Drexler McStyles

holding cell

Im not sure
if this house is made
of cards
or of glass
but either way
the structure is not quite
sound

the calendar is filled
with repeats
and only the wind
passes through
with any sort of
purpose

rapping on keys
and losing myself in
the flashing lights
of Interville
the days leave no
markings
upon my impression
they look embarrassed
to be here

I know the feeling

from one extreme
to the other
is my calling card
but perhaps I should
have the number disconnected
or find a longer bridge
to place between the segue
from flight
to collapse

Day 5

Ive got my checks
and balances
on replay
because I cant believe
how somberly it goes
all we must endure
is the tenure
of crabs who click
at the uttermost sound
whether it be a turnover
or an offensive rebound

I had no illusions
when I stepped into the showcase
but the opinions of the lacking
are like mirrors with a preface

and burning notes by the roadside
isnt exactly what I had in mind
but I had to flee from a country
pegged upon such a vulgar design

none of this
was meant to print
I would be happy
to bury it under this glass
but what hovers over us
is unlikely to be an overpass

we've all been here
for a thousand years
though the reasons why
arent discussed among my peers
who poke out
at the moment of neccesity
and try to convince me
of my hipocrisy

Ive seen a good many
things in my path
but nothing harder
than at which I can laugh
than the fools and the pharoahs
who havent a clue
about the global integrity
of which I pursue
upon my departure
from any given dock
that rises to the seems
of the level at which I
disembark

inside the invisible room
monkeys slobber gibberish
behind their adult masks
they can dot their I's
and cross their T's
but the strands they sew
from the common room
read like the want ads
or like gold font on recycled ribbons
worn by those to whom
such things matter

sometimes you must scratch
beaneath the surface
below the usual nickel plating
to gather an understanding
of a collage of images
not everything need be
bold faced and elementary
except perhaps for those
who can create nothing more
and therefore cannot accept
anything else

the opinions of ghosts on the internet
who hide behind monitors
and spew banality
about things they dont understand
while clapping one another on the back
for accomplishments that dont exist
except for in the hope chests of their minds
are a great way to prepare myself
for my return to a country
that is overpopulated
with such stunted growth
a people who trample
what they do not recognize
and write off
what they do not have the imagination
to comprehend

cost of thoughtlessness

she dreams to spend her sleep
on star crossed episodes
drawn blindly from a gunney sack
wild patches sewn together
baffled bloodlines and timelines
she relays them in amused bewilderment
horizontally

sheets tortilla thin
she lies beneath
sad almond accusations
burn holes in my smokescreen
she turns curves
draws upon sunlight
barking behind the drapes
to silhouette her movements
I am nowhere
lost in empty thoughts
unreceptive to the murmur of my libido
elsewhere is the moment
peeling paint
a dangling chandelier
silver bedframes
empty bottles
I am at the bottom of the sea
she is lying on shore
her dreams are wild and colorized
while mine are pitched in obscurity

church bells ring
the ring slow and hollow
I need a ground so firm
that I am a part of it
I need a slap to the face
to lift the fog I am breathing
sedated on monotony
there is no view from the road
just eyefulls of torn earth
faces that repeat themselves
dialog that has no dimensions

I am waiting incoherently
for a wake up call

rental car blues

I went from third in my class
to a snake in the grass
waiting on the ribbons to bow
and the sounder the skirt
the more that it hurt
my chances of landing a blow

the latest in calibrators
were the alligator haters
lighting torches just outside the mine
and I sat like a bearskin rug
ready to pull out the plug
if the take out didnt come on time

in Miami I ran into some trouble
when my credit didnt double
for the platinum all american sign
I was meditating on a train
on a platform for the inane
but I was really hung out to vine

sanskrit is the language that I hear
whenever an inquisitive national comes near
passing nails across the chalkboard within
and Im just hoping for the chance
to pull on my departure pants
and make getaway in a long capsule of tin

the circus mold

a higher flame
beneath the kettle
produces nothing brighter
than similar results
I can fumigate the toxicity
from a nylon screen of blurred transparancies
with the sweep of an atlas

yet
the blade gleams in the sheeth
the cross has been hammered onto the bullet
the ax has found the grindstone
and every doorway is either locked
or lurking

the candlemakers
left my face to mold in the wax
we all know
nothing shall be carved
in stone

wooden sprockets in the merry go round
slop grease and tears
onto trampled bags of popcorn
after the last horse on a pole
abandoned the missionary position

overspray scratches tumbled stucko
every third light and his brother
is burned or blowed out
and the morning only produces sunlight
that paints wheat the shade of tanned hides
ashtray have been overthrown
and returned unwhole
the canvas awning sags
stoops to the level of the hamburger cart
black kittens climb urinated stairwells
serching for their echo
succumbing to the shadows

nothing grows
in places where the dying
are encouraged to do just that

jesuit missions

beneath the arches
between the pillars
meditating on the sounds
of the static beyond the piano
virgins and martyrs
bring occasion
to deviant cross references
linking the ironic similarities

another city
another mission
floor of inverted stone
mineral murals
horses are heads
and ducks are tails
on the staircase
leading to the sideshow
and all the while
a viola plays on speakers unseen
until I discovered a dimly lit chamber
containing a youth with a bow
and a means
of filling the acoustics
with light
it swims through the damp
a champion of sound
soothing the sweat
that trickled down my neck
to the dust

the rest was just decay
and warm beer
limping dogs
competing with raggedy annes and andys
for table scraps and the bad pieces

the rest was just
mosquitos and torn screens
absent fans
and foam mattresses
that had no appreciation
for the situation

bearded lady

recently geoerge clooney called and asked if I would grow a beard like he did in Syriana for reason unexpressed at the time.....I told him that this would mean filleting my goatee and that I would have to give it some wine.....a change, I thought, might be good, especially against a background check, I rang him back and said I would undergo the transformation ..for the usual fee.....Variety magazine called for an interview on the matter but I declined on moral grounds and a broken toenail which needed a dentist......

The Beard is coming soon

rain drops in the holdup hotel

rusted threads fail the patio furniture
and the roof moonlights as a sundial
all the gelatine hair schemes
rattle off idiocyracies
about pay per view bedmates
and the inflated prices of bottled spirits
not that they minded
the mothers milk is still warm and flowing

on the windshield were the fly by nights
they hadnt moved too quickly
and the front row overture
afforded us a view
of the motley crew
that held the keys to the cabin, motor
and coffins
for those of us who were confined
to the dragons den

pure alcohol was spun
into a botlle of pomelo
and they all slugged away
swerving at dogs on the roadside
dodging landslides in the twilight
sidewinding rugrats that crawled the highway
overstepping the skidmarks
like the steeples of antiquities

Part Duex

the heavens are converging on the mauve
over the palate of santa cruz
im hittin k-mines
and the dropouts are nothin to lose

in this drizzle and innuendo
ive got all my tiles marbled
fifteen year old rum swellin in the vat
mother nature and the plaster
are keepin my skullflap skinned

she would turn to interpol
for the inner light
but the electricity went out
and we were bequeathed with a candle
it fluttered
it littered the airwaves
our spackled
concumbine set
with waterfalls
keying on my doorstep
the lightning lent me
spectacles
for clarification
the fan is in park but running
so as not to dash the nasal decongestants
lying on a tin in the drawer
molding

fractured shadows
burst from the deformation
of the headphones
all and all
we're just
the pitter patter
the seepage
that we try to avoid
in the overpour

rhyming is timing

I was born on a pay phone
under the oily sign of macrame
I toss smoke through the turnstiles
on the fourth block of Carondelet

braids as long as the welfare
toil in the execution line
we all pass around the box
of Better Times wine

opening biscuits with a spoon
under the swoon of a fan
but without the gravy
its like eating out of a can

the colonial chophouse
where all the duplicates sat
left me out in the cold
no place to hang my hat

seen half of the world
through the bottom of a glass
but I still take the time
to wrap and tap that ass

they say I have talent
they say I have no shame
but as far as I can see
Im still at the top of my game

snowflakes

and what do you know
about the lyrics
to a song
that I am yet to sing?

the fountainhead struck the mullet
like a sack of snow
the cultural embrace
like the diverted angle
of a fallen eskimo

you have suitors
knocking on your door
Ive seen them here
knocking all before
should I wait
for a light to flicker
or should I make hesitate
a memory of yesterdate?

the salt flats

residential avenida
where all the flies gather
stuck a rifle in the snow
and shot the corpus christi
straight back to the chrysanthenums
five cans of warm beer
damaged and delivered
as we crooned to the expulsion
of the baying sheep
and the tomatoes and vinegar
that stung the nerves
below my molars

the mouth of the straw lay closed
like the offices that tender the checks
and my porcelain spitoon lies as empty
as the spirit of a destitute wallet

lingering behind the stained glass
delivering the goods
but their aint no handle on my locket
just a bowl
that doesnt smoke
and the rattlesnake cancer
coiled up in my mucus membrane
playing singalong
with all the hits you've taken

riding the mule
alongside the geyser brigade
salt flat pupils
shielded by antiquated Varnets
as cracks in the octagons
fill the shovels towed
by the little men who drive bicycles
across the salton sea

the indian parade
ashambles in the road
an assortment of teeth and frontal lobes
that never formed
linger in purgatory
as the detachment of the lackees
makes the oblivious seem degenerated

in the jeep they took us
out to the ruby lake
my camera made sounds
and the wind stung my face
the wife took all the pleasure
in the view from the shore
as I coughed up stones
and cursed the flamingos for their candor

for the finale
my knees held up the scaffolding
of the dashboard
and the llamas
were left with the noise
and debris
generated by foreign interests
and overpaid folklorists

mined in silver

the spanish painted the murals
blood lapping dogs
death from the bow
crowned from the whip
the indians traded their barter
for slavery coins
the negroes fed the furnaces
while the mules worked the wheels
all for the spanish crown

the more history speaks
the less I wish to hear
how we can look at ourselves
in the mirror each day
is a lesson in the art of
thoughlessness

latin quarter

the spanish candles
wicks unlit
gather moss in the chamberpot

crossing themselves
in front of cathedrals
built by their conquerors
who have long gone
leaving them
to their mixed blood
their arrested progress
the legacy of culture
they can never match

thousands of years
and the ruins still stand
mocking them
mocking us all
for my people too
are just mice in the turnstile
praying to a plaster fairytale
when it is necessary
or when reality
supplies them with there mortality
they turn to him
open their hearts
so desperate
to him
because what is death
if one cannot come through it
unscathed
these daytrippers
part time volunteers
in the houses of the holy
need an afterlife
but I only need
what is front of me
my eyes see clearly
I hear the discrepancies
they put blinders to

crossing themselves
in front of the cathedral
on the way
to the daily thieveries
they commit
in their shops
a framed print
of the sacred heart
overlooking the tables
in the restaurants
where menus with no prices
await their victims

all those holy souls
both here
and abroad
can have the clouds
they covet and invent
to themselves
as I shun them in this world
I certainly have no desire
to see them
anywhere else

the world
is a tragic comedy
a setting
for delusions
more than miracles
and among the disorder
the confusion
sometimes there is a window
a doorway
a place outside the area
we fashion our lives
some need shutters
other deaden the bolt
but I
I step outside
while the light
is still young
and the truth
while so cold
is none the less
reality

city of lost stations

in the dream
if you can call it a dream
for its more like
the same chapter of a film
reinventing itself again and again
fueled by insomnia and insects
by liquor and codeine
by hollow water bottles
and padlocked gates
seperating us
from grey streets, vomit, graffiti
rapists, deformities, bulletholes

these things I take with me
under my pillow
that feels like so many clods of rice
beneath my grimy curls
and grisly cheeks

I wake after some time
and poke at the clock
alone in the empty hours
coughing blood
and choking on phlem
breathing like the marathon
no water
the room saturated in sweat
my mind plays with stock footage
absurd obsessive compulsion
preventing a relapse into slumber
the hours drag lumber through the dark
somewhere
somehow
I escape
wake to a curtain filled with sunlight
steady my vertigo
and dress
search my pockets to varify the appropriate coins
and close the door tightly
caution the stairs
and find the deadbolt bolted
call the attendant
and hit the street, reeling

all I want
is some water
the early hour peasants
offer crates full of dyed cereal
and sacks of mildewed confetti
water guns
and spider masks

three blocks later
its shampoo
and vegetable oil
years of it
mountains of condensed milk cans
but no water

I find myself in the apocolypse
barrels of bubbling muck
stirred by clubfoots
chipped glasses full of steam
in the claws of onlookers
I pause for breath
glancing into the bed
of the truck beside me
assorted slabs and loose ends
of meat
the sable head of a cow
velour contour
lies gracelessly atop the carnage
its onyx eyes glistening
speaking aloud
but suffering nothing more
than the awkwardness of its dismemberment
another head
stripped clean
other then a fuzzy little nose
that someone must have forgotten

I sit down
the train tracks
are cold and reflective
the morning is rising
from behind a broken building
light polarizes
the circus of the inferno
I head back
the way I came
stumble into
two bottles of water
and carry them
back to the dark