Alex Stolis

Outro With Bees

How's hope feeling today
Tired and sick of this place
Red wine is fast at the lip of your glass
Sayin' I'm gonna ruin everything...everything

                                                                       Neko Case

I’m contaminated

by thirst

my back

room ideas

are nothing

more

than ploys

to keep you

off my mind

I know a man who wants to look like Henry Bataille, he knows the sun is an outlaw—understands that stars are disciples of a lost cause. The last martyr left standing is the one who gets to make all the rules so I don’t want to take my arm from the fire. The pain makes me thirsty but I need all the truth I can get. There was a girl, from some suburban tract in Dublin CA, who looked like Neko Case. She knew what I wanted and wasn’t afraid to tell me. I hear she’s in Connecticut now--an artist/writer with two kids and a husband who loves Dianne Arbus and Son House. She was a friend who branded me with her sincerity. I never looked like anyone but me and if the sky is the limit my wings are too heavy to carry me home.

Charlie Brown tells Peppermint Patty it’s time to clean up his act

I know you think about the myth of flight, drunkenness—

the geography of faith. One day you will wake up uncertain

and in pieces—not able to distinguish between winter and spring.

When we were young the streets were fields to run in—no heroes,

only sweat from wings that collapsed like thin blue veins. It’s too late

to forget all the half truths-- where they bend or how they swirl

like a cyclone when held to the light. We both know Daedalus

was too old, too set in his way—he had no stamina and nothing

but broken words to give Icarus.  Possibility is a promise that lies

awake at night measuring your breath for an opportunity to break

you in two. Maybe its time to move away, go back to Los Angeles

where differences between right and wrong can be bought and paid for.