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.

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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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

18^th 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

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

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.

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 21^st 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.

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.

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.