Jesus Never Lived Here
© June 1993
River Huston
All Rights Reserved
DIY Press First Printing
© August 2012
electronic version
For further information
http://www.riverhuston.com
Midgets, Cockroaches, Jesus & Other True Life Tales
Popey’s Chicken Times Square 1979
Fourteen 4 AM
Just Another Day
Black Beauties
Death is For The Dead
AIDS AIDS AIDS
I'm saying it
The world looks
and sees what it wants
They have memorials written
They have you wasted and dead
skeleton in your bed.
AIDS AIDS AIDS
Oliver Wendell Holmes
once said
"To find true happiness
get a terminal illness
and take real good care of your self"
real good care
pajama parties cookies and milk
afternoon naps kinda care
lots of LOVE LOVE LOVE.
I see angels flying
above everyone's head
I see miracles all day long
in oranges
brown fat crawly bugs
on the big time journey across the towpath
ducks in winter
Ginkgo trees raining yellow
GINKGO GINKGO GINKGO
my dog smiling and wagging its tail
to the rhythm
of three sweet altos
"knock, knock, knocking on
heaven's door"
lint and dust dances in the afternoon
toy Buddha’s on 202 talking to wild things
toothless old men
who caught wild fish in Finland
who keep youth in blood
pumping flowing free.
Rivers are always miracles
they aren't stopped by rocks
bridges boulders beer bottles
old tires dead bodies
or even dead refrigerators
they go around over above under
embracing all they touch
they never go back
to the beginning
to get it right
changing forever
seeking accepting expanding being.
We have
mortal worlds
filled with gods
Buddha Christ Vishnu Mohammed and Henry
the hitchhiker's god
they walk us through
to the end
shedding our named coats
our finely pressed out laid out
figured out
fitted in life suits
no expectations
no more mundane earthly matters
9-5 skull famine
weight loss facelifts fashion statements
free to go home
the early release program
do the mambo till dawn
safe sex erotic safe sex
free of judgment guilt and shame
Death is for the dead
and living is for every one else
AIDS AIDS AIDS
Hey I said it
don't memorialize metaphorize hypnotize categorize or sanitize me
its hard enough living with an illusion
no more definitions of my death
no more sympathetic death sentence eyes
I'm not dead dying
no siree bob
I'm living
just thought I'd let you know.
afraid of living
afraid of dying
walking empty-handed into the void
stripped naked
no man No money No job
just me and my illusory body
that carries some strange disease
can't say what it looks like
speck of sand mac truck flash of light
who knows
They were dancing in Dido and Aeneas
Josiah Priest School for Girls England 1607
the girls were excited and nervous
now they're dead no more excitement
just a few printed words on a torn flyer
pasted to a brick wall
someone stuck in a history book
3 AM all the things to be afraid of
open your veins c'mon let's go
Nothing seems important enough
to live for except
maybe you all of you
how disappointing if I were gone
you'd be pissed off
all that spiritual shit and the bitch just offed herself
had at least a few good years left in her
The Queen of Carthage was betrayed
by her own kind
what deeper hurt deep
cut
open-heart surgery no anesthetic
pain so great had to be pleasure
better than 3 AM numb nothing
Through the parking lot
nightgown bare feet mossy river's edge
cold wind cold mind
watching life pass dark swirls
bright lights over the bridge
chink chink chink
I remember driving around
drinking beer with Michael
how I wanted him to love me
front seat sex 65 miles an hour
I'll do anything
Love me Love me Love me
is that so wrong?
I am on my knees
in the garage talking to God
can't feel a thing anymore mom
there was orphans too grand mom
on her way from Lithuania
a young Jewish girl
no birthday
hiding in a hay cart
dangerous men
sharp pointy
objects‘
can open you up
split you down the middle
dangerous men
but you turn spit in their eyes
call them pigs you have your pride
you wait for your last minute
to catch up to you
but then there is only laughter and
clomp clomp clomp
the big boots walk away
Free again to sweat it out
somewhere else
Bronx NY factories on fire fingers sewing
East LA canning sardines fishy smells
in everything you touch
boy sat on the beach
watched his red ball go out to sea
never spoke again your son
ran out of words early
never did say why
ball never did come back
I stand on the edge
with bits asphalt of
embedding itself into my skin
In a prayer to God or maybe
just this parking lot
I dream of suicide but it only seems
right in the brightness of the day
at night there’s hope
that I will die a natural death
Mother Approval
My real mother
was burned at the pyre
her ashes scattered
by horseman who thought it was the right thing to do
I sit naked under flannel
envisioning the flames
This river moves in one big motion
leaving the debris of memories after each flood
It was my mother’s birthday yesterday
no phone call, no flowers
I know she would approve
Tied forever to a legacy of wrongdoing
white women at the stake
with demons dancing at her feet
in her heart her bed
Mama you taught me
to never tell the truth
deflect divide delude
She said don’t
let them touch your breasts
life is miserable
so you might as well get used to it
only suckers believe in God
no one will love you if you are too fat
you’re no Picasso
you should go to secretarial school
your lazy self-centered good for nothing
you should have never been born
you may be my daughter and I love you
but it doesn’t mean I like you
I don’t I won’t I can’t
It is another Christmasless morning
I am eating grease from the bottom of the pan
throwing up on my secret things
I stole your wedding ring
threw it in the river