grace kelly

makes my right dimple tremble
brings the smiling
cold canadian front in july

fills my eyes with 2010's tears
when you joyously cry
is it the waxing gibbous moon mouth

20101027 11:15 p.m. (probably)

his arms grabbed her shoulders with both hands, squaring her eyes to his eyes

" . . . "

her arms grabbed his shoulders with both hands, squaring his iris to her iris

" . . . "

her left index finger closed his right eyelid

his right index finger closed her left eyelid

her right index finger closed his left eyelid

his left index finger closed her right eyelid

they stood with eyes closed, hand upon shoulder, did not speak, did not move for twelve minutes when a little boy in corduroy passed between their legs.

he opened his right eyelid
with his right index finger

and opened her right eyelid 

with his right index finger

 i always thought i was a slight, more frail, john candy lovable loser type until i met you

i am thinking about different methodologies that might drive your google searches
i am thinking about what you are after in your most private moments
i am thinking that i want to google your name and lord your existence over every other chandra cohen google can trap and reduce



aporia
even the poor can stretch out their muscles, feel
-- keep wondering when bleak will turn/
black, hearing 400% sirens. or,
when i will stop writing poems in google search
and when fingers will run through passing branches
flower, berry, thorn, and all
aporia

wednesday, october 13, 2010

love fell more swiftly than it ascended
when Love was never ever the shovel
what is the rhythm and melody at the heart of heart
where two plus two delivers empty set and fingerprints play leap frog

'excerpts from the journal of a has-been, ex-fourth grade spelling champion'; or, 'the sun is an equal opportunity arsonist'; or, 'another alligator dies in the sewer'; or, Preface to a Philosophy of Art

doing something 'good' or 'worthwhile' or maybe being 'happy' or 'content' on 2000 milligrams of hydrocodone and some unknown quantity of marijuana-via-pipe resin (approximately five to seven 'decent rips') is a lot like bowling three hundred with bumpers.

to reach me at this state you must be a true child of charon capable of descending to the depths like that hook they used in braveheart to rip out william wallace's internal organs.

simultaneous to the artificial happiness of 2000 milligrams of hydrocodone and some unknown quantity of marijuana-via-resin (approximately five to seven 'decent rips'), i feel my internal beams quaver. accounting has audited and paper is flying everywhere. ledgers newsies  
fraud fraud fraud read all about it



i turn on the song 'mr. november' and then listen to the first six tracks from 'boxer.' 
matt berninger saves my life daily.
when i connect with no one in real life, i turn on the national so that i can feel something even if that something is just someone else feeling bleak, confused, devoid.
i feel slightly better in this trying misery than the great but easy narcoticism.
this is very confusing since they both exist concurrently.
i feel like i exist in an islamic parable depicting the inability of fresh water and saltwater to mix.


i am back in the basement from an hour of 'dexter.'  i like dexter because he is hiding but he is trying to assimilate as his cover. dexter is a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. dexter assimilates by mimicking emotion in order to appear 'normal.' dexter does not feel emotion and wants to assimilate by feeling emotion. i feel too much emotion and i try to assimilate by displaying less emotion than i feel. i try not to hide in plain sight in everyone else's overcoat, but i do hide so that i can better assimilate and play red rover and be valued for my strong hands and red brick arms.  dexter also hides to better assimilate.  sufjan steven's 'john wayne gacy' is not about hiding to assimilate.  sufjan steven's 'john wayne gacy, jr.' is about the serial killer john wayne gacy and the first person narrator's admission "that 'in my best behavior, i am really just like him.  look beneath the floorboards for the secrets i have hid."  approximately two seconds later, he sort of subtly releases a gasp couplet.  it's believable and moving. 
i dont think it is calculated.


i scan the thirteen open firefox tabs .  i have probably scanned tabs ten to twelve times today.  i have probably checked the google mail tab fifteen times this hour.  sometimes, i hit refresh because i do not trust my computer's ability to automatically refresh and show me a newly received incoming message in real-time.  this strikes me as quite possibly the number one example of my present loneliness.  it is the most present example of my present loneliness.

i think okkervil river will 'do me some good right now.'  i turn on 'a stone.' LINK  it is not a very happy song.  i inhale two above average marijuana resin rips, letting smoke fill the bowl for approximately six seconds. i exhale two above average marjuana resin rips after holding each in my lungs for an average of ten seconds . marjijuana smoke's length of residency in the lungs directly translates to how high one will get, and in some social situations is an indicative of waste and an 'unjust' treatment towards the herb. i have been told this by numerous marijuana users throughout my marijuana career (~ two years of biweekly/weekly usage and ~ eight years of daily usage)

black noise? what is white noise?

is the future of my writing pretty bleak given my continued and exponential descent into solipsism?
is the future of my writing pretty bleak given my continued, exponential, and willed descent into solipsism?
is the future of my writing pretty bleak given my continued, exponential, and willed descent into solipsism under the guise of an extreme subjectivist philosophy of art?

how else - exactly - would you go about creating, then?

how else - exactly - do you escape the (very likely) fact that - You I Them - how do you escape the (now, even likelier) fact that we all can only, can only possibly, know the effect of some of the car crashes on highways, the platoons stuck in heavily mosquito'd leeched swamps, the impotent cloudy children's eyes on tattered old colored pages?

months ago (but still now)

The days  of yore
                Crumpled up, thrown down
                                    Post-op mona lisas
                                   
Lie amongst artifacts        toenail clippings and    
                       
                                    And empty wrappers


Their physical location is their only truth.

No, their physical location to one another from a certain angle at a certain time through the lens of a particular human being under self-induced or environmentally-induced pressure to value a certain metaphorical and allegorical schema is their only truth.


The days of yore are shredded mozzarella cheese on tacos we eat and never remember they used to be cheddar on cheeseburgers.  The finely shredded cheese used to be parmesan on pasta.  This very same brie on toasted cracker used to be asiago in a bagel.  The days of yore never existed in any particular way and neither does cheese.  Consistency is an optical illusion.  Like color.  (is a benign illusion merely an effect til it kills?) 

The days of yore hire very expensive lawyers.  The days of yore’s lawyers have very large penis’ to fill whatever huge void the vaginas of Today and Tomorrow (and So On and So Forth) may find.  The days of yore’s vaginas are tween tight and can please (and be pleased by) the tiniest Today and Tomorrow (and So On and So Forth) penis.  The days of yore file motions and bend over and get bent over.  The days of yore fuck the prosecutor.  The days of yore fuck the fore(wo)man. The days of yore fuck the judge.  There is no difference between the days of yore and any of these people (things).

The days of yore don’t exist.

The days of yore don’t exist.

The days of yore are only The Days of Yore, proper noun.

And The Days of Yore are only whittled away at days, or selectively demo’d and added on to, days.

The Days of Yore are jagged barbs, fears, or, worse yet, dreams revamping reality in their image like a jealous tyrant raining down. 

The Days of Yore are bastards.  Asexually produced too.

The Days of Yore need to hang themselves by their intestinal lining and find themselves and follow suit.  Each fear, each dream, dying, leaving only the previously wagging dog tail.

september 18, 2010 11:00 pm - september 19, 2010 4:40 am (or, hugging at 186,000 miles per second)

white noise and a salt and pepper television set screen
a guitar god plays a single incendiary guitar lick
over and over
overandover

it has begun

i am fetal and prone and smiling, now.

now, i am stretched out, taut, extremities aching
your body is holdin mine
but
for oneone millionth of a second and then
and then out
and then back
and then out
my toes are splayed in wait
for the next one millionth of a second
where i will know



this is a completely flaccid orgasm
this memory
the almost rupturing leg muscles, the medial collateral, posterior cruciate, anterior cruciate ligaments, my quivering achilles waiting anticipating yearning feeling a feeling of a memory of a feeling
its a little bit like
its a little bit like
its a little bit like
no its everything like
a time i thought would be all the time and now is just a time that no longer is except when i call it up from the grave with seances held in dark basements with lou reed intoning: shiny shiny boots of leather shiny shiny shiny boots of leather i am tired i am weary i could sleep for a thousand years a thousand dreams that would awake me
my body shakes as the taut line slackens and nico who is really you and you interject and ask me to please put down my hands because you see me
my heart's arms are vigorously composing the rhythm and melody
of yours arms wrapped tightly around my own arms wrapped tightly around your own arms wrapped tightly wrapped tightly

i am completely lucid when i say i am absolutely out of my gourd
i feel such polarity
my beings fabric stretches the impasse
so
i bounce up and down upon it
like a class of children at recess
i am completely lucid when i say i am absolutely out of my gourd
each cigarette is ballast to keep feet and ground in commune
i dont want to ever stop remembering how it was to hold you for even a millionth of a second
and my big toes reach over and press down on their neighbors doorbell as you return
and are gone
return
and are gone
return
and are gone
return
and are gone

i am laying on the couch listening to holly miranda and yoko
taut as a bed sheet stretching the equator to antarctica
aching from round upon round of millionth of a second hugs
this millionth of a second is the entire blanket i am wrapped in
looped and on repeat my index finger on repeat hitting the button
it has become inextricable with the fabric of my being
and now its gone again

i have to get up and walk around.

(but alas
the world out there
away from your millionth of a second hugs
is filled with you sidling up
is filled with you saddling up
but its only a waking quaking dream
with undertow for days
my smiling face swirling down
my arms clawing skywards, landwards, out


god, i'm so frightened.
god, i'm very very frightening.
i've overdone it
i hope some people like burnt toast)

have you seen
these people that must crane to identify
these people that place heads at waists
these people
boring ocular drones at your books cover

they are interesting people, no doubt.
we could call them 'readers', surely,
if our thing is putting caps on heads
if our thing is lining books on shelves
if we wanna get strung out
without

i dont want to finish.

these people
so northsoutheastwest eager
who are they
these people
that will look at you
if you hide your cover

why:  why wont you turn

just a little, 

towards me

dancing with 'bilar'

the air gets hot and sticky
in september running barefoot
i cant forget the summers smell
i can hear your voice in those speakers
soft and humble, weary and yearning
:42 tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
~1:30
i can walk
i can walk
i can walk
i can walk
i can walk
i can walk
to the drive thru
or i can walk
to the beach
or i can walk
to your dentist's or
i can ride my bike
and you can ride on my pegs
2:15

2:45 i can run up and down your stairs leading to floors that dont exist to floors that do exist and are fitted in ikea to floors that dont exist except only in your mind which is kind of existence in the same way exiting the womb is kind of existence to floors that do exist and are flush with friendly ghosts and bleeding then breathing then smiling then laughing humans to floors with no busts of god to floors with halls filled with paintings of our valiant, courageous defeats and euphoric victories to floors that to floors that to floors that to floors that to floors that to floors to floors that to floors to floors that floors that



tumble dried, spry
tumble dried spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
tumble dried, spry
soft and humble, weary and yearning
i can hear your voice in those speakers
i cant forget the summers smell
in september running barefoot
the air got hot and sticky
the moon winked at the sun
and said dont fret
we'll play again soon
we'll play again soon
we'll play again soon
we'll play again soon
:08

from whence, or whom, this came...i know not

each day
i convince myself not to believe
cuz i cant remember what
i wrote first
when and where and what we stepped in
was all i had or needed or wanted
then


then
was all i had or needed or wanted
when and where and what we stepped in
i wrote first
cuz i cant remember what
i convince myself not to believe
each day

Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running (at Reading Festival 2010) | Part 2 o...

20100830 : watch the narcissist try to empathize and only narcissize more on his way to eventually empathizing and transcending his meager boarded-up ego

today is my parents thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.
i/we/no one knows when the last anniversary will come.
my mother has stage four advanced, recurrent, metastatic, and inoperable triple-negative breast cancer.
i am twenty-six years old and sitting in my parents basement.
i am not wearing a shirt, and i am sitting in the pitch black except for a muted 35-inch, so-archaic-that-i-cant-remember-the-name-for-non-flat-screen-television-sets, television-set flickering images in my peripheral vision.
my ears have headphones in them, but i have not selected any music to play and no music is playing.
my laptop is on my lap.
my lap is composed of a blanket over boxers from my kindergarten through fifth grade grammar school.

the elastic waist of my grammar school boxers has long been broken.

when i stand up, the grammar school boxers fall to the ground.

so when i stand up i hold on to the inelastic waist.

i think i started writing to feel less alone, but now i think i feel more alone than when i started or when i woke up 'which is saying something' (since i 'always' feel most alone right when i wake up in the morning).

i dont think its healthy for me to write anymore right now.

i try to do whatever is most healthy for me in the moment, but some/often times that which is most healthy in the moment is not the most healthy 25 or 900 moments from now.

i think i want to open gmail chat or facebook to feel less alone, but i am remembering from 30 minutes ago that i closed gmail chat and facebook because they made me feel more alone.

i think about all those vibrant green dots residing next to content names of acquaintances/girlfriends-friends-who-then-became-my-friends/teachers assistants/friends-from-law-school-i-havent-talked-to-in-three-years/friends-i-talk-to-weekly/friends-i-want-to-talk-to-more-but-feel-i-have-not-talked-to-them-in-too-long-and-that-this-is-my-fault/friends-that-save-my-life/my sister/my mom/current and past loves of my life.

i think that i am tragically wrong assuming they have happiness.

i think that i am more alone than everyone else because, mostly, i think that i am the only person who feels alone when this is quite obviously not reality and a natural effect from (thinking about) feeling lonely.

i re-read the second most recent sentence and feel nauseous: happiness is not a possession.

i think about erich fromm and his book 'to have or to be'.

i have only half-read 'to have or to be.'

i do not think happiness is a possession, but i think that my action depicts a philosophy that values happiness as a possession.

i wish i could stop thinking about you, but when we're not fucked is the only time i can accept the world being fucked (half the previous sentences contain invisible, oblique, parenthetical references to you).

i think if love is just acceptance of our own weakness and acceptance of an other as the antidote for this weakness, as the catalyst for the real-but-dormant-due-to-fear actualizing power we contain all the time.

i think inability to love is the insecurity and instability from holding our concept of ourselves as deities too close to our heart that our wombs become incinerators.

i think 'all this' (the above) is just a complex, convoluted way to come to terms with present loneliness caused by you, alternating, plugging me into the outlet to shine light in your room and then unplugging me from your wall prior to your exit (tho sometimes i think you will still stay in the room a few minutes after i have been unplugged, sitting in the dark, imagining my prongs sitting in the dark, blind to how close you are) and future loneliness caused by the premature, ghastly death of my mother, my best friend.

oldest dude at the fest

your cradle rocked when the new deal shocked
big business into a muzzle
your first wife wrote you dear john in korea
now we're shotgunning weed through your hol(e)y trachea
and talking paranoid john birch blues

you were the oldest dude at the fest
you don't care about losing your hearing
you were first row, miracle ear on full blast
and your cane never touched the ground
you were the oldest dude at the fest

the sun held us all too close
rays descending and hugging and burning
but your leather face smiled and reminded
awesome and awful share an 'aw'
all youth think their world is ending

we watched bands for hours and minutes
you were like beethoven, man's best friend
the greatest wingman of all time
with faded green betty boop and popeye
your overflow made the pacific a lake

you were the oldest dude at the fest
security guards stocked you with water
and your catheter hid in tow
but we always always got first row
you were the oldest dude at the fest

we crowd surfed to the front of sleigh bells
your skull cracked the steel bars hard
but you laughed and walked off
you said i know im old
but i dont care much for pavement

you were the oldest dude at the fest
there was no point to look east or west
you were the oldest dude at the fest
got your story but not your name
except you were the oldest dude at the fest

fest babe

Fest babe

I saw you sippin that lemo (nade)
Under the scorching hot sun
We were pigs on a spit
the earth on its usual tilt
headstrong, a diamond
You were a hipster mary magdalene and
I was carrying my cross and
I was on my cross
oh-oh-oh, fest babe, fest babe


Your aviators lay on your face
Two satellites on your eyes
I was spinning in from some inner space
Seared faced, salty lipped
Your dreads swayed
When annie said
your skin so fair (its not fair)
And i wiggled my toes
Oh-oh-oh, fest babe


(this previous part has slowed the tempo down considerably. At this point building back up again instrumental section. Building up with each )


(Medium/fast tempo)


And I walked away
And I walked away
And I walked away
Half a set of the back of your head
Thirty three percent of one eye (thirty three percent)
Thirty three and one half percent of your eye (and one ear)

(slow down to nothing else practically, or just sparseness. )

Fest babe
Surly asteroids sped fast, past
For the moment
The villagers of pompei sat and rested
When the lava ran cool

(ad lib)

words i only lived

I miss you like the

river misses shoreline as it r

uns away from mouth and into feet

walking where lips denounce



I miss you like the

Panda bear I never won

At the carnival I never went to

When the gate was too low


I miss you like the

Sad sappy poem this is

The sad sappy poems

We neurally write but never send



I miss you like the

Words lost to memory

Floating , detached, there

But always the tip and never soiled




I miss you like the

Sail misses warm wind

My ship sails well enough

But my people are freezing



I miss your startled eyes

I miss your eager ears

I miss your open mouth and mind

your hand covered laughing face

I can only let longing leave a trace

simulacratic happiness

black and
black and
black and
black and white

black and
black and
black and
white and black

crash land in the looney bin
run in corridors humming
we'll gladhand and red rover by the berm
i'll peak in the first thirty minutes of meeting you

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


long hair down her back
it is now tied up tight
simulacra long since removed
from their unmoved mover their __________

i could deal with the world being fucked
if we werent
fucked
gutted
strewn

(breakdown)

spiritualized - ladies and gentlemen

beautiful rendition of a beautiful song.  cowardice washes away, courage surfaces in it's wake.

white sky
violent light
cracking thunder
dripping brick
and i miss you
tephra falls hard
old memory magma
still out runs me


head fills up bravely
your green boots
your open eyes
phone glaring me down
and - get to the basement
no, run to the sea
sail . . .
down . . .
round. . .
. . . OUT

this doesnt matter

the universe is cycling

even within lifetimes

we live hundred lives a decade

forget a hundred days an hour

remember three days a year:

does the universe cast a single shadow?

firmly stated

torn jeaned

 hungry tongued

and a blue black eye

matter is finite

energy is finite
our mother's ovaries are barren

(but) :

a batted ball lands lightly

sucked back to its home

is picked up

tossed in the air

swung at

and flies again

at Some Point In Time

(and again and again and again - repeat x ∞)

supposedly earnest meet n greets abound now.

lets share in good cheer:
please be sure to drink a beer
to forget the approaching fear
of the swiftly setting sun.

the swiftly setting sun does not
pour a glass and judge. Nor does it
run hair through fingers.
Also - it does not run.

_____________

word has it there's product-on the docks that's A-OK:

CheapAsDirtConcentratedLikeRimbaudandDrake;
this is That Richard Pryor Shit:

shit'll leave you charred and naked
won't even know you're fakin' it.

unwrap the package trancing
rewrap with a bow 'n ribbons
floated the chaser now
washing your hands crying
______________

scream and laugh of golden tickets and parachutes

sit and hope of pie and sidewalks

the curtain is open
the stage is empty
the lights are out
a packed house sits
with a child's rapture:

art runs away from c-sections and birthdays but-but-but-but
i cant find bees nests to shake
drip, drip lay me down in orange wool
under the sun's sink, strap me down
you've killed all the bees
we've killed all the bees
the bitter is bitterer -- we-we-we-we
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
michelin raincoats adorn the naked
fresh pale flesh lies dormant
the seedlings of humanity
green rusted soul gardeners dream
fingertipping the reaper
their heavy hoe weighs down
lusting for rain and sun in tune
shit eating veggies on mom's bread

athena's buffet's a dream and how
does a dream stop driving the hearse

Thom Yorke on "Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Street Spirit (Fade Out) - Glastonbury 2003

"'Street Spirit' is our purest song, but I didn't write it.... It wrote itself. We were just its messengers... Its biological catylysts. It's core is a complete mystery to me... and (pause) you know, I wouldn't ever try to write something that hopeless... All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve... 'Street Spirit' has no resolve... It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song... It's called detachment... Especially me.. I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn't play it... I'd crack. I'd break down on stage.. that's why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning... I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together... That's what's meant by 'all these things are one to swallow whole'.. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn't have it in me to articulate the emotion... (pause) I'd crack.... Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don't realize what they're listening to.. They don't realize that 'Street Spirit' is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes... and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he'll get the last laugh...and it's real...and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I'd crack. I can't believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song... That's why I'm convinced that they don't know what it's about. It's why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell everytime I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of it's meaning, like when you're going to have your dog put down and it's wagging it's tail on the way there. That's what they all look like, and it breaks my heart.




I wish that song hadn't picked us as its catalysts, and so I don't claim it. It asks too much. (very long pause). I didn't write that song."

pleasantries with secretaries
on phones for mere seconds
are the sail and the wind
hope is for children and sailors

Persephone's Archaic Smile

the sun's shine bores you
and it's the rain that raps
on your window at night hangs
rope we'll climb down into
obliviating foxhole raves
glow in the dark people bring smiles

but the sun will come to outshine you
as your skin frays and falls
the tailor you knew once
has gone far far away to build
a castle whose motes have motes
can only scrawl and wave, tap and hope

with you under their shoulder
with you in the bottle
hands upon hands will hold you
they'll cross the gobi
theyll piss you out some morning after
when they're sandy, done and dying

:

oh persephone
taken in a field naked and alone
oh persephone
your stone smile isn't really laughing
oh persephone
fleeting and blurry is all we have here
oh persephone
come and rise again
oh persephone
run back, it's only dusk

every store is closed tight
boarded up and broken backed
small eyes dart in dark windows
lighting ashen, scarred timber

the street is grey and hollow
on a sunny summer day
despair runs hot water
on the bloom crop's bumper

the painter paints for
the poet pines for
young imagination wants
everything, nothing, something

lay the pillow down -- for me
can't see the bed fourteen years
'neath -- there's no mahogany floorboards
standin'pon pirate peg legs

Anti-Icarus Life Affirmation

the beautiful is fucked, the beautiful is fucked

the [embarrassingly effusive adjective] young woman wants to want
away from some waning sun, blazing out
smeared chalk that teacher won't wipe away

i will not think the world is fucked

i will not think we are all fucked

closed picnic baskets and folded blankets await

under the knotty oak mom made for such a fate

of basking in the shadows, of basking in the shadows

of basking in the shadows, of basking in the shadows

the sun's rays, the sun's rays, the sun's rays, the sun's rays

inches away, inches away, inches away, inches away

the sun shadows your skull
blazing on, elevating
the alright and the fabulous alike
do some wells store and share
while some merely drink

the scraps from our forks
feed our people's families
feasts for the gods but
you disappear into the crowd
down, down, down, drowning 

the analysis runs amok
i'm awesome in a telescope
i'm nice out of your face
our laughter shoots razors
my smell is worse than my sound

the best love is homeless
you can't find it on google maps
youll only see it in the street
but sniper blimps seal our fate
the adults will kill us all

words wont win badges here
only time can send the wind to move you
only the world can show you our beautiful stars
again amid the deep rank scars of blah
drowning your waves ashore

this, my greatest fear
that you have forgotten
how to look at me
with arms for me
with arms for you

a child's love is homeless
you can't find it on google maps
youll only see it in the street
but sniper blimps seal our fate
the adults have hearts on plates


(i dont know how to exist
in the same world as you
in the best way possible
the road splits endlessly
infinity seemed so small
infinity seems so very small)

thrombotic irrigation

wind gusts dry eyes
evian tears hide
kept fresh by hopeful plastic dams
the heart's stubborn irrigation

i want to be free
i want to be free
and i will not forget you
and i will not will to forget you

scattered broken mirrors
wide, gaping heart holes
and the trees above wont fade away
and the clouds above wont come down
no, rain dances only make fools
did the woo give giggling dysentery
scattered broken mirrors
clotting til drained veins?

you give cpr to dodos
you are rosetta's mother: she is a pebble
you are a psychic sherpa
"you're the only girl i've seen for a long time 
that actually did look like something blooming"
you're beyond the shore
the ocean blushes in your shadow

i need to be free of you but
i want to be free of you free of me
so i will not forget you
i will not will to forget you
because i just cant forget yet

scattered, broken mirrors
clotting til drained veins
but i will not forget your reflection
i will not fuck this up
i will not fuck this up
because i know that you saw yourself
because i know that you saw yourself

greatest day that i have known:
how do you look in the morning?
mouth dry
yellow tongued
crusty eyed . . .

you are beautiful
still
even after insomnia
even after looped replays

you are ponce's love
you are my dear, dear friend

your back hurts

once a weight's been lifted
it aches out of habit
as it's last wisps leave
it's fingers outstretched
and then
you're able to realize the tremendous pain you'd gotten used to
the overwhelming sorrow
so ingrained

greatest day that i have known:

how do you look in the morning?
mouth dry
yellow tongued
crusty eyed . . .

you are ponce's love/you are my dear, dear friend

sunshine fills vestibules

when you plead

sunshine fills vestibules

when you plead

nonono
STOP
my ribs are gonna pop out n stab you
my throat is going to leap out and leave me

please please
stop making me laugh
my esophagus is lined with mines
wired all the way to my heart
ill blow out my speakers
ill go deaf for days

sometimes stooping picking up change
on one knee
i wonder if im home

 sometimes, stooping, picking up change
on one knee
i wonder if im home

there is no lim
it on who you
can be with me

smeared

,
flushed
,
composed

,

epiphanic

there is no lim
it on who you
can be with me

smeared

,
flushed
,
composed

,

epiphanic

 

really good intuition makes you lazy

where we'd all like to be (no?)

i am happy Right Now
i dont know How or What
swirl of wind or mind 

or leg or finger 

-------- 

known unknowns

unknown unknowns 

worry not me

something i edited on 3/14/10 but wrote on 1/29/08

[ed. - i readily admit that this is possibly a cheap, weak way out of my promise yesterday to produce a publishable piece a day, but, at the same time maintain the equal possibility that this is just as valid a contribution as it is new in a narrow but productive way, as well as on point with contemporary self and social concerns. so i guess the administrative question raised on this first day is whether moving a piece from draft to published counts. put that way, the answer is clear. yes. without a doubt. based on previously articulated standards defining 'progress' with a large amount of respect paid to quality, against the power of quantity]

I feel such clear and distinct misanthropy. It flows wildly, rampantly, persistently. Though it is not new. it has been here before, to be sure. And after it leaves, it shall return again. There is no end in sight.

A light shines somewhere. Though, where I do not know: it could have ancient origins and like light from the very earliest moments of the universe, just be reaching us now; or it could emanate from present possibility, the eternal ability for us to jump the course, laying waste to our habits and revolutionize ourselves, our community, rip the status quo to shreds; or it could reside in the future and we're simply a couple generations too early: we all must trudge on, ignoring the spoilers, accepting the good we can do on the smallest of levels, enduring the disagreement and pervasive petty squabbling; or it could be an asteroid, a false positive, and imminent death.

Apathy joins the party. But he must not be in the same room as Misanthropy. Neither diminishes in any noticeable fashion. They accommodate one another; a perfectly destructive assimilation. I don't care which one is true. I don't care if they're all wrong. If the light itself doesn't exist in any manner: positive or negative; it's a sheer product of my human artillery: brain, optical nerves. Like fucking colors. They need us to exist.

I want to deal with non-human contingencies, realms outside human creation. I'm with Hamlet on this one: "man delights not me." I'm sick of money, of big buildings (metaphorical and commercial ), of lies, of fear, of homogeneity, of hurrying, of barriers, of not enjoying pretty much everything, and being distracted from the life i would love...making that life a reality.

This whole contract with government where I give up a little of my freedom so that I can gain the advantages flowing from living in society: order, specialization, recreational time; I'm really losing interest in holding up my end of the bargain.

What is the most fundamental part of living in society, within communities?

Communicating well. This endows a responsibility on members to have this knowledge, as well as act on it. We must not only know it, we must recognize through action and actually do it. Not to be lost in the picture here is an important act of reflection: criticizing and then removing those hindrances to honest, open dialogue.

It is often held up as a virtue that one who respects others opinions, and more specifically their ability to believe differently, is integral to communicating well. Respecting the differences of the Other. And this seems entirely counter-intuitive to me. Of course, we're all not the same person. We are each different in the way our particulars manifest themselves, but we share the general schema of particulars, the different categories. It is a difference of degree. If honest, open dialogue is needed: how can we justify removing such a general group of statements as beliefs from the mix? It seems right to apply the tag of "universal human good questions" to "beliefs", for really what is a belief other than an individual's "conclusion" (and i use that word loosely) answering the question: How is a human life best lived? For it would certainly be an outrageous concept that anyone would live their life in any way other than the one they deem the best for a human to live, no? Though I guess perhaps no one is perfect, No One can live in perfectly congruent accordance with standards of value (self-derived or otherwise)? But, all the same, it seems entirely ridiculous that one would live so far outside the spectrum of the standard and that this would still remain as the standard. It seems that if one lived so far out of whack with what is claimed by the standard, then perhaps self-reflection is needed to sort it out and decide what is the standard that is actually ruling and contributing to reality, interacting with wills external to my own: "I may claim to myself and others that it is one thing, but doesn't this clear fissure prove otherwise? How can I claim to value x so greatly on the one hand, but restrict if from ever manifesting itself in action by walking towards y and only groping at x? Perhaps, I value this y, the end my actions proves out, and not the end I thought I sought in my mind."

Maybe that is too black and white. Or too naive. It isn't that people aren't aware of the parallel, crashing standards. Or are aware of one and not the other. It's that they don't recognize the conflict. They have no idea that they engage in a self-negating cycle. That they act towards one end for a period of time. Then towards another. And that these aren't parallel, never-meeting-except-at-the-finish line lines, but, sadly, tragically, inextricable from one another. Ripping the other to shreds while building itself with glorious intentions. And then powerlessly getting ravaged by the other. Neither counterwilling, neither protesting. They have no idea for of course the courses of actions themselves exist in a vacuum; they are human dependent, human created. They require a director, and not an autonomous one at that, an autopilot suffices. They don't know the difference, they are intangible, puppet concepts. So, the onus is on the director to realize the conflict and adjust. But he doesn't. He doesn't look inside. He wanders about aimlessly, motivated by emotion and whim. He feels the pain of the battle raging within, and is unable to know that not only is he the only who could stop it but that there is a conflict worth fighting at all. That Yorke’s “two colors” reside inside his head. He sits contentedly in pools of corrosive, quickly consequential unknown knowns.

So, if we maintain that communication is the most basic tool for social success, then an even more fundamental need arises towards that end: self-reflection

And what of language, that most basic building block of communication? How does it affect comm that words have become so detached from any sort of "static" meaning, bending stretching, each time in another direction, under the auspices of another general, adifferent set of troops with dreams of conquering lands wholly unfamiliar to previous generations of usage.

metamethodicality (on method) (part one)

It has to be methodical too. so far, It (this partially-in-formation, always-in-formulation, fulfilled writing capacity) has been riding a spontaneous wave while slowly becoming more methodical, more consistent. but it's time that a more rigid framework come into play within which the in-the-moment, anti-artifice can still exist. i guess the methodical here is modifying the spontaneity, really, i don't think i have thought about this in ages. great to come back to it. being methodical, disciplined is

so, this is just a way of calling myself out "publicly", but really only to myself as i do not believe there are any people who think to themselves "hmm, i wonder what's goin on at methodical spontaneity...i'm gonna type it into my web address whiteness and see what steve's written." and this isnt bitterness over lack of readership. i don't think that the people who know about it read on their own, and of course i can't know about the people who i dont know, whether they know about it, via the deep dark recesses of my facebook profile. but this is assuming quite a bit and, importantly, ignoring the effects of the confessionalism of my writing which would serve as a possible deterrent against people reaching out and commenting on it. this "commenting on it" is the only real way i would know if anyone reads this on their own, without a link sent by me. having said this, a clarification is probably necessary due to the glaring fact that the tone and words chosen indicate a perceived audience. and there most definitely is, but only by virtue of the nature of this blogging medium.

the blog gave me the ability to have a concrete place where i could save, work on drafts while in progress, and then put them out into some different, more official or...final place, when the piece has reached a level of self-satisfaction that i deem it fit to be seen by another. i don't think this social relationship is problematic, diluting my efforts. i almost never keep something as a draft if i am happy with it, meaning...nothing is too personal. if ive written about a feeling, a dream, a fear, a person, and i think it is quality, something im proud of, then it gets published. occasionally, ill get nervous about a particular piece, but in the end i usually prevail, the piece gets republished.

so, i'm going to write at least one publishable piece a day, one creation, riff, whatever, that i value and define as 'done' (a dynamic, and not necessarily stereotypical definition, to be sure; ) - and this does not count.

(after writing this, it seems necessary to at some soon, future time write down the philosophy of art represented in my poetic style and subjects. ill say this: i like to think i am following in the spirit of henry miller and his subjective embrace with perhaps a dash or three more fictionalizations, like, combining two, true but distinct events because they complement each other and do not contradict. also, my style is way more abstract. anyways, another time.)

(another interesting question for another time: how necessary is this perceived audience? could i write merely for myself? can i even come close to knowing if and how this perceived audience is a cause and not a more inane than meaningful environmental accompaniment? is it still fun to think on? yes.)

ive been walking around
in the halls of your mind
while you wander wondering
occasionally, frequently
smiling my way

and that smile
its a wonder i dont
crumble and break
my heart palpably pangs

our string of moments
alternating
saturation and scattered
brings the sweet apple flesh
and then turns a bruised low brown

then youre testing my memory
while your feet keep your indian knees
from busting loose their gird

your bottom lip turns
red from your teeth
and you're laughing
while asking me

what was that dream?
who was that man?
why was he pointing at me?

my lips start to part
the corners rise up
my teeth show some skin
and laughter trumpets
well worn melodies
of hope and renewal
and faith in a beating heart

for i have forgotten
the details you lay out before us
like unwished on wishbones
and you calm down
as if my perfect memory
could cause detonation, decay

but im just spinning my yarn
some facts try, some lie
there is a well up of tar
ill probably fall down there and fry
in the raw sunbeams of your eyes

drought follows rain
and i dont know what i know
except the dense little pebble of us
that can never never go

she pulled out the fresh wood as
it called up black and white memories
the wood smelled of pine and wisdom.
she pulled out a hammer and nails
from underneath her bed.

she made a large rectangle
from the pine, and
she picked up the first nail,
grasped the hammer,
squeezing the handle;
she held them both there for a while,
squeezing the handle
until her tips went white.
she stood staring
at the dormant door
leading only to her carpet.

she heard a voice call, she thinks.
her stomach churned, dropped.
she laughed at habit,
hysterically
crying.
the blue skies or rain litmus test
was a rainbow and she knew
only that she loved it
she loved her door too much
to let it sit there
leading nowhere
keeping her there
staring into carpet

she sat indian style inside her door,
arms behind head and
forming two acute angles
around her eager ears.

her fingers locked together
behind her head.
the hammer and nails crossed,
hands holding each other
and hammer and nail.
she exhaled deeply
standing outside the unnailed door,
looking down into it

she caught herself in the mirror and smiled;
it was the greatest smile she ever received:

she got down on her knees,
put her hair up,
lined up the first nail,
raised the hammer,
and pounded it down,
tasted oxygen for the first time

each nail easier than the last,
like the story goes . . .
a good new groove needs to become;
prefabrications are shackles.
she sweat, she bled, she cracked a fingernail . . .
she hammered the last nail into place

a nirvanic headrush filled
as she pulled herself up,
simultaneous with the doors erection.
she stood it up in the middle of her room,
and realized she had finished before she had finished

she'd already walked through.

do muses go for muses?

sunshine floods vestibules

when you plead:

nonono
STOP
my ribs are gonna pop out n stab you
my throat is going to leap out and leave me

please please
stop making me laugh
my esophagus is lined with mines
wired all the way to my heart
ill blow out my speakers
ill go deaf for days

there is no lim
it on who you
can be with me

smeared
,
flushed
,
composed

. . .

supreme court justices, supreme court clerks, and stand up comedians

i just saw the movie 'funny people'. i just read various supreme court related wikipedia entries.

in the movie 'funny people', i realized the more successful a comedian gets, the more he relies on others to produce material. i understand how more daily comedians, i.e. conan, letterman, etc, have a staff of writers backing them, but just in general it kind of surprises me, this reliance on others for bits.

along the same lines, i was reading the wikipedia entry on harry blackmun. fascinating guy. started off very conservative then becoming more and more liberal as it relates to 'unenumerated individual rights' post- roe v. wade in which he penned the majority opinion. anyways, the relation here is that he had probably the most liberal stance with respect to his clerks writing his opinions. in a few key examples, dissents in planned parenthood v. casey and bowers v. hardwick, his clerks were given control out of respect for their effective arguments and passion for the particular point of law at stake. granted, he must have agreed with the direction in order to to cede that kind of control and thne put his name on it, but, still...i think it's at least interesting to note not only how these disparate professions are similar, but to show the amalgamated community that goes into making each of us as individuals, even those at the top of their game.

on borrowing and lending ii

wrote a little bit on this a little while back. it's a riff off of the opening line to the second track off the antlers' 'hospice' (its the first track with lyrics):

i wish that i had known in that first minute we met the unpayable debt that i owed you

the previous writing focused more on the notion of this unpayable debt and what it entails in the light of the overall human condition.experience.whathaveyou. ... just caught them again tonight, and beautifully enough they opened with 'kettering' which i had never seen live before. listened to it in various live forms since the end of the show before stumbling across the laundromatinee video that i had dug so much before. anyways, probably five listens later now, i have more thoughts on this song.

. . .
struck most by the 'wish' that sets the time of the narrators singing of the song wayyy after the fact as part of a reminiscence. and this is obvious enough; in and of itself, it is nothing. however, situating the wish in the context of a first meeting and an unknowable therefore unpayable debt is heavy. the debt is unpayable for a couple of reasons. most importantly, this is not a financial debt, this is not a debt fit for a ledger. this is not a debt that one expects to be repaid. this is not a debt that carries a necessarily knowing creditor. its a psychic debt, its an emotional debt. this is not a debt that can be repaid in any clear, crisp manner. but the narrator here wants transcendence. he wants to be able to preemptively know how he will be changed. perhaps in order to give this other their most just treatment, their repayment. perhaps for some other reason.

since this is impossible, for him to go back and know in the first minute he met her, the real importance seems to lie not in the looking back but in the projecting forward. the statement can't be seen as merely setting the tone for 'kettering'; it sets the tone for and reflects on the entirety of 'hospice' yet to come. so at the same time that the narrator is looking back, we the listener are planted firmly at the beginning of his tale, placed in the shoes he'd like to be in. we are at the beginning unknowing and in this beginning stage much closer to not being impotent to knowing the debt owed. as all art worth it's name, the value of 'kettering' is in the story's pointing towards our own future course of action, moving us towards living a better (in this case) more conscientious life. fundamentally, im arguing that the point of the song is to consider how knowing about such unpayable debts, really feeling the desire to have known it, how does this knowledge change the narrator as he lives into the future? how does such a contemplation change us? these are the same questions, tho, for he is us. do we live more conscientiously, trying to know and acknowledge through reciprocal action the little and big kindness' received?

the resolution of this question is found mixed in with the drywall but also all over the facade, all the way up at the towering peak; there isn't one place that houses the answer to the most prominent question flowing from this isolated, opening line: what is the specific unpayable debt that motivated the line? i dont feel equipped to break this down or reduce it to one shining sentence. but maybe i can answer this in a sideways manner by addressing an issue raised above. namely, whether the debt is unpayable because the creditor here, the girl, is dead when he realized the debt owed. however, i do think that the creditor in this case could indeed be the narrator since the credit extended, the favor done, is, i think, executed unknowingly by the girl. but thats a total guess.

either way, the fact that she's dead when he gains knowledge of this tremendous debt controls; it doesnt matter whether she knew it or didnt know it while living. she's no longer living and the debt cannot be repaid to her (if indeed such debts can be repaid which is debatable and has been fodder for the initial post on this song). the narrator can go forward, casting himself out into the world with compassion and empathy for others and in this way perhaps repay the debt to the universe. though, as far as the individual woman who profoundly affected him, he knows only wisps of memories, he knows only yearning. this is the point, i think. synthesizing this looking back with the looking forward, he, we, can go forward knowing about these unpayable debts occupying perhaps permanently negated space, and live with sincerity towards knowing other people, towards knowing the constant empathy flowing into us and infinite store of empathy within our every step, finger tip, glance, synapse.

in the morning
ill wake up n walk
feel the cold fill every atom
ascending, looking
to see if plants are growing
to wander free for a moment
to see how much sun it takes to burn
when the underground is home


and then ill go back to bed
and then ill go to work
and then ill go back to bed
and then ill go to work
and you will laugh with me
and you will never know me
just like i will never know you
but neither of us will know the difference

jack pours a glass of water from the refrigerated water dispenser.

jack wonders if he will stay awake.

jack wears variegated blue and gray flannel pajamas and a grey bon iver t-shirt featuring a lock hanging from the neck, he thinks.

jack thinks he will fall asleep even tho he just woke up.

jack exits his apartment.

jack goes to the little market two hundred fifty paces away.

jack smiles at the middle-eastern owner.

jack knows him, but can never remember his name.

jack is embarrassed and never asks again.

jack opens the cooler door and pulls out a Monster.

jack sees a frozen Home Run Inn pizza in an adjacent cooler.

jack cries.

jack thinks about the time he got on the wrong train line and his mother drove an hour and they stopped at the actual Home Run Inn restaurant.

jack thinks about the coffin.

jack thinks his mother is still his best friend.

jack has never worried how this sounded.

jack turns away from the cooler.

jack reassures his nameless convenience store friend he is 'ok.'

jack estimates 55-60% of his life is occupied with assurances and reassurances.

jack wonders if he caused chandra to run away by asking her if she was running away.

jack takes his change and puts his gloves on.

jack wonders why he has to wonder.

jack wants to make a declarative statement.

jack states the world is fucked; we are fucked.

jack is certain of only these propositions - and that he is walking down a street towards his apartment.

jack wants to call chandra and ask her what color she would paint a barn.

jack does not call chandra.

jack sits on his couch.

jack thinks about pleasure.

jack thinks about masturbating or writing.

jack thinks they are the same thing.

jack thinks about immanuel kant.

jack sits on his bed naked and reads tao lin.

jack masturbates and then writes.

jack copies tao lins style.

jack doesnt know if he (jack) has a style.

jack wonders if style matters.

jack suspects he likes tao lin's style because it is styleless.

jack thinks style is another facade, another obscurant.

jack thinks he wants to write igloos or wigwams or open faced tents like on LOST when they were camped out on the beach.

jack doesnt want to hide anything from anybody.

jack wishes he could stop hiding things from himself.

jack glares at the unopened Monster.

jack thinks about cavemen drinking Monsters and ripping flesh off the bone, teeth grinding, glistening.

jack listens to tool's 'undertow' (the album).

jack wonders if he asks too much of people.

jack thinks he asks Enough.

jack thinks about graveyard hearts.

jack wishes he got in a car accident and didnt remember anything before the car accident.

jack's ass thinks he has not moved in hours.

jack gets up and feels the Monster.

jack's Monster is cold.

jack has not been thinking for hours.

jack wants to be able to watch LOST for the first time.

jack wonders why they ever wanted to leave the island.

jack reads an article on alternet asking "why are americans passive as millions lose their homes, job, families, and the american dream."

jack listens to animal collective's 'fireworks' and thinks he could cry if he wasn't so funny.

jack thinks he likes to be sad.

jack counters that the world is fucked.

jack rebuts his (jacks) counter.

jack does not think anything is decided.

jack walks around his room.

jack wants to call chandra.

jack does not call chandra.

jack sits at his computer and opens up gmail.

jack knows what he wants to do and pleads with jack to abstain.

jack reads chandra's first words.

jack reads every word they wrote each other on gchat, gmail, and facebook which he estimates at between twenty-five and seventy-five thousand.

jack recounts every face to face and phone conversation he can remember.

jack remembers every meaningful look chandra ever gave him.

jack wonders how many looks he misinterpreted.

jack estimates that one percent of people that say they are happy actually are happy.

jack estimates Some Greater Percentage of people that think they are unhappy have happier seconds than happies have lifetimes.

jack wonders if he is one of these people.

jack wonders about happiness density.

jack thinks chicken and broccoli and cheese makes him happy.

jack talks to a friend on gchat.

jack thinks how easy it is to fake emotions online.

jack wonders how long chandra has been faking it.

jack yells at jack for doubting chandra.

jack reminds jack that her great feeling of enlightenment, of lightness, of exerting her will alone has coincided with pulling away from jack.

jack is weary.

jack wonders why he is weary.

jack makes a peanut butter, grape jelly, and Nacho Cheesier Doritos sandwich and drinks a Capri Sun and feels better.

jack would like to someday meet a happiness not extinguished upon comprehension.

jack doesn't know what to do.

jack goes through the motions.

jack smiles all the time.

jack laughs at every joke.

(repeat x ∞)

sometimes stooping picking up change
on one knee
i wonder if im home

i think too many things in one day.

i cant remember what happened yesterday.

i cant remember how i was moved.

i cant remember the truth i found.

i cant remember how i want to live.


i cant remember

anything but the clouds

anything but the drought

anything but the smell of rain

anything but the clouds anything but the drought anything but the smell of rain

i cant remember anything but the smell of rain

__the finger extended towards my doorbell

i cant remember anything but the view from my window

__aiding and abetting dreams in their felonies

i cant remember anything but the smell of rain the view from my window and your extended finger and nothing but the drought is real. nothing but sandpaper on babies bottoms.

i think too many things in one day. these are some things i thought and remembered.

of course

listen_listen__you gotta hear this song__it's fabulous__its so beautiful you MUST hear it but pleasepleaseplease wait one sec_____ wait a couple secs here ok_____ for me i have to___ i have to___ i have toooo__ what do i have to do_____ ohohoh i have to get my cigaretteshahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
we have to listen at the same time and_____where is my coat here it is______ yeah yeah we have to listen at the same time and smoke cigs at the same time_i mean right_right

a title to separate this from the this above this

i guess
ive never really gotten over the fact
one of the few
philosopher recommended
capital F facts out there
that i bleed

amor fati

the passing -
the vagabond

wolf moon


that huge, whitest of whites


brought my world closer
to the world envisioned
since the fall
since i found myself

a separation
a disparate object
among a seeming mass
a satisfied, assimilated community


i wont ask her to stay
it wouldnt make a difference
tho i dont decide against from impotence


the moon will always be there


whether covered in sunshine
one with a cloud
or highlighted by a black back expanse


i know she's there

open
running
howling
blinding
blazing


and i know she knows im here


thats all i need to know







so i tell myself as i exaggerate psychospiritual rot

e-p-i-l-o-g-u-e

when you meet the moon
don't look both ways

there will always be night
blanketing our candles n bulbs

we need the moonlight
else we shall wander
in thorns n deep waters always
unknowing till submerged till pricked

unable to see neither feet nor dreams

nothingness is something we create because sometimes somethingness is just too much (of whatever it is)

thinking about Possible Greatness/Heroism/Excellence/Divinity churns the balsamic bile, swirls it around with tenderness, sends it up against gravity, lines my esophagus while my nose bleeds from the too swift descent, away from clouds, and seeing charon wisps thinking its Time, thinking its time to rest and not particularly caring, not particularly feeling anything particular except the lacking which is its own bizarre feeling which is a feeling. which is a feeling that i can't reject. its all thats there. nothing but nothing.

a woman vacuums in the apartment above. it's 9 a.m. on saturday. nothingness is better than this something.

there are cans and cans lining shelves, blockading books, keeping them safe from forgetful hands, stuffed into the pocket of available space directly above my penis, formed from a tight fetal position greg louganis would envy. my hand is protected by a wondrous piece of elastic encircling my waist and giving me the only pride that seems worthwhile in this time. the pride of a limbless man dependent upon others to thrust him.

the pillow covers the left eye. the right eye is losing to the crust. the right eye is throwing bricks at the sleepies window, putting flaming feces at its doorstep, and it wont go. disgusting when inanimate objects have a full voicemail. i stare through the window as i call, my hand cupped like im in a movie peering into my locked-out-of-home where i will find dead my beloved wife whom i wooed for 40 years. the red, archaic landline voicemail light blinks and i think it's telling me to never come back.

nonono, the rocks n stones n trees n branches n wind are not disgusting.

i am disgusting. my will matters not. i peer into my own windows. i throw bricks at my own windows. i light feces at my doorstep'n'runaway. smiling. the soles of my feet smacking my own ass. and i will run for hours this way round my childhood neighborhood. reaching out to 12 year olds on dads lawnmower like marathon bystanders. but they don't smile at me. they don't have water for me. i am crying as the distance grows. i am crying as i run away and yell dont ever stop. dont. dont ever ever. dont ever care less or more than you do right now. dont leave this place.

i stop at a corner, t-intersection, and sit indian style. it is brighter than i thought. families on tandem bicycles ride around me. 14 year olds smoking cigarettes slink by, sneering, wearing the fashion du jour, trying so hard to be anything and therefore becoming nothing. a little girl comes over and asks if i would like lemonade. i give her 5 dollars and decline. she brings me the lemonade and smiles. i smile back at her and accept it with two hands, wanting so badly to run far away from her, or just sob on her shoulder and beg her to never get old, to always love the world and people as much as she does right now. she walks away unchanged.

i sip n think about how to treat this tremendous ass pain.

i will sit on cold kobe slabs later.

i will then cook these slabs.

i will then eat these beautifully coached, beautifully cut, beautifully cooked meats with clean silverware and napkin emerging from oxford cloth button down shirt, protecting my father's favorite tie.

two days later, i shall perish since i cannot wipe my own ass.

a parade of elephants pound pavement centimeters away
sharp fucking tusks thirsty, erect
those huge fucking enwombing ears

i am prefontaine
i am bolt
i am looking to run off into my own orbit

the elephant is on the treadmill next to me
huffing
puffing
blowing my every house down

i am running

i am running fast like a three-legged antelope to elysium’s gates
while the elephant stands 20 first downs away
from my hot open carcass
a free buffet for approaching famished lions
that will soon bring hyenas like stoned hung over college kids on saturday afternoon

i put on my latex gloves and snap them to scare myself away

i want to move to custer south dakota buy up the town demolish everything build a nice 100 square foot shack for myself import 2,000 indians buy vintage indian gear dress the indians up in said vintage indian gear rile up them by insulting their ancestors then turn tail and run.

prospective portfolio poetry (edit two)

greatest day that i have known:
how do you look in the morning?

mouth dry
yellow tongued
crusty eyed . . .

you are beautiful


still

even after insomnia
even after looped replays

you are ponce's love
you are my dear, dear friend


_____________________________

shaving my permanently adolescent beard
smiling an infants smile

putting on my big boy jammies
smiling an infants smile

i curl up in my still cold bed
twenty-five years old and
sleeping so tomorrow is here

______________________________

your back hurts

once a weight's been lifted

it aches out of habit

as it's last wisps leave

it's fingers outstretched

and then

you're able to realize the tremendous pain you'd gotten used to

the overwhelming sorrow

so ingrained

we didn't even know there were walls

___________________________________

reasons n reasons
pile up round the frame,
like,
kids on stairs on christmas morning

but we're mom and dad, too:

scurryin round in dead dark night

to keep the secrets safe

to keep god's will pure

when we should really merge lanes

_______________________________________________

pedal to the me d/t al

there isnt a moment to lose

i can't stop thinking about

what has to be done
what has to be done
what has to be done
what has to be done

i know and
then i don't
i won't and
then i will
i will and
i don't wait
for the kids to go to bed

rough amalgams
of Christmas' Past
line my longjohns
i'll never escape them
don't want to escape them

constricting . . .

. . . invigorating

like,
some psychic primae noctis,
i can't help but bow to my Lord.

_____________________________

i haven't sat in the dark

if we write about ourselves,

let's not lie please
let's not dress it up
shred it
make it carouse with others

i haven't sat in the dark in months

since ive moved to the city
not one night in complete darkness

or at least not many
none memorable

what in darkness(')ence
brings me closer to myself

unifies, silences:

is it the illusion of anonymity,
the basking in self-obscurity,


like lovers that think
it's always best when the lights are off


like the stuttering beauty
discovering her brain


like an elderly leper finding jesus
or happening upon sorok island

likelikelikelikelikelike
like

something else at all times
and never pavement
only a breeze, a whisper
an abstract's abstract

mounts me
and carries me through the day
desperately seeking a night
in which no one can see me
in which my own dissident, diurnal critics
can't intrude on the small

fractious yet fracturing

dense morsel of beauty
living somewhere off the grid

yet there, too,

among the fears,

the scientific studies

left unpeerreviewed

(dubbed peerless)

prior to canonization.

___________________________________________

writing, please meet the drug I-can’t-seem-to-quit-long-enough-to-determine-the-effects-or-intensity-of-usage-but-suspect-that-I’m- addicted-to-in-a-maybe-innocuous-but-certainly-more so-than-most drugs-sort of way.

cannabis sativa, please meet the drug that I can’t become addicted to. No matter the syringes, hands, and opiate flushed pockets.

-I was completely naked and alone
sitting in my deskamong many desks
at work today.
External impassivity; internally, raptly, watching my own personal horror flick: I spoke with estimators and secretaries while my mind hemorrhaged from this unique, rarely reported, domestic abuse. Domestic abuse
of the most possible proximate cause. Domestic abuse,
the resolution of which is a(n ethically ambiguous) kind of career for the modern alchemist,
the psychologist.

for, like the alchemist, what strong foundational knowledge does the

psychologist stand on besides a more contingent, individual pragmatism:
where is psychology’s attainable
(ok; kind of, maybe attainable)
theory of everything?
(the origin of origin . . .
who is
this
. . .
speaking
. . .
now
. . .
now
. . . now)

I was completely naked and alone
sitting in my desk among many desks
at work today.

The crime is typically rife with battered wife syndrome:

"No, no. You don’t understand: I deserved it
I-
I-
I-
I was weak.

He has a point.
The horizon is here
The sun has set.

No, he doesn’t mean to hurt me.
Really.
He doesn’t.
He really just loves me
Too much."

--I sat at my computer today and whipped myself
like the Jesus I would all too certainly love to become
messianicnflagellated
[why

we know not
best guess is fertile offspring

borne of passion,

some(

archaic god complex
modern, conditioned, rat-in-cage, karm police begging, pop culture metaphor regurgitating
victim)]

- The boy stands at the chalkboard, his legs and his back hunched. His words ring out as his hand scrawls.

I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.

I will remember my dreams at all times.

(ad infinitum – or relative infinitum:
a life reduced to second and minute watching)

The young man looked at us all with his mouth sewn shut and his eyes pleading:


“Throw me on the fire. Please, let me thaw out. Don’t make me go back there. I promise, I won’t forget my dreams anymore. I won’t. Never. Never again. Please. No. No.No.NO . . . NO!!

I will remember my dreams at all times.
I will remember my dreams at all times.

I will remember."

"forever." *

*This poem w/could not have been written without radiohead's 'melatonin', an ok computer era b-side, lyrics by thom yorke.

don't forget that you are our son
now go back to bed

we just know that you'll do well
you won't come to harm

death to all who stand in your way
wake my dear

________________________________

i want to end the inner monologue.

i want to end the inner monologue that kills.

i want to end the inner monologue that kills with a ruler.

i want to end the inner monologue that kills with calibrating second thoughts.

i want to kill this judas, this calibrating inner monologue before it kills me.

IWANTTOENDTHISMIRROREDMENTALTREADMILL
IWANTTOWANTTOENDTHISMIRROREDTREADMILL
IWANTCONTROLOFCONTROL
IWANTAPIECEOFMIND
NOTEVERYTHING
GRASPABLE

the gun slung over his shoulder, his
body perpendicular with the ground
neither his loose shoelaces
nor his fraying cuffs - no,

NOTTHE MOON SLIVER-

can rouse facticity's flatlining stoicism

_____________________________________________

"when i think
that i can't blink
without writing:
nothing happens.

the meaning-stuffed-mind
sits satiated
upon its toilet-throne -
erm, chair
- in consternation
linguistically, neurally, constipated:
where's the _________ fiber?
so that my feelings may pass
so that i may feel the cleanliness and solitude
of an enematic colon.

alas -
more marination needed
more time for the parts of my whole
to write their reports,
talk to witnesses -
or: more time.
just: more time."

"what is the sheer passage of time
but the heroic villain,
the will to ignorance?"

"NO!

we must choose -
whether sedentary, on a paved road or
with a machete in the brush.

And so it is with my salty blue pen and blood-lined paper:

I can't control that
I can't write when
I think I should.
But I can accept it,
Waiting for release,
Enjoying the suffering,
That only precedes meaning."

"... "

"No,
We can."

____________________________________________

i'm not a man for all seasons:
springs and summers are bottoms up
even falls mostly enthrall;
but winters have long, spitefully introspective youths
producing terribly meaningful
brief bursts of awareness,
acceptance,
immediately preceding paradigmatic shifts;
but this:

winter-but-not-winter,
spring-but-not-spring,
fall-but-not-fall,
this clipped wing, peg-legged sprinter,
modernity,
where our mental bris stays for dessert
until we look down and see sags

where:

instinct's under quarantine and observation
outta fear
their superiority is originarily arbitrary,
their morphogenesis obsequious,
their self materially, annoyingly, inchoate

it strangles everything natural
in favor of artificial nothingness

relativity frightens,
absolutes somnambulate

_____________________________________

you cant fall in love with every pretty girl you meet:

a voice that runs marathons through tires
and a microwave smile;

Or, induces insanity-infused storytelling at the
FIRST IMPRESSION,
nuking our lamb shank-hearts;

Whilst holding
the heavily foot trafficked
street corner's
street bum's sign:
Will Be Honest/Weird For (soul) Food
like a Doubting Thomas begging,

begging

that:
you might string a supple sentence:

inside my mind as your word play spins normatively
eye up their incorporeality
just past your nose
- in between us.
spit those language loogies sincerely
and:
i may forget beauty ends me
so i may remember.
so i may remember
i ripple the water
so that i may forget not remembering.

must find actualizing, not paralyzing:


my dreams, my ideals
leave me a motherless white elephant,
contextless
without hands that live in iceboxes

__________________________________

theres a space in the light of hindsight
that winds and acquiesces
with the shuffling feet and
darting, pensive eyes
in a man struggling for perspective:

understanding beyond words,
across mountain ranges,
from peak to trough
he lives as a man, finally

or, rather,
will finally live when the god within
accepts his fate as creator and destroyer:
a paradox only afforded the partially divine.