. So they marched old Jack off to the drunk tank to share space with the pyromaniacs,insomniacs and hungry drunks.

The Landlady

Jack pulled into the cooling shaded parking lot as the sun was setting behind the tall fir and cedars. He rang the service bell beside the door next to the phone booth. No one came to the door. Jack located the landlady exercising a horse in the back yard. On his way to her he passed two young men talking. "It's like I was lying to myself." "Exactly!" "When I saw the ravens above the river, I knew I had found home." "It was the ravens for me too." Jack approached the landlady, whom appeared as though she could be described as the lamblady with tight curls and a lamb's face. She was simple and pleasant as she told Jack there was only a camper trailer available out back, but it would be chilly as temperatures were dipping well below freezing. "No, that's fine I'll push on then." "There is one cabin kind of available," the lamb offered. "But..., I have to remove some of the contents by tomorrow morning." "That's all right," Jack replied. "Maybe I could let you have it for $30.00, but you'll have to be out early and you can't use the shower, that will be the only way I can let you stay." "No problem!"
Jack washed the rat-shit from behind his ears as he let the hot shower water warm his chilled being, then he wiped down the stall and hoped she wouldn't notice. He found two cubes in the ice tray, poured himself some scotch from his flask, grabbed a can of beer, then resided in the bedroom to read Bukowski. He fell asleep around 8:30pm. Jack woke early and continued to read. One of the short stories had aroused him slightly, he decided to pleasure himself. He became hard, it felt good after all the traveling, He was nearly there, then came a knock at the door. It was the lamb. He decided not to finish off. "The monthly tenant is taking over the cabin at noon, and I still have to remove some things from inside." She went away, Jack could hear her hooves exiting the small deck. He thought about what it would have been like to mount her there in his private stable. He thought about how men had been mounting sheep for centuries, probably in the green fields of Europe. It was an arousing thought. The deepest of secrets, alone in the pastures. Jack stiffened and attempted to finish off. Someone was at the window, just through the shades. It was the lamb's shepherd, he had come to staple plastic over the window for the winter months.
Jack got up and dressed.

Hot Sauce

"That hot sauce gave me heartburn," Jack said. He said he couldn't sleep because of it. He wanted deep sleep, the kind of sleep that allows for snoring and drool. "Most people hate people when they snore," I told Jack. "They find any instance that has irritated them about you in the past and make it present." "My ol' lady don't hate me when I snore," Jack said, "she's used to it, sometimes she even snores." "She's rich with skin, her skin is like gold, it feels so smooth and exotic," Jack said. "I love to cradle her in the mornings, naked, up close to her ass as we spoon beneath the covers." I told him, "Most men are horny in the morning." Jack said he cradled her prior to being aroused, he liked to hold the moment as long as possible; although, evidently it always made him hard, then the whimpering and begging commenced. "It's funny how they can make us beg when they know we are hungover," I said.
Jack agreed and said, "Most people hate beggers."

Dump Trucks

This god damn recession is
squeezing my balls.
At the dump today,
every man and his dog
has a 1 ton dump truck.
Used to do a job
no sane man wanted.
Now I can't wipe my hands clean
of competition.
Someone said
"competition is healthy"
Well see how healthy you feel
with someone squeezing your balls.

Arena Dirt

The smell of rodeo school
of arena dirt and animal shit
Fear of being winded
lying hopeless
gasping for air
being trampled by hooves
The scrapes full of arena dirt
and animal shit
burning the smell of rodeo school
deep into my mind
bullriding gloves
sticky with resin
the finger ends cut off
Bright red fingers
exiting the glove ends
Dad pulling tight
on the end of the braided rope
My heart pounding
"stick your chest out and watch the beast's head"
"follow his head, that's what your brother does"
"point your toes out and nod when your ready"
The chute gate opens
God, I was never ready
Heart and finger ends pounding
ready to explode
Watch the beast's head
mere inches from my nose
Then the arena dirt and shit
knock the wind out of me again.

Happy Drunk

The carport covered couch behind the Eddy is home to Bobby and an old cat that pisses on the cushions. Lenny and his pig are nowhere to be seen. Bobby tells Jack how one time “Spike”, that’s the pig's name, anyway... Bobby was passed out drunk on the couch and awoke to the pig biting through the knee of his corduroy pants while he was having his way with the bottom half of Bobby’s leg, all the while Lenny stood aside laughing. Bobby says Lenny always laughs, he’s a happy drunk except when the pigs (cops) come round.
Spike will eat anything. Mostly, Lenny feeds him stale bread from the dumpster from behind the bakery. Lenny always says he’s gunna eat Spike for Christmas, yet many a boxing day has past and Spike is still leaving steaming pig-shit on Baker St.

Bobby and Lenny

It’s snowing as Jack peers from the hotel window. He notices Lenny the one-eyed Indian holding a leash attached to a studded collar on (get this) a pot bellied pig. He’s talking to Bobby. The pig constantly trying to avoid the falling snow, shits on the sidewalk. Lenny laughs; Bobby sidesteps to avoid the mess. Lenny’s laughing as he gives the pig some free reign thus allowing him closer to Bobby. Bobby walks out of sight down 9th Ave. The pig and Lenny follow, leaving a fresh pile of smoldering pig shit on the snow-covered sidewalk.

Alleyway

An alleyway back to the Mount Baker
No one questions Jack along the journey
Smoked oysters and cheese
Beer in the fridge, wine in hand
City bus destination display says “sorry”
For whom? Jack contemplates
Sun is going down at five and a quarter
The Peelers are puttin' on the feathers and lace
Ah the fake orgasms
Practice looking tough in the mirror
No one will fuck with Jack Hynes
No one
Jen works the bar with bleach blond hair
She can’t smell the oyster farts
What an ass
Tall white boots
Tattooed shoulder blade
She ask Jack if he’s an alcoholic
Lets buy her a drink
Satin and she’s gone
Only a slippery spot left on the dance floor
Bobby that fucken Indian boy comes in to score five bucks
Knew he wanted something
Jack fucking Hynes
Solid mirror
Tough guy
White curtains and shitty music
Cunt from legs down
Here to stay
Checkerboard red and black tiles
Looking through crossed eyes
Can’t see straight at 7:30pm
Next peeler walks in
Avoiding the void
God she’s tall and dirty blond
Front row center
Gotta piss
Impositioned by her position
She folds to eat herself
She’s delicious
What a happy girl
For a 20 she’ll join Jack in the alley

Fender

“It happened twice
Almost two times”
He said hiccupping
“I was cutting planks when the skill saw made it’s way through the metal fender of the utility trailer”.
Stagger
Sparks must have been flying everywhere
But he didn’t notice, drunk on cheap beer and
straight up vodka
“’Bout cut that fender right off, but I’ll buy ya a new one,
got a sale on ‘em down at the Parts Ranch”
“That’s all right,” he said
“Just try not to catch anything on fire with that saw and all those sparks.”

Back Alleys

Mount Baker Heritage Hotel
11th Ave. S and Baker St.
Comfortable digs
Clean, too clean, but it’s got a fridge
The seedy hotels are overstuffed runways for reprobates
Can’t find a space
Swing a deal for $35 a night
Walking distance to the strip tease
5:30 at The Sammy
Booked in for a week
Tits dip into mugs of draught
Cubes drop in the ice machine
Cops in cars, busting kids leaving bars
Clean it up, change the guard
Just a bunch of fucking punks in uniforms
All the drug dealers got busted first
The glass walls don’t hide the coke lines
The barmaid can still smell burning weeds
She turned mean
They’ve got nowhere else to go
Peeler bar, that’s what they came for
Tough kids from Jack's hometown
They cornered the bouncer while Bobby stomped Boxer's face into the wooden floor
Musta been a drug runner
Across the street from The Sammy
Jack found the Eddy, King Eddy that is
En route a crack face Indian
“It’s getting cold” he says
Jack keeps moving
Don’t know how but that Indian is trying to hustle something
“Used to ride a ’75 shovelhead”
“Sure, I remember” Jack says
Into the Eddy for a sack a cold ones
Teller says
“Just last night, some kids tried to rip me off.

Dollars and Cents

The heroes and zeros
The dollars and cents
Industrial fishnets
On girls that get wet
The whores on tours
Can’t pay back the money
I’ve spent
A Motown show down
Can’t pay the rent

Excess

“I own it!” The bad stomach from over indulgence of alcohol and bad acid in the eighties, back when I was a redneck hillbilly, prior to even hearing the name Bukowski. Just last week when my wife found me passed out in our new shiny sink full of vomit after drinking with the newspaperman and those girls, this is I Jack Hynes, born into an alcoholic family. It’s my story; only Bukowski had previously lived such a fate. It was my father with a glass of scotch bedside; it was my excessiveness that nearly killed me at 20 ripe years. It was my suicide attempts that will make this story real, not the brief encounter with that of the legendary Charles Bukowski.
It’s raining on the inside of my house with 100,000 words to write. A gutter from the inside out, spilling words into rust hole barrels leaking and loosing prose.

3 cans of beans
2 cans of smoked oysters
Flat bread/ cheese
2 cans of Campbell’s veggie soup
2 bottles of red wine
1 bottle of scotch
A dozen beers
Girls don’t dance until 5:30, gunna be long days.

Check Out Time

Jack knew he would have to go in anonymous, it would take some serious preparation, he’d have to shed the comforts of home life, leave behind his wife and the boy. Trade them in for a couple of hundred lined pages. He always wrote freehand primarily, then struggled the tens of thousands of words onto his computer once back in the confines of home. Jack longed to use a typewriter although he simply made too many errors. Yes the couple of hundred lined pages and a fast pen, the kind that scrolled as instant as he thought. He liked the kind that were clear so he could watch the black ink run through. He kept them all in his top drawer of the nightstand like dead soldiers. That’s where all the good stuff was, his porn magazines, pictures of his travels, pictures of jack when he was young and attractive.

Hardship

He knew that he didn’t quest the common life of a laborer. A struggling writer a poet and an alcoholic, that about sums it up. Always struggling to get something on paper, he was familiar with hard luck. His piers had found fame through writing about being down and out; he was simply looking for a paycheck. Jack never liked to write in first person. He found that it always attracted the wrong readers; people who knew him could point their judgmental fingers at him. Old men would question his work ethics and old woman would curse his morals.
The best time to write was broke, alone and hung-over in a seedy hotel or rooming house. The story always about Jack, but he needed players. Runaway mothers or prostitutes, old musicians and dancers or their down in the dump followers.
Jack rubbed the week old stubble that irritated his neck. His face caved through hardship yet his stomach had been full to long as he carried a small beer baby. He was considering butting out of the ordinary and renting a dank room down at the strip joint, actually just above the dance floor so he could feel a pull on his loin once the songs began.

Sunday Night Runoff

Nearly got ran over by a scooter returning my 24 pack a bottles, while a skinny young Mexican man reaches his tongue down the throat of his overweight dark skin lover. She staggers on the incline slipping on pebbles and pieces of discarded concrete. His hands deep, reaching for the darkened treasure of matted coarse pubic hair. All the while a child plays next to the pair driving a broken toy truck through the ruts of runoff. The family is there in entirety, mom’s cutting chickens into fly covered portions for the night, to sell on the sidewalk to unsuspecting Gringos drunk on cheap beer and Tequila. Brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles witness the night's copulation. It’s Sunday night, by Monday midday the young man’s sobriety pushes him into a corner, hiding, lost in the deep Sunday night runoff encrusted by cement and alcohol. I return home with a cold box of 24 beers awaiting next Sunday’s bottle return.

Snakeskin Mini

Mannequin in a snakeskin mini
Her nipples catch my eye
Move my loin
Her look placid
Eyes glued in place
Her seductive smile secures my manhood
Every mannequin, happy to see me
Or is it just cold?
Will this ever get old?
She’ll never bitch
Never give you the itch
She’s tried and true
Down to earth good value
Can I witness her looking at another man?
The way she looks at me, it's like time stands still
Can I break the glass between us?
That mannequin couldn’t take her eyes off me.

Time On His Hands

A friend of mine nearly went blind
It was grade seven
Oh the books those boys would find
He had a lot of free time on his hands
looking back
we all did
I remember those books at the dump
Some old guy musta put 'em aside
for us boys
The summer weather played it's toll
on those pages left folded open
to fade.
Never went to the eye Doc
can still read the fine print
Musta been a wive's tale
of which we all
succumbed to.

Dirt Bag Biker

Turned into an annual dirt bag outlaw biker today
scared the wife
was more exhilarating
than the carnival high-drop.

Stiletto Boots

Can I hang out with you
I"ve fallen into a drain pipe and can't get out
It's like being kicked in the head
when the shoe comes off,
all you're left with
is a dirty sock in the face
She walked by in her Stiletto boots
not to look back