some of july

a couple of things:



one thing:

when you think continuously about a fearful possibility
you are only half-there in your car, your job, the tidbits
that usually make you happy. sorry i was distracted, you say
as if there were a small rock in your shoe, that's all.

but you know most of you is being pushed by a gale towards a cliff.
good thing you're only half-there too.


and when it's not continuous, when the feeling of being
a shadow on an old brick wall, trash in the mud of the alley
is brought into you by a few words or a person seen
from the corner of your eye, the switch is turned on,
the night now is bright, too bright, it's overwhelming.

so your fears make you a failure in your own half-opened eyes.
and your world -- all around you, in you -- consumes you,
the first time it happens we begin to figure how spineless
ennui is, yet how total its jellyfish devour. until we are frightened enough
by our own undramatics, our scene blocking -- the quiet frightened --
we'll never know how badly everything was botched.


the other thing:

when someone, like some guy i know,
has two strikes in the prison game,
and has been rumored to say
that if he knew he was going to be taken in
for being involved with guns
or fighting once more, he'd finish
the guy(s) off, whatthehell. the thing about rumors
is that sometimes they're not true,
but once in a while they understate
the possibilities. i imagine red splashes
and dismemberment, and try not to
tick the guy off. if you think about it,
he's the guy who's half-there,
always uncomfortable in his shoes
is what we think, but
what's really going on is a whole lot worse.


post-thing:

myself, i'd rather be a shadow than worry about
a rock in my shoe.


~


7 26 08











THE PROSE POEM




The prose poem is not my forte. Sometimes I believe the poem is not my forte. I read an old copy of Sentence while in my bathroom. I read it over and over and sometimes I'm almost late for work. Work is certainly not my forte. I don't think I understand the prose poem. Does writing one have to do with wild connections? Maybe it goes the other way: like an old radio show it speaks almost enough, and this creates the story for someone who reads it, who listens to it with his mind's ear. Some prose poems sit on the page easily, a few words. When they get up to greet us, they aren't that easy, after all. They bully us. Some tell a story, but we suspect they don't tell the whole story, and so we go back to them, over and over, as I do in my bathroom. Maybe this isn't a prose poem. Maybe it's a poem, and I've decided to trade the lines for a block, Tate the other way around. If he can call them poems, maybe I can get away with calling this a prose poem. But, as I've found, over and over through car wrecks, love and illumination, my last thin dime: getting away with it isn't my forte either.



~



7 13 08





A BAG OF FROZEN PEAS





I went to the store for, among other things, a bag of frozen peas, and the repetition. I admit I see things as objects, then eat them. Except for poems, they eat me, when they're too cute, like this right here.

At the store, the meat was bloodier than usual. I'm not sure if this is a good thing. A lady with a nametag watches me with concern. I see some of my poems in the bread department. A few have cents-off stickers. This is so cute, and so like retribution. And now I have my bag of peas, which I pay for, and some other things. It's icy outside on the walk and I slip and fall unceremoniously. The bag of peas goes sliding, but luckily the peas are safe, contained.


~


7 20 08

linkee things

I have a new page at Unlikely Stories:

http://www.unlikelystories.org/e0708.shtml

also, forgot to mention I had a new page at Slow Trains from the Spring:

http://www.slowtrains.com/vol7issue4/eivazvol7issue4.html

also, re Unlikely Stories, check out this "multimedia" work by Donna Kuhn,
I think it's the knees of bees, tasty like ice cream and exciting as fireworks with an old soul:

http://www.unlikelystories.org/kuhn0107.shtml




(I have been spotty about posting stuff here.
I received an e-mail a while back
from someone who wanted to buy my blog
for fifty bucks. Is this some new scam
or what is it? I wrote the fucker back
and told him to never write me again, but
i was probably just talking to
a machine.... )


and of course, right around indi pen dance day, this one:


Paris, Britney, Nicole & Lindsay Just Wanna Have Lesbian Fun





the page itself for the video has a buncha interesting comments on it. check out the guy's other vids also:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lio6imaRR68

some recent stuff

Western



where are the warriors? there are no warriors
although there are the reckless, and not in that
cartoon sort of way, even though the one
who might be called the warrior strikes clean
with nary a grapple, but strikes clean over and over
meaning the other is not at war, or perhaps is fighting
under duress, not being paid in any way, money
or otherwise.

there is no lint either, nothing small
like that, only mud and snakebite and the blood of others
splattered across the plains. then there's that guy in the saloon
who elbows his buddy, or a stranger, or a mad whore
when he tells how he gunned down that indian warrior,
then picks a cloud of lint from that elbow, the one
he jabbed the drunk with.

damn what a world, no cobalt, no lilac,
only pissing in the streets, drunkfucking and murder.
everything has a little sand in it, scrubby brush - nothing synthetic
and the calico came later, when the dust settled with whomever was left
and the smoke cleared away these memories of warriors.

then suddenly (as these things go) Norman Rockwell, and trollies and boom!
split-levels, Hollywood and the dry martini, finally a place to be properly carnal,
to bait-and-switch, supersize and layaway,
a place where the coup wasn't even recognized
by the warrior or the one warriored upon.




~


7 4 ~ 7 5 06







The Fade



Every color is gathered and then flown ...
~~Lyn Hejinian


pockmark closeup crevice delightful in a fancied splendor
of bounce short dress where the sun is seen between her legs
no desire for night yet this lasts only seconds and the red glare

ruptures the faberge spoils the mark we make upon
a bed i do me over and over as i slip from room to room
fresh lipstick wild fragrance damp panties

torn stockings tawdry words tight clothes
there is sunrise unseen sunset revealed
since decades mean nothing tiny night is null

day is full of color crash a bleed of yellow into green
is for you different from me i am so much less
Dove, blackhole reversed, adamant she never lose flight

a purple waver under lost sheets scented us
my brown shoes split, more holes now in my socks
than those wings that stab the sky

insistance is a harm yet it isn't like memory at all
not pliable, no remainder - that is part of its nature:
the on-and-on of it, unlike milkgloss of pearl

turned and gone, not the pink inside, hidden in time
from time, the blue bed of heart, all waves of heat
in summer, or pockmarked winter sky

swirled till all is white, then dark once more


~


6 29 08







Travel Journal


I had been walking for hours and hadn't gotten there yet. Eugene
was worried that the growls and blips and rumbles around us
would preoccupy us so far into the night we would never get there,
instead we would simply keep on walking. If only we were hungry
it would simplify all of it and there'd be no chance of missing our appointment
in the town square, witnesses we would be to the hanging,
lest we lose our moral code. Speaking of codes as night slammed down
it wrapped us in warbling shivers and not the moral ones,
the ones of alone, of dark, of the walking we now were unaware of.
Well, what of it? Most go through their codes tightly wrapped
and never work up the gumption to even hear those blips. And what
of Tess, that sylvan vision waiting, barely moving, stomach silent?
What of the past most taken, central heat and air, La-Z-Boys
and the princess, ovens not only hot, but full to bursting,
smoke detectors detecting, mittens, slippers, I give you my all
in the neon and the appointments, the wandering executions,
Tess and Eugene with their dark wavy hair over there
watching, slowboating emotions so vibrant and a ho and a hum
and a fee fie foe fum bull when the neck snaps in the code
code night, some former one shits his pants and we kiss
as the smoke wisps away. Dinnertime, been walking, almost jogging
for what seems like years. Feed Eugene first, then Tess,
then let me slip the spoon in your mouth, and let's leave
the oven on. Could it be the moral code we feel, the wind
from the racing obscurity that began as a walk towards death,
names of bodies we know not, night knows no light. When he was a boy
my father watched them hang a thief, or a criminal of some sort,
the former body now in the town square. Even though he forgot names
he would have fed Tess first, then Eugene, or Eugene then Tess.
The snap now silent, cold code blips into the night of full-bellied wandering,
least-resistant, road-forked, dear we're alone now, I can't stand
that I want to love everyone everywhere and can't because
this town of intentions wanders so, and is so square.


~


6 7 08





Taking A Stand Against The Past


When did I learn the new language?
The less I say, the more I mean, only
at times I can't help railing against myself
over there, loving, right, near-perfect.

So I take it out like trash,
take it out on you, on
myself, on the tears
only gibberish,
the wail of the moon.


~


6 28 08

in-between kiss


now some in trying to figure the title above
might imagine a kiss to hold onto between
one glorious struggle in the sheets
and the next       but that's another poem
another angle, one of a mix of a vanishing fragrance
slightly citrus i dunno spicy too
another poem yes this one is more
of an aftertaste of cheap coldcuts
a kiss necessary like lunch too much
salt no idea of the animal eaten
sometimes our lips wet when brushed against
or moisten pressed together like an
overflow, sweet water from the rock
soaring broken down all the way to
half-conscious pout into her face
soured further by a voice inside
lazy heart motion block so easy
to disappear even as our fingers touch
each others' arms there is no
leaning in these are the ends
of the roads       the rarified, the dead ends
in-between there is the longing to kiss
whether we are together or not
each time i imagine the taste of your lips
the pressures of bodies the disappearing
it's a kiss lonely ones i must believe
in something like magic for these
in-between kisses are like food
i'm alive, safe


~


4 20 08

a few new ones

how to give this world the slip


there are types of touch essential
like the sneaky hot squeeze
a breath in a tipped neck
can regulate her untouched legs

these are spells
there is no science to it
there is no leg regulation really
there is only a random shaking

just when i think i've lost her
and the air is a sleepy lie and i drip
sweat as the natives turn back
another spell is remembered

but not by me she of her own squeeze
doesn't give a damn and animates
my uniform is soiled my vestment
wrinkles in laughter shakes in a heap

on the floor when the sun sets
she makes sure we do not stop
before we get there indigents
uncontrolled save by our want

once settled in we grind
and slide and wipe skin
on each other essential
too, for our vanishing



~


3 9 08






midday


i went dark from inside
dark for i funnel, i burrow,
for i close my eyes and soon
dark whether they're closed or not
the dark where i hope to meet you
slicing your own dark

meet me in a humid season
wear out this sense of skin
my lips anywhere on you
skin a border a border
describes a state

we love skin but
sometimes to disappear
all these states this light
revealing our hunger
this dark becoming it


~


3 15 08



katauta




blow the ice capades?
life would be warm if only.
search for exits. stop dancing.


~


Would you please sit still?
Tumbleweeds suburbia
Frightening nexus echoes

~


is this heaven yet?
through the clouds, laughter - no, screams
right before the fiery crash


~


Ain't the Wild West done?
I saw a pig curtsey swell,
Always leave my door unlocked.



~


3 9 08





A Dream of Overused Questionmarks



My sleek agile takes preference in twisted reference.
The beginning never seems the beginning except once
in a while it does when it isn't. Don't look away
and you'll see how it's done. That isn't to say we don't have
a decent size cage to peer out of. Out of the last comes this
one. Two winstons and a shrew. Albert where is my brine?
Has it spun enough, is it
twisted? He was running into steam and this
caused him to slow down too. Remember that you wish
to be remembered; don't when we all fall down. You can see this
whenever you want to, but tomorrow is Sunday that fated bagel
both nervous and creamy. Here are a few footnotes in this waterfall's bridge
though they never hold still to read. And isn't that what we all
cringe against, or maybe some of us take off its coat and make it coffee:
we'll simply never know and even that an absentminded conjecture
as we're dropped off miles away and kicked by the mule.


~



3 15 08

valentine

these old times




all those stores all those rollup gates
under red green and white slapped-on signage
we took so much for granted all those years!
we were nothing special nothing was
it was every second of it special
the time empty of second looks of considerations
no looking back yet either
as it should be as it should be now
trust the crowded heart the metaphor muscle
the never-beginning kiss longing leaves behind the never-
ending smile and wish for a right now
meaning more than anything before either in absence
or presence can't do anything else but
love nothing special the pediments remain
the wrinkles and rankles and runckles just words
the edifice suffices these adjoining doors
open to joy our home is where we are
can't see it climb those hills will chills
and kiss me again in the ghetto of Getty
the Hill of Park the
Yo of So



~



2 13 08

a poem and three on poems

bark the silence


it's okay
having three green legs and
having to crawl.
that guy over there
has it worser.
kneel on the side of the bed
and i'll enter you.
i close my eyes to see the cave
grey cotton cloud
why does it hang between us
when my ears are open?
i read he got 75 years
and she goodbye to them.
now i have four legs
red red red
doggy style, Augustine
in my early period
chantnfuckchantnfuck
kiss me
i'm way over
here


~




our poets fail us



with their distance, their intimacy,
landscapes of letters and space,
nickels and dimes shiny,
vomit in the streets,
sweat in the sheets

the pockmarked nobility
traded for nobilities of farewell
and imperfections, crafting a world
they call our own,
nobility of alone
instead of
the poem


~





there is a fussiness


we need, and we are, one by one
the only ones who know whether
this fussiness is necessary or not

sometimes, if we are not fussy enough
our knives fly, slicing through
the remainder of the world,
the parts of it we don't care for
while we talk of creation


~




The wildmen here


hate you and your little doilies
and your dusty tomes
and buggly aphorisms.

try wearing that doily on your head
eat that book
and squish the proverb to nothing
until it looks like a smear on the back page
of the Star

we will love you then
like midnight


~


1 10 08 - 1 17 08

eleven eleven

A) WHAT TO CONNECT


journalistic spiel not in terms of the style sheets

     (god knows it's treacherous to express that way
     if you're spilling the poetry)

same that
it's boring
to poem
of poem

and that's a shade of the old journalism too     all those


words

those imaginary tags supposed to say more than a tree, or meat
and potatoes     so much

to connect!     as usual,

this someone here   ("writer")   tries to say
to you

HOW TO READ

not even asking, not even asking
if you care, why you don't this or that, sing or not sing, dance or --
why not even forgetting the people places things i've
truly forgotten but have left scents and shadows and laughing for no reason
when i'm alone     you don't seem
to forget anything, anyone - but are they/is it still felt? THAT'S

the thing you can always find in the writer, especially the
poet
(or his shadow):

blood you can feel move inside, blind to things,
penetration to twinkling eyes within
with no regard

for facts
     for curly journalism, even sometimes

for intent
(or its          lack
     thereof and a strong suspicious slant-eyed sizing-up
of vocabulary, i mean     even LOVE
all fucked up in the letters and memories, i mean

     another connection is in order, harrumph

toe the line? or tow it,
drag that sucker out of harm's way, away from
metaphor, the poem about the poem, haul it into
a cloud     of love, how did we
get UP here? oops,


don't fall






B) THE SLOW MOVEMENT



time-lapse photography retains the mystery
of moments unfilmed, unshot (might
as well be) a mystery growth, film brilliante

gumshoe walks by night within
each turned corner a new shot
in the fog a new returning all shots
of there remembered sort   houses
- faces - between no longer there not even
in memory laughs it off
check's in the mail

we will be stuck, filmed,
in the end, no shots, no growth
mail, faces - nada we will hear
and a D will sound like an T
our houses will grow time-lapsed:

all those skies thrilled us, even the grey,
even the fog thrilled me every corner i turned
every quiet snap of a shutter

time-lapse growth brilliante of moments unfilled
no, only unremembered sort
in sequence remembered retains faces
slowly trails off
quiet   simple

end always whole







C) BUT THE WHITE ALBUM WAS DIANNE


wasn't it? i always think of NYC impending winter
teen years mixed with the Beatles, a browse in a bookstore
but that was me heading toward or being with or heading away
from Dianne   you and i were such friends
at the time, or around that time, around November one year
later we shared a locker but it wasn't the same   later
i remember - don't remember if i talked to you or someone else
told you goodbye or told someone else
i had told you goodbye there had been a maxi skirt and a pocketwatch
and Odessa through wheels of fire later i had the staten island ferry alone
for a nickel, and another, and another i had been many people, and it continued
your skirt shorter than your peacoat   we in winter walking
and now no need to sing pete seeger at moratoriums instead i need
you i am too worn to fight a war - you know: fight a war itself, not in one
o bla di o bla da can you take me back maybe it was Dianne that time,
a connection skewed but i kissed you in her basement
we were such good friends at that time and your kiss lasts this long
and will be with me tomorrow were we kids out grocery shopping with our mothers
when we first saw each other, touched an arm, or maybe you laughed
at me when i made a silly face for you, a stranger -
or were you, even then? Dianne's basement, o bla di o bla da
you felt it in the Circle, downtown, later on, a day off from all the things
left in our way, things hold us, can you take me back
where i came from, a little snow on the streets later, a kiss
that never ends, i will always feel the same







D) STATES OF MATTER


Did we walk in the rain?
We walked into the snow,
uphill always, and I didn't mind.

We walk toward the cold,
the cold I've forgotten, the cold
you've felt in your eyes and your bones.
I miss it. Now simply cold. We know
there is warmth somewhere,

not far, I can feel it. opens like
a refrain toward resolution,
raindrops pooling, ice melts
immediately, yes let's leave it,
let's continue as we have
walked in the rain.


     here is
   a vocabulary of
         photos,
how     light   takes
              over

we are     distracted, seems what is
     important has turned
  into     harsh light

we need new
         pictures, not ex-
planations, wars i'm tired of          can these
          sounds

be replaced by rain, let's walk

when it's heavy, pool away singing
a refrain toward resolution

not unlike ice         smooth
         see-through pristine
something to slide upon
         when days are cold


~


11 10 ~ 11 11 07

photopoem

how still the trees


digitized to death     they are bleeding
into each other as moments and memories bleed
together, dry up and fall apart, no matter
family friend uniforms and matching outfits, the leaves still bleed
look, we have interrupted your party, look
as we look, neither here, yet i remember one had moustache,
i think, and the trees were bleeding, not blood
but something from their preservation, no longer trees

i steal your soul! they are all dead by now
barely

remembered most smiled
i'm thinking right at that moment
none even knew why

or went about trying to decide if it had been
for a picture, or for -

something more personal, not immortal
maybe each is tied to the other

could be it all simply bleeds
together like the trees
in an old photo


~


11 10 07