May 24-30, 1999: Marc Olmsted and Marie Kazalia

Bio(auto)

Allen Ginsberg said “MARC OLMSTED inherited Burroughs’ scientific nerve & Kerouac’s movie-minded line nailed down with gold eyebeam in San Francisco ” Olmsted has appeared in CITY LIGHTS JOURNAL,  NEW DIRECTIONS IN PROSE & POETRY, SIGNS OF LIFE (a Manic D Press anthology), PROCESSED WORLD, Flesheater Chris D’s BONGO CHALICE,  BLUE SATELLITE and a variety of small presses He has two books,  MILKY DESIRE (Subterranean Press, 1991) and R…SUM… (Inevitable Press, 1998)
He has also made two short films, BURROUGHS ON BOWERY, a portrait of the NAKED LUNCH author, and AMERICAN MUTANT, with Burroughs,  Ginsberg & Leary
Olmsted appeared at the L.A Ginsberg Memorial along with Tom Waits, Exxene and Johnny Depp His forthcoming book, WHAT USE AM I A HUNGRY GHOST?-POEMS FROM 3-YEAR RETREAT, has an introduction by Ginsberg.

The following work is Copyright © 1999, and owned by Marc Olmsted and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

Temp World

.In
.the bunker
.of the workers’
.lounge
perfume hangs
.in the air
.somebody’s
.ghost or
.marked territory
– no windows
– the yellow
.walls glistening
bone in the
.overhead
florescent lights
.a
middle-aged
.Chinese woman
sleeps coffin-like
.before
.her shift
.vampire queen
propped on fake
.leather chairs –
.how does she
.wake
.in time?

Advice

The more successful
.poet explains
his fortune to me as
.a “course
in miracles” –

My father told me
.about Anne Frank’s
.diary when I
.was 12-how
.it ended with
.her view of
human “basic goodness”
.as the Nazis
.came down –

Fritz Lang said
.in Contempt
“To live is to
.suffer” –

When I told this
.to my lama
.he said “That’s
.very beautiful”

Blinking Red Eyes

.I
Old vampire
.teeth of broken
.hypodermics
.Rest
.II
Lugosi on the
.television
.mute –
L.A poets
.sitting on
.the floor
Brendan
.Constantine
.wearing a
.rubber mask
.with blinking
.red eyes
Dr Van Helsing
.examines Mina’s
throat in black & white
Lugosi really
.died here
I’m not kidding
Carlye asked
.Bela Lugosi Jr at some
.horror thing
verified the
.address
Lugosi really
.died here
and my heart
.hurts
Bauhaus feedback
.through the
.heart like
.a stake
Lugosi really
.died here
no shit
I’m telling the
.truth
His son said
.so
1998 Winter
.Solstice
red lights in
.the vampire
.mask
red string
of lights on
.the balcony
68 years
.from the
.movie –
time is a
.vampire
– dream of this
.world-
unreal as
.the Count –
cape in the
.night

(from the forthcoming anthology DEAR BELA: Poets listening to Bauhaus sing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” in the apartment where Lugosi really died)

In L.A
In L.A the
.shaved head
.black bus driver
.is preaching
Jesus as
.I get on
.with a hiss
.of hydraulic
.doors –
In L.A it’s
.nearly X-mas
.so I watch
.DEMONS II
laser disc behind
.curtains in
the bright day –
In L.A I
.carry an
Academy member
“for your consideration”
video
.of Dalai Lama story
KUNDUN
to
.my 80 year old
.mother
miles from
.the Tibet
.of our karma –
In L.A the
.severely retarded
.man in
.blue cap
sits across
.from a blonde
.sex star
.Pamela Anderson
.billboard –
In L.A the old
.movie theater
.is a gift shop –
In L.A I am
.important
.with long hair
.and sunglasses
.as long as
.they don’t see
.me riding the bus –
In L.A there
.are many
.promises hanging
.in the air
.Vegas
.magic show

New Year’s Hope

San Francisco
.Dec 31st
Haight St .sidewalk
– young dreadlock
whiteboys
.wishing for
.the 60’s
– junkies
.making wormholes
.in time
– tweaked speed
.freaks
accelerating
.into midnight
– old boozers
.turning back the
.clock
– ambitious
.yuppies zipping in
.kingly vans
.planning planning
.planning
– poet pretends
.mindful
.examining
.now

Stumbling In
W/ The Chills

Winter virus
.bounty on
.my head
– workers shuffle
.heads fulla
.snot
– office hacking death
.camp
– invisible crawl
.of germs

Art?

.Walking home &
.on the curb
.a
.fat pubescent
.trailer trash
white girl with hair in
70’s movie goddess
.Bo Derek corn
rows sucking
.a cigarette and
.eyeing my beret
says
“I like your
hat You make
.art?”

Death Odor Of Cigarettes

– when I watch
people smoke
.I want
.them to stop
– that faculty
woman I work
.with
.scratchy voice
& smoker’s chimp
.mouth
– show
her my mom’s
.hacked off
.tit

Cherry blossoms
.pushed by wind on the sidewalk?
Styrofoam peanuts

I Never Dream The X-Files But
.Dream: end
.titles of the
.TV sci fi
.X-FILES and
.I am in them –
they’re end titles
.I’ve never seen
but in the dream
.they are very
.familiar:
a long black
.train rolls by
.in the night
with black-tinted
.glass –
usually [I think
.in the dream]
.there’s one
.window with
a golden alien
.fetus & I
.wait to see this
.for a reassurance
maybe just the
fetus seen many
.times enough
.for comfort –
but the train
.passes & it’s
.all sinister black glass
– no fetus in sight –
.doesn’t look good

Sick So Long

Sick so long
.I’m the mutant
.virus man –
.Holes in ceiling
where I work,
.wires exposed –
.Visiting S.F ,
.the custodian
of dead writer
.Burroughs
ignores me –
.The blonde
sit com
local poet girl
gets attention
from the press –
.The beggar
.yogi teacher
.comes to
.relieve my mind
– “There are no
winners in
.this world”
said Khortek
.Tulku, lama

Teacher Sky

Red-tipped
leaves of maple
.tree, courtyard
noon light –
.a breeze
pushing waves
.of branch,
nodding,
doing prostrations,
.rippling now
.across the ivy
.in concrete
.ring beyond the
.black lacquered
metal picnic tables
– thinking of
.my lama
– vast sky of
.April

Marie Kazalie
MAKazalia@aol.com

Bio(auto)

Marie Kazalia was born in Toledo, Ohio but has lived her adult life primarily in the San Francisco bay area, with the exception of four expatriate years in Japan, India, & Hong Kong She has a BFA degree from California College of Arts and Crafts Her poetry and fiction have appeared in the literary journals AABYE(UK),  Anthology Magazine, Arnazella, ATOM MIND, Bloodstone, Caprice,  EDGAR, Footsteps, fyuocuk, Galaxy Literary Journal, Lullwater Review, Mercy, Midwest Poetry Review, Mosaic Magazine, Nerve Cowboy,  Niederngasse (Swiss), POETRY MOTEL, Rain City Review, SNARK, synapse,  Talus & Scree, 2River View, Urban Spaghetti, Vagabond, Vol No Magazine, yefief and others, as well as in over 60 electronic literary journals on the Internet (complete list available) She won 3rd prize in the 1998 Serpentine Short Fiction Competition (http://www.serpentinia.com) and has a print chapbook of poetry forthcoming from Phony Lid Publications.

The following work is Copyright © 1999, and owned by Marie Kazalia and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsover without written permission from the author.

first-time-seeing-someone-do-that—

her lips dry and reddened
dry-tongue moving
trying to work-up some saliva
inside her dry mouth
She wants to cut a deal with me:
If I buy her a pint tonight
sheíll pay me back twenty dollars
when her disability check comes–
All this she planned saying
as we walked–not listening
to me as I talked–
inside the liquor store
I pay for the cheapest Vodka on the shelf
get change back from my five–
She has the cap off the bottle
before we get out the door
chug-a-lugging
air-bubbles crashing up into the void
pouring down herself–in two tries
We walk just one block
she drops the empty bottle into trash receptacle
around the corner from the liquor store
Still isnít drunk–
hasnít phased her
as we cross at the corner
enter the bar painted black inside
–a couple days later–
find her passed-out on her mattress
really done-out
Wake her
tell her I need my twenty Iím broke
She produces a roll
from recesses and folds
fans the notes trying to focus
HERE, she says
takes three twenties
puts them in my hand
then passes back out–

Wisdom/reincarnation

at times–
like that ridiculous situation
I put myself into
no excess cash
fear of taxi drivers
2 heavy bags
packed with everything I owned
clothes, notebooks, shoes
Lugging to the Taipei bus station–
To get a bus to the airport
for my flight back to Hong Kong
Staggering straining
under the weight of my luggage
Muscles-full-out bags
shoulder-strap-slung
Lifting myself and everthing
up 2 flights of metal stairs
Along a concrete & metal overhead
crosswalk–above several lanes
of traffic–letting bags drop
resting–Lifting them starting
all over again, snagging my black
tights on roughened corners of my
bags–down more stairs–dragging
hole in my tights working-way-up
Thinking about EAST-INDIAN-NEO-
HINDU-BRAHMANISM-REBIRTH-CYCLE–
repeating all this–every detail–
over & over into infinity–
That time I couldn’t help thinking–
How ridiculous of me
to live this again–

two at one table–

one woman talking to herself
and a second woman talking to herself
sitting together in a silly non-conversation
teh second remembering
the first time observing a woman
in non-sexual communication
with a man watching her mouth
hearing her words
tone and stance equal to his
so envious ever since
she’d ebbn trying to have as many
non-sexual conversations as possible
with men and lesbians
but more often than not
ends up silent
or talking to herself
wondering when
that old cliche died out
she hadn’t noticed
about a woman wanting to be loved
for her mind not just her body
for her whole self
who she is inside
thinking
If not loved—
then at least talked to once in a while
she unwraps her 99 cents BIG BURGER
at Carl’s Jr on Market Street
filled with bombed-out individuals
eating passing by the windows
bombed-out stench spots outside
where the homeless sleep
squat shit and pissing
where The City installing
French pay toilets—25 cents
outside covered with tourist maps
under plexi-glass b&w photos
Market St in the 1890’s
revolving kiosks advertising
the past and future
right now she scrapes yellow mustard
off the bun using the paper receipt
for 99 cents plus 8 cents tax
squeezes 2 packets of catsups onto
the flat gray patty lifts with a finger
checking for the 2 rings of onion
one pickle knows there underneath

not too cool

his bedroom ceiling painted dark blue
windows blocked off
dozens of glow-in-the-dark moon balls
suspended from varying lengths of fishing line
Invites in to view the phenomenon
light on for the moons to absorb
light off dark full of glowing balls
He demonstrates how to touch them
so they move and sway without entanglements
watches her fondling (she’s been drinking beer, smoking pot)
eyes adjust checks out her ass
standing next to his double-wide mattress on the floor
he tells her how he likes to get high on pot
lie in the bed watching
the balls in motion in the dark
But her thoughts on getting one of those moons for herself
he/she watching carefully
when his eyes turn away she tries to pull one of the balls down
he turns his face back abruptly
stops her with his hand
escorts her by the arm back to the party
A few moments later
she sees him turn the light on in his room
another girl in blue jeans going in—
he closes the door—

winter night waiting

cloud white exhaust
he fucked her
through a hole in her bluejeans
while his girlfriend
left the car running
heater and radio on
gone into her parents house
But they thought she must have known
shadow returning
to steamed up windows
vibrations of excitement
sents of sex in the air

blowjob

what do you want for your birthday? she asked
a blow job, he told her
ok but even though I’m a full grown woman
my mouth is quite small
I may need to make incisions
at each corner
to accommodate you
then stitch them back up
when we’re through

a knife held at the throb of your temple
there the blade only slightly inside one ear

he lead us on a path
at the end a sphere (he’d turned into) waiting
he’d learned to walk economically

No Hemingway

as a small boy in Idaho
he chopped wood for Hemingway
who usually gave him 50 cents
though he didn’ t know who Ernest Hemingway was–
Man alone in that cabin
brought international attention
newspaper reporters
swarming the small town
of Ketchum
the summer he killed himself

the boy who chopped wood
for Hemingway
must have gotten some essence
of those splattered brains
on himself
for when he grew
went about bigger than life
a man’s man
though everyone knew
he was no Hemingway