THE white milk BAR

It had egg white walls with sky blue columns. From somewhere deep by the kitchen they played Love & Rockets and rubycon for the first two hours and ended up with the mondays,  roses and suede at the end of the night. He knew it couldn't last, it was too stylish and intimidating rather than welcoming to willing women and fools.   The front sidewalk was  abandoned.

The pale blue neon CREAM mirrored in the river broke his thoughts and he walked up to the bar looking into dark corners where only legs and shapes were lit. The bar charged $15 for a buttered rum and there were no stools. He felt the blast of cold condition him as if an arctic cave. Noone was here to talk. He walked to the hallway marked "HOOKUP" and opened its dark glass door. The drapered entry  was darker but a hostess stood behind a podium.

"I would like a girl 24 after college."

"We will have five choices for you in ten minutes. May I get you a drink?

" Some white tea please."

He watched the girl speak into her headset mic and a group of young college boys came in with a beeping callpod that the hostess deactivated in a smooth leading glide to the curtained tables in the back.

He was alone. A girl in a pale green blouse walked from the cabinettes.

"I know you're waiting, maybe I can help you. "

"If you have an hour that would be fine.," he looked down and shyly away.

"I leave in two", she took his hand and led him to a sheer pink curtain.

There were ivory smooth couches raised slightly above the floor, and the black sidetable  was lit by a small blue lamp. Mercury rev whispered 30 feet away.

She opened a white box on a column coming down from above and unrolled two earsets with patches for an ear nerve. He felt her breath as she gently placed the inserts and felt only a tingle.  The walls changed to a warm orange and he leaned back into a new pillow and looked at the ceiling which showed stars.  His eyes went up and back and he felt a smile spread his face open.

The numbness started in his fingers, spread across his chest and closed his eyes until he felt nothing.

He opened his eyes and looked at her hands, her legs, felt her hair on her back. He raised her hands to her shoulders and felt her breasts under her wrists. The music changed to piped smooth notes trembling the silk walls as he looked to her left. He sat there passed out. She was in there, He was in her.

He opened the drawer and pulled out a tabscreen and projection opened up. He chose sex themes. The next two hours passed swiftly and the girl woke up next to him asking for a shower.

It was 7….. in the morning, ... He had no strength......

....

he rode this wave

didnt break it down or cut across

he smiled at its crest

and wished desired to fall

as far down  as her flesh

would hold in its span

clicking in a drawer  

                    quiet in the limbs

           grinning my thread

happy Mondays

til Tuesday

Wednesday evening blues

thursday afternoon

Friday on my mind

drive in saturday

the Sundays

water is  thought and thought like water crosses boundaries

water is an environment which permits solids (i.e. nutrients) to permeate  cell borders and  cellulose walls

thought is an environment which allows matter to permeate the unbreachable wall between  throwaway flesh juice and awareness.

there is no physical state of mind.


thought infiltrates through matter through organization.

death  approaches from forever

hovering at an ear
measuring a skull for size

yet you purchase

a fool's grin on time

loud dead men

breathe on dark shelves

distant from their bones

shaming my life

head wading in smoke
orange sunrise
25 gone with the night

real girl
shy of shells
you here   far away

driving (a)part
black horses
tending to your conception
ego/ at the wheel
coins flattering behind you

Culhwch where shall you rest
parapets pretty and scented?

from shaded buzz'rds
pickin at your dreams
 wounds that always show

or music tired and known
 juice for your eyes.

Eddie Higgins-piano

Eddie died the  last day of  August still playing as he had done for fifty or more years. I had the privilege of listening to him in  small clubs for the last fifteen and he was the finest musician I saw in the southern peninsula.  He sat  at  the piano as if   he was knitting,  yet improvised at will and usually maintained three  interacting phrases at all times.  No score.  He could change a tune endlessly just by varying his phenomenal touch which was emotionally  more sensitive than Oscar Peterson. 

He was listened  to best with the eyes closed where you could see the different threads  he spun  dance and swirl.  I was blessed  to  hear him play weekly with Raul Midon and  Don Wilner  on bass. Perhaps it was  coincidence  but he often played  danny boy when he saw me at a back table  late in the  night with an  espresso and cabernet.

You had to ask him,  but he would pull out  a satchel with a few of the twenty albums to which he had contributed.  His cds were not available in stores  so I   often overpaid  him since I was so  grateful to enjoy his music  in my home.  I knew  this day would  come so I'm grateful that I thought to keep some cds unopened so I could  listen to him for these years when he  will be gone.

You should check him out playing Someone to watch over me which is usually on youtube somewhere.  At the end of that song he plays Gershwin of whom he was a master. A humble generous artist who will be missed but history is just beginning for Mr. Higgins. 

He hadn't been all there for years, because he'd been into heroin all that time. In fact he actually ODed once and they had him in the morgue in San Jose with a tag on his toe. All of a sudden he got up and asked for a glass of water. Now he was snortin' big clumps of coke, and nothing would happen to him. We couldn't have him around because he'd be pacing the room, describing axe murders. So we got him a little place of his own. He had a little white rat named Oswald that would snort coke too. He'd never washed his dishes, and he'd try to get these little grammar school girls to go into the house with him. He was real bad. One of the parents finally called the cops, and they took him to the County Mental Health Hospital in Santa Cruz. Where they immediately lost him, and he turned up days later in the women's ward."

In a while I'll find the time to make the sunshine mine (my)

In a smile I saw a single eagle in the sky

Wheeling, soaring, gliding by

On a hill there lived a man with many shining things

Shiny pool, shiny car and shiny diamond rings

Wining, dining, shining king

And the eagle flies in clear blue skies

Breathing in the clear blue air

Back here on the ground another dealer coughs and dies

And fifty more come rolling off

The Ford production line

Then a man appearing like a mirage on the sand

In his hand a moving picture of the crumbling land

Screaming, dealing, movie man

Here we go, hold your nose and see if something blows

Close your eyes, count to ten and see the sunrise rise

Climbing high into the sky

By the ornamental lake a diamond lies

Upon the finger of the king

On high, the eagle spies the glitter of a gun

Then wheeling in a climbing turn he flies into the sun