An Old Untitled Poem of Mom's

September 29, 1990

the 

faulty inspiration of

alcohol.

like a movie set,

it appears to be real,

but is not.

The dead of L.A.

(I found one of my mom's old notebooks from the eighties.  her handwriting is atrocious but I'm transcribing her poetry)

************

Pinched and twisted

In the dead of L.A. –

Lost and more lost, she wanders,

Not one word exchanged or offered-

Bury and buy

Again + again

He exits

Dripping gold

Silent and dripping indifference

Peripheral vision

Revealed him

Not to her. 

Sheer wonder in

Compromise .

He’s glowing rays

Of hate, death.

Could his meaning have been

Tender curiousity?

The air is cool

The sky is late

The sidewalks are covered in

Pages from desk calendars

You (we) tread over days and days

Of last year

In which something happened – something –

Lived and died –

Putting me in a bleak park –

Another lost day and dead years

And dear but dead l.a.

December 28 1989

The Nostalgia Principle of Time Travel - Poem

The Nostalgic principle of Time Travel on this the Anniversary of the Murder of John Lennon

Firstly, would Darby Crash be a household name instead of just the homophobic homo nihilist punk who killed himself to be famous but

had the sad luck to do

it the night before we found out about John Lennon?

It wasn't much of a splash he made, his suicide,

and now he haunts this old roachy hot dog stand in Hollywood

where he spent some happy -- for a nihilist -- nights with his

fans and friends.  His old ghost bones give him pains.

Secondly, and more importantly, 

if John Lennon hadn't,'a been murdered when he was

would mom have visited dad more in the hospital

instead of drooling glued to the tv for all the details of

her mania-man, that effortlessly cool guy, John Lennon?

Dad was in the hospital recovering from heart surgery and

oh gee wiz, if John Lennon wouldn't have been shot like that when he was,

would they have stayed together, at least for a couple years more?

would she've drinken so much and

would she have exuded that air of an absolute distaste

for the concept of culpability that, in real life, she exuded,

all brownish-gray and a-swirl with the dingy smoke from her 

endless cigarette?

In other words, 

would I be the sweet, sweat-smelling ragdoll,

woman of the hungry mouth and the near-hopeless cunt

you see before you today?

Would life be better for me if John Lennon wasn't murdered that day

and if Kurt Cobain hadn't kicked the bucket would I

care more than I do about anything less than the MOST OF ANYTHING?

OUR LAST TEXTS, ILLUSTRATED

The texts in black are Mom and the pink ones are Me.
The last one is from her pastor when he was trying to reach me to tell me she'd passed away earlier that morning.
The pictures are of some of her favorite things.

Here's Mud in Your Eye

I already borrowed from this old art project of mine (something from my early twenties) once, in a 2014 post about self portraiture -- it's just a bunch of self-portraits ("selfies," now) that I took when I was crying, which was something I did for years starting in my teens, mixed in with self-portraits my mom sent me of herself being sad, and captioned with lines from Dorothy Parker stories, in the vein of sad girl chic I'm always so fond of.   Here are 6 of my favorites, on this the week before the first anniversary of her death.  

Birthday Card Book

IN keeping with the more than usual focus on my mom, who passed away almost a year ago now,  here is a book she made me for my 14th birthday.