mull

Seven Stones

2011-08-17T11:30:00.003-04:00

That tragedies can destroy what happiness there is in an instant.

That countless are dying and being killed right now.

That considering this is doing nothing to solve the problem.

As the whore packs his junk into a codpiece.

As a president signs lives away with her pen.

As I realize, again, how much less I am here without you.

Who I’ll never know.

the need for a queen of her type

2011-07-11T15:19:00.010-04:00

So, I'm researching for the book trailers class I'm teaching in the fall. I come upon this trailer I don't like for a book I won't read. Near the top of the sidebar on that page is a thumbmail for another video, which in turn invites me to "click to see more." I love how this last one comes on all bad ass then turns hayseed at the end. And the girl, well, she's just 'bout perfect, ain't she.

What So Proudly We Hail (This is the Space Age)

2011-07-03T23:43:00.000-04:00

Oh, say can. Oh, say can. Oh, say can.
You see the stars bleed their red troubles
across the junked night sky. You hear
the white light of the universe grinding
on an axis bold as love. You know
the blue purpose of our future. This is
the space age. And we are here to go.

Beatnik Sermon

2011-06-17T09:10:00.003-04:00

You see that leaf, man?
That dog, that tennis ball
that piece of asphalt?
All the same yet all different!
That's holy! Holy is the curb
and my tennis shoe. Holy is every
eyelash and every flake of skin. Holy
is the sick wan light of the supermarket
and that old woman thumping
the melons two for one. Holy is
the surprise in the crackerjack box. Holy
is that baseball and the thrum of the sea.
Holy the shark's tooth and the wound.
Holy the black hole and the supernova.
Holy the infinite banged out
expansion of our universe which will
someday recollect into the cosmic
cannonball of each and every thing
only to explode again. Holy is
the ten million-named God-Matter
which is us and not us and everything
else simultaneously. Amen.

Hemingway Found in Spanish Language Textbook

2011-02-23T12:25:00.001-05:00

Exercise: Translate the following:

1. The waiter gave them a table near the window. He asked the waiter for bread, butter, and a cup of coffee. First, the waiter brought him a glass of water. Again, he told the waiter what he wanted.

2. "I don't know why Pedro doesn’t serve us," he said. "This waiter, he repeats each sentence twice. The water he brought me, I can’t drink.”

"What are we going to do now?" she asked.

"I’m going to smoke a cigar and read the newspaper. There's a story about today's bulls."

The waiter brought him what he wanted. He read the newspaper then they went home.

3. He asked her for a glass of milk and some bread and cheese.

"I ate all the vegetables the waiter brought me," she said.

"Did you talk to the landlord about the rent?" he asked.

"I had to tell the truth," she said. She wanted to tell him something else, but she couldn't.

4. He met her in a restaurant. From time to time he gives her money. They had to buy her a Spanish/English dictionary.

One Every 24 #49

2011-02-12T10:03:00.003-05:00

Pulchritudinous

Heavy-lidded beauty.
Drowsing blossom.
Arc of pale breasts
Turn of thigh aside
How is it you are
Inadequately described
By such a fucking
Ugly word?

One Every 24 #48

2010-11-07T10:19:00.008-05:00

A Means to an End

An endless suburb of concentration camps

Eviscerating ghost limb souls thrown to

The snap-jawed dog meat slaves crouched beneath

An electric chair assembly line powering more than

Enough atom bombs to vaporize the baby flesh from

The painted geisha faces of our misapprehension.

By this I mean I am here in my yard frozen

Over the bowl of sunflower seeds I'm setting out

For a squirrel who's somehow lost a leg while I see

Our screed of rationales drool from a severed head held

Aloft by the hair. When this film slaps free of its reel

An idea, picked vulture clean, remains: too much

Of what we’ve wrought begins with our wanting

Some living thing dead because someone believes

A given end justifies any means.

Addiction

2010-10-21T09:29:00.005-04:00

A remix film about obsession and connection in the age of social media. More experimental films can be found here.

One Every 24 #47

2010-09-28T19:00:00.002-04:00

Anecdote Hinting at a Recurring Fear

When he told B. B. it was terminal

The doctor likened the disease’s spread

To weeds taking over a lawn.

It’s impossible to get them all, he concluded.

What bullshit, B.B. thought at the whole idea of being

Shut off at the height of twenty-six

That a lawn survives with care in spite of weeds

And a goddamn doctor can’t even kill me

With an accurate analogy.

Radial Possibilities of Luminous Foreground Layered upon Incomplete Negative Space

2010-09-12T16:15:00.002-04:00

This is not a Metaphor for the Relationship between Divine Intervention and Mass Comsumption

2010-09-12T16:06:00.002-04:00

One Every 24 #46

2010-09-10T14:56:00.006-04:00

Divination (Hepatoscopy)

You were not the lucky one
hopping through days
beneath the hunter's lazy eye
drawn askance, aimless.

Unfanged, your off head, delicate
ears, liver gnawed in the shade
as the cat read its own meaning
in your unwound guts splayed over

blood spotted stones. One future
do I see told in these remains:
we will battle with charmed feet
licked clean of their saving grace.

One Every 24 #45

2010-08-25T21:59:00.010-04:00

Silent Movie with a Final Scene Inside Your Car

Luminous, exploding into the instant
We fall upon each other across the seats
Throw pancake looks against the levered
Light piling through the A.M. streets
Stunned by this quality production
Torn by yet another fried egg sunrise
And the shock of our disdain, such a mute
Imposition upon our fiery vomiting
The washed-out black and white grace
Inside our argued embrace rising as we rise
Through the lie of our being and the truth
We need to become each of us throwing
The other aside even as we're thrown
Aside by the other. And wan, so wan
Our pressed-glass daguerreotype pause
Beneath our precipice grip now dangling
Us at the very brink of us, as we are wanting
Rescue clinging to the lip of the zebra
Striped clapper, that toothless alligator
Mouth singing the live organ soundtrack
Wanting only gravity, closure, action
Between our fading in and fading out.

One Every 24 #44

2010-08-19T13:38:00.024-04:00

Attention Beneficary (sic) Outing You Who are Not You #3

This is to intimate you
of a very important information
which will be of a great help to redeem
you from all the difficulties you have been
experiencing in getting your long overdue
payment due to excessive demand for money
from you by both corrupt officials
and Courier Companies after which your fund
remain unpaid to you. I am Mr. Joefrery Cole
the Financial Counselor and Director Monetary
and Capital Markets Department.
I'm a highly placed official
of International Monetary Fund. (IMF)

It may interest you to know that reports
have reached our office by so many
correspondence on the uneasy way
which people like you are treated
by Various Banks and Courier Companies
across Europe to Africa and Asia
and we have decided to put a stop to that
and that is why i was appointed to handle
your transaction here in Nigeria. All

Governmental and Non-Governmental parasites
NGOs, Finance Companies, Banks, Security
Companies and Courier companies which have
been in contact with you of late have been
instructed to back up from your transaction
and you have been advised NOT to respond
to them anymore since the IMF is now
directly in charge of your payment.
You are hereby advised NOT to remit
further payment to any institutions
with respect to your transaction
as your fund will be transferred to you
directly from our source.

I hope this is clear. Any action contrary
to this instructions is at your own risk.
Respond with immediate effect and we shall
give you further details on how your fund
will be released. Also call me as soon
as you send the e-mail (joefreycole@att.net)
so that you will be given an immediate response:

Direct Hotline: +234-813-669-4069
DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR
Mr. Joefrery Cole
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)
FINANCIAL MONITORY DEPARTMENT/UNIT

One Every 24 #43

2010-08-16T20:34:00.009-04:00

Us Kids in Left Field

Snuck through windows after dark to pinch
Marlboros between thumbs and index fingers

Arced the glow of those half-smoked hot-boxed
Cigarettes over the chain link home run fence

Sprawled on trimmed grass passing a bottle
Between the boys we were and the men

We imagined ourselves to be. Once
Named Royal, Angel, Tiger, Twin

We made a point of tripping over the chalked
Foul line as we struck out for home at dawn.

One Every 24 #42

2010-08-10T22:00:00.012-04:00

broken manifesto

fistula asks aneurysm
what of it, (the how of our mind's eye
watching over the body's desire
to not go terribly wrong all at once
how we're cut loose by our oblivious
obvious: our collected matter's
impossible chance to make history
or thank you for a blessing given
at the snag of a sneeze, to know
and forget the constant rivers
of our blood, the work done by liver
heart and lung, the muscle's torque and each
thing given by the continual electrical
hum of brains, the toddler's laugh
the unavoidable act of your thinking
these words you read, the simply impossible
coagulations of physics proven by our being
and that mute purity lost and found
within) our need for beliefs born
through with the ruin of creeds?

One Every 24 #41

2010-08-03T11:10:00.002-04:00

Slough

Sick sinking deeper into the mud
Hollow on the inside, black
Water taint to the lust for this
Bottled between stagnant thighs

Your wound, our sore, my inflammation
Says the mass of dead tissues
Separating us from the living. Cast

Off, we’re shedding our reptile minds
Rising up from below the surface
Our smoother skin beyond the lace
Left behind, a fragile split revealing

Our newer selves as we writhe
Toward the shine.

One Every 24 #40

2010-08-03T09:54:00.007-04:00

You Have Pakage (sic) Outing You Who You Are Not #2

Greetings.  

I am Mr David White , i have been
waiting for you since to contact me
for your Confirm able Bank Draft
of $50.000.00 United States Dollars,
but I did not hear from you since that time.  

Then I went and deposited the Draft
with FEDEX COURIER SERVICE, West 
Africa, I Traveled out of the country
for a 3 Months Course and I will
 not come back till end of November.

What you have to do now is to contact
 the FEDEX COURIER SERVICE
as soon as possible to know when
they will deliver your package to you
because of the expiring date.

For your information,The money
you will send to the FEDEX COURIER
 SERVICE to deliver your Draft direct
to your postal Address in your country
 is($210.00US) Dollars only being Security

Keeping Fee of the Courier Company so far. 
Again, don't be deceived by anybody to pay
any other money except $210.00US Dollars.
I would have paid that but they said no
because they don't know when you will contact them

and in case of Dumorrage.You have to  
contact the FEDEX COURIER SERVICE now
for the delivery of your Draft
with  this information bellow; 
Contact Person:Mr. Mike Aderson
 
EMAIL: fedexcourier1@ufo.tc 
Telephone: +2348074009126 
Finally, make sure that you reconfirm
your Names,Postal address() and Direct  tell
number to them again to avoid any mistake.  

Yours Faithfully, 
Mr David White

One Every 24 #39

2010-08-01T10:07:00.005-04:00

That One Night He Flamed up in Knuckles

and the blood running down his face was just
a reminder of everything he'd forgotten to lose
on his way there, the feeling of being cut
loose through the void of Saturday night

's alright for fighting, so the song says and the grainy
movies played out across his youth had shown him where
beer waited on bathtub ice and the boom box brought
in to reel around cassette after cassette of heavy mayhem,

he decided she just wasn't worth it. How else was he to piece
this escape together, the whys behind her after hours invitation
to the cheap motel room party where they could lock eyes a little
longer before the wasted dimmed out with dawn and left them

alone. Pulling up into the space right outside the door, eighteen
and wearing his leather and having his long hair grabbed
before he'd even dropped leg two out of the car, and kicked
three or four quick shots by some other high school's

resident stoner badass who'd mistaken him for a different
rival. He'd thumped the greasy kid's rage off with the door
fell back into the seat and dropped the Charger into reverse
(never even took the keys out the ignition)
burned serious rubber and began laying plans

for that one night he flamed up in knuckles

and the blood running down his face was just
a reminder of everything he'd forgotten to lose
on his way there, the feeling of being cut
loose through the void of Saturday night

's alright for fighting, so the song says and the grainy
movies played out across his youth had shown him where
beer waited on bathtub ice and the boom box brought
in to reel around cassette after cassette of heavy mayhem,

he decided she just wasn't worth it. How else was he to piece
this escape together, the whys behind her after hours invitation
to the cheap motel room party where they could lock eyes a little
longer before the wasted dimmed out with dawn and left them

alone. Pulling up into the space right outside the door, eighteen
and wearing his leather and having his long hair grabbed
before he'd even dropped leg two of the car, and kicked
three or four quick shots by some other high school's

resident stoner badass who'd mistaken him for a different
rival. He'd thumped the greasy kid's rage off with the door
fell back into the seat and dropped the Charger into reverse
(never even took the keys out the ignition)
burned serious rubber and began laying plans

One Every 24 #38

2010-07-31T15:40:00.009-04:00

Jorge Luis Borges vs Burger King Pornography

I

There is no one in him
behind his face
as he steps toward the other
in gentle mockery of himself
a man with gray eyes and gray
beard, lying amidst the odor
of the animals.

II

She unwraps the hamburger to reveal
another hamburger wrapper
wrapped around another hamburger
wrapper she unwraps to reveal another
hamburger wrapper wrapped around
another hamburger wrapped.

III

Let us imagine that in Toledo a paper is discovered
in a stable which is almost in the shadow of the new
stone church in our dreams, the story of a broken
and scattered god from the twilight of day
till the twilight of evening who knows whether
tonight we shall not see it in the labyrinths
After having razed the garden
and profaned the chalices

IV

Have it your way
hold the pickle
hold the lettuce special
orders don't upset us
all we ask is you let us do it
your way

Neural Firings

2010-07-31T15:10:00.002-04:00

One Every 24 #37

2010-07-30T14:08:00.001-04:00

Outing You Who You Are Not

Hello friend,

We have concluded to effect
your payment through western union
$7,000.00 daily until the $1.5Million
(USD) is completely transferred

to you accordingly. Though, Mr Peter
Godwin has sent $7,000.00 in your name
today so contact Western union Agent: Mr.
John Thomas TELL: +229 9871 6228
E-mail: ( wumt148@sify.com )

Tell him to give you the mtcn, sender name
and question/answer to pick up your first payment
$7,000.00.Dollar. You will pay him $175 dollar
for the renew of your fund. payment file before
he will give you the information to pickup
your first payment $7,000.00.dollar.

The only money you will pay him is $175 dollar
and he will release the mtcn, sender name
and question/answer to you to pick up your first

payment. You can also ask him to send to you a proof,
the ownership certificate of the Fund.
It is for you to be sure that the fund belong to you.
Make sure you send your full name , address and telephone
to him.

Thanks You,

MR. JOMIE SUMA

Happily Ever After Until...

2010-07-30T10:54:00.003-04:00

I

One month that fall, her cell phone bill came in at well above the usual amount. Being that the account was in his name, and he was the one who handled their finances and daily took the mail from the mailbox when he arrived home from work, it was obvious this bill should end up in his hands. An examination of the bill’s call history revealed a certain number had been called repeatedly. He dialed that number. When a man answered, he told him, “Don’t think it’ll stop with you.” They’d been having their fair share of problems, certainly, but the fact that she hadn’t intercepted the bill caused him to realize he was either living with a cruel-hearted bitch or a fool. He wasn’t sure which one he wanted her to be.

II

Right around the time the weather fully turned and the insects sought the house’s promise of heat, he read a haiku that essentially translated from the original Japanese as, "Don’t worry spiders, I keep house casually." The idea of this appealed to him so fully that he no longer killed spiders, especially not those that found their way into the house. Instead, he trapped them under a drinking glass, slid the glass onto a sheet of paper and carried them back outside. One morning after he’d started doing this, his wife discovered that something had bitten their infant daughter on the thigh during the night. A fever ensued. Then a welt the size of quarter that became a blister that became an open sore. Fortunately, time, his daughter’s able constitution, and the proscribed medicated cream healed the ugly wound, and no scar remained. On Christmas morning, a few weeks after the baby’s thigh had completely healed, his wife screamed from the kitchen. He ran in from the living room where he’d been sitting on the couch, staring at the Christmas tree and considering the ironies of his situation. Frozen on the counter was a wolf spider with legs long enough to span his palm. “Jesus. Kill it,” she said. “Kill it.” There was an issue of Time within easy reach. Of course he should kill it, but why do anything her way? He decided to get a glass from the cupboard instead. His move toward the cupboard startled the spider, and it skittered quickly down the face of the counter and disappeared into the cold air return.

III

A few weeks after New Year’s she told him she’d made plans to have a few drinks with “a friend who’d been going through some issues with her husband.” He decided not to tell her what he knew (or what he knew she knew he knew, depending). After she left, he sat down at their kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey and put out an entire pack of cigarettes on his forearm, one at a time.
1. This is only a test.
2. Empirical science calls for numerous trials.
3. It does, indeed, burn.
4. A pattern emerges. Is it ridiculous or ironic to consider a smiley face?
5. You get a better sear after smoking most of one.
6. Starting to settle in here.
7. How, exactly, is this connected to math again?
8. The smell of yourself burning.
9. Menthol might have been the better choice.
10. Whatever flicks your bic.
11. Sarcastic Zen.
12. In case you’re wondering, it takes eight to make a decent smiley face.
13. By the way, this is the pack I hid from you because I want you to quit.
14. Nothing can change what we’ve already done to (or for) each other.
15. Unlike in the movies, pouring whiskey on it doesn’t help.
16. Smoked out. Only taking a drag or two before stubbing on flesh.
17. Despite everything, I still love you.
18. Always. (Just finished the blistering eyebrows!)
19. It’s almost a matter of stupid pride at this point.
20. Exhale. Slowly. Smoke this one to the filter and leave you to consider the raw, singed end.
She came home to the smell of burnt flesh and the above list taped to their daughter’s empty crib. She dialed the same number that he’d dialed months before, sobbing into the receiver the instant someone picked up. She was shocked and worried into not knowing if she’d been a fool or cruel-hearted bitch. The voice on the other end told her she was something else entirely.

One Every 24 #36

2010-07-28T14:37:00.008-04:00

Twenty-Fifth Class Reunion at the All-Boys Catholic Boarding School

We're middle aged men, thicker here, thinner there
Weaving through the hallways of our late dorm
Bottles in hand, cigarettes lipped, brazen in doing
All those things we did undercover years before.
And suddenly we're eighteen again, surging with
The miracle of that future cutting us loose against
The tide of what God and our parents expect
Only this is also the past, and we're drunk as hell
And I'm the drunkest of you all, staggering off
Alone in search of some revelation only
To come back empty-handed as usual. Brothers
We live large, often act small, and most of you
Now know far better. Me, I've only grown dimmer,
I suppose. I sit numb as some of you peel away
Toward home, your wives, children, jobs, mortgages
Responsible citizenry. As always, something more
And less than each of you I wander through the halls
When those of us who choose to stay behind finally fall
Asleep. I shake the holy water of alcohol from my fingers
Anoint you with my disquietude. I am the failure
We were all threatened with becoming, the one
Still trying to forget enough of our past to remember.

One Every 24 #35

2010-07-21T20:55:00.010-04:00

Saw of Cicadas as the Earth Turns Away From

Here toward the sun underneath which every thing
Can not be new now or ever inside this time
Spilling always forward, always behind, us, its parasites
And blood, meaning, you can't divorce the two:
Us and the idea of time, there is not one without the other
Like me here now within the evening's ratcheted fade
Trying to put meaning to the cicadas cascading grind
or your eyes wherever occupying the connection between
us and the dirt-spec smallness of each insect letter in this line.

One Every 24 #34

2010-07-21T18:30:00.005-04:00

FADE IN/FADE OUT (Outtake)

A man walks into a room
He doesn't recognize, but should
A man sees a picture of a boy
He doesn't recognize, but was
A man is startled by the echo of
The unfamiliar voice he has

Once it was his familiar voice
A man heard an echo of
The boy who became the man
Holding what this picture is:
A man walking into a room
He doesn't recognize, but should.

One Every 24 #33

2010-07-20T15:59:00.009-04:00

Dennis Hopper versus Chick-fil-A

Hey, man I'm telling you the taste is like being
wrapped in dynamite rigged to make everything
explode outward into the orb of a chopper
gas tank rumbling guts through a jungle compound
draped in the sweet stink of a nitrous ripple leaving you
blue-lipped holding onto a severed finger or some
painter's ear while sitting in the back of a bus
which will sure as hell be shrapnel if it slows down
by the river near where they left the body where
I once shot some girl before I shriveled up and died.

One Every 24 #28-32

2010-07-20T10:34:00.000-04:00

Addendum (Bactine versus Bakthin)

One Every 24 #32

2010-07-20T10:02:00.004-04:00

Bactine versus Bakhtin (Take Five)

Mike and me keep getting stuck outside time
We don't need to be huffing Bactine for time to stick
Sometimes it's just time and we're the ones sticking

I mean, I haven't changed my underwear for a while
I mean, sometimes I eat out of that dumpster we hunker
Down near. I mean, you ever kiss anybody with paint

Smeared around your mouth? She won't either, but it's an art
Stopping inside of time while getting stuck outside of time
Like that one time I was without Mike and looking through

Her bedroom window, her head pendulum bobbing
Beneath his crooked, glowing smile. I mean, I can't speak
For Mike, except to say when I pressed my mouth

Up against glass it was too dark to see the ripples in the ring
I left behind.

One Every 24 #31

2010-07-20T09:44:00.006-04:00

Bactine versus Bakhtin (Take Four)

Mike and me sometimes remember we're in this story
What keeps getting attacked by all these other stories.
It's like we get all high and shit and there's Blackbeard

With his black fuckin' beard all on fire. He's telling us
We're a real piece of work, snuggled down under scabs
We can't huff or push or drag or snort our way out from.

I say what good is a naked lady on a horse or some fairy
Too scared to grow up. One time with a meat hook
I chased Mike screaming past my dead-drunk step-dad

Crashed on the couch. Slaughter house fuck rose up fists wadded
Ready to wail on whoever thought they had the balls to break
Him off his between shifts nap. He's legs pillared, hair riled

Glitter on his nose and cheeks from spending his lunch
At the titty bar, joggling his face in the crack of One-eye
Sandy's floppy baps. Slapping us senseless he's only hitting

Our vapor trail, jetting like we are on two tabs of blotter
He's like a baby in a bonnet in a cradle falling from a tree
I say. Mike says from inside the black hole of his eyes

Now here's your fuckin' fairytale. Me, I'm thinking lullaby.

One Every 24 #30

2010-07-20T09:26:00.000-04:00

Bactine versus Bakhtin (Take Three)

Mike and me sometimes wonder what the fuck is worse
Shit like that bolted, blue-haired girl being so beautiful
Out of reach or being lost among the erased faces what wear

The strapped on clown suits downtown. We've resurrected
Words like bogue and choice and bomb, unearthed the dead
Talk of older brothers and sisters, drunk aunts and uncles

With barked knuckles and back pocket ratchets. All those words
Used wrong but right to keep the no-nothings in the dark when
I tell the truth about how bomb it is to score a choice spoonful

Tie off, slip away when all this shit just gets too fuckin' bogue.

One Every 24 #29

2010-07-20T09:14:00.000-04:00

Bactine versus Bakhtin (Take Two)

Mike and me are goofy limbed and on our way to Jake's Place
We're being tailed by a blue mist and this long bone finger
What keeps reaching through the blue to scrape my heel

We've never seen lazy-eyed Jake look the same way twice
He likes to shave only part of his face to give you half
A mustache, a wrong-ways mowhawk, that one side-burn

Fucker's got a mason jar full of Oxys he'll crush with his thumb
We hide behind those dusty white walls for days inside days
We keep at the lines, blacking out and into the idea of who

We might become.

One Every 24 #28

2010-07-20T08:41:00.001-04:00

Bactine versus Bakhtin (Take One)

Mike and me are hunkered down next to a piss-smelling dumpster
Behind the Save-a-Lot huffing Bactine out of Wonder Bread bag.
Mike's in it nose-deep, sucking and blowing then holding onto a lungful

He thunks his head back against the dumpster, sighs out that ether
Smelling mist, he grins cracked lips away from yellow teeth
I pull the bag through his limp fingers as he says, "Fuck, man. Oh, fuck.

It's like I'm here doing this but I'm not here doing this, like I'm me
But I'm not me until I do something to make me me, you know
What I mean?" I mean fuckin-a yeah, I know what Mike means, maybe.

One Every 24 #27

2010-07-19T14:39:00.000-04:00

Lost Weekend with the Boys (Reprise)  

This starts with you in a car going somewhere
you probably shouldn't be  going, driving toward
the loaded possibilities of a lost weekend, still believing
no real plan is the only real plan necessary

but, really, you know where you're headed, it’s not like you
haven’t over and out done yourself with the boys
too many times before, so why not pop the cap on
a cold one from the cooler riding shotgun and drive off

through the bloodshot sunset into your memory's slurred
loop of Judas Priest and Black Sabbath nights riddled
with the gaps in your knowing whatever it is you keep feeling
for each time you return to reach down into those blurry holes.

Two days later, this ends with you in a car returning from somewhere
you probably shouldn’t have been, taking another wrong turn
into the gap-riddled Saturday night past where you once looked
deeper to find the blackest part of Detroit.

That night you played the blue balled wheelman after regretting
the Windsor strip club where you chose not to go with the French
stripper who invited you and you alone to come over to her place
later and take her clothes off for her this time, only

this time it's only you and you alone in the car on on a Sunday
afternoon, hung over, middle aged, sick from a lost weekend
you think was spent trying to prove you’re still the wildest
one of the wild ones who are now sensible and no longer so wild

and worried about you. No Black Sabbath, no Judas Priest
rattling the windows down now as you search the ghetto
above the grit of wheels slow rolling against gravel and broken
glass to the silence of no one there to egg you on or beg you off

as you take the turn past the burned out shell of the bar
and the ghost of the bartender who considered you
no more than air, leaving it to someone else
to tell your white punk asses to get the fuck out

before you got stuck, the bar where drunk and stupid
and eighteen one of the boys (maybe you?) said
“Stuck where? We’re not stuck anywhere. We got a car”
only to be told, "Then drive your cracker asses the fuck out."

So of course when the whore approached the clot of you
standing outside trying to decide what next, somebody (you?)
said sure and went down the alley with her looking for some
head and this just before a brother out spare changing came up

said, “She ain’t no bitch, man. She funny. She trans.”
When someone (you?) asked what he meant he explained
look at her fingernails, look at her hands. “Bitch got man hands
all veiny and shit.” Just the kind of revelation that might make

anybody, let alone some blasted high school kid (you?) stumbling
out of the rank darkness, followed by the sight of a whore
spitting a load onto the cracked asphalt, drawing a corded
muscled forearm across his or her lips

puke their guts out all over the mouth of a Detroit alley
to the sound of everyone else's laughter twenty-some
years ago during that very moment the blank vacuum of a broken
street light mapped out the question of how it's possible

for anyone to still be so turned around.

One Every 24 #26

2010-07-14T15:43:00.001-04:00

Naptime

Put a bomb in a poem about naptime
Put in some pins
Some broken glass

Put the bomb under my chair in the poem about naptime
Walk the pins (and needles) beneath my feet
Set the glass (not yet broken) on the sill's edge

Cradle my cauliflower ear around her first explosive cry
Push the pins in to their heads as I race to become the cure
Catch the glass. Always half full when I get there.

One Every 24 #25

2010-07-14T15:21:00.002-04:00

Carrying the Blues Down a Ladder with Robert Johnson Upon Consideration of the RPM Conundrum

I've long loved you as the voice inside another mouth
making seal on the doctored bottle's wet lipped lie
I've read: one laced bottle, two, or none. I've been
to all three markers, left strings, pennies, guitar picks
thumbed into dirt just to get them that much closer to you
my aetherial black angel, the sound of whom they will
never purify, cannot alter, regardless of pitch or time
they won't question your tempo as you trumpet us home.

Addendum: Are Robert Johnson's songs recorded too fast? You decide.

One Every 24 #24

2010-07-11T10:23:00.001-04:00

FADE IN/FADE OUT (Outtake #3): Death of a Henchman

They brought the letter into the barracks at mail call
She was leaving him for that salesman with the nice car
His brothers in arms told him to buck up, what's a woman
But a shot to the heart that doesn't kill you and won't heal

The alarm practically rattles itself off the wall
Booted legs race out the door. hands peel rifles
From the rack. there is much yelling and falling out
Word spreads that an intruder has breached the secret

Compound. he first gets sight of the intruder from a distance
The intruder is a whirling, white-hot light
His uniformed brothers in arms pull toward
(He suddenly wonders if all this time the moth has been trying

To douse rather than reach the flame.) the intruder
Sends broken bodies flying in brutally fantastic ways
Fools, he thinks of his brothers in arms, blindly rushing in that way
Then it's his turn, and the hitch of what she's done

Inserts itself for an instant between his mind and his training
Banking on blood fury. he screams his rage. rushes in, blazing
For the intruder, and, to be honest, for everybody watching
He's a second thought. less than one of many.

One Every 24 #23

2010-07-11T09:58:00.001-04:00

The Poem That Hated Itself (and me too)

I hate poems about poems
I hate poems that use the word poem
I hate poems about the poet
I hate poems that use word poet

I hate poems about the poet in the process of writing that poem
I hate poems that reference other poems, like The Drunken Boat
or other poets like Frost, which are at least two serviceable examples
because you get images out of them

I hate all those kinds of poems because rather than me
straight out telling you what I mean those poems are like me
telling you that I'm telling you what I mean.

That's almost as annoying as expecting you to believe
I am a poem because I say right here I am.

One Every 24 #22

2010-07-11T09:23:00.001-04:00

Prayer

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Between the seizures of matter
innundations, the spewing of fire
vortexes of invisible gas

(all of which on the cosmic scale
are analogous to a dropped dinner plate)

there has come to be every possible hatred
perversion and their subsequent righteous indignations

All manner of death and suffering natural and obscene

And yet, compassion, love, sacrifice, generosity
and the possibility that all matter is connected

Which brings me back to you, and whatever the fuck
has gone way, way, way wrong here

My eyes and brain tell me one of a few things must be true
(though, perhaps none of them are, which means this is also
one of the things that must be true, or not):

If you're a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, interventionist
God you've got some serious explaining to do. Otherwise, it seems
your sense of right and wrong are all fucked up

If you're a non-interventionist God, a clock maker, so to speak
Fuck you. Your clock needs fixing. So what if it's Sunday. Get to work

If you're something like they claim. Well, I've done the best
I could, but I would not toe the dogma line so I guess you'll have to
give me whatever punishment you knew I had coming all along

But, if it's true that the universe has a single point of origin
and all matter is connected, then all of reality is one
organism of which we are each a part.

I have come to suspect
that this organism is God.
I have come to see us as particles
within this God-body

And so in the end, when I say fuck you, fix this world
you made then gave to us, I'm really praying

we find a way to get our shit together before it's too late

I mean the people largely responsible
as well as myself.

I mean I love you.

One Every 24 #21

2010-07-09T11:35:00.001-04:00

FADE IN/FADE OUT (Outtake #2, after Goddard's Breathless)

she's the pixie-ish American feature
writer in Paris unsure if she's truly in love
with a cop killing Bogart-worshiping car thief

mugger, hustler, thug. he loves her, oddly sensitive
chauvinist pig that he is. he wants to carry her off to Rome
in a series of stolen cars. she seems his only pursuit

beyond a life of crime. she tells him she's pregnant
says it's probably his. he doesn't hitch a step
in trying to get her to sleep with him again

an aspiring novelist, she goes on assignment to see
the great American writer who happens to be visiting
Paris. unlike her, the writer speaks immaculate French

with no trace of an accent. she asks the writer what
is his life's ambition. To become immortal
then die, the writer says

meanwhile he's out looking for the fence who owes him
meanwhile the cops come nosing around: a callous
wrinkled detective puts a clumsy tail on her

then she sees a newspaper (not the one he holds in front of his face
to make himself invisible as he walks down the street behind
his shades, impervious to the constant yet oblivious cops

finally, she faces what's been on scrolling marquis and the front pages
all along. it's nothing more than what she's always known: he's a thief
now a murderer, and she loves him

they go on the lamb. hole up in his friend's photography studio
he sends her out for the paper, milk, smokes. she goes to a bar first
orders a scotch, which they don't have, and settles for coffee instead

from the bar, she calls the cops and rats. then she walks back to him
milk in hand to tell him the cops are coming. to tell him go
leave now. he refuses, says the fence who owes him money

is on his way, and at that very instant, the fence arrives
he takes the cash, tells the fence to split, the cops are coming
the fence shoves a gun into his hand. he doesn't want it, tosses

it back into the fence's car, walks away. The cops arrive as if spliced
the fence throws the gun into the street. it lands at his feet. he picks it
up with what appears to be the idiotic intent of returning it

yet again, unless he's changed his mind and wants to dent some badges
it's impossible to know, but gun in hand is enough for the cops because
the next shot is the callous, wrinkled detective firing in the street

and suddenly there she is. running into the middle of everything
running toward him as he staggers kidney-shot down the block
no gun, legs gradually failing. this disturbs only a few of the many

people out walking the Paris afternoon. near the far corner
his legs fail. he's on his back on the ground fading out
the cop's shoes circle his head.

her legs arrive. her lovely Parisian shoes. he exhales the unlikely drag
nobody saw him take. his last words: Makes me want to puke
she doesn't quite hear them. she asks the callous, wrinkled detective

He said you make him want to puke, he tells her and she believes
she asks what puke means. no answers. she runs the edge of her thumb
over her lips. a gesture that he liked to make. one he stole from Bogart.

One Every 24 #20

2010-07-08T10:04:00.000-04:00

FADE IN/FADE OUT (Outtake)

The beat Chevy mounts the gravel rise at a crawl
stones popping slow against the cooling tires. Dust trail
billows away, dissolving into a bleached blue sky

Shadowy driver kills the engine, it knocks, gasps, knocks
again. Tight on the Chevy's door now. Fresh dents. Scars
from chasing through the construction zone's rebar maze.

The door swings open. It's always a car door
opening. Into the space between its bottom edge
and the dust. The boot you're familiar with, crunching

down into the gravel. Maybe even spurs. Or chains
or maybe not the boot at all. Maybe a high
heel. The turn. Then a crutch. A naked, artificial limb

emerging beneath this car door's lower edge. A child's leg.
A pig's foot. An egg falling past to open onto the dust
then smeared in by the knobby-sharp talon of a giant

predatory bird. Or maybe only you, simply lost
inside that one time you took that one wrong turn
and found yourself atop this desolate gravel rise

Leaning against an open car door, looking off
into the idea of exactly how did you get here
inside this life like a movie, surprised at nothing

Running from everything. Looking for the rest
of the story you expect.

One Every 24 #19

2010-07-08T09:43:00.000-04:00

Rattled

Femurs knob the crop rows of the bone farm
The phalanxes of the bone farmer caress
Skulls, I have never seen as grinning
At the gate of radius and ulna, its hinges of patella
The bag of charms you mouth speaks nothing
About luck: some things fall our way
Some things shatter.

One Every 24 #18

2010-07-08T09:36:00.000-04:00

Karma (Best)

the sound of one hand clapping
is the sound of one hand slapped
against something that will not give
the sound of one hand clapping

One Every 24 #17

2010-07-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

Karma (Better)

Once upon a time, a man took something he dearly loved.
A man took something he dearly loved outside.
Outside, a man held something he dearly loved.

If you truly understand what this means
You can see for yourself the way he let it go.

One Every 24 #16

2010-07-08T09:25:00.001-04:00

Karma (Good)

I accept the fact that hate for me
Is one of the sources of my own hate
for the evil things I see you do.

One Every 24 #15

2010-07-08T09:20:00.000-04:00

Karma (Neutralized)

When I went to the mall today
with the intention of buying
a few cheap t-shirts
a pair of tennis shoes

I held the door open for an old lady.
I'm not sure if I did it
because I really wanted to
or because I thought I should.

One Every 24 #14

2010-07-08T09:13:00.001-04:00

Karma (Bad)

Gloating at misfortunes
mistaking tragedy for revenge
beneath the zen skin you claim
you eat the lies of your own hungry ghost
drape the wheel with the failed compassion
you try to hang on others.

One Every 24 #13

2010-07-08T09:07:00.002-04:00

The Addict Laments

Why am I doing this to myself?
Why are you doing this to me?
Why is this doing me to you?
So what about us?

I am you doing this to me.
You are this doing me to you.
You are me doing you to this.
So what about?

This is me doing this to me.
You are me doing this to you.
I am you doing this to us.
So what?

Why am I doing this to you?
Who am I doing this to me?
This is not me. This is you
So.

You are this.
This is between.
Me and you.

One Every 24 #12

2010-06-30T09:07:00.001-04:00

The Whipper Gripper

We called him Whipper Gripper
or sometimes Wacker Jacker
trapped as we were in the dorm
dead nights of that all-boys Catholic
boarding school. He was doing
what all boys will now and forever do
only to get busted by some Brother
surprising into his room one blank
after school afternoon when the rest
of us were at practice, some Brother
in his swinging cassock-skirt and rope
knotted belt with the professed keys
to everything, some Brother catching this
kid naked but for a cowboy hat and boots
doing his version of every boy-man ever
the same some Brother who kept panties
under his own pillow with a mouth
big enough to spread around a false sin
that could dribble its way down the ranks
into our minds where we would name
and make hilarious mockery of our scape
goat to hide what shouldn't have been
our own shame.

One Every 24 #11

2010-06-29T23:56:00.002-04:00

Luck Pusher

I wouldn't think I could get from doing dips off a 10th floor
and flat on my back drunk laid out in the street asking for a brake
test on some souped contraption pumped into the teen neon dash
play at cool; from the jealous kick in the head or stumble down
pass out, my blunt shoulder nosing in for the extra hit
the slur, the nod, the itch, the need for the next dumb luck
to this moment: the simple turning of a corner, my muling
the lawnmower around and readying for the next row only
to come upon her smile, my daughter, three, peeking over
the sill, out the living room window, calling to me above
the motor's grind, those words I see but can't hear, Hi, daddy!
Hi, daddy! as I mow down the grown past, think of the blow
the trips, the risks, the blurred mistakes, all middle aged
now with my headphones clamped over my thinning brain
the music cranked, the bluesman in mind swearing to me
I'm pushing my luck. Feels like my luck wanna change.
I'm pushing my luck. Feels like my luck wanna change.

One Every 24 #10

2010-06-29T23:45:00.000-04:00

The Rex Ray Desk Fan

Circa 1950
Four sharp blades
Stainless steel
says: A.C. ONLY
REX RAY
X-496
REXALL DRUG CO.
on the stand

Spaces in the fan guard
more than big enough
for my curious finger

One Every 24 #9

2010-06-29T23:42:00.000-04:00

Dashboard Buddha

Spring up his ass
Smile a wound wound
arcing toward infinity

One Every 24 #8

2010-06-15T10:39:00.000-04:00

On Lust

The pail with a hole in it
takes longer to rust.

One Every 24 #7

2010-06-15T10:20:00.001-04:00

The Only Son Returns from Traffic School

I was driving my mom's car back to the suburbs after traffic school
I was an errant boy, drove reckless. Hence the traffic school
I was in downtown Detroit, somewhere around eighteen
and probably wearing shades
I might have had some grass in my pocket
stains on the worn thin thighs of my jeans
hair well past my collar and a black concert T

He was an explosion of grey rags, the wild haired and mad
homeless man staggering down the trashed street
where I waited at the stoplight, my tape deck most likely
turned up way too loud. Without hitching a step
he whipped it out, let the piss fly across the sidewalk
the front of his pants, all the while ranting
some indecipherable magic language of despair that seemed to hold
the dark alley of every secret pain my teenage
brain hungered to know. The light turned. I believed
I had somewhere to go. Depending on who you asked
he'd already been there.

One Every 24 #6

2010-06-15T09:57:00.000-04:00

Riff: Led Zeppelin (Moby Dick)

rat tat tat tat tat tat tat, tat-tat-tat-tat

bomp bap deedle deh bom de bom deh duh
bomp bap deedle deh bom de bom deh duh
bomp bap deedle deh bom de bom deh duh
bomp bap deedle deh bom de bom deh duh

bamp dap beedle dee dam dee dam day dee
bamp dap beedle dee dam dee dam day dee

bomp bap deedle deh bom de bom deh duh
bomp bap deedle deh bom de bom deh duh

zhamp det deedle deet dee dee de dee dee
rannel rannel rannel reh weeeow nannle nan now

One Every 24 #5

2010-06-15T09:53:00.001-04:00

Fence

Wooden whore,

I bring you this easy

hard luck last chance

my best guess

a gold wrist watch

stolen with augers

my point made and driven

home with a nailgun.

One Every 24 #4

2010-06-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

Ivy (Poison)

Lurker in plain context

red bumps arriving in the road

of her body mapped by

the weeping, blistered skin

you, too, have a hand in this.

One Every 24 #3

2010-06-15T09:45:00.000-04:00

Cliche and the Question of Pseudo Idolatry in the Context of Common Poetic Metaphoric Tropes

One must love the rose

even in the teeth of a rat.

2010-06-10T10:02:00.000-04:00

Do not toy with...

...my alter ego.

One Every 24 #2

2010-06-10T09:43:00.000-04:00

Absolute Rules for Every Writer in Every Genre Pertaining to the Imparting of Ultimate Meaning in the Evolving Context of Everything Ever Written

1) Forget all rules

2) Don't lie

3) Lie beautifully

4) Lie fantastically in the actual sense of the word

5) Lie phantasmagorically

6) Keep lying until you twist words into the truth

One Every 24 #1

2010-06-09T11:23:00.001-04:00

Left Right Left

the closing of nearly everything
the scissor's confounding edges
the nun's forced hand
the party leaning I can't stand
when things are correct
the turns that get you there
the moves, the stuff, the ideas
all the flaws of my own genes
this foot what wants turning in
this hand what won't grip
this eye blocked from the world
the dull pain in my side
everything wrong and bad
with me and the world is right
not left, right, not left
in itself, of itself, in and of itself
meaning I want to be right
and left to my own devices

...happily ever after...

2010-06-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

And They Lived Happily Ever After Until [#24]

A lightning strike during a romantic thunderstorm sent a massive tree limb crashing down upon the bedroom of their fairytale cottage.

2009-12-14T18:57:00.000-05:00

I am Not [ ] Enough #1

Smart
Young
Cool
Hung
Strong
Rich
God

Still
Absurd
Doubting
Evil

I am Not [ ] Enough #2

abrasive

bad

cagey

damaged

eager

faded

gaping

habitual

incandescent

jaded

knowing (known)

lying/lyrical/luminous

macho-mysterious/man-child

numberless

obscene

pathetic

questionable

romantic

symptomatic

tenuous/testy

utopian

vast vengeful venomous verdant versed victorious vigorous vivacious voiceless volatile voracious vulgar villain

wry

x-rated

yellow

zealous zero

I am Not [ ] Enough #3

abrasive absent absorbing abstracted absurd abusive acceptable accessible accidental accurate acoustic acrid actually ad hoc adamant adaptable addicted adhesive adorable afraid agonizing ahead alcoholic alert alike alive alleged alluring aloof ambiguous ambitious amuck ancient animated apathetic aquatic aromatic aspiring assorted astonishing auspicious available average aware axiomatic

bad barbarous bashful bawdy beautiful befitting belligerent berserk better big billowy bizarre black boiling boorish boring boundless brash brawny breezy brief bright broad broken bumpy burly

cagey callous capable capricious ceaseless changeable cheerful childlike chilly chivalrous chubby chunky clammy classy cloistered cloudy clumsy coherent cold colossal combative comfortable cooing cool cooperative courageous cowardly crabby craven crazy credible creepy crooked cuddly cultured curly curved cynical

daffy daily damaged damaging damp dapper dashing dazzling deadpan debonair decisive decorous deep deeply defective delightful demonic deranged deserted detailed determined devilish didactic diligent direful dirty disagreeable discreet disillusioned dispensable divergent dizzy domineering draconian dramatic drunk dry dull dusty dynamic dysfunctional

eager early earsplitting earthy eatable economic educated efficacious efficient elated elderly elfin elite eminent empty enchanting encouraging endurable energetic entertaining enthusiastic equable erect erratic ethereal evanescent evasive evil excellent excited exclusive exotic expensive exuberant exultant

fabulous faded fallacious fanatical fancy fantastic fascinated fast fat faulty fearless feigned fertile festive filthy finicky flagrant flashy flawless flippant flowery foamy foregoing forgetful fortunate frail fretful friendly functional funny furtive futuristic

gabby gainful gamy gaping garrulous gaudy gentle giant giddy gigantic glamorous gleaming glib glorious glossy godly good goofy gorgeous graceful grandiose gratis great greedy green groovy grotesque grouchy gruesome grumpy guarded guiltless gullible gusty guttural

habitual half hallowed halting handsome handsomely hapless happy harmonious heady healthy heartbreaking heavenly heavy hellish helpful hesitant high highfalutin hilarious historical holistic hollow honorable horrible hospitable huge hulking humdrum humorous hungry hurried hurt hypnotic hysterical

icky idiotic ignorant illegal illustrious imaginary immense imminent impartial imperfect imported incandescent incompetent inconclusive industrious innate instinctive internal invincible irate itchy

jaded jagged jazzy jealous jittery jobless jolly joyous judicious jumbled jumpy juvenile

kaput kind kindhearted knotty knowing knowledgeable known

labored lackadaisical lacking lamentable languid large late laughable lavish lazy lean learned legal lethal level lewd light likeable literate little lively long longing lopsided loutish lovely loving low lowly lucky ludicrous lush luxuriant lying lyrical

macabre macho maddening madly magenta magical magnificent majestic makeshift malicious mammoth maniacal many marked massive materialistic mature measly meek melodic merciful mere mighty mindless miniature minor miscreant moaning modern moldy momentous muddled mundane murky mushy mysterious

naive nappy narrow nasty nauseating nebulous needless needy neighborly nervous new nice nifty noiseless noisy nonchalant nondescript nonstop nostalgic nosy noxious null numberless numerous nutritious

oafish obedient obeisant obscene obsequious observant obsolete obtainable oceanic odd offbeat old omniscient onerous optimal orange ordinary organic ossified oval overconfident overjoyed overrated overt overwrought

painful painstaking panoramic parched parsimonious pastoral pathetic peaceful penitent perfect periodic permissible perpetual petite phobic picayune piquant placid plant plant plausible pleasant plucky pointless political possessive precious premium pretty prickly productive profuse protective proud psychedelic psychotic puffy pumped puny purple

quack quaint quarrelsome questionable quick quickest quiet quixotic quizzical

rabid racial ragged rainy rambunctious rampant rare raspy ratty rebel receptive recondite red redundant reflective relieved reminiscent resolute resonant rhetorical righteous rightful ritzy roasted robust romantic roomy round royal ruddy rural rustic ruthless

sable sad sassy satisfying savoy scandalous scarce scary scientific scintillating scrawny secretive sedate seemly selective shallow shocking short shrill silly sincere skillful skinny sloppy slow small smelly sneaky snobbish snotty soggy somber sordid spectacular spicy spiffy spiritual splendid spooky spurious squalid square squeamish staking standing statuesque steadfast stereotyped stimulating stingy strange subdued subsequent successful succinct sulky supreme swanky sweltering symptomatic synonymous

taboo tacit tacky talented tall tame tan tangible tangy tart tasteful tawdry tearful telling temporary tender tenuous tested testy therapeutic thinkable threatening tight tightfisted tiny tiresome toothsome torpid tough towering tranquil trashy tricky trite truculent typical

ubiquitous ugliest ugly ultra unable unaccountable unadvised unarmed unbecoming unbiased uncovered understood undesirable unequaled uneven unsightly unsuitable unusual upbeat uppity upset uptight used utopian utter uttermost

vacuous vagabond vague various vast vengeful venomous verdant versed victorious vigorous vivacious voiceless volatile voracious vulgar

wacky waggish wakeful wanting warlike warm wary wasteful wasteful watchful watery weak wealthy weary wee wet whimsical whispering wholesale wicked wide willing wiry wise wistful woebegone womanly wonderful wooden woozy workable worried worthless wrathful wretched wry

x-rated

yellow yielding young youthful yummy

zany zealous zippy zonked

2009-12-14T09:48:00.001-05:00

The Little Matriarch

I'm staring at a $5 check from Peg Leg Publishing (rock star payday for inclusion in a poetry anthology) and thinking about my 20 year old cat (Serendipity, Sere, i.e., Sara for short) who, it seems, is on her way out. This cat was formerly a crowd favorite. While the other one (Roxanne, years dead and buried in the landscaping just off the patio of our old house in Kalamazoo, MI) would seek out the deepest recesses of the house during our large, obnoxious, improv jam session parties, Sere went from hand to hand, soaking in all the petting she could get. And there could never be enough. She was a glutton for attention. Meanwhile she is also the talkiest, whiniest, most demanding cat I've ever known--one who would actually hound you with her shrill whining at all hours of the day until that bowl of wet food was refilled.

She's now gone oddly silent.

And become indifferent to the wet food she would constantly demand.

And seems to have no more interest in being touched.

And has me counting the times I yelled at her to get "the fuck out of the kitchen" when her bleating had taken me to the throbbing edge of yet another hangover.

Yeah, there's all the cliche's: You don't know what you've got until it's gone. Live every moment like it's your last. Treat others like you'd want them to treat you, (i.e., be your best you at all times, etc.) Which drags Jesus and of course Buddha and the ideal of compassion for all creatures, especially the small and helpless, into this. But let's see how you stand up to ten minutes of shrill bleating from an animal you just fed half an hour ago when your head is thoroughly twisted up in all manner of self concerns. I liken it to someone, let's say a six year old kid, tapping on your forehead with an index finger while going "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, " while you're trying to sleep it off on the couch.

The poem in the anthology is about a dead guy nicknamed Don Ho. A figure who's presence and absence set the evening's tone at the small bar, Missias (the actual name and spelling) I used to frequent back in the 'Zoo. Don Ho died at home and sat dead in a chair in his apartment for two days, a rocks glass of whiskey long gone to water at his elbow by the time they found him.

I'm wondering if I'll end up finding Serendipity curled up stiff in some corner. I hope she goes that easy. I'm wondering if we'll cremate her and if I'll take some of her ash for my altar as a reminder of my often failing patience. Or if the ground here in Muncie, IN is soft enough this late in the season to accept a shovel.

Either way, she's got me, because the silent mornings thereafter will always be filled with the presence of her absence. And I'll somehow find a way to make that about me instead of her, which is something the dead require.

2009-12-08T12:06:00.001-05:00

2009-12-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

2009-12-08T11:35:00.000-05:00

What Holds Us Together is What Keeps Us Apart

I'm currently fascinated with this phrase and its potential mutations. So much so that I'm hoping to eventually develop a midi-based interface that enables me to combine it with sound and visual images while scrambling the words at will. On one level I think I might be talking about boundaries, skin, ideas, social networking technologies. Whatever it is that keeps us from truly knowing and connecting with others while simultaneously implying a connection. This is some esoteric b.s. surely, but I obviously need to work through it nonetheless. And thus I mutate:

What Holds Us Together

is what keeps us apart
what holds us together

is what keeps us together
what holds us apart

is what keeps us
together what holds us

together is what keeps us
apart is what holds us together

apart is what keeps us apart.
what holds us together

is what keeps us apart.

On Sunday Morning

2009-02-08T11:12:00.000-05:00

New Age music drones from your retro kitchen
radio as we talk through the aftermath of our first
and only date. Over fair trade coffee, organic scones
and hand-rolled cigarettes, we convince ourselves
there is no spark between us. You claim to know
me too well, say our familiar ease makes it seem
as if we've already been married for fifteen years.
My jeans stick to the rug burns on my knees,
your robe, I imagine, to the raw spot on your tailbone.
It's good we're lying to ourselves about all this
in a way that allows us to laugh when I remind you
we at least had one hell of a honeymoon.

I rise to shrug on my leather and leave us as is.
You rise with me, as if I'd just asked you to snatch
up my lapels and kiss me with all the passion
of our failure. The blind date that began last night
with us shooting pool in a steak house bar and my eyes
devouring the unfurling of your long body beneath
that smoky cone of light you leaned through ends
right here with the play of our shadows pressing
into one another along your yellow kitchen wall.

There is who we try to be and there is who we are:
a man with one foot over the threshold of a door
that opens into this goodbye; a woman chewing
on his lip and saying everything he wants to say
so much better as she whispers to him between kisses
I never should have told you that I don't eat meat
or date men who wear leather.

(first published in Slipstream # 28)

I can see no one body I can see

2009-02-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

no one can see no
one can see no one
can see no one can
see no one can see
no one can

I can see no body I can
see no body I can see
no body I can see no
body I can see no body
I can

can I see no one body
I see no one body I can
see no one body can I
see no one body
can I

see no one body I can see
no one body I can see no
one body I can see no one
body I can see no one body
can I see
I can

Three Pigments

2009-02-07T18:27:00.000-05:00

of the imagination
prone to gray matters
there is this much to say

besides.

*

the red the bull sees
is the blood of matadors

kneeling

*

white Nike's thrown bolo
over the telephone wire
somebody's answering

a prayer

the first and last things x remembers

2009-02-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

Cracking the door
on a back lit face.
Nimbus voice.
A fist final as god.