Routine Stop

by Doug Draime

The cops stopped,
and had to inform me I
was on Grant street
in Santa Monica.

“Well, kiss my ass,”
I joked with one of the cops,
“the last thing I remember
I was smoking a joint
at a friend’s house in Silverlake.”

That’s when I had to relearn
that you don’t joke
with the cops. Or for that matter,
you can’t be honest
with cops about “illegal
drugs”, or anything else that
might be held up to serious debate.
Part of what I said was the truth
and the other part was just
a joke. I knew I wasn’t in Silverlake
anymore and I was quite aware
I was staggering some down Grant street,
having lost count of how many
beers I’d consumed since I’d
left Silverlake. So, I
pretended I was more messed-up
than I actually was, just to sort of, well,
fuck with ‘em.

“You trying to be a wise ass? You
just look like a drunk hippie to me,”
said the other cop,
with a potent dose of venom

“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking
to your partner,” I replied, without
turning to look at him.

I knew that was a mistake the
instant it came outta my mouth,
but I couldn’t help myself.

He grabbed me from behind,
turned me around,
pushed me against the squad
car and turned me around again,
“Spread eagle, you piece of shit,”
he snarled at me, and then padded
me down hard, as he pushed me ribs
and cuffed me.

“This was just a routine stop, you
asshole, until you shot-off you
fucking mouth,” he said, grabbing
the back of my arms and leading
me to the back seat.

The Santa Monica cop shop/lockup
was much nicer than the Hollywood
Precinct that I had become accustomed
to. There was a color tv in the walkway
separating the cells, and access to
vending machines of soda, candy and
cigarettes.

The next morning when they cut me
loose I left a note for the cop that roughed
me up. “Hey, Jerry, I was really only
joking. But cops like you are the reason
people hate and fear cops. Maybe food
for thought, maybe not. Love, Doug.”

Near The Border Line

by Doug Draime

The motel was on the
outskirts of a town,
from a drunken
John Houston movie..

I remember the exact placement
of the 5th of Johnny Walker Red,
sitting next to the glasses,
on the night stand but I
don’t remember her name.

Her eyes were light blue and like dimming
bar lights, flickering over my
shoulders, always looking at the
graying adobe.

I kept the tv on, and I must have
rolled 10 joints.

She liked it from behind bent over the
metal desk,
those lovely shadow-eyes blinking on and off at
the walls.
She never smiled once and gave me
one word answers to
my questions, only looking at me
when I turned away.
She didn’t even look up
when I paid her $20 more than she
said she was worth.

Lily And Bob

by Doug Draime

Bob was back
in the corner
by the juke box, his
shotgun propped
up against the
machine. No one
had noticed him
coming in the back-
door. Lily was serving
some rowdies at the
front table. I’d been
watching the Reds kick
the shit outta the
Cubs on the black
& white at the
end of the bar.
And if I hadn’t
turned when Jerry
asked for another beer,
I wouldn’t have
noticed Bob sitting
there either.
I walked over
and drew Jerry
a draft. Bob was
craning his neck around
trying to get a good
look at Lily. I sat the draft
in front of Jerry
and reached under
the counter for the
.357, and stuck it
under my shirt, and
started walking back
to the table.
Bob spotted me coming
and moved his
shotgun, laying
it across the
table, with 2 fingers
resting on the trigger.
He yelled at me,
“This is done of
your concern, Doug.
I just came to
get Lily. Go back
behind the bar
and tend to business.”
Lily was
right behind me by
then and I knew
she could see the
bulge of the gun.
“Bob, you need
to take your
fingers off the trigger
and sit the fucking
shotgun back against
the juke box.
And I need you
to do that, now, OK?”
Bob just stared
at me, trying to
stare me down.
The place grew
as still as a rock.
“I don’t want
any trouble with
you, Doug. I
came to get Lily,
like I said.”
I could hear
Lily starting to
cry behind me.
“You come in here
with a shotgun
and you don’t want
any trouble? I
think you’re
a little confused,
man. You need to call it a
night, go home and
sleep if off.”
He was just tapping his
fingers on the stock of
the shotgun
near the trigger
and staring at me.
I could feel
Lily moving, as she
touched my
shoulder and stepped
out in front
of me.
She took a couple
steps toward
the table,
haltingly, gently
reaching out
her hand.
“Bob, honey, I’ll
leave with you
but you have
to stop this
before someone
gets killed. We
can work
this out, baby.
You don’t
want anybody
to get hurt, Bob.
I know
you don’t.”
Locked on mine,
Bob’s eyes moved
slowly away
to Lily’s,
his whole
body softening.
He took his hand
off the
shotgun and stood up,
his eyes
filling with tears.
Not another word
was spoken,
as Bob
began to sob.
Lily had his hand and was
leading him
out the back door.
When I heard
his old pickup start,
I walked over
and picked-up the
shotgun, broke it open,
and took
the shells out,
put them in my pocket.
Walking back
up to the bar
with the unloaded
weapon, some wise ass played
Lovesick Blues, by
Hank Williams,
and there was an uproar
of laughter.

Protest Organizer

by Doug Draime

Century City in
1967, or 8, very stoned
to protest
Lyndon Johnson’s
speech. We were
among the
crowd the cops
were pushing back
and yelling at us
to cease and desist.
She took my hand
and placed it
between her legs
up her lily white
sun dress. When the
speech was over
she drove me home,
to my place on
Lexington in Hollywood.
And she jacked me
off and I came in her mouth.
When I finally got
outta the car, she was
insistent that I take not
one but two, Stop The War
t-shirts.

For All The Fakes, Flakes, Liars, Betrayers, And Ball-less Wonders Over The Last 40 Years In The Small Press

by Doug Draime

My heart
forgives you
but
my
middle
finger (now
in
your
dead or
dying
faces)
I am
sorry
to say
has a
life
of its
own

Beautiful And Beaten

by Doug Draime

She was hardly
recognizable sitting on
my steps
waiting
for me to come home.
It was 5 a.m. on a
Tuesday morning.
I was drinking at a bar on
Hollywood Boulevard
near Normandy, till closing time.
And then walked down
the street to Norm’s
restaurant for some steak
and eggs, sitting there downing
four black coffees, taking it slow
till I sobered up a little.
As I walked up my walk I could see
her sitting there
with her arms cradling her knees.
Her left eye was beaten shut;
blood caked on all over
her beautiful face,
and her upper lip
busted and swollen.
She was smiling under
my porch light. I got close
into her face.
“Jesus Christ, Dee, what
the fuck do you have
to smile about? What happened?” She started to cry.
“That’s two questions and I can’t
answer either one right now.” Tears
falling down her cheeks.
I stepped around her,
unlocked my door and pushed it open.
Then I bent down and gently
pulled her up by the shoulders, turned her
around and walked her
into my court apartment.

I turned on the light,
and still holding her shoulders,
guided her to the bathroom
and sat her down on the edge of the bath tub.
I dampened a wash cloth
with warm water
and gingerly cleaned her face
as best I could. She was trembling
and sobbing, with halting intakes
of breath, her whole body shaking.
Dee had been on the
streets hustling for about six months.
I met her about a year before,
when she was go-go dancer
at a place on lower Melrose.
She lost her job after slapping some
asshole for reaching up
and pinching her tit.
Not being able to find a job dancing,
or anything else, for
that matter, and desperate for money, she
decided to sell her body ...
on the streets of downtown L.A.
She stayed with me for awhile, and she
started to mean a lot to me.
I attempted to talk
her out of it many times, but to no avail.
Finding a half-way decent pimp
was the toughest part; she interviewed
them, a couple a week for a month,
like she was hiring a
trustworthy baby sitter, or a Japanese
gardener. She found one named Omar,
who set her up at the Roselyn Hotel
on 5th street. In a few months she had
enough money for
a nice little bungalow in Silverlake for her off
hours and
was saving money
for her dream of movie stardom; taking
acting lessons on the side.
She stopped by only two or three times
after that, seemingly content
with her life on the streets,
and with Omar.

I was on my knees holding her,
as she sat on the tub crying,
the tears soaking my shirt
clear through to my skin.
After a while I got her up
and walked her into my bedroom,
undressed her down to her panties
and bra.
She had stopped crying and
was thanking me over and over again
for “being here”. She quietly, slowly began
to tell me what had happened.
Omar had brought up a trick
to her room at the Roselyn.
The trick was drunk and couldn’t keep
a hard on. He suddenly got
violent and slapped her, then pulled a
knife, pressing it to her
throat, screaming foulness into her face,
as he still held the knife
at her throat, beating her with his fist.
She managed to knee him
in the balls and get away, running
down two flights of stairs
and out of the hotel. Her first thought
was to find Omar, who always
hung out at Googies restaurant
down the street.
When she couldn’t find him,
it was then she realized she left her
purse in the hotel room,
with all her money and the keys
to her bungalow. She hitched a ride into
East Hollywood, and had been waiting for
me since 11 p.m.
She said she was afraid to go
back to the hotel room without someone
with her.
I told her to lay down and try to get some
sleep, and that I would
go with her later that day.
I pulled the covers back and she got
under them like
a small child being tucked in,
still shaking a bit. She asked me to lay down
with her and hold her like I used to.
And I held her till we both fell
asleep. We got up around noon, showered;
I fixed some scrambled eggs, coffee and toast.
Her face looked worse,
especially her eye, which had swollen even
more, and was as black as coal.
I made her an ice pack
and told her to hold it on
the eye until her face was
numb; gave her some codeine
for the pain; and we set
out for downtown.

After parking in a lot off of 5th & Broadway
we walked to
the hotel. The door to her room was
wide open, but amazingly
nothing appeared to be missing;
she found her purse and
everything was there. She started
crying again out of
nowhere; I thought that that
was all over, but apparently not.
She sat down on the bed and cried harder
than the night before, nearly
hysterical. I started to move over to console
her, when I heard a noise behind me
and turned to face
a little black guy in a rumpled shark skin suit.
I knew immediately it was
Omar, from Dee’s description.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, trying to sound
as menacing as possible.
I started smiling, because he was such a weird
looking little guy. He had a lazy eye,
which appeared to be slightly spinning,
a huge nose, and a chin
disappearing into a chicken neck.
Before I could say anything, Dee jumped up
from the bed and ran over to him.
“This is my friend, Doug, that I told you
so much about. Doug, this is Omar.”
She was smiling like she was introducing me
to her father at a family picnic.
Omar looked me up and down like I was a bug,
and then smiled a real smile, sticking out
a small thin hand. My smile hadn’t left my face, and I
said. “Nice to meet ‘ya,” shaking his limp hand.
Dee began to unfold the story
of the night before. Omar listening attentively,
sat down on the bed to roll a joint.
I closed the door and went into the bathroom
to piss. When I came back out, Dee was crying
again and Omar was holding her
and smoking. He offered me the joint, but I declined.
He didn’t seem to like that much,
but when I explained
I was driving back
to East Hollywood and smoking
messed up my depth perception, he smiled,
and said he’d roll me one for later..
He rolled up a huge bomber and handed
it to me.. Dee was either smiling or crying
through it all, thanking me as she
held on tightly
to her pimp. Omar shook my hand again,
I gave Dee a hug and left.
On my way home I thought of several things
I should’ve done or said, like talk
her out of whoring, slap Omar senseless
and throw his ass out the window, things like that.
But she seemed happy, like I said; and
she could’ve done a lot
worse than Omar. And who was I
to come between a whore
and her pimp?


*first published in Zygote in My Coffee

Poem For A Political Poet

by Doug Draime

What honor is there?
The lie creates idols of
death.
Why hang the grave clothes of the
‘old man’ on the new man?
And, from where, brother poet, does your
new man emerge?
Ideas? Concepts of Cultural Global
Political Revolution?

Politics is a grotesque lie.
Politics is a vexation of the spirit.
Politics is an affliction of the mind.
Politics is the “devil’s” street game.
I see the rage in your face.
I am grounded with the brilliant rage of your poems,
into the sense of your sensibilities..
Your language has always been my language; your
words I know from the very blood of my soul.

Often we react to the
oppressor with stupidity. When we
don’t acknowledge that stupidity,
it becomes iniquitous, and the psychotic
barbarians resume their dance in
praise of the dying atmosphere,
as once intelligent men
and women
pay homage to dictators, liars, butchers,
who promise equality, liberation; men
who would cut the throats of your children for
an idea.
Men whose souls rot and stink with
the hatred of innocence and regenerated life,
men who collectively tortured, enslaved,
and murdered millions upon millions of people,
men who would pour wax over poets and
burn them as candles in the bloodied moonlight.

emily dickinson’s attic

by Doug Draime

they tell me in their mimeo letter
that they can’t consider
my poetry unless i send $2 for
their magazine. “those serious about
properly placing their work with us
should first examine a copy”
is how it read. i didn’t have $2 to spare
right then & if i did, the last thing
on god’s green earth i’d spend it on
would be a literary magazine
which demands money.
“we automatically reject poems with
cummingesque affections and any moralistic
poems” it went on to say.
some poems
i write
are in
lower
case
&
some
are
indeed considered
“moralistic”
like
this
thought:
you are living in emily dickinson’s
attic for
the sake of literary
posterity,
ironing
her freshly
washed
&
bleached lace
panties
&
playing
scrabble
with a muse
with tunnel vision
who is
wearing a straight jacket.
i send these
guys
just to piss ‘em off,
some more lower case/
moralistic
poems
&
an
i.
o.
u.
for
2
bucks

June and July 1968 Revisited

for Brenda Z.

Handing me the fur preserved inside
crystal, you said it was the fur of
Mozart’s childhood dog.

Shouting obscenities from inside the
mausoleum of your perverted Uncle Stach.

Your name written all over Brooklyn in bars
from Sheepheads Bay to lower Flatbush, written
with a shaky hand, by a guy who once worshipped
the ground you walked on.

Inside that taxi with the pretty Mexican girl driver
in Vegas at 4:30 a.m.; you with your head in my lap.
How could I stop you? How could I ever want to?
I caught the taxi drivers eyes more than once
observing your delightful and shameful exhibition;
at times her eyes looking deeply and lustfully
into mine.

On Venice beach slapping you awake again and again,
valium and Mountain Red wine heaving from you like
a rusty kitchen facet. Afterwards, you screaming Jim
Morrison’s name for half an hour out over the black midnight
Pacific.

I stood there and stared down 4 Satan’s Disciples,
their bikes revving 5 feet from me. They said you
belonged to Russ. They knew I had the .38 against my back,
and they knew I meant it. Now, she belongs to me, I said.

You found me at The Carolina Pines with Tina and then
you threw my plate of spaghetti at the waitress, who
had asked you to leave for yelling and kicking at Tina.

You buried a medallion deep in the red earth of
Topanga Canyon. Telling me crazed Rasputin once
wore it, then masturbated on it before giving it to one
of his followers, who smuggled it out of Russia and
it’s been in your family ever since...your family of
crazed Russian Jews.

I stood with you on the corner of Sunset & Vine boulevards
that night you ridiculed Johnny Mathis and one of his
friends, as they walked out of the Sunset Towers. He
threw you the finger and said he was calling the cops.

And your tears which fell on hearing about the death
of Sadie, who fixed up one too many times. You cried for
hours. I sat in that bean bag chair in your apartment on
Hoover Boulevard holding your shaking body, your
trembling soul.

by Doug Draime