ROSEANNE, MERCED, CA

The vitiligo stains on her arms and hands
and the bandages on her legs were like the flowers and the litter
on the bushes along the freeway were she was sparing for change.
She is a mother but i can't remember the name of her son
and she hasn't seen him in 20 years...

Before i asked for her name i wanted to call her Mary
because she had an immaculate blue dress and the red plastic umbrella
between her pale hair and the burning California sun
was shining a red glow on her freckled face,
and after she told me her name was Roseanne,
            she told me her nickname was Mary.

She had ridden the Greyhound bus to Florida to see her family
and when she got there and no one was there
            she had a heart failure.
The ambulance took her to the hospital
but instead of taking care of her
_______broke as she was
they strapped her to a hospital bed
at the UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF MIAMI
they tested drugs and products on her legs,
the doctors and students around the hospital bed.
She said they had strapped 200 people on the beds
and tested shit on them.
She said she could still hear the screams in the night.
One thing's for sure she could still feel the burns on her very body.

America and the rest of the fucked up human race
has not enough of the monkeys and dogs in the labs
now they're so used to inflicting pain on abused lives
that they take their Lower Class Saints
and hold them in captivity
like the American Nazis at the Hospital in Miami.

I told her to go rest at a YMCA or something
but there is no YMCA in Merced
there is a lotta SUVs and Taco Bells,
Carl's Juniors and Am-Pms
Mc Donald's and Shell stations
but no YMCAs.

I gave her a bottle of water and a green bill
and as i left she told me "God bless you".
Well, maybe he has blessed me
…after he has blessed the surgeons,
the medecine students,
the troops and cops,
the white majority at the drive in,
and after that if he has the time
he will bless the people on the street corners and freeway exits
that go to jail for holding a sign
and have to walk all the way back to their corner
like modern days Sisyphuses under the burning sun
like Victor, Roseana's friend;
those who get their tents dismantled by pigs
and their legs bitten by bugs, their necks by spiders.
Maybe at that same time Obama is at his desk working on the Health Care Reform
but i don't trust Obama
and i don't trust God either

i don't trust the Silent Majority
and the minorities forever waiting
in their quiet Americansumerist cocoon
for the revolution to start on TV.

un parmi les autres, recueil DIY en construction...
Love always.

WINDOW BANE

Everyday, while writing at my desk
i often look out the window to the parking lot
separating my Welfare building from the middle class houses

and every day at the same exact hour i see a blue car parking
on the white-lined lot opposite my window.
____________Number 807.
The driver exits along the neighbors' bushes, closes the driver's door and,
keys in hands walks around the shabby car with a tiny sun roof whose edges are chipped by the sun.
His black pants and tucked white shirt caress the leaves,
he comes out the front of the car, switching his leather briefcase to his key-holding hand and combs his buzz cut,
his red tie sits impeccably, hiding the buttons of the shirt.

He starts whistling while reaching the back wheel:

the soundtrack to his perfect choreography,
everyday he dances in front of me,
unseen and undisturbed
master of the block's cosmos,
he passes the two trees that sit at the entrance of the parking lot
acclaimed by the birds and the soft summertime sun
and commences his run on the gravel sidewalk.
Pay day or not, rain or sun
always the same fucking run.
Today as he slips from my sight at the corner of the beige building
i wonder.
Tomorrow is Sunday, what the hell is he goin to do with his day?
Will he dance and whistle in the comfort of his appartment?
Will he lay his white collar uniform on the chair or the in the chest-a drawers
knowing it'll be worn again the next morning?
Will he leave the TV on?
Will he realize the sick routine has been paused
and enjoy the day off or linger on the things left undone at the office
while his kid or his wife try to talk to him?
Am i even any better than him?

As my scornful thoughts spin
my eyes catch the glowing blond hair
of a very desirable middle-aged woman
in a red tank top and tight jeans who's just parked her car...
and a second later my neighbor, a cancer survivor
who i haven't seen in a while on her way to the bakery,
then the bus stops and my sister exits with the wind in her hair.

If the world's bound to be wretched by the routine of shabby-car-driving executives at least my neighborhood has its saints.