Photography – Fevers of the Mind

Before the Bridges Fell #14 Fumbles Through the Cloverleafs (like Gerard Malanga) by David L O’Nan

photo from Gerard Malanga’s book Incarnations.

I saw you taking pictures of the birds, while the wind whipped around the skin of the street. The nude trees laughed and shook.

A newborn archetype for the devil developed out of the silver screen then became bleeding silkscreens and wonderful fumbling cloverleafs that ran through our feet.

Digest all this rain that falls from the veins of the sky. The corners of the 9 o’clock train stops looked like waterfalls from the orbs of your blackened eyes.

You help the dainty devil, you watch as he shrivels to the wheelchair, and the artistry soapbox he will sit. You read him poetry, he stares at the moon and forgets.

He forgets that he’s a wonder, he forgets he is the Dali, the Picasso of popularity and the silence and the underground all at once.

The invitation to the cesspool, where we dance in the cool. The amphetamines rule and we become angels vacuumed from the ledge.

Some say a little like Malanga, Others say the reincarnation of the myth. Worlds that altered. Worlds that bothered. And worlds that are magical and incensed.

We live now running scared. Feeling shaky and watching as the bullies become our brooms. They sweep us off, take the art we bring and burn it in their tombs.

Caught me as I fumbled over another cloverleaf, into the shadow of old saints. They preached Jesus to the mirror. And the mirror reflected waves of redundancy, slightly altered versions of me.

Take in each cloud and welcome it into the smoke. We weave in the beauty and the broken. Like fashion and death are one in the same.

Love is the party, the shame is the sullen. And the afterglow is the pulling the mussels from the machines. While the Cephalopoda watches us closely and hides all his ink.

Learning bravery from the scared little fish. Learning to be genius identical to his.

And we wonder for hours and hours if this disease is our final bliss.

Wolfpack Contributor EIC Bios: David L O’Nan & HilLesha O’Nan

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with EIC of Fevers of the Mind David L O’Nan

Before the Bridges Fell #13 : A Coffee Shop Chronicle by David L O’Nan – poetry

A Coffee Shop Chronicle

She was born in Houma with her
heart in Metairie. She would die in
Bloomington or somewhere in between.

She’d drink vodka until 3 A.M. after
Saturday night excursions. She had men
howling for her and laughing at watered down jokes.

She could play violin like Alice Hartoncourt,
with the beauty of the moonchild spirit.
She will walk right in our favorite coffeehouse
fashioned herself like a pagan hipster.

Through the spiderwebs and the mocha lattes,
I asked her to dance by the molding bookshelf
Full of Dharma Bums and the Slaughterhouse Five in line-after line.
She stared at me wishing I was the death of the White Oak.

I wanted her heart to beat by mine just for a couple of breaths.
Holding in my choke while she tears up.
And I just want to wipe away the pain in her body, she forces me to give up.
The pain she relies on to slip in and out of the cool unscathed.

While my eyes were hypnotized to her, in love
She escaped into the arms of flight.

We remember the blue.
Like stains to a granite tombstone.
I’m an old man now
Polite and crazy, fizzled in the mist.
All of that coffee has left me hazy.
Has left my memories quite lazy.

At night I thought of her kiss, her knocking,
Her ringing, her breath with my name intwined.
A walk home through the brittle and nebulous past the hustles.
To walk in love and dying with the haunting cities decaying.

And I just remember in the coffeehouse we shared
Was hers for hers and mine for love.

Before the Bridges Fell #12: Radio Ghosts by David L O’Nan – Poetry

Before the Bridges Fell #11: The Devil’s Beach Sonnets by David L O’Nan -poetry

Before the Bridges Fell #10 : Everyone is Kerouac by David L O’Nan – Poetry

Before the Bridges Fell #9 by David L O’Nan : Living in This Toxic Coalmine – poetry first on Icefloe Press

Before the Bridges Fell Poem #8 by David L O’Nan “Those Hazels, They Slice” – poetry first published on IceFloe Press.

Poem #7 from Before the Bridges Fell: Scattered Christmas Garbage by David L O’Nan – poetry

Poem #6 Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan : “They Are Running My Prints” – poetry

poem #5 Before the Bridges Fell : Fevers of the Mind to Inspire Artwork Series (2009) by David L O’Nan – poetry

Poem #4 “Before the Bridges Fell” by David L O’Nan Remembering Carol Andersen

Poem #3 from Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan : “They Had Sadness in Their Eyes (like in Littleton)” – poetry

Poem #2 from Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan :Black Jackets and Boneless- Poetry

Poem #1 from Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan: Narcissism Taxi Cab Parades – poetry

Interview with EIC David L O’Nan with Anastasia Abboud on Grains of Sand : About how I write, my weird thoughts and a few of my revised Cohen Avalanches in Poetry Poems.

Before the Bridges Fell #12: Radio Ghosts by David L O’Nan – Poetry

Radio Ghosts

Like strawberries hiding the vision of their seeds.
I saw you like static in the breeze, I disappeared quickly from your smile.
But soon I was asking about you, another artist had you to claim.
For the time being, you were the unknown and my love hex remained fastened.

I took a drive on my own, lived my life on my own, in a city on my own.
Tried to revive the energies from my ghosts that still lived there, a scared flower.
I received a message from the rockabilly girl with the muddy skirt. She decided, once a divorcee it was time to flirt with the poet and the salsa dancer.

Meanwhile you're battling a lost puppy begging for love but acting like a pit bull.
The skies swirled in your bohemia. The bar artists were not your scene.
You saw my kindness but you also knew my strange dialogue. My emptiness was open, and you became scared and heard that I am a magnetic heart. I wrote you a letter,
You said maybe someday the cosmos will have us meet again. But first…

A hitchhiker quivers his way to your open arms, with the Spring birds whistling
And the mushrooms in full bloom. I had to show you friendship and a fading at the same time.
It was too much for a young girl to discuss with the gossip of the library silence.
And my 1 balloon in hand. My Radio popping between modern f.m. and golden era a.m. just hoping
To share a little of the static with you.

I went on to get caught up in a roller derby game. I swam for miles and ended up dry once I got
Out of that lake. I tried to drink and forget and soon I was a little more un-me. I watched you
Fade off into the hand-held sunset. And I became someone new and free. The ghosts have followed
Me into the arms of never being alone even when I sat by myself and leech onto all the past regrets.

Before the Bridges Fell #11: The Devil’s Beach Sonnets by David L O’Nan -poetry

Before the Bridges Fell #10 : Everyone is Kerouac by David L O’Nan – Poetry

Before the Bridges Fell #9 by David L O’Nan : Living in This Toxic Coalmine – poetry first on Icefloe Press

Before the Bridges Fell Poem #8 by David L O’Nan “Those Hazels, They Slice” – poetry first published on IceFloe Press.

Poem #7 from Before the Bridges Fell: Scattered Christmas Garbage by David L O’Nan – poetry

Poem #6 Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan : “They Are Running My Prints” – poetry

poem #5 Before the Bridges Fell : Fevers of the Mind to Inspire Artwork Series (2009) by David L O’Nan – poetry

Poem #4 “Before the Bridges Fell” by David L O’Nan Remembering Carol Andersen

Poem #3 from Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan : “They Had Sadness in Their Eyes (like in Littleton)” – poetry

Poem #2 from Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan :Black Jackets and Boneless- Poetry

Poem #1 from Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan: Narcissism Taxi Cab Parades – poetry

Interview with EIC David L O’Nan with Anastasia Abboud on Grains of Sand : About how I write, my weird thoughts and a few of my revised Cohen Avalanches in Poetry Poems.

Wombwell Rainbow Interview/short poems with David L O’Nan from Lost Reflections Part 5 & Part 6 links

Short Story/poem The Ballad of Clay Huntley by David L O’Nan (from the Profiles of Ego Series)

Before the Bridges Fell #11: The Devil’s Beach Sonnets by David L O’Nan -poetry

The Devil's Beach Sonnets

1. The Intro.

They called it devil’s beach behind its
Mercurial cloak of crimson with white splotches
Of daylight, the sun bounces for a while and sits
away from the beach to just watch the love and the insane.

The beachfront stared at me with screwed on eyes
Watched me unmask, bathe in the beggar’s water, a prayer
Gates closing from the ocean to get ahead of the spies,
Waves lifting the walls of my wounds for all insects to crave.

I loved the smell of the algae wift and drift by the pagan seas
The witchery and the owls would rest by on a dark night
To watch the paradise, to watch the hell, the powders,
the prowlers to breathe
What are my dreams in sand, heart shaped good-byes beaming in bright?
Waking up to the sounds of the ocean’s cello.
I bit my tongue and took in today’s first pill.

2. First Pill

I took in the first pill, and then I imagined us a bedroom
A way to save ourselves from the midnight ammo and hatchets
To get away permanently from my mind, and you away from your Americana husband
To get lost in your mouth, breathe with your mind, a spell under your blue eyes
To bring back the color of this gray inside, impaled to doom.

There were ways that we had nothing in common
You dressed in beauty and often could be preppy
And I’m the rags of quick cloth, sewed imperfectly
You have the flower rings and a smile that guides me, to your beating heart my dear.

Oh, there were the times, times I wish to have back
That drunken moment you had too much wine and we walked hand in hand with,
the moving trees or maybe it just seemed. Maybe we just were talking and I just imagined
your naked skin clothed away in a blanket, on the beach while he was away drinking,
with his hunters and hookers.

3. Rings

Oh yes with you it has always been pretty rings, flowing hair and dresses
Turquoise tear drops, Poison box presents, charm me away doll into your closet
I want to see you in the way that God first imagined
Crescent moons and flowers beating like heartbeats, your smile swallows me whole.

Strawberries, blueberries, cherries and grapes
Unwrapping the Amethyst handmade, boho vintage golds.
I want to taste your lips in the everlasting glow, take in all of your taste.
Feel the cosmos peel at the nerve tips of my fingers and hold you in a sway.

Natural Opal, Emeralds and your peach appeal.
I would die to see you wearing that dress in mod cloth again.
I would die with alcohol on my breath, kissing bottles to be broken.
Against the recesses of the walls from sand to water
Watch the blue waves fade with your curved shadows
Pills fade too for a drunken mountain lion.

4. The Glory

My serendipity is skinned from the halos
I return to my glory, as a hobo in a vacant lot
Return to a dream where my fingers are calloused and have no bravado.
Guilt sits in my mud filled shoes. I’ve stalked in the waves.
The acoustics of thunder rains the ink over my withering heart.

I know you're out there pretending to be satisfied with horny princes.
Wearing crowns of camouflage hats and painting your world into a warzone.
I know you love to be called dumb in front of his friends on football Sunday.
I know you want him to admire you in perfect Huaraches like Frida Kahlo.
You will go outside and meditate with the stars. He’ll talk about borders with his
assassins.

We can both be in the same galaxy, just ours many miles apart.
With our lonely eyes, the cellos, and anti-depressants.
Smell the same skunks many highways away while looking back blindly.
Semi-lights jam my vision, I pray for the collision if not for you.
I’m just a broken ceramic on a shelf.

Before the Bridges Fell #10 : Everyone is Kerouac by David L O’Nan – Poetry

Before the Bridges Fell #9 by David L O’Nan : Living in This Toxic Coalmine – poetry first on Icefloe Press

Before the Bridges Fell Poem #8 by David L O’Nan “Those Hazels, They Slice” – poetry first published on IceFloe Press.

Before the Bridges Fell #10 : Everyone is Kerouac by David L O’Nan – Poetry

Everyone is Kerouac

It doesn't matter who you are, how you started.
How your mind runs, when you're on the stage.
And he looks at you, he says there goes "Jack Kerouac"

He was the godly catalog model in the suburbs of Milwaukee
A very proper, a very Grandpa's toy Quarterback.
He was alert with the ladies, he knew some poetry he found from a collection of Keats and he read them over and over to them.
And they fell to the floor in love, unless they knew his fraudulent stem. The smarter girls could spot the false heart from miles away.
He tried to grow in a soul patch and dabble with some weed and next thing you know he thought he was the Earthquake.
He shook that literary world. Boy, he's off to New York City at the drop of a hat.

Off in Greenwich Village he pretended he came from the same grass as the Beat Poets and became obsessed by Jack Kerouac.
He'd say "Here sir, here's another $1000, a new poem for you...it is about drifting" "Please listen to THESE words" 'cause shake your feet in your shoes and tell the New York Times you've just met van Gogh and Buddha too.

Yes, he'd strut poetry through the streets. Attaching a bongo to his back. While the burnt weenie aroma hit the air. He'd just laugh and laugh. "Hey there girl with the gas leak apartment, let's go stay at the Chelsea Hotel, I know a few folks back there and they'd definitely get us On the Road" He'd hit the subway with his Andrew Jackson style messed hair and jumped around high on amphetamine and like an elfin, whistling & snapping his fingers. He'd just try to breathe and breathe.

The women began to see a fake. Funny how every coffeehouse he'd visit he'd be holding that faded copy of "Dharma Bums"
"Hey barista mama, I hate that media man, did you hear what they said about my poem I submitted to the Times? It will make you mad"

It didn't take long before his butt was back on a bus towards the Midwest. Settle down in Indiana farms, cows, horses, shit, paint everywhere. Writing that same poem about being angry about the news. That news from 1980 when Ronald Reagan became a repeat to your fading memory. Every year it is just the same. The poetry like your soul patch began to grey.

And you see him stoned and deadpan at an art exhibit, you see him cancelling other people that try to steal his show. He is lit to the moon and talking about his squirrel habitat house. He's wondering where that lady he saw outside and invited to the Chelsea Hotel is still alive. "Oh, why she's his biggest fan and follows him into his own fame" While everyone is a dairy farm caught ablaze, "in his mind" he is walking through the Village and making Oil Rag Frakensteins and tossing them into the frame to burn the world into art that no one had ever seen. He'd read you "The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles." straight from Kerouac. He'd say this one is for Ginsberg, this one is for Hunter, and this one is for Ferlinghetti. The old feller he's just in another dream.

And now he's just blaming his old behavior on all of the stale midwest air, reading political quotes and acting as if he can predict which way his weed smoke will blow in the air during a windstorm.
Maybe he also had a gas leak that he could blame all his flirty ways with the girls half his age, and then drink with the cougars from the bars. He'd write an avant-garde poem about the death of Burroughs, while the older women would swift away and flirt with the younger poets right in front of their girlfriends or wives. They are there for a drink and act like art is their life.

Years later he is hyperventilating on the steps of a downtown flood. In the heart of a homemade College kid gentrified neighborhood.
Breathing in, weed smoke out, breathing in, just laughs

"Kerouc, man, Kerouac, and...and...and..Burroughs"..... "Yeah"

Before the Bridges Fell #9 by David L O’Nan : Living in This Toxic Coalmine – poetry first on Icefloe Press

Before the Bridges Fell Poem #8 by David L O’Nan “Those Hazels, They Slice” – poetry first published on IceFloe Press.

Poem #7 from Before the Bridges Fell: Scattered Christmas Garbage by David L O’Nan – poetryPoem #6 Before the Bridges Fell by David L O’Nan : “They Are Running My Prints” – poetry

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