my new tattoo , ive been saving up for, for like 1 month now. it's pretty damn sweet, it just came to me one night. ........... a medium aged dragon, standing up straight, wearing a pair of air jordans, and throwing a pair of dice. then, underneath that, in fancy cursive , the words , "high roller" . i know what you're thinking , the same damn thing i'm thinking, pretty effin' sweet!!!!

Waiting For My Pirate

Back story: I met this guy a couple of years ago, he was really sweet. He would come talk to me while I worked, patiently trying to maintain a conversation with me as I cleaned fish tanks and occasionally walked away to tend to other customers. He was diggin' on me. At the time, I was not feeling the same. Not that he wasn't cute, he was...it was just his fixation with pirates that kind of scared me away. He was in a pirate drama club of some sort and his deep and scruffy voice sounded just like a pirate's, minus the "arrgghh's" and "mateys" of course. But really, add those in and no need to fake an accent.
His long, dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail and on the first date it was hard for me to not picture him in the missing hat and eye-patch he must have left at home. Anyways, I was 24 or so at the time and just not ready to date a pirate.
A few weeks ago I ran into the guy randomly after not seeing him for years. He was still doing the pirate thing, even more so now. His drama club had expanded into a Pirate performance troop of some sort and they graced the stages of many a SoCal summer festival with their vestige of pirate themed songs and acts. His career masquerading as a plunderer had been more bountiful than I could have imagined--his pockets were filled with little leather pouches and chains he designed specifically with the buccaneering man in mind. I was offered the headphones of his MP3 player to take a listen to his voice, rapping, about pirate stuff. I was in shock. Even more so that he did not somehow throw in the word booty. "Of course," he explained, "there's going to be an entire album of pirate songs! They will all be different though. All different genres..."
And I gave him my number. But he didn't call. And then I began to wonder why not. Where was he? I have nothing to do this Saturday night. How desperate have I become I thought, to be waiting for a pirate to call?? Oh, ode to my missing pirate....

Once you beckoned to me from atop your mast
I was clearly in your sights
like the shrouded peaks of Bali Hai
Your scope skimmed our heights

But I couldn't walk a pirates plank!
Afraid to take the leap
Later waiting for your ship to come
Bare horizons steal my sleep.

(the following is a later addition)

We circled the waters edge
never breaking the islands veil
For one night, and me, you left your treasures
threw the wind into the sail

The stars painted stories in the sky
But by dawn, they were burned away
the suns brutal reminder, washed ashore
for pirates never stay.

Grand View

Standing on Grand View Avenue, wondering where the hell the name came from. I shared my smoke with an old tree trunk turned tiki-pole/roof support structure for Mar Vista Bowl.

Grand View? All I saw was dark streets lit by a Karate, Goodwill and Laundry Mat sign that glowed the stars away.

Go ahead tiki man, take a hit. I hoped the late night, three bikers I saw riding the Venice lane home didn’t catch me holding the lit cigarette to my wooden friend’s mouth. You gotta’ give the bikers respect. I talk a big environmental game but the true livers of the dream are those willing to pedal home at 1am. They actually fly by pretty fast, I felt me and my new friend were safe.

The streets were empty considering…Saturday night, West LA, bowling for $20 from 10pm to 1am? Where was everybody?

Screw um’. I was chilling. Inside my friends and a friend-with-benefits-gone bad were taking my turns.

Footsteps and voices startled me as they crept around the corner. People coming. I regained my composer and my cigarette. Two very drunk men crossed the street headed my way but a group of girls and their high-pitched good nights cut them off.

Phew.

Filled with liquid courage and the belly to prove it, one of the guys wobbled after them. Unimpressed, the girls kept their backs turned and haphazardly continued their conversation, pretending not to notice the strange man and his mumbles at their heels. It only took a couple of blurry, “Gimme some of that’s…” for him to realize they were into more sophisticated game. They all disappeared and so did my cigarette. I had to go back in. Damn.

I looked around one more time just in case I missed something. A couple of Fichus trees, pavement and asphalt, a tattoo shop, a liquor store. Nope. I turned my head down the avenue until it darkened. I stopped focusing on the corner I was at, obviously not the inspiration for the name Grand View, wondering, hoping that maybe down yonder it was more so.

No Space For Me

"You don't seem like the typical LA girl..." You're words run over and over in my head.

Were they foreshadowing the night to come when I walked into your stank ass, aged-bong water-smelling room, a house cluttered and dangling with everything thats ever caught your eye

and did not roll my eyes, kept my mouth shut.

Stayed and watched customers buy your dreams, colorful names and prices written in dry erase purchased the Samurai swords above them, the rarest, flesh faced puffer below. All your things begin to distract me.

But I laughed my way through the crowded, pungent, unfamilar surroundings

Wondering what the typical LA girl would have done

Tropical Apocalypse

My skin prefers global warming

to many things

above all others

is probably flamingos.

Their claws are painful

Talons hidden under pleasantly

pink feathers

So exacting they prefer to pick

shrimp from their shells

perhaps all too perfectly

Shaving the flesh from it’s coverings

in one immaculate swoop.

Devouring iodine

Turning pinker

Save for that

menacing, honest

black beak.