Meditations in Cafe Bassam

***

Written by Joel Day, Michael Burns, Scott Tuggle, and Ryan Stollar
December 2002 at the original Cafe Bassam in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter

***

I. The Ambiance of Bassam

Sit we now, here in this subtle trance,

Lonely guys thinking of romance,

Dreaming thoughts of what is not to be,

Of love and its delicate subtlety —

A shadow! A banshee! Shelley's tongue lies on the floor,

Passion lurking, the image of a whore —

Scream! Run! from that which you cannot hide;

in the arms of the night doth my love abide.

Solubrity is death art; sex are our girls

Yet I ignore:

***

II. The Deception of Truth

Scent of the night on star-studded streets,

Beautiful angels, lurking, accept not defeat;

The sheet is our god; the world, our parapet;

Masturbated death, false yet so real —

Passionless orgasm confused by what you feel;

Bodies lightly shed, ashes of seduction lie waiting on the carpet,

With poetry as penis: we make love with our words;

Burning Cleopatra, a mortar wall of hate.

Ethereal peaks desire, forever doomed to wait.

Vodka quenches fire — please reverse this cursed fate;

Parents quench nothing behind disconnected hate —

Green light calling, heart's engine is dead.

Awake no more! Live with the dread!

Damn to hell this fate as the dark princess drags me to her bed

But I drowned in the ashtray, so fuck it.

***

III. Love Does Not Conquer All

Ecstasy of ignorance — Shout! Stamp! Impede!

Fuck Academia! Coagulation of minds bleed,

Waste of time is our bitter crime

Yet existential despair is the bitch we need.

"Grapes to wine as you to ecstasy" —

Dream your dreams, you fuck, I'm sure you'll learn

All of life's beauty inspires; celibaic virgin mind expires

As life, the fucking pedophile, rapes Disney the damn liar:

Beauty is a Beast seen through bleeding eyes;

The discursive subtle youth rapes future desires

While sinful age creates new, uncontrollable fires.

***

IV. Prophet, King, Poet, Cynic

"Beware of your past for it lies to the future!"

   "Ignore your noose; let morality die."

      "Cupid dies at last, slain for filthy lucor."

         "You poets are whores; man and god are a lie."

"Watch your words for they lead to death!"

   "The people have spoken: 'Fuck you! Damn opposition!'"

      "Yet sobriety remains in love's sweet breath."

         "Love's an illusion fed by your religious prostitution."

"Forget not the pleasures of the present!"

   "But, of course, as jewels crown military force."

      "Love is a ruby, we pray, ever incessant."

         "In the end, love dies by time, eternally scorched."

***

themes for worship.

worship with salt
sweat
body   mind   &
breasts   soul

art

worship with
orgasms in a chapel
of sound

   or color   heat
breath
      lips on
fire
singing with
eros

dance

worship with divine
memory
& death
   cancer
shake the branches of
pain

love

worship with
salt
   sugar
cayenne pepper

use no recipe

worship with a sprig of
   thyme.

tongue-tied

---

Sing
like your tongue got tied
in a moment of passion
& you cannot untie
the knot —

Pray
like tomorrow will not come
& today is
all the clay you have left —

Live
like life
is inexhaustible
& a furious ocean
of time and space —

Think
how the universe is ever-expanding
& all you want
is someone
to hold you closer —

Love
like you are starving
for another being
to see into
your beautiful soul
& touch your bones from within —

Feel
another's skin
like your skin wants
to be felt —
hot, gentle, & knowing,
like molten lava
springing from the lips
of a horny god.

untitled

---

---

I took the road less traveled
and found the bones of kings
trending on Twitter.

Who is there is not a flash mob
armed with glitter bombs.
This is no trick or treat.

It is a brutal wipeout aimed at your skull,
a seven nation army of despots
and I walk the line.

Ring of fire?
Bitch, please.
It is no song—
it is a plank to the heavens
in a dream within
a late night fever.

I saw the seraphim doing
coke off toilets and
playing "Niggas in Paris"
on their harps.

This is life after death
when death looks like a Kardashian.
You will be spread like
margarine until you melt
and you are not even butter.

I took the road more traveled
and it led me to God.
He sat high on a cloud
drinking 40's with Kanye
and auto-tuning a choir of angels.
You know God goes gorillas.
He started that shit
and Kanye is just in on the joke.

And really,
fuck you, Martin.
The Holocaust was real and
even TMZ knows Hitler did it for the ratings.

If the revolution was televised
the commercials would be epic.

I counted to ten then I punched the wall.
I counted to twenty and took another shot.
I reached inside my liver and found
the Archimedean point from which I could
move the whole universe.

It lay in agony between the vodka and
life's hidden meaning.
It said, "Snap, crackle, pop, bitch!"
and bitch-slapped me in the face.

I moved the universe one inch
to bring me one step closer to you.
I found the still point of the turning world
and hung myself by its branches.

I am a pinata.
Swing low, sweet chariot.
Swing away.

snowflakes & chemicals

---

One more month
until the moon implodes.

One more month
until it all gives out.

Maybe those demons
will finally draw the curtains
over this space
in between my ribs.

Or maybe there will be a cure,
some angel that was hiding
on a snowflake in a chemist's lab,
just waiting all these years
to be found.

Or just silence
for one day,
that would be nice.

Do you feel that beat?

One, two
One, two
One
One

...

...

Syncopated then
shuttered
like i drew the blinds
one dark night
and I fell asleep so fast
it made me wake up and cry.

It was so easy.
So damn easy.

Sleep.

Nectar.

google the end.

---

---

i googled it——
"why can't I be happy"——
& found it
it's not my fault,
it's the chemicals,
the synapses
misfiring, the switchboard
blowing up like a bieber meme on twitter,
it's my parents, my habits,
if i could just be reborn
from another vagina, have another
brain, or jog
ten minutes a day,
drink more bottled water,
i could crush my zoloft
into lines that sylvia plath could snort.
i could see the
sun smiling &
trees growing in
fast forward like
a beautiful acid trip;
i could throw away those high school hoodies
& start wearing cardigan sweaters.
i could live the good life of
walmart stickers &, like a mazda 3,
zoom zoom forever
into a perpetual sunrise...

but then i realized,
i hate cardigan sweaters
and walmart can suck a dick——
sorry, that's the chemicals——
again the goddamn chemicals
standing between the american dream &
i, the self that can't shake the blues
like robert johnson couldn't shake the cyanide.

i think i sold my soul to
the devil when i was a child
& now the devil makes three in my chemicals.

zoloft is the second coming of christ,
the first coming was just a premature money shot
of god's love all over earth's face,
the second being a kick ass apocalypse
filmed by mel gibson & going straight to DVD——

& maybe i am just waiting to fall in love during
that zombie apocalypse,
happiness being the mingling
of blood & flesh like
a new communion of heaven & earth.

the swagger's creed.

i believe in the infinite possibilities.

i believe in the finite breath—

rolled and lit like a joint until
the breath is a cough and the buddha is high.

i believe all the prophets are high,
& priests are sometimes godless;

i believe in the beauty of the human body,
i affirm our human skin—

skin like divine gold,
wrought of blood & sweat &
gods too drunk to stumble home.

i believe in lust—
lust is a meth baby shrieking in the wilderness,
love and hate its parents too fucked up to give a shit;

i believe emotion has its place
but reason reigns supreme.

i believe in swag.

swag this, swag that.
we need more swag, bitches.
more riches,
less money;
more acting,
less talking.

i believe in a jesus who swags—

swags right out of heaven &
beat-boxes his way to hell.

i believe the universe is a rap battle
& whoever has the biggest dick wins.

i believe the gods have dicks
& like to slap us in our faces:
cock slaps here, cock slaps there—
gods have cocks for all their children.

i believe in the power of language
& the music that is time.

time is the essence of the motherfucker
& motherfuckers have the biggest balls.

time has the balls to kill us all
& we can't say shit.
"we all die someday," we say,
because that's time...motherfucker.

time has swag
but death has more.

death grabs its crotch
& shanks us in the face.

death is a pussy that shanks our face until it is blue.

pussy-shanked by death
is the human condition.

to be human is not to think or feel.
to be human is to suffocate under death's vagina
until we can no longer feel our faces.
(mother earth is the real casey anthony,
will mother earth please stand up?)

you will not live forever, Methuselah.
death's vagina is coming for you
& you will lose all your swag.

& i believe in the hope of another life,
i believe in the kingdom to come.
i believe in the emancipation of us
from all this bullshit
& into the heavens above.

(that's a metaphor.)

i believe in the infinite swag
burning low inside the human heart.
someday we will find it
& rise up on the wings of eagles
& cock slap the gods' faces in return.

(that's a fact.)