Saturday, December 27, 2008

in closeness and distance

Have you got the time?
guess it depends on who you are
and what you've done for me today
forget yesterday in rhyme-
-not for all the ketchup fights at mattress house
'but I love you still' he pouts
like a beer loves a glass
without motion time still can pass
but alas, the bubbles all go flat without a sip,
only a gentle quip:
'I have needs you know'
now seems like forever,
but the change is slow
old man river's got a heavy flow
so you walk out the door
for nothing but gentle scorn and floorboards
that tap.. tap.. tap.. till you hear no more
finally you know the score
(in the distance you hear four to the floor)
zero to zero
and whore to whore

Sunday, December 21, 2008

So Much Space On the Brain

Like the woman I met from Wyoming
who grew up a ranch hand
In a town with some Indian name,

Words took her
like five minutes
to order correctly
into a sentence


The red Ford she drove
with the king sized bed
was hauling me in drag.
A queen sized load

And somebody tell the tulips
She spoke
To act their age when it’s cold
acting all young
She spoke
About them dying
It's just the same,
lo siento man,
no radio
She spoke and said
we should meditate
on a line
then attempted
to quote
a poem...

“We all despised
the academic swine”

Then soon, we were.
So I spoke some words
about her hands
holding mine
as the ford drove itself
south to Frankfurt
Illinois

Friday, December 19, 2008

$8 camel lights

I dreamed we tiptoed through the tulips
or maybe it was just a cigarette we shared
one morning before work
imagined because you weren't here to do it for real-
even fake smokes take time you aint got,
least not for me.
Someone told me I wont see it till its gone
and they wernt wrong-
it hadnt been that long so I thought you were still here
but alas- a bigger bed is just more empty space

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Portrait In a Winter Lawn Chair

When they drove away, finally – I was alone
Red light was soaked backwards
A reversible stain on the grey second-hand couch
That was this night

I had a lot on my mind
Things having to do with Aztec mythologies
Of too many agate leaves,
Of raped sisters, the original mirrored sins
snis derorrim lanigiro eht
Less about your apocalypse;
More about my ragnarok.

Something in me is a snake, circular
Wondering about how honest people begot ungrateful children:

1. We didn’t thank you for the hand made socks, we didn’t like them.

This is the real reason I hate Christmas
Mother’s gotta vision

Big ideas, lots of imbued fantasy

At the tender hour of ten
Why celebrate?

All day I keep thoughts of you
On the other hand,
The Other hand wipes glasses,
And pours endless ounces
Ounces I envy
Being swallowed in someone’s
Passionate drinking binge -
Motivated by the sweet cruelties
Of their own public fuck-ups
I am embalmed in these stories

Even my hair smells like them

The man Jim the Braggart
For example –
He is a janitor and security guard,
He is rough trade – who calls me “Sugar Plum”
True story.
I die a little bit,
A little piece of the meat of me
Burnished with loathing that must filter through
As polite interaction

OH MY FUCKING GOD
This is written in the ladies’ room
Back left stall
With a certain high-school
J’oi de vivre
Moments like these melt my heart
And make me love what is sinister
In this world
And how it's beautiful
How lost I am
In it’s endless facets
Like some ugly forest
That compels you inside its radius
To dazzle you with the rotting fungi
Of What It Is, Brother.

I am disappointed when I look at my fingers,
How often I am betrayed by my body
Some casual friend
That I can

FEEL

Planning a mutiny against me
That will fruit In a gilded consequential moment
And how I day-dream of it now
Needing some relaxation
From the pseudo night-terror that flares
Through my mind’s Shoots and Ladders
I envision my future as a preacher
In last night’s escapade

I stand on an up-ended box
I am praying about the moon, the space light
Less blinding for now,
So full of bright crackling
I am forced to stare at gaudy
Dandelion sized
Illuminations

"People, don't you know it
You're seven months pregnant,
This is the equinox of your lives."

More a sleeper-hit than the rest of ya'll
A people’s rebellion, resulting in a minute renaissance
There will be nothing left
But the jutting marquee
My sleek revolver points heads in
In a soft trenchcoat, wearing two middle fingers
Like double wedding-rings
They are at the end of my barrels
Eyes forcibly angled at the words
Backlit on the butter-yellow signage
In a slanderous black
"Minnesota's Only Child"

A rats nest of old-book jackets
Picture you with longish-hair
But you're a myth now,
A man who once was coporal
Now just a lingering Christ-appeal

You're followers were wind
Your crucifxion was everywhere!

A fierce brilliance
Like the flash-lights of so many
Mustachioed police-men
Shit daggers in their retinas
And force down-cast eye-balls
To read the dirt
And kiss the pavement
For all of time.

While I kiss something else
Exempt forever,
With all the Scientologists
From the side-effects of the Rapture
A small red-wagon in the untimed universe
Stamping along the broken ribs

I start to count from the list of positive omens
Such names as Lady Fortuna and John Wayne
The Number Eleven,
Which the owl called
Like the sullen nurse in the doctor’s office
Seductive un-pleasure of it
My problems with femininity.

I swim standing up,
Too much wine in my forehead
Too much dust of the day
Left to be shook out some way
Or the other
And pain, high blood-pressure
Continual paranoia
That I am wasting time
A yellow basketI rest inside
Laughing,
Too late to say I was the last.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Tonight history

The world shocked looked around
like a squirrel handed a basket full of nuts.
How long will it take us
to bury them?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

I dedicate to you (these)

Truth is a cherry
Tiny bomb in Robin’s nest
We are all lit up

Written in scabs and bruises
On honey-white knee:
Carnage, decayed decency.

So much waste is made
In all these dishonesties,
Chief Nihilist Son.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Lose A Turn

Time for some shut - eye,
Let's get the lids down on my almondines.
Nutcrackers if ever there were some!
Long lashes with wet noodles
And another afternoon slips away.

Baby Snake's all outta venom,
No insults to spit, although plenty of rattle.
Tears I have to force, a fake quaver in my voice
And I think to myself
"You're one bad actor."
And I think to myself
"What a wonderful world."

Life can't be half bad,
When strangers will pay for you to drink.
Life must be great,
Since trust is currency.
(You'll never run out, even in these: our trying times.)
Easily overspent, or squared away
Where it collects compound interest.

On your eleventh beer,
You start asking personal questions -
"Is nothing sacred!?"
I demand.
You tell me
"Disco for me, honey."
Much obliged sir!
I give one hundred and ten per-cent.
Five whole dollars return:
This time I've outdone myself.

Bears linger in my apple trees,
Ripe as the sour fruit with its 'added staying power'.

Hybernation is a temporary death
That I would give two toes,
(Or one pinky-finger) To participate in.
This is their lumbering
Danse Macabre.
If only I could sleep
Half of Canada away.
Or more accurately,
Fifty Nine Per-cent.

Each day,
I clasp the thick stacks,
And start counting.
From what I know,
And from what I've learned
It's high times, and high time that I lost a turn.
Candyland, Sorry, and so much Canadian Tire money,
Thrown to the wind.
Why should you gain a monopoly
On West Broadway,
Or Gaultier?
(If you pronounce this correctly, it rhymes.)

I'm a white moth burning - I am fucked!
I'm bad ideas about letter bombs,
I'm Roman Numeral Five.
I'm Evil Dead,
I'm finalized.

C'etait pour la passion, mon frere:
I let things fall apart on principal,
Or things just fell apart, I guess.
Twenty Two questions:
Two more, Two Less.

So we're out of breadboxes, wallpaper,
chocolate cake, specialized leather gloves -
Let us make a list.
Get us to the shopping mall -
We shall be recieved!
I promise you,
If it is the last thing I do,
I'm going to give you everything...
Everything...
Everything.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Certainty, MB

And then it gets all sad in the middle:

The fall of Communism came,
When I was in grade nine.
I quickly learned what those Reds were really all about.
I had folded pamphlets for the Charasmatic Leader.
Highlighted by hand, the Doctrine of the Shaved Pussy.
Listened to proletariate marches by the Tragically Hip.
Drew charicatures of Karl Marx in art class.
Attended LAN parties,
Diligently puked in the sink with the rest of our collective.

Soon I would realize that Great Ideas,
Are better off in growing soft inside
The tortured hearts of Mama's Boys,
Our Charasmatic Leaders.

When my hand painted propaganda
Began to border on the sarcastic -
(Soon all it pictured was the sledge and scythe
And the word NO in quotations)
The Charasmatic Leader deamed me a lukewarm Socialist at best,
Told me that my opium, was the opium of the people,
And kicked me right out of his grandfather's basement,
Where I resounded, caterwauling with the other Pinkos there.

And then it gets all sad in the middle:

I began to notice holes in the plot
Of my personal revolution,
When each of my independant candidates
Began to mingle with one another.
I wanted them each for their serpareteness!
To steal votes from one another,
And dance like puppets, competing
For my affection, and my registration
With them and only them.

Of course it was always my intent
To never settle down.
Industrialisation of the student body,
Had me spinning, like a little cog
Attached to nothing and nobody
While all the wheels worked together,
Uniting in their basic similarities.

I found a green ribbon
On the ruddy-brown tiles of my highschool,
And tied it round my disheveled pile of hair.
I steeled my eyes in the lunchline.
I wore the same jeans everyday.
I sat alone, washed up in some locker bay,
A French Revolutionary,
Learning all the subjects (Except English)
In a patriotic language.
And subdued.
Tied up,
In something I found on the floor.

I said to myself,
In my selective amnesty:
"Ne me quitte pas,
Ne me quitte pas,
Ne me quitte pas."

Monday, October 13, 2008

3 works (lao soo, lao zoo?) (revised cuz i was drunkerz)

save yourself
from everyone
not just anyone

close all doors
you welcome the light no more

before sleep and doom
you hum a prayer
to the new moon

it is coming for you
beware

always the opposite
still magnificent
bright smiling faces
so shine your grace for us

and beware
---------------------------------

i pay you no attention
will i regret this?
can i forget to move on,
to further progress?

only time can tell me
what will be
i've seen some things
these images haunt me

so if you wish
to scream and howl
do not think of daytime
be a night owl

care less of this moonlight

so i bring this hand to you
will you take it?
hold it true?

or let go

you know
trouble
is on its way
trouble follows you

if you are going to be so shy
as to leave us all behind
remember
to heed these lines
live in the night

and always be kind
-------------------------------------

Distractions
surrounded on all sides
all of the time

impossible to ignore
the streets
the people
the booze seekers

going and going

every footstep
makes a path
in the road

so i throw a few coins
if i remember

draw some lines
to see how they assemble

erect a poem
or two

flip through those pages
find wisdom
from fu hsi
or lao Zhu

they tell me to be firm
to be correct

and good fortune will find you

should i follow these new people
to find my truth?

in a new city
islands, boroughs, and liberty

i wonder and live in this mammoth building
foreign to me

pristine beds to sink into
they swallow me whole

my dreams go on forever
and suddenly interrupted
by some howling from the new urban forest

there will be no more distractions

Sunday, October 12, 2008

I will stay away from serenity

here there are so many reasons
to take the steps to better yourself.
To get healthy, to get happy
to get well; somewhere
I am and another place
I have been.
Taking pills and smoking grass
with that place's sunset
seems better now
than even this
and I swear to myself
that I love I am
and my life,
when I begin to wonder
if I am my life
I myself
or my life within myself.

Serenity will take up a couple hours, but it won't erase a day.

By placing myself here
as opposed to there
I allow myself ignorance
other themes and other heroes
and endless simplifications
act like serenity in sentence.
So as the poem gets better,
I get ill
and hopefully when it gets perfected
I will be nowhere at all.

Until then, I will stay away from serenity, away from "the break of day o'er a wheat field in fall when the gold is gone and the dinge is all."

I will live here
away from romance
and expectedness
and hope you
can guess what I'll say next
before my anger gets the best of my beauty
and I break a foot on the third trochee,
then I'll cut it off altogether
leaving only here and me here.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

A Little Haiku

And I was, as a sailboat
on a windless day,
having to be content here.

Friday, October 3, 2008

What's up Faggits?

So I was cruising the internet in my psych class today and I was all researching “Poetry” on wikipedia. I got fucking offended, can you believe there are assholes out there that can write anything, and I mean anything, and call it a “poem?” So like this right here,

“this,”
that’s a fucking poem man. I could pretty much be jesus fucking Christ at writing poetry for all I know.

Yo
Know?

Like right there. I wrote “You” and I followed it, by typing “know.” Shakespeare man. Oh yeah, I learned about him. He was this fag who wore frilly shirts and like fucked dudes or something. But I guess being gay makes you good with words, so like I sort of respect that. I wish being gay made me good at paying attention to my professor cause then, like I’d do it, so I wouldn’t have to be writing this here.

Any-
Ways

When I was googling poetry (right before I googled “chicks in thongs” though) and I found some stupid religious inspired sex poetry, or Relsextry, a website called it. Now, as an evangelical, this stuff makes me pissed. I only think about God when I’m praying, it’s like a fucking sin to think of him when I’m touching my dick on a chick’s tit. You know? So like I can’t believe people feel the presence of Jesus, when a dicks in a vag, that’s sacrilege and bogus, man. But people do it! And they call it art. Well you know, you put an “F” in front of that word, and we know what that spells. FART. Yeah, so like FART is just a stupid excuse to write dumb stuff. This for instance,

"When you’re on top
I feel like John Winthrop
On his first voyage
Cross the atlantic

Prepping his mates
For a glorious life
After the second
Coming
Of Christ."

Like what the hell man? I got bigger problems in my life to fry (paying for my hockey lessons, being out of coals for grilling, not dropping suishi when I eat it on a fork, just to name a few), you know, but I can’t get this stupid shit out of my head!

"When we’re both naked
I’m comfortable with original sin
I feel like I’d take the blame
For every single snake
Tempting a nude chick
To consume
Forbidden
Fruit"

Like what does that mean?
Seriously!

Poetry is so stupid. I can’t believe this shit gets faggits laid. You know? Oh fuck, my little sister has to use the computer...


God, fucking bitch. She needed to check a news website for some bullshit current event thing in a class. Eneways, where was I? Oh yeah, religion and sex poetry. So stupid man. Makes my dick hard, but not in a gay way, more in like a, "I wanna pound a bitch way." So pissed at this shit...

"Get in line lemon
I got tickets to this ark
Where You and I
Are going
To populate
Nations"

Seriously man. What the shit?

Well I gotta go
Gunna see the rodeo
With my paps

And fucking Shakespeare
man.
I could get used
to this.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Spouts the Privileged American

Tonight
Lords and Lassies
We witness a history
That has, nor ever will
Relive itself with such uncertainty

A dynamo bout
Verse a great white political shark
And a celebrity stricken pair of no-rim glasses
With a mouth that gathers
Up all the crowds

So Ready all the blogs for
An event like this usually
Constitutes the purchasing of a ticket
But not today, my citizen friend, get your
loved ones on speakerphone, a beer and hunker down.

The feature
Presentation
Is about to begin.

Monday, September 29, 2008

all the wrong eggs, all the wrong baskets

shake my hand now
this is the Pittsburg agreement

take down the screens
summer is over

a letter for my leej
A snowshoe

the silver spur
your tongue
in a jar

a hungry drunk's
feast

Friday, September 26, 2008

Skank Sussin'

FREE WILL
DO WHAT YOU FEEL
PAINT THE ICE
FOR THE NEXT BONSPIEL
M.Q. INC.
DONE THE NEW DRUG DEAL
PREGNANCY PINK
ABORTION TEAL
FLENSING A WALRUS
FLEECING A SEAL
DONT ADULTER
SHO' DO STEAL

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bill Murray?

Got a MinQ coat,
an I got this miniquote
bout a kid who hates his kids
well they haven't even used protection
so they sit in space
they dwell in wombs

and so the revolution says

"Mark the words, of our holy savior
watch the wills of the everday
gospel soldiers."

Like I believe in death
A believer asks

"It's all regional?"

"Yeah,
It is a fact."

Heavy reality
A reporter gathering it all up
A doctor of journalism
Has no borders


The final concrete slab
On a tortured chest
A shelf of destruction
And all the gifts those privates gave
Pulled down.

I'm too young too die for a cause
And you're too free
To be loving me
I don't need one thousand sweet excuses
Confetti - be released

Gilbert Plains is now hiring
A turn-key
My swelling heart
Your dirty hands
Bibles lodged in desert sands

And all the furs
The five dollars
You don't owe to anyone
In some pocket at Salvation army
The mouse is asleep
And sighing in my lap.

Monday, September 22, 2008

A Proper Conclusion to a Paper on Radical Individualism

"So If Pilgrim’s Progress demonstrates
The self-righteous plight of everyman,
Then who,
And what,
Am I"
My mouth questions quietly
Amidst the leaves falling

The reality of an Indian
Summer sun setting

"Watch as I paint
With every color
Of the breeze"
I’m crying
Atop my sick
And diseased
City on a landfill

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Frances: Northern Friend (Or: How I Pledge Allegiance To Shit And All That Other Shit)

Mere pennies day,
Dropped on twisted leaves.
Walks to shallow pools where:
Reflections ‘aint nothin’ but a Supremes song.
Avert your soul and I pretend,
You’re my Frances, you’re my Northern Friend.
Shoulda spent it on the Freakshow.
Goodness knows that I’m one hard woman,
To impress.

Pressing face into a faded wall,
Turn left,
Where outmoded wallpaper leaves me smiling,
Some grief, why don’t you
Let her rip?
I can’t mourn your warm corpse,
In this ivory cage,
Where you never came to bat.

The octopus watches me undress,
Some lecher, hidden video-camera-in-the-bedroom eyes,
Weak legs, that can’t take the strain,
Yer sayin’ “Listen, Babe,”
Some necklace for your throat,
No coat so warm,
No fucking coat, at all.
All ships back out to sea.

My face is feathers, and my mind is lead,
And what else but shattered glass,
Your mind's not gonna follow.
What I’ll assume is my right hook.
And what is left is …
Just a leash.
Unhook me, Frances.

I am free.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

"Rare please..."

A suitcase of things we left behind
sent one way then another
in dustbowls and through dusty plains
an through the red square I was trying to hide
or, at least it was on my mind
when i paid you a visit and I wasn't present-
a present with guidelines; like being invited to dinner,
while your host makes your order,
you invite another guest to join.
and you wonder at juicy steak tartare,
center as cold as shoulders,
how much it has left to bleed.

Send the Dead to Neighborhoods they Hated

Or rather, Butchering a Sonnet Until it Resembles Shit


Waking up to sounds outside the apart-
ment: car horns, polish folk, one morning lark,
men rehabbing the outside of the old
hotel I live in, kids shivering cold,

black shoes mad at black top, bike spokes and cell-
phones. I hear the harbor waves moan, I smell
the park when the lake winds flutter southwest
critters move inside and become house pets.

Lincoln Park was once a cemetery.
Sat right on the outskirts of the city.
But we uprooted the bleached bones and took
them to a furnace. We turned them to soot.

"Live. Die slow," Chicago said quietly
"Your remains will not last a century."

Monday, September 8, 2008

Lit Up (Further Engagements)

"I'm back with scars to show,
Back with the streets I know."


- John K. Samson


I keep a bottle on the bedside table,
And when you shut up, and I dream*,
Of Minnesota's state fair,
I unscrew the cap.
A little oil, for the tangled coils,
That make up my head's heavy insides.

Imagination nails it perfectly,
I am traveling in a recreation vehicle version
Of my childhood home in Swan River.
The door has a frame of gold,
And all the Frenchmen I have ever loved,
Are gaurding the entrance, with braided beards,
With black t-shirts, with feminist counterparts.

We revisit the sights.
Ciagrette slip-covers made of colored silk,
Blankets woven from human hair,
(Red curls, the cotton/polyster blends)
And I can't stop being reminded
Of sitting in that window in Lincoln Park
When my heart first knew your travesty, your liberty.

Leather jackets made of olive skin,
And the way you two boys coulda been,
Brothers, my brothers, my lovers too.
Champagne with ribbons and good intentions,
And the fifty different ways to hide beneath
A coffee table.

The wreck of the Gordon Lightfoot.
Searching for the North-West passage,
A stairway that conveniently leads you to my smile.
To my fury, and my dresses piled, thrown
Over the shoulders of icebergs.
If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts would tell.

It's surprising to find, when you go delving
Into the caves that make me up,
Just how much I didn't let on about.
A sample of my knowledge:
"If you leave bees alone,
They'll do the same."
Bumble, bumble, bumble, bumble,
Bumble, bumble-bum!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

38 Tons Composition

Amphetamine man, how you told me truths.
How John whispered repetitive;
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.
“Later on,” I said.
Canada versus America
We strolled on, me on the curb
You on the street.

I like to ride bikes,
In the summer sun, dizzy and high.
No sleeping, no eating,
No letters left distinguished
In your tattoos, on my keypad.

Jovial girl, bristles like a lost cat
It’s been raining for three days,
And I wonder, what’s the weather like
Where I really would much rather be.

You’re going to score a touchdown,
And I’m going to make a save.
I have parking slips,
And you have train tickets,
Bottles of cheap wine,
And your stepfather’s coffin.

I’m tipsy with an inner ear infection,
I lie when I am desperate,
And I plead when I am drunk.
Can you hear me, can you read me?

The truth is, when you decided to grow a mustache
It was on all our lips,
Not just yours.
Now I am stuck in the stiff upper regions of the world,
Missing you, and drinking milk.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

A HUSTLER'S EPIC


Which side of the bed
Does a gangster's heart sleep on?
Brass lids getting down
And soon enough the green's gone.

Green eyes, green bills, high girls
On green lakes
You with blue eyes, stuck roadside
Playing dice at high stakes.

The seduction of pale risk
I sit tight on the stand.
No witness to this bliss
And you're a gambling man.
My hips are battering rams -
I'd break blood oaths for pleasure
And one made by hand.

Sit beside me, and my patience will fail,
But no one tracks Macks who don't leave paper trails.

You can take what you want from my self-help mouth
Stop my lips with a tongue that wasn't meant to stick out.
Twist and shout,
In your kitchen, with bare feet and apple eyes
You laid your vengeance down,
With yer palms at yer sides

Black diamond ambitions, twin sins, one threat
Every hair stands on end when the lightening connects

Lips you bite like rare meat
Blood-lust
Soft sheets licked like lime
Cough once, lean back,
Tequila in due time.

Do time, this summer
Break bricks with chain-gang desire
Touch lips like a kiss
To raw telephone wires.

Cause strangers at first,
Get dangerous later
Bathed in the glow of suburban drug layers.

Some friends pretend romance in front-seat solidarity
Purple smoke parts just once
For a moment of clarity
No charity for made men,
Or for this man's maid
But a soft-core crush,
And a short-term hit parade.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

For M.

A dark star touched the earth one night,
And somehow you were made.

It burdened you with fire and light,
While it went on to fade.

I've seen you on our sidewalks,
A one man cavalcade.

So pretty are your shadows,
So deadly is your shade.

Ghosts out after midnight,
Haunting Dairy Queen's parkade.

A union borne in shining eyes,
That nothing can degrade...

Monday, July 28, 2008

Alone in Doorless Igloo (Three Months and a Hundred Years are the Very Same Thing)

Making desperate love to space heaters
in yer lonely winters, smoking filters
you find on the street corners, and wandering
aimlessly for hours around your apartment
in search of half-finished sandwiches or
novellas, considering an opera career
as a respite from the overwhelming usefulness
of your daily tasks; the importance of hygiene,
the essentiality of consumption
in maintaining gdp. Growth;
there is growth in the plants and the power plants
and the swim trunks you left on the floor for too long.
What is the opposite of growth? Shrinkage?
Cold wet penis and a gym class group shower?
Repression? Memories of that gym class..
Like with dense, there's no appropriate antonym
as though even the diametrically opposed nature
of the English language
can't take itself seriously for all too long.
Death isn't the opposite of life, because your body
is there the whole time, and its always changing.
Sitting isn't the opposite of standing;
you do much of both, with no principalistic conflict.
Insanity isn't the opposite sanity,
just the logical progression of personality
as a consequence of the incessant scheduling
ten fifteen brush your teeth,
the development of what some people call a soul,
but they're idiots because it's no more than being a person
and you have to ask them what else they'd expect, an onslaught
of broader metaphysics- undoubtedly the creation of insanity,
a bipolar man making up things like good and evil-
as such entertaining and useless. To be human.
To cackle lustfully at the air conditioning unit come spring.
The brilliant undensity.

Friday, July 25, 2008

moving for history

paintings of buddha
drawings of god

i swore you did not believe
in departed angels
but i was wrong

so many more
could be like you
indifferent and moving

its understood
this distance
still growing

so you keep on turning
in any old direction

with each footprint
in time

substantial evidence
that
with nothing come something

so
i welcome history

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Dark patches of hair

shivering in the breeze;
today is your camera
today watches longingly
today is reflected in a tepid glass of water.
What garbage wafts from the street
and into the open windows
is brushed away swiftly,
painlessly, into the absorbent surfaces
of a ghost dark room
at two in the afternoon;
tomorrow is bound to your headboard
tomorrow is begging you for more.

how perfectly god-damned delightful it all is to be sure

my destiny is to live
between hangovers and warm 'hellos'
and go from an angry sleep
in your brothers bed
to some time spent alone
which i capitalize on by doing the dishes in the nude
collecting as many spare socks as i can
and longing for the green lake,
and the time when we talked about it.

good grammar and your girlishness
wont save you today, or even tomorrow
even if the hole is shallow,
we'll still bury you
because i'm making friends for life
the kind that go out of their way
to save me,
and let the wind do the fucking you over.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Do you listen to Steely Dan?

How about Donald Fagen?

Real Snarky
Snark Level 100 %
The Nightfly.
Get oun that shit.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

the names of your enemies

vision of the end
a wreckage of kitsch, and a fragile paper boat
swirling past us

a babbling creak of vodka, full of Swedish Fish
sugary bloodstains on my shoes, and in the back yard
another day to get it clean
what a catch, made for trophy

the main problems have been negated
because wrought iron men never bend

lying feels so good, when you're beloved

like elbow length velvet gloves
the sky is pulling back

a zipper made of stars, and bone-china
is blinding white

the fear is palpable and pulsing like a radiation migraine

the holes we cut for our eyes
are sometimes back-lit
sometimes gone

the suburbs and the city
the front porch and the balcony

i could be yawning, or i could be snarling
but my facial expression makes no impact
on any Yankee conscience.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Chicago, This Time Of Year

You only had one piece of advice
Relax you said, take it easy

In repose, in narrow jealousy

I wanted truth
As much as I still want it
What I know now, though
That makes it different.

If you get locked out of your house...



I broke the window
With urgency that glittered.
And now, I'm down the street
My pain is fresh, as much as it is forgotten.

Shards of glass across the stoop,
Stuck in my fingers, under my nails.

Whats on my hands,
Is also in my heart.

My advice:

Bleed, Sir.
You need to bleed.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

what the shit?

does anybody read this thing anymore?
++++__+__))(**(&*&%&$

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

2 works

one.

i heard about a bank
who's money was stolen
by men in masks
from Seattle, I reckon

This story i heard
did not phase me
my interests still lay in other beds

this day was once
a day to remember
like birthdays in summer
"you've been meek for long enough"

kept waiting repeatedly

two.

i've met many a person
some like yourself
they forgot the innocence
of age

taken for granted
your sisters and brothers
they do not take pride
in knowing these things

so
dissolve your hate
and be free
of these weights
trust me

these days are eternal for us
this day is prospective each year

Monday, June 23, 2008

running back to saskatoon : bojangled

crimson-and-clover-face
and the spill of my breasts
working the shuffle to make an impression
on the horse that leads me to water
savage pestilence got in my affairs
closing the briefcase dully
i know that the only thing waiting for me when i come home
is cigarette after cigarette on your front lawn
and drowsy over-fed rage, that you imply
using mirrors, parables
soft tennis shoes wielded blindly
without importance or any specific insult
it's like you think i have no difficulty explaining
size 10 men's bruises
to my coworkers or neighbors
it's like you see it in my shining eyes
that none of this matters to me
you estimate my exhaustion
with an arm around my shoulders
guessing at how far an inch will really go
spoiled child,
how i wish i had not made you
slow-to-laugh and i meet rides-her-fathers-horse
for drunken night-swimming.
a good way to drown, and a good way to drown your sorrows
we'll all acknowledge our respective days at the office
and step off the cold wet pavement
our blackened soles first,
soon thigh high in cosmic truths
the stars are diamond teeth seething promises
but my mouth is full of smoke and wine and pills
and the pistol...
John Wayne style lesbian encounters,
no money on my nightstand
and shame in my heart.

You won't feel it

You can get angry
or get sad
or get fired
or get a raise
but you can't feel it in your soul.

You might get laid
or get drunk
or get on with your life
after getting dumped
but you won't feel it in your soul.

You will feel rich
and feel poor
and feel sick
and what's more
you will not know your soul
any more
than a yellow finch rested
on a sycamore.

Friday, June 6, 2008

contained

I'm impulsive, taking wives only to beat them later
For previously unperceived shortcomings
And marriage to a dismal kind of glamor
That consists of jealous passion and true crime
Twins and Sisters, buildings, plentiful roads with double wide lanes
I'm always taking you somewhere, a day pass to consolation.
I will live here until all expectations blemish me
And sobriety sets in
What little I can give to you
Before my hair dries
This analogous breathing pattern
Smokey dungeon, vacation residence
And limp dicks, with few real aspirations
But talk, so much noise
Like collapsing cathedral bells, down the steeple
I can't help but feel like I don't really need to chime in

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

I've been listening to dance music lately

Along with drone, they really make quite the team. Anyway, I'm starting a new project with myself and a bottle of bum wine. It's called Brocaine. This is the first song ever, it's called "Thunder(Bird in hand)."
Prepare to get copyright infringed.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

picker

i was wondering about the future
and then that fear came slowly without notice

i am
constantly inconsistent
with my appointments and intent
considerably unaware
of the importance of dreams once dreamt

apathy controls me
perpetual to no end
but the spark ive been holding
shows dimly only for a moment

for the winners its no contest
failure is an object
something to reject
what i perceive can never fool me
for i've seen how the lines get tricky

and the story line keeps weaving
with themes im not conceiving
my intrest went missing
its simple yet deceiving

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Deserve

The term "drunk male-prostitute"
Gets thrown around a lot these days...
But I'm here to tell you that hash anthems,
And waking up to Rush, particularly "Closer to the Heart"
BLARING on the CBC, at, I shit you not,
Seven in the A.M.
Makes me feel proud to be a Canadian.

It's easy love
Like the office copy-girl.

Nationalism always blooms late,
Like the Yard's apple trees, this spring.
I hope that when I move to America,
There is flora all around,
And I can forget my nervous heart.
Know that I can lose the dividends
In a stylish car-chase scene.
I want to fit your family like moccasins made during dreamtime.
If we fight, we can sweat it out, I swear.

Roll me in pancakes,
Let me tend to the flocks.
And if the opportunity presents itself,
An exquisite murderama?
All night sleeping bag hide-outs,
Blink at me animal child.
Sweet as a mass grave for diabetics,
And figs in my eyes, and jingle bells stuck in my throat,
Stop. Look.
And Listen.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Posture

"You should always be mindful
Of your presence" she says.
"Never tell strangers anything
And make sure you keep clean....
Hey," she continues cheerfully
but I'm not listening to her voice.
Her old hands rustle my breeze
dried curls. I clear my throat.

"Off you go. Good luck.
remember to stand up
straight!"

She kisses me on the cheek.
I lurch from her firm position
In the middle of the driveway
And crane my neck to offer her
a sincere smile.
"I love you," I mouth

Slowly Opening the door of a silver station wagon
I get in. Sit down. Key. Ignition and drive
In the opposite direction

The rearview mirror frames my mother
Waving a clouded hand back and forth.
For a second I think I see shadows
Blurred and riled frantically, rushing
From her In all directions.
I drive away.

I’m going nowhere now.
In the suburbs I drive
circles in cul-de-scas.
Windows down with the air on
Full blast, listening to the radio,
I hum quietly to the road.

Don’t live inside yourself
Get on pills
Get a shrink
Get some advice
You don’t need to hide
From the problems of today
That were not named before your lifetime
But you are still left to sort them all out.
Bi-polar disorder, ADD, chronic pain, clinical depression,
Having to go to college
In order to be taken seriously.

You are not alone
So get off yourself,
Swallow your pride
And go back home.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Handsome Taps

Your eyes were brown,
Like a long-standing appeal to a chocolate rabbit.
We could have been hardwired, corn-fed,
The way we set rigid with our agendas.
The bar glared around at us, pulsing ugly light.
A primal beat is underneath the gritty brown scales of it.
Undead hookers wearing “Hello My Name Is:…” stickers
Plastered, masterfully, over the contours of otherwise bare breasts,
Lean long and sigh.
This is where I start your education.

The feeling of flipping shit.
6/8 time, now -
If I am a two ton cloud, and a vial of Special K
You’re my authentic Sioux head dress,
And the way we’re about to fuck this up is everything in between.
You make my ego bleed like key-holes in a haunted house,
I'm oozing girlishly.
Our lives are merging to make a towering children’s fable.
Reckless, we play JENGA
Drunk and blindfolded.

Make me count your rings with my lips,
I haven’t been so good,
That I should be left exempt.
I'm working the laundry room pro bono,
Leather laps up like most others.
And I’ll be half of anything,
That doesn’t really need me.

A life jacket you decided to test in the bath tub…
Soon you’ll know
If you got your money’s worth.

Two Short Works

"Upon Returning, I Can't Believe This World is Still Turning."

Children still eagerly await approval
though showing it in their own way.
Birds still talk across ponds about
who's got the biggest worm.

This place where frightened raccoons
perform satanic rituals in the snow
and squirrels call in seance
their lost brothers of the road.



"Mystery and Sex"

Are you the the type of gentleman
who finds himself fighting off complex sexual urges
or opening your mind to them like an opportunity?
Is it your shame or your pride?
Do you give yourself the benefit of the doubt?
Are there men who make you feel that skin-crawl giddiness
and does it make you love anyone any less?
Does the love of your life feel that tickled-pink butterfly belly
for other women?

Who taught who how to fuck and in what way?

im goin back

im goin back


late night
i recall some terrible things
friends who have came and left
for them i am drinking again

i couldn't believe
what i heard
another friend
who thought he knew it all

so im goin back
to where im from
i remember summer suns
never setting
only rising just to burn out
prematurely

imagine this
you spent all night
havin' times
but the memory
always forgetting

as we knew it
time was never ending
the race was already over
and im always fucking losing

so i guess ill keep on drinking

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

"I had too much to dream last night"

I’m walking through the streets of downtown Winnipeg. People are sparse, and there a bunch of Italian style shops lined up along the streets, painted pastel colors. I’m with my Grandmother and my Sister, and we’re shopping, stopping in at quaint dollar stores. In one shop there piles and piles of mechanical birds, all made in different styles.

The kindly female clerk keeps winding them up for us in a friendly demonstration of function. Little metal ones hop around and clank happily on their flattened display perches, feathered birds fly in programmed circles, making electronic tweets, and calls. I get bored, and tell my companions I am going to look around on my own, and will meet them later.

I wander around the streets for a while, and see a man who I met once, and who I know helps to organize ‘the Street Youth of Winnipeg’ in a gallery of graffiti he has created. He smiles and asks me for money for a Tall Boy. I give him two dollars, and keep on walking, without wanting to talk anymore. He turns away from me, overjoyed, and hurries off to the nearest vendor “around the corner.”

I enter a comic book/head shop I have seen in my dreams before, when I was younger. I believe for some reason that it is called “The Dungeon” although I don’t remember reading any sign that says so. There are two employees in the shop, one is clearly based on my Uncle Dwight, who died of leukemia when I was twelve. The other, is an actress from the movie Spanglish, which I was watching before I went to bed. She’s the tall blonde, arrogant witch.

The moment I enter the store, the female clerk, whose name is Deborah (just like in Spanglish) immediately begins following me around, very closely and conspicuously, it is obvious that she expects me to steal something, although originally, I have no plans to. I admire a particular line of DC alternate comics, where they recreate classic characters like Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern with different more literal concepts. I see the one issue that I own, and begin looking for others in a vain attempt to expand my collection.

The issues are all lined up on pegs on the wall, instead of being placed in bins, I slide issue after issue along the pegs, finding only one issue which I don’t possess. It is about a minor character from the Green Lantern called “Maryan” who is a blue skinned purple haired alien, whom I have always had a crush on. I snatch the issue up, and buy it immediately from the male clerk, who is indifferent, or preoccupied. I can feel Deborah’s breath on my neck.

I hastily exit the store without examining any of the interesting looking drug paraphernalia, only to see a “SUMMER SALE” table set up, just outside the door. There are beautiful dyed glass pipes that are formed into Greek mythological figures. I look back in the window and see Deborah’s back outlined in the reflective glassy surface. I remove the jean jacket I am wearing and carefully place it over a pipe which is made in the likeness of Pan, little cloven hooves and all. I wrap the pipe up quickly and gingerly in the denim, and book it.

Immediately Deborah is behind me, chasing me and calling me a thief. I stop to confront her, and reason with her. I tell her I am sorry and that I will give her back her pipe, I find the entire situation very humorous, which infuriates the clerk. When I unwrap Pan from my jacket, he is broken. She begins to cry. She explains to me that she is the only one vested in head shop half of the store enterprise, and that she’s going to call the cops on me to make an example of me, for losing her money, and making a bad name for her business. I don’t feel guilty, but annoyed. I communicate with her in a series of obvious lies.

“I’ll level with you, I’ve stolen a few chocolate bars here and there, some gum… sometimes, but listen, I don’t need a record over this. The only reason I stole that from you was because of the way you intimidated me when I was in the store, treating me like a thief, following me around so aggressively. Come on, that’s just bad business.” She weeps uncontrollably. “How about, instead, I work off the loss of this pipe at your store. How much was it?” $100.00. “All right so I will work that off ok, I’ll help out, does that sound fair?” Sniffling, she agrees.

I wake up.

In another recent dream my friend Will T. is a twelve foot tall French revolutionary, who is arguing with a carpenter about the dimensions of my desk, which he is having altered to fit his needs. I also axe a femme-bot in half from the comfort of a front door landing.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Driving Pigs Off A Cliff

Children, children, behold
In your grace, I have here
The first and only Viral Marketed Soul!
It walks like a man
Looks kinda like your granddad
And spits forth sense
Paid for by big business
Gather round and listen for a spell
This aint like a thing you will ever be told!

A salesman in a pale yellow suit hands an clay-faced looking human a sweaty coca-cola, perspiring in a red burning sun. His audience, a growing crowd of kids, whisper amongst themselves about what the man just said. “What’s Feral Barketing? Is that some kind of dog?” “My pa told me the soul is in the stomach!” “Does that man smell of my granddad and is this about science class?”

The tall ancient looking thing takes hold of the wet beverage, pops the tap, and takes a long curious sip…

“LISTEN TO MY LIPS,
DARK BROWN AND SUGARY
KIDS, CAN YOU GUESS
WHAT THIS IS?”

“Coca-COLA,” the children shout with decibel-topping glee!

“WRONG. IT IS AMBROSIA
THE NECTAR OF THE GODS
IT WILL MAKE YOU LIVE
A MILLENIA. SO TELL YOUR
PARENTS STRAIGHT AWAY
THAT A NICE LOOKING MAN
TOLD YOU THE SUSTINENCE
YOU DEMAND IS FIT FOR A
KING.”

A number of the children break off from the half-moon shaped group and shout off onto the sidewalks leading toward their homes in the suburbs. The remaining children, skeptics at heart, stand around staring at the two loud-talking beings as if looking for some slight sign of being redeemed.

Not sold, kids?
Well how bout I try
A different kind of
Magic medicine...

The yellow jacketed man smiles to reveal a set of dagger looking teeth as he reaches in a pocket deep within his jeans. After a bit of a struggle, he procures and all too appealing box, packaged to advertise a platinum selling videogame. Growing uneasy, the kids begin to grind their teeth. Some of them salivate as they wait for the man to hand the tall talking mannequin the chic looking square object. It looks at the cover art and turns. It reads the box closely and opens his mouth as the crowd comfort him a winter kind of silence.

“UNLOCK A BLOCK
AND TICKER TAPE DREAMS
A LITTLE BLACK STICK
TO GIVE YOU FAMILIAR
FUNNY FUN RESULTS!
LOOK AT THIS SCREEN
BOYS AND GIRLS, AND
TELL ME WHAT YOUR
PRETTY PREPUBESCENT
EYES SEE!”

“SUPER MARIO PARTY DS!,” They reply in a warbling scream.
“THAT’S TOO EASY!”

But the giant mass of apricot colored flesh shakes his head, and points up, to the cloudless sky.

“NO’OO, MY FRIENDS
THIS IS A BIBLE
HELD TIGHT IN MY HANDS
EVERY NIGHT BEFORE YOU
GO TO BED
TURN THIS ON
AND SPEAK A PRAYER
TO YOUR MAKE BELIEVE FRIENDS…
DUKE DK, SIR LUIGI, DUCHESS PEACH, AND MARIO THE KING!
THESE ARE YOUR PASLMS
WRITTEN DIGITALLY
THAT LIGHT BLUE IN
THE DARKNESS. THAT
IS YOUR LORD WRITING
HIS NAME ON YOUR CHEEK.”

All but one in the sliming crescent shape flees to their parents and boasts aloud the majest of their new imaginary friends to the animals of the forest. A girl, no older than the fingers on her hand, stands alone glaring at the wasp looking man. The sun is setting and she watches him claw, swiping at the beads of sweat that leak from the top of his hairless head.

Little girl, he stammers
I see you have not followed
The rest of the children.
But, without a doubt
I’ll have you running
And hollering to your kin
When you see what can be done
With my artificial man!

The man fiddles with his hands and bows slowly to the girl in the lilac patterned dress. He advances slowly toward the dull toned sentinel and stares blankly at its skull as if about to mutter a world-ending secret. Seconds pass while the man stands before the thing he wants to believe is human when finally, reaching up toward the sunset, he grabs hold of the colossus’s head and whispers slowly into the shell like labyrinth of it’s earlobe. The girl continues to watch as it reanimates itself to life.

“I SEE YOU GIRL
WITH RIBBONS TIGHT
WRAPPED AROUND
LOCKS OF GOLDEN
STRANDS IN A FIELD
FILLED WITH DAISES.
YOU PICK OUT THE DANDELIONS
AND A WARM BREEZE PRICKS
AT YOUR HEAVILY FRECKLED
FACE. YOU LOOK UP TO SPY
THE DIRECTION THE WIND
BLOWS IN WHEN YOU SEE
A THING SHAMBLING
TOWARD THE PLACE YOU
STAND. A SHADOW OF A
HUMAN ADVANCING. AS
LIGHT SHINES ON IT YOU
NOTICE A BOUQET OF ROSES.
YOUR SPECKLED CHEEKS
ARE FLUSHED AS A MAN’S
SHAPE BEGINS TO FORM.
TALL, DARK, HANDSOME.
LIKE THE ONE IN YOUR DREAMS.”

The lines of the girl’s sun-drenched face begin to contort and shape itself into the early phases of a grin. The toneless giant continues…

“YOU RUN TO HIM
GAYILY AND FULL OF
GRACE. YOU JUMP
INTO HIS ARMS AS
HE RECEIVES YOU.
KISS HIS FACE.
HOLD HIM TIGHT.
WHISPER…
YOU ARE THE
MAN I WILL
LOVE FOR ALL
OF ETERNITY.”

Almost to tears, the young child beams with delight. She has never heard anything more beautiful than the sermon the tall man spits. His metallic voice echoes off the tops of distant trees as he chirps proudly,

“THIS MAN IS REAL.
ALONG WITH MANY OTHERS
AND CAN BE FOUND
AT MATCHMAKERDOTCOM!”

The girl’s bright façade turns a cadaverous gray. She looks beyond the man, dropping her jaw, but not a sound comes out. With a shaky hand, she points toward the pale-yellow man and gazes toward the hulking mass he claims as his associate. She tears up and mouths a minutes worth of words and turns her back to the man, walking off toward the sunset. He wonders what she said when the robot breaks through his train of thought and repeats rather deafeningly,

“HOW CAN YOU THINK EVERYBODY
WILL BELIEVE IN OBJECTS
YOU ARE PAID TO CREATE?
I MAY BE YOUNG BUT YOU
DON’T KNOW A THING
ABOUT TRUE LOVE
AND BELEIVING IN
INTANGIBLE THINGS.
YOU ARE A BEAST
WITH EYES AFLAME.
YOU ARE OBSESSED
WITH THAT BURDEN
YOU TRY SO HARD
TO HIDE YOURSELF
IN.”

Startled by the velocity of his partner’s voice, he grabs hold of its cold hand tightly and mutters to the empty sky the first few things that come to his head …

Don’t worry, friend.
You are not a beast.
She was lying!
You are nothing
But a blessing
To my heart and
my line of work.
So get in the car
And let's drive ourselves
To another country town.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Recently

I had a dream I was a male midget in a white cashmere sweater, with frat boys.
Hid pot in Ikea shelving units.

Discovered Covered: The Late Great Daniel Johston


After watching "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," I went searching for more than just the copy of "Yip Jump Music" that I had come to know and love. This is a collection of covers of classic Daniel Johnston songs done by some likely (Bright Eyes, Eels, Calvin Johnston) and some unlikely (Tom Waits, M. Ward, Guster?) artists. A few are weird and generic, but I wanted to share the M. Ward cover because it is absolutely heartbreaking. Give it a listen.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

things we hate to admit

Im all alone
enjoying peace quietly
not knowing why i am sitting here
not knowing what i am staring off into
the middle distance as they say
reminders of comedians
they are nothing more than that
a comic
ive noticed their demeanor
and i understand
that everyone should recycle

but its different in other realms
of art and of science
some stand on their toes
ready to give insult to injurie
although their own misfortunes
would bring a hardier laugh

you see, no body wants to hear about their own pitfalls
unless its a shit joke.

more things we hate to admit.
and they've come along way
its easy to pick others apart

"Well, I'm sorry"
"I didn't realize"

i see how your faults are my own
i dont have my own reflection
i dont see myself

just the people ive come to meet
with friendly greetings
they want to take
my time away from me
like i keep my thoughts away
its okay, only for a while

most of us wont miss them anyways...
how romantic?

Friday, May 2, 2008

Artificial Man

I first learned about hell
On a trip to the big city
I'd just arrived
When my daddy pointed an said
“You see them manhole covers in the middle of the street?”
Beneath em run rivers en rivers of all kinds of things
Garbage and cigarettes
Big rats and who knows, thirteen foot crocs!
A giant cistern of material posesions'
Done left behind by people
Not like you or I
Cause we don’t live her son,
We’re on vacation.

See them people
On that side of the street?
There, sitting, about to git
heself a shoe shine
From that malt-colored nigger.
And that group of women there,
Laughing as they sip their expensive
coffees? All them people shoppin,
lookin for sumptin well,
it’s all their problem!

You see boy, Hell
Is made up of these streams
Much like the ones flowing
Beneath our feet.
They consume everybody’s sin
Till they aint nothing left of em
And if you’re not careful
You can get swept right in
An never come back
I know some ah them even forget
About their own children
An go father others....
No, hordes of kids,
With illegitimate women!"


For weeks his description
Haunted me
And then years went by,
Well beyond my first communion.
An I’d tell them other acolytes
What I’d heard that one time
I’d left town. Realizing
The city sat on top a world o’ sin.
"If we wasn’t careful,"
I’d say
"We’d get swept right in."

We made a pact back then.
We aint ever leave our parents
Nor the farms and small towns
We was growing up in.
We’d promised our parents
We’d never led em to decay
Like them city folk
On top of their rivers
Of diablerie.

An I’d never seen my parents so grateful
As when I told them I’d stay close
An I still remember my father shush me,
Telling, "A life without sin
Is one the good lord intended."

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Howlin' Gayle

No painless interest,
And I'm taking the train.
Goldylocks tied across the tracks,
"We'll be gettin' there soon honey."
One heavy eyelid, like some Eastern cave -
Slummin' hard down Main st.
A five year old with some good moral company,
I bruise barmaids in a localized pattern.
Let me shout some soft words in your ears,
And call you "little sister" with hot drunk breath.
I'll take off all your chains,
Have you sit in my lap.
Fill an attic with paintings of
Lady relatives, cause it's raining -
And rape at the delicate garments
That make-up the wall,
Phill, Philly, Philly C.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Amateur Pornographer

"Women."
Tell me about it.
She's sweeping up everything,
Swaying layers of fabric
Seduction like a daily thing.
A pole-cat, pole-cat
Swinging from a tree.
Underneath
All the dead grass of a summer trespass
The Milky Way encircled by a steering wheel
And if the Big Band rages on,
We two will live forever.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Fool!

I have never truly believed
that regardless of what you
are trying to say, someone
has said it more eloquently
or poignantly before.
That is unless you
intend to profess
your undying love;
at that point
you may be better off
asking Shakespeare;
or if you're speaking to a young boy
Ginsberg;
and if you're speaking to a ghost
Dickinson;
if a bottle
Bukowski;
if old
Larkin;
if Spanish
Neruda;
if smart
Eliot;
if dumb
"look in thy heart and write."

Monday, April 21, 2008

Bird Can't Land

"Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling."

-William Blake

Winter,
The tedium of rehab.
Paralyzing cold descends
On my every luscious fold.
Spring brings on an erotic weirdness
That makes my skin crawl
And writhe.

I feel a Super-hate;
I’m in my dowdy maid’s uniform
Drowning.
Underneath, and somewhere else:
I spread the cards across the table,
With the provocative arc of my wrists.
The way I embrace this fucked up weather.

My forgotten disposition
Born again,
Sweet chlorine baptismal!
A term of nocturnal emissions
The governance has successfully induced
Is like gorgeous acid rain.
We celebrate by running in the streets,
Not wearing underwear, listening to the Grateful Dead,
Congregating menacingly at night
In children’s playgrounds.

Memories, sharpened phone calls
Lacerating my snowy, exposed neck.
The softest part of my body,
And one you’ve come to name.
I want you to Vampire me,
A soft bite, treat me right.
I am wanton and disemboweling the world,
With an electric rain,
With toxic moonshine,
With warm vengeance.

To reinforce it all with steal girders
Would be a fantastic impulse
To fulfill.
A death with honor.

The power was inside me when I crossed the border.
Mecca di Suburbia rolling around the other side.
You sold it to your friends.
The citizens would slowly eat me,
“It wouldn’t be a selling point.”
Or so I had been convinced.

Denial like a fierce bird that cannot land.
"No, bird can’t land.
That bird don’t feel regret. "
As alive, as alive
As we will ever be.
Slip sideways in meditation,
I realize I cant help anyone make Hamburger Helper,
If I can’t Hamburger Help myself first. Then,
Getting lost in a forest of bamboo.
Looking, searching, lusting
For the off switch.

For the off switch…

For the off switch,
The Dead Kennedys lashing at my innards,
Speed is key,
Too many rings,
Looping through the universe,
Knotting at last the noose -
Broken Windows from action films
Will rain down upon me;
For I like Gene Kelly,
Am king of class.
I will escape, tripping ravishingly,
Over the spokes of this umbrella.

Hello Green Vegetables

Three seeds planted in a half-shaded garden
beans and peas and spinach.
There was hail, and the soil is coarse,
beaten-up, tired;
is it holding back now? Afraid of more
freezing rain?
Or did they ever plan to sprout
and bear fulfilling crop?

Hello green vegetables
or legume.
No offense meant
and hope none taken.
We'd like to see your head
pop out more often.
The soil can get so cold,
and there is word of snow
tomorrow.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

I Read It Slowly And Thought Of Your Shape

I want to keep walking along
Beside you on the street
While your shadow
Tapers off the curb
And onto sun baked leaves
This moment is endless

Right now the car
To our left
Is pumping

DMB

And I know.
I know when he drives
Away, through the light,
This will never happen
Again.
And that this moment
Is not an eternity
But fleeting
Already
As I watch the 92 Ford F150
(The sun is setting
on the reflection
of its windshield.
An orb settling into
the first and last
Horizon of its kind)
Peel out at the first sight
Of a green light

I’m back onto you
Now in your bed
On my back
In our jeans
And the pressure
Of your hand
On my right breast
Is reassuring
And sexy.
I’m exploring.
I'm driving my tounge into your mouth,
Spelunking your depths.
The insides of your cheek.

Work was a drag today
You hear me say as you ask
If I saw anyone
Dead. Quietly dying
At the Funeral luncheon I was catering
I saw a woman
Whose husband accidentally mistook
Her For a burglar
And shot her stomach in
While she was attempting
To get a glass of water

He seemed okay
I watched him eat
A ham and swiss on rye
For twenty minutes
He just sort of stared
And cried

You’re done with my story
And now you’re trying to take off my bra
While I tip my head back
And shove yours
Toward my crotch
I watch a shrike
Dive into a haze.
A congregation
Of gnats.

Some hours later
It’s dark and we
Are on the internet.
You and I,
Scouring the furthest regions of it
For live footage of

DMB

And for once we’re not ashamed.
We’re having a good time
Reveling in a man whose bus
Dumped POUNDS of shit
Into an already toxic Chicago
Shit stream.

We're watching a clip
Of a show from 1998.
I fall asleep and awake
In dreams. The truck
We saw Earlier is back on my mind
And we’re fucking
On top of it
While the driver drives

Crash into me
I say into your ear
I always knew this song was about sex

Friday, April 18, 2008

read slowly

Estimating pressure the tips of my fingers
I’m feeling you up, in.
In a pinch, some tender Mary
An inch an hour, two feet a day.
You tell me every band you don’t like
Sounds like:
DMB
Another cigarette, eight more silver hairs,
Wankers at the funeral luncheon,
When we killed.
Everyone still gets sandwiches,
Because you cut them
On an angle.
And I want to keep walking along beside you on the street,
While away,
You teeter on top of the curb.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Short Poems from an Early Spring Quarter Notebook, 2008

Modern British Literature


U Of C

Spring on the breeze
And gorged clouds
Up above the campuses
In Hyde Park the courtyards
Are blooming green about
The history and all the dead
Brown ivy
The new grass sure is right
About something,
As it reflects the black
pocketbooks
And well-tailored suits
Of the white people
Walking around this
Seemingly un-white
Belt.

I know it's the clouds fault
That the endless blue cries
Above them.

They remind me that I don't
Feel their caucasian white I
Feel prettier things.


Flannery O’Connor


“You think you been redeemed?”

He went with them
Although he only knew them
In battle. In his mother’s
silver-rimmed glasses, his
Eyes closed as he ran
Alongside the sins of the

Allied Army recruits.
Six hours later he woke
Up in a berth crying out
To Jesus. A black man
Laughed reassuringly and
Told him he was dead.


Everyone's Gotta Believe in Something

I overhear a girl
Who reminds me
Of a friend I used
To know. She’s
Talking about weed
Like a prayer whispered
to the night wind

The embodiment of
a friend. Someone I
Used too as I listen...
A loud bandana A
fashionable voice
I think about her
Eyes. Her nose
Snorting coke.


Seventies Child

Fuel our war of sin
Conflicting with how
America was founded

Forget the Puritans
And their locks of
Curling religion

Lady Liberty eats the
Lives of those who don’t
Believe in Christ.


"May We Live TIll We Die and Then Grow Wings"

A shirt from a pub reads on the back of some
Man whose hair is graying quietly behind
A brain that believes faith and drinking
Are one in the same like repenting
Sins right after they are
made.

To The Asshole Who Doesn’t Raise His Hand

Look, man,
I’ve got things to say
Too and I can’t get them out
Because you choose to sit
In front of everybody else

You forget the fact
That you are one
Among many and
Not the professors
Best budding friend

So please sir, do
Raise your hand
You’re not the only
One with a hard on
In the class


18th Century Restoration Comedy


Walking In a Park With Etherege

Drinking coffee like its
Going to get me drunk

Gulping it down like
A gin and tonic

Takes the edge off
Always helping

To forget it's nine
AM in the morning


Haha: A Duet With Margaret Cavendish

Arrow rain
Sing your periwig song
& hide yourself beneath
The quickening dawn

With a lap dog smile,
Bid your pain
And sorrow
To the clichéd

Western wind
Whistling the
World a tune of
Praise and bragging

Rights: You’ve
Learned to love
But Choose to
Love yourself

Sunday, April 13, 2008

4-evah (Go anywhere fare)

Between the ironing board and the washing machine
He married me
Blood, and pot, and drunk blonde pantyhose
While my one-night-stands looked on disapprovingly, from behind the curtained bath.
Now I’ve got ‘the flu’,
But I might be pregnant or have tetanus –
Wandering…
I dream all night long, offending her in real life.
Of swing dances I ruin,
By forcibly cutting in,
“Hey guys, watch this!”
A Kings of Leon song,
Gone on too long, tuned out,
A foursome.
A force ‘em.
Some intimidation tactic for the bride, it didn’t function as designed,
Ice-cream tits, and a high five.
Winnipeg is underlined, I don’t live there anymore.
And if I seem defeated,
Then that is what it seems.
A hair-cut that makes you look stupid,
Is the only thing God gave me to amend,
The damage you did by getting between us.
Atheist!
I hate him, and it's good.
But I love you, and that is better.

Dusty Plains on the way to the North Country (aka Fargo is full of Shit-Tectonics)

I try and cross my legs, but they are too long and the seat in front of me is occupied. I need to lean against the side of the bus to pass out because Im tired of reading Tom Wolfe, but the dick in front of me has their seat all the way back. It bothered me, but not enough for me to ask them to move up.
So here I am, passing towns which due to the slow economy are forced to fill their billboards with messages as hopeful and generic as an old man playing a deer hunting game in the puny bus station arcade. He wears a droopy fishing hat even though the lack of cloud cover signifies deer season has been over for awhile. The pump of the plastic handle represents a desire not to destroy, only to gain from destruction, for digital elk do not leave reminants for the digital soil, and the entire beast is laid to waste among pixilated trees and brush. Turn Turn Turn-> Red to Blue to Yellow to Black
'Have a Nice Day!' it reads, but regardless of the punctuation, I remain unconvinced. Only something whose awesomeness is not limited by my personal experience would ease this tension. I found this- http://youtube.com/watch?v=bkQ0qZvP75Y

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Where were the young men?

Where were the young men with their heads dipped into books
the day the ponds flooded over?
Onto the streets the homeless took apart their can
collections and cut them into tin canoes
that floated down the streaming gutters all rainbow-dinge and gasoline.
No one really knew what to make of the whole scene,
as there was something hauntingly apocalyptic
yet beautifully ephemeral about this particular puddle.

No thoughts, no words cross the young men's minds.
Just images within ink characters. When they read
an individual page they found a year's worth of art
in the font's shape and the typewriter's ink ribbon dust stamped.
There was nobody but the homeless outside,
the rest had aligned
themselves along the street in the huts and
staircase'd closed-door victorian-imitation 1980s-style mid-level cost-friendly
inauthentic
but truly empty wallet homes.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Strung Out in Heavens High

Hey guys, What’s up? Blake Carlson here, checking up on ol’ Blogopolis. It’s sometime, in the getting late afternoon, and I just found a beer with head still in it. Well, it’s been open for about twelve hours now, but it’s alright and I’m going to suck it down while I write this to you readers out in interspace

I saw Spoon the other day. And the Walkmen. That band is so bad. How can anyone stomach that shit? Have you heard them? Have you seen them live? Lead singer has a guitar, at the show, plays it like four times. The rest of the show, that shit is just strapped to his back to make him look chic. Also, the dudes are like fifty, or something dinosaur like that. Spoon though, sugarcoated concert viewing bullshit. Britt Daniels wails, but seriously, that dude just stands there, sings his smug ass songs, wears glasses, and walks off stage. If I wanted to hear exactly how Spoon sounded on album, I would listen to their album and cut myself, not go out in a crowd filled with people wearing north face, who are giggling constantly mind you, and stare as a collective body at a band who just demands their MTV. Thoughts? Anyone seen them live? Cause really, they are the shit pits, man. Let’s talk about it.

Saw Vampire Hands last night at some baller art space. That was pretty decent. Those guys are face melting, I tell ya, just skeletal shit, you know? Oh god I just had some of that beer I found, that shit is flat and warm. Gads. But yeah, dancing in public. Pretty fun concept. Not at a Spoon show though, let me tell ya, stay at home and write ur shitcan poetry, do not see these guys live, it’s like watching a never ending episode of the O.C. where, instead of people punching people (which is awesome), kids are happily socking themselves in the face (which I guess is sort of also awesome).

Does anyone like Hall and Oats? I’ve got Rich Girl cemented in my head right now. That shit is hot!

Also, shout out to my buddies in Portland. Been thinking bout dat place and it has left this surreal imprint on my mind. Those rose tree things still hanging out? Vamp Hands coming ur way and Will, are you not playing a show with them? Oh yeah, with that Booze Howl (tight name btw). I’m glad I’m from the Midwest and not that far out there west coast. Those people are Kentucky Fried Crazy and so far from Kentucky.

I miss hanging around ur guyses couch. Did I tell you I watched three OnDemand movies in fast forward? One of those was American Psycho 2 and that was so terrible. Actually, I don’t even need to write about it. Look at a blank piece of paper and imagine that’s how the movie makes you feel. But not inspiring or anything, just void and blank and well, like a retarded person.

I propose we have a community discussion regarding Dan Bejar’s lyricism in “Foam Hands.” Lyrics open for interpretation…

1. “I didn’t know what time it was at all.”
2. “Since you’ve been gone, me and the King have been steadily growing apart. He lives down the hall.”
3. See # 1.
4. “Foam Hands.”

Questions to ask oneself while listening to song…

“Why did he write this song?”
“Why are whistle choruses fucking rad?”
“Who is the King and why does/did he live down the hall?”
“Introducing Angels?”
“Why didn’t he know what time it was, at all?”


Well, that’s about it for now. Here’s a message from the action man…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r44OFO-MNPo

Ima go comb my hair, dog.

Sit Down, Children, Sit Down

You’re just in time! All day sounds from
The White City’s streets litter spring scenes
Like gum stains stuck to sidewalks asleep
With black pavemented dreams. Never to
Be wakened. Never to be disturbed

While trains billow by like a jet’s sonic
Boom circa 1948. Nuclear weapon drills
Remember kids under seats. “Duck
And cover” translates to the image, the
Horror, of dust all over everything…

Because that’s all there is going to be
Lincoln Park and its intercity elementary
Dust all over
Mayors dealing daily with corruption and
Posh aldermen
Duck and cover an inefficient postal service
And Segway
Driving CPD dust all over flighty businesses
And Civilians
In dire need of self-medicated sleep duck
And…

Garbage trucks and sixteen wheelers
As 21st century tombs embalmed in
Filth by means of crisply baked bones
Speckled white left sparkling like

Diamonds setting foot on
Ancient Cambodian clay-

more mines.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

A piece and a response

Do we really have anything?
(unreadable)
What on earth was the last
thing you actually had?
A book in your hands that you never finish.
Then they'll say upon last respects:
"What a hackneyed writer!"

- - - -

A note on last night's writing:
I can not
read that shit.
Must have been too drunk on
gin
tequila
beer
and red wine
(not to forget
whiskey,
though every time it seems I do),
to have that
right handed release.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

We Were Drinking and Alex E, Please. This Was a Bet We Wrote Listening to Franz Liszt

Alright so I’m this person

I’m this something

Hello, I am everything and my name is Greggory. Perhaps you’ve read something of mine once or twice but that breeze you feel on your legs or that fucking shiver on your spine, that’s me. Greggory Jones. I’ve had business before with you people. Like you I like expensive things. Have you been to the new Crate and Barrel outlet on Clybourne? The one by Sheffield and whatever the fuck happens in Lincoln park.

Well I have been there. It’s a downright terrible place and everyone knows it. I can’t even bother to pass the village without a fake smile and a raised eyebrow. The things I pass you wouldn’t believe. Take, for example, the corners of streets that fill themselves with bricks shale and cold. Their doors open and close for the privileged who deem it necessary to create a world where the only existence is themselves and their cars. Which I’ve been in, by the way. I’ve traveled all over this god forsaken city and I get real sick of it.


So when I do drive
On the highway
And get sick
Of the other motorists
I sit and think
About what makes
These people
These drivers
Human made
Like machines
Sick with the

Fits

So hi hi hi. Friend in the privileged minivan, how do you feel? I’ve been in your car and I’ve felt all of its everything and you know what I don’t really give a

Something something edited welcome to the city. Glad to you have you here.

Glad you’ve been guiding us this entire time. It’s hard to talk to anyone else about this kind of thing, especially knowing that it could be much worse. I could be in a stack of the most flammable trees, searching for the next window frame for which I could conform. So easily I would burn. The fire and the signals ever present as my guide.

Sigh
And agree

Lets bleed this
Hey, Alex, let’s live this
Welcome to the future
Welcome to everything.

Cause progress
Does not wait for
Time moves slow
And patient in the

Middle western states.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Sweat Dreams

Something about the
Destruction of entire
Cities turns me on.
Makes me feel sexy.

Thin legs in fire-
Bombed stockings
Small breasts fill
Total war tank-tops

Wrists like shrapnel
Screaming "Touch me
Touch me please
Herald of blight
And sexual disease!"

It Feels good to
See the dead and dying on
Comcast TV
Cause we, as better people,
Are not them and
It is great to know we have
A brilliant
Future filled with colleges
And health food and
Being green with politics
That don’t mean shit
For the rest of the planet.
Like the prospect

Of a bourgeois trust fund these

Thoughts turn me on
And get me hard while I with-
Drawal from bank
Accounts bending down to take
My receipt so
Lets believe in ourselves lets
Keep spending
On oil and war and stunted
Economies
That could care less about us
As beings but
Dig the deep pockets on our
Blue Levi jeans

Yeah, let’s do it Baby!
Let’s live the dream
We both grew up
Believing in...

Intangible things
Debt free with pickets
Fever white and lawns
Mowed vomit green

Lets make love
Craters, Lemon
Lets make
Catastrophe.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

The Never Ending Cling Of The Buzz

This one is for you since you’re fucking listening
Travesty!
Travesty to you is the improper installation
Of meaningless generic artwork, in a building of lies.
“Crimes against the s-e-l-l-l-l-l-f…” we whine.
Combustion canisters, all talk, and no action.
He taps, taps, taps on heaven’s door.
What a joke!
If you care about a pink quilt piece of shit,
And the way they went on showing it to you;
You had best begin fathoming the indiscretions I have taken
With the symmetrical layering of the army surplus linen.
Do you know the geometry of the sheet,
And the static charm of dusty television sets?
All of this mania identical,
All of the routine frantic.
Distraction more urgent to me than pills in shades of butterscotch,
Or oxygen itself.
This my art, daily art, mundane torturous beauty.
It asserts itself in the dull grey of the prairie high-school play quality backdrop, mockingly.
True, epic, travesty:
May I ask, have you felt the crushing half-attended nullification
That involves gum in a pillow case?
In terms of sex:
It’s possible that we could tale cold showers
And, cleanly, be done with this.
“But you just keep me hanging on.”
I slither down low to the ground and play pretend I am in Fellini’s films.
We watch a movie directed by a different Italian;
Di Notti Di Cabiria, and he makes me an alluring nigress
(Like the one I gave to you.)
You know the one, we watched it together,
On an afternoon you could not otherwise occupy.
Watching the women paraded like thoroughbreds
The manes of the teenager’s dark as pitch
So very low… low to the ground.
I was aroused by some deadly eroticism that appealed to my inferiority complex.
I want to be an animal in grainy eight millimeter
But, I know I’m too privileged.
Instead, in terms of sex:
Smother my face with second hand romance novels,
Then read to me aloud from them,While very, very high on cocaine.
That’ll teach me, teach me good.
Oh the unmistakable mildewed scent of irrelevant vanilla, softcore tripe.
Breath into me some viral perversion
The glow of the yellowed shot glasses all around us
Me,
I’m in the forest
I jingle the keys in my fingers suggestively
A Virgin Mary Decal;
patron Saint of the house, the ignition, the trunk And the Princeton.
You should have seen me toting her – all spoiled and rife with sensual deviance.
Oh Madonna, this time I am your son.
A boyish maiden with hair swept back in androgyny, glossed lips
A striped womb that’s accommodating and cleanly.
This is the graveyeard of your misadventure.
That port-swilling bastard of a paper-boy will be coming by soon,
So if you if you don’t happen to mind the briar patch, blonde on blonde…Could we fuck, please?
Let's spoil this pretty canvas.

Monday, March 24, 2008

mental forecast: hazy

hexagram LXII: Hsiao Kwo.

Hsiao Kwo indicates there will be progress and attainment, but it will be advantageous to be firm and correct. it is like the notes that come down from a bird on the wing; -to decend is better than to ascend. In this way there will be great fortune.
1. the first six, divided, suggests the idea of a bird flying, till the issue is evil
2. the second six, divided, shows the subject passing by his grandfather and meeting with his grandmother; not attempting anything against his ruler, but meeting him as his master. There will be no error.
3. the third nine, undivided, shows its subject in taking no extraordinary precautions against danger; and some consequence finding opportunity to assail and injure him. There will be evil.
4. the fourth nine, undivided, shows its subject falling into no error but meeting the exigency of the situation without exceeding in his natural course. if he go forward there will be peril, and must be cautious. there is no occasion to use firmness perpetually.
5. the fifth six, divided, suggests the idea of dense clouds without rain coming from the west. it also shows the prince shooting an arrow and taking the bird in his cave.
6. the sixth six, divided, shows its subject not meeting the exigency of the situation and exceeding his proper course. it suggests the idea of a bird flying far aloft. there will be evil. The case is what is called calamity and self-produced injury.

but this: is it truly better for the bird to fly close to the perch than to fly aloft?

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Maraca Override

The eye changes color, expiry of a prescription pill.
Tonight, my affair is with the Highway:
I'm attending the voluptuous repulsion of the Back Up Singers as a different type of learing taffeta casualty,
Spinning off in neutral.

The muscular reality of underlying conflict between us,
Dangles from a country noose.
I take it upon myself to shroud my misleading head wounds,
In plush and garishly patterned layers of gauze.
Revolutionaries in our field,
We sing an ethnic chanty.

Two dimensional you,
Slipping into some overdose dream -
Wrecked on the crags of everything,
You find me non-applicable,
When you tongue the little wound.

Coffin in rich mahogany,
Leads to a cool magic lifestory.
The Métis likeness of some longing;
Two Solitudes then.
Something-something, I demand.
Challenging inhalations in the twilight of today.

Slaves to a burgundy solace,
I describe an Emotional Holocaust
With a Furer in cheap out-sourced plastics.
Too soon to make that joke, you warn me.
My material is shoddy during wartime.

To alleviate your severe to mild headache pain,
You ask me to murder the cat that you only just,
Just,
Decided to name.
You’ll have to get me high first,
And convince me it’s a paper bag.

I'm so glad we agree for once!
Our sinewy impulse manifest
The tentacles grip firmly to the styles of the ancient.

Life’s Luxuries include:
Your choice of flavor of poisonous Kool Aid!
Digging in with the shape of your biblical metaphor.
The pitch of the imperceptible sound,
The viscosity of diseased blood.

Finally,
And ascending with gasoline halos,
You suggest to me that
Thursday might be better.

Ratolinguistics

Forgive me for stealing this line,
But you have Legs like God’s own barge poles.
The legs of a runner, who failed,
Throwing salt over his left shoulder.
You have the legs not unlike a woman’s.

You have an arresting way,
Of exhaling when you’re bored.
It frightened me into a militant attention,
During which I shouted;
SORRY I CAN’T BE PETER SELLERS FOR YOU
Very, very loudly,
My Catholicism showing like a panty-line.

When you’re blue, I am usually red.
And when we play in the paddock,
I am usually the horse.
Your eyes would gouge me then,
All cranberry and grapefruit.
All rat-babies, and cake-pans,
And blonde and orange and furious.

Whenever you come around
It seems like Neil Young is playing.
I am reminded of the way
He shamelessly gave birth to several epileptic sons.
You carried me over dirty Spring,
Illness carries over generations.

Let’s keep skip-ip-ipping along.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Incoming Money

Watching
Porn
Is sometimes unattractive
Especially when I imagine
How I must look
Watching

I can taste the stink
Of the actress
as she licks and mouths
A purple imitation
Penis
It makes me sick

And you know what?
I don’t get
The faux lesbian thing
What is that about?
Fake tits, botox lip-locked
ladies panting

As if they are into members
Of the opposite sex!
Like professional wrestling
But naked
DDPs as Double Penetration
Right down to the backdrop

Watching
These things
can not be fantasy
The "Voyeur" is now a
post-producted audience
Climaxing


O! emotional high speech
Heighten these words and fuck
This business up already