It’s the street step sticky like mucous stained black sidewalk that reciprocates
Creeping nose like fatty beef & fingers crooked serenades
Out of the corner of your eye you glance the head in the lap, man stands up
Woman kneels down, green as gold in these lean times
Beggars would rather a dollar than a draft, you give wonderworld excuses
Vagrant sighs, pay rent on time if you can hustle another daytime job
Nighttimes filled up by the hunger pangs & fangs of deliberation about nothing
In particular, forgetting to call home, pay the bills & the other calendar day lifestyle choices
Another 1% interest & that credit card is going to look just like your birthday month

Picking pockets is about the sleight, look one way, reach another
The jingle-jangle Christmas bells of street Santas in Chicago sound like an off-tempo rhythm
1-stop-2-stop-3-stop-4-stop waiting for a cab as you spy hands reaching into valuable holes
Don’t stop thinking about no tomorrow as you spy piles of shoelaces burning in the trashcan
It is virulent this subtle almost being that infects negative GDP & all the petty larceny
Of foot soldiers pounding Circle & Mason selling chocolate bars with peanuts & without
For their fake charities, might do better good driving down the waterway throwing out dimes
Giving proper change plus 10% for every time you see a mother & daughter split clothing in two

Al’s #1 Beef serving up artery-hardening sliced thin beef sandwiches & hand cut fries
With “Best Pizza In Chicago” on every corner & leftovers sitting atop the trashcans
Universities a stones’ throw from soup kitchens with dignity & heart, you start now!
You only get one chance to eat everything in sight while the moon comes early
Finding yourself ducking into the alleyways & sidestreets & wouldn’t it be cool
If you found THE PLACE no one has ever been too, for your next birthday party
Instead of TGI Friday’s like Mr. Magorium’s Wonderful Food Emporium

Damn straight it’s Irish whiskey as you forget your family tree & limp across the cement floor
Drain the snake in a corner where you find a hole in the ground, leading to the cellar
Stocked with 30 year scotch passed down from generation-to-immediate generation
Fiercely opposed to delayed gratification, give it now, fuck it now, eat it now
Fights sit right up there on the wooden walls as great emissaries bringing news of failures
Dollar buys a shot of Budweiser & other formerly American beers

Fuckin’ love the Bears!, Cubs are going all the way, I got season tickets
I’ve got a reason to get up early on Sunday after I pinched the ass of the waitress on Saturday
Wrigley Field sits unreal on the Blue line tracks pulling you in magnetically
It is the science of seep routing for the home teams, buying jerseys, painting your face
A ruby red, navy mess that looks like you punched yourself

You can see them on the streets, round bellies, self-fulfilled gullets, meaty faces
Carrying bags that don’t tell, walking with a forward favor & smoking cigarillos
That never touch their fingers, porous lips & yellow fingernails, Payless shoes
Buying everything from boutique convenience mart stores, Lake Erie beer

Trade shot for story, trade whiskey for rent, trade temporary salvo against aggressive landlord
For a reason why you fell off the wagon, it is lonely at the bottom, we will join you there
We want the same things, interest on our savings accounts & a roof over all heads

There is no more argument about what is right but simply what is
I will assist you with the thesis, Willis Tower just doesn’t sound right so whittle away at its corner stone

Walk the streets day or night & you will find yourself in the shining stone inevitable
© Adam Bresson

On July 24, 2009, I read at Rapp Saloon, a reading at the hostel in Santa Monica, CA. I read four pieces: “In waters it’s starting, Phoenix Best Western…”, “My baby likes soft rock, not no jazz…”, “You need to imagine that you were sitting right there in Andys…” and “Cigarette mouth tastes like trash & burn…” Please visit www.adambresson.org for more poetry and writing. Hope you enjoy!

It’s back & forth, seesaw red wine spilling into 1970’s bell glasses
From a bottle that bears the name of never traveled mountains on it
Wilderness of the orphaned heart explored by tip-toe shoes
Of walking miles walking in someone else’s skin

It’s the gracefulness of time, the forgetfulness of hours
And the way when you lay intertwined in me wrapped like letters
I can feel the hot & cold spots of your body graft against me
And want to pull you in closer to see inside

It’s the long, long drive from a county far, far away
Lake Tapps, Washington out of Pierce County turning up Helio Sequence
Opening the windows & beating the morning sun to the asphalt road
Pounding on the accelerator like a brand new cause

It’s the Crazy Town vibe of Bonney Lake Tavern
With Mom jeans, cowboy hats & fluorescent ripped t-shirts
Looking across the room & seeing you talk to your friends
And wanting you back near me so soon right after you walked away

It’s getting in the Jacuzzi by the lake naked & a couple glasses of red in
Realizing it’s ice cold, me standing up on the edge with the moonlight release
Growling down my throat, red wine coat, naked & vital
That cold lake wind creeping over me rolling on towards December

It’s the fever dream of November 4th caterwauling out into the streets
Sprayed with chilled champagne, every photo taken shows your hair wet
Us pressed close together making the “O” & filled with top-of-our-lungs hope
To walk the miles from Broadway to Pike Place for an everlasting nighttime

It’s that DeVotchKa song slithering into my head on a late night drive
“New World” where “you mean what you said” & I shut my eyes while
Swerving up the hill in a fog & a rain, your head in my lap
And you’re telling me “it looks so damn good” baby, so damn good
© Adam Bresson

On January 9, 2009, I read at Rapp Saloon, a reading at the hostel in Santa Monica, CA. I read two pieces: “You are my Br-Obama, Obama…” and “Its eyes open during sex in front of the fireplace raging & pulsing…” Please visit www.adambresson.org for more poetry and writing. Hope you enjoy!

On March 5, 2008, I read at Velvet Guerilla Cabaret, Michael Slobotzky’s reading at Unurban Coffeehouse in Santa Monica, CA. I read one piece: “Paulo drove his midnight blue still kicking Buick Regal all the way to Bremerton in this beating rain…” Please visit www.adambresson.org for more poetry and writing. Hope you enjoy!

On March 5, 2008, I read at Velvet Guerilla Cabaret, Michael Slobotzky’s reading at Unurban Coffeehouse in Santa Monica, CA. I read one piece: “Paulo drove his midnight blue still kicking Buick Regal all the way to Bremerton in this beating rain…” Please visit www.adambresson.org for more poetry and writing. Hope you enjoy!

I imagine me dressed as a Roman soldier, all brass & bravado
Long talon knives with fire-hardened armor instead of blue jeans & a fitted shirt
Now, we were sitting down on an artisan bench looking out over old Roma
My back locked in the perfect poison pill position of maximum thrust
Your eyes were open, keep your eyes on the size

The bench looked like someone broke stained glass shattering it
Glued pieces together out of spite to create sharp edges
Spread into a selfish chaos theory pattern recalling
The good ideas & bad ideas we have after midnight
The lights across the water looked like a black bedsheet shined through
With pinwheels of exotic lighting from the Far East

It was in these lights that regular families were irregular
Furnishing rooms with places to lose their children in easily
These tiles on this bench were the blank face sides of children’s blocks
I was painting the numbers on them & skipping over the letters
You were bending in the perpetual motion of an ice skater
Anchored down in only half of the expected pose & not moving
As the electricity went out in the buildings sparking the transistors

How apropos that the afterglow happens without stillness
All these poorly placed throbbing parts & the angst & ache of letting go
We watched the boats float in the harbor slips empty until the weekend
And my lower back started to want to push the other way
Below eye level I catch over your lilting shoulder
The restless surface of the water moving less than the parallax view of trees
North leads north to the ocean while South leads south & inland
In this good dream we do not choose either direction
© Adam Bresson

Fire engine red loud like a clanging bell,
made everything swell crossing the boardwalk
out at Salt Creek Beach, minding the waves,
she moves with an effortless, all-body sway
that makes the waves pissed off
all they could do is foam then break.

Lipstick matching fire engine red dress,
want to wrap my lips around that first kiss,
want to miss her when she leaves her keys on the endtable,
watching her put on her earrings while nailing a torch song.

Cleaving through the crowd like a knife
cutting up, cut red blood out, shake it loose,
making the people separate like the fire engine Red Sea
& soak salt up with the density of skin-to-bone.

Her hair streaked with fire engine red
screaming caverns down her neck
falling over the sweet curve of her back open
& showing the lucky sweat scorch her skin.

She walks past me in this fever dream &
I saw a look my way, no look my way, wish a look my way,
to reach out in the wave of the late evening heat,
beg for water to cling the fire engine red dress
to every curve I could draw out from her body.

Walks down into the sand & so I follow
drifting on through the red planet orbit & its spinning gravity,
she sees me watching her & I can’t care
as she digs her fire engine red heels defiantly into sand.

She abandons those shoes, unneeded slips them off,
ties them in two with the straps around her hands,
tosses them by stones the color of red rock mountains,
making one line footprints in the sand.

She stops just short of the water
earnestly reaching out its wet fingers for her to come on in,
slips off her fire engine red thong, slingshots it backwards
as she runs into the water & does the back stroke counter to the waves.

Of course, they would welcome her. I welcome her.
I want to float on top of her.
I want to stick my finger in her mouth, trace her lips, slip my hand underneath the water line &
pull her fire engine red dress up then tear it. Use it. Wear it.
Like a tourniquet stopping the flow of my raging blood.
Give up this swimming.
Kiss the lipstick off her & trace the red streaks down her hair like red asphalt
as we close our eyes, hold our breath & fall on down to the deep, deep depth.

But, I just leave my eyes open & watch her,
appearing & disappearing in the water then waver like the heat waves.
With absolutely nothing, she is owning the midnight.

Another girl of summer, THE TIME IS NOW FOR BURNING THIS ALL AWAY.
All the wicked reverberations of a winter solstice, the bringing together of
her fire engine red, top-to-bottom, inside-out, over under topples all of this down
even on the hottest day anyone can remember
or in the coolest rush of an August night trembling for the drift.
© Adam Bresson