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.)

conspiracy theories.

i'd like to think that,
somewhere behind an espresso cafe
in siciliy, around the corner from
a pizzeria, down a cobblestone road
past the cafe freddos in palermo,
in a dark and smoky room
reeking of expatriates &
cuban cigars, the finest
bourbons & irish brews
wafting about the shadowy heads of
surprisingly familiar faces
hiding beneath wrinkles and time,
i would see--
seated around a dimly lit
game of texas hold 'em--
maybe elvis, jfk,
jim morrison, & hey,
he'd be old, but why not
abe lincoln, too?
it would be conspiracy theory
at its finest--
not that, as we all expected
at least once or twice,
they were alive, not dead--
that graceland was a front
& jackie onassis was just acting--
no, not that,
that's conspiracy theory for dummies
& you can buy it at barnes & noble for
half off & get a free coffee--
no, the conspiracy, rather,
is that, after all these years
of us fussing over them &
likely driving them crazy with
our faintings, fan clubs, hate mail,
generally passive-aggressive
idolizing hot-cold bitchings,
after all that,
they don't actually give a fuck about us
& never did.
they got the last laugh,
taking our money &
now their "dead" royalties are paid out
by some swiss bank,
they are living the good life
in tropical shanties &
european villas, popping bubbly
& celebrating anonymity for
the rest of their lives. & lincoln?
he hates politics & probably
watches the Onion nightly.
"union, my ass," he'd say,
& elvis, john, & jimmy would laugh,
tossing in more chips &
toasting to their deaths &
loving every minute.

the internet killed the classics

the internet killed the classics
in a classic hit-and-run,
spilling the guts of ancient &
obtuse conversations all over
the pavement of we don't
give a fuck about your
capital letters & hegel
can choke on a dick.

the birds are angry & we
have better things to do on our
ipads than read metaphysics
going on & on for
thousands of pages on
trees you killed with your
revolutions of industry &
capital & we are not
marxists, lol,

we are
generation why do you
keep bothering us, we can't
hear you with our earbuds on:
hey ya hey ya hey ya
hey why don't you get a job;

in this recession i bet
socrates would be on
unemployment, taking
xanex & anitdepressants,
wasting away on facebook
trying to fight the trolls
off his apology & jon stewart
would roast him on the late night
daily show & he would end up
a blip on a blog buried underneath
celebrity adoptions &
scams to look younger when you
are older & clawing furiously
at the questions you so long buried--
so you think you can dance?
you can't.

#we are royally fucked,
the story would go,
& 3 like it, 2 comment,
the next status something
about happy hour &
let's get fucked up again next weekend.

look at me now look at me now
--i'm a monster.

the apostate's creed

---

---

I believe in god our father and god our mother;
I believe that the gods have long ago cast their children from their home;
I believe in the masturbation of the gods
and the pornography that is human life;
I acknowledge the symbol and the metaphor;
I rest in the cannibal’s chalice;

I believe in the union of the apostates,
In the community of the believers;
I believe in a brazen honesty,
In the courage to be and be less than a shadow;
I believe love is fairy dust and with it we can fly;
I believe in intimacy our savior and beauty our redeemer;
I believe in an art that expresses both;

I believe that art can give our lives’ meaning;
I believe that falsity chains our wings;
I believe that falsity elevates our souls;
I believe that everything has its silenus;

I believe that rapists pattern themselves after the movement of the heavens,
That child abusers perform to a choir of angels;

I believe in the mysticism of words, in the power of language;
I believe in the child who gives language a playpen;
I believe in image our brother,
In thought our sister,
In poetry our children,
In the bohemian nursery rhyme;
I believe in the family formed from acceptance and trust;

I believe in the broken window and the vodka,
In the prostitute and the cigarette,
In pain and laughter, in fear and joy,
In the semen spilt and the eyebrow’s sweat.
I believe in the broken spirit,
In the holy catholic tempest
Of the least of saints;

I believe in the nirvana of a kiss and the ubiquity of the spirit;
I believe that through creation we are gods,
That through destruction we create,
That we are no more than
a creation of colors and
autumn leaves and
the wintry snow;
I believe that poets are magicians
And magicians are accursed;

And I look for the resurrection of the apostate,
And the life of a spirit yet to come.
Amen.

like a phoenix.

---

---

i got a pint of beer
& a brain full of flies
& i sit on a chair
that has seen drunkards & fights
it's a bed for a bum
but it's a goddamn life
& somehow that's right.

& i still got that beer.
so here's to the night.

i got a lit cigarette
& a heart full of holes
& i know every patron
in this bar, every whore
that has stripped &
fucked through this small,
lazy city
—it ain't pretty—
but really, if you're so broke
that it's shitty,
it's a goddamn life
full of meds & ex

& sometimes that's enough
if your soul rides rough.

my drugs are strong
& and i am callous to the touch.

i got a pen and page
& my mouth tastes like dirt
but i can write what i want
& emphasize the hurt
when she took that phone
& fed it to my face
—i can rise above it
& i set a new pace—

it's a goddamn life
& in the mud,
there's a crown.

i'l'l get fucked up again
& shake myself from the ground.

i'll rise like a phoenix
& then likely black out.

open letter to franz kappus

---

---

*****************

Everything human
is leaving
her face."
~ Jim Morrison, Wilderness

*****************

take a minute,
if you can,
from the meds &
the mourning.

they are a dirty
dish towel wet with
rape, your face
feeling heavy &
displaced with
asphyxiation.
it is hard to breathe,
harder still to see.

inhale fiercely against them
like this is the last cigarette
on earth, drag deep
& long at the end of
the filter, riding
that brief buzz from
the dreams of your
youth & the hope
you held for some
tomorrow you have
yet to see.

life is watching you
from a distance,
quiet & drugged,
watching helplessly as
you wander, wondering
what dark night of the soul
it slipped away from you
leaving you alone on
this couch with a bottle
& pills.

remember how it felt once
to be alive & feeling,
to have words to say
& books of dreams,
to be present,
singing, hearing &
touching the now,
knowing love & loss
& that sharing
came easy.

at least you have
one.
last.
spark.

far away though it seems.
keep it close as it burns
while you flicker & wane.

store what's left neatly
in your closet:
thoughts folded,
well creased,
emotions hung
without wrinkles,
expectations scattered
& shoved into the few
remaining places,
waiting, hoping,
that one day
they might once again
see the light of day.

but what's left
belongs to night walkers
& they know the shadows well.
they are intimate with sorrow
as you are intimate with your wounds.

nursed daily,
they grow
large
monstrous
gangrene of soul
feeding on your already
aging flesh.

this is no
aspiration
no pathway to
sunshine
glory
choirs of angels
this is no
lithium
no technique or
letter of advice
to our children.

there is no going into yourself
with you coming out alive.
there is nothing but
cackles and torn wings,
howls in the corners of
your mind that only
more pain can dampen.

only more pain can consume
what is left—
a shell of some former self
blabbing hysterically to
the medics that it is his
only way out.
"I must write, I must!
It is all I have left!"

and when he is gone,
thrown in some padded room
at the end of a dark, sterile hallway
guarded by more meds &
more lunatics overdosed on life,

you wring your hands
like a madman,
knowing you are next.

ourselves are dangerous &
deep, cavernous mouths
feasting on our once active minds
do not go within,
do not find your muse.

run away while you can

run as long as your legs have strength to go

all we have are minutes
& they grow bleaker by the day.

escape fantasies

---

---

***********************

"I take it apart
in the garage
like a puzzle:
the petals are greasy
as old bacon
and fall
like the maidens of the world
backs to the floor
and I look up"

~ Charles Bukowski, "Destroying Beauty"

***********************

selah this, bitches—

that God so loved us
He gave us His only begotten son
& some postulate that
he is either madman or messiah

—but what of the fact
that only children are spoiled
& a bit self-aggrandizing?
or that, as Catholics say,
Joseph never slept with his wife?
& Jesus was born in a stable?

it sounds like his home life
would be difficult,
smelly,
full of sexual tension,
Mary saying no,
Joe getting drunk, making
lopsided furniture,
Jesus in the corner,
crying behind a fat cow,
his swaddling clotch
reeking of piss & lamb shit,
worried the three kings
were pedophiles bearing
frankincense, yes, but
maybe chloroform & lollipops,

maybe Jesus was a poet,
not insane or a god—
maybe he, too, wanted to escape
& with words become
a god.

***

sometimes, when i am drunk,
i think the spies are after me.
don't ask what spies
or why they chase me—
i am drunk—
usually i don't even know.
i wake up & read my texts
with red eyes & shame.
sitting there impishly between the usual &
embarrassing i want to fuck you's
& let's go to hawaii's
are those texts
about the spies—
no, i can't join you at the bar,
the spies are after me—
no, i can't come home,
the spies are watching—

it's not real (at least i think)
my mind is
stuffed full, overflowing
with science fiction shows—
sea monsters & dragons
all roll into each other
& i dream i can fly.

& it wouldn't be an insult,
at least not to me,
to ask whether Jesus had
one too many,
Tweeted one drunk night to his fans,
"#Water into wine!"
& then the whole shit
hit the ceiling—

& maybe he had good intentions.
i don't really want to fuck those girls,
i don't have money to go to Hawaii,
let alone take a few days off—

i had a fucked up childhood
& i have a drinking problem
& i protect myself with booze & poems

***

so why can't Jesus be
a sane man, too,
who at twenty
sat in the temple, terrified of
stables, hating kings, donkeys his friends,
& spun a yarn fueled by Mary Magdalenes
& wine he imagined he made from water?

he, like me, would be
scratching at a wound
that will not heal,
gnawing at the bones
of our youth &
howling at the moon—

& honestly,
hanging on a cross for our words
would be the best poem
we ever wrote.

ode to Collins.

---

I do not remember the day,
Much less do I remember the hour,
It was like a surprise, or picnic,
A lightning storm,
When I perused the poetry section
Still a bit tipsy from the prior evening—
The afterglow—
Embarrassing pieces of Dickinson, lingerie,
And honestly the best cigarette
Still staining my lack of suit and tie,

And it was there with the nine horse heads,
Quiet and alluring,
Standing in anticipation of my touch between
Bukowski and cummings,

Small and slim,
Adorned in a smooth shell,
The way an Indian princess
Or courtesan
Well-versed in the ways of love
Might lie in expectation of an illicit lover.

And I must admit, my hands trembled
As if you were she,
The first girl I kissed,
As if this was the first time I was to unclasp your bra,

And my fingers, unstable,
Lifted you from the shelf,
Ran my fingertips down your spine,
Kissed your barcode and your price.

And I opened you, I smelled your fragrance,
Your newness between your lines,

I wanted you as my own.
I craved you.
Deliriously.

And smiling,
I took you to the register and—
“Yes, thank you,
I found everything I was looking for.”

give the pastors Ex.

do not give me
age & its wisdom,
its armchair or cognac
& the aroma of the
intellectual cigars
& philosophical conversation —

i want explosions.

heat waves.

i want water balloons
& strobe lights.

give the pastors Ecstasy
& see what new gods they devise.

prophecy and dreams.

where are the prophets
who grab us by our throats
& spit the apocalypse
into our dreamy eyes?

& where are the dreamers
unhurried by debts
& book signings, with
songs of love & tangled limbs
to cause our ears
to tingle & shake?

& where are we?
on hammocks,
stoned & waiting
for prophecies & dreams.

daylight.

i want the wilderness to
wash over me
& leave me wet and gritty,
dyed with excess
& hope sweating through my pores.

i want the sun in my mouth,
burning holes through my lips
so that when we kiss,
you feel daylight on your tongue.

the sixth sense.

give me more senses
than tangerine chapstick
& orchid body wash
& fireworks on the Fourth of July
with a lukewarm light beer.

i want to smell the lust of lovers
& taste the world's vibrations.

i want to feel the cries of angels
& know the mystic Om.

i want the river of life to run through me
& spread my heartbeat
on every shore.

value menu love.

i do not know of sexual healing.

i know oblivion

& grief & distance.

i know the feeding of our souls
to each other with
our tongues.

i know
magic & houdini,
smokescreens
& vintage lunch boxes.

the value menu stops at 99¢
but we,

we do not stop.

we rise.
we summon eagles & owls.

the divine burlesque

Our Father,
who art in heaven,
is a god/man of juxtaposition--
He lay lion next to lamb with the same
sleight of hand that wrought
Paul out of Saul and
Eve from Adam,

and I cannot help but wonder,
when He, transcendent ether,
became concrete, donning human skin,
was it sarcasm thicker than angelic choirs?
had He, being bored by that neverending day of rest,
become jealous of Kevin Smith?
did he, too, want to make humans laugh?

or was He flirting with us,
having realized rage and worldwide floods
were not becoming of His name?

was He getting coy,
slipping that miniskirt of jesus
up His bronzed loins and
shaving the hairs of deity from
His now-contingent legs?

or perhaps He's just perverse,
making a mere burlesque show of His world,
cross-dressing incarnationally,
and selling tickets to the equally bored seraphim.