What It Is: What It Is Paul G. Maziar

WHAT IT IS: WHAT IT IS PAUL G. MAZIAR & MAUST

a Write Bloody Book

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NYC, LOVE YOU LONG TIME Taxi to JFK—then back to LA—black rag city to beige and spangled and over-freed Driver honking in syncopation: determination mustache and eyes American Flag bent the giant wall to freeway-tunnel morning with acid reflux Gravestones poking-up like Bloke teeth, all different colored in the heavenly corn yard Freeway smell of a million treading tires and the greased organs Of machines to keep us destined Pedro Martinez broke his toe—radio, O radio Shea Stadium invites all from Brooklyn to Bronx And this cab driver sure has a lead-foot but for breaking. -NYC, February

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ON HEAVY HEADS UPON BARS IN GENTRIFIED TOWNS

On four and five in August, there was a bursting, persisting paranoia again pushing me around town. All the bars in Brooklyn, they seem to hold all fun and youthful good-time chatter—one craves a harder room sometimes—bars are supposed to be disdainful. The place where a man drowned his sorrows somewhere in the Midwest, 1955, then went back home to his old dog to apologize. The bartenders still clench their fists but underneath, and just for good measure—and the weak faces get them by in those same hard rooms and hard nights. Broken souls in bars of yesteryear, men with ulcers from working so damn hard with their hands, and the severe effort to later barricade themselves from it, balancing things out a bit more. And I wanted more than anything to be inside that icebox behind the bar for a minute—with every chip’d inch of paint, beige in color under amber-lighted anonymity. Extricated from the uppity crowd and contemplated conversing. The bartender saw my secret wish and blew a gasket with disgust as my liver nodded again. Mary’s immaculate countenance somehow came over me that night and threw the strangest dreams into my mind—and she’s sitting still on my charm, waiting for another twist to my acute sensitivity to any and all stimuli.

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TOO-FAST WALKING, BEIGE-CENTURY BLUES

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LAMB IN LIONSUIT: CURLY UNDER THE FREEWAY

Korean ladies in shower caps with blue umbrellas walked along as Karen Dalton sang “try to remember all the good times” and “Just a Little bit of Rain.” Exited Gower from 101 northbound—the Hollywood Tower looked down with wide eyes on its face—vines and ivy enveloped walls, and milk cartons on the windowsill as reminders of life past the rubber-burning cements. Rain and lights in evening sneeze-night—drew breath and turned to Yucca—but before the street bends, homeless beauties found laid out under the hungry freeway bridge—free from falling drops and calmed by the shushing, silence-breaking traffic lulling the irrational to sleep—those resting irrationals without the lore causing certain blindness and confidence in atonality. He’s in the mood under his bridge, indulging how he will. But the way he does it, he bothers no one and keeps his mind spinning on the slow side while “tripping” on his own thoughts, as he described it when I got to talking with him—sitting in his little sidewalk bridge cathedral, shopping-cart-barricade draped with blankets and Hustler Magazine. I first saw this black man back in March, slouched and wrapped-up under the freeway. I notice that each time I pass him after my drive-home freeway exit, he’s just laying there bent to the wall with his hands clasped together in his lap as if in a trance. Sometimes he’s already asleep by the time evening falls, which seems so early to me for a grown man—“what’s he do during the day that he needs to sleep so early?” One would imagine a bum like this has some real getting-to-it happening during the day—maybe he looks for a job or visits some daytime rehabilitation shelter. Or maybe he falls under the heaviest freeway-sleep in man’s homelessness and melancholy, and drinks any poison he can find to gradual death-sleep each night. One night I came to him on my way through his home to the café—I smiled at him and it was reciprocated, I told him my name—that was reciprocated too and in all my gladness I watched him comb his beard as if we were sort of rapping together, not as if in nervousness but just how one would plant chin-on-palm in full-interest. A rite of passage to a new understanding, and openness to a usually and tragically-ignored juxtaposition. Curly is his name, and before I left him I described how when exiting the freeway at sundown, I turn my lights off at the bridge so they don’t shine in his sleepyface—and for this I believe he was glad. Now, each time he hears my friends and I stomping through his corridors, even if he’s half-asleep, he waves. Everything he said was in rhythm, and he sat straight up this time—changing his form and tone completely. “I ain’t got no cause complaining, I just do what I do—and I stay away from trouble. I was incarcerated before, and now I lay low from troubles—I don’t bother nobody.” He looked like Thelonious Monk and wore a tan corduroy, fur-lined jacket that looked like black jean from the soot he carried with him. He did not smell bad. Glittering eyed and speaking almost too softly

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REVISED IN TIME AND WITH PARAMETERS SHAT-ON

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LOS ANGELES-FLED AND MISSED

Let’s go where it’s 82 degrees and jump into a pool that’s a little cooler Under the #1-rated sun Neatly squared off in front of the gate and meet again after LA’s face is lit up reminded of ones who fly to take off To find more time away from the actresses—leather jackets at night And breathtaking, sexy drugs all our friends can’t shake away. Would you come back and grace the coast again if we promise to be all inspired and lucky—smashing all the ugliness from then on? Let’s drink wine and shake hips when you get back.

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LIKE ELIZABETH’S BLACK CITRUS

This truck-full of lemons in Pasadena tipped over at my glance and rolled rolled rolled every ounce of that Black Citrus turned from my daydreams of everything wayward—you know it all changed just like it does in the afterward. With the influence and the temptation and all that lack of safety—but the newness is always exciting and moments change back just as fast as they came—so then what happened? The Lemons tumbled down the street all dark and taunted, then turned to streams where some young doll was able to float away with the leaves— away from what she needed to stray from and she just smiled for days on end in Shining Glory.

All the color of a dream with the TV still on

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THE BIRTHDAY PARTY Truths always. Truth because just the way it should be, forever Lies spill and fill and cause a lawless stumble For crying like Caesar: the charges we took upon ourselves with leaves from all slumping trees under the shot-down moon sky came just before the guests all slept in—leaving all dirty sheets behind- smoked on the porch And little red lights in the night danced—danced to insides staccato textures Swim kids just had to wait, or take a bath Soothe the times fallen upon—freshened up from everything wayward If not a smooth touch, sandpaper-bound books destroy all others on the shelf, and shhhh—it’s all of us working on something important and need a bit of peace and quiet. I’m going home now—my bed is hanging out the window Starving for the warmth of my sides, on fire from all this. Goodnight.

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