Good start then becomes weird

Please don't tell me how to
spell. I know it,
yes ma'am, I know it all.
And I feel great. Better
than the clean glass vials of country loving
in the tabernacle. My God is my judge;
no gown, no gavel. Perry Mason facin'
the barrel if he tattle: My Bod is the rage
no frills, just ballads
about his whom her what
that daddy thing daddy did it
nobody said anything
and it was fun being silent.
Gourds.

Observation on June 15th, 2009

Divine Truths:

Everybody rehearses their forehead.

Spears were unjust.
If you consider killing unjust.
Else, most natural. Sharpened saplings.
I actually independently discovered this.
At age 8.

So those were all part of the same one.

Things bled together sometimes. Like paints.
Or stains.

A potter bleeds just like the rest of us.
Unless it's Harry Potter. Then it's magic blood.
Which means that seeing him get into an accident involving blood would be like seeing the ghost of the Titanic sinking again, or a real tooth fairy up close--magical (suggestion: in both scenarios, one should not brandish weapons). But in this case, it would be magically bad--meaning the magic part of it would make it more tragic... ostensibly because magicians are rarer than muggles? But also especially because it's Harry Potter, ol' 'Arry, who is a legitimately good guy. His death and/or bloodletting would literally be tragically, magically terrible.

I usually don't use commas between adverbs. Why slow us down? A lot of verbs cannot be merely described by one. We quickly harshly find ourselves in a lonely planet, for example.

My darkness often obstructs my brighter lapels.

Dreamworks

Every time the ladder looks in at itself,
she looks in at herself. Everything is
proof of itself.
And in so imagineering oneself, they
(like the moon-body,) scatter
dust upon orchards and shave
as if rain were no detriment.

Yes, I've seen clouded villages.
Rainy tunnels and cottages left empty.
But where will it leads us? Where is
the grave at the end of the fountain?

We cannot say this anymore. It just isn't
true. We believe that the truth
is its own road. It follows its
own heart.

And if I were a vitamin, I would
be vital, I would orchestrate
every bodily function seemlessly [sic]
Mozart concerto orgasms would flow
from my bereft spirit like mosquitoes
invisibly (but truly) spreading disease.

As if there weren't part to this complex
machinery that we won't understand.

As if mud was brown and the sky was blue
and my paper is due Thursday. I read the
lemons like their color and the television
rainbows are all alphabet soup to me. Just do it.

& so on. The modern crisis--impoverished
gentility--this so quiet killing notion is a
false proverb: the ocean does not awake,
has not arisen,
has power we cannot imagine.

With our poles and electric candles
we keep trying to climb higher
(hipper we graduate)
the silk ladders
toward steel, impartial dreams.

I know nothing of the blanket but
the warmth of dreams.

We see nothing but the gleam of sparks
but not the heat released.

There are only two people in the world
that matter in this situation: the man-
grove in her forest skelter
and the other man, the mangler,
holding a leash in one hand and
a cocktail in the other. And yes,
it will be poisoned, unless we act,
unless we prevent.

Murder Soup

I am no stranger to melody.
In fact, I wrote them all.

In the white-and-brown doors
beneath the study I study myself,
coming to one conclusion: bats of
men playing sports -- years later --
will occupy my mind until,
at last, the end has come.

And so, putting it down, he threaded
the needle to the spoon in his hand
eating breakfast like a seamstress
perfecting her dad's cinema;
he eats, he weaves, he dreams,
she just stares at him. Is that
the waving of arms we required? She wonders.

Is this everything it was built up to be?
Large moments buried under shuddering
misunderstanding lament their subterranean
state.

Thus I, like a fossil re-animated, become
tonight's live-wire ghost.

Should we call the fire department, or something?

Flaming disco balls flank Wayne.

So I say, "Hey there, man,
I'm you're biggest fan. But, hey,
is this normal?" Gesturing toward the blazing orbs.

"Yeah," he says, his voice the same bullfrog croak that I know so well.
Finally seeing him in this flesh is overwhelming, but the strangeness of these fiery twins is disconcerting, almost pleasantly, because it distracts me from being starstruck.

"You wanna blaze, caspuh?" I don't know what the last part means but I say, "Yeah, of course, I'd love that," etc. To prevent sputtering, I close my mouth.

"That's all you gonna get right now," he says--acknowledging the flames--"but jest wait till we get into the booth!" He springs to his feet like a leopard and I follow him into the studio.

TO BE CONTINUED...

After the cinema.

After the cinema,
all the linoleum was broken.
How did we get past this?
We didn’t.
But we kept walking.
This is how the song begins:
The pieces of what.
Pieces of what?
Doesn’t matter anymore;
After the cinema,
every daughter cries.
It is, after all, her prerogative.
You do not know how it came together,
but together it came. This is eventually
how you will see that it is worth something.
If it wasn’t, we won’t have to any longer look
at one another.

reprise oven etc

all my life
i've been waiting
for an oven

to cook or not to
...cook, that is the suggestion
of your unlit thighs
hidden behind
so many layers of Bundt cake

listen: i know
about what
i am talking

3.

Ways to say, "weave": breeze,
ease, thieve

...that daddy thang
hot like potato pie

--jammed like my thumb or
the telephone lines at rush hour
so long so sour so glancing down
prancing about on a mushroom
cloud, revering dace, the frail
lunar koi of the California hotel
pool, gently murmuring: "you
do not belong here," and, "welcome,"
and you slept for hours and hours on end,
after the drugs were gone.

2.

"I'm late," said April.

Late April

1.
I should not feel so all alone,
everybody must get stones
on that rocky beach called a metaphor

--why, I adore this simile
like a door into memory, she
said, giggling and drunk.

But that is not the raisin.
That is the whole fruit, laid out,
then spoiled. We are fragile.

Gotta Get Some Lights

if you can't get on my level
just buy some beveled Dunhills
or do you call 'em Denvers
shit girl, i been up those hills


that's how we playas chill
look up that fucking word
it's a dry lake bed and an Ibis
is a bird. Dropping science will



enamor high school Hoosiers
(but I take The Third)
dropping acid laced with strychnine,
chilling just fine, wine & so-forth; ...un-
til the next day, headaches and

pills come out, vomit times, bad
news & such; we get ourselves stuck
like a brooch or a bad hunch over
eggs & brunch.

yes i smoked; now I don't. cigarettes are
like parrots: a good idea until you get one
and it burns you up, repeating the same thing
over and over: gotta light?

Palin

Palin advocates killing wolves, doesn't believe in evolution, has publicly lashed out at her daughter's ex-fiancee, was found guilty of abusing her gubernatorial powers against her brother-in-law (successfully pressing to get him fired from his former job as a state police officer), and wears overpriced clothing marketed to 20-somethings.

Cop Train

You're like a cop train
urgently sirening away, but stuck on an, uh,
whaddaya call it? a fixed path, sire. i mean,
sir. a fixed path. you cannot footpath. you aren't
i mean a nomad.

Come quick, Dr. Dearborne! comes another one,
just another whisper, just another cop train.
a fixed ballad upon saucy Midwestern earth.
center of the universe and all that, fellas. we got
our work cut out for us, yessir. this one will prove
a difficult case.

I'm a third-year, goes another, soft voice,
firm breasts, playing with her hair. her name's
probably Laura, but it won't matter. you do not
love her; and yet, they aren't all the same. may be
that the search continues, we murmur gently.

it goes, so. whaddaya gonna do about it? that's what
i'd like to know. another lazy wind; another drift of
Spanish over the radio. warm feelings tendril the
earth: spring's vines maybe. we spring vines, say,
opening a new chapter of laughter...
and stir-fry. this is my only voice, i say,
my only choice.

Not only a slugger

i show promise like a young almond grove
got more nuts than squirrels have ever lost
now become trees, which became
the house you grew up in.

hello child, i surround you, more house than you,
your mother's blouse is blue & green & her
breasts are large now, with milk, become
ivy, become something spilled but not upset.

have you ever found time, she asked, and i
said, for what? but she demurred, repeating,
have you ever found time?
the question lay there like a virgin on her back
after thinking it over i had to reply: yes,

once. it was in a pigpen when i was ten and
i was sitting in the living room. Charlotte's Web
on the television. and this, quick critic, explains
my mastery of the duplicitous: one time,

long ago, we believed in that magic. E. B. White.
T. V. Piano. somebody else's eyeballs. Babe was
not only a slugger.

The Pride and Joys of His Youth

Were I lather in the bathtub (the soap details)?

The answer (is)
the same as the
response to the question,
posed to a bonafide sculptor, on how he chisels: Well...
why do you ask?

Sleeping in the locker room (A Letter)

Dear Sally,
The creative process, since you asked, is like living. It's like sleeping in the locker room; That's some dedication. It's the sliver of sunlight who creeps between the panes. You'll find it between not knowing what to say and having too much to say, so much that you haven't stopped to take a breath but there is still too much unsaid -- and yet, alas, you have to end somewhere.

Or is it some time, like sometime? Oh Sally, how you looked in the springtime. I know it's not proper to talk about breasts in a letter. But, as Roth wrote, "I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway." You know how I do admire our Jewish portents.

Breasts.

Anyway, how'd you like the tiger fight? I wish Memphis and Mizzou would do something to draw attention to the plight of our planet's actual endangered big cats. Remember in Old School when Luke Wilson's character told Will Ferrel's character to "take it easy, big cat" when he was fake-dying after being elbow-dropped by The Dean?

Regarding the ballgame, Mizzou did their best to let Memphis stay in it after going ahead 24 at one point. But for Memphis, it was too little, too late.

I would love to keep writing, but I won't. I have needs, Sally. We shall continue this correspondence when I get wings, and begin to fly. Toward you. The clouds are already becoming azure. See you soon.

Block's Party

So sir we've scheduled this outage, so you know sir uh,
syrup and your seven minutes please. Bringing returning

back, forms fold into the folio. We only party at night
bc it's black and maybe the kids won't know. The don't-
do delivery boys stroke Jemima like she likes it.

The magic circle firm inducted trainees; some wove
complex green balls, breeze. Bringit round back

& give Bridget the password: crack. Look at me I'm
irregular, rugged girls steel curls in peripheries.
Ask your friendly neighborhood marsupial, sure.

Seven minutes of early evening

I want a bitch with stiletto heels and no tears. She'll do her business and shift gears. "Want a sandwich?" She asks.

"Yes," I'll say, and just like that--ham & swiss. "Thanks baby doll." Then she'll give me a blowjob as I eat it. Afterward, she'll go home.

Such is the life of Gabe Crocker, a well-meaning gentlemen on the Upper East Side.

It is true that my fiction has no major prognosis. Just an arm with a sweatband on it and no known destination. Just floating in the reeds like an old boat. Or another type of vessel entirely.

The incalculable politics of loss. Nobody reads this stuff anyway.

An iron stove emitting heat. The sod house smelling sweetly of earth. Mother giving me a velvet bear. Emily slipping into the water like an undressing dove.

A plump robin washes himself, then preens in a nearby tree.

young women drinking

Jessica, I hardly
understand you,

said Amber,
laughing, of course.
From the other
side of the park
came sounds of
a more exciting
gathering.

James Dean, I presume

Regard the photo:
James Dean,
James Dean,
James Dean,
...
& So on, until
God himself
would erase the
"O" and thereby
become less
gentile--those
whom I have
always admired--

Oh, Daddyo,
she might have
well have said,
after she shot me,

goddam son, show me that pelican bite,
doggone mosquitoes these days
still hurt like piss-ants (what are they?
crabs?) but no longer spread malaria,
and for this, we are thankful.

That old hammer serves us again, like
neuro-marketing. It can be used for good and evil.

But I'm getting off-track. The point is this:
James Dean was a man, a bean-pole of a daddy-
dancer, a gorgeous cingulate amoeba
(America because Amerigo, Exxon &
Costco) flouting the length of every football field,
impregnating every teenage girl without foreplay
or sexual intercourse, Coca-Cola & rum,
James Dean. What else do you need to know?

twine-ball, basketball

how i met your mother
is women we haven't met yet
thinking on them (is)
how geese lay upon eggs golden

above imaginary things, in this case
is nothing more fictional, but a mind:
mine. growing which isn't growing but
unraveling like twine becoming

unraveled twine,
instead of a ball. this happens.

Pitt vs. OSU; thoughts

I raise & switch up my game
like monopoly on a lazy Susan
feeling lazy, Sue, Xan-
ax the spearthrower day
travels like no dribbles
THERE IS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL
or the basket ball, the sport's
game, the lion's not tame if it's
Walk-In-Lay-Down, crabgrass weed
chores, pull it out, throw 'em
down, composte for the future;
the biggest plants grow out of
detritus, despite us and all we do
to keep our surroundings sanitized
like antispectic mouthwash or pre-frosh.

sheer feeling

is sheer healing
with sidebear buddies growing
upon this weedy pasture owing
to the muddy ground a home
to grow in kneeling
where nobody understands
which is right here, always.

stop burning bridges:

you travel cross them. whoa, one thing

will put you out. you need to break free

everytime you break free. i would have

given all i had, apparently. seconds

bridge digits/those things we did

but did we ever possess. i wish i hadn't

almost done anything. this is general, sorry,

try this: a torch that can't burn anything.

the anemones haven't done shit to anybody.

bridges need you to need them. they're only

behind you part of the time. connections can

fray but not break. there are pieces of you

beyond your reach. i hope this is okay.

a glimmer in the breakers; i break open.

The one where I punch Cob

Today I punched an obnoxious kid in the face while playing pickup ball at Illinois' own CRCE. It wasn't undeserved. After drawing first blood (the field goal variety) on a breakaway steal, I remarked that the ball felt off-balance. One kid on the other team began complaining, saying, "It's a basketball. Let's just play basketball. It's just a basketball." And so forth (every sentence ended with: "...basketball.")

"Look man," I practically burst out, "please don't start talking shit already. The basketball is just off-balance." One former game against this fellow had demonstrated that he was a little bitch, so I decided it was best to nip this in the bud; plus I was merely ensuring that we would all be playing with a superior ball and thus enjoy a superior game. The only appropriate words besides none would be those of thanksgiving.

Instead the lovely gent--I'll name him Cob--kept mumbling afoul. They missed a shot and on our possession I drove hard to the basket and tipped in my own rebound in his eye.

"That's just basketball," I said, meant as a mild but potent rebuke. Without warning, he caught the ball and pegged me directly in the nose.

Taken off-guard, I fell to the ground. But in that moment--and for the first time in my adult life--I knew I was about to punch somebody in the face. So I got up and cracked him one good on his left cheekbone.

My two friends Dane and K. got in his face too after that, but he kept running his mouth. He soon irritated Dane, who is usually very even-tempered and moderate.

"We can handle this like men and go outside to straighten things out," said Dane furiously, "or we can handle it like you--like a girl--and file assault charges on you." (Cob said he was going to tattle on us in the midst of his continued trash-talking). The guy likes to talk but not act... sickening. In any case he eventually slunk out with his friend in tow. His other teammates had already mysteriously disappeared without saying anything... quite strange.

Then we waited for a while for anyone to play us... the bloodsport interaction (or was it merely a dust-up?) didn't exactly inspire immediate competition.

Eventually we took on five semi-fluent Chinese youth who traveled, carried, double-dribble and grunted a lot. We almost lost but pulled it out twice in two sweaty, God-awful ugly games.

A 9-Line Summons Unto Glorious Dong

perhaps i will go along with what you posit:
that goblins protect the gym in the closet
but if this were true, whence do theirs paws at
go the typewriter time when sentence's clause at

all just completely falls apart like a k-mart
plastic bag full of dime bags and crack
and bad videos become words like subject
verb object projecting constant
awe and shock to one and all.

Three of my favorite things

1.
The large fountain out front runs exclusively on champagne. At the stroke of midnight, each night, a pair of beautiful European blondes snake into the water—nude, of course—and blow bubbles while giggling. They are strictly instructed not to touch each other, a rule they usually break.

2.
At the top of the east castle is a pair of hobgoblins. They are exercise maniacs and you’ll usually find that they are operating on a number of synthetic steroids. If they were tested for blood doping, they would fail. But they know their business, and absolutely nobody is allowed into the top secret gym within the closet’s unassuming confines.

3.
Frank was mildly racist. He loved a good poker game and never shaved without taking 50 milligrams of speed. This would get him really revved up, which was a good idea if you wanted Frank to accomplish anything. Usually he just lay in bed, motionless, and moaned.

it was called the

SNAKE SHAPE HOTEL


One of the most popular snake party ideas I recommend, and I’ve seen hundreds of versions of it over the years, is the snake cake (See the pic above). Basically it’s just a matter of making more than one cake (which gives you the option of making more than one flavor for your guests to choose from) in circular “bundt” style pans. Cut the resulting circles in halves or thirds, turn them opposite each other, and viola! Snake shape!

Use creative frosting ideas to resemble an existing snake, or go for a fanciful “cartoon” design instead. For a realistic snake, consider making a rounded “head” mold out of heavy aluminum foil, and a tapering “tail” mold for the other end. Just make sure the end of each mold matches the size and shape of the cake where the two meet. For the “cartoon” version, it’s actually very cute to have the head and the tail be the sharp cutoff that results when you cut the cakes, so you don’t have to make the extra molds. A gummy worm split at one end makes a great tongue.

If you can find a circle mold that doesn’t have the “humps” that bundt pans do, so much the better. Snakes don’t come in segmented shapes. If I find a good example I’ll post a link to buy it with and/or tell you what stores carry it on my party page. Some types of ring molds will work, as will (I’m told) a large round pan with a much smaller one in the middle of it (the space between creating the ring) but I’ve never tried this idea myself.

Of course, you’ll probably want to decorate around your theme, and my party page will soon include links to purchase snake pattern paper, safari and jungle theme party goods (the closest thing currently available) Taiwanese Vinyl snakes, wooden snakes (also available as craft kits - fun!) and great gifts with a snake theme - like remote controlled plastic snakes and Egyptian snake armbands. Generally, most hosts opt for safari or jungle theme items, which it seems to me would also mean that crude natural wooden plates, cups and utensils would make a cute variation on this idea.

Two additional things to consider. The first is to do craft projects, either done by you beforehand or by your guests during the party if you have enough time budgeted for it, that make snakes out of common things. A favorite that you’ll find in one pic is white clay that hardens either in the over or better yet the air, paintable in colors and patters of real snakes (the usual theme is coral snakes vs coral snake mimics - different color sequences of red, yellow and black - be sure to use water based paints that wash out and/or provide old shirts to paint in if your guests are doing it.) Another you may have seen is paper plates, cut in a spiral and hung by the “head” end with string or clear fishing line, decorated with washable markers. Add a paper clip to the tail to resemble a rattle and help the finished snake hang more realistically.

My favorite had to be old neckties inserted with coat hanger or craft wire to stand up like hooding cobras, with little craft work eyes glued in place and red felt forked tongues - adorable.

Small Gem: Kunio Kato

Sank you, berry, berry much
said the gifted animator
upon receiving a little golden statue.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto,
he added.

And the sweater gospel crowd,
impatient for virtue, applauded.
Sank you family, Sank you academy,
he said; unlikely Japan in enlivened America.
Nothing is impossible.

Coypond

We let our moats be filled
with all sorts of animalistic Koi,
orange-and-white-and-
fuck-me-right-there


like sex-whispers exposed as colorful fish
practically milking the moment
enjoy the fountain, mind the sunset
they say, listening: this is a moment shared

with the sun-setters underwater
secretly ruling their own palatial world
which we see only as a rice paddy
or a conveniently picturesque pond.

Josh converses w/ nurse

...in the thumb-sprain hotel
every camera is a Quaalude.
& so I dine at dusk on mudskin;
There are no splints to call my own.

If it were not for the drugs
everybody here would be in worse pain.
That's why medicine is legal,
she told me: to help
people. To make them happier
when they were lonely, cold, dying, pained,
bloated, infected, bleeding. There are potions
for more than the heart concocts.

There are maladies for which there
is no cure--True, it seems. But the
opposite is also valid; That's what they
call a paradox.

Beginning of Match speech

He burned brightly.
That much we can say.
If this moment cannot be here dedicated
to trammeling up our dearest fire
than, dear friends, we are lost.

There was a match who got lit:
the rest is history.

Glowing ( I )

Behold the glowing poetry
for which you did not arrive, currently,
but accept in any case

Like an eighteen-year-old girl
crying after sex;
we've arrived unexpectedly
in a place not sad, but more melancholy
than we imagined it to be.

Oak Valve?

all her children
claimed exemptions
for their mudskin. like prizes carefully
arranged along a string of copper mines.
drape this out; make me mind.
<>
you've got me by the twills, no cotton.
<>
all her children were recalcitrant
retreating into mushroom rooms
with heads spun on and nighttime
kush-heads spinning grease ware...

that was the night i met her vagina
like a mandrake emptying a valve:
hello, functional part! let me sip thy
smooth chocolate romance

oh! on a boat of two waxed thumbs &
candy melodrama, these balls are our
hands holding a hand holding us back.
a hand is holding us back.
<>
nightly orphans. getting lit. these matches
us--they become our little group.

getting lit, ah yes... Foster's for Australian
wives. fucking Sheilas and getting pussy.
skulling beers and dropping acid. lecturing
groups of schoolchildren about Penicillin
and oak caskets: don't fuck sloppy; do not
die young. unless your coat slips. remind
me of my government. where do our faults
lie. beneath the ground she sighs. necro-
anything becomes a gross light like termites.
insects crawling into what was once termed
"hot." now just the literal heat and a sense of,
"what have i done?" clitoral rings and dings and
ding-dongs and bongs. our country becoming
ashes of American flags. Michael Phelps not
quilting but guilty of wrongs: marijuana orchard,
Mary Jane's ocher orchid of strong
men. Find one if you can and flee.

Green Start

you must get lit;
busted shit. musted over
blustery white pits
(fruitful;
full of learned doctors
...this is no longer a joke)

this is Germany, this is
Polanksy, this is the money
your rupees fathered. Farther
afield is a field of plenty. it grows
greener and shows:
life abounds.

N-i-j-i-n-s-k-y

In December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, at that time the most celebrated male dancer in the Western world, moved into a villa in St. Moritz with his wife, Romola, and their three-year-old daughter. His relations with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the company in which he had made his name, were now severed, and with a war on, it was impossible for him to seek other engagements. So he and Romola had decided to retreat to neutral Switzerland and wait for peace. By the time of the armistice, however, Nijinsky had begun to go insane. His famous diary, written in six and a half weeks, from January 19 to March 4, 1919, was the record of his thoughts as that was happening. To my knowledge, it is the only sustained, on-the-spot (not retrospective) written account, by a major artist, of the experience of entering psychosis. Other important artists have gone mad—Hölderlin, Schumann, Nietzsche, Van Gogh, Artaud—but none of them left us a record like this, first published in 1936.

Turn on your love light;

Turn your lights down low. A light
bulb over your head in real life?

Torch, the British Flashlight, dines
at dusk on mudskin roads and 'opes.

You don't really know when you will
come back again; make back your

forth, and you're the practical orphan.
The law of matches: you must get lit.

Robot Boy Silence

I am robot grasped in plaster
but I do not move. Donuts in
the morning and the smell of
coffee & cold feet. It does not
bother me; I'm a statue
of robotic solitude. Frame by
frame::::does not matter:::stay
the same. Day after day. Strange.

This is More

grass Snake than Habitat; creative spelling
spells rabit traps. I'm robot grasped in plaster,
plastic please but I gotta get that paper paper.

Doug Main is more than Asia; sordid girls
we did, fruitstars paella. This is sort of
birth, which begs the again question:

your born-on date. I dreamed of date
showers, straight licking syrup for hours.
The things you and her devoured.

This---Is---War

We shall not now concern ourselves with the
grass snake, who lingers such,
above whose duckweed
we are remiss. Instead,

I delivered papers at daybreak
on summer weekends way::::back:::::when.

Red Radio Flyer
wagon down Green Street, not a car in sight.
Okay, she said, (meaning: my animus)
I'll admit to morning's stiff sacrament;

I am, after all, not a person above
inventing bangled lecticorns &
stealing ex-girlfriend's Harvard sweatshirts.

Can you imagine? No such brine shrimp
knows any such heaven
as blowjobs in the maintenance closet,
brackish wine just fine,
switching shirts like the time
is ripe for some kind of encoding:

this---is---war
not what we want it to be, necessarily
but more wonder than
one deer,
and I dare say: it strikes me the same.
It is more than enough.