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Judge Santiago Burdon

~ The Beatnik Cowboy ~ Leave a comment 
It Could Be Worse It Could Be Raining

Up, out of bed 3 pm Saturday San Jose Costa Fucking Rica, I can smell the rain with a mixture of car exhaust and diesel fuel, gray skies gray world, just the Gods reminding me what a hangover looks like, the storm has already saturated the city, flooding streets and low lying areas, the smell triggers my olfactory memory machine to recall fond thoughts of Mexico City, resulting in a smile that occupies what feels like my entire face,  replaced quickly with a grimace from the pain of this cancer eating away at me like alligators gnawing from the inside out.  

The Gods, hilarious bastards yuckin' it up at the joke they have perpetrated, I could have contracted Lung Cancer, I've smoked everything that can catch fire, Liver Cancer, the fish drink like me. Quote from a past love Christina. I drink like a fish I once stated, "No Santi the fish drink like you", Cancer of my blood, I've shot and tried to shoot everything that would dissolve in water, even cough syrup with codeine as well, Stomach Cancer no, never been a big eater, the thing I enjoy most Sex, so I get diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. 

Those of you thinking Karma, kiss my ass, you people piss me off more than christians, as though there is some cosmic cloud waiting to rain down retribution for malicious acts I may have performed during my present or past life, now I am really agitating myself, past lives what a myth,  Karma was created to pacify the Egos of those who are not willing to fight back.

Bad luck the culprit maybe, luck doesn't exist good or bad, it's just the consequence to an unforeseen event, nothing more, there are those that need to believe in some mystic force, an omnipotent deity  controlling their destiny, you think I'm coming off a bit self righteous do you, demonstrating my best character flaw. 

I was scheduled for an IMRT treatment and Doctor's appointment this morning at 10:30.  I'm now a no-show and will once again be lectured on my apathetic attitude concerning the  disease. It's not that I'm  indifferent or have succumbed to the consequences of the Cancer, sometimes I just don't feel like  fighting an enemy I'm unable to see. Also I'm  thinking quite possibly if I  ignore that it exists maybe it might just go away.   Another pathetic attempt to fool myself. Even though it always ends with the same disastrous results. I know better.

Andrea calls often to check up on my condition and has accompanied me on a few IMRT sessions at the hospital but didn't like seeing me in that way so she stopped coming. 

Usually  she calls shortly after I've injected a massive dose of morphine and I'm too high to carry on an intelligible conversation, when I do attempt to speak I drift back and forth from English to Spanish then French causing her to laugh, her voice temporarily slaps me back into cognizance, screaming:

" Español Bigotes! Porfa Espanol"  

We’ve been sort of together for a couple of years. Sort of is because she enjoys her employment as a prostitute. And I don't want her to be with me if she's not ready. I once asked her to dedicate five years of her exclusive affection to me in return for a sizable inheritance, assuring her I wouldn't live that long, she declined graciously with a passionate kiss, her hands cradling my face.

" Mi amor tu sabes no hay nada que pueda matarte. "My love you know there is nothing that can kill you. I think you will outlive me.” I had just celebrated my fifty-sixth birthday, that was eleven years ago when I made my request.

She has never asked me for anything except during moments of passion. I've attempted to convince her she does love me only she just doesn't know it. Evidently falling in love with a man like me is a risk she isn't willing to take. 

I'm out of coffee, cigarettes and morphine, exiting my place with no umbrella, off to the Pulperia and Farmacia, the prostitutes flash their twenty dollar smiles and Los Bichos de Calle (street insects, bugs,addicts) are out early searching for Rocka Tocka (crack), the deluge increases its intensity, the sky crackles with lightning. It could be worse, it could be raining.

Preacher Allgood

~ The Beatnik Cowboy ~ Leave a comment 
from the smokes of long dead railroaders

 

sure her cat puked on the desk
my grandpa rescued from the train depot after the big fire in ‘36
sure she sold my rusted out MGB/GT
the one with the wire knock-off wheels
to an Okie while I was in rehab
and sure she spent the proceeds from that little swindle
on plane fare to Chicago to visit her mother
and sure I couldn’t get enough
of eyeballing that German/Mexican jalapeno ass
or the tamales she cooked in the big pot on my old Kenmore stove
but I wasn’t all that sorry
when she came to me on a snowy blustery evening
with big tears in her eyes and said
I’m going back to Billy
he got out of jail and he wants to have a baby
and you don’t want to have a baby
and you’re so drunk you can’t get it up most of the time
and I like you but I really want to have a baby
so I’m going back to Billy are you mad at me?

sure I wasn’t mad at her
sure I was relieved that I wouldn’t be cleaning any more cat puke
off the big slab of oak that I prized for its history and its connection
to my grandpa who began railroading
on the Kansas Southern in nineteen twenty-two
and who swallowed mustard gas in the war to end all war
and who kept a flask of “pain killer” out in his garage
along with his pea green 1950 Studebaker Champion  
but I might have been a little bit mad about those tamales
because I’d never eaten homemade tamales
and unless you’ve eaten homemade tamales
stuffed with pork and homemade masa
wrapped in fresh corn husks and steamed in their own juices
or sat at a big desk that’s scarred by burns from the smokes of long dead railroaders
and waited for another poem to show up
you can’t possibly understand what this poem means

Orman Day

~ The Beatnik Cowboy ~ Leave a comment 
In a Raspy Voice
origin of my blues poems in 2018


On a sultry day waiting in the Honda 
while my Muse shops in Trader Joe’s,
hoping she doesn’t forget my soft licorice,
sweating cuz the air’s turned off
and she didn’t leave the keys, admiring a gal
bending over to shove grocery bags in her trunk,
suddenly my dry mouth dropped open,
out rushed a raspy voice I didn’t recognize,
“I got the blues.” A deep breath. “I got the blues.”
Over and over, I repeated the oracular words.
As Sonny Terry has crooned, I was a white boy
lost in the blues, though I was six decades away
from being a lean pimply kid, dateless,
singing loud and off-key in the church choir.

Needed to figure out what I was bluesy about.
Couldn’t duet with John Lee Hooker
cuz I don’t have the house rent blues,
or with Etta James misty about lost love,
or with Trixie Smith or Sonny Terry 
cuz I no longer sprint beside lonesome tracks, 
leap into the frigid box car of a lonesome freight.
Even beside Muddy Waters, I’d be nobody’s 
Hoochie Coochie Man with mojo, a black cat bone,
making pretty women jump and shout.

Back in ’02 paddled a canoe with my friend Paige 
the Big Muddy from St. Paul to New Orleans, 
reminded of Leadbelly as we passed Angola Prison,
Son House as I climbed over a levee to fetch water,
Robert Johnson as we rambled through Rosedale,
Earl King as I glided at last into Audubon Park. 
But now I’m a tourist, no longer a traveler 
who lifts a thumb, waves a hand-drawn sign,
converses with drivers who want to laugh or confess.

B.B. King could sing the blues after paying his dues,
lying in a ghetto flat numb and dusted with rime, 
turned away at the welfare office, staring in a mirror 
at the lined, slackening truth wrought by Father Time.

Cataracts clouding my eyes, got mobility issues 
so I shuffle to avoid tearing soft tissue. 
Prick my figure every morn, swallow pills
I don’t wanna take, remember and rue
every time I try to snooze. Google ex-girlfriends,
sorrowful to find them dead. Sometimes dizzy
when I clamber outta my bed. Are these my dues?
Not sure how I’m gonna do it, 
but I’ve gotta take a deep breath, bellow my blues.