Crucifix In A Lucky's Shopping Cart
Somehow Ruddy the transient devised
an eclectic priesthood for himself
from his collection of discarded reliquaries.
Old bibles, incense pots, rosaries,
necklace crosses, Madonna & Child prints,
& of course several broken crucifixes,
all stashed in the shopping cart pushed
daily through North Las Vegas streets.
"I shall attack the homeless sinners!"
Ruddy declared to himself, usually
his only listener of many street sermons.
Occasionally a lost tourist (trapped
at some noisy traffic corner) had to endure
Ruddy's flapping, righteous tongue.
For these inflictions of spiritual advice
the transient demanded fast cash donations,
& encouraged the giver to select something
from the busted cart of holy paraphernalia,
blessed by Ruddy "& not by any Kraut Pope
far from the golden calf casinos of Sin City!"
Ruddy's reverberant laugh usually followed
with mouth agape featuring his missing teeth.
A horrible sight, designed to fuel repentance,
or to release halitosis as cruel benediction
for any reluctant disciple about to run off
before seeing Ruddy wave a crimson cross,
like vampire killers do with pointed stakes
about to pierce hearts of undead losers.
Lost Cherries Riff
"You don't need a bartender --
all you need's a liquor store,"
the Lost Cherries Inn whore Mimi
told her transient friend late
one nite. They sat drinking
outside her room by the pool.
"All you need's more income,"
Ruddy the transient mused drinking
while Mimi, primed but not plastered,
routinely finished off another Pabst,
nonchalantly hurling the empty streetwards.
Both burped & chuckled simultaneously.
Scalding summer nights were made for fat-chewing
& bitching about the woes of hustling in Vegas.
Cursing his friend, Ruddy retrieved the beer can
& added it to his shopping cart's aluminum stash,
chiding Mimi for being pregnant, yet still working
while her common law husband was out partying.
"Don't get on my Lem's case," Mimi wheezed
through her acrid cigarette's smoke cloud
the red-faced transient nearly choked on.
"You ol' sod, Rud, my man's a boss poppa --
a bastard, yes, but he takes care of my kids,
even when like now I can only give blow jobs, OK?"
Ruddy snarled back a gap-toothed rejoinder
indicating profound disapproval, then
he began hopping about on gimpy legs,
doing his little trademark chicken dance.
In her perennial hustler's mini-skirt outfit
(sex-stained & funky from ill-assorted smells)
Mimi would soon "take her albino ass," as she put it,
over to the neighboring Strip & wait for
some luxury auto she'd perform in, e-z cash
falling like celestial leaves into her lap
& making the blood strum on her ol' man's guitar,
till the low background music for their lives
softly counter-
pointed whatever
hard john's sex
burst into
the cool heavens
of her
mouth.
The Cold, The Hard, & The Beautiful Ugly
"the cold cunt taking in
the dick of death." So
what else is new? You've heard this
type of prosy chatter before, beyond subliminal
messages that have become blunt force
trauma of the mercantile brain. Something
superceding & kicking the ass of background
whisperings in our muzak lives
Rock & Roll desensitized into cool regions
where it's hip to be distanced from outmoded
humanity-in-a-handbasket, to be tossed
over the proverbial cliff in the name of
no-beauty, no-truth.
the downtown homeless boys
never heard of Keats, but they know
porn of ages when it's singing to their deaf ear
& other dysfunctional organs
their
sad lives
left them.
