There is that color denoting peace,
It sends beats of needles, their manufacture
Across plains and down gloss chutes at the pace
Of the snowfield unknown and cautious
So I don't have to worry, pure insulate, traffic control.
The sleeping journey, it claps against cell walls,
Planks and authority, but this is sleep feeding
Islands where the leachy fruit grows, new
Sentience building weather domes with my seed.
Severed miasma, reef-rock crashing in vain,
The terror in an old tale enough to build
Nations inside the Atlantic eardrum too far
From the mail, a Tropic of Pisces come to be,
It began in Crete before time came sucking floaters
And jets through holes, apprehensive bliss, the sea,
The salt season, the peach sky in dawn perfecting a point--
Air is the loom of straw, it brightens up everything,
Nice fever and out from the submarine comes a kite.
With its own coast winding like an outburst in bloom.
Unethical Amount of Butter
If you're wondering what it's like to be eaten off a hook
having been bobbing on the suspension of a breath
in a tolerant body of water surrounded by hungry fish
back-broken limp with the defeated drapery of a worm
shuffles, riffs, noise, drive, levels, regeneration, tone
gain, speed, depth, flexible strings orally fixated;
losing at being wrong, a downloadable life of trash
some people get louder with age, that's OK with me
hands get tired and require frequent rest, high hats
you've got to slow down so the others can keep up
but they have to get ready for work and I don't, flash
static electric walk, loose cables hissing at the preamp
treble murder, corner-curling, whining in augmented fifths
dash of delirium tremens to take out cervical pang's bitters
we have the whiplash, the big empties, sidewalk chalk
that's managed to weather the rain, garish smoke stains
on our flooded books, the fumes of misfortune, pity-cuddled
conundrums headed to a claw-footed bathtub in an empty town
where nary a soul with visit you before they've been diagnosed
and resound surprised by outliving their expectant return to earth
let them die alone, and let us sneak a drink in the private revelry
of a last night before doors are closed for good, whether summer's
ambivalent symmetry of mood, or change's constant rhythm--
the color of the sun and woods climbing, snuffing the mountaintop
rhymes with giving it another go this time, finishing the game--
and my temper primed for the raspy voice of a rabid cur harnessed
I remind me of a tooth-sharpening tongue hungry for wet flesh
single beads of sex-sweat trickling down the curve of your back
making fists with your toes to take the edge off our refusal to fuck
when I find an open flower on my first hot spring hike alone
I'll wish you emerge from the petals naked and poised for coitus
Before the wreck I looked behind the driver's seat for your ghost
but all I ever found were scratched blank CDs and broken glass
aviator Ray-Bans and panties too small for your birthing hips
I'd rather not relive an angry racist boyfriend running after my car
when I'd been told there was no longer a jealous skinhead frothing
(yesterday's breakup doesn't mean I can drop you off this morning)
but using me as your excuse-- I can accept that with a quiet smirk
it would've happened anyway, and I'll be the first to acknowledge
there's nothing better than being the rebound pole you've needed
to bounce on, trains and tunnels engine cylinders, water slide--
being an accident myself (there are no accidents) I've always been
comfortable minimized, forgotten meat man with no name, loud
en route to playhouse (pretend home) in a garden (garage) with lime
trees and Coleridge and strychnine; or a lantern that will serve
as -curtain- when I break it, and let my spine sleep in the kerosene
spill with all fingers crossed-- if you find me there, cover with news
papers to soak up the thaw-- it will be winter, so no one will have
to deal with the odor until they flatten the block for another bank.
Turpentine Belt
"A look too wide to hold." --Rosmarie Waldrop
Fuzz-eyes from the brilliantine flair of the Rothko red,
timeless myth wrought struggling on gray,
or a purplish rush to religious magpie's moan,
the brush bristles in the bird's blunt feather bed,
a hollow well of nightingale flight, how a just-so
posture paints a power soft pink, powder tight.
Orange unlike a flavor or a fruit or a fig, far
from banana red or apple yellow along
a deep perspective recessed to thunderstorm,
no citrus savor or sphere form chemical,
a nature a flower a marigolden shower.
Chartreuse see-through pale yellow wash
dirty water wash gradient gray,
despondent wasp, spent bumble bee,
provocative memorizing method
jet black under-lapped by dirty white,
a fallout of the yellow wash underline,
brimming the limits of a lime-gold halo.
Earnest grass green atop orange's next vermilion,
an avid investment in the canary border
on the forms; actors supporting objects,
the verdigris vast violet denoting a damp dress
beneath a lightning boat of intransigent light.
Marine Snow
I've been berating a shallow number
under the solemn cover
for eating songbirds from the digestive river
when a serene hollow tune, fleeting,
had shaken free
some shackled beats
and the note took wing
on the eve
of a trembling sun-starched collar
a gibbous distance cresting, changeling prism,
crystal luxe
murder free for real,
though seven dollars would do it all
the speed of spectral light does not
make change, stars fade far
moons chime
in the glare, passing art of sound
mists away
rolling rhythms like nostalgia
in an autumn odor mingling with dusk.
Photographic Moment
Photographic moment: a time
captured by memory-- a small
pair of boys shoes knotted
and thrown over power line from
my house to alley pole.
Tower on top of building adjacent
(I still don't know what it's for)
they're all over the city,
this one blocks the sun.
Old, old Chicago brick encloses,
a construction worker next door
just took a piss in the wide
open, stopped not when he saw me
but when his bladder was emptied
of the Big Gulp variety.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzat, bzzzat! Buzz
saws intermittently while
shoes dangle precariously.
Trash heap obscured by
slotted chain link (the fence
also keeps out torsos) and
Gregory Corso.
Benefits of Violence
Gender assignment, she knows she's right,
but everyone else knows she's wrong, shining
black eye, willed limp, new, expensive used shoes
macrame bag, strong shoulders, dirty sidewalk smile
and visions of sugarplums made of vodka and blow, tonight;
She'd benefit from violence against her, anonymous, unbiased
knuckles raising the topography of her face like a well-played
bass drum's vibrato (some drummers choose to use a drop-clutch)
and you wonder whether he-without-balls that batters will perish
and I ask whether any magazine has the objective balls to publish
your abusive relationship's terror-hilarity
in tandem with the smash-hit comedies and suicide bombings
vying for headlines this Christmas morning
Chris once spun me two turntables, on of Steve Martin stand-up
with mostly roaring laughter, and the other of a rousing speech
delivered by Adolph Hitler; all of us on a pendulum of puzzling.
The Crippling News
In that tunnel of tits and bush
talked about after the slither of vaginas
you said would smell pretty bad--
I didn't want to think about that,
didn't care when I thought of it at first
fantasy, age eleven, maybe twelve.
I had tetras at the time, always with great names
but always looking the same; betta brothers
died fighting in that global war with walleye vision--
not sure who can see the fishbowl until hindsight
via shipyard-- salt-crusted sails scrolled over old
auburn poles in dire want of another wind.
Cold wooden girl rocking, quilt-making, strong to raise
the mast, sucking blood from thumbs, cooing, eye-lining
darkroom soft-sigh, red-light clocking, smearing fists, hair--
she had my parakeets and chameleon, safe in the fleecy hood
graveled eyelids and wind-knocked guts, nothing left to shed;
one perfect wing, on heavy tentacled serpent thing.
Is she at the bottom of the sea on the set of straight-to-video
in a bubble with a merman played by your idol?
That food fish is not dauphin-safe, disgraced heir
and a mammal smarter than my retarded neighbor
could tell you what's really going on here--
conflicting loyalties, and the question of stability.
Not Sure If Serious
A colossus in those grooves can be melted into a black jelly bean
and you can't make a glossary with Pilot ink and a prison tattoo gun
but I can (be carried away on the wings of a feeding eagle river-diving).
The materials I need are always on sale but the shopping is far
she drives me when she doesn't have to work in Zanzibar
otherwise I twirl on my well-trod carpet from this bunker
breathing the periphery of waning daylight like a spiral staircase
running off the rails, tremble of loose nuts and bolts, stigmata
asleep between cars with inches to viscosity's turmoil tempo
and the human stain ever-tied to the tracks-- it's not so easy
(subjugating a native population for economic exploitation)
to portray bare trees as the nerve circuit burning impression
cast against the granaries and sky, no one makes the parts I need--
your low-fidelity homage to black snow dusting my curbs,
the blighted mountainside from a direct hit in my special dream,
a money-shot white-washing the wreckage of a passenger jet.
Pack Rat for Rebecca
Once you've pulled the pin and trigger
there's only one good gust of powder
to douse the fire, all this settled dust
becomes part of your paper, a haystack
of choices your refuse to make or rework;
yarn balls, baskets, a fireplace set, wool hats
shag carpet, no footing for the firefighters,
no work for a vacuum cleaner, but many;
in an infinite universe everything possible
exists, and somewhere every bad word
ever manifested will be loved somewhere.
You can delete it, burn it, erase it, but won't,
always compelled to keep it (1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4)
always willing to keep stuff blocking the door.
Himalaya Flood
Stand up and shiver for that smoke
you broke joke, snowing sideways today;
I gulp at the hopiate for sweaty palms
palpitations and face-plant in paint
left the coffee steaming in the Slant 6 cup
but the pudding skin formed on the palette cap
nothing but an oil-based marker (dioxazine)
a mess in the supply bucket takes days to dry
even in this climate. Legislator Murphy.
Our creamery became a blood bank
so sit down and strum out compulsion
in the flush temper of a new weapon
so much missing from our reservation
logistical chains to feed the world
a self-fulfilled fire shower.
My Lot and Fancy
Never am I an option or a frequently-asked question
nowhere has anything but “other” been a choice
job histories
job hunting categories
fields of expertise
areas of major study
not even with terminal degrees
not even porn categories
everything has to be part of something else
and it's made me cynical and tired
I tell myself I'm preheating the oven
but I'm really just warming up
because those burnt element odors
balance the other endeavors cooking
oh imbroglio!
Half-baked and brandishing new flatware
contemplating the possibilities of my food processor
and wondering what to paint about (verges, artichokes)
because that's not really how I do things
I'll be sure to set the table
for the Mad Hatter and the March Hare
and confirm impact via satellite
rush limbo, tween nothingness and sanity
and every dimensional essence
puttering out in stoner-space
but really, we're here now, whether you believe it's a dream
or actuality; you and I, alone, talking in a unfurnished room
See, I'm a Riot
Under the blackened frozen corpses of the crew
were clutched possessions such as silverware;
weren't you a soldier? Once, now, just for thee
for your inability to come to terms with me?
Desires, aims, if any; everything, at least, is funny
Bison are at a premium again making some ranchers happy
Lean meat, keeping my secret diary to the grave
The lawn filled with kicked-over candles, buckets of the dead
neighbor's dried paint, lid-sealed cans mostly empty--
you can't be heard if nobody listens-- hides
body of tank armor with cost of obscured vision,
Illuminatus!
Rarely do people allow themselves to feel
without associative context and prejudice
with a good mescal I could do anything
it's not me comparing my cat to your baby
its me relating to a similar routine
so for our purposes its the fucking same
inform steady them beats rockin' bone hovel 'til hanging skin break ugly boots of dawn whole empire evidence rockin' to the break of dawn
please enjoy the apple
because things begin to go downhill after that
like, really bad, I mean just save yourself the trouble
cancel the whole trip
if you can make a list of invalid reasons
get through yesterday in enough time to say “I'm OK” tomorrow
I want names, and a receipt
We need total commitment
and then, the failure of the co-commitant
and by then you'll have realized the wisest and eldest
is you, still stumped, senile, maybe with enough
honor left to off yourself
honor left to off yourself
The Bright Side
I haven't found anything funny since I gave up tragedy
It took forever to get across town this morning
what with the snow and the traffic-- don't like being
a passenger in a non-smoking vehicle
and I've wondered why there's so much footage
of close-ups of men's “OH” faces in porn--
I really don't think it's necessary, I mean, maybe
it works for some people, but I doubt it--
likely the actor's time to shine in some sense
putting a face to the massive throbbing cock;
but I don't want to look at the back of a head
nor that smarmy, labored expression, heavy breathing
Shovelful of Bloodshot
Shovelfuls of Louisville, a skin hammer, meat screws,
marble-mouthed, a flyer for Bloodbath & Beyond
sticky green fingers grape Gatorade powder drink
the mirth! A cover band:
Loud Reed playing Pessimistic Lines
Go Science! Addiction! Bad Religion!
Sustained full remission
Life is the disease of preservation
we've developed emotions beyond
[any practical use]
they're what gets us into trouble
[casual (side A) sexual intercourse]
population 7,000,000,000...
you can't advise the elderly
that oblivion is possible
if they can swallow all those pills at once
and you can't even stay dead
after an overdose
without some bleeding
heart resident jumpstarting
another doomed chapter
My heart bleeds, it's a problem, I know.
I Think He Meant Gaza
collusion of lunch in cafeteria
still place of dis-intimacy here
dirty dish steam exiled in air
our policy for testing gonorrhea
disease of dripping yogurt
got you lost in my felah
hot a.m. forgotten sunglasses
hosed hurricane from dirt
died with the Apple Lisa
as a silicon referee cried foul:
(Gaza siege) Ashraf Abu al-Houl
reporting, in re: sleep in Giza
not my first language but Arabic
is offered and plenty strive for
the chance to thrive in grammar
schism pact/communique exotic
afraid of more than one American
can no longer afford to shop at Prada
was only eight during onset of the 1987 intifada
whether colonization enabled my use of salle de bain
or not, we all need to relieve ourselves before we die
or are left alone in the dark theater after his opera
Saddam Hussein was a member of the Ba
'ath Party not the B'nai B'rith, sigh
imprisoned he enjoyed Fruit Loops and strawberries
a patchwork of runners campaigning hate
everyone consumed by individual fate
flood-erased history, floating cemetery
rubbed-off sexual punishment hieroglyph
nothing better than the family crest
Steve Jobs' permanent siesta
waiting, so that future generations may live
Trout Feet with Erasers
It may have taken all of an hour to catch a paramour in the gutters of São Paolo
but regardless I am finished with punctuation and contractions for a period and
all along every bit of the hassle of navigation's minimal progress may have been
dumb luck and everyone will get you fired before you cannot and I read the manifest
no one knows what you mean plus I can still read and watch movies on television
these can all be stabs in the dark and who knows what is real or worthwhile
because no one can impose such parameters and I miss relatively short flights
to Europe direct from our eastern time zone but when I read somewhere it was written
in ball-point pen just look around if Steve was born in a barn in Iowa in 1965
and one day heading to work he tripped on a beam of sunshine and realized
he was out of steam and and hadn't really gotten much out of school
and at the end of the day when all your composure is strapped to the chair
in a fluorescent chamber spinning designs on the wall while holding onto one eye
and weeping the healing waters of inner mutiny new sedition
it appears drama is the easy part real emotion is the given
what is not so much is the simplicity found beneath the lifetime of slighted dreams
deliberation in greater applications of comedic disruptive behavior old dead troublemakers
or the drifting hot air balloon sailing the yellow ocher skies over Aix-en-Provence
on a drying canvas oil setting in like sunburn of next summer fantasizing
about ocean beaches while fishing on a mad river who ran off with the salmon
Life, In Order
All these empty black pens, ink squanderer, slight return
on peaks of barely thriving ptarmigan clusters with eggs
thin air, wanderlust, swollen face, frozen sinuses, glitter;
smoke settler, warring bribes of milquetoast plethora
tamping scores of mixed emotion, arrested development
in hordes, henhouse kitties traipsing, bunnies burning--
lemmings in the jumping line, bar tablature, signatures.
I've been done with you so long, I can walk with my head
not completely weighted by hesitant tonnage, cracked
neck, that's the stuff, and this is the guy, this guy right here.
Law, in order, is a book's bound recovery, clamoring.
No Followers
Knowing the loss of a good lot of friends
one day at a crime, ups in downs, a head in a hood of drag
with songs of dread and longing-- sackcloth amends
for a city best left behind, Percival, Ruthie, Clyde, and Jean.
Who the fuck are they? Perhaps book thieves of mine,
loathsome neighbors, puppy finger puppets, floral prints--
there's a portrait hallway, with an austere wall of flesh and tusks,
musk-ox misnomers and walrus, spring thaw creeping over ice sheets
bobbing light berg-- it's just to protect my hand from breaking during a fight.
But you don't fight. But I might, and I will, but that's why.
A roll of quarters is better than a pocket knife's sharp fold.
Feeding oneself back to nature's bounty, to the thin polar bears,
to the looming raven, Mother Teresa to the seal massacre, compassion fatigue;
leaving endless night for southern summer sun's sweet delight--
William Blake on my boat of derailed prophets' spilt epiphany.
Grimaldian Method
Traded belts with a Niçoise Muslim DJ
Moroccan bartender girlfriend with big
tips and “great” seats by the door
English-teeth hair-gelled boy in corner
“produce me, buy me, get me high”
but you don't understand, I'll be poor
next year, the skyline is low but dynamic
green = money = energy = approval
all the while we could've been investing
or even fighting for something
over-priced sparkling firework-wine
chanteuse, chat noir, chagrin
You're letting her go alone?
I made a killing in a Monte Carlo parlay
of other's earned legacies
indulged in your lack of jewelry
always had at least three drinks at once
the driver will take her safely to the hotel
but I guess I'd better go along.
Épaulment
Did the necessity of the first decade of the twenty-first century
have everything to do with staving off boredom
Boredom's lack of pressure is necessary downtime
Diving between the divine dreams of late-night movies about Daddy
all screaming and love scenes closer to real than anything I've seen
Wake UP! I am house, I am real. Hello!? I am furniture
I AM a dream, padding, threadbare ballet
WAKE up! I'm a four-story walk-up, a house of fire
concrete stomach, I dream bedding and arabesque, grand jeté
Wake up! I am house, furniture, blueprints, plot of land,
floor plan just padding, a concrete cell without light control
not awake, can't seem to pursue on own terms, no lucidity
--You forgot to take ego out of the equation. (Ego IS the equation)
(pirouette) There's no equation. I am still inspired.
Who are you trying to fool, gutters, eaves, chimneys, lawn?
Just you, pas-de-deux shoe shopper, bras croisé.
I was in the bathroom warming up for the breakdance
in a few weeks I'll have to walk out in front and smile
ins gonna be barely absurd, with destructively sexy results.
No Puffs, Only Flakes
Machine of vague impressions
seen as their best clarity
seen conversationally
more and more lost in fantasy
with no value-added clouds
just more questions
with nothing new to say
accustomed to delusional
grandeur leading intuit
cannot handle heat or colds
cannot wrestle that fog
floating above the unmovable
wings in a draft of assistance
self-reliance a scattergun
I'm Gonna Do Something I Should've Done A Long Time Ago
If you make an incision
jut below the sternum
dragging the scalpel
down to the navel
wistful gratitude will
emerge from a prison
of unbearable lightness
freedom floating
from negative emoticons;
watching the wheat reapers
setting the scene for readers
farmers extrapolated upon
for once avoiding flights
of fancy cherry blossoms
at night while lonesome--
chronic shortness of warm clothing
having pawned all after winter
unable to retrieve after summer;
old age used to be rewarded
with a walking stick bestowed
upon by the government;
warm water on a hot day
after swinging a sickle
and cutting hands blistering
drained of all shame
passion a dull blade
lost in pasture
I hate that I can't compliment
a woman's hair/shoes/clothes
without it being assumed I'm flirting
or gay (although I do love ass);
and one unrelated day circa 2002
eating breakfast at Leo's on Division St.
I was eye-fucked by a young vixen
wearing high heels at the counter
eating red flannel hash and secreting--
my dining companion said:
at this time of day just take it as a compliment
I Painted a Sperm Whale in My Stairwell, Then Named Him Dr. Willoughby, After My Psychiatrist
I've brought a lot of commas for all of you!
Who are offended by my taking your breath away
Down in a deep dark hole, pills don't help anymore
(pop, pop, swallow)
Where's this black hole I've been hearing about?
I keep hearing things out of the corner of my ear
The gangs don't like me; just because I profess my smudge
doesn't make it so, comfortable in hi-tech long underwear
and hair shirt, new moccasins happy to be wearing
People leave cities as chapters in their heavy hearts
lives of different cities present themselves sparingly
They say to me its in the ship's manifest, and then
you'll understand, people start over, they used to, anyway
now if they're lucky they'll be able to dance on stage;
today too many chapters to read to catch up with class
where I'm staging a mock jury trial in a stained dress
talk about any “she” and outpours a fucking saga
what's getting strange is my comfort at home
jazz radio, christmas lights, an old cross-eyed cat
and feet of snow falling in the alleyway, trash piled high
inside. Let's juggle each other's misspent youth
follow those low river beds looking for geodes and fathers
finding out about a dead bird fetish and remembering the box
in my storage unit with a robin I found freshly deceased
on my lawn last summer, in perfect condition, still
wobbly head, at rest at least he is, folded under a chair
in the corner. It's not like I bring him food, I really
was hoping to make art from his feathers and bone,
but decomposition has not occurred in the slightest
he looks how he looked when I found him several months ago
but I can't bear to get rid of the bird. When I was 15 I showed
lots of things but one was a dead bird to my psychiatrist (Dr. Helding)
as he drove out in front of me from a Burger King drive-thru
eating fries. I had just noticed the dead sparrow and picked it up.
Later that day he called my mother and told her I was psychotic
and required a long-term secure facility. On a similar note,
I have a dead junco tattooed on my right bicep by the great
artist Tim Biedron in Chicago but the tattoo is of a picture
of a painting by Brian Garay of a picture he took
of the bird falling from the sky as it ha been shot
by some Gummo-type kids on the deep end of South Chicago;
can't quite put my finger on it, but I know I was high as hell
on heroin dressed in brown corduroy strumming a Washburn
and I doubt it was snowing that night on Wood St. but likely
it was cold. Big windows, high heat, didn't care about bills.
Left everything in the world there. Better if it had burned
with me crying lonely in a filthy bed littered with crack pipes
and a few dull spikes, sterile water, dirty spoon, looped belt.
But a sweet old Polish couple cleaned me up for sixty bucks
and the new tenants are surely haunted by someone's ghost
and receive occasional knocks from the type of drug dealers
cops won't even fuck with, Andy doesn't live here anymore.
At least someone told me my Mountain Goats bumper sticker
is still on the mailbox, it's black type on white that says
We Shall All Be Healed.
Epithalamium for Nichole's Birthday
You've been aware for a quarter
century, scaling the world's
walls without rope or compass,
tipping the scales of tolerance
and embracing your celestial duty
like a napalm dissolve
too obtuse to refrain from surrender
but yours is lost in concession,
a perturbed dream doubling
meaning, an eroded time well
holding faithfully the the lessons
of love you know better
than the impression'd face
of strength you display
to keep others at bay--
so you say warmly and with forgiveness
and the brink of sadness your healthy
comforts cuddle to quiet night in
the double dream of all seasons
you and I can wish about
in the brief breaks of solace
we find together in the cavalcade
of collective longing.
Patterns In Nature
Dear friends and enemies,
the clean precision of the crisp electric lurch moaning, supernatural weather,
charged sand and the sun's rogue wave of nightshade, lurking in a pralltriller
why did a closed tunnel drive not spill contact attempts from whisperers,
corner clockers, runners, drugs, strew treatises, fertilize the specifics--
vascular cambium is a lateral meristem;
how lights paint your leaves yellow-green,
I can dress down a bear but have no grates for the blood to drain
I love to look at you from the side at night with music playing
Don't focus on the pain, palisade cells are not moot.
You with your subsidiaries, apnea, murmur, bed of dirt.
I've glued the vase enough that now when I repair
I think of trying to defibrillate a dead horse or whore
there's a great cardiac hospital here, they had to stop my heart.
New trauma doctors are like virgin boys with hookers.
Hooker Green paints an old streetlamp or post-war lorry.
The drowning pool of deep cool colors litters the sad city.
I've lost the same items several times today.
But I fan still remember everything, partly because I live in the country.
The old fear reappears in a passing cloud under my midnight wings.
Leaves have vein skeletons which seem awfully fragile.
Salt flats, pomade highways, tinsel, vehicular manslaughter.
Shoot your scion, brave another day before the earth pulls you down.
They may not enjoy your company, but they believe in predestination.
Better if you have a duffel bag full of guns and rum.
Dark Nebula
Inner-city sky, just Pleiades and the counter shine,
Messier objects number one hundred and ten.
My zenith is a seizure in a thin blanket shiver
in a rocking chair's cold sweat puddle of brine.
Airglow, Earth shadow's lust; zodiac lamp dust.
Albedo breaking down, your physics are unsound,
Alpenglow, Sylvanshine-- all out of your league.
I never claimed an ability to grasp linear thought,
it's tough to care when you're pining for the end.
But I can be a moonbow, can see when I'm not welcome.
Nobody's accountable for their impossible logic.
Skyglow and clutter, Horsehead and Coalsack, Glare,
what could possibly be out there, past trespassed light,
Bok globule movements and cosmic detritus.
Photo pollution, parhelia mirage, redemption departed;
don't forget after all we can't return to darkness.
Drowsy Snowplow Pilot
It occurred to me during the free-fall
maybe my failure to comply was all
I'd needed to consider earlier
redox reactions involve electron transfer
pairing half-lives under the blue line
hindsight's twenty/fifty
during the dusky epiphany
wearing a ridiculous hat of ermine
pluralism spins the gramophone disambiguation
plastic wrapped around the columns
in the church basement cordon
where chilled flowers hear impressions
the nautilus of fetal ease
nestled in warm pink bellies
braided on a wicker chair
in the shadow of a codependent vacation
on a risen isle from a previous occasion
too late to burrow away from the blast
and the hang time is killing me
tired of telling doctors not to stare
too brisk to enjoy this telling breeze
letting gravity get the best of me
walled in with a vitreous casket
of rock turned to glass in a fight
oxide faster than a palpable commute
from an axis of reality
to a trembling f-stop of sanity
there goes the aperture
pupil's entrance a tinted shadow
from an exit sign dimmed to demure
while a station agent goes with the undertow
and I know anytime I ask for your help
the paradox fevers your encephalin
but whatever damages I incur
however you strain my medicine pulp
let's tell ourselves down the road
stability will come from the chaos
of our separation and we'll be able to drink again.
The Gilded Rage
Always a dare, swallow the whole; old streetcar ruts stopping
traffic, stope, avalanche, peril.
Failing to find a confident trope, crawling
for air, benign essential tremors, job loss, last chance.
Loud enough so you can think, the floor below
was sealed before I was born, with flaxseed oil.
Bus, train, benevolent driver with hitchhiker, head rested on tracks,
kickback from the table saw.
It's only realistic to be stranded-- without
abandonment, unknowing, heart beats faster, acid.
Worn out assistance, crackling epoxy, take that sticky bet, water chaser, bullet trains, segmented.
The two-part transit, switching tracks in heavy boots
on large gravel, even with a cure for pain
I'd still not throw my drugs away.
I was the girl crumpled at the bottom of the well, muddied and loved.
You were the possibility, adhesive heart, hiding under the bed
without a frame, light still came through.
Threadbare curtains, and however the Eastern sun
said to go to sleep soon enough, the floor sank.
I pulled the sink off the wall, turned the shower all the way hot,
distorted old hardcore, blank stare.
Beer window sill, expensive shampoo, low soap.
Let's go to Mad Bar in 1999 before it changed.
How low will you go, far and gone, a darkish drag
down Evergreen deadheading home alone.
Always a glare, stairwell a lane bumper guard ascent
to kicked-in door frame, wood shards galore.
I'll always remember your name, but faces blur,
into the guilt of slow brain death, torpidity.
Baritone, black eyes, laughing in the barrel of a gun,
I wouldn't blink before you pulled the trigger.
But don't ever let me turn around, not that you ever
let me walk away. You've made me a malingerer.
A sniffling, bloody-knuckled shame, alive
in documentaries from Andromeda, a hollow earth report.
The sawyer lost a testicle, linseed oil. Termites, strings of lights,
sheet rock easily split to fragile slabs.
You don't have a chance, and I love these odds.
You left me your loose ends and stole my negatives.
I made a shoelace noose, and fell asleep
before I was forced to dissociate myself from this sad house.
Painted walls, one dressage red, others my blood type,
pinewood burns and a shattered home phone.
Captive Schnitzel, Or How I Learned to Love Human Veal
A song first beloved upon returning from eight days in Amsterdam.
The song is my secret so you'll probably never know but it's nostalgic.
We shouldn't have to use the word scientific just like we shouldn't
have to remind people what planet we live on-- too busy to feed the kitty
is like being too busy to flush the toilet.
It was actually an entire English pop band but don't think for a second
it was the fuckin' Beatles because contrary to the most of you I can't stand
anything about them
to wit: bullshit altruism (Not the Bono kind, more like the Tom Cruise kind)
what a great contribution to music, how revolutionary, etc. Smug worms
from Liverpool, my grandparent's ship sailed from there and the living
Beatles are the worst. I was confirmed in the Catholic Church
you choose a patron saint to be renamed by and I chose Paul--
if I'd had the sense to grow up and think McCartney & Co. LLC would
be so lame and bug the shit of me I would've opted for Ammon the Great
because Archie Ammons was one of the best poets alive in my lifetime
or maybe Boniface after the grade school where I'd been molested
and Boniface reminds of “open-faced sandwich” which rings with knee
slapping associations of awesomely filthy sexual positions
I still cum hardest when jacking off thinking about being fucked
by hooded monks queueing in the sacristy, confessional, and reliquary.
Anyway it was an obscure disaster, guitar smashing jagged odes of longing
A short-lived band but I was just listening to them on the floor
of a gutted limo, with only power for the stereo and its very cold so I wander
so I smoked a handsome, healthy glass bowl of White Widow,
unwrapped the linen rags where I'd hid the missing neighbor kiddo,
winterizing the wood chipper, greased the garbage chute, sealed the cellar.
My problem is that I love Russians and Chechens, Jews and Palestinians.
Arabs and Persians. I prefer total devastation, most destructive arsenal.
On the other hand, I like everybody, or the efforts of others' differential,
I'll be stranded here forever, without conveyance, development,
balance, mirth-- but at a great enough distance, I afford rent--
the only difference between lame and lamé is your accent.
I haven't killed on purpose, and only dined on them to survive-- I HAD to.
I reserved the excised labia and tied a burgundy bow around each,
lined them up for display and sold them to Legionnaires wearing kepis
caked in Saharan dust. There was no hair to braid. See, you can pay attention!
What's keeping you from crossing that thin line to earnest self-destruction?
Haven't you thought of that early? Ever? I'll admit who I listened
to when I returned from that vacation ten years ago. Oh wait,
my grandparents came from Belfast, so fuck England with van bomb,
drink cold alcohol in a warmish alley to fumble for smokes to shake
off that slut with my “missing” watch, loud rant, open shutters, pride put out.
I hear KLM flight attendants in baby blue skirts, calling me to a train
from Schipol to an endless Heineken tap in the Velvet Huxley,
them to a room above in the Winston Hotel on Warmoestraat with a view
of expressions in window reflections of unionized prostitutes and gawkers,
beer and hooligans, I hope one day I'll be able to drink again, shenanigans;
whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, and a breakfast bartender taking my vitals in the sun
on a beach in the Caribbean with lost thoughts, natural needs met,
swimming, sizzling, fish-eating Maharishi oblivion, sea-foam lullaby.
The Silent Era
Buried under brickwork in Butte,
dead miners lost in the collapse--
breathless gas, woolen bulkhead,
leaking copper water and dust,
pulley-snap, runaway tram,
dinner cold on the table above,
all that's left is poverty and rust,
a tintype of Clara Bow lost
in the rubble of progress,
pogrom's progress, mutiny,
conscription, enemies, dry crops.
The Mighty Wurlitzer crumbling,
sepia rushing, Charles Avery,
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,
Dawson City, Yukon Territory,
the surprising find of 1978.
Permafrost protected, nitrate-safe,
most of that century left alone.
The reels didn't matter enough,
separated, landfilling an old pool,
lost emulsion, candleflame,
firelight and fleur-de-lis,
night amber and nocturne,
silver sulfide and ferrocyanide.
Substance stuck in two dimensions,
everything began moving so fast,
people jumping from buildings,
pulling teeth from the toxic pit,
slag, soot, dross and tailings,
welcome to trying to make it better,
Great American Meth Lab of the Future.
Failing Architecture
I don't mean to slow down the machine of experience with my lack of identity, overt attention to symmetry, personalization of shape and color; given limits of time and age, the perfect pitch and balance of mortality, moderation, defeated ambition, aspiring to steady direction.
You forgot how to read, how to bleed for conviction, neon flashing, collision sparkle and strobe, collage, montage, quick beat, submission of your dream, failure to find oblivion intoxication, mundane semantic, an unpublishable mix of aesthetic incoherence, The Auteur.
W/o the drive to flower, Pay-Per-Bloom, almost-frozen music, sorrowful school, here comes late summer; I know what I said, you know what I meant. Places, a last-minute deal for blanket extinction, with your worthless ego pinned to a tapestry over a screen of mirrors, you broken vessel.
Dead magic, not one trick, masterful attack, autoclave, multiple fractures on the lens of the expensive microscope; a wild hare will grow weary, exfoliating madness, only afraid to lose these loving arms holding me in the deep-cold night-sweat shiver, the universe is expanding so fast.
The infinite duration, through the last escape, the wormhole, no sense of moral center, every sliver of Mnemosyne greater than the nightmare, subtle smell, chemical castration, dandelions, smoke odor, doors, peeling linoleum floors, ghosts, nicotine walls, terrified until the day I die.
Bridging a river with florist's wire, it's tough to enjoy without destroying, yelling makes you nervous but I feel you deserve it; for breaking down the waking brain, waiting out a hemisphere's static fog; a bit of luster on a bust of Hitler; the brave crisp crackle of leaves.
Wanting the ability to stretch without the limits of the box, I'll stretch here anyway, without the heat of class, firework skies in the sophomore night on LSD in the rain, awash in modern ruin and blue, get ready to trim your wick, even the cardinals come back, taking branch to bemoan attraction.
Leaves flutter and shade dissolves, outer drive is congested; I like the lawn brimming with caws and menace, avoiding shrieks of the mawkish; all the spirals, the round-and-rounds and the rush, denial, benign tremors, plummeting wash and down-river drowning, stroke of the yearn for the womb.
No one can go home, concluded from the tumble, somersaults and the hail ride, assurance pulled through the peephole, a face-down slumber wished; through the keyhole a roomful, serotonin storm, balls and all; it's all about being and nice belonging.
How To Prolong Your Losing War
Missed callings
Suicide by ranchero
Napoleonel, Napoleonid, Napoleonard
Overcoming French hedgerows
Antsy opiate withdrawal list-making
Rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds, and oceans I've known
Popular mythologies
Blind, deaf, and dumb university administrators
Arctic zombies in winter's ghettoes
Crazy Woman Butte w/Still Life of Calamity
Panzer Division Follies
Survivors of support groups
You're all a cult!
Living under a lean-to beneath the bridge
“my wife doesn't go for the talking shit”
The Incoming Color of Thirst
Sometimes the stranger seems familiar
the color incoming contains empowered
certainty, social structure and regret.
The blotter becomes sunk from ink, too
many thoughts pervade us at the table
so I too benumbing the weather take hold.
There is a myth and monster. Myth makes
myth but remains and monster hovers
and rules but stays the same. Nightmares
Need nothing out of their own necessity.
And there are breaks between the changes
And there is charged air waiting to bash night into day.
An old cathedral basement where chilled flowers hear impressions.
People are yelling in the streets outside my window
on bicycles and feet, the pane protects though the light
brights everything swell, spirit eroding in glow of coronal halo
what of contention, a lapsing sound of unease augmented
the loathing essence of dissension, rendered along lines of will.
Fisted to the wrist, around towering nouns, vertical turbulent.
Race Vial
Cats bat at the flagrant violet,
then mew at the dripping sink.
Arctic vipers snap at winter thunder,
clapping air like iron lightning
in a red cloud of fragrant violence.
In a rolling distance a tantrum,
then the gagging from tannins;
native strains uproot the plot
and patronize an ulterior standard,
reactive spasms' old panjandrum.
That sun can bake and she can wait
but won't music that used to work
just sinks around the dinner plates
that tend to drown in dirty water,
though the flow won't echo as sonar.
Pans stick like teeth in my arms,
the claw-prick precise in puncture,
and herbal tincture and a fissure
for redundant fractures pouring
from the snug grip of your harm.
Black Lodge Rent w/Salt Girl in Blue
Darker birds in the arboretum of reason,
raccoon tracks at midnight, specters
behind deer licks compiling leaf identities
and Army pants with disposable camera
and use of any type of pen you choose to lose.
Lying prone with precarious pencil lead,
stationed upon the ridge,
overcast coziness blanketing the crypt,
some scouting safety in butterfly lungs,
a tepid long table in the cabin dank
and assorted bones found on the dusky walk.
The salt girl wanted to jump in the pond,
and lily pads and deep muck to smother;
turgid birds left to fill the blank--
what if we knew what she knew all along;
various bodies among the grass down,
dry fables piling between the leaves,
easy trees gleaning currency with frown,
agitating the yearning blood asunder.
Sun Prodigy Madrigal
Night, she asked me to assess the moon,
fishing from an astral sea a bobber
buoying the bubbled chatter undertow,
in the unfamiliar glow on the floor below,
plundering the delicate waves and the quiet roar
of closure lapping at curbs of earth,
the gloomy wreck rocking tectonics,
released to the infinite black beyond,
the cascade of a dying comet abrading
her fallout, the only constant,
a cycle anticipating the freedoms of change.
Details Sketchy
When the crutches were taken away,
or Stew was chased by wild dogs
in Marsh Harbor during our three-day
bender in the Bahamas.
Sometimes I wish I were an arsonist, satisfied by
the well-lit hinge; or a nautilus on fire,
murderous ego on blow, roaming
with a laughing gas can.
Here the house respires a low moan
its seasonal reconciliation and,
we need you now.
Plans were laid one day, an outline became
apparent, outside my window an unusual wreckage
left yellow tape fluttering for over an hour.
Uprooted trees pulled pavement like pork
with the wrenching, gutting pain of earth
putting it in a wastebasket with a bile shower.
We trespassed, spat a lot, ate dirt,
I paid for the bad drunken crash,
I left the bill for the “guy wire and pole” under old files.
Venus in Shock
Year after year, the summer rains
failed. The sinking brown dust
that heats the eyeballs dry.
You said I said something awful
and cruel and I said I don't
doubt it.
Magenta-night negative space
a minaret pink from the moon.
Exit strategies or what-the-fuck-ever
get out of here and worry about it later
when we're heavily medicated.
Carnation sun, the day drowned in color:
these are real numbers, the tennis racket
was a pleasure to hold;
this season won't be any different but I know
it'll all wrap up before midnight
when I use a wooden match
to light two candles on the veranda
to see the look on your face
when I reach for the nearest star.
It's The Devilish Apparition!
I am a man from inside the moon,
abandoned in America, out past curfew,
mind amid electric pink palms in 80s
Miami music video, formica mold,
ultramarine balloon, back to Earth,
affected, gaslight rains to digitalis,
seashore dormant distraction,
cold dorm, dead coed crush,
peridot pill, dusty fog-bottle hue,
napalm sun screen, shadow, hole,
stencil eclipse, pallid high,
petrochemical pelican breast,
hanged neighbor boot and crutch,
songstress in a crown of thorns
and shapeless hippie dress;
these tracks a tightrope biased
by a sink full of dark matter burden
and a light white lace maddening act
converting energy into frowns,
shame preening a hopeful coax
to throttle much of all the rage,
a Tab can-colored aftertaste,
a Krylon cough, viridian thrill,
covering a city grid with lead,
rising back to the lunar aftermath,
where I'll resume my duties instead
of accepting your challenge
of taking the most-travelled path.
Today is Last Night
I used to swim far out,
watching the world work, sad
for my uncertainty, but a sun
on my back, good mornings
past my decision, tired night
--and good thing no one told me
what was ahead, the ten years to come,
the golden moments early and in between,
the dark spill of nails on the garage floor,
the oil slick in the shadow, the black
reflection of shrill teenage ambition,
the middle range of blues distortion,
pale smile in daylight, always something new
I'd swim over the coral and brine, through the breakers
and out of earshot, battered by the motion, held
in that caress, locked to the bones of oblivion,
tracing the contour of decibel's swell, ahead of you.
I want to swim there again, in the heat and sweat
of saltwater and the desert cool of Earth's turning in
for good. Sleep in the feedback of a forgotten amplifier,
surrender to the slumbering simplifier of quiet.
I don't swim today, the inland meander of structure,
tired age of deflation, proud rare color of new reflection.
The ocean is far, the lake is cold, the river is high.
Buoyancy is not an option. Besides, what would I wear?
Over His Head
Down-turned induction of timid backing time
one time having to listen to Henrico read from his new book
he misspoke and said “my mother's butt-- eh, back!”
It was the only memorable line
Washed from the new weather and wishing a routine
could bring a crop fresh or frozen from an affirmation
And the sense of autumn asks
if identity is issued with scrubs of duty
response and regularity in the error
of where the bank rolls, the beat
and the bass get us all wet while winter
you like writing about.
Limits of knowing and realizing
like to give lip to the lid on occasion,
randomly offering bittersweet, but what isn't
such in what fuels jest becomes a habit;
driving through the safety belt and speeding
fallen to fervor upon snowbank philosophy
rigid and compensating in guilt and sprawl
so the local feral zags away from incident
and the royal possibility is across the pond
with anything possessing the power to crawl
and forget itself enough to assist her scenario
and fantasy quakers percolate the notion motor
zigging toward a public house, blind like before
April while the scarecrow sings to the gaseous smog
of pints being poured between the cadence
I think I be
long some
“suitable for framing!”
A Tough Act To Follow
These bad-news kids I knew cleaned a catering truck
out of its wedding supply of alcoholic beverage,
the cache was hidden on the side of their house, boxes
of stacked booze, a cooler under a blue tarp;
we loaded up for the road, re-stolen.
Summer of 1995, Lollapalooza in Tinley Park.
In the enormous lot of The World (Amphitheater)
I popped my trunk, sold cans of Miller Lite ($4.00)
shots of Stoli ($3.00) in paper cups with bag ice,
it was cheaper than the prices inside so I made money
mostly from minors, in retrospect, and I got drunk.
Went under the fence with pockets full of wet cash
blood in new love with ethanol, during Hole's performance
in the rain and I was really there to see Sonic Youth
but by then I'd ran into an ex who went back to my car to pass out
it stormed so hard that night, drunk and sixteen, check--
points and traffic cops and orange lights and exodus;
diaspora and The Jesus Lizard deflecting lightning;
all my live music memories are drenched in rain and dangerous distortion.
A Time For Lap Steel
I found my OJ gloves, they fit perfectly
scarves still wet with sweat
I can't settle on any one winter hat
I'm getting better at finding base lines
they're so young-looking these days
with those healthy braids and optional loves
I wish I could be with you in that bottle
everything has a parking lot
every dream has a fallen despot
I can't hold it above my shoulders
every frailty of my asymmetry
weighs down a crucial angle
(carrying on my left causes walking in circles)
I keep the cat climbing on me when cold
got lucky and didn't have to leave the house
except to walk out front to photograph the snowy sunset
Hands didn't stay warm, never have, and wearing a slide
keeps all these fingers from stretching out like a cat falling.
Maybe I should turn up the heat,
draw a nice bath and break out the big new fluffy towels.
Salon Style Hanging
some people ask me about the meaning
of the hundreds of acrylic ejaculations
of cheap color on sale canvases covering
my walls and when I don't have an answer
it occurs to them
they're hanging in my house because they
mean nothing I care to vouch for
they adorn the walls with playful notation,
progression, they always change slightly
keep me company, reminders of limits--
allowance of crossing boundaries
without violating anyone but myself
staring contests I don't care for these days
the only competition I'd win involves
consumption; all this wasted space
drowning in pneumonia on the gallows
I'd rather pull my own weight,
avoid being another's hassle
Type B
I should've had a father
who had a father and so on
Anxiety Building room 204
Diseased, falling fast, can feel
the spill and crash of red wine
glass. What's more, you are my
illusion of a captured process
pink flowers filling a field
under Tuscan blood waterfall
goldenrod sky and scythe
reaping the mass.
An altar of raining iron
electrified oceans
failed stars.
Spires take care of the station
a checkpoint of potential brine
and certain tight orbit spaces
outline a tower, mostly rose
stained paintings offer clues
combed from the carpet
on a particular early morning
with nothing to come down with.
Slept for days, through the caterwauls
of my panicked Chelsea cat.
A Light So Grim
Anyway you were worth about as much to him
as the autographed Double Fantasy LP found in the planter
and no, we dusted for prints and all we found was your nitwit lion
idling in the harbor of a state with no border
get possible concussion checked out in the morning
I almost decided to tryst crossing you off my list
after I cleansed myself of your frosted flake crush
and they tell me you got away with disease freedom
enough of anything will do that palace of wisdom
bit to death in line for payment with ill health
look at me, stop rolling around in your sockets
looking for a comprehensive experience in orbits
I should be allowed to stay and not even have to pay
ever all you had to do was ask him how was his day
rehearsing chromatic scales along their boredom highway
room and fretboard trajectory included for a nominal free
this cannot go one must put a stop some to this it
“Damn, I did it again!” he thought.
The only available hands are pushing it all back
like the catcher in the rye, but I'm partial to nightmares
trauma, not being able to cry, always bleeding from somewhere
finished with engines, dead in the water
Coherence Is For The Birds
“...bodies of live Christians covered in burning oil”
sounds hilarious coming from the mouth of Iggy Pop
in Dead Man, which is one of the best movies ever
I'd say it's the best movie ever but David Lynch didn't make it, so....
here's a Bukowski quote that explains this Sunday:
mountains were a sad smokey purple like old curtains in some cheap burlesque house
You should join me for a silly abecedarian exercise. Ready?
About a generation ago, in the month of May (all forces were deployed)
Culture was a sewer door, it was warm and grey (I'll be connecting everything)
DEFining a long ablution in a Leidseplein daze (it was a long walk, w/no ride back at night)
Ghosts omened the bulk of frame, Ann Frank space (said something was wrong/canals unmoved)
I'm just not sure about that right now [twilight zone]
Just as it was too late, the extra baggage dragged (drained the pasta and it was too late)
KLM should've been my UAR but it was a steal, damned American
NO friends just Dutch flight attendants, yelled something about Vermont being “full of ice cream and
Pussy,” but I do not recall that, though Ritalin & Jameson w/typewriter hammering out
Questionable material, Paragon Pussy Fortress, long perfect hair, tight knots, it's good to
Really make people nervous, for the amusement of your friends. Ever the
STUdent, a crossing guard in charge of [crack hit that made me cum my pants]
Visuals on some acid excursion with Alfred Hitchcock
West Indies hopping, April dusk, steel drums, Rod Serling
Xanax, Fisher-Price record player squeaking out
Ziggy Stardust (mid-tempo [BANG!] in the temple)
Take Offense!
It's either others feeling snubbed
or feeling snubbed
I'd say I'm sorry for all the things I've done
that have upset someone--
and almost none of it on purpose--
but it's too late for that
so fuck you instead
you have all the charm of an antediluvian pariah
seated on a paint-wet bench
may as well stay on the shelf
because you will not embarrass yourself
until you get to blame the porch
ligneous desk of composites
veneer of probable causes and alien skits
like realizing you've suddenly shat yourself
and cannot move without detection
or your piss-wet pants from a crashing
drunk sleep-- and the need to cover the odor
of shame and hasten prayer to standby messiah
Joey said Merle Allin looks like a bad drawing and I think that's rad
the sentiment surpasses the sound (probably) I like looking at him
there's no doubt he makes his neighbors nervous and may have murdered
but that's his milieu so he gets a pass in my book and its glamorous
and being GG's living brother leaves one to wonder what just happened
those basement rehearsals a gut-rot distress of trepidation and horror
like all these piled bodies of skin and bone and empty tins of mustache wax
he sent me a Murder Junkies t-shirt from New Jersey with GG splayed
against a viaduct with an empty bottle of Jim Beam and stenciled caption:
YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME
Revenge, game-change, Nebraska's winter cap, heavy burden on beast of fortune-- search and smirch, Black Hills of Dakota gods, more than resin between your fingers-- land of floods and flat silence, plenty of room to see smoke rising for miles
conversely, I dream about the doom of landing in prison, and how outright fucking psycho I'd kill everything I could get my hands on, except for the guy that sells heroin-- before succeeding in bleeding myself to death by using my thumbs to gouge out my eyes in the SHU
but back in the grime of labor's toothless ardor; the physical toll pays pretty well, and walking from the fire will vulcanize your temper; shaking off the trauma in a bucket of solvent, iron-water shower in the elements, some with aspirations for tragedy, others waiting to go home
I'll never serve more than 24 hours behind bars, unless I get served for 24 hours from behind a bar, I'm too sickly to work on a well, even though its in my blood, stories from the Wyoming fields in the 50s when my father paid his dues and my mom maintained the spill
If that's all there is, it seems so lonely, but it may produce fruit-- great northern papaya with a tough skin, filled with black pearls of cocaine and vitamin C, internal blight, maribo, root rot-- but a delicious flashback of sour juice running down your chin, gloriously
Part of my problem is that I still want to run away from home
I'd fuck the rubber-bands out of her pigtails
an irresponsible use of aesthetics
self-abuse is an OK compromise
anything for a quick fix of me
if we had the money we'd still be living in our body
worse circumstance should provide a better story
everyone relates to frustration
time-constrained life, affected planet, unknown purpose
Not Sure
like you need more to regret
love, career, other horoscope topics
wishful thinking, songs you wish you'd written
performances inspiring and disappointing
because they've already been done
given away that passionate reception
fleeting heartstrings of music
aural bliss, wordless understanding
eargasm, tears, early memories, bad comedies
TV light to write by late at night
snoring cats and women, charged, cold
constant need to smoke
sit on the icicle'd stoop; moon through
cold clouds of tin-lined doom
another tomorrow before heat
I opened a novel last night to a random page
"...compulsively writing poetry every day"
thought it would give me a starting point
but its just qualifying my obsessions
too many girls to write about
but you've read all there is to pretend
and boys are only worth reading about
when you can compare them to your bad father
I'll be right behind you, on the nod,
with my scratching comb, ginger ale, and the ghost
of Mark Sandman-- we'll be sharing pillows
waiting for the ambulance
"well there's nothing too romantic about the way we met"
I went to Harvard Summer School
for rebound graduate credit in lit
and a poetry workshop that rocked
lived in Kirkland House and smoked
crack the whole summer.
I had a lot of money at the time.
I drank a lot, and had a Japanese
roommate who was a doctor
studying Engrish and Bijnis.
I got on residential probation
for smoking cigarettes indoors
even though Gensui emphatically
didn't care if I did so.
A fan in the window helped
but the ivy yellowed and died
around just that window.
Can't deal with cafeterias
so I ate out when I actually ate.
Daedalus, Pinocchio's, Charlie's.
A housemate sniffed out my
drug-lover pheromone
and it was a hot summer
of waiting and drinking.
I met Bill Clinton and Janet Reno
while shit-faced at the Charles Hotel
and tore up the DNC well-lit.
I made it on local television
with an impromptu recital
of the seven deadly sins.
One weekend we rented a car
and drove to Newport, R.I.
for the beach, with a German
herr (definitely not cool with drugs)
The two of us drove back to Boston
two nights in a row to buy more crack
Olaf sleeping on the floor all the while
I had the best scallops ever
and the beach was covered in red weeds
and Jersey trash with nice ass
the mileage was staggering
got lost in Providence
smoking a rock through a beer can
in a black Lincoln Town Car
The credits transferred so
I'm not looking back.
What do I have to be nervous about the cop asked me
If I'm not doing anything wrong what's to worry about
Well, I'll tell you, Officer,
"wrong" doesn't always mean "illegal"
if you're going to fuck me in the ass I may as well earn it
you can't look me in the eye because you're nervous
about having to size up the perimeter,
but really I'm nervous because you're a stranger
with unlimited power (unless I can afford a real lawyer)
My girlfriend has a felony to prove it (Assault on a Peace Officer)
a bona fide violent criminal because some 23 year-old kitten cop says so,
and the public defender couldn't get a job at a private firm (sad, lazy).
I'm nervous, because crackheads and heroin dealers used to protect me
from you, Gang in Blue, worse punisher for being in the wrong neighborhood--
not by clockers, but by cops, because money talks, and you can't spell justice.
I'm nervous because you searched my car once and found nothing,
even though under the steering column I had the following:
Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver
Browning .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol
several bags of several drugs
pipes, razors, needles, dust
Maybe you're on the great WMD snipe hunt
(I was only sixteen and never fired a shot)
If it's all in a day's work, and this is your bizarre call of duty
and oh-what-would-we-ever-do-without-you (my teeth are better bullets)
you facilitate the caging of human beings and wear fingerless gloves
You've cost me countless dollars; our taxes should plant trees
instead of paying for your pig nose to sniff out paranoia with guns;
I refuse to let you protect me from myself, even in handcuffs,
and if I had the power and permission, I'd help you become the hero
you always wanted to be, in the newspaper, on the back side.
Walking to the Wilma Theater (Black Swan)
Everyone has an opinion they believe as fact
(about how I should conduct my affairs)
and they all vary to extremes
in any event, the wrong way ends in a mess
I'm too lazy to clean up (by the arrival
it'll be too late to return) and for that matter
I don't believe something one considers
“favorite” needs to be “best;”
I have enormous esteem for artists I hate
or do I?
But if you can realize how much you'd hate
yourself if you let yourself get to know you
(looking in the eyes of a deflated lover)
or reading admission notes from psyche wards
citing abandonment issues
I'm not afraid to be alone
just the wide open sea
and its getting harder to leave those memories
in the shipwreck beneath me
