whims kicks trouble

Bad at promise keeping

2010-07-15T21:47:00.002-05:00

A lot of change. I don't know what I'm doing with myself but I know that I'm doing it. I'm going to gamble. I've got that in me and I'm ready to do it. Some people call it poor decision making, or lack of thinking, but I can guarantee I've thought every last detail through. I'm obsessive. My mind never shuts off, never shuts up, so what on the surface may seem like an impulse decision has been turned every which way before it was spit out.

I haven't been able to turn out so much as a decent line of lyric lately, but I have been writing articles for www.upchicago.com . Check them out.

Tell Me Again What a Flower Was and How it Stole From the Sun

2010-02-03T11:30:00.001-06:00

I poked my head out of the window yesterday, careful,
like a mouse who doesn’t trust a cheese.
Everything was the same as always,
the dirt was grainy and brown and the roaches tickled
on the side of the house like there was nothing
better to do, like there was no place else
to go.

I thought of how sometimes when momma’s not around
you tell me stories about things like butterfleas
or the way the moonlight snaked across
the lake on night’s that were made for lovers.
I don’t think I wanna be a lover, but I do wanna
meet a butterflea. Do you think I ever will?
Momma says your stories are just that, stories,
and that they’re nothing to trouble my head about,
but can you keep a secret? I think about them
all the time.

My favorite one is the one about the flower,
the green wormy thing that looks like little
girl’s hair at the end, but with wild colors
that don’t exist anymore. If they really were like
tiny trees, but soft, how did they not get stepped on
all the time? And why would people muck up the Earth so bad
that flowers couldn’t come around anymore, that
they couldn’t poke up at the sun?
And why would bugs crawl in them
when bugs are ugly and flowers
were the prettiest things in the world?

Trees seem kinda nice. Even if only a little light
gets past the dust clouds, couldn’t the trees share it?
Why does there have to be not enough? Do you
think the flowers know we miss them? Momma says
you can’t miss something you never met, but I think
I miss them anyway.

Graham Cracker Crucifix

2010-01-26T18:08:00.000-06:00

The little wooden desk creaks
like floorboards on the Ark, the
wood straining beneath Triceratops
feet. I imagine Noah settling disputes
between polar bears and Tyrannosaurs
and naked mole rats.

At snack time I eat graham
crackers with honey and think
that this is what they ought to serve
during communion instead of
those little flying saucers. Mother
says in Mexico they eat similar
wafers with cajeta, gets upset
when I tell her that there were
never any Mexicans in the Bible.

I raise my hand during class, trying
to put two and two together, like
Legos or Lincoln Logs, or any
of the other things I’d rather be doing.
I paint Adam and Eve as cavemen, as
Ringo Starr and Shelley Long,
Atouk and Tala. Creating fire, covering
themselves in loin-cloths of sabertooth
instead of leaves and branches.

I end up have to say a bunch
of prayers that I can’t remember.
I don’t even ask about unicorns
or minotaurs. I watch rain splatter
against the window of the
principal’s office. I see Pegasus
split the sky like a sheet.
I imagine the coffee in the principal’s
cup jumping, rippling, warning.
Impact tremors… I learned that
from Jurassic Park.

I look up at the ceiling, ignoring
the scolding, waiting for something
to break through.

No, I didn't abandon you Blog. Not completely.

2010-01-20T23:13:00.001-06:00

Ok, so it's been forever. Been writing a lot, but filling notebooks instead of ominous white cyberspace. Working on a chapbook about Uptown, because, you know, everyone wants to read about that poverty, depravity and amoral lunacy. Well, I want to write about it anyway. There's more Chicago there than anywhere else it seems, and I'm intrigued. Please stay with me here Blog, and I'll get you some food asap.

Love,

Me.

A good day to listen to Lou and Antony sing 'Candy Says'

2009-08-26T14:49:00.003-05:00

Writing a lot the last few days. Later today (read: hopefully tomorrow) some of that will make its way up here. The weather is perfect, a cool breeze, everything glistening wet.

Excited for this on Friday.
http://www.cimmfest.org/

You, whoever you are, ought to come.

Until then-

Aluminum Pillow Talk

2009-06-09T01:44:00.001-05:00

Teacups for eyes, hair a mess of Viking
bravado. She thanked me for reading
her spilled guts. They
sparkled like cosmic ashtrays- littered,
smoldering.
Inhale and think instead of Russia, dreams,
giant iron eagles hunched over
a rusted water purification plant.
The air is damp like an old rag,
the bullshit of the sleeping mind,
the alarm clock a blink away.
If you can finger past the cogs
there might be something worth feeling.

Recipe for Fertilizer

2009-06-09T01:42:00.003-05:00

A corset pulled tight across
the camera eye. Memories
submerged in red water,
mustard gas, pocket lint.

A car rolling aimlessly
down Western avenue towards nowhere
in particular with a rotting
corpse in the trunk- soft
like stale popcorn, like asparagus-
leaking gold satin sheets
and sambuca from Evanston
to 66th.

When a flower breaks down,
petals pink-slipped,
stem evicted, bees bumbling
elsewhere, pluck it, stuff it
in your mouth,
chew.

Recession Proof

2009-06-09T00:50:00.000-05:00

Uptown is slapstick poverty, drunk, misshapen, whirling towards
infinite jest, stench, crumbs in hands, coins in hands jingling like
sad maracas, shaking to the beat of the streets, shaking as penance
for unspecified offenses- for being born in the wrong place, the wrong time,
for drinking the wrong juice, the nectar sweet, enchanting, glorious
in its comfort, its understanding.

Uptown is rotgut. The fermentation of old hopes dripping down the el tracks,
slowly, almost oozing, secreting from the wood and steel, stinking like dried urine,
one hundred proof, enough to drown in the smell, to surrender, to lay back
in the alley and look up, squint, the sunlight laughing, sweat building up,
everything exposed, laughing, to lay back in the alley and give in, strong
enough to make you turn and sleep, dream with only the hope that this sun
is the last sun.

What keeps them here, the fallen angels? Worshipping under torn plastic shopping bags,
on their knees in the alleys, curled up on couches soaked in disappointment, in dirty
rain and apologies. Is it communion? A community taking communion daily,
one brown paper bag at a time. The hard stuff is candy compared to mirrors,
reflecting everything clearly, clearly broken, black teeth, missing teeth, beaten eyes,
Why Uptown? Why this death, this darkness, this hell?

Stop. Paint this picture, snap this shot, hang it up, take it in. Tell me again
about recession, the “recent economic crisis”, about bailouts, about loss, 401ks,
bankruptcy, mistakes, pain, all of it. Lecture me with this backdrop, the sun still
laughing, the smell of warm grease-traps swirling, look me in the face and say it’s new,
that this is only tangible now, that before we were strong, above the crumbled paper,
above shifting in the corner like a dog, ears drawn back, tail tucked down. If you’re
worried, if you’re desperate for something concrete, begging for stability, look
to Uptown. Always broken, always filthy, sturdy as a cardboard box, sturdy as a
dumpster, sturdy as a home.

Bowling 101

2009-02-04T12:02:00.001-06:00

Kathoom
Rushing forward with the determination of a rattlesnake
Nothing frivolous, no wasted motion, a means to an end
Smack! A-plawk plawk plawk
The pins are swept back into the pit and I take another drag of my cigarette.
The machine resets- se-tunk!
New pins drop down like teeth- grinning, vicious, empty in their whiteness
Umphf
“The pins are off spot, on lane twelve.”
I look up at my father’s round head, harsh, resolute
He squints towards the pins in question
Kathoom
Smack! A-plawk plawk plawk
My hands race across the keyboard
“I don’t think so. I just checked the specs on the computer. The pins are fine.”
Se-tunk!
“Nope. They’re off. Listen.”
Umphf
“Listen to what? They sound like pins- pins that are on spot, according to the computer.”
Kathoom
Another ball down the lane, unmerciful, bending towards the pins
Smack! A-plawk plawk plawk
They fall like tired soldiers, out-armed, out-classed
The sweeper drops down
Pulls the pins into the pit
Se-tunk!
My father’s eyes turn towards me, squinting, searching
Umpf
I stub my cigarette out in the ash tray, slowly twisting the butt.
His eyes are focused, like a hawk’s eyes before the kill swoop
Kathoom
But he must think better of it, he hesitates
This one rolls in the gutter dum, pum pum pum
“You see that? He dropped his shoulder.”
I blink and glace at the bowler on twelve
“That’s the best way to learn, watch other people’s mistakes.”

Periodic Advice for Little Miriam

2009-01-21T22:46:00.002-06:00

In the event that you get your first period
one day at school when you’re not expecting it,
which as I understand it (can I really understand, being
of the guilty male party that never has to go through it
himself?) is the one of the great horrors of a young
girl’s life, more terrifying than Steven King’s It
or your chunky, snot-dripping older brother who pulls your
hair and maliciously rips the heads off of your dolls
while you’re at piano lessons, and a little red spot
becomes an incriminating red blotch, swollen and sticky
on your jeans causing you to spring
up from your desk like a toad on fire and break
out of the classroom past a muted collage of finger-pointing
and laughter from the boys who always shoot you with
spitballs during homeroom, down the graveyard hallway abandoned
except by the slapping of your shoes against the cold floor,
towards the bathroom where you will cry for twenty minutes before someone
comes looking for you, feel free to return
with a pocket knife and slice off the tips
of their unused penises.

See if they find it as funny when they’re the ones
running gasping screaming bleeding towards the door.
The shock on their faces and the gargled shrieks that wobble
from their lips will make almost as perfect a memory photograph
as the smiles that hung on their mouths when it was you
that was confused and lost and dripping.
As the room empties and your teacher looks on in horror (perhaps
a little less horror if your teacher happens to be a she) stand proudly
with your hands on your child-bearing hips and let the small
stain of “you are here” show that you have arrived.
Also, pray that the judge is a woman too.

What My Ears Laughed At Last Year

2009-01-05T12:51:00.003-06:00

Using a BCS-like formula that combines the data from my Last.Fm page, my mp3 player and a poor drunken guess at which albums I threw a needle on this year, here is a list of my fifteen most played bands in '08, as well as the twenty singles that I stalked around to.

Most Played Bands of 2008

15. Gogol Bordello
14. The Yardbirds
13. The Catburglars
12. Belle & Sebastian
11. MGMT
10. Joy Division
09. Pit Er Pat
08. The Chinese Stars
07. Bishop Allen
06. Madness
05. The Beatles
04. The Bitter Tears
03. Sonic Youth
02. Lou Reed
01. Smashing Pumpkins

Most Played Tracks of 2008

20. Yayahoni - Be My Baby [Ronettes cover]
19. Sonic Youth - 100%
18. Smashing Pumpkins - Superchrist
17. The Bitter Tears - Murdered at the Bar
16. Joy Division - Dead Souls
15. The Beatles - Long Tall Sally
14. Bishop Allen - Quarter to Three
13. John Legend - If You're Out There
12. Belle & Sebastian - This is Just a Modern Rock Song
11. Kent McDaniel - I Ain't Listening
10. Nina Gordon - End of the World
09. Bishop Allen - Rain
08. Lou Reed - Satellite of Love
07. Lou Reed - Wagon Wheel
06. Lady GaGa - Dirty Ice Cream
05. Steve Earle - Reconsider Me
04. The End of the World - Party's Over
03. The Bitter Tears - Marriage Hole
02. MGMT - Weekend Wars
01. Smashing Pumpkins - G.L.O.W.

Last Words From 2008

2009-01-04T20:12:00.004-06:00

The fine people at Word Riot have a couple of my poems up for December. "Thriller" and "Armageddon Dream #3". Cheers!

La Di Da

2009-01-03T15:04:00.002-06:00

Ditch,

Yeah, that's me. In "International Features". Scroll past the Canadian authors, about 1/2 way down the page. I'm the third international author listed. Yikes. Super Gay!

Direct link to my stuff here.

Hipster Girls

2008-12-16T12:22:00.002-06:00

Brilliant. Have I mentioned lately that I miss Filter?

Ctenocephalides Tumulosus Magnus

2008-12-15T16:38:00.002-06:00

Bryn Mawr. Slapstick poverty.

Brittle cords of wicker baskets

Filled with crumbs.

Illiterate methadone dependence.

Icy menthol dependence.

Rotgut fermentation of old hopes

Drips across the street, dissolves

Slowly in the sunlight.

The sunlight piecing through El tracks

Adorning swimming dust particles with

Gutter halos.

The angels, they sing in torn plastic shopping bags.

They weep under broken soaking couches in dumpsters.

Self-imposed paralysis dependence.

Empty hand apology dependence.

The angels mutter to themselves and shake their heads.

They offer themselves in the stoops of closed flower shops.

Crushed ambition and idealistic bullshit do not strong fertilizers make.

Rolling stories all denouement.

Black teeth. Missing teeth.

The alleys littered with broken mirrors

That can’t reflect light no matter how high the sun.

Bryn Mawr, where wishes are in dog years

And even the fleas are starving.

Peru

2008-12-15T16:34:00.001-06:00

Coffee swims nutty and chocolate as
Thin lace bubbles group together
To cope. Big. Desolate-brown
Overwhelming. Celtric strong Genghis aggressive
Like a stocky wolverine, all muscles
And raw juices.
It is vast and renders perspective impossible.
One by one bubbles surrender- don’t
Pop so much as slow release
In somber moves conforming.
Coffee slings sips of tree bark
And maple but you’d never
Know from looking
The beauty diving in
The beauty drowning
The beauty swallowed.

April

2008-12-11T23:04:00.002-06:00

spit outside April
always alone
falling
muddy
catastrophe
puddles eeking across sidewalks
landmines from God
fuck it
fuck you
fuck slipping up
fuck falling down
if it looks like rain and it smells like rain it's shit

the stained-glass windows are cracking
the bugs are humming
smiling
goofballing in my face
black gums
bloody eye
a sandwich board of mediocrity
April hanging saliva off my lips
sweet vermouth and bourbon
r o l l i n g
down my chin
it's too easy to fall
to fake it
to hear the church bells when you're trying to go deaf
already walking blind
it's too easy with knees creaking floorboards
them trying to sneak back into the bedroom
where it's warm and the mirrors cobwebbed forgotten
stashed under concrete pillows
stale air nicotine sweat and grease fingerprints along the walls
that can't wash clean
-won't

April gets wet without washing anything away
little filth rivers dead leaves candy wrappers
humidity clogs the throat
it's too easy to choke in your sleep
to choke in your dreams
to suffocate while waking
limp-dicked and
nothing changes

Whims, kicks, bullshit

2008-12-10T21:23:00.001-06:00

Frustration like trying to taste

Sweet fruit through a dental dam.

Seeing so much potential wrapped up

And bogged down in you

Is a fire under my ass to move

And live and breath and do.

It comes from love, my disappointment.

Comes from being fed escapist figment

Pulp by a role model.

Comes tearing out my lips in

Moments of inhibition

You won’t remember tomorrow.

Like fireflies blasting off my tongue,

Burning out in a fizzle against

Mausoleum ears.

Are there no words to make

You dance or have I not yet found a tune?

714

2008-12-02T13:14:00.005-06:00

You lean forward, a secret.

Breath carries a whisper

Crisply in tune, ready to be

Riffed on, ready for the combo

To wail and nod and rise and gasp

And never give away.

Unseen clouds of vaginal perfume

Drift around the music tickling

My nose.

How can you be so girl and so woman?

We get tacos before the plane takes off.

Sitting on the roof tearing into the food

Washing bites down

With port and poor planning soaked in syrup.

A lot of bullshit that at the time we didn’t know

Was bullshit.

You’re hidden under a blanket staring

Fierce and sincere clumsily rolling cigarettes

And making plans.

You’re eyes suggest this is it. This is something

Final.

I turn my glance towards the park, some kids

Making noise in the distance.

Time machine.

I sit by the window

On my bed

On November Thursday

Around noon

Watching planes.

Imagining Peter Pan eyes in

The reflection of glass

All mischief and green velvet stockings.

What boy do you roll idly through

Your fingers today in time zones

Three planets away? In a far more

Whim-drunk dimension of communes

Built on child-like lust and farmer’s co-ops

Where peas and corn are sold for compliments

And kisses.

Your name slips across my tongue

With hints of cinnamon and curry

And the texture of small wet

Mandarin orange slices that ought to be

Hanging in the MCA as poems of

What innocence looks like.

Plump, juicy, bright and unbitten.

I think that we are two, some kind of

Gender confused doppelgangers.

Protective, sibling lovers born into a

Proper society in improper ways. It’s not

The kind of love of marriage or sex but

One of understanding. One that might make

Life impossible were that plane to return because

We’d spend all day collecting friends and all night

Dreaming with them and making noise in parks while

Grandparents slept, and bankers slept, and machinists slept

And angels slept, and teachers slept, and bus drivers slept

And only children were awake in dreams

Laughing and chasing each other through bushes.

Poem, You Cheeky Bastard

2008-12-02T12:54:00.002-06:00

Poetry ought to simplify things. It ought to explain things, bring people together. That's the grandiose ideal I suppose. In a real practical world, poetry causes trouble. It incites confusion. A form so lending of itself to personal interpretation brings the hammer down on personal relationships. I accidentally typed relationshops. Maybe that's more accurate. It's a lot of fucking work.

Recession

2008-11-15T14:57:00.006-06:00

With the Tough Economic Times
Our Nation is facing
Prostitution might seem like
An easy way out.
Yes, my pocketbook has been
Hit hard, but I cannot say
That I sold myself to make
Ends meet.
I took a mortgage out on
Angelic Beauty and Truth,
Held a yard sale
And let my Best Self go to the highest bidder.
Truth seemed too difficult to face,
Love too intimidating to appreciate.
Where an outsider might have
Seen a man blessed with a woman
Who would never do him wrong,
I looked in the mirror and thought I saw
Happiness behind me.
I took the “profit” and ran
Like a child through a shopping mall
Snatching up anything I thought
Could offer me a glimmer of hope,
Some serene distraction and some
Holy answer to every dilemma I could
Conjure- sod
For the greener grass from
The Other Yard.
At first infant blades sprung
Up verdisimo. It seemed the instant
Gratification of drops both rain and tear
Would be the solution I craved.
But like a boy from Chicago
Ought to have anticipated, the seasons changed.
Even plants of the deepest root fade at
Winter’s advance. Where was my foresight?
Of course the green gave way to
Dull stinking brown,
Leaving nothing but a hunk
Of mildewed carpet, rotting and cold
Under heaps of filthy snow.
No matter how high I turn up the heat
My skin still trembles under the cutting
Of a sharp, chill wind blasting steadily through
The hole of my mistake.
I used to be the kind of person
Who when asked what his greatest regret was,
Would proudly proclaim
With great big chip-on-his-shoulder-logic
And bravado that I had no regrets.
That every choice I’d made, every decision,
Shaped the Man that I Was.
Those, of course, are the words of a boy.
The only thing on my shoulder
Now is a draped blanket, a feeble attempt
To secure some warmth while staring out the window
At the dead lawn. Somewhere in the faint
Reflection on the glass I’m sure that I can see
Happiness behind me.

America

2008-11-15T14:53:00.008-06:00

The local trout
Spout pout&doubt
About what we’re doing
To their home.

The birds
Heard the word
And flew south.

The mice think twice
About our vice.

The owl boo-hoos at our boo-boos.

The wild deer
Think its clear time
To wipe the tear and
Disappear.

The grizzly bear
Don’t think its fair
He gotta grin&bear.

The skunk is in a
Funk about piles of junk in his yard.

The dirty rat thinks we’re a dirty rat.

Cubs Celebrate 100 Year Anniversary Since Last World Series Title...

2008-10-06T19:15:00.002-05:00

...By Promptly Being Swept From The Playoffs.

Accountability: Poets and Comedians Take Fall For 9/11

2008-09-23T12:09:00.004-05:00

Bill Maher likes to boast on his show, Real Time, that he is the only person who lost his job as a result of 9/11.

ABC did not renew Bill's contract for Politically Incorrect after he agreed with political analyst Dinesh D'Souza in saying that the 9/11 hijackers were, contrary to the popular thing to say, not cowards.

"We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." - Bill Maher

Well Bill, you're not the only one.

I've been reading some Amiri Baraka the last couple days, and I've discovered that he, apparently, lost his job over 9/11 too. At the time of the attacks, Baraka was New Jersey's Poet Laureate, a title that was stripped from him after he wrote "Somebody Blew Up America". The Anti-Defamation League attacked the poem, and the poet, calling the work "Anti-Semitic venom". The claim is essentially based in ignorance, especially when one considers the questions Baraka raises on behalf of Jews about their own experiences with the "domestic terrorism" he suggests has become a part of daily life for African-Americans.

Governor Jim McGreevey, after the poems publication, attempted to remove Baraka from the position of Poet Laureate. After learning that there was no legal way to strip Baraka of the title, he abolished the position all together.

Better that there be no voice than a voice that won't fall in line.

Here you can read Amiri Baraka's response to claims that the poem is Anti-Semitic.

America Headed Nowhere, Palin is Bridge to Get Us There

2008-09-16T15:35:00.003-05:00

2005 - Congress passes the 2006 National Department of Transportation Appropriations Bill, which includes $442 million dollars earmarked to build the infamous "Bridge(s) to Nowhere"

2006 - Sarah Palin runs for governor of Alaska on a "build-the-bridge" platform, telling residents of Ketchikan she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere".

2007 - (August) Arizona Senator John McCain blames congress for a horrific bridge collapse in Minneapolis, citing pork-barrel spending on wasteful projects as a cause for lack of inspections and maintenance.

2007 - (September) Governor Sarah Palin cancels construction on one of the two bridges. Alaska keeps the $442 million dollars and uses some of the money to build a new road in the place to proposed bridge would have gone. Palin maintains her support for funding for the second bridge.

2008 - John McCain chooses Sarah Palin to run as his Vice President. In both her induction speech she claims to have "told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere".

Check out this great video montage put together by Hardball.

Still

2008-09-12T10:13:00.000-05:00

Dorothy

2008-09-02T12:12:00.003-05:00

yr grim face in mosaics
like a stalking tiger
watching me
teeth gnarled and
anxious
yr eyes sizzling discontent
wincing in pain, brows
furrowed
cringing at being
as if there's no place like home
noplacelikehome
noplacelikehome
noplacelikehome

OSFR Featured Poet

2008-09-02T12:10:00.002-05:00

A little late, but it happened.

O Sweet Flowery Roses

...

2008-08-16T14:27:00.003-05:00

every thought i have gets
black-boxed so just
go ahead and
layitonme

i'm elliptical
drunk on moonshine light glowing
before you stop
what?
yr doing
b r e a t h e
cancel remarks, abstain-
bad sex bad sex bad sex
sexsexsex
boom...

tinker with machines long enough
and they'll blow
quack and cover
puritan bombs exploding
bemoaning belittling bewitching
just bitching
the fire is going out and with it the (inner)light
i cannot wield this pen(is) without comparison
to dead language dead men dead laws dead ideology
putting a hand over my mouth
and a bleep in my speach

my dotdotdots lay stagnant
as i watch a zombie christ parade down michigan avenue
and nobody says anything (worth saying)
i've given up rather be
in bed
late nights planning out later breakfasts
a she and a mattress making a sandwich of me
all ham&cheese
and saving some for the poor
youknowthere'schildrenstarvinginchina?
in hell (just down the street)

ink can't scratch out spoken word
and i've no podium
if ignorance is bliss then
instant gratification is patriotism
so just jot me down for another dotdotdot
and don't tell me twice
because i've heard it all before

Sphinx (version 2)

2008-08-14T18:50:00.002-05:00

In a cold syrup sweat
His trembling fingers
Clutch a cigarette and mash keys.
His eyes squint in the dark against the glare of the screen.
Trying to find the right letters
To make the right words.
The note seems hollow upon completion.

She’s asleep a couple feet away from him
With a calm, porcelain face,
Looking safe, looking cherubic and sweet.
Her chest rises and falls softly
Massaging the breath from her lungs
In a way that only one with ultimate confidence in love can manage.

He walks out the front door solemnly
And his legs hit the ground like
Cinder blocks
Banging against the pavement.
He stops in front of the corner pub
And stomps out his cigarette,
The last plume of smoke whirling like a bored ghost
Towards the street lights.

He gets drunks while she sleeps, nestled
In the sarcophagus of dream.
Glancing around the bar he spots
At least sixteen girls he’d like to fuck.
None would be as good to him as she is
But that hardly matters now.

Lolla Poem #1

2008-08-14T18:01:00.003-05:00

Clouds are drifting
Cotton balls over
A newly constructed
penis-
I mean skyscraper.

Thriller

2008-07-07T01:10:00.002-05:00

I’m too bloated to worry about having cool shoes.
No one gives a fuck what your kicks look like if you have a gut.
I don’t know if anyone cares that I have a gut either, but I’m certain about the shoes.
It’s comfortable, having one less part of myself to properly accessorize.
I don’t wear a watch ever since I got a cell phone,
And I couldn’t care less about my underwear since only one or two people ever see them.
They way I figure it, if you want to take my pants off, there isn’t any fashion
Faux-pas that’s going to ruin my chances. You’ve already made the big commitment.
As for a belt, if you’re undoing the thing it’s most likely dark, and you’re probably drunk,
So we can negate any significance there too.
Pants have never been much of a problem since the more I wear them out
The more in style they seem to be. Toss in a sixty cent thrift store t that says
Something fairly stupid or has the name of a kid’s baseball team on it and I’m just about
Home free.

My family has long ago accepted that I’m a “quirky dresser”. I got them off
My back early in high school by showing up to Easter with green and purple hair.
Hair is another one that only gets easier, so long as you’re a guy.
I’ve seen countless males (?) who’ve spent countless hours getting their
Head to appear is if they just rolled off the pillow and hadn’t showered.
That’s easy. Just roll out of bed and don’t shower.
Ok, scratch that, shower, but don’t ever style your hair.
Just let it dry where it will and you’ll be accepted in most social circles.

The only place I ever seem to have problems is at work, and with socks.
What tyrant deemed white socks an inappropriate match
For dress slacks and shoes? Whenever questioned by a superior about my footwear I just insist it’s
A statement about baseball
Or bring up Michael Jackson.
Note: This is the only time that comparing yourself to Michael Jackson
Will get you off the hook for anything, let alone make people smile.
Poor Jacko.

Penetration

2008-07-02T03:14:00.002-05:00

So, I'm working on a new lit mag out of Chicago called Penetration. We're looking for submissions, so if you happen by here and are interested, feel free to check us out.

http://penetrationmag.blogspot.com/

Thanks.

Armageddon Dream #3

2008-06-30T14:18:00.001-05:00

I hear the jingle of bells closing in.
Looking up, there he is,
A frumpy little Mexican
Steering a paletas bike.
Only instead of sweet and sticky ice cream
He’s selling 45’s, a penny a piece.

I signal for him to slow,
Reach into my pocket
And scoop about fifty cents in change.

The air is getting thicker.
The sun is creeping closer
And I want to listen to these records
Before it’s too late.

He points to the top of a ziggurat
Explaining I might find a turntable there.

Knees buckling helplessly
I climb the soft, stone steps
Trying not to press too hard
In a vain effort to preserve the ancient form.

After what seems like hours
I make it to the top.
Pull the records from my backpack,
And just like he said,
There on a little log sits a record player.

I sort through the singles until I find some Madness,
Set the needle down,
And the music booms out of the clouds.
The sky fizzles and melts.
The pores of the stone start to pulsate
As if trying to snatch one final breath.
The last thing I remember is a dazzling flash of light
And the record skipping.
And the record skipping.
And the record skipping.

Big Fucking Wall

2008-06-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

Each brick is made up of aborted sentences and
Chips of unspoken words
Fused together with my own stupidity for not telling you what was on my mind

The regret is harder than diamonds and coated
In the gloss of 20/20 hindsight that turns the whole thing
Into a mirror, which is the worst

The thing is unclimable
The soles of my shoes are slicked with syrupy indecision
And I can see that you’ve been lacing barbs of discontent along the top anyway

Sometimes I can hear you on the other side talking to yourself
An impromptu monologue of all the things that you never spit at me
And I feel your saliva dripping down my cheek like a ghost

I’ve tried to carve words into the bricks but the knife just breaks
And it’s like old times all over again
Did you ever see Groundhog Day?

Evolution

2008-06-01T16:02:00.001-05:00

The most important contribution
To the history of the world
That my generation has to offer is the
End of it

Through war, disease, complacency
Ignorance, hatred, reality tv, apathy
Poverty, theft, isolation
Rape, bottled water and fear
We will jackhammer the foundations
Of civilization until there is nothing
Left

The earth will have one gaping hole
Filled with the tears of bystanders
And the blood of the indifferent

Roaches will probably survive

Note: This poem can be read in Vowel Movements magazine.

Untitled

2008-05-15T10:00:00.002-05:00

Reading on a hardwood floor
Imagining picnics
And pottery
Sipping whiskey
She looked up at him
Through junk eyes and posed
Absurd questions

He was so drunk
He thought it was cute
Borders melting into Monet-looking mess

Puddles of brain juice jiggled
She bragged about
Silly indiscretions
He couldn’t focus so he smiled
Bitter like soy sauce on chapped
Lips

She leaned in to kiss him and almost
Missed
He only noticed that she had tried and
Pressed his mouth to her neck
Like wax fingerprints
On text books

He thought the kiss was as empty as old newspaper boxes
Blurry shoes with no feet

She said unsure things and confused language with math
But it was honest
He thought that
All things considered
This wasn’t enough

His clammy hands ran past the moment
Into his pockets
He fumbled for his lighter thinking
This was as good as it would get
Sober or not
Lit a cigarette and his vision cleared up a bit
Her eyes sunk and bloody
Her skin hollow
All of it lacking

Note: This poem can be read in Kill Poet magazine.

Sphinx

2008-04-19T13:47:00.007-05:00

In a cold syrup sweat
Trembling fingers
Clutching a cigarette
Mashing keys
Eyes squinting in the dark
To find the right words

You’re asleep a couple feet away
With a calm, porcelain face
Looking safe, feeling loved
Not knowing I've been up for over an hour

I walk out the front door and
My legs hit the ground like
Cinder blocks
Banging against the pavement
Until I get to the corner pub

I get drunk on Maker's
And solitude
While you lay
In the sarcophagus of dream

Glancing around the bar I can spot
At least sixteen girls I’d like to fuck
And I can only wish you weren’t so good me

The Architects of Failure

2008-04-14T17:28:00.003-05:00

I’ve never relied so heavily
On something I detest as much
As my hands-
Musically clumsy
With tragic stump fingers
They seem to only have a firm grip on betrayal.

In written words I’ve always found more clarity
Than in a million verbal tries.
But my wrists and palms cannot keep up
With the speed of thought-
Cramping and failing
Like a deteriorated old fool
Too stubborn to surrender to age.

Despite the love of music that my ears provide
It is my hands-
With short and inefficient fingers
Stumbling across strings and banging
All the wrong notes-
That render me tuneless.

Through erratic snaps and twitches
They expose me at my most vulnerable.
Through their unsure clammy grasp
They soil even the tenderest of gestures.
They prove themselves just as worthless
In more masculine situations.
With pre-arthritic weakness
They render me a mediocre puncher,
A frustrated hockey player,
And an un-intimidating ‘fuck you’.

I hate my hands,
Whose mind so often disagrees with me
Because they have created by far
More trouble than they’re worth-
Tracing adulterous lines
When they should be lovingly focused-
And yet when alone,
Only serving as a melancholy reminder of solitude.
I’m a prisoner to their whim,
Finding that no matter where I put them
They never rest content.
Always condescending,
Always taunting that they are the foundation
Of all of my accomplishments
And constantly the architects of failure.

Time Out

2008-03-26T14:13:00.001-05:00

She drifts across the sand like a lost note
From Paul Desmond’s sax
Her hips swinging to the swish of the waves

I start to fall in love with the cool apathy in her moves
She climbs the rocks near the shore, unafraid of slipping through the cracks
Bare feet scrape against the limestone
I stand at the base of the cliff, looking up, lost in her thighs
Which look like twin moons sprinkling light across the beach

She’s talking about Russian literature
And the way the light from the city glints off the white caps
Almost inviting you to jump into the twisting water
Her eyes fill up with wonder
Crouching down as if seriously studying the distance
From the edge of the rocks to the water’s surface

Her cheek is inches away from my lips
Smells like lake-weed and sour apples
My mouth waters at the thought of biting into delicate green skin
A crisp snap and the sudden release of juices

She clumsily hops down from the rocks and
Bumps into me on her way back to the sand I notice the heel of her foot bleeding a little
But she doesn’t
She talks about having trouble sleeping and
Never feeling like she has a home
Imagines out loud all the exotic places she’d like to visit

I pull on a cigarette to recalibrate myself
This always happens with her
One night filled with moments that to me defy
The ticking of a clock
Moments she treats like blood left on the rocks

Technically, we’re all dead

2008-03-22T04:16:00.003-05:00

"Technically we are all dead
this is my own thought! a hail of hell!
Saint Dionysius reminds us of flight to unknowable Knowledge
the doctrine of initiates completes the meditation!"
- Phil Lamantia

Born under the liberal western sun
A 1927 son of magic and myths
Spawned under Pan's gleaming eye
Let loose on a world aroused enough
To inspire you with a View of Dali And allow a laminated playground for creation

A supermarket Adonis toting cucumbers and pears Sneaking snaps of onion in the backrooms Of Blue Collar cathedrals Scribbling looping words on thin trees Mapping out phosphorus kisses Winking feedback soaked sockets
Conjuring up surreal whipped portraits
Of existence and the nuts and bolts of the world
You boarded the most challenging platforms in search
Of a new perspective for thought
Another angle at which to consider the business
Of human life

Muddled by the tension between earth’s aches and
The simple and elegant beauty of private moments
Your words soared across sand-speckled pomegranate skies
And creaking saline floors where ancient secrets
Manifested into hallucinogenic dreams of children
As of yet unbaptized by the terrors of absurdity

Never a spoken word caught in its own meat saying nothing
You both pulverized and delicately wielded
The velvet lips of time
And rubbed the innocent belly of the universe
With the affection of a mother wondering where her child will go in the world

And the universe wondered back And your travels have been crimson dyed in the burning gas giants of heaven
And you've left us with a silent legacy of inspection
And an unmasking of societal insanity
And the overwhelming joy of floating in no current

What I hope you find now is a cloud to sit on
Some honorable place in the afterlife with a telescope to watch
When five years from now a kid discovers you Creeping in some narcotic night Sneaking glances from behind melting monuments of lust And separation
Finds himself glued to the pages you dropped along your path
Eating every peyote syllable
Digesting and sizzling from every pore of his body Without the background required to miss you
When the kid yammers about meeting you
And reads your poems to his friends in a forest at midnight
Burning the tips of his fingers with matches to see
Every spot of ink on the page Hissing and crackling like holy fireworks Splashing bliss before the open curtains Of his eyes

Another voluntary synesthesia
The head shaking youth bubbling glow
Of the eternal life of language pouring out of someone new
And how you've captured them
And how you project through every questioning body
To pick up a copy of Sphinxes

In this I think you'll beat what was meant a compliment
The day they hailed you as "a voice that rises once in a hundred years"
Because every time a kid doesn't know you don't exist But you do
And the slippery English thaws into his brain
Or tumbles out of his clumsy mouth
Your voice volcanoes up
And bridges the gap
Between the dual personalities of the world you struggled to paste together
And the generations lost inside it