White Liquor

Cover concept which I put together with help from my tattooist, Tommy Bucket. All The Feral Dogs of Los Angeles From Benjamin Blake ( Southpaw Nights ) and Cole Bauer, comes the new split poetry collection  All The Feral Dogs of Los Angeles . Poems full of life, death, dust, lust and liquor,  All The Feral Dogs of Los Angeles  reads like a drunken love-letter to the City of  Fallen Angels.  Benjamin Blake  Lights & Sirens Roadside surgery Performed in back rooms of low-lit bars        I came so close to bleeding out That I made my peace with God Then renounced His very name Some things are just not worth it Patched up and back behind the wheel A quart of brandy my old-time remedy For the shivers and shakes That set in with alarming regularity These old bones won’t rattle forever I closed my eyes as I drove through her town I couldn’t bear to take it in As Seldom Before I wish I still had The photograph

HEADED TO THE COLONIES So what, motherfucker? I had a few drinks  And some hookahs With shisha and weed mixed So what, motherfucker? I made some jokes A few comments But it's shunned upon  Something so innocent Because the pussies say so  So what, motherfucker? I'm listening to music  Wasted With a storm outside Writing whatever I want Until I can't anymore SKIPPING SEASONS The sound of Multi-colored leaves Crash landing  On my patio Should bring me Happiness With it being fall My favorite season Instead Like everything else In this life It is taken away From me I may be in it But I can't enjoy it The world won't let me It wins With its distractions And everything else Will be fine Next summer YOU'RE SO DEEP The shit can get so deep That you slip and fall right in Whether it's rain in the storm And you're on foot going home Or the stre

  Labor Day  A veil of sun shimmered on the lake; a grove of pines blurred in its wake. Skinny girls teased   with burnt-cork eyes, smoking Camels and getting high.  Glare lifted like fog; the heat bloomed, like a spreading fire through the afternoon. Bleary-eyed dads came off their chairs; they staggered down to the sunburned square. Crushed by drink,  they stomped and cried their dirty oaths at the steaming sky. The girls felt glee; they felt their best. They disrobed to show their mothers’ breasts – splendid and raw – for the dazzled men, that pitiless day at summer’s end. Middle Age Folly Lurching hole-eyed and numb, he wondered if talking might    help. Maybe he could regain their respect that way; he could show wisdom as the product of his experience.    He rehearsed during wretched nights:  “Did you ever  look into a mirror and see something lower than dog shit?”    He gripped sheets as fever wrung him, sweat blistering   his

Wildcats In The Cave I heard bickering coming from the basement, about not wanting to go to school, about responsibility, test scores, endless self doubt, and the oncoming storm of eighteen. Then, my wife’s battle scream from the Neolithic edge of the cave. A shriek so wild and prehistoric, it came from deep inside her ancient warm bloodedness. Mother and kitten marking pieces of territorial highland and mother not backing down. It made the dog whine and me spill my coffee. It reminded me of our basic instinctual leftovers that have lingered for thousands of years. If she was going down into the dirt, she was giving her the whole deal, eye to eye, ears back, and flea claws out. My wife roared that morning for the ultimate good of the kitten. She left her biogenetic scent through her claws like two steel smoking revolvers. Hell, there was plenty of food in the den but, this was bigger than habitation. This was hardwired wildcat develop