Journal 5, Entry 7- Image Junkyard: "Heineken Ad"

I was coming home from the movies with my father. It was raining and I had been back in the states for about three hours. On a billboard next to my parents' house in College Park, a Heineken ad says "When in Rome. Or London. Or Shanghai. Trust the star bottle."

Journal 5, Entry 6- Image Junkyard: "The Portrait in the Duty Free Shop"

At Rome airport, there was a portrait of the Madonna and the Christ child behind the counter of the duty free shop. The mother was nursing and the child Christ was staring forward and pointing towards the breast. It was like the portrait in the mayor's office in Spoleto except without any fades or tears.

Journal 5, Entry 5-Image Junkyard: "Circle of Death"

Samuelle, Jenna, Sydney, Tyler, Josh, Thomas and I were playing circle of death on the old stained carpet in our apartment. For some reason, I felt a sense of calm as we all took cards and drank our booze in small, clear plastic cups. We were all on the same level.

Journal 5, Entry 4- Original Prompt: "Bad Poem Numberr 3"

While sleeping in a hostel in Florence with a 105 degree fever, I became a motorcycle. 

The German couple above me whispered even though no one spoke their language. 

The Japanese boy about my age with the darkened eyes, the bubble vest, and the slit-like lips stared at his computer for the night and cried in the morning.

The man on my left stripped down to his cock and balls and lathered himself in a oil of camomile and humility. 

Journal 5, Entry 3- Original Prompt: "Bad Poem Number 2"

Do you think Jesus had an Oedipus complex? 

I think this at 4 in the Rome airport. Hungover, sweat yellow. 

The messiah sprawled and suckling from a tapestry teet

behind the head of the cashier of the duty free shop. 

The Madonna giving the accepting and complacent look of a second grade teacher.

Journal 5, Entry 2- Original Prompt: "Bad Poem Number 1"

The landlady piles my last bit of cash. 

She asked me in cornet Spanish if I were a virgin or a lion. I thought she wanted something more personal than astrology and my place in the stars. 

The psychotherapist next door could probably answer that question better than I could and solve it with the red, green, and blues they offered my uncle. 

He is in Texas behind wired glass and making rosaries out of crucified trashbags. They're traded for cigarettes and minutes on a cell phone to call a lawyer or some girlfriend that works at a diner or as a dental hygienist.

I'm in Bologna peeled off a seat on the Florentine high speed and standing on a balcony watching sparrows hop like kangaroos from window to window. I don't pray and I can't smoke so my uncle have nothing to say.  

The landlady, with her benign tumors beneath her lilly blouse, tells me about the blind men in the other room and how she leads them out every evening. 

She must read them their horoscopes. 

 

Journal 5, Post 1-Image Junkyard: "Caves"

The Pidgeon holes in the underground city of Orvieto sit as a well-preserved fad of the rich and in power. I wonder if the same will happen to the Gucci stores on every corner.