I am working on a short story and will come back to this section after doing some research.

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Manzanita Dioramas

Manzanita Diorama

by james bezerra

The ground floor windows

of Manzanita Hall:

perfectly square

and window seats

exactly along bottom edge.

Students sit in them,

eating lunch,

looking like

zoo animals

or extinction dioramas.

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My plant Fred finds that vertical stripes are slimming.

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My Week.

This first week of the semester when I am feeling - I'm not embarrassed to tell you -  a little bit unsure of how awesome I am (this being a result of the fact that I am teaching my own class for the first time and am more than acceptably invested in whether or not my students feel like I am changing their lives and making them better people, blah, blah, etc) I am happy to report that I met the guy who has my old job of assisting Professor D. with her freshman students and he says that Professor D. still gushes about me, which makes me feel good because I like to know that other people feel intimidated by the shadow of me, but also because I adore Professor D.

Also - and this is very sweet and should be a trope in movies but isn't - I bumped into a young woman who was a student of mine about a year and a half ago and I always admired her and she always admired me and it was a conversation that was totally devoid of subterfuge. I asked after her and was actually interested in her response and she asked after me and I was both funny and charming in my reply because that is - you know - how I am.

It was a wonderfully happy and reassuring reunion with a former student and it made me feel so much better about my life journey into this world of "teaching-things-to-people-which-always-seemed-otherwise-obvious-to-me"

Look at this picture of my left retina! Retina selfies are totally a thing now BTW because I got my optometrist to email it to me.

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There comes a time in every man's life when he has to shave off his beard and cross his fingers that his face doesn't look too fat now.

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Fantastic thrift store find of the day.

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Can you even believe how much cool stuff I do?!

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I've worked out my schedule for the next 4 months and it looks like I'm already losing at Tetris.

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Tomorrow I have an orientation for my fancy and very responsible college-professor-in-training job, which logically means I am less responsible today than I will be tomorrow, therefore I should totally order another drink because of how irresponsible I am today.

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That moment when you realize that the natural rhythm of your writing voice does not lend itself to well-structured stanzas and therefore you have basically spent months creating mountains of editing work for yourself.

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Palms Down as if in Prayer.

Palms Down as if in Prayer

by james bezerra

I like how you like

to place your hands

palms down

on either side of the bathroom sink

when I lay my hands

palms down

on either side

of your spine

knead my thumbs

hard into your skin.

My fingers can feel

the bone inside your hips.

I like the sound you make,

little whisper

of wind

from between your lips.

The way you arch

back toward me.

How you close your eyes

and roll your shoulders,

relaxing your body

and tensing

your body

at the same time.

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Feeling Conflicted about the Patriarchy.

Feeling Conflicted About the Patriarchy

by james bezerra

All of my

high-minded

intellectualism

goes out the window

when mini-skirts.

Because we

convinced you -

with our impeccable,

unstoppable,

mass-marketing Capitalism machine -

that your tan bare legs,

smooth and long,

are the same

as freedom,

as expression.

Of course your

ass-tight, nearly sheer

black tights

are the most comfortable thing you own;

we’ve made them that way.

We’ve gotten

two generations of you

laced into

Victoria’s Secret

and we made it hugely expensive.

I recognize how poorly

we’ve treated you

how much we’ve sexualized you

and how much we shame you

for acting how we ask you to.

And yet,

I still love you

in La Perla,

in Agent Provocateur,

or in nothing.

We want

our daughters

to be nuns

and everyone else’s daughters

to be strippers.

I want

to save you

from me

but I realize

even that is a misogyny.

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Go to the Casbah.

Go to the Casbah

by james bezerra

Few places are better,

when you’re young

and happy

than the smoking patio

at the Casbah

at Kettner and Laurel

at the top of the hill

and the jetliners

come barreling down

out of night

just as if inches

above you,

landing gear dangling

maybe just moments,

or a strong crossbreeze,

from your fingertips

and only seconds

from tarmac.

The jetwash whir

and whine

so loud

it drowns the music

wafting out

from the band

and reminds you

to be alive

right now

because 300 tons

of swiftly descending steel

and a slight miscalculation

and this drink in your hand

might be all there is

in your last half second.

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I'm From a Very Small Town,

I'm From a Very Small Town

by james bezerra

There was that time that Robbie punched a nazi

or

got punched by a nazi

or

punched a guy he called a nazi,

but

either way,

that guy was a squid.

It was out at that rented

middle-of-nowhere

doublewide.

Rented by

those two guys

whose names I never really knew

but whose names smashed together

sounded like a band.

And they only allowed pot

smoked in their barcalounger

living room

because they thought

that sweet smell

of the Amazon burning

got high school girls slick

horny and mindless.

I remember thinking

that I thought then

they must have been thinking

of fuck-ready lab rats

and how they probably

also thought

guys with barcalounger living rooms

could ever

get laid

if the girls weren't already

in high school, drunk,

and high.

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"Fun".

I have been fighting with the below poem for four or five days. Below I have beat it into 33 eight-line stanzas which seems to even work a little bit! As with most of the stuff I post here, I am not claiming that it is good or done, but it is written and I kind of think it is kind of fun. By “fun” of course I actually mean “wildly pretentious”.

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Airborne JellyFish.

Airborne JellyFish,

or;

What Burnouts Have Taught Me About The Odyssey

There is something heroic,

brave,

pure almost,

Odyssean maybe,

about setting off

across vast

and endless distances

in a shitty car.

Early 2000 Hyundais

all have the same

paint problem,

as if all

attacked by

saltwater-dripping,

laser-wielding

airborne jellyfish.

They all look battle-scarred

and,

of course,

they are

because only

the very poorest

of people

drive them.

My once

father-in-law

once pointed

to my tires

and explained

that steel cord there

wound tight beneath thin rubber,

you’re not supposed to be able to see it.

I think of him often

when I fill my tires

at gas stations,

something non-poverty people never do.

The jut-jut-jut-jut-jut

of 75 cent air pump

reminding you

your tires leak because you’re poor.

The siren song

of distant edges

of endless distances

means more

when you can’t afford to get there

because

the horizon remains

always a promised land.

I’ve never arrived

at Ellis Island

in damp peacoat

throbbing from

marketing majesty

that is

Lady Liberty,

but I Imagine

that deliverance

is similar to  

driving to

shit job

while considering

kamikaze-ing

Hyundai into concrete

and rebar divider.

Many of my friends now are young women

- attribute no meaning to this -

they’re always high

on Taylor Swift and

know Miley Cyrus

in place of

Gloria Steinem

and they ask me:

- always while I’m drinking,

I don’t know why,

maybe I’m always drinking

or maybe they’re always asking,

or maybe I just drink and imagine them -

why I’m friends

with the obvious meth addicts

in our building,

or the 7-11 homeless guy

who looks - to me -

like Agamemnon.

I’ve never properly

been able to

articulate

kinship I feel

to burn-outs.

Allegiance always

to triple-shift ephedrine waiters,

cocaine-awake bartenders,

slim white shirt hostesses with

cobweb ballet dreams

and a fifth of flavored vodka

split with the busboy

who wants to fuck her.

I wanta save them all

because I know them all

or,

shades of them.

I want,

like from Dunkirk

to save them all

when they need saving most.

I have actually - no shit actually -

seen the best minds

of my generation

destroyed

by poverty;

starving,

hysterical,

naked,

without the privilege

of Columbia.

Drinking Popov

to death,

raising two little girls

on Jack-in-the-Box wages,

feeding families off-brand Chef Boyardee,

97 cents a can from the 99 Cent Store.

Angelheaded hipsters

weren’t never

nothen’ but

white middle-class college kids.

Hippies weren’t never idealists,

just youthful fuck-drunk narcissists,

charred draft cards,

parents’ homes to go home to.

I’m angry.

I’m angry,

feel betrayed

by Kerouac

and Ginsberg,

I’m angry at

Steinbeck and Hemingway,

Carver and S. Thompson

They prepared us none

for Buzzfeed,

encouraged us not

to learn to code.

The starry dynamo of the night

turns out

was just a billboard

for The American Century.

Promised us

wordy greatness

in perfectly typeset letters

inked

on inside bend

of elbows, knees,

pretty drugs,

and trim thighs,

but now

we recognize

how white grace easy arrogant

it was

to be

a superpower, and

it benefit even

counterculture revolutionaries,

when 1946 we were

only earth nation

still able to mass-produce a car

or steel widgets

or plastic red cups

or perfectly throbbing dildos

or electrified nipple clips

or pink atom bombs.

Electric kool-aid acid test my ass.

Self-fellatio as good as vomitoriums.

Those who do not

study history are doomed

to remix it

and so we EDM.

I want a Tickle-Me-Elmo

Jimmy Carter doll.

I want the roof beams

of the White House

to ache

with the weight

of solar panels

like used doublewides do

with spent

Direct TV dishes.

Don’t want

a tax break.

I want

a guillotine

on a carnival float,

and police-free hours

on Park Avenue,

on Wall Street.

Bob Dylan sold

100 million records,

been a celebrity

since he was 22:

proto-One-Direction.

Mick Jagger is 72 years old.

Paul McCartney is a billionaire

and then some.

Hendrix had the decency to die.

And Hamlet, god love him.

And Neal Cassady.

Biggie, John Lennon, Keith Haring, Basquiat, Jeff Buckley, Warhol, Jim Morrison,

Janis Joplin,

Jesus, Django Reinhardt, Kurt Cobain, Virginia Woolf, Robert Johnson, Tupac, Brian Jones, Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, Sylvia Plath and Tyler Durden.

Not to venerate suicide,

I just wanta

drive my Hyundai

endless distances

powered by sunlight

and citrus,

and hope without

a barcode.

I want a pod for escape

from the bullshit

of ever being hungry

in this county.

Can you even believe

any of us go hungry

in this country,

which is made

mostly of donuts?

I want

one grenade

each

for one engine

each

of each G6

at Las Vegas airport

for a UFC fight.

From the day he left

to the day

he saw Penelope again,

it took Odysseus

twenty years.

Google Maps says

you can drive it

in 13 hours.

Gotta wonder

did he really

even wanta get home?

Or just

live in the distances?

Unencumbered,

ignore new Rolling Stones albums

or movies about the Beats.

Or did he

just wanta kill some cyclops,

fuck Circe on her knees,

drive the interstates,

Mushrooms at KOAs

and group sex in hostels?

Did he just wanta drive his Hyundai into the sea

instead of the median?

Or did he

just wanta go

until the tires gave out

and marooned him

on a HitchBOT highway shoulder

with nothing left

but whatever the fuck

stretched before him?

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