POST FATA RESURGO

I.
Don't try to be an honest man

but to be good. 

II.

Don't try to be an honest man

but to be fair. 

III.

If you are good & fair

everyone will know that

you are an honest man.

City Lights

The City Lights

has always been for me

a sanctuary of wood flesh & paper

in my peregrinations seeking redemption

starting from the collapse of Tenderloin

& arriving in North Beach

Saints Peter & Paul Church

& if Ferlinghetti died

I remember that time

we talked looking down the street

on the Kerouac alley.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

Bob Dylan,
QUOTE
when blackness was a virtue
no road full of mud
no toil & blood

In here
even if ALL
bayou region thick existence
always thinking here
the rolling thunderee

No look at the past
no look at what matter
people I met knew loved
always writing ‘bout here
standing abruptness of the missie

Ever since I came in here
20 yrs ago
a flesh-eating wondering child
end of the researching
a thing never done before.

America as We knew It

I do not know
if I had already sent you
This is the Other America
the One I know
the One That I saw
Nola's one
San Fran's one
This is what
in which I believe
This is me

An American Laic Cathedral

After twenty minutes from Downtown Amarillo, Texas, driving thru I-40 West for over 10 miles, you reach the exit between 60 and 62, you slide into a side road called Frontage I-40, and not before a U-turn, you stop your car in front of a gate similar to a turnstile. In 1973 a man named Stanley Marsh, defined in most press accounts "eccentric billionaire”, called San Francisco Collective Ant Farm and with three of its leading members - Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, decided to buy ten Cadillac produced from 1948 to 1963 and to stick them with their metallic nose deep into the ground. The Cadillacs are aligned and arranged according to the precise angle of the Pyramid of Cheops, Giza, Egypt. The cars lie idle about fifty meters from the entry, and the short path to them, surrounded by low crops, serves as a meditative approach to the installation place. Once you are in front, once that you put yourself in the right distance, you have the complete picture and you can contemplate this authentic American Laic Cathedral. In the United States there are at least a couple of other places like that, places that have this unique, unrepeatable specificity (Heidelberg Project, Detroit and Outdoor Desert Art Museum, Joshua Tree), but the Cadillac Ranch for its historical, geographical and social context, can push the boundaries - even it’s passed more than four decades, the site is no longer the original one, the relic-cars changed several times painting and shade - the boundaries of what was called American Dream and what I would like to call today, American Way of Life, or American Way of Thinking. The fact that they arranged the cars in the same angle of the Pyramid of Giza was not arbitrary: if the pyramids were colossal monuments, erected-tombs for eternals god-men, with the aim to last for thousands of years, the Ranch is the abstract result of the dominant civilization in the world during the last century, and particularly in the Western World Century. It’s no coincidence that such open-air art installations like the two examples of Detroit and Joshua Tree (and the Street Art with its graffiti in New York and Los Angeles etc.?), are present on US soil and not in Europe or maybe even elsewhere. Cadillac Ranch goes further. Its metaphysical coincides with Houston Rothko Chapel’s, a nonconfessional chapel open to all religions till to the prayers of those who are devoid of any religious sense. Simplistically, someone might even say it is a non-place. I think it's just the opposite, even something more than the opposite. With these ten Cadillac buried into the ground for a third of their bodies, you're in front of an ecstatic representation of American Life. Its founding and essential characteristics, its crucial elements: the land of opportunity with the extension, the power and the cruelty of the territories on which you can trace an imaginary border, push it further and further toward an horizon that you will never see, that does not end and therefore does not exist, that can’t have a fixed point of destination but only of transition; the constant and uncontrollable propagation, affirmation and permeation of capitalism with its distractions, disparities, contradictions that fall in inequality and injustice; the freedom of expression, the propensity to discussion and the belief that a more open and free system for the individual will always be better than another in which there are severe limitations in the field of rights and economic opportunities; the idea, true or not, that it is a Nation (and a People - We the People) Under God; finally, the state of criticism, the talent and the inclination for a deep self-criticism as a mean of regeneration and rebirth of the society itself. Cadillac Ranch, 1974. Amarillo, Texas, USA.

Here In Dallas, July 8

'nother day

staying away, distant

protests on the streets

neighbours

your brother

your sister

people killed in neighborhoods

none of this affects us

courage

same ol’ hotel room

she is locked in the bathroom/two hours

she mourns his father

shee cries because shee cannot do anything else

& it has always been the most comfortable thing

men who win

those who lose

tragic events in our bones

what does it matter

I only ask for a rye

but there is no rye

form of compassion

here in dallas, texas, today, live.

Bill Evans

He had just won the academy award

for the best supporting actor

things end so soon

things end like that

people in the early hours of the day

he took the car, chet baker

everything was so easy

down from the hills

the green

people

what can be said

after success

a persistent success

for a whole lifetime

while the others

are watching you

windows

hiding places that they create

bill evans

Kenner

Cab covers much of the way to the airport speeding. 95 mph. Driver’s name: Lorraine-Delavriere-Hauteux, identification number 1-9-6-7, Taxicab and For Hire Vehicles Bureau License. Name of the Cab Company, translated from Haitian Creole: Sweets Losses. Car's vermilion with bluish signs. Now Kenner is a dazzle white bloodbath. The land is swollen. Dark collection of black garlands under a thousand year old damp dome. This dome is living here. It moves and crushes the metal structures of the airport, the corroded vaults of the hangars, the service roads for the collapse of time. In the years before the catastrophe, the airport could boast about a prestigious speed record in goods uploading and downloading. The proverbial speed with which they deprived the bellies of civilian aircraft, amassing the baggages of lonesome passengers. Lorraine's neck is pretty minute and compact. By force of circumstances a white off measure t-shirt makes her exaggerated, makes her dirtier than she can be in the Eden Valley. Hair are crisps and brown with touches of red lead, while a nichel-necklace is made of emerald green wooden balls. Drive like a maniac in the the streets of December, the bolt of lightning goddess at the mercy of the white-haired martyr. Refineries with filled yellow lights. Trombone Yellow. Sulfur. Amber. Unnatural heights antennas - intermittent crimson. Dormant Telecommunications in Kenner's lie. Lorrie drives. She goes on. One nine seven six Taxicab and For Hire Vehicles Bureau License. We left Canal at 6.50 am. Take off at 9.45. Junctions are critical points. Asphalt grafts with condensation. In this darkness I can not see the color, but I know they are light gray. It should be a light gray patina. Lorraine pushes the car and when we pass over the spacers, tires lose traction and we swerve slightly. Nothing dangerous. Only centripetal forces, accelerations that dominate a body, the kinematics of human dissatisfaction. Passing Through. Highway has regular bumps, black arched membranes. The forty-minute journey is about to die. International departures entrance is crawling from the blackland.

R61, deposed/1

[...] and there was this man dressed in red branson they called him I think they called him branson or ranson not sure bout that I crossed the sthreet he had this red nose of ribbons thought he was kinda fighter then that night there was the shooting at the silver bar I was crossing that sthreet and the party started: heavy load on me buddies that period was surely high lemmie tell ya you can never be so sure are your eyes able to see that night I saw a double murder on R-61 aside the main sthreet in the heart of the state black mamba snakes gators football matches on tvs beers gallons of whiskey the life on the fuckin missie the water queen of this universe ehy I tell ya what I tell you I’m tired retired every little drop that can rest can remains in this world of centuries all this affair this human existence this human consequence the man in red was called RED funny but he was scarlet I didn’t pretend an equal life low life I do not ever understand all of you words we’re all surrounded by words words and people and now tell me in what do you believe religion wives whores a fuckin black hole what do ya believe all this stuff maybe she was a prost and she was my sis what are gonna do bout it no way man outside fields n nuthin they wash the sthreets they wash the roads highways factories houses farms the whole country and they go on and on and on to make this nation clean and neat [...]

147,1

sun's gone down in highways junctions bottom, car radio still on to survive to the spring birds migration and human beings that stand with you in a path to follow only after seven in the evening, large elevated sections suspended hundreds of meters above the barren valley due to the spilled and the burnt oil after some leaks, the exterior lights of an abandoned theatre left without electricity by an amount of time with no name and no form - out of the diner, cars with oversized tires welcome to nighthawks and that girl sitting at that white table and holding a sepia tone newspaper, seems to tell everyone I saw the world, looking at page after page till the ads, not the lonely hearts ones, but job offers; she would have wanted to bring a red pen to circle phone numbers but she did not and she won’t do anything of this then she shakes the paper and takes another long sip of coffee and orders a vanilla milkshake. She gazes out the window and sees me walking outside.

Three Songs

Vinnie

Ehy vinnie vinnie

How's out there

Ehy vinnie

Definitely Who cares

Little Vinnie

In your pants

Joyceful Vinnie

With her mare

You got a trust that won't last

In season of war it will be rough

Ehy vinnie vinnie

Who can tell

Every holy day

Yo get to the shop

So there's nothing again to drop

Vinnie vinnie

********

Foreign Land

This song began

With a man

Who lost his head

He lived in a foreign land

A foreign land

Without a maid

He knew what was right

But he didn't do it

All the time

In the woods with cherry wine

All the beasts

And walk by

Not even fall with a gun

Hunting victims

For the trials

He returned to swampy islands

To get buried

In his mother backyard

He knew what was right

But he didn't do it

All the time

In the woods with cherry wine

All the beasts

And walk by

*******

This ol town

They arrived

This ol town

They knew

What was all about

They arrived

This ol town

In a car

Dragged down

They arrived that day

Nuthin to say

Sun was low

No story told

2.24.15

Next Exh.

The Deastman Series

1958, Detroit. The Packard Motor Car Company closes the automotive plant that runs along the Concord Avenue: EOP, end of production. One of the largest plants in the world dies while a sign fixed on an aerial walkway tunnel connecting two parts of the industrial complex, warns proudly: QUALITY FIRST. 1958: the second mandate of the Eisenhower Presidency is in progress and U.S. are challenging with the Soviet Union of Khrushchev, not only launching satellites in the space. On ground earth, in the former Confederate States, segregation is alive, bites and kills. Just an year before, a book entitled On the Road was released by a thirty-five writer named Jack Kerouac. Talking about Detroit means also understand this context. The rest can be only a sequence of dates, events, people. The 12th Street Riot, the city's population from 1.8 million to 700 thousand, the $ 18 billion bankruptcy of July, 2013. You can read books about Detroit - I recommend Charlie LeDuff, but you have to see and live Detroit and the street offers a perspective. The endless cement arteries named Woodward, Warren, Gratiot, Jefferson, 6 Mile, 7 Mile , 8 Mile, populated by dilapidated buildings, whose windows with savagely smashed glasses or just completely nonexistent windows, electricity cables dangling from a timber pole to another and then fallen into a point on the asphalt, leaving long rows of houses in a conscious state of urban dementia, abandoned schools elected homeland to any kind of human situation, stores from the depths of the past century with decapitated signs falling apart in midair, hiding sixties-style neon light letters, pawn shops that help the daily survival or just giving cash for another bet at the casino, miles of barbed wire stretched on gates surrounding huge uninhabited properties, public transportation never runs ever and disillusioned passengers cursing the administrations guilty of the failure of the city - an agony lasting decades, free press fighting to prevent the sale of public water to companies that would distribute it only to those who can pay, men of all races playing dice in the forecourt of a gas station fallen into disuse and young people dancing & rapping in the back of the parking lot of a fast-food.

In this Universe of American Devastation the breaking element is given by the people of Detroit, with the daily resistance, with the hope for raising and with an humble request to be told.

Technical Note.

The title The Deastman Series comes from the nickname The D, abbreviation elected by the locals to call their city, joined with the name of the film I chose, Eastman Double-X, a medium speed - 250 asa. I used Nikon Fe and FM2 camera bodies with a 20 mm fixed lens. Eastman Double -X differs from traditional films for general applications, such as 400 asa films of other well-known producers, that despite the fact that they have a large reliability, they pay the result of a substantial uniformity of the subject.

The film in this series, furthermore if used in a mode privileging the timing, provides, both in development phase of the negative and even more in the darkroom and then in the printing process, a significant differentiation of tonality of contrasts. These features are made possible by the fact that the Eastman Double-X has been conceived and used for the the cinema in order to obtain and maintain a wide depth of field, stability of the structural components of the image, making they stand out in the presence of contrasts.

Dolores, the wind above our head

closed where it can't get
there the words begin

what we call law & le droit

our social involvement
train stations
open cities

our literature

our journalism
jester satire

the world
the old europe
declined in the West

miles davis
arrière-pensée
a land too civilized

assemblies & point of order
amendments & petitions
referendums in the squares

the birth of tragedy & karl marx
la commune dissolved by cannon
our flesh wrapped in three colors

threat
death penalty
altruism

millenial churches
art institutes
academies

by all means
with our head
with our body

Livin w/ Joyce

Today's Raising

Mr. Brecht

does not know anything about us

& just nearly a kilometer after

but before the eight mile

& just after the seventh

there’s a road junction

& there are holes in the asphalt

it is not easy at all

thru these days of US

men dragging themselves on woodward

carts skin cloths on the street

gloves pierced hats, somethin'

barb wire for hundreds meters

bent wooden planks

pocked benches of cement

statues of saints from distant europe

they mourn with invoking arms

today’s raising

in black people's words

who did not have a steady job

for over forty years

a newspaper reports new operations

in the financial market

ceo men earn a large amount of money

from the new company.

The Beatles

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Fun & Rage

Right upon the trees

right upon the trees

with a caustic lady who tells

you’re not within

try a new life and see

drugs will not help

the heavy beast

searching out there

with a scrapbook all written

so who cares

you wrote tons

in your first life

you were a town lost

going out west

see the highway men

lean over the iron bend

another plastic family

eating all the slop

outside the refinery

*****


Fun & Rage

back in ol' days of '49

of 1949

I got lost in a swamp

in a swamp

all doctors told me

boy you’re weird 'n' insane

coz of I shot him

a bullet in the face

coz I shot him

for fun & rage

back in ol days of 49

of 1949

got a job near the coal mine

the soft coal mine

they got stuck and they died

little flaming pieces in da coal mine

owner so proud to live

in the golden house

with his cozy family

hard to believe

back in ol' day of 66

of 1966

we vote for democracy

red utopia of socialism

the president passed away

a bullet in the back

that was rage

of a terror attack

he was buried down the hill

with cannon balls rollin’

buried down the hill

funny place to live

*****

Lost her

this is a story hard to tell

even to a sad priest

this is that kind of story

that has not an happy leave

it narrates how a lonely man

found his unexpected end

but the sun is shining

and it won’t remind me

how I lost her

this a really vain story

difficult to tell

this is an ancestral story

and no closing end

if you glad I could tell ya

for thousands maids

but the sun is shining

and it won’t remind me

how I lost her

I have to begin this story

or it will be too late

I don’t want this story anymore

down in my grave

a little far away just from here

there’s a blanket ban red sign

but the sun is shining

and it won’t remind me

how I lost her

*****


Steeltown

In Steeltown

there’s a road called

2 minutes hiring

in the past there were a lot of workers

fighting in downtown riots

when the town gets the dawn

the crowd get so excited

the unions were corrupted

the police beat ‘em to exhaust ‘em

out of the factories there are human needs

many people talk together about a new equal society

get more rights and balance the greed of plutocracy

but when they declare the town went bankrupt

people in the streets lost a lot

it was very hard to go forward without a loan

so I went every day to a pawn shop

to got the money for the raise of my honor

but when they declare the town went bankrupt

people in the streets lost a lot

now I see all this sad stories on tv

they interviewed a lathe turner who lost the job in the last spring

he got a triple mortgage and three kids

but when they declare the town went bankrupt

people in the streets lost a lot

*****

Blackened skull ring

taking off

now

plans to do

somehow

get to find that girl

barstool blues above

get a book

and see

reed a lot

a way to be

with your feet

right on the street

talk about politics

her brain is so sweet

married a woman

maybe

got a kid

no-way

see the homeless men

counting nickels

buy them coffee

respect 'em always

love that woman

with fancy hair

write a poem

on the dark age

try to understand

all this messy dirt

buy her flowers no gray

find an ashtray

all the employees

laughing at me

pay that blackened skull ring

*****

Thru SouthWest

the place closed very late

people crawled outside and waste

rusty mornings aside

you could say it won’t be nice

hauled down talks down the line

crazy women don’t share their wine

the churches are closed every time

the major had a new ticket for his wife

hey people I’ve got

two three words to share

the first one begun in a burning hell

the widow was cut & nuthin’ else

would you try ‘nother man

sitting up straight with the preacher man

sucking him with whole bare hands

and you know that it will not end soon

the child of a single mother, a child on the moon

ripped it out talking loud

eating what you have found

looking for sex looking for balloons

never trust a man who is drunk at noon

the main things I don’t care

money god sweet sis & dad

I grab the car in the alley

going thru southwest, thru southwest

*****

Ride on

They came to us

to have the lands

to steal our land

they were about

just a few men

but they were

so damned bad

they’ve been already

in the other town

they robbed a bank

they left deads

some bleeding heads

and a woman called

Rusty Heleine

me my mum & dad

we wore fine hats

we had the farm

but this was not

a good reason

to still believe

in it

I was so scared

when I saw ‘em

we were in the fall

of the lowlands

months passed

me my mum & dad

we worked for that people

we share food wine

believe or not

and some barrel

of gun powder

grandpa is not so proud

of this situation down

but it keep us alive

I’m not worried

in seem to be

a really good guy

of this ol’ town

I was so scared

when I saw ‘em

we were in the fall

of the lowlands

years go by

I have changed

a little my mind

I’ve got a pump

right off the road

but I keep on telling’ me

ride on

*****

The Distance

Out in the distance

animals ride

out in the distance

no flag to fight for

you can hold a gun

toward the sky

you can hold a shotgun

and do no harm

a warm applause

when you turn off

a warm applause

for your song

out in the distance

coyotes round the fire

out in the distance

borders are free

red hills & ground 

make you feel about

changing weather

and all it was ever

a warm applause

when you turn off

a warm applause

for your song

out in the distance

no nations across

out in the distance

you can’t find a white cross

walking with no doubt

the rise and fall of a dawn

chasing evil thoughts

going on and on and on

out in the fields

the distance is not

out in the fields

the distance is not

what I was thinking of

what I was thinking of