N'awlins Bitter

Saturday night in New Orleans
Left lane on Canal
Taste of Pat O'Brien's
and silky French Quarter Jazz
still wrapping smoky strands of reluctance
around the leaving,
stroking senses with that soft Easy
that washes away the rest of the world
and slopes you down cobblestone
'till you find that place inside you
where you hid away your peace.

Barely aware of
neon shops and naked humanity
lining the sidewalks of this
great white rift
that divides then from now
slicing the city into pieces of time.
Old bum on the corner,
N'awlins masterpiece,
paper bagged harmless,
shuffling amid swirls
of peacocks and crows.
Three young men create ripples
in the kalidioscope on the walkway
taking shape within
time-warped tunnel-vision.

Then, slow motion madness,
as one extends an arm and
the sound of his able hand
connectging with
that old whiskey-bowed head
cracks across three lanes,
knocks me sqarely
into freeze-frame of moments,
ragged age crumpling
onto baggy knees,
youth and strength
never breaking their stride,
statued, though, in disbelieving eyes,
shoulder clapping, heads back
howling laughter
turning peace
into blood boil.

The light greens
and wheels spin on up Canal,
swing back down
to catch the red again.
Old bum stumbling on
medianed streetcar tracks
hand against a head
that swings side to side
as if to shake away
what never should have happened,
crosses three lanes down
and fades into the darkness
of the warehouse district.

Wheels spin on down Canal
to the station,
then back up,
need for reason,
for revenge,
knifing useless eyes
in futile search
of long gone statues..

and this time
I leave my Big Easy
with the bitter taste of Now
gritting like Mississippi Riverbottom silt
between my clenched teeth.

 

The Cryogenics of Tarpaper   • chapter 1    • chapter 2
Chapter 3

     She had no idea where she was nor how many days she had spent in there, but the sickness was mostly over. She had slept through the majority of it, it seemed, and the times she was awake were just blurry punctuation marks that broke that sleep into indistinct sections.
     In fact she was sleeping when the two orderlies unlocked the door. In some distant unimportant place in her awareness, she heard the keys jangle and the door open, but it was just too much effort to open her eyes. Then there was a voice, but it was much too far away to be of any concern.
     “Come on, Sleeping Beauty, time to rise and shine. It’s moving day for you.”
     Then hands on her, shaking her, rolling her roughly from side to side. It was with great effort that she managed to get her brick laden lids to raise enough that she could see the face floating above her, but then the bricks won out and pulled the lids closed again.
     “Oh, no we don’t,” and the hands pulled her into a sitting position.
Her neck flopped first forward and then backward as she tried to put her head on top of her body where it belonged.
     She could hear words but she couldn’t make them form into meaning in her head.
     “Goddamn, they must have her on enough thorazine to kill a mule.” The voice was deep and slow, and in some way, comforting.
     Then another voice, high pitched, whiney, “Fuck, man, you didn’t see her when they brought her in last week. She was one wild little bitch, and I still have bruises from it. You better be glad they got her like this.”
     Finally her neck began to cooperate, and her head stayed mostly where she put it, with only minor wobbles.
     The deep voice again, “C’mon hun, ya gotta wake up, now. We goin’ for a little walk. Just open your eyes, sweetie. C’mon, thats a girl.”
     Laura found that if she pasted her eyelashes to her eyebrows, her lids would stay up. She tried see who was talking to her, but it seemed, that finally open, her eyes had a mind of their own and would not go where she told them to go, but instead fell about the room in a most disconcerting fashion, pulling wall, ceiling, and floor into a kalidioscopic rotation that made her feel vaguely seasick. After a while, she was able to focus enough to pull the two faces out of the fuzz that covered everything. One of them looked vaguely familiar, like someone in a dream you don’t remember after you wake up. The other was broad and very black and was smiling at her. She wanted to smile back, but it seemed she didn’t remember how.
     “Look, we got another gown and some slippers for ya. You gonna be high fashion now.” He gently pulled her arms through the sleeves of the hospital gown, putting it over the one she was already wearing, but leaving the opening on this one in front, and tying it there. “You wouldn’t want Jimbo there to be checkin’ out your butt when you stand up, now would ya?”
     Laura’s head wobbled a bit, and the black orderly chuckled, “I didn’t think so.” He slid the grey slippers onto her feet. Then with one orderly on either side of her, holding her arms and heaving, she finally made it to a standing position, although her body swayed terribly, and if those hands had let go, even for a second, she would have been on the floor.
     “Damned shame they do this to people,” the deep voice again. “Can’t nobody get better when they keep ‘em drugged-up like this.”
     “Well, I tell you what. If she wasn’t “drugged up like this”, I wouldn’t be in here with her. I don’t care WHO sent me. I’da told ‘em to fuck off so fast it woulda made their head spin.”
     “Jimbo, you ain’t got enough balls to tell a chicken to fuck off, and you know it, so just shut the fuck up and help me get her to the unit.”
     “Fuck you, Austin.”
     The word “unit” had no meaning to her, and she had no idea where they were taking her. There were some stray words floating around in her head, but she couldn’t get them to be still long enough to ask, and she decided it really didn’t matter to her anyway.
     She found that she had to walk very slowly and keep her eyes focused on the floor just a few feet in front of her, because everything else in the world had just gone crazy and was spinning madly around her. It was only the support of the orderlies on either side of her that kept her on her feet as they shuffled down that long corridor and out into a sunlight so bright it was painful. The air was cool, and something, a feeling, a thought, she wasn’t sure, tapped against her awareness for just a moment when the coolness hit her, but there was just no energy left over for her to open the door, so whatever it was went away and left her mind still, which was okay with her right now. She needed all her concentration to get her feet to move in the proper rotation.
     It seemed she had been walking for hours when they finally arrived at a long set of steps that led upward. Navigating these steps required more coordination than she seemed to posess at the time, and after a few disastrous attempts at orderly guided locomotion, her feet went on stike and refused to raise themselves even an inch off the sidewalk.
     “C’mon, Baby,” the deep voice urged, “you almost there, now.”
     But her feet wouldn’t move no matter how much she pleaded with them, no matter how much the orderlies tugged.
     Jimbo was beginning to lose patience, and his tugs were becoming more violent. She wanted to spit on him, but her mouth was as uncompliant as her feet, and all she could manage was a slightly protruding tongue that was aimed toward the general vicinity of her right side. He didn’t even notice, which pissed her off more.
     Then Jimbo decided to add his own form of vocal encouragement.
     “Goddamit, you lazy little bitch, get up these stairs!”
     The deeper voice was fast on the heels of these words.
     “Jim! That’s enough. You better git your worthless ass away from me before I have to kick it again. Now, go on! Git. I’ll do this myself.”
     Suddenly her right side was on its own, and she was slightly surprised by its decision to remain in an upright positon.
     “Its okay, Baby, he’s just a walkin’ asshole. Don’t pay him no mind. Now, let’s get you inside where its warm.”
     And Laura found herself swept up like a baby into the arms of this kindly black giant who took the stairs two at a time, in spite of the extra load, muttering all the while about the stupidity of “some fuckin’ people”. Laura’s head rested against his chest and she was aware of the smell of tobacco, Tide, and the half eaten Baby Ruth which stuck out of his pocket.
     At he top of the stairs was a door which opened, seemingly by itself, and then she was on her feet again, steadied gently by big black hands on either of her upper arms.
     “Here ya go, Sweetie. Home. You gonna be okay now.”
     She tried pasting the word “Home” onto various aspects of the room she found herself in, but it just wouldn’t stick on the sickly green of the walls, nor on those orange and green vinal chairs and sofas that were scattered around over the endless flecks of terrazo floor, so she threw that word out and dug around in her wordbox for another.
     “Prison” found its way into her mind. She glanced at the row of windows on the left side of the room. No bars. She put that word back and fished a bit, finally pulling out “Nuthouse”. That seemed to fit pretty well, so she let it stay, content with its explanation of where she was at this particular moment.
     Slowly, she became aware that some of the vinal and terrazo was populated with flesh colored blurs floating above fragments of color. Closer study revealed eyes in the blurs, and the fact that all of these eyes were aimed in her direction, and she wondered briefly if the giant who stood behind her was terribly ugly or something.
     “Okay, guys, here’s the latest addtion to Unit 13,” the deep voice rumbled from somewhere above her head. “I know ya’ll gonna take good care of her.” Then closer to her ear, “ You gonna be alright, Hun. These some good kids. You gonna like ‘em.”
     The chatter that had died when they entered resumed immediately, and Laura was aware that most of it was about her, and that some of the fragments and blurs had moved closer and were asking her questions.
     “What’s your name?”
     “How old are you?”
     “You a suicide, too?”
     “You schizo or manic depressive?”
     “What kind of meds you on?”
     Did these people actually expect her to answer? They must, because the questions kept coming. Maybe an answer to one or two of them might damn the flood. She tried to get her name to form in her mouth, but her tongue was covered in fur of some kind, and had grown to five times its normal size. The giant intervened on her behalf.
     “C’mon guys, back off. You’ll have plenty of time to talk to her after she gets settled in. Brandy, show me where they put her stuff, will ya?”
     “Most certainly!” Laura was able to focus just enough to see that Brandy was a tall, extremely thin blonde girl who blinked a lot. “Right this way, Sir Austin. We shall deliver the Lady Guinever to her chamber, post haste!”
     “Sir Austin” chuckled again. “Well, ‘tis the Lady Laura, my kind princess, but I am sure Guinever’s chamber will do just fine.”
     The “chamber” was a huge room, filled with precise rows of single beds with white iron frames, each with a small chest-of-drawers next to it, and each neatly covered with a pink blanket. And on one of the beds, about five rows down, and four rows over, sat Laura’s green army duffle. Brandy led the way decisively, and with a flourish of one arm and a bow, declared, “Thy quarters Lady Laura. We hope you will find them satisfactory.” And with that she was gone.
     Austin held Laura up with one arm and moved the nearly empty duffle to the top of the chest with the other. Then he took Laura’s arms, turned her around and sat her down on the bed. She immediately lay down and closed her eyes.
     “Damned shame,” Austin muttered again as he worked the pink blanket from beneath her form, pulled it up and tucked it under her chin, pausing only long enough to blink, smile and mutter, “Well, I’ll be damned,” when he noticed his Baby Ruth bar clutched tightly in her left hand.
     There was only time for one thought to form in Laura’s mind before she was asleep again. This was the softest blanket she had ever felt.

• chapter 1    • chapter 2

 

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Love Storms - 30 page poetry chapbook

email W. Laura Alleman for more info

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     Hi. My name is W. Laura Alleman. No one, remembers what the W. is for and only my chidren, who are various and sundry, ranging in age from 21 to 4, of whom, thank god, only four entered this world through my vaginal canal and of whom, thank god, only four still share this rambling monstrosity we call a house, call me Laura. Almost everyone else knows me as "Phant", "Phantie", "Phantom", Phantomheart", or "Oh my god, there she is again." I am old as dirt (47), although I think by the time dirt is that old it has mostly been recycled into worm poo, so I guess I am holding my own faily well, because I haven't completely turned to shit, yet...at least, I don't think so. My husband, however, might argue that point...Oh, yes, I do have some of those husband thingys, one current, several previous, and I also have a big gray tomcat who likes to rub on my legs after he goes out whoring around the neighborhood.
     I began my long and illustrious university career in Louisiana in 1971 where I majored in Psychedelia, continued my education in California, where I studied Street Bands and Washtub Base Techniques, returning to Lousiana to collect the various assortment of three letter tags that I can hang at the end of my name when the mood strikes me, and the stack of framed documents that collects dust on the top of my hutch. After trying on several different careers, from greasy spoon waitress to oilfield truck driver, I settled into the teaching profession where I spent fifteen years filling my students' heads with literary bullshit and social activism, and from which profession I am currently taking an unspecified leave of absence to decide what I want to be when I grow up. And that brings us here, to The Hold, where I am going to attempt to drive both our devoted readers and our eminent editor completely insane with my flagrant and often incoherent ebullitions and my penchant for erratic and remonstrative ramblings.