Narcopolis
by Wayne Alien Sallee

As I mentioned earlier with his story, "Rail Rider," Wayne Alien Sallee has published over 800 poems and stories. Here, then, is one of his poems. In addition to his having sold his first two books in 1989, the year was doubly exciting for Sallee, as he managed to be run over by a car. As Sallee puts it: "Update on my life: Hit by that all important '87 Dodge in March & for two months had a scarlet sponge for a brain and my left arm was a skin baggie of Kibbles 'N Bits. No scars from my many stays at Holy Cross Hospital, overlooking beautiful vermin-ridden Marquette Park, but still have recurring nightmares any time I see the Smothers Brothers's YO-YO MAN video." This, for those of you who ask writers: "Where do you get your ideas?"

I. CITY LIMITS

Nicotine grey town
of snot-ringed corridors
thriving behind a billion
jellied eyelids,
each chance visit
slivers our existence:
name your poison, or
the house special,
at the bar beneath
the elevated hell

II. THE ROAD FORKS AT SUICIDE

as an eager man
in a ridiculous tie
puts gun to teeth
and sleeps
while cameras voice
their soothing purr.
Drink deep but don't crowd,
big as you might be

III. WITNESS THE TOWN CLOWN

loved by all;
the retarded killer prances
misunderstanding the shrieks
of each night's degradations
before curling around
a dull corner

IV. PRETTY IN PINK

the grey is alive
with daddy sounds
guttural and snorting:
her mouth a scream --
ing window,
storm pains intact.
Whenever daddy sleeps fetal
(on the couch so plump)
after his little french death,
she dreams
the space shuttle explodes
in creamy white smiles

V. INNER CITY FANTASIES

: for that is all we do
in Narcopolis, for
the bloated present
is too much. The past
denied, the future defiled.
Narcopolis AKA Prescription
City AKA Smallville ad nauseum,
the one true inner city
where pregnant leeches dangle
from the rusted streetlamps
of what little memory remains

VI. WALLS OF DAY

coexist with those
of night, L.A.
freeways intersect
an Arkham dirtroad,
a dead king performs
endless benedictions
of medley in a sea
eternally October
(C C Rider)
(C C Rider)
(I said) is it a dream
when chitinous
souls shove
communion
wafers
into vacant windows,
ghastly parking lots,
to insure that
the virgin straddles truth?|
Or is this, too,
a wanting release,
a discharge of reason,
as opposed to sailing
off to Key Largo
between blinks,
with a full deck brimming
of anal-retentive harlequins

VII. TOURIST TRAP

Come. Run on a cool
ribbon of intestine.
You know the score
or you wouldn't be asking.

VIII. LEGEND IN NEON

endlessly October... but
for a breezeway seventeen
molecules long: a favorite
spot of Mary Kelly,
and Jack the Ripper's
last known victim laps
at gutter surf
the texture of Kennedy's
blood. The causeway
is refuge for the clinically
sane, its sole light
a Cerveza Fria sign
dangling hypnotically
from a pile of eye
sockets, a legend in neon.
The prima donna of Spitalfields
hails claim to each brittle
handhold in the dirt,
and each glance
of her smiling eyelids
reminds us of those in 'Nam
or Iran, a field near Countryside,
or basement abattoir in Ogden, Utah.
Those who knew that the worst
of their lives, wafer-
thin yet lingering,
was all that kept them
from this ghastly, cramped
town that Kelly calls home.
The guns are cocked
clothes removed
hydrochloric acid poured.
Ready. Steady. Go.

IX. BOY THE WAY GLENN MILLER PLAYED

Forget the demographics
of suicides and addicts;
anyone's allowed in, and rent
is cheap as your own future:
the lambent american scream.
At 2 am, the fear is gone,
and the background dirges
are sung by Mary and Rhoda and Archie
and Bob, rerun refugees
from SitCom City (Boy the way
Glenn Miller played...) and the streets,
the streets washed blue, sometimes
blue mixed with pale, and a gentle
wind moans take me now.
Release yourself to the void,
let it suck your pleasure dry.
Think of where those years have gone:
syndicated sitcoms now a generation
old. You can check out of this town
any time you like, but time
is not what you think.

X. YOUR HOME TOWN

And where do these poetic roads
lead, if not to Hell, Perdition,
or Misteroger's Neighborhood?
What point need be made? Walk
down your own street in zombie dusk
and rubberneck the vacant eyes
of your neighbors at their blue,
sometimes blue and pale. TV screens,
man! Tsktsking the news of life
while lapping up lifestyles of the rich
and fantastical. Narcopolis is a way
station for the damned, guarded
by bored men bronzed by arthritic
balm, and haloed by bullet holes.

XI. THE FUGITIVE

his kind cruel hand:
but himself the noblest
of citizens, though shy
of face and gaunt of leg,
a 60's videodrome (boy
the way I said C C Rid -- )
searching in gutter patois,
running out of love
for pooling metaphors
vagrant fragrances
and a facial tick that
won't stay gone;
his whole benign being
contraflicts what
he's trying to deny
to die
perchance to dream
and the episode never truly ends...