in my featherless, sagging, saffron wings,

i dance



my Phoenician, waterlogged, orchestrated and forty foot wings

wave in the air

i am drunk laying against the striped table

pushing these banners into the airless beach

waving these flags as i murmur the recipes of prayers to the vendors

and the pharisees in bikinis pumping iron against the sun



the recipes of semitic vendors, egyptian vendors

shaking their backs against the sun

laughing with the sounds of sheets of metal

splashing the naked pharisees

with wild bikinis and the soft fragrance

of dreams

and morning



i walk on the beach looking for a place to sleep

My arms are hidden beneath my sailing skin

i am broke and fucked up and i fall in the sand

and sleeping in the warm cradle of a billion rocks



i dreamed of cher

she came to us in babylon

and she was rattling fluently

her true language

and she was dressed in high syrian rags

her face had white powder on it and there were

little brown moons beneath her eyes

and i saw into her 

an arabic women parading around naked

powerful, irreverent but still after all

doing it the old egyptian way

with sparkling clothes and force



now i awake in the afternoon

the arcade is filled with children

families are walking by staring at me

pre-pubescent faces are coming a little too close

i don't even remember if i have on any underwear



i get up and walk away

i never even knew this stuff was here

the twirling music, the games, the money

this commune living sucks

these black panthers suck

these harmonica players

should all go back to the north

canada, new jersey, where ever they do that

blowing



II.



I abandon the old way when i first got to san diego. I fucked anybody i wanted to. I was, however, gang raped by a blues band in an old school bus. That was pretty

horrible. There were only three of them. I can't remember if i got the third on e off me. I think i did. I was so ashamed.



Perhaps people think if you don't scream you're not being raped. Perhaps they think if you say to yourself, just let him do it and he won't hurt you. Or even more

provocative, just let him do it and maybe he'll like you. And of course you've been saying no, no, don't . Or pushing but not pushing too much. Because you're just a little

girl really, and you're afraid, and you're so tired, and you just want someplace to sleep.



That's what it's like when you run away from home.

Lots of people will rape you. And you'll let them. Just to have a place to sleep.

The thing was, after they fucked me, and all this juice all over my thighs, they didn't even let me sleep there.

You think this only happens to me? You're crazy. You think this only happens to girls who are rough? You're wrong. You think this only happens in stories? 

Look behind you.



Still i liked the idea of being assertive. I liked the idea of free love in san diego. i liked the idea of saying i want you instead of waiting around so some guy can get his rocks

off thinking you didn't really want him that he won something from you that you didn't want to give him. This strategy, this tradition, is a kind of rape.



This idea that men are suppose to win you, that you are suppose to be aloof, is a small but significant dramatization of rape. I do not like it. not one bit. that sam i am that

sam i am. i do not like that sam i am.



now i could no more say get down here and eat this sweet me than i could

swallow a bull fighter

or write names on the walls in blood

or wear the victims horns on my head

or row a boat across the atlantic ocean again



and though sometimes i am sitting at the desk, or

at a table eating dinner

and there is some one, some slave, or some anything

underneath

eating mine alone

and no one knows

or eating every ones

and everyone is coming

i could never bring anything to reality now

reality is cracked by the blows of terrible

men and nights with pointed teeth

snapping poison at the air

i breath

and all good things now

take place inside my many layered

silence

my eyes

my lips

are sealed



where did you go

when things went bad, anyway?

i sat beside you in that bathroom all night.

you were crying

you were talking to me like a baby

you were gone, man, gone

you just kept getting in the bath

and getting out and letting the water run out

and then getting in again

and all that food i made

it was all over the walls in the kitchen

and there was a heat wave

and the waves were very, very high

and the dogs were turning into carrots

and the valentines were melting beneath 

burrito and neon

where shattered places pave the road

the winding road through echo park

that echoes still

your naked body

the bed you brought

those stupid lamps

your body echoes

the last shadows

of me against you

you loved me.

you loved me madly



where did you go?i knew you like that scene of girls chasing you down the street. that's why you always liked to have a very hip car, because it was important that they

chase you in the right car, and i was not about to chase you.



i knew that story of that italian girl in philadelphia chasing you down the night street you were in a taxi cab, that's a nice image. then the japanese girl. but then my feet

were starting toward you and you were turning the corner onto sunset and you left me there in a second day cold turkey. and all i can think of i philadelphia cheese steak

sandwich philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich.



philadelphia cheese steak and every time i think cheese steak i see all this wet cheese and steak.

Here comes the parade! Look! Here it comes!

I let you go.

I let you go. You like to rip girls. I had to let you go.