singin' dem icy london blues

so i’m hanging outside the hotel

it’s cold it’s miserable there’s ice on the sidewalk there’s some sort of naturally occurring acrimonious aura within which we’re all floating and flailing

frowns abound

and i’m in some terrible need of some fresh air

i need to escape the attitude of the airport hotel it’s the same all over the world no one is a regular at an airport hotel no one in their right mind really wants to stay at an airport hotel they’re all simple utilitarian boxes with beds and running water and a very unsatisfying television channel line up but they are ready willing and able to accommodate one’s base needs for a simple

shit shower and shave

the chick behind the counter she’s all business she’s all about the minimum daily requirement of vitamin courtesy she could give a shit about who what when where why there’s none of the jovial interest in me my business my raison d’etre

she doesn’t know that i’m in love nor does she care

she glances at my passport she takes my credit card she gives it a swipe hands me my key points to the general location of the elevator with a nod of her head

and i’m erased from her memory

i’ve flown all the way from san francisco to london trapped in some middle coach seat in between the cutest sweetest little old lady couldn’t have been more than five foot two looked liked she was a miss marbles refugee complete with matching hat and scarf hands folded on her lap

and some redheaded silicon valley nouveau company middle manager with the classic hipster prison pussy goatee wrapped around what should have been a chin

but wasn’t

a couple of joints previously smoked in the airport parking lot a double dose of medical edibles two shots of whiskey from those cute little bottles and a rented copy of sukiyaki western django the only path to making it through this trip

goddamn how does miss marble do it maybe it’s some sort of episcopalian meditation practice a constant mantra giving thanks to henry the eighth and his hottentot hottie anne boleyn

anna anna come to bed
i’m a gonna chop off your head

over and over and over again until she reaches that desired state of emotional translucence

maybe her doctor has her on so many fucking valium that she has no fucking idea where she is much less that she really is quite uncomfortable

maybe she has inserted a pair of sherry-filled benwa balls and she is experiencing such drunken heights of orgasmic pleasure that she simply cannot even fathom moving for fear of losing this edge

you move it you lose it

cialis paralysis can leave a person all weak in the ankles

and perhaps i’ve gone too far or not far enough

i’m too fucking stoned to read

i’m too fucking stoned to pay attention to any movie or video on these circa nineteen sixty-seven television screens that dangle from the curvature of the airplane’s spine

i’m too fucking stoned to do the crossword puzzle in the airline smut-zine

i’m too fucking stoned to keep my eyes open and count the cracks on the wall

but i’m too uncomfortable in my middle seat in the cattle car to fall asleep

oh the fucking horror

arriving in london well not really london per se best said arriving at heathrow only to have to walk seven point three miles along windowless hallways and up down staircases whose only purpose is to inflict emotional pain to wear down one’s already faltering ego

winding my way through this bureaucratic maze that is england only to be stuck snaking sneaking salamandering through the cue so that i that we can be inspected accepted rejected poked prodded patted purgatoried browbeat by bums with bad teeth and bad haircuts wearing ill fitting uniforms and

telling by the grimace on their face

shoes that must be oh so uncomfortable with laces too short to properly tie with laces too short to hang themselves in the shower ain’t no autoerotic asphyxiation happening with these laces ain’t no david carridine action happening with these laces

these laces that constantly come undone

oh she’s come undone

and carl the customs man thumbs through my passport looking for an empty page glancing at stamps for mexico glancing at stamps for israel for canada for holland belgium germany france korea singapore glancing at my chinese visas my brazilian visas finds a blank spot gives my passport a ch-ching ch-ching with the stamp machine

and sends me on my way

to stand in another line so can get myself a few quid all printed up in such pretty colors and graced by the image of a sexless matron wearing a crown of corn

to blaze a trail across and through the cold rain and snow to hop into a black cab that will drop me off at the doorstep of my own personal hell so i can spend quality time in some windowless colorless unadorned conference room on one of the middle floors of a dreary square box and glass office building in the middle of some dismal office park out near the airport out near the hotel

which is itself quite the symbol of this post-industrial we make nothing but we distribute knowledge office park

where we carelessly play with blasting caps of potential edge walking yes and no with the explosive emotional release of cum spurting dealgasm

and then late in the afternoon on to the hotel to settle into conference calls with the west coast with the good folks back home who are just beginning their day and could give a shit that while in theory they care but in practice they could give a shit that i should be ending mine

such is the life of a schmuck

and then i’m outside hanging with the other hotel outcasts these lonely smokers most having been exiled ostracized from all aspects of normal human social activities i mean for crissake can’t a guy even have a fucking fag in a bar while he’s sipping his whiskey complaining to any who will listen about his fucked up life

I prefer to hang with these untouchables who brave the cold to congregate and suck fumes and inhale witticisms not that i’m partaking in their filthy disgusting habit not that i’m about to be wallowing in their fucking mud hole i mean i might sneak around the corner and hit the blue dream get a little righteous become one with i and i and jah

the father
the son
the holy ghost

i’ve left behind love and rockets to land in this rumpus room of misfits i just can’t believe the loveliness of loving you i just can’t believe it’s true

sugar sugar
honey honey

aw yeah

pour a little sugar on it honey

you are my candy girl and you got me wanting you

lean back against the wall tilt back the head glance up at the moon and howl

shed a tear choke back a sob
let that lower lip tremble
just a bit
come back around and engage

say hey
talk name rank and serial number
the where you from
the where you going

dude dressed in his grandpa’s double ell fucking beane plaid jacket and wool-lined duck shoes smoking a lucky strike drinking what looked like a jack and coke with a blue plastic sword skewering a maraschino cherry resting amongst the ice in a plastic cup

yeah my momma she called me claude that’s my name born and bred in oklahoma yet i ain’t been there in thirty years what a pit of a fucking place and i know pits fucking eh lived for seven years in si-goddamn-beria lived in this town on the edge of the world smack dab in the middle of a goddamn puckered goat’s rectum

i tell you what

lived in singapore a couple of years that was fucking nice my wife yeah i’m motherfucking married what i look like i ain’t never been married fuck you my wife she said i must’ve pissed someone off

one day i’m sipping a cold one sitting on a fine couch in a high rise with the air conditioner blasting away next thing i know i’ve got my ass parked in si-fucking-beria

yeah must’ve pissed off somebody

heh

shit i turned sixty fucking two sitting out in the middle of the saudi goddamn arabian desert fucking sand niggers never let you have any fun

but lemme tell you

living in ell eh for two years was fucking worse far as i’m concerned the whole goddamn valley might as well be the la brea fucking tarpits let’s throw the lot of ‘em into the bubbling pitch and watch what little meat they have melt off their bones leaving nothing but their big broad crest white strip enlightened choppers

yeah ell eh now that place is the fucking asshole of the world goddamned new age liberal crystal worshipers

i light his cigarette i lean close cup the lighter in my hand flick flick click the bic i whisper maybe a bit harshly i consider biting his ear he just looks like he needs his ear bit it’s all weathered and red with a couple of lost hairs wiggling out reaching for the sky i ask him i say so dude so what the fuck did you do what gods did you cross what past lives did you totally fuck up that you lived in so many miserable places he says looking down his nose and over his drink at me he says leaning back on his heels he says

oil

fucking oil

i’m an oil man

and i ask him i lean back up to that shriveled shrunken head image of an ear i say so if it was so miserable why did you even bother doing it why did you let them keep moving you around like that

he looks at me like i had just asked him why his dog had three legs he says leaning a bit left on a bent knee his left eye shut he says

fuck if i know must’ve been the money

londonderry and all that