morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling teach me a morning knee swelling morning knee swelling teach me a stretch morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling teach me a stretch monring knee swelling morning knee swelling teach me a stretch thank you morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling teach me a stretch thank you shake hands morning knee swelling teach me a stretch thank you shake hands thank you shake hands thank you shake hands morning knee swelling morning morning morning morning morning morning mourning mourning mourning mourning mourning mourning mourning more more more more more more more more morning morning morning knee swelling morning knee swelling morning knee swelling mourning my poor knee damn pains and swelling mourning speed mourning speed mourning speed morning knee swelling and mourning my speed morning morning morning more morning and the basement dark nothing seen but early day pressing its cheeks against the glass and eyelids quiver and adjust the morning and the knee is swelling the first step the worst step first step the worst step the first step is the worst step morning knee swelling and the morning
31 December, 2008
Resolutions
Gluttony go guilt go cursing go alcohol go shower-baths go demons go meat go insincerity go memories go smoke go reminiscing go worries go sweets go salts go regrets go idleness go incompletion go pulling looks go poor manners go tender words go phonyness go hands go boasting go self-love go pampering go large claims go ignorance go tempers go fear go carelessness go spendy habits go heartbreaking go mediocracy go wants go promises go tv go sleep go naps go hell go lateness go lies go selfishness go bias go internet atombombs go debts go superiority go inferiority go dirty shirts go hair growth go apathy go drunk misbehaving go hurting go jealousy go daydreams go lust go wandering go aimlessness go indecision go faults go music go rejection go appeasment go skepticism go pessimism go bliss go work go slave trading go harassment go poetry go narrow mind go sum ups go dazes go dirty dishes go eating out go forgetting go half-assing go smart-assing go news go weather go missing items go
In New England wondering...
Drives
Nightly wanderings
stop lights, barriers
villages where houses warm the bones and out along the edge of the yard creeps the drives.
They know spinning
like water. They know bread
crumbs like air and smell the
rubber layer thinly spread
on the road of the curve
where the houses look like hell repeated
infinite turns and grids. I've seen it concentrated
on the patriot lines running down the main street of
a harbor town and I
cried for the residents.
Nightly wanderings
stop lights, barriers
villages where houses warm the bones and out along the edge of the yard creeps the drives.
They know spinning
like water. They know bread
crumbs like air and smell the
rubber layer thinly spread
on the road of the curve
where the houses look like hell repeated
infinite turns and grids. I've seen it concentrated
on the patriot lines running down the main street of
a harbor town and I
cried for the residents.
19 December, 2008
exercise
First meditation then clear it yes everything even this, even the frame digging into my gut as I half drift and half work...
Right, a boulder charges, better, rolls lopsided but spheres have no real sides
but yes this is jagged and damn right there are at least some identifiable surfaces
anyway rolling and trees are either blasted or the vines and branches are reaching to touch the land made meteor
and not simply touch but grabbing leaves like fingers and mercy grips i remember mercy and i was good because my
little hands were manipulative and my tips would dig between each bone in the back of the hand
i would pluck strike and dig into the soft spots the pain centers and i could bring an over sized child to their knees and
power through my hands has been often achieved besides all that i recall the look of this play yard
it was small and dusty and mostly mulch and i know only a few children and every game was king of the hill regardless of
its title or the actual rules every game was a conquering effort and i remember the play yard
i cant believe i'm not coughing through this memory even though the dust and airborne dirt is unmatched
particles kicked up by filthy sneakers running and tagging and killing and conquering and shaping the traits for the rest of their lives
i remember a tether ball and i would hit to destroy it and winning came second to the hit and sharp pains and callus formed on my palms
and would rip the dangling dead skin with my front teeth and have nightmares of the consequences of swallowing my own skin and sometimes
i did it when i wasn't thinking otherwise i would spit it out but often play it between the spaces in my teeth i was scared of the dead skin forming
into a creature inside of my body but my true sensibilities told me that it would gladly reunite with my body and simply be accepted and devoured by my organs and recycled back into the flesh and i knew this and pictured the whole scene as a boy and now i picture me picturing this and yes i can
remember a few things once the boulder starts rolling...
Right, a boulder charges, better, rolls lopsided but spheres have no real sides
but yes this is jagged and damn right there are at least some identifiable surfaces
anyway rolling and trees are either blasted or the vines and branches are reaching to touch the land made meteor
and not simply touch but grabbing leaves like fingers and mercy grips i remember mercy and i was good because my
little hands were manipulative and my tips would dig between each bone in the back of the hand
i would pluck strike and dig into the soft spots the pain centers and i could bring an over sized child to their knees and
power through my hands has been often achieved besides all that i recall the look of this play yard
it was small and dusty and mostly mulch and i know only a few children and every game was king of the hill regardless of
its title or the actual rules every game was a conquering effort and i remember the play yard
i cant believe i'm not coughing through this memory even though the dust and airborne dirt is unmatched
particles kicked up by filthy sneakers running and tagging and killing and conquering and shaping the traits for the rest of their lives
i remember a tether ball and i would hit to destroy it and winning came second to the hit and sharp pains and callus formed on my palms
and would rip the dangling dead skin with my front teeth and have nightmares of the consequences of swallowing my own skin and sometimes
i did it when i wasn't thinking otherwise i would spit it out but often play it between the spaces in my teeth i was scared of the dead skin forming
into a creature inside of my body but my true sensibilities told me that it would gladly reunite with my body and simply be accepted and devoured by my organs and recycled back into the flesh and i knew this and pictured the whole scene as a boy and now i picture me picturing this and yes i can
remember a few things once the boulder starts rolling...
16 December, 2008
,Besides Ornette,
Radiator, hot, silver
rings or pillars
loops a formation
near the window
and I
elbow rested on the direct hot
covered with my sweater that
someone said resembles one worn
by a distressed writer I replied
dead on
I reply now in silence,
besides Ornette,
who does much speaking,
Fireous Tongue!
All but watching this corner
Ottoman sitting
elbow on the heater
and, yes, Ornette
people walking and walking
always walking
who's working and
who's picking up the kid
who's getting coffee and
who's dying and treading down the seconds
look at this block
and the auto nexus!
I know nothing
finally peace
I rage with the pace, Ornette!
you slow me and then
turn me loose, rabid, and who are these people?
I watch them, hands in their pockets, dangling bags
senseless buying
bundled children are they
the cold spins us foolish
look at this block
it's noon and I'm no pedestrian
I view and throw down
An angel floats past the filth
Horns are fighting Apologize to Ornette!
Neighbors tens of feet in reach could be enjoying the window seat
as I do laughing at jipsters whose jokes bomb but still their embarrassment saves them
I'd rather wear ties and shovel papers into the financial furnace
I'd rather dig ditches and lay pipe I'd rather do you notice my pushing?
and how I join those rejecting that crap? and have you, then,
fulfilled your purpose? your intention?
I admit my connection
the album is done and so am I.
rings or pillars
loops a formation
near the window
and I
elbow rested on the direct hot
covered with my sweater that
someone said resembles one worn
by a distressed writer I replied
dead on
I reply now in silence,
besides Ornette,
who does much speaking,
Fireous Tongue!
All but watching this corner
Ottoman sitting
elbow on the heater
and, yes, Ornette
people walking and walking
always walking
who's working and
who's picking up the kid
who's getting coffee and
who's dying and treading down the seconds
look at this block
and the auto nexus!
I know nothing
finally peace
I rage with the pace, Ornette!
you slow me and then
turn me loose, rabid, and who are these people?
I watch them, hands in their pockets, dangling bags
senseless buying
bundled children are they
the cold spins us foolish
look at this block
it's noon and I'm no pedestrian
I view and throw down
An angel floats past the filth
Horns are fighting Apologize to Ornette!
Neighbors tens of feet in reach could be enjoying the window seat
as I do laughing at jipsters whose jokes bomb but still their embarrassment saves them
I'd rather wear ties and shovel papers into the financial furnace
I'd rather dig ditches and lay pipe I'd rather do you notice my pushing?
and how I join those rejecting that crap? and have you, then,
fulfilled your purpose? your intention?
I admit my connection
the album is done and so am I.
14 December, 2008
Steely Dan Moment
Today I was listening to Steely Dan's Aja on my stereo. I was also listening to it on my laptop. I spent an hour trying to sync the music perfectly so I would be surrounded by it with multiple speakers. Turns out I got really close only once. There was a delay when I pressed PLAY on iTunes that I couldn't quite figure out. A variable I considered is that computers, especially one as old as mine, often has internal spasms and the delay could be longer or shorter depending on what task the computer is performing at that given moment. I'm on vacation.
11 December, 2008
oh, goodness...
This morning...clouds. No, not me. The sky. I'm fine. I can say, though, I walked over some patchy grass cutting the sidewalk corner, finger up my nose and my nail scooped a fine idea. While an Asian woman passed with a yellow Labrador. She saw. And my hand retreated and cupped the coagulated mucus, or better, the booger, and I passed her with acting confidence saying in my step that she imagined the whole damn thing, but watching her from the back corner of my eye gave it all away, and, yes, my cupped hand did too. I needed to roll the object between my fingers. For my fingers' sake?... ... ... To feel the quick pinch-the crust inflicting a spot of pain?...Or for the sake of my brain? The pleasure of the act alone. Well, pain is a message sent from the brain, perhaps it's all upstairs. Then what the hell are my fingers doing? Ah, expand, Michael! This is not worth the contemplation...
I was being filmed in the background by public access television and...
I once threw my t.v out the window
She was a whore, bitch did me wrong
She left for months, I read books
and books and books
played the intellectual
pretended with pen
I wrote about a balled up
newspaper page on the sidewalk next to the fence
of a park--garbage
I wrote about babies crying--garbage
Leaves changing colour, bells crashing,
rain--garbage, garbage, garbage
Then, she found me
I was stuck, slowed on the highway
Hood propped, poking around the mechanical guts,
knowing nothing
Her truck--big warm empty
room for 1 more
the rain came and I went
I dream in minute pitches
I shower with jingles
my dramas are hers
I laugh with the studio audience
I still throw things out windows
She was a whore, bitch did me wrong
She left for months, I read books
and books and books
played the intellectual
pretended with pen
I wrote about a balled up
newspaper page on the sidewalk next to the fence
of a park--garbage
I wrote about babies crying--garbage
Leaves changing colour, bells crashing,
rain--garbage, garbage, garbage
Then, she found me
I was stuck, slowed on the highway
Hood propped, poking around the mechanical guts,
knowing nothing
Her truck--big warm empty
room for 1 more
the rain came and I went
I dream in minute pitches
I shower with jingles
my dramas are hers
I laugh with the studio audience
I still throw things out windows
29 November, 2008
The Window
Here's a window. I am in this bedroom that is not mine and will never be mine. I am reminded of a four star hotel room...the symmetry of the furniture, spot-on-cleanliness, no soul, no trace of a pulse or human personality. I think of how we occupy rooms and spaces for extended periods of time and how the air contained in these walls will act as a locked safe for the soul of the person who stayed there. The person could be gone for decades, taking with them their smell, their mess, their dust. What remains is a soul...forever flickering until eventually it leaves and goes elsewhere.
This room is soulless. Large enough to fit two twin beds liberally spaced. One nightstand light to illuminate the space through a large cardboard shade. Colors of phantoms, washed-out whites and grays, and transparent when I let myself realize it. And the window...The Country. Endless bark and stripped down branches from the dead-close winter. All bare but the spots of crusted brown leaves crunching and imploding into themselves to brave the cold, simultaneously fighting a battle never won as the wind will grow stronger in the coming months, their brown skin will blacken, the sun will give little heat while giving an impression of doing so with it's unmatched, burning brightness.
And the window. The one window in the room. I am looking for my other sock. The covers on the bed are a mess. I dare not touch that trap again. I will forfeit my good guest status and refuse to tighten those sheets and fluff the pillow. The window shows a chalky sky. Typical New England scenery with the woods and dark skies common in the Northeast. The sun comes every several minutes, and when it is not in full shine there are sporadic swirls cutting across the landscape all seen from the window. Why is this quarantined for contemplation? Where have I seen this before? Standing bare chested, my arms taut leaning against the sill. The buckle of my jeans not yet fastened. Standing and looking out, questioning, reasoning, abolishing reason, loathing, listening to the chatter of the folks downstairs and pots crashing against metal surfaces...the smell of bacon. I promise...let me see one animal-a rodent, hawk, deer. Let me see one other specimen of life and I will comb my hair, throw on my shirt and leave this bedroom. Give me one interruption in my overly-lived, inauthentic act of staring out this window to break my conjured meditation.
I see nothing but what I first saw out this window. No interruption. No passing of life besides my faint reflection when a dark spot blocks the direct light to this window.
"Who painted this?" I demand answers and receive not one.
Voids. There. I've gone and directed traffic. I've gone and spoiled the ending, the moral, the lesson. Abandoned caverns. Spaces to be filled. Spaces never filled. Spaces once filled but now no more. There. I've blown it to little pathetic pieces and now every single thought will have this umbrella of the lesson. The scope has been adjusted and now it is stuck and breaking from this perspective will be impossible. Blown it to pieces...little unseen particles...where there was once a whole now there is nothing but infinite invisible parts. Ah...again. No fighting it. I feel my Little Blue Book wedged in my pocket and not properly laying on my leg, but tangled in the cloth and partially folded resulting from some mishap when I put on my jeans. If only I had a pen I would rip out Little Blue and frantically record these misfortunes, epiphanies, and this cloud, this morning drunk cloud and this damn window and the void I've grown into a monster of a theme. I would take that void and show it for what it's worth until its pants are down in front of a crowd and the world laughs at its silliness.
This room is soulless. Large enough to fit two twin beds liberally spaced. One nightstand light to illuminate the space through a large cardboard shade. Colors of phantoms, washed-out whites and grays, and transparent when I let myself realize it. And the window...The Country. Endless bark and stripped down branches from the dead-close winter. All bare but the spots of crusted brown leaves crunching and imploding into themselves to brave the cold, simultaneously fighting a battle never won as the wind will grow stronger in the coming months, their brown skin will blacken, the sun will give little heat while giving an impression of doing so with it's unmatched, burning brightness.
And the window. The one window in the room. I am looking for my other sock. The covers on the bed are a mess. I dare not touch that trap again. I will forfeit my good guest status and refuse to tighten those sheets and fluff the pillow. The window shows a chalky sky. Typical New England scenery with the woods and dark skies common in the Northeast. The sun comes every several minutes, and when it is not in full shine there are sporadic swirls cutting across the landscape all seen from the window. Why is this quarantined for contemplation? Where have I seen this before? Standing bare chested, my arms taut leaning against the sill. The buckle of my jeans not yet fastened. Standing and looking out, questioning, reasoning, abolishing reason, loathing, listening to the chatter of the folks downstairs and pots crashing against metal surfaces...the smell of bacon. I promise...let me see one animal-a rodent, hawk, deer. Let me see one other specimen of life and I will comb my hair, throw on my shirt and leave this bedroom. Give me one interruption in my overly-lived, inauthentic act of staring out this window to break my conjured meditation.
I see nothing but what I first saw out this window. No interruption. No passing of life besides my faint reflection when a dark spot blocks the direct light to this window.
"Who painted this?" I demand answers and receive not one.
Voids. There. I've gone and directed traffic. I've gone and spoiled the ending, the moral, the lesson. Abandoned caverns. Spaces to be filled. Spaces never filled. Spaces once filled but now no more. There. I've blown it to little pathetic pieces and now every single thought will have this umbrella of the lesson. The scope has been adjusted and now it is stuck and breaking from this perspective will be impossible. Blown it to pieces...little unseen particles...where there was once a whole now there is nothing but infinite invisible parts. Ah...again. No fighting it. I feel my Little Blue Book wedged in my pocket and not properly laying on my leg, but tangled in the cloth and partially folded resulting from some mishap when I put on my jeans. If only I had a pen I would rip out Little Blue and frantically record these misfortunes, epiphanies, and this cloud, this morning drunk cloud and this damn window and the void I've grown into a monster of a theme. I would take that void and show it for what it's worth until its pants are down in front of a crowd and the world laughs at its silliness.
23 November, 2008
out
go walk too fast heels smashing in prestissimo though no unison i say more like keeping time with
the clicking of a turn signal and an automobile has no sense of rhythm i say i can't rely on any
single machine i say these nights spin like gears and we walk along the rivets bellies full and lips wet and arms over our shoulders we run hug laugh scream and stutter step together i say our breath smells like the mornings we mold after a flood is called in from some satellite or maybe god himself again and rinses the pallet and fields are water-logged i say i can't account for my behavior
or yours or any words spun with vulgarity and those impure words! creeping through my teeth i lie my mouth is wide open and the leak is embraced the same way my eyes are my muscles and drag my bones around with no objection from my lids i say when i end up with my ass on my couch and we talk of all the things far into the next day people are either doing the same or hugging their pillows and wishing the alarm never sounds i say sleep is always a disappointment but a friend
nonetheless i say i know no other means of leisure and repeat everything i do and everything i say
the clicking of a turn signal and an automobile has no sense of rhythm i say i can't rely on any
single machine i say these nights spin like gears and we walk along the rivets bellies full and lips wet and arms over our shoulders we run hug laugh scream and stutter step together i say our breath smells like the mornings we mold after a flood is called in from some satellite or maybe god himself again and rinses the pallet and fields are water-logged i say i can't account for my behavior
or yours or any words spun with vulgarity and those impure words! creeping through my teeth i lie my mouth is wide open and the leak is embraced the same way my eyes are my muscles and drag my bones around with no objection from my lids i say when i end up with my ass on my couch and we talk of all the things far into the next day people are either doing the same or hugging their pillows and wishing the alarm never sounds i say sleep is always a disappointment but a friend
nonetheless i say i know no other means of leisure and repeat everything i do and everything i say
20 November, 2008
installment 2
In between here and the old
street, in between this colony,
this infestation of the human
tread and the calming quiet
of the simpler homes, in between
the rushing now and the years
before, between the towers
and the cubby holes is a
great vastness of miles, exits,
signs-a brilliance-a stretch
of hands shook, dreams
met and lost, curls of the lips
in smiles and frowns, overpasses,
underpasses, hours of uncertainty
spent willingly losing track of
consciousness, arguments and
embraces, gradual weathering
of a once sharp rock formation,
dwindling shores, illness, great
stregnth, victories, triumph in
losing, the smoothing and sanding
down of edges wrongly biting,
the humbling and the thanks
given daily to every existing
god for chances of redemption.
Finding great significance in nothing.
In between the here and then, and
here and sure to come, every
minute shaped and every minute born.
street, in between this colony,
this infestation of the human
tread and the calming quiet
of the simpler homes, in between
the rushing now and the years
before, between the towers
and the cubby holes is a
great vastness of miles, exits,
signs-a brilliance-a stretch
of hands shook, dreams
met and lost, curls of the lips
in smiles and frowns, overpasses,
underpasses, hours of uncertainty
spent willingly losing track of
consciousness, arguments and
embraces, gradual weathering
of a once sharp rock formation,
dwindling shores, illness, great
stregnth, victories, triumph in
losing, the smoothing and sanding
down of edges wrongly biting,
the humbling and the thanks
given daily to every existing
god for chances of redemption.
Finding great significance in nothing.
In between the here and then, and
here and sure to come, every
minute shaped and every minute born.
18 November, 2008
Crypticism is...
Crypticism is new. Although, I didn't invent it. The form embraces the full-on usage of images and rejects stories. It enjoys the portrayal of scenes and neglects chronology or logic. It describes the simplest concepts with larger ideas-always relating the micro to the macro, or visa-versa. It is not saying the idea. It is the idea before the word of the idea is processed. It is the mind's first image or vision of common thoughts, but disguised because the phase of contemplation is bypassed. Instead, the practice of writing Crypticism relies on the pen to follow the pace of the mind and act before the mind can make order and sense. Crypticism should be as whimsical as the mind of a person in absolute quiet; when senses receive stimuli and the mind automatically functions on associations, memories, previous knowledge, muses and beauties. Crypticism is the recreation of, and the, living dream. You may never see this word/concept again. And that's O.K.
installment 1
Still there's juices spewing from every spout
open mouth catches the rainfall
world's revolve in every droplet
wars are fought on every landmass
weather fuels the daily spirit
I hear it more than seen and choose
to wake with no colours and instead
dearly rest my head on sound bosoms
-quietly dreaming and drooling on
these mountains
Universized mountains...and hills to the
wide-eyed
Bubbles and busts to the wide-eyed
Pageants and parades to the wide-eyes
The wide-eyed has ears plugged with
leaves raked from polluted lawns as
they've browned and crusted on the edges
And specs of dirt coat the surface
insects pierce the skin not for nutrition
but as hurdles to jump to see
behind the fence.
open mouth catches the rainfall
world's revolve in every droplet
wars are fought on every landmass
weather fuels the daily spirit
I hear it more than seen and choose
to wake with no colours and instead
dearly rest my head on sound bosoms
-quietly dreaming and drooling on
these mountains
Universized mountains...and hills to the
wide-eyed
Bubbles and busts to the wide-eyed
Pageants and parades to the wide-eyes
The wide-eyed has ears plugged with
leaves raked from polluted lawns as
they've browned and crusted on the edges
And specs of dirt coat the surface
insects pierce the skin not for nutrition
but as hurdles to jump to see
behind the fence.
Some of the PA
Took the car, headed north. Gave my fossils for fuel. Signed them in my will. The state smiled
the president laughed and away I went.
Crashed the Bronx, front side first. I was thirsty enough for yesterday's coffee. My mouth a sewer this morning's rough start and no batteries found.
New Jersey a breeze. She's a poor whore, charges in minutes of ten. I asked for six, she said I must wait. I said I see no line.
Pennsylvania was busy eating. Swallowed me whole. When I thought I was out...
"Spit me out! You fat slime!"
"I mustn't" she cried. "You taste of sweet sins, the best I could ever imagine."
"Well as long as I'm in your mouth, watch your teeth, swallow me as I am, though suck me if you like"
With that I landed in the belly and all to greet me was silence and salty refreshments. I still had no kind of breath mint, and am I used as a breath mint?
the president laughed and away I went.
Crashed the Bronx, front side first. I was thirsty enough for yesterday's coffee. My mouth a sewer this morning's rough start and no batteries found.
New Jersey a breeze. She's a poor whore, charges in minutes of ten. I asked for six, she said I must wait. I said I see no line.
Pennsylvania was busy eating. Swallowed me whole. When I thought I was out...
"Spit me out! You fat slime!"
"I mustn't" she cried. "You taste of sweet sins, the best I could ever imagine."
"Well as long as I'm in your mouth, watch your teeth, swallow me as I am, though suck me if you like"
With that I landed in the belly and all to greet me was silence and salty refreshments. I still had no kind of breath mint, and am I used as a breath mint?
something drunk...
Ride and follow
Tracks are a pull
I have no choice
do I?
I miss spots
and beds and
home
I could tear against
the cold glass
passing greenery
soon to be supermarkets
I could wreck the inevitable
I have fists of
swollen spitwads
Try they will
damage structures
fucking hell
try as I will and
I will move stones
I let me be moved
and float
and drift in
suds, drift in soapy
whiteness caked
in black liquids
fish are governors
I praise they're fingers
kiss their pink toes
I move and stop
when my heart says so
I move and stop
when my feet buckle
and arches falter...
michael the archangel...
Tracks are a pull
I have no choice
do I?
I miss spots
and beds and
home
I could tear against
the cold glass
passing greenery
soon to be supermarkets
I could wreck the inevitable
I have fists of
swollen spitwads
Try they will
damage structures
fucking hell
try as I will and
I will move stones
I let me be moved
and float
and drift in
suds, drift in soapy
whiteness caked
in black liquids
fish are governors
I praise they're fingers
kiss their pink toes
I move and stop
when my heart says so
I move and stop
when my feet buckle
and arches falter...
michael the archangel...
Pennsylvania Conversation
"I use a little device. You kinda hafta pluck it and it calls the males with a female voice. You gotta do it right after mating season which is in spring. You got all the left over really horny bastards who haven't found a mate. For the deer, it's the males who normally call the ladies over. So what your doing is really messing with nature."
"What it is, is temptation? You taunt the turkeys with potential gratification and the weak ones who don't know better will come to you...and their stupidity, lust, urges, whatever, gets them shot and fried and devoured?"
"Yep."
"Oh...damn"
"What it is, is temptation? You taunt the turkeys with potential gratification and the weak ones who don't know better will come to you...and their stupidity, lust, urges, whatever, gets them shot and fried and devoured?"
"Yep."
"Oh...damn"
city creasts and beatures
Souls shiver in the wake
of good convictions. My
hand's a hammer and is
rusted at the handle.
Doors are grey eyes and
they're looking through
stained glass shards.
I cringe at the bellows
in the morning when my
eyes are still sifting through
images of yesterday.
When they are still playing
in the skies and I'm
eating clouds. My shoulders
turkey vulture to the
cracks and whistles of
brontosaurus machines
erecting anthills, piercing
atmospheres.
Rhythms emerge.
Breaks in the infinite
Momentary lapses in chaos.
I'm submerged.
Human phenomenons
the animal wonders.
Us like the sparrows
Call and response routines
How the ear struggles
for plaid sounds!
Flannel noises too.
I will die humming
a polka-dot tune.
I fly south all day
when I'm tempted.
I make honey out
of no control of my own.
I follow the scents of
passing asses and
in the spring it is too
strong and in the city there
are too much.
I ask "what is my
burden?"
What is this road block?
This great wall of resistance.
Guards stand on top with
mounted machine guns. Dogs
tell me to turn back. I've
got a sling-shot and a
pebble or two.
I crawl along the bottom
corner when no one can see.
I gnaw the cinder blocks and
craft a hole. I push the
final rock flake out with
my tongue and a light so
hot and yellow pours from
the crack.
I see my children and their
children and the child
I was and every one before
who made me.
All are bare and do not speak.
They lift no finger in a work
effort. They answer to no
superior. They eat without utensils
never wipe their faces.
No buildings stand and none
in the blueprints.
I've seen them myself and
folded an oragami ship.
I might sail it down the
reservoir and let it disintegrate
into our drinking water.
My good eye closes
I run with butterfly wings
and antennas to receive
the good reception and
the prime time popcorn
brigades all zombie
their faces
They end, with open mouths,
any ash of hope.
Now the ember floats into
the blackness or better the nothingness
that isn't even black, or white,
or any color at all. It
doesn't even sound like quiet.
Fly traps paint the scenery
Our eyes are the flies and
we love the sweet sugar water stench
they emit. I'm no fly I
respond, explain, I disagree
and reject all allegations.
Perhaps a fuzzy rodent with
nothing but a little organ
singing sweetly and I'm
too simple to ignore the chords.
I'm no wishbone broke over
two brothers' envy. The dirt
I tread is a spiraling circumference
of miles and miles.
The ground's teeth grind
my naked feet and the
mouth of the canyon speaks
a nightmare and spits
sour apple juice acidic
I walk on my hands and knees
deep in muck barb-wired
tentacles imprint like
soars in that spiral pattern
reminding me days i've
bent my neck into cold
soft sand and let my
head do no thinking.
This may have no foreseeable end
but it may close when all
my attic doors are sealed.
When all the loose spaces
are cemented shut and
no stinging winds can
live and break glass in too
high of tones.
When all the artifacts and
keepsakes in boxes thaw
and move about-pictures,
photos, stuffed dolls, old clothing, souvenirs.
When they all evolve back to
life and converse, dance, and
love and kill each other,
a glow will return
a burning sun so missed
I kiss her and my lips
remember that certain warmth
In one installment, one room,
one day, one one of many.
In one second here and gone,
I stop all pacing and ground
all charges. I leave the window
be and all it shows me. I and
the wall.
Something dies, one is born,
and to all that keep on living,
I join all from here to Minnesota
to Japan to a rock orbiting Jupiter,
I hear the clinking-clanging-
roaring-hissing bellows and
cries from a rabid giraffe machine.
She knows no love of calves,
or the taste of the highest leaf
on the tallest tree.
-All a fleeting thought in one
pump of a bike pedal-
of good convictions. My
hand's a hammer and is
rusted at the handle.
Doors are grey eyes and
they're looking through
stained glass shards.
I cringe at the bellows
in the morning when my
eyes are still sifting through
images of yesterday.
When they are still playing
in the skies and I'm
eating clouds. My shoulders
turkey vulture to the
cracks and whistles of
brontosaurus machines
erecting anthills, piercing
atmospheres.
Rhythms emerge.
Breaks in the infinite
Momentary lapses in chaos.
I'm submerged.
Human phenomenons
the animal wonders.
Us like the sparrows
Call and response routines
How the ear struggles
for plaid sounds!
Flannel noises too.
I will die humming
a polka-dot tune.
I fly south all day
when I'm tempted.
I make honey out
of no control of my own.
I follow the scents of
passing asses and
in the spring it is too
strong and in the city there
are too much.
I ask "what is my
burden?"
What is this road block?
This great wall of resistance.
Guards stand on top with
mounted machine guns. Dogs
tell me to turn back. I've
got a sling-shot and a
pebble or two.
I crawl along the bottom
corner when no one can see.
I gnaw the cinder blocks and
craft a hole. I push the
final rock flake out with
my tongue and a light so
hot and yellow pours from
the crack.
I see my children and their
children and the child
I was and every one before
who made me.
All are bare and do not speak.
They lift no finger in a work
effort. They answer to no
superior. They eat without utensils
never wipe their faces.
No buildings stand and none
in the blueprints.
I've seen them myself and
folded an oragami ship.
I might sail it down the
reservoir and let it disintegrate
into our drinking water.
My good eye closes
I run with butterfly wings
and antennas to receive
the good reception and
the prime time popcorn
brigades all zombie
their faces
They end, with open mouths,
any ash of hope.
Now the ember floats into
the blackness or better the nothingness
that isn't even black, or white,
or any color at all. It
doesn't even sound like quiet.
Fly traps paint the scenery
Our eyes are the flies and
we love the sweet sugar water stench
they emit. I'm no fly I
respond, explain, I disagree
and reject all allegations.
Perhaps a fuzzy rodent with
nothing but a little organ
singing sweetly and I'm
too simple to ignore the chords.
I'm no wishbone broke over
two brothers' envy. The dirt
I tread is a spiraling circumference
of miles and miles.
The ground's teeth grind
my naked feet and the
mouth of the canyon speaks
a nightmare and spits
sour apple juice acidic
I walk on my hands and knees
deep in muck barb-wired
tentacles imprint like
soars in that spiral pattern
reminding me days i've
bent my neck into cold
soft sand and let my
head do no thinking.
This may have no foreseeable end
but it may close when all
my attic doors are sealed.
When all the loose spaces
are cemented shut and
no stinging winds can
live and break glass in too
high of tones.
When all the artifacts and
keepsakes in boxes thaw
and move about-pictures,
photos, stuffed dolls, old clothing, souvenirs.
When they all evolve back to
life and converse, dance, and
love and kill each other,
a glow will return
a burning sun so missed
I kiss her and my lips
remember that certain warmth
In one installment, one room,
one day, one one of many.
In one second here and gone,
I stop all pacing and ground
all charges. I leave the window
be and all it shows me. I and
the wall.
Something dies, one is born,
and to all that keep on living,
I join all from here to Minnesota
to Japan to a rock orbiting Jupiter,
I hear the clinking-clanging-
roaring-hissing bellows and
cries from a rabid giraffe machine.
She knows no love of calves,
or the taste of the highest leaf
on the tallest tree.
-All a fleeting thought in one
pump of a bike pedal-
MOONS!
Moons!
Tokens I
COLLECT my pocket
a satchel a baggy
...lagging
days spend sped slow er
Tossed!
air pieces released
"call it"
lift the upper palm
sneak the showing symbol
no one knows the outcalm
of these moons...
i have jars
and piggies
and bottles
and all are saved in real space...
I cannot pick one1
hold it up ^
allow the light to brighten a shine* * *
and tell a story of this moon or the countless others
they pass
collect
stack and wear dust
what was done?
...anyone?
Tokens I
COLLECT my pocket
a satchel a baggy
...lagging
days spend sped slow er
Tossed!
air pieces released
"call it"
lift the upper palm
sneak the showing symbol
no one knows the outcalm
of these moons...
i have jars
and piggies
and bottles
and all are saved in real space...
I cannot pick one1
hold it up ^
allow the light to brighten a shine* * *
and tell a story of this moon or the countless others
they pass
collect
stack and wear dust
what was done?
...anyone?
iSelf
i'm waking and logging off, my log is
the breathing apparatus and my pen
is a bull, ridden by a glance between
eyes of a coming winter wind behind
my ears, a barking of a dog who hates
my steps, the taste of garlic carried
on and plastered on the nostrils of friends,
a glass of water severely missed. i must
tear the tops of these folks! disgusted
they stare, i publicly self-infatuate and
create dimensions. THIS is my univ-
erse and who else's do we know besides
our own? mine...sits on the couch, waits
in a line, waits to be seated, never honks
in traffic, wakes before seven, takes
the same shower and passes the same
people every single morning; faces
rarely new, drinks coffee for fuel,
tea for throat, role model to some, de-
vil to others, stops dead in tracks when
writing, whistles The Stranger in stair-
wells and corridors and loves the re-
verb, flirts until sleep, eats until sleep,
flosses daily, internet junkie, signals
received, denies the virus, healthy weak-
days, weekends disaster, sunday the
day of god and reflection and soon
will always come the yang...
the breathing apparatus and my pen
is a bull, ridden by a glance between
eyes of a coming winter wind behind
my ears, a barking of a dog who hates
my steps, the taste of garlic carried
on and plastered on the nostrils of friends,
a glass of water severely missed. i must
tear the tops of these folks! disgusted
they stare, i publicly self-infatuate and
create dimensions. THIS is my univ-
erse and who else's do we know besides
our own? mine...sits on the couch, waits
in a line, waits to be seated, never honks
in traffic, wakes before seven, takes
the same shower and passes the same
people every single morning; faces
rarely new, drinks coffee for fuel,
tea for throat, role model to some, de-
vil to others, stops dead in tracks when
writing, whistles The Stranger in stair-
wells and corridors and loves the re-
verb, flirts until sleep, eats until sleep,
flosses daily, internet junkie, signals
received, denies the virus, healthy weak-
days, weekends disaster, sunday the
day of god and reflection and soon
will always come the yang...
fresh clogger
I have been 24 since November 7th. I have been enjoying my new number for a couple weeks now. What I have not been enjoying, and what I have acquired on my birthday, is this new tendency to clog toilet bowls. Now, I'm not sure how appropriate this is, and I don't know how this fits in with the rest of my blog. But I feel as if I must explain this phenomenon. On November 7th, I took a number two that can only be described as massive. I knew that this was different then the million other times. Sure enough, there I was a minute later, plunger in hand, asking my roommate, Rocky, how to de-pooh this toilet bowl. Since he is an expert on such matters, I learned great techniques as well as important sanitary information regarding the cleaning of the plunger. After this incident, I went on to clog this particular toilet three additional times. My apartment toilet is very weak; the flush is pathetic and you can judge it's powerlessness by the sound alone.
What I don't understand, is why I clogged a super-strength toilet last night. Normally, toilets that are located in businesses have a far superior flush than a standard, house-hold toilet...this is something I've noticed through my years. I thought, "I could never clog this thing. I would have to take an obnoxiously large, stubborn number two." Maybe I never considered the dung that could be produced by my body. I am small-framed and eat relatively light. Yet, I clogged this toilet like I've been practicing for the past two weeks. Which I guess I've been doing! Keep in mind: this toilet was in a bar and there were people hanging out, chatting it up, on the other side of the bathroom door. God...there was no way they weren't going to know that this offense was my brainchild or, better, my asschild. I panicked. I grabbed the plunger. I pumped with all the life in me. But to no avail. The water level increased. Sprays and spritzes of water started shooting from the metal fixtures. What to do but close the lid, wash the hands, and flee the scene? That's what I did. Left it for the next poor guy to find the mess. I'm not sure if my diet changed or my body changed. Whatever happened, it happened on my birthday. And my life will never be the same.
What I don't understand, is why I clogged a super-strength toilet last night. Normally, toilets that are located in businesses have a far superior flush than a standard, house-hold toilet...this is something I've noticed through my years. I thought, "I could never clog this thing. I would have to take an obnoxiously large, stubborn number two." Maybe I never considered the dung that could be produced by my body. I am small-framed and eat relatively light. Yet, I clogged this toilet like I've been practicing for the past two weeks. Which I guess I've been doing! Keep in mind: this toilet was in a bar and there were people hanging out, chatting it up, on the other side of the bathroom door. God...there was no way they weren't going to know that this offense was my brainchild or, better, my asschild. I panicked. I grabbed the plunger. I pumped with all the life in me. But to no avail. The water level increased. Sprays and spritzes of water started shooting from the metal fixtures. What to do but close the lid, wash the hands, and flee the scene? That's what I did. Left it for the next poor guy to find the mess. I'm not sure if my diet changed or my body changed. Whatever happened, it happened on my birthday. And my life will never be the same.
17 November, 2008
Where I tread...
I picture myself a tight-rope walker, a
thread, a strand, spooled and crafted
by wrinkled hands. I manage a balance
but often my foot missed the grip
and my fingers clasp the wire, my
body flaps like a drying sheet
dancing for the warm wind.
Arms are levees for the rest
of the machine and pulls the
vessel back to its feet and
back on the beam.
Every breeze is a bulldozer or
an exhale-a hurricane or
flatulance-an avalanche or
a drizzle-every breeze is
another test and sometimes I
fail buyt I see the rope and
know the rope. I see the fall
and can judge it's depth. I see
sky and nothing higher-well I
make my highest ground
thread, a strand, spooled and crafted
by wrinkled hands. I manage a balance
but often my foot missed the grip
and my fingers clasp the wire, my
body flaps like a drying sheet
dancing for the warm wind.
Arms are levees for the rest
of the machine and pulls the
vessel back to its feet and
back on the beam.
Every breeze is a bulldozer or
an exhale-a hurricane or
flatulance-an avalanche or
a drizzle-every breeze is
another test and sometimes I
fail buyt I see the rope and
know the rope. I see the fall
and can judge it's depth. I see
sky and nothing higher-well I
make my highest ground
16 November, 2008
fresh bloggers
XCskank40oz: blogging
XCskank40oz: sounds scandanavian
Mr Snoogens: blogging on the fjords
XCskank40oz: in clogs
XCskank40oz: sven, let's go blog the fjords
Mr Snoogens: ive no clogs to blog in the fjords, valdemar
15 November, 2008
halloween 2009 ideas...
- Centaur
- Sprockets
- Black and white detective
- Linda Richman
- ORGAN GRINDER!
- Pinocchio
13 November, 2008
Dentist
The dentist's office and how I felt (which wasn't an office at all, but more like a cubicle with movable walls that could be found in business offices):
I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified over this blank t.v. screen which was 4 feet in front of my face, on the wall directly in front of me. I was lounging on the dentist chair. A chair that allows the body to recline but is still uncomfortable and gives one the sensation that something awful is about to happen. This chair could only be used for dentistry or torture. I was praying that this t.v. would stay off. There was no one around, I was convinced I was safe.
Suddenly, the screen made a short pizzicato hissing sound and turned on. There must have been a control from outside of the cubicle...
Shit. What a lousy turn for the absolute worst. Then I thought, the turning started as soon as I was buzzed into the building from off the street. The waiting room was dim and had that lighting that showed all of the skin's little imperfections. The secretaries were a couple run-down Polish hags. These were the faces the patients see before their mouths are violated? This was their idea of a comforting front line? I rubbed my jaw and slowly filled out the forms. "Have you ever had any bleeding problems?....Yes/No." I've bled before. Every single time it has been a problem. I had an urge to use the bathroom. The coffee table hasn't been Windex-ed for some time. Smudges and left over food pastes were smeared in bacteria rainbows. I kept signing my name and circling my medical histories.
"Romano!"
With that I was taken down a short corridor and brought into the x-ray room. The machine was carelessly wrapped with blue tape. Is that what's holding this whole contraption together? Rays are going to leak out somehow and poison my eyes, or I don't know I was scared because I've never seen such recklessness. These machines are usually so clean and new and safe-looking! I gagged on the cardboard tabs as the dentist's nurse photographed my entire face. I laughed at the way she would set the cardboard in my mouth then run out of the room to flick the photo switch. She then would mosey back in and set another piece, which I had to hold with my own finger. She washed her hands and was wearing gloves but what about my own germ infested fingers! I couldn't remember the last time my hands touched soap.
"I'm your lady, and you are my man." In the 90's, America fell in love with over-produced, pseudo emotional, over-thought ballads. Whitneys and Boltons. Studio piano's and echoed drum hits.
Doctor Igor Iliav. Salt and Pepper hair and complexion. Another product of little Poland. Family dentist, and I pity the families who came here more than once. I needed a deep cleaning, and that meant a metal pick ripping through my gums. Tartar. Tartar! I spend my evenings in a strict meditative ritual of flossing, picking, brushing, scraping, and gargling, just so I can see a dentist and have them finally say "Ah! You've done it! The golden child! I see you have been flossing. Leave here at once. We have found our messiah!"
Igor was not clean. He was not gentle. There was no nurse with a loose blouse holding the sucking mechanism. Instead, streams of spit dripped down my tilted-back head like a spewing volcano. Gobs of bloody tissue piled on the tool table. Celine Dion.
In a thick Polish accent, "I could do the bottom jaw and leave the top for tomorrow."
In a gagged mumble, "Uh, uh. Today, Today"
"Are you sure, some people can handle the pain and some can't."
"Today, Today."
"You have a high threshold for pain."
Yes, I felt good about his compliment and reassuring my manhood. And yes, the cleaning was decent, but I've had better. Igor had me sign two forms, stating I was there on two separate occasions. My insurance will gladly pick up the tab. Ah! Insurance fraud!
Yes, I felt good about his compliment and reassuring my manhood. And yes, the cleaning was decent, but I've had better. Igor had me sign two forms, stating I was there on two separate occasions. My insurance will gladly pick up the tab. Ah! Insurance fraud!
12 November, 2008
Ambience+influence+green notebook
I will record the drips and rivers
Lucid, my mind messes the sleep divide
!!!!SYSTEM FAILURE!!!!
God! You've torn the evidence down the wall between
you and the detectives is an anthill and
my wrist is not so bad but my fingers and
claw is for shit as it holds the most silent
tool on the face of the earth and gives birth
to nothing but spot on moments
I will record the fluid I've found in
a crushed dose the size of a sunflower
seed and guzzle behind it flows spiced
tea and honey and I romanticize even my demise!
Lucid, my mind messes the sleep divide
!!!!SYSTEM FAILURE!!!!
God! You've torn the evidence down the wall between
you and the detectives is an anthill and
my wrist is not so bad but my fingers and
claw is for shit as it holds the most silent
tool on the face of the earth and gives birth
to nothing but spot on moments
I will record the fluid I've found in
a crushed dose the size of a sunflower
seed and guzzle behind it flows spiced
tea and honey and I romanticize even my demise!
A house I remember, never occupied
A house grows and is built from the
dirt up.
Hands mold the frame and choke when splinters
rip the skin
Blood paints the walls and salted sweat
drips from the dirt up.
Electric lined the invisible pulse
water bubbles beneath the foundation
patiently waiting a pull
No entrance and keys deny these locks
a family waits in cramped quarters
a dog barks against a window pane
the weight of the house loves the center of the earth
wishes, wedlock, and presses below sea level
windows are shut eyes and lips with two-
by-fours and plywood. The grass
never grew and the lawn is only a desert
Plastic bags kick around the distant swingset
The house is a house and knows its work
A family cries and covers from rain with
their sweatshirts stretched about their heads
dirt up.
Hands mold the frame and choke when splinters
rip the skin
Blood paints the walls and salted sweat
drips from the dirt up.
Electric lined the invisible pulse
water bubbles beneath the foundation
patiently waiting a pull
No entrance and keys deny these locks
a family waits in cramped quarters
a dog barks against a window pane
the weight of the house loves the center of the earth
wishes, wedlock, and presses below sea level
windows are shut eyes and lips with two-
by-fours and plywood. The grass
never grew and the lawn is only a desert
Plastic bags kick around the distant swingset
The house is a house and knows its work
A family cries and covers from rain with
their sweatshirts stretched about their heads
stage experience
The dancer pulls the curtain
and rips it from the rings
all during a spin and I,
the crowd, vomit an
uproar-hear this
from the deli where the coffee
pours like puddle water but
tastes like mother's sauce.
When the dancer made a step
and cranked the triggered heel,
cocked it to the universe
so the ozone cried and I kissed her bandage
then hit the dirt
like a hijacked ferry,
the wreckage spilt and trickled
navigating the veins of the earth
the shock sent a little ripple
up my back, though from this
I only stood inches.
Flags wrap her paper mached,
tapered strands graced in wind
generated by movements generated by
guts encouraged with this soul
knowing the body is a mess
and in all cases I love the filth
and waking to find the dirt
beneath my fingernails
and rips it from the rings
all during a spin and I,
the crowd, vomit an
uproar-hear this
from the deli where the coffee
pours like puddle water but
tastes like mother's sauce.
When the dancer made a step
and cranked the triggered heel,
cocked it to the universe
so the ozone cried and I kissed her bandage
then hit the dirt
like a hijacked ferry,
the wreckage spilt and trickled
navigating the veins of the earth
the shock sent a little ripple
up my back, though from this
I only stood inches.
Flags wrap her paper mached,
tapered strands graced in wind
generated by movements generated by
guts encouraged with this soul
knowing the body is a mess
and in all cases I love the filth
and waking to find the dirt
beneath my fingernails
Trinity in Boston
The outside walls of the cathedral told me.
Carvings of men with large beards
Beards span half the face
Eyes heavy with the weight of god
Eyes downward in coward retreats of introspection
or pressed to the heavens, begging the Lord's forgiveness
Hands and forearms, clutching a cross or the Greatest words
dug into the pit of their stomachs
Pasted and fossilled into the building art
Reminders of why we walk for so long and leave hope
with each step, flapping like a fish, gasping
for air.
We go this long and always miss the waters
Reminders of where our hearts began
Reminders of the next coming day
We can always wake and leave yesterday as dusted shelves
constant cries on nightly pillows in between nightly sheets
tighter wrapped when the sickest events passed
when the mouth with which I was born becomes
a mouth that stinks of hellish things
I recall the songs and pipes of the organ
crawling like vines and touching the tallest ceiling
I hummed and moaned the notes I've never heard
I followed and spoke the words I've never heard
I heard and choked on prayers I've not before heard
The herd and I stalked the meadow on all fours.
Caressed across the hills in sweeping waves.
Came to a river and the rushing noise, stopped
and sipped and dunked our heads until the
shepherd patted our backs and wished us along.
I recall the bitter wine, the hands of my neighbors
I shook, and I loved them though they left as
fast as they came, the choir harmonized primitive
chants-basic of early human outreach...
intimidation when there was no technological magic.
Depth of echoes and volumes heard never outside these walls
and in this instant, this age, when all has
replicated and sense numbing rituals cloud our
minutes, STILL these walls frighten and shake
the soul's weak certainty and prove the love
and power we only wish to possess.
I woke weeks ahead to striking visions.
My torso tossed off my sheets and the morning lights
crashed into my eyes-glassy globes stirring in
a disintegrating dream I saw masses in struggle
pushes and movements I've grooved with
of no choice of my own and the storm
does not stop until we decide, the clearing
does not start until we beg, the clouds
will part when we cry against the wind
and our voices like bells howl painless
fearless screams. I say, we bring about
the clearing.
Weeks grown again and I'm far too thoughtful
Yet I've slipped, retreated, regressed
and swallowed by the angry sea
Goodness comes like tides. I'm no
doubter of simple things.
I miss you, Goodness. We will meet
when my limbs ache and carry weights. When
my eyes are glazed bubbles-dried and
turned to marble. When my neck is loose
and holds a heavy head. When I can
hold my tongue and down my rivers.
Carvings of men with large beards
Beards span half the face
Eyes heavy with the weight of god
Eyes downward in coward retreats of introspection
or pressed to the heavens, begging the Lord's forgiveness
Hands and forearms, clutching a cross or the Greatest words
dug into the pit of their stomachs
Pasted and fossilled into the building art
Reminders of why we walk for so long and leave hope
with each step, flapping like a fish, gasping
for air.
We go this long and always miss the waters
Reminders of where our hearts began
Reminders of the next coming day
We can always wake and leave yesterday as dusted shelves
constant cries on nightly pillows in between nightly sheets
tighter wrapped when the sickest events passed
when the mouth with which I was born becomes
a mouth that stinks of hellish things
I recall the songs and pipes of the organ
crawling like vines and touching the tallest ceiling
I hummed and moaned the notes I've never heard
I followed and spoke the words I've never heard
I heard and choked on prayers I've not before heard
The herd and I stalked the meadow on all fours.
Caressed across the hills in sweeping waves.
Came to a river and the rushing noise, stopped
and sipped and dunked our heads until the
shepherd patted our backs and wished us along.
I recall the bitter wine, the hands of my neighbors
I shook, and I loved them though they left as
fast as they came, the choir harmonized primitive
chants-basic of early human outreach...
intimidation when there was no technological magic.
Depth of echoes and volumes heard never outside these walls
and in this instant, this age, when all has
replicated and sense numbing rituals cloud our
minutes, STILL these walls frighten and shake
the soul's weak certainty and prove the love
and power we only wish to possess.
I woke weeks ahead to striking visions.
My torso tossed off my sheets and the morning lights
crashed into my eyes-glassy globes stirring in
a disintegrating dream I saw masses in struggle
pushes and movements I've grooved with
of no choice of my own and the storm
does not stop until we decide, the clearing
does not start until we beg, the clouds
will part when we cry against the wind
and our voices like bells howl painless
fearless screams. I say, we bring about
the clearing.
Weeks grown again and I'm far too thoughtful
Yet I've slipped, retreated, regressed
and swallowed by the angry sea
Goodness comes like tides. I'm no
doubter of simple things.
I miss you, Goodness. We will meet
when my limbs ache and carry weights. When
my eyes are glazed bubbles-dried and
turned to marble. When my neck is loose
and holds a heavy head. When I can
hold my tongue and down my rivers.
Gifts or Bells
Keep the bells on constant song
Bashing air and caressing my ears
Nine a.m. escapes
workdays sank into loose change
Found in the corners, between my toes
I dreamt of my father
and today I remember
a flickering projector
we were all watching
He was a papa bear
Young...and I was all of fifteen inches
He was giving me
Giving me the good in him
I could see him touch his forehead to my soft infant skull
sending across tissue and skin
-and every other thing
unknown, untouched-
sending strength and hope and love
I watched this on the
screen in my dream
Now I'm crying and thankful
My hands are sacrifices
My hands are gifts given to give
My hands are gifts given from
him to give
Keep the bells sounding
triggers to the night's eyes escapades
I will now always find my father
when the metal crashing of bells
pump through the concrete passways
Bashing air and caressing my ears
Nine a.m. escapes
workdays sank into loose change
Found in the corners, between my toes
I dreamt of my father
and today I remember
a flickering projector
we were all watching
He was a papa bear
Young...and I was all of fifteen inches
He was giving me
Giving me the good in him
I could see him touch his forehead to my soft infant skull
sending across tissue and skin
-and every other thing
unknown, untouched-
sending strength and hope and love
I watched this on the
screen in my dream
Now I'm crying and thankful
My hands are sacrifices
My hands are gifts given to give
My hands are gifts given from
him to give
Keep the bells sounding
triggers to the night's eyes escapades
I will now always find my father
when the metal crashing of bells
pump through the concrete passways
09 November, 2008
When on the banks
--WHEN ON THE BANKS-- 8/12/08
The bridge twists from the island
to another
and another from there to the mother land.
Comfort in the sauce.
Pours gold down throats.
Note the bubbles.
the causes.
make blessings over nesting thoughts,
like flurries caught,
in summer's stare,
in pure staleness,
and boiled air.
Frigid do the fingers run
about the scattered hairs.
The sunlight caught their
backbones and spines shine sparkles
to stars and glistens on the arms
of motor cars.
Take a glance.
A forfeit to the nestled gods,
they forge on milky sunday whispers.
Spill spitted laughter on the faces of
our children.
Caressing baseball fields with dirty sneakers.
Speakers and readers found in borrowed spaces.
Places where coffins are dug from dirt lots,
drawn to the surface and left to linger.
Where frowns smile into pools and rivers.
Large, to the tossing landscape.
Figures who mourn over drained plateaus.
Swan dives into the clear clear coated frontier.
Know no other nearness and fear but
three tosses to midnight.
I'd rather call the moon to front lines when
every other satellite failed consistency tests,
when they tortured their tongues my ears
retreated to the mainstayers caves.
Called the disaster in a number of ways
Rinsed the memories from the balanced
and courageous.
Mixed the sky with the dirt from the
line beyond my feet.
I dream of such lovely scenes.
The bridge twists from the island
to another
and another from there to the mother land.
Comfort in the sauce.
Pours gold down throats.
Note the bubbles.
the causes.
make blessings over nesting thoughts,
like flurries caught,
in summer's stare,
in pure staleness,
and boiled air.
Frigid do the fingers run
about the scattered hairs.
The sunlight caught their
backbones and spines shine sparkles
to stars and glistens on the arms
of motor cars.
Take a glance.
A forfeit to the nestled gods,
they forge on milky sunday whispers.
Spill spitted laughter on the faces of
our children.
Caressing baseball fields with dirty sneakers.
Speakers and readers found in borrowed spaces.
Places where coffins are dug from dirt lots,
drawn to the surface and left to linger.
Where frowns smile into pools and rivers.
Large, to the tossing landscape.
Figures who mourn over drained plateaus.
Swan dives into the clear clear coated frontier.
Know no other nearness and fear but
three tosses to midnight.
I'd rather call the moon to front lines when
every other satellite failed consistency tests,
when they tortured their tongues my ears
retreated to the mainstayers caves.
Called the disaster in a number of ways
Rinsed the memories from the balanced
and courageous.
Mixed the sky with the dirt from the
line beyond my feet.
I dream of such lovely scenes.
Slips
--SLIPS-- 8/22/08
These globes!
These furious fireous globes!
Bombarding my atmosphere!
Colliding in contradictions!
Passing with rings i can really touch
i can really feel, and they feel like
warm hair on a humid day and i peel each
strand away from my lips so i can lick
the secreting salts.
Too close for the dreamers, the touchers
too available and always in stock for
the mind that presses the day's minutes
and crashes and
bullies them into submission
"Give me your sticking desires and
pour them all over the table."
I would rather see them spread
and deserted just as they were left.
Those globes!
these shaped forms.
pouting lips and endless legs.
skirts that should never be sold
skin that is a sin to be passed down
from hesitant fathers.
my eyes are trenchcoats
they open and flash my balls everywhere
my mind a sewer
all shit from the stammering city's feet
pushing under the blacktop
filtered and cleansed
and brought back again
to all faucets and to
the lips of thirsty children
a poison in the bellies of
the purest
These globes!
These furious fireous globes!
Bombarding my atmosphere!
Colliding in contradictions!
Passing with rings i can really touch
i can really feel, and they feel like
warm hair on a humid day and i peel each
strand away from my lips so i can lick
the secreting salts.
Too close for the dreamers, the touchers
too available and always in stock for
the mind that presses the day's minutes
and crashes and
bullies them into submission
"Give me your sticking desires and
pour them all over the table."
I would rather see them spread
and deserted just as they were left.
Those globes!
these shaped forms.
pouting lips and endless legs.
skirts that should never be sold
skin that is a sin to be passed down
from hesitant fathers.
my eyes are trenchcoats
they open and flash my balls everywhere
my mind a sewer
all shit from the stammering city's feet
pushing under the blacktop
filtered and cleansed
and brought back again
to all faucets and to
the lips of thirsty children
a poison in the bellies of
the purest
"One for me and one for the sea"...A poem lived in the Poconos
--ONE FOR ME AND ONE FOR THE SEA --
One for me and one for the sea
yes, I am the sea
and give to the needs
these needs are weeds
and I'm pedaling a freezing
dreaming wind like I've never
once seen nor have my nostrils
struggled to suck through
pulsating water bubbles while the
expert organs search for oxygen
in some other unknown pulsing
frenzious activity.
Give me bathes and showers.
Give me a stinking surroundance
of all I can stand it's everythijng
I pull with a tow. Ripping throughways
I've canvassed rails.
I've paddled too close to rushing
rivers and opened my mouth
Felt droplets splash against
my front teeth and
pooling oceans
Bring towels, coolers, fools, towers,
frowns, suits, rudeness, advertisements,
planes too close too shores, low flying
vessels nestled to the steaming sand
hanging right over that severed sevent five percent
Ah Gosh! we know nothing. But what is there to
know but nothing we've not yet learned or what
not to know. I know you and remove and recycle
my intelligence.
One for me and one for the sea
yes, I am the sea
and give to the needs
these needs are weeds
and I'm pedaling a freezing
dreaming wind like I've never
once seen nor have my nostrils
struggled to suck through
pulsating water bubbles while the
expert organs search for oxygen
in some other unknown pulsing
frenzious activity.
Give me bathes and showers.
Give me a stinking surroundance
of all I can stand it's everythijng
I pull with a tow. Ripping throughways
I've canvassed rails.
I've paddled too close to rushing
rivers and opened my mouth
Felt droplets splash against
my front teeth and
pooling oceans
Bring towels, coolers, fools, towers,
frowns, suits, rudeness, advertisements,
planes too close too shores, low flying
vessels nestled to the steaming sand
hanging right over that severed sevent five percent
Ah Gosh! we know nothing. But what is there to
know but nothing we've not yet learned or what
not to know. I know you and remove and recycle
my intelligence.
Little soup
--LITTLE SOUP-- 6/25/08
Motorists and monkeycades
spinning spillows as a
forfeit to the cement goat
richer than black clay
molds to a lamp post
primates ponder the cause
Suffering, hear the suffrage
blunders by dozens
tripping steps, wonderful
dancing daisies kiss
What now? passing frown
Edge up to the nearer rear
Signal clever shadow puppets
Baste your boss
In brown horse paint
and a glue from the reson
News of altitudes
colonies of bumblebees
waging peace
just to taste the sweetness
Motorists and monkeycades
spinning spillows as a
forfeit to the cement goat
richer than black clay
molds to a lamp post
primates ponder the cause
Suffering, hear the suffrage
blunders by dozens
tripping steps, wonderful
dancing daisies kiss
What now? passing frown
Edge up to the nearer rear
Signal clever shadow puppets
Baste your boss
In brown horse paint
and a glue from the reson
News of altitudes
colonies of bumblebees
waging peace
just to taste the sweetness
I thought an anthem
No. I don't want to participate.
I'd rather not join hands and swing & sing.
Swaying to a senseless rhythm and smiling
because at this moment I'm too bare to know
what else to do.
No, I don't want this fixed, or that lifted
or shaved or rubbed our and prettified
I pity the poor pedestrians of the
City drenched in mascara and wiping their
asses with yesterdays magazines then
eating it for lunch.
Why should I not have one wrinkle
and who said it was wrong?
I know of no greater infliction?
Do i need less hair here?
and more hair here?
and how do I fix this and who could I call?
Do you know anybody good, with a sound payment plan?
Conveyor me, Factory me, T.V. me, Soap Opera me,
Celeb me, Love me, Love me do me, Eat me, Suck me,
Fuck me, and Fuck you, Rock me, Pop me, Let me
be cribbed me, show your friends me, what you've
grown me, add water me, plenty of sunlight me, not
soo much me, or I'll burn me, right up like
a match doll.
Me.
me me me me
me me me me me
me me me me me me me me...
Ah! how perfect
We're signing millions of contracts
Everyone can make a splash
Everyone can break glass with their highest sung note
Everyone can save us from routine with each individual brilliance
Everyone can lift us from the trenches and
Everyone can wrtie an anthem for each month of each year
Everyone can walk on water backwards while moonwalking
Everyone can love themselves so much because
Everyone is so wonderfully gorgeous spectacularly special wondrous
brilliant brilliant genius individual uniquers with uniqueness
that Everyone already has...
Everyone can and Will be fooled and we're not fools, just
an incurable foolishness was released into water and air
by some drunken intoxicating chemical warfare
initiated by Everyoneistan and all their self inflicting
terrorism bombarding their neighbors & mothers & sons with
"look at me" in a bottle and injections of mojo and
charm disguised or interpreted as something flat-out
plain.
I'm no saint, simply a robber
I steal and mooch from greatness
I'm wrong
and I'm sorry
But I will do it again
And no one says I can't.
It could be worse
We could have a horse belching in our faces our next great plan
Our next move into the next millennium
While wires and electrical currants move our joints
Speak our words make our words shorter and
languages are now hieroglyphics written on the
walls of an unseen vastness somewhere up there
I can grab at it or at least reach and
I feel nothing but it's there and so is my
credit card and my books and my porn yes yes my porn
for christssake it's up there in thirty second clips
and who can resist the lack of attention span/ we all
seem to get along with the sesame streetness of it.
Any wonder why I'll be married once-till death do us part
at least two times.
Any wonder why my head spins in all directions passing busy streets
Why the greatest challenge is keeping my head forward and my
eyes in front of my feet.
Damnit! I'm anxiously awaiting the next change or this
video clip, the next flash of what I should own,
be wearing, the next angel crying over the way I keep
my beard and do nothing about the circles under my eyes
and lines in my forehead.
And never have we not wanted to grow soo much
When WE were the ones who cried for maturity
and killed our childhood shouldertapping cheap beers
at age fourteen! My god we've killed children
and we wonder now why the hell are we aging?
Indecentsies are on every lampost and stuck in mailboxes
received by satellites and varoius antennae
smeared on toilet seats and sink fixtures, door handles
and sprayed all over every cuisine you can possible conceive
and keep chewing at least with your mouth closed because
I'd really rather not see the infestation in between your
teeth or sloppy on your tongue or smell any emissions of
poisonous enzymes disintegrating the foulest substances...
Garbage collectory in the dead of summer in
the morning outside of my housing development is what
I remember most.
And there's the start. There's the gunshot.
Ever since I was once younger I've been a runner
and like a snowball being rolled with each
crash, my foot collects more and more
earth, and now up to my neck I sport
a rocky mud jumpsuit and grass and weeds
grow from the acquired soil in sporadic patches
Heavy are my hands.
They trail and drag behind my legs
They pull and scoop the passing sands
All the while building sand castles scaled down
for the ants and I wish them happy living
and merry eating, good holidays, and better health.
Indecentsies are on stools drowning on every corner
and in between.
I'm there because what the hell else is there to do anyhow?
I look for God.
I look forgotten.
God's no she or he or dog or cat
and I claim no formal introduction.
Have you a good thought?
There it is!
Have you sour thoughts?
There is goes.
A revolving door
Millions of passers with millions more stories
with millions more actions and infinite thoughts
pass one-a blessing
pass the next-to hell we've now found
Picking and picking
gnawing and grinding at an empty mountain
drained of all its silver and gold
Still through the hell is the TNT explosions
and axing of the rock and foundations
until what's left is the crust of the earth
and still farther down you explode.
What do I know?
I'm the fox
I'm the wolf.
The weasel or ferret
Sneering and peering from behind the corner
I devour weakness and fear the hunter-
A graceful chap I wish not to encounter
Loaded and stocked with good intentions
and moral character of the angels
I dig holes and hide in the day
at night I stalk and move through the
shadowy spots and lure my prey to these
dimensions and light a candle in between
two chairs while we discuss this poaching,
this infiltration/ the wolf and pig agree.
I only wish to talk
I only wish for hands
I wish claw and paw alike to merge
And nothing more
See that. See that?
Right. A flash of common hands. Stood behind a great
dark fog. I point to my eyes.
No! Far beyond that!
I chirp with you in the morning.
I trample the earth and stampede the dirt by your shoulder and with you.
I and you hide in the man made rock-structure-cavern and
peer in between the bars where we can see them and
they cannot see us. I and you would rather upset
their Tuesday field trip.
I fly with you south when the shit comes.
I and you rn to the hills when the shit comes.
I bite your ear because we all must play.
I tear in to the captures meal and give you the other side.
Together we build fires and keep them alive for survival.
Paint the walls with clay and sing and tap our feet.
Dance and look for mates and spread our feathers.
Explore surrounding places because there is always more than this.
Have you seen the outcoved shore-a generous helping or miles south?
That's where I go-where I can cry because I've found joy.
Do you know of the alternate route?
That's where there's no traffic because the scenery from the window
is too revealing.
Do you know of the skyways?
I've been planting houses.
Give me a dream you've turned into a toy for show and tell
Pass me an empty shaker of salt
Draw me, me in all honesty
Allow me these seconds because they go where they must
and I know not where to retrieve them.
This is not right
Any of this.
Think it. But please, SOMEONE SPEAK IT
When did I sign the deal?
Was there treaty or appeasement?
Do we blame mothers and fathers?
Well, they tried and had big big balls
and failed
We have balls too
stinking, little balls with big mouths
and a little dream and an even
smaller penis i mean purpose.
Let's collect the guns we do not own
Let's sound the voice we do not have
Let's build the army who's too scared
Let's fight the army who's too large
and frightening and crushes the world
and drives a red corvette and
wears sunglasses in nightclubs
and punches dudes who checks out
his girlfriend with the hand with
all the rings. Who's been taking half
of our money by holding us by the
ankles and shaking the dimes from
our pockets. While our dead designers
stare at us while they spin suspended
in the air eventually crashing on the tiled
floor only to bounce around and
then eventually fall.
Who is our best friend.
Who's the liar we fall for every single time.
Who bends the rules they made because it's
their house and they have all the cool
toys and games, and if you don't like
it then you can go home and use
your silly imagination.
Who swears his dad's an astronaut
and his mother is the Queen of England.
Well she looks more jewish to me
or something else like that.
Who cries when he scrapes his knee
after he stole from the icecream man.
Who knows where you live and drags
you out every day early in
the morning to do something
senseless. Who's cut you out of
the roster once you kick and
scream and say enough is enough
I think we should go our own
ways because you are a parasite
and being friends with you is
like putting cigarettes out
on my arm. I just simply don't
have to do that...
I woke to the sirens blaring and smacking the sundried cement
They reminded me of every word I know
It's too early for such a disturbance
Shut eyes so tight to drown sound and plunge back to dream
Burrow face in pillow and sheets to plunge back to dream
Turn and flip and find the cold cold desert you missed for minutes
Stay put and see what was seen before the sirens rang
Before they sang, But how they did!
Ignore the greatest song and die! and plunge back into the dream.
Collaborations
--COLLABORATIONS-- 6/25/08 & 7/1/08
The room is quiet
besides the machines
The machines are snoring
or clocked in weilding
hammers and building
towers and painting
hallways and paving
highways and.
My thumb presses the crevise
Or the soft spot in the corner of my wrist
Yes, there's a pulse
Yes, my heart in speaking and
telling me I am infact, alive
The room is quiet
besides the machines
The machines are snoring
or clocked in weilding
hammers and building
towers and painting
hallways and paving
highways and.
My thumb presses the crevise
Or the soft spot in the corner of my wrist
Yes, there's a pulse
Yes, my heart in speaking and
telling me I am infact, alive
Big Soup
--BIG SOUP-- 6/20/08
A pot, okay?
A big black kettle and
it's boiling so
bubbles are bouncing
and burning my brow
when I peak from
the top and I look
to the bottom.
And, "Christ!"
There's a carnival in there!
A commencement of sorts
crackerjack grins
acrobats spinning
the crowd has hair like
cotton candy
The poor ceiling
cracking in the corners
and delightful crumbs
and chunks are peeling right off
And what a lovely little
sky that finds us
Oh but the stars are angry
little heathens
passing and moving, crashing,
colliding
Bad, bad, no good stas
Let's round them up in
thorn wire
Let's paddle their dirty knees
and rope their throats
in feather necklace instead
and tickle their fat little bellies
"No!" All should be already
tolled and permitted to go
and pass across these
waters, keep sure, these
banks follow a definite
way and flow in
set directions.
There's no need for red ink
but sloppyness in a blue ribbon.
Maybe these burns are worth
a peak at the great acorn
annual contest for the
residents of Sinterton
and Settlesville.
Elders here mean no harm
and smile when the warm
breeze brushes the grass.
Like a large soft hand
caressing the main of a collie.
A pot, okay?
A big black kettle and
it's boiling so
bubbles are bouncing
and burning my brow
when I peak from
the top and I look
to the bottom.
And, "Christ!"
There's a carnival in there!
A commencement of sorts
crackerjack grins
acrobats spinning
the crowd has hair like
cotton candy
The poor ceiling
cracking in the corners
and delightful crumbs
and chunks are peeling right off
And what a lovely little
sky that finds us
Oh but the stars are angry
little heathens
passing and moving, crashing,
colliding
Bad, bad, no good stas
Let's round them up in
thorn wire
Let's paddle their dirty knees
and rope their throats
in feather necklace instead
and tickle their fat little bellies
"No!" All should be already
tolled and permitted to go
and pass across these
waters, keep sure, these
banks follow a definite
way and flow in
set directions.
There's no need for red ink
but sloppyness in a blue ribbon.
Maybe these burns are worth
a peak at the great acorn
annual contest for the
residents of Sinterton
and Settlesville.
Elders here mean no harm
and smile when the warm
breeze brushes the grass.
Like a large soft hand
caressing the main of a collie.
Austin to New York.
-"Vacations are blinks."
We barreledl down to Austin from the cracking New York and one chap hailing from the UK, giving us a pinch of style and swagger that our working-class bones desperately needed. Yea, the plane was messy and cloudy and lasted the longest minutes. We experienced our separate encounters with fellow passengers. Man! These are the people we are risking our precious days with and the people we can plummet with and crash and melt into the sea with! I forgot my seat mates from Laguardia to Atlanta. Atlanta to Austin... me and this Cuban grandmother. She could've been forty years younger and 50 pounds slimmer and a lot less round and her hair not such a curly little disaster cropped on top of her head. We talked. She talked. Told me of her monies and her various apartments. The one in Midtown Manhattan. No, she doesn't rent it out, it is heavily guarded with security and dogs, twenty-four hours a day, and she and her little budding children's children spend a perfect miracle on 34th street christmas. They hit the shops and swing their bags and talk of their monies and spend their monies. Her children are genius entrepreneurs and so is she. She made the money by contracting and never lifting a hammer but sending out her crew. She laughs at the way they sleep during their lunch break under the biggest tree on the lawn. Her husband and son both teach at Yale and both teach philosophy and they all love their family's urban locations. They love the cement forest and the indigenous people. There is peace in the endless interactions and hierarchies depicted in every day scenes like hot dog stands and in front of office buildings smoking cigarettes passing passive comments...construction workers whistling and hollering and never getting a damn thing done.
I was finding peace out the window. Clear enough to see the lights of civilization. My poor left ear. Poor, because one: my ears take a devastating blow at these altitudes and two: it is the front line between myself and this hag. And God help me! My mind is crying but my mouth is a General, and knows a thing or two about control. It retreats at these times and places the brunt on my poor ears.
It seems I slept through the weekend in Austin. Back in New York on Monday morning sipping mud coffee and muffin crumbs stuck to my fingers. Austin could have been a therapy session, a dream a cloud a five day second and I woke hereafter with my insides crying. They all voted the liver out. She's en fuego and stinks like those nights ingesting concoctions and horse backed cops, sweet smiles and southern hospitality, the railway bums who take change then hug too close when they shouldn't be hugging at all but I let them because I am more them than the cowboy boys...broad-shouldered and superman jawlines perfect rowed teeth and those college (+) aged girls perfectly proportioned and too beautiful for my genes to ever mix. Every one of them showing me the race of Americans we've been patiently trying to make. Our country is safe in their hands. There, the culture is in its highest concentration and purest form and radiates out from this epicenter gradually dwindling into obscurity only flashing remnants as a sputtering basement light where it is darkness and endless. I know, I know! The culture of America is embracing all, and diversity and statues of liberties and all that, but that's NOT our culture that WAS us trying to establish one after the revolution and the northern aggression. America's originality shines down there with the cowboy boots and football tailgating and those hats! And the women and men are white but bronzed from the fair southern sun and their faces and bodies carry no traceable markings to their european fathers. They may never ask the boring conversation starter "What nationality are you?" because, damnit, they're american and I CAN NOT say the same with complete certainty. I've been concerned and burdened with my euroties, and fighting for, or running from, AMERICAN. Austin gives us all boasting rights but as days pass I'll slip back to this cultural-hole, new york city. Where all the cultures are every color in the spectrum and give the seeing-eye perfect blackness. Down there we are given but one culture and it offers the purest version of the color, which is us, or what WE work so hard for and THEY attain with much ease and naturalness.
It seems I slept through the weekend in Austin. Back in New York on Monday morning sipping mud coffee and muffin crumbs stuck to my fingers. Austin could have been a therapy session, a dream a cloud a five day second and I woke hereafter with my insides crying. They all voted the liver out. She's en fuego and stinks like those nights ingesting concoctions and horse backed cops, sweet smiles and southern hospitality, the railway bums who take change then hug too close when they shouldn't be hugging at all but I let them because I am more them than the cowboy boys...broad-shouldered and superman jawlines perfect rowed teeth and those college (+) aged girls perfectly proportioned and too beautiful for my genes to ever mix. Every one of them showing me the race of Americans we've been patiently trying to make. Our country is safe in their hands. There, the culture is in its highest concentration and purest form and radiates out from this epicenter gradually dwindling into obscurity only flashing remnants as a sputtering basement light where it is darkness and endless. I know, I know! The culture of America is embracing all, and diversity and statues of liberties and all that, but that's NOT our culture that WAS us trying to establish one after the revolution and the northern aggression. America's originality shines down there with the cowboy boots and football tailgating and those hats! And the women and men are white but bronzed from the fair southern sun and their faces and bodies carry no traceable markings to their european fathers. They may never ask the boring conversation starter "What nationality are you?" because, damnit, they're american and I CAN NOT say the same with complete certainty. I've been concerned and burdened with my euroties, and fighting for, or running from, AMERICAN. Austin gives us all boasting rights but as days pass I'll slip back to this cultural-hole, new york city. Where all the cultures are every color in the spectrum and give the seeing-eye perfect blackness. Down there we are given but one culture and it offers the purest version of the color, which is us, or what WE work so hard for and THEY attain with much ease and naturalness.
In some inlet of the atlantic coast we passed over a few small unknown (to me) islands then entered back into New York by way of Coney Island. It must've been Coney Island. The board walk and beach were general clues, though I may have been mistaken. Brooklyn and Queens are endless and flat. Buildings are short and stacked...discolored white. Homes and workplaces of peasants. Reminds me of snapshots of Arabian low-class slum cities surrounding golden castles. Streets are not visible. The structures are, again, so stacked that the earth must indented from the weight. Where is Manhattan? Why can't I see Manhattan? Ah! The view is on the left side of the plane. All passengers marvel over this human masterpiece. Brilliance of technology and advancement of civilization. A pinch in my neck turns my head back to Brooklyn. The porthole window is cold and damp against my temple. My breath fogs a patch on the glass. Stinks of the packs I smoked. And I'm no smoker. Stinks of the booze. God it was only six hours ago we had our final drinks at roughly five a.m. Or maybe we weren't even drinking then. But possibly drunk enough to spill back into the hotel lobby. Foolish, impolite, laughing at anything...everything. "Hey! Hey! Gooooood Evening! We've got our luggage in that back room there." "You held it for us." We were all saying in thick New York twangs, except the Brit, of course, who brought a flair all of his own. The security who handled us the past few nights were pleased we were almost out, ecstatic we weren't spending the night, making their final push against their only disturbance of the week (us) and all they had to do was focus on getting us into a cab, any cab, and on on plane out of Austin, never to return. Until the next batch of blood-sucking life suckers come aboard. Ellis, poor, Ellis. Black and big and authoritative. Her eyes too big for her head and her lower body too big for her upper body and her ass too big for her legs. She seemed to waddle towards us. Reprimanding our foolishness with each step. Not even ten minutes into our first night at La Quinta Hotel, we were nearly evicted.
Bums and beggars in all cities. Austin is bums and professionals and college kids. We weren't any of those. But, we smelt. We were constantly drunk. We were rude and obnoxious in public. We harassed people in the streets. For all intents and purposes, we were temporary bums. The four of us shared beds and ate one meal a day. We were given rides by strangers...
Marty met a girl, a nut. She scooped us up on our first night after hellish air transportation when we were at our pinnacle and carouselled us about the city and the surrounding areas.
Her back seat was a jungle gym and Casey sat in a baby seat. We punched and shoved each other in drunken sillyness. Casey was hoisted up and took the hill. He was rubber and landed soft punches against I and Jake, the Brit. Pains in my side the following morning, ailed with caffeine rushes. I waited all night and slept, dreamed, for streams of false energy, concentration injected into my bloodstream. I think about coffee before I go to bed and only drink one cup a day. I punish my body and tease my senses with a limited addiction. I find no greater satisfaction than withholding vices until the point of explosion. That first sip, no no no the first roasted smell jitters my limbs. I can feel quakes infesting my capillaries. All this, bouncing in the back seat of Maria's car. She was drunker than us. I can remember her stopping short in the middle of an intersection, reversing back behind the line. Some electronic-club-babbling beat and I can feel it in the back of my throat.
New York does damage to the soul. Weeks fly from the Austin weekend and the wind is colder and the rains keep me indoors. Maybe it's not so much damage, but sharpening. New York keeps things sharp. (Throat sound in disgust)...(Rumbling gargle of throat cleared)...Cold returned...I believed in the chains that held the cold away from Austin. Strapped against the southern belly. Forged and squirmed between the hands of a vice. I'm reminded of my childhood and rust in the tool shed...coating metal fixtures and dripping down the handles. The smell is wet and I can see that green tool box hidden under the stairs, belonged to my father, he would tear down the ceilings and knock down the walls. The smell, yes, is wet and reminds me of metal decaying but is more like rotten tomatoes. The green tool-box was more like a forest in black and white, or brown and cream. I can see it brand new. In it's original packaging. On display. Shined clean and brilliant.
This scarf I wear is a truck on the back of my neck. Tons of cloth stuff and I can see and remember the open shirt and toe thongs painted with the orange of the summer sun. I would press my back against the chair and sip on something cold. Now I huddle to the table-push away the forks and knives...fumes are hot and sweat droplets form beneath my nostrils. It breaks up the mucus lining my sinuses. I breath a little easier, but my body wishes for heat and I'm only given this false sense of warmth, concentrated and steaming from a two-inch diameter of a coffee cup. Outside the cafe, people hurry in from the cold and the wind slams the door behind them.
I could flip this table with the condiments tossed in the air. The ketchup would crash and the shining-red paste would splatter across my face, I would scream and tear down the shelves...The cash register--straight out the window.
It's Thursday and tomorrow is the weekend. I'll dress up, make jokes, lose friends...walk miles and grow mad.
06 May, 2008
I remember my first mass...
I was a teenage adolescent pubescent child man when "God" dimly shined through three fat faces invited into our home. They crossed the threshold, our nest, our nook of safetyness and warmth from the outside world. Oh! How cold she is! My mother battled an invasion of cancer. The evil son of a bitch took her hills and flattened one to extinction. I remember there was a real feeling of loss when the doctors took it away. There was an instinctual connection to this lump of fat. Something that made her a mother, and especially made her my mother.
I'm not sure, because I do not yet know, but there might be a correlation with facing your own mortality and the expansion of your spirituality. This was the case for my mother. God gave her this disease and perhaps, God could take it away. She cried and fell on her knees for too many prophets. Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard, Christ. She traveled with a band-wagon of evangelists. They struck hearts with fear of God instead of love. And when they met me they must've saw the devil's cold come from breath. The exorcism, although short and voluntary, was a violating and raping experience. But at least it proved to me that I had a soul. Because my soul jumped from my body and told me these were not people of God. Instead they were people of themselves. Loving all the power and overpowering all the love.
I was called to come downstairs and when I did these three kings of their faith sat around my dining room table. With each step, they examined my evilness and all my wrongness. They must've seen a boy with the light of innocence drained from his eyes. They must've seen this because this was what they came to expect. And it was their divine duty to save me, of course.
"Hello Michael," said the first. He was a middle-aged man and I hated him for it. "Your mother told us that you need some soul searching."
This was no surprise to me. I often confided in my mother. I was a trouble-maker, and to many adults, I was nothing more than a little heathen with a pile of shit for an upbringing. I was spontaneous enough to know that all of my actions were fun and wonderful, but I was good enough to know they were wrong.
"Yea." I said.
"Do you know why your mother brought us here?"
"I guess."
"We are from the Jesus of Lord." With that he introduced the other saviours. Two middle aged women. "We've come here to speak to you about the Lord."
I noticed how dim my dining room looked, and how dim it always was. Even when all the lights were on. There was something dark and basement-like about it. Then again, there was something about it that humbled me. We lived in a cozy, little, dim-lit den. It was simple and we were simple, and I was proud to be completely average.
"The Lord hasn't forgotten you, Michael. No. No. He has not let you go. Do you really think He would do that? Don't you know that he loves you? Oh! Michael! I can see it! I can see it in your face that you are severly hurting. I can see it in your face, you are pushing the Lord away and you don't even know it!"
I looked to my mother, she was barely smiling. I've never been to church and I wasn't sure who he meant by the Lord. Is He Jesus? Is He God? I didn't know I could be forgotten. I wasn't fully positive that I was being loved by anyone other than my parents. Where was my father on this night? I could have been saved from this. Tonight my father was God, according to these intruders. Tonight they were giving me another chance.
"The Lord knows you have done wrong, Michael. And you know you have done wrong. But there's good news, Michael. The Lord is ready to forgive you. Are you ready to let the Lord into your heart?"
I looked to my mother. Her eyes were swollen with tears. She carefully nodded her head, "Yes."
The man awaited my answer. I looked back at my mother. "Yes."
One of the women walked over to me and stared me in the face. I remember she looked old and worn. Maybe she had too much false color for that time of year. Her facial features were oddly shaped. Her face seemed to contort in strange ways when she spoke. "Oh yes, Michael. You are ready."
Her voice was soothing and it made me nervous.
"Now I want you to close your eyes and repeat after me...Lord, you are my saviour and I am your son."
"Lord, you are my saviour and I am your son."
"I follow your lead because I've seen what you've done."
"I follow your lead because I've seen what you've done."
"Please forgive all of my wrong."
"Please forgive all of my wrong."
"And all the evil I've done."
"And all the evil I've done."
"Because I wish to sin no more."
"Because I wish to sin no more."
"Now are you ready, Michael?"
I felt my guts drop from my stomach. I felt my heart run away with the spoon. I felt nerves singeing and dying with every word. My legs were barely working and my arms were three thousand pounds. My eyes were full of tears and my throat and mouth struggled to make words.
Her voice grew louder. "Oh Lord! Forgive this boy! Forgive him! He is beggin for you forgiveness! Look at him! He is in desperate need of your love and all he wants is your forgiveness!...Now, Michael. All you have to do is tell the Lord you are ready to let him into your heart, and you will be forgiven and loved once again. That's all you have to do."
I'm not sure, because I do not yet know, but there might be a correlation with facing your own mortality and the expansion of your spirituality. This was the case for my mother. God gave her this disease and perhaps, God could take it away. She cried and fell on her knees for too many prophets. Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard, Christ. She traveled with a band-wagon of evangelists. They struck hearts with fear of God instead of love. And when they met me they must've saw the devil's cold come from breath. The exorcism, although short and voluntary, was a violating and raping experience. But at least it proved to me that I had a soul. Because my soul jumped from my body and told me these were not people of God. Instead they were people of themselves. Loving all the power and overpowering all the love.
I was called to come downstairs and when I did these three kings of their faith sat around my dining room table. With each step, they examined my evilness and all my wrongness. They must've seen a boy with the light of innocence drained from his eyes. They must've seen this because this was what they came to expect. And it was their divine duty to save me, of course.
"Hello Michael," said the first. He was a middle-aged man and I hated him for it. "Your mother told us that you need some soul searching."
This was no surprise to me. I often confided in my mother. I was a trouble-maker, and to many adults, I was nothing more than a little heathen with a pile of shit for an upbringing. I was spontaneous enough to know that all of my actions were fun and wonderful, but I was good enough to know they were wrong.
"Yea." I said.
"Do you know why your mother brought us here?"
"I guess."
"We are from the Jesus of Lord." With that he introduced the other saviours. Two middle aged women. "We've come here to speak to you about the Lord."
I noticed how dim my dining room looked, and how dim it always was. Even when all the lights were on. There was something dark and basement-like about it. Then again, there was something about it that humbled me. We lived in a cozy, little, dim-lit den. It was simple and we were simple, and I was proud to be completely average.
"The Lord hasn't forgotten you, Michael. No. No. He has not let you go. Do you really think He would do that? Don't you know that he loves you? Oh! Michael! I can see it! I can see it in your face that you are severly hurting. I can see it in your face, you are pushing the Lord away and you don't even know it!"
I looked to my mother, she was barely smiling. I've never been to church and I wasn't sure who he meant by the Lord. Is He Jesus? Is He God? I didn't know I could be forgotten. I wasn't fully positive that I was being loved by anyone other than my parents. Where was my father on this night? I could have been saved from this. Tonight my father was God, according to these intruders. Tonight they were giving me another chance.
"The Lord knows you have done wrong, Michael. And you know you have done wrong. But there's good news, Michael. The Lord is ready to forgive you. Are you ready to let the Lord into your heart?"
I looked to my mother. Her eyes were swollen with tears. She carefully nodded her head, "Yes."
The man awaited my answer. I looked back at my mother. "Yes."
One of the women walked over to me and stared me in the face. I remember she looked old and worn. Maybe she had too much false color for that time of year. Her facial features were oddly shaped. Her face seemed to contort in strange ways when she spoke. "Oh yes, Michael. You are ready."
Her voice was soothing and it made me nervous.
"Now I want you to close your eyes and repeat after me...Lord, you are my saviour and I am your son."
"Lord, you are my saviour and I am your son."
"I follow your lead because I've seen what you've done."
"I follow your lead because I've seen what you've done."
"Please forgive all of my wrong."
"Please forgive all of my wrong."
"And all the evil I've done."
"And all the evil I've done."
"Because I wish to sin no more."
"Because I wish to sin no more."
"Now are you ready, Michael?"
I felt my guts drop from my stomach. I felt my heart run away with the spoon. I felt nerves singeing and dying with every word. My legs were barely working and my arms were three thousand pounds. My eyes were full of tears and my throat and mouth struggled to make words.
Her voice grew louder. "Oh Lord! Forgive this boy! Forgive him! He is beggin for you forgiveness! Look at him! He is in desperate need of your love and all he wants is your forgiveness!...Now, Michael. All you have to do is tell the Lord you are ready to let him into your heart, and you will be forgiven and loved once again. That's all you have to do."
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