I cut my fingers on the cheese grater of logic
And strawberry jam creeps down the drain
As holes like little correlating scales prompt me
To call in the final favor owed to me by Aqua Man
My open palms reaching out through slimy sewers,
And into adolescent streams
Finally cupping the breasts of Mother Ocean
I beseech her on her daughter’s wedding day
For a flashflood to come across the prairies
Saline revenge against the poisoned ivy and the stinging nettles
Benten gave me a one-eyed gambler’s luck
And I know my song-request will be granted
Before I’ve even fastened my patent leather shoes
I truck over yonder
Spinning out of control, rolling forward
At an unreasonable wine-drunk pace
So
With one fluid motion, I tear the training wheels off
And simultaneously open twin wounds
In my slender sides
That gush the gradated color of rust
Spilling tones of orange and brown across the asphalt
With metallic flecks of pink spraying outwards
Like sparks from a welders torch
I am a blinding spectacle
Now and forever
An open book of disquiet*
A non-sequential autobiography
Written in a cryptic language
One that we all speak, but seldom stoop to understand
I hang my head in exhaustion
Noticing the slit of beauty in my navel
I decide to travel there
A temporary trail a la Hansel and Gretel
Will take me to a candied destiny
And a bodily inferno
Who knows when I'll come back?
There will be no answers
In the back of the oven.
My co-worker says:
“You look like a cross between a French tart, the Wicked Witch of the West, and a gypsy.”
I welcome his enthusiasm
And he gives me cues to smile for the rest of the day
I glance nervously over my shoulder at him
And breathily mouthing “line”
He rolls his eyes
As if we were playing dice
I catch them as they crackle back from against the glass doors
And see that it is time for me to curtsy backwards
Away from dirty tables, and sexual innuendo
Pleated black pants
Flapping in the breeze, I skulk away
Knowing that for now I am saved
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Friendliness Depends
The Owl of Athena is so kind to me
And ours is a friendship born of a single cell
Inside the fortress skull of Zeus
Where we ran our nails down chalkboards
And had loud, drunken conversations
Relenting only when we became deities
And merciless warriors
We allowed for there to be a reprieve
In the cosmic headache
Using the front door
To make our exit
You were giving salutes like a soldier,
I was shaking my sugartits berserker
I am ruled by Mars (submissive)
With a moon in Scorpio (dominant)
And with war-paint on I saunter through the streets
Loyal to a an ever-shifting code
Dictated by last night’s half-forgotten dreams
The Grimm moral half-obscured
By the sort-of memory of gnashing fox teeth
And the feeling of having eaten bricks
A cheerful rose colored flame in a moth’s metropolis
I press my diamond soles down against the pavement
Which yields to me like a magic carpet
And I rise and fall like a rootless ghost
Sweeping the side-walks clean
Cigarette butts and delicate grasses
Dancing around my pure white ankles
I hope to jump the curb
“Don’t find no opportunity”
I make my way inside a city park
To recline beside the totem pole
And get lost playing “He loves me, He loves me not…”
With the feathers of a Ojibwa headdress
And a little red dust goes a long way
When
Making brotherly overtures
With my fine feathered friend
I donate half my sandwich and a mickey of gin
To the cause of keeping living
Like the unicorns linger too long
In the designated smoking area
To miss the Arc,
Yet remain ahead of the curve
In the Animal Kingdom
We swap each other’s secret shames
And for just one day, I lose my keys
In the rain and the silhouettes of pigeons
I know that I can count at least one person of the opposite sex
As trustworthy
A sojourn in Saskatchewan
A fleshy sea of helpful pilgrims
Who offer up gifts of ice and leather
And we participate in the jungle rites together
Our animal intuitions throbbing as one
As the cocaine jaguars of the workplace
Watch us dance with clenching poisonous intentions
And we are courteous to them
Bowing our matching smile-shaped head wounds
Although the fear is in my stomach
And your back is up against the blood red walls
You could cut the air with a switchblade comb
And we try
Like hell, we try
I am Sylvio “Plymouth Sundance” Jones
You are Esteban Garcia De La Boltaz
And we slip through greasy daytimes
With righteous curves, and sleepy eyes
With chalk to exploit on pavement
All others are forsaken before us
The masses are obedient to our commands
Which we are fond of writing on public surfaces
Running our hands over everything
This Kingdom is anything we want
We are crowned with dandelions
We own all that we touch
A kleptomaniac’s advice on living thrifty
I have debts no honest woman could repay*
A peasant’s stolen treasures
Compulsive souvenirs of everyone I’ve known
A book on surrealism, and one about artists, a nesting doll
Some Vietnamese cobra-wine
A page from a school-book you wrote my name all over
I put these thefts out of my head
While we share four X’s for eyes
Drinking from a bottle with five
Rip Torn
We consult the map spread across my apartment floor
I keep telling you we should wing it
But you remind me
What it means to always be prepared
With a firm hand on my shoulder
And a loose grip on your lighter
You tell me to “take it away”
And ours is a friendship born of a single cell
Inside the fortress skull of Zeus
Where we ran our nails down chalkboards
And had loud, drunken conversations
Relenting only when we became deities
And merciless warriors
We allowed for there to be a reprieve
In the cosmic headache
Using the front door
To make our exit
You were giving salutes like a soldier,
I was shaking my sugartits berserker
I am ruled by Mars (submissive)
With a moon in Scorpio (dominant)
And with war-paint on I saunter through the streets
Loyal to a an ever-shifting code
Dictated by last night’s half-forgotten dreams
The Grimm moral half-obscured
By the sort-of memory of gnashing fox teeth
And the feeling of having eaten bricks
A cheerful rose colored flame in a moth’s metropolis
I press my diamond soles down against the pavement
Which yields to me like a magic carpet
And I rise and fall like a rootless ghost
Sweeping the side-walks clean
Cigarette butts and delicate grasses
Dancing around my pure white ankles
I hope to jump the curb
“Don’t find no opportunity”
I make my way inside a city park
To recline beside the totem pole
And get lost playing “He loves me, He loves me not…”
With the feathers of a Ojibwa headdress
And a little red dust goes a long way
When
Making brotherly overtures
With my fine feathered friend
I donate half my sandwich and a mickey of gin
To the cause of keeping living
Like the unicorns linger too long
In the designated smoking area
To miss the Arc,
Yet remain ahead of the curve
In the Animal Kingdom
We swap each other’s secret shames
And for just one day, I lose my keys
In the rain and the silhouettes of pigeons
I know that I can count at least one person of the opposite sex
As trustworthy
A sojourn in Saskatchewan
A fleshy sea of helpful pilgrims
Who offer up gifts of ice and leather
And we participate in the jungle rites together
Our animal intuitions throbbing as one
As the cocaine jaguars of the workplace
Watch us dance with clenching poisonous intentions
And we are courteous to them
Bowing our matching smile-shaped head wounds
Although the fear is in my stomach
And your back is up against the blood red walls
You could cut the air with a switchblade comb
And we try
Like hell, we try
I am Sylvio “Plymouth Sundance” Jones
You are Esteban Garcia De La Boltaz
And we slip through greasy daytimes
With righteous curves, and sleepy eyes
With chalk to exploit on pavement
All others are forsaken before us
The masses are obedient to our commands
Which we are fond of writing on public surfaces
Running our hands over everything
This Kingdom is anything we want
We are crowned with dandelions
We own all that we touch
A kleptomaniac’s advice on living thrifty
I have debts no honest woman could repay*
A peasant’s stolen treasures
Compulsive souvenirs of everyone I’ve known
A book on surrealism, and one about artists, a nesting doll
Some Vietnamese cobra-wine
A page from a school-book you wrote my name all over
I put these thefts out of my head
While we share four X’s for eyes
Drinking from a bottle with five
Rip Torn
We consult the map spread across my apartment floor
I keep telling you we should wing it
But you remind me
What it means to always be prepared
With a firm hand on my shoulder
And a loose grip on your lighter
You tell me to “take it away”
Friday, August 14, 2009
A hundred and five degrees in the shade
It's a hundred and five degrees in the shade
and I am at work questioning the rarity
of the metric size 9.
Frozen dinner promised a brownie
but delivered only brown goo with
four misplaced green bean pieces at the bottom.
I ate one.
and I am at work questioning the rarity
of the metric size 9.
Frozen dinner promised a brownie
but delivered only brown goo with
four misplaced green bean pieces at the bottom.
I ate one.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Heat
"Fever broke,"
pronounced the forest
from beyond concrete
and brick work
glass juxtaposed
to plastic.
The beads
trembling
over
the sparse hair
betwixt
the space
beneath
an eyebrow.
Paw at
it, Cacophony
of Silence. You are
unlike sensible
decisions: a process
that will not reap
proper
results.
O’ again,
what has been done
without consequence?
(The hue of the dress
worn at the first dance
of your young
adulthood.
It was nice,
wasn’t it?)
The Revenant, now
out the garden,
sways a rhythm
of a beat
unnoticed.
A Who
that goes
there in
absence
of friendship,
bumping
along
to the unsaid,
things
Not-Done.
Consider this
a resignation,
A promise broke
in lieu of something
that was once
never again.
An
obsession
acknowledges happiness
until the sweat drips
in the folded crease
of a map unfolded.
The math-inky (?) motion
of the “could” tran
scribed to the “did.”
Cartography,
reminiscent of the borders
depicted, makes for
lousy acquaintance
when met
months after
the expedition....
I guess what
is trying to
be said
is
"Lover, I’m sorry,
I remain unchanged,
floundering
forever.
Rebuttal:
Well it gets
less poetic
as the night drips
on its axis,
distinct in
that one has
gone back on
a promise.
Think architecture,
a hoop of laughter
beneath a belly
churning doubt.
The taller the
building, the
demand for
masonry
melts.
"Atop, a leap
sirens confusedly,"
beckons the Presence
or results,
after all,
you are
a catch,
don’t sell
yourself
yet.
(Sweat
befalls the Specter whose
jaunts
up north seem circumspect.
Toppled
surroundings deemed
comfortable
relinquish time traveled.)
Re
re
dundant.
We're aware
of the roads
traveled.
May we develop
our own course,
sweet pea?
And if I lied,
would savoring
the aftermath,
the nothing,
drip as sweet
beneath con
crete
cisterns
reduce to
non-things?
pronounced the forest
from beyond concrete
and brick work
glass juxtaposed
to plastic.
The beads
trembling
over
the sparse hair
betwixt
the space
beneath
an eyebrow.
Paw at
it, Cacophony
of Silence. You are
unlike sensible
decisions: a process
that will not reap
proper
results.
O’ again,
what has been done
without consequence?
(The hue of the dress
worn at the first dance
of your young
adulthood.
It was nice,
wasn’t it?)
The Revenant, now
out the garden,
sways a rhythm
of a beat
unnoticed.
A Who
that goes
there in
absence
of friendship,
bumping
along
to the unsaid,
things
Not-Done.
Consider this
a resignation,
A promise broke
in lieu of something
that was once
never again.
An
obsession
acknowledges happiness
until the sweat drips
in the folded crease
of a map unfolded.
The math-inky (?) motion
of the “could” tran
scribed to the “did.”
Cartography,
reminiscent of the borders
depicted, makes for
lousy acquaintance
when met
months after
the expedition....
I guess what
is trying to
be said
is
"Lover, I’m sorry,
I remain unchanged,
floundering
forever.
Rebuttal:
Well it gets
less poetic
as the night drips
on its axis,
distinct in
that one has
gone back on
a promise.
Think architecture,
a hoop of laughter
beneath a belly
churning doubt.
The taller the
building, the
demand for
masonry
melts.
"Atop, a leap
sirens confusedly,"
beckons the Presence
or results,
after all,
you are
a catch,
don’t sell
yourself
yet.
(Sweat
befalls the Specter whose
jaunts
up north seem circumspect.
Toppled
surroundings deemed
comfortable
relinquish time traveled.)
Re
re
dundant.
We're aware
of the roads
traveled.
May we develop
our own course,
sweet pea?
And if I lied,
would savoring
the aftermath,
the nothing,
drip as sweet
beneath con
crete
cisterns
reduce to
non-things?
Friday, July 24, 2009
'The Process' excerpt
"...We are, all of us, here today and everyday, in an extreme situation- between birth and death don't you agree? Is there some still more extreme situation in which we can imagine ourselves? Yes; the extreme situation of leaving here willingly; do you follow me? Can you follow me if we go?... I don't mean just silly old death either; I mean sneaking past him. Oh, I dont mean necessarily bodily but maybe so; maybe even physically; maybe as if we were just thinking crystals in some other state, imagine. Well its alot less thinkable since space, isnt it?
'There is no Place in Space!' No hope of heaven or home out there, either, but, maybe, a hope of my I being You everywhere, do you see? Otherwise a rather grim prospect for us space creatures, isnt it; caught like astronauts dependant on their bodies"
-Brion Gysin in The Process (286, Tusk Ivory)
'There is no Place in Space!' No hope of heaven or home out there, either, but, maybe, a hope of my I being You everywhere, do you see? Otherwise a rather grim prospect for us space creatures, isnt it; caught like astronauts dependant on their bodies"
-Brion Gysin in The Process (286, Tusk Ivory)
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