163. Driving, A Doppelganger

Driving -
just driving;
my first fresh air
in weeks.

A side-street somewhere
off La Cienega or
maybe Sepulveda,
late -

a vision
of a dude in
leathers, flame haired,
antsy.

Stricken
I swerve, do a
double-take,
adrenalised:

an apparition
of me in
Ray-Bans
by the road-side

his car
is broke and steaming
the hood up,
smoking.

He’s leaning
and I’m staring
bullets boring:
jaw tight

the night
thick with static,
ears humming,
temple flexing,

glancing up
I see his face
in the light:
it’s not me

just some
kid who looks
like me -
but damn

he looks
so similar my blood
runs cold;
I’m frozen

both looking away
in unison,
coughing nervously
popping a Xanax,

reaching for my
breath, waxy
in my throat,
driving on

taking the ramp
onto La Cienega or
maybe Sepulveda,
heart pounding

traffic monotone
and rhythmic
I keep it steady,
smoking,

damn though
it was like
looking back in
time

seeing myself:
young beautiful
hungry and
unbroken,

seeing that
fearless hustler kid
I used
to know

seeing something
I miss, realising
the past is a
foreign country;

accelerating impulsively
lurching recklessly
into the LA
night -

an anonymous
cavalcade passing
in quiet
succession

heading
in
both
directions.

129. Just Another Vegas Breakdown

From the sky
it looks like an electric snake
undulating across the hot desert floor
the way it twinkles
and shimmers

I take over a floor at the Bellagio
and move my shit in.
I’m in total
‘ignore the band
at all costs’ mode

I just don’t
want to be around those assholes -
they sap my energy
misinterpret me
always want to party.

I seal the doors
order some food
run a bath,
meditate, but
the only mantra I can reach

is
fuckfuckfuck
in my head like a woodpecker
fuckfuckfuck
a drill deep inside.

Distracted
I drink some
honey tea
try and read some Hubbard.
That guy had

it going on, fucking started
a religion off of
his writing shit
(now there’s a
thought…ah, fuck it
rock ‘n’ roll is my racket
and I know it).

There’s
no place
else I can
go

fear, loathing
and so much more
fills me with anxiety.
On TV an infomercial plays
and I don’t know where
to put myself;

suppressing the urge to scream
even though my throat
is shot again
I lie back and make phone calls:

my management
my lawyer
my accountant
my realtor

no-one answers
I’m met by
a wall of voice-mail
to growl and snarl at
which I do
for an hour or so

fuckfuckfuck
in my head like a woodpecker
fuckfuckfuck
a drill deep inside

I take a bath
Vegas lies beneath me
sin city sanitised
fun for all the family
Disneyland with tits
and tips for
dawn brunch waitresses.

This place excited me once
but not any more
nothing excites me
the gamble is dead
the war can’t be won

Milestones become moments,
faded Polaroid pictures
to file away;
I find myself craving
some semblance of simplicity
in a life that is
inordinately complicated.

I guess I’m just burned
by night after night
of the fire fight
in the spotlight

fuckfuckfuck
in my head like a jackhammer
fuckfuckfuck
(just kill yourself,
silly).

It’s Vegas;
it steals your soul
at the entrance
and returns it at
the end-game
tattered and bloody

it fills your eyes
with dollar signs
as if they weren’t blinded already
it appeals to the basest appetite.

It’s sick
a cathedral for vulgarity
a celebration of obesity
a theme park for the living,
spending, farting,
dead.

I step out the bath
towel myself off
and wander naked
from pristine room
to pristine room,
four thousand of them
in all and I have
the best dozen.

I press my face to the
cool class of the window
and see nothing but casinos
cars and the thick black night
beyond the edge of town

fuckfuckfuck
in my head like a woodpecker
fuckfuckfuck
(just end it all,
asshole)

The desire to run into
the blackness engulfs me instantaneously,
the desire
to fill my nostrils with dust
to see the moon silent
and stars that weren’t glued
there by men

to escape The Strip,
the town, the tour
the trip
to run and just keep running
barefoot, wild like a coyote

out across the road
between headlights
down alley ways
through vacant lots
and beneath the
neon giants
that demarcate
the edge of town.

Soon they’ll
find me feral
unrecognisable and
hard-bitten from experiences
out there alone
in the night

they’ll find me snarling,
howling at the moon,
chasing my tail,
the gnarled leg of a lesser
animal wedged in my jaws,
my hair matted
my eyes a different shape
and colour.

I’ll no longer respond to
my birth name.

128. The Axl-Slash Dynamic

I love Slash like a brother
and like brothers we fight.

We’re polar opposites;
two energies in collision.

It’s a star sign thing.
A yin and yang thing.

We’ve had so many run-in’s
it’s pretty much laughable.

The last time was during
a show in Dayton, Ohio.

I’d cut my hand open and
was backstage fixing it up

when I thought I heard him
take a pot-shot at me on the mic.

So I ran out with my bandaged
hand and I confronted him

in front of twenty thousand people.
I think I told him I’d kick his ass

and I actually meant it because
I knew I could, no contest.

Of course, I’d misheard so now
I was the dick and I apologised.

Slash just stood there, sloppy and
unflappable behind his Les Paul.

We carried on playing and
delivered another killer Guns show.

And that’s the root of our success:
the anger, interplay, the spark.

Well, anyway. That’s just one incident.
It wasn’t the worst. It won’t be the last.

But I think it illustrates your point -
the fact that we’re still just crazy fuckers.

124. Exit Izzy

After six years I wanted to get off the ride
It was making me dizzy. It was making me
sick.

Being a rock star was everything I expected
The only surprise was how little I enjoyed it
all.

I suppose you could say I enjoyed the pussy
and I enjoyed the drugs, but did I, did I
really?

123. Mass

Fifty thousand mouths agape
one hundred thousands fists raised

a Sargasso sea of blood and bodies
borderless, it spreads itself wide

a flash-flood of energy and expectation
a collective yearning for a makeshift community;

ritualistic, it belongs to age-old traditions
of communal gatherings and catharsis

stretching way back to pre-recorded religions.
Wordless, it is more a mass recognition

of man’s right to worship idols of
their imagination’s own making -

catholic in the original sense of the word, this
mass knows no name, follows no concrete doctrines

rejects such as ideas as immaculate conception
or divine intervention and instead places onus

on the moment, the simplicity of volume and rage;
a brief sense that anything can happen in the next hour

and it is here in the moment when the devotees
feel closest to some sort of God, an entity

whose divine presence is recognizable when as
parts seas with a wordless wave of the hand.

26. The Night Stalker

Right around when we started out
after rehearsals each night,
just as the rest of the guys were off chipping,
I used to like nothing better than getting in my car
and just driving.

LA is perfect for cruising, it’s all freeway.
Out on the tarmac there’s no interaction
just reflection in chrome and glass.
I guess that’s why I
took to touring to so well.

This one night I was prowling aimlessly
deliberately going nowhere slow,
which is harder than you’d think when
every road leads somewhere;
just me, a cigarette and

the tape deck loaded with
all my driving greats: Highway To Hell
Back In Black, Zep, early Sabbath, Priest
doing nothing but driving and singing,
smoking and practicing my scales.

It was somewhere off Inglewood
that I heard the strangulated whoop
of the blue siren and the lights flashing to
pull me over; fucking pigs, I thought,
why now?

The did the whole loud-hailer bit:
step out the vehicle
turn around slowly
get you hands where I can see them
now drop to your knees

I complied, silently cursing them
but glad I was clean
just a good tax-paying
(on cigarettes, anyway)
citizen who can’t sleep nights

They eyed me suspiciously
ran their checks
searched my motor
spoke like I wasn’t there, then said:
“It’s not him. This skinny fuck

couldn’t kill a rabbit”
and laughed.
“Are you a faggot, son?” said one
waving the AC/DC cassette at me
“No,” I said, emotionless.

“Then why you listening to faggot music?”
Then before I could answer: “You ever heard
of the Night Prowler?”
What was this – a trick question?
“Sure. I’ve heard of the song. AC/DC.”

“Yeah, well, in case you hadn’t noticed
some sick fuck is stalking Cali girls
and killing them. Word is he
likes faggot music too. How do we
know you’re not The Night Stalker?”

“Prowler. Because I’m not, that’s why.”
“What do you think, Steve?” one said
“Nah. This ain’t him. This faggot’s
too white for our guy. Then they laughed;
they drove off.

About a week later they caught
some fruit called Richard Ramirez
America’s latest Serial Asshole
‘The Night Stalker’
I laughed when I saw his picture;
that guy was too ugly to be me.