1. The Great How-To

I am very tired
of this ambiguous warfare
in myself. Moreso with the self
that doesn't return his gaze. Moreover
the proud glint of rural men hustling into shadows
like a long row of dirty dinosaur teeth
gleaming with crimson envy

Yes, I have entered the war
on the side of the man who is losing
but cannot lose because he has
planned it all, planned this pitched tent
and that battlefield, where the Orange
will beat the Blue
into that late summer sunset, and everything
sheds, a locust consuming herself, every
corner of the world becoming a twinge less
full of unrest and suggestions about
where-to-go or how-to-get-there.

You know, the second part--nobody
really knows, anyway. The most basic question:
How to live? How to live.

There is no How-To under the butler,
no grand map scheme or plan of plenty or
shortage of dross to re-comb

there isn't a guide here,

we are a book without an ending;

trite, but true, writing itself, where does
she want to go? who wants to be himself? wherefore
are though Romeo? Why are you Rome?

His had, her dad, our dad, looming and shrooming and
ballooning into tonics of gin and shit and herself and
crab moons on the nebula circuit, again.

I went to Circuit City to take a shit
but I couldn't find the bathroom.

Back in Block

I'm back on the block like J.Lo in 2002 so it's time to invade.

This masquerade is a phantom of the office and a fire has started.

New bookshelves can break if Chilean and transported on a small dolly.

Pardon me for the infinitejection.

Dont Fight Win.

Ampersand (Truly Insane)

Ampersand
8.22.09

Astonishingly,
nobody fits, not
anymore.

<>
In the woods
breaking bread with the undead
cantaloupe mind, rind, melon
then comes the verb.

As in, what the fuck are you looking at?

I’d like to talk about something important for once.
Owls.
You heard me.
Owls.

Are they wise? Or is it just their
wide-set eyes (over there!) that set them apart?
As if it made any difference? As if
it made any difference. We cannot
completely live if we don’t
completely rid ourselves of the belief
that we are the most important animals.

Which we are. Animal magic and the so-forth
speeches of the gods, we are all just a bunch
of alien weirdos, speech, chat, thumbnail

…and you go on like this—floating—not really knowing
what you want to say or how to say it. Nevertheless, the impetus remains. Something needs to be said, after all.

Who is that?

Nobody. Nobody’s forest or nobody’s desert or
maybe you have become too free at this writing thing,
wouldn’t be the first time, remember when
old Jackie made up a bad joke and wasted everybody’s time.
That’s right a joke, grandma.
First of all there aren’t people.
They are all just a milieu. Oh, snakebitten. Trap door arm-rest. And everything else
was
was
frightfully unjust.

But what are you gonna DO about it?
That’s what I’d like to know.

Saving face is saving grace is bundling
cans & cans & cans & cans of mace
like a factory canal
pirate turned backward
turned inward
turned hopeful, like a breezy salmon,
like a kingpin, like a dead beauty queen

who are thou Marry? Marrying whither and whom
you want, down the alley like a pile of bricks,
clunk, clunk, magic. Happening at random times like
bricks in the wall. Keep going back to this brick thing and
it’s really beginning to creep me out. And this time I didn’t
take the pill so you get the output, let’s imagine it’s like
putting our feet on the ground and fucking dragging them
at least you’re getting somewhere, and at worst you’re leaving a mark after all

after all after all
spooking at David Foster Wallace’s shadow,
where did he live,
who did he look like (me)
ransom, handsome kidney the unicorn thief
Disney
was a Nazi killed somebody didn’t he? Reagan
faking the pregnancy test arrest
military zone pregnant
cocaine, drug-test, zombie
arm-rest, again

like a spiritual without cause or direction or reason
a hope-fest, a clunker-up, a good hard fucking
where you’re mind is so dirty it’s turned into a cave
a tenement, a sordid crawfish lair,
a cobweb home

wherein everybody combs their hair
or doesn’t, or has flair,
or couldn’t, like James Cagney
in a knife-fight, skilled as a badly burned Albanian boy—
the random lamp factory of dead regrets and Kanamycin
(spelled wrong) and microbial resistance and ants and crayfish and sex
and orgasms and pornography and vaginas and cunnilingus and the clitoris
and wet wet wet heat like magic fire dark the night burning until

oh, just then, just then, oh wait…
the magic fungus awakes and it says,
“I never existed.”

&

“Goodnight.”

White Lightning (& cranes) Pt. I.

EVERY body, like white lightning illuminates a snake:
here, there, where, everywhere?
The next part, the next centimeter,
the next (alright, ...) moment
(where time becomes space)
& (of course) something changes.

It is not without fanfare. But the challenge is
acceptance.

Sure, there's James, immaculate.

You know he's read the gospels.

Believes -- God Bless Him -- In everything
ABOUT WHICH HE
was told.

And these prepositions
keep sidestepping the terminal
unknowing that
one is a fine thing
to end a sentence with.

So many fucking trials.
So many destitute
pathetic outlets.

If you were a river, you would
flow, like so, like so,
pollution, like so. The delta. Minnesota
to Iowa. To Illinois/Missouri. (Not one.)
Kentucky.
Tennessee.
Mississippi.

THE GULF!
Poor Black people would watch you
without your knowing --
you are water.

Black Boys

You cannot see
the Black boys at night,
not because of their hue but instead their size
darting in and out of the corners
of our apocalypse, a lapse of better
judgment.

The Black boys at play; is anybody listening?
I have grabbed handfuls and handfuls of snakes
in the littered dark and wondered:
Has anybody looked for me?
Is anything going to occur
if not that which I have caused?

30 Minutes, Unfiltered

The words of everybody else just swirling in my head

in my brain’s space like a brain’s pace set apace

of a mean monster rap rhyme, doing my time, getting in line

to do the tanning bed, get cancer

do arrhythmic arithmetic and so forth & so on

unto those golden lights hewn...


<>

I have known women. Beautiful, mellifluous girls. Creatures I cannot begin to describe

without confessing to lack in some large way

remiss the ability to express

how darling are they

who linger here.


<>

Fuck your GDP. More like QDP. Flipped is PDQ

Pretty Damn Quality, Pretty Damn Quick,

mind your P’s and Q’s and everything’s just cool ask Wayne

pick your poison: mind or money

the latter being the tell-all, the former the source of all

heart-attacks and joys and loves and everything felt and unfelt and heard and spoken

Absurdists INC is not so much dying as being born again. With the most absurd premise of all—perhaps the anti-premise, like the Catholic Church announcing that, well, thanks for asking but no, as a matter of fact, Jesus was not the Son of God, and thanks for all your donations and countless lives lost or devoted or prayed away or preyed upon or raped like an altar boy or mortified with the flesh-- …we hereby renounced our iron grip upon the bleeding hearts of the world, and yes, as a matter of course, our leader is not infallible, but is just a man…

In the hearts of many

are carried the hearths of Mary

Holy Mary’s, Mother of God,

the Lord is with thee; the

modest, intemperate, compassionate fate

awaiting whom she awaits where she awakes

all that dawdling virginity going by the wayside

and collecting like flotsam or rancid jelly in the wading—oh! how holy art thou

the holy lawd wading pool of old! holy!—

collecting like root beer foam in a creek

and I realize that it’s all been too much

to get across, and yet my soul is here for trying

which is the same as saying

we cannot be perfect, but we do our best?

false. not everyone. it cannot be.

even I, the Saint-of-Me, admits to

being humiliated. Being defeated.

Hiding! From it all! Not looking up!

Because: face it. It’s frightening. Bald, lapsed,

unhappened future. Oh glorious path ahead,

where will you lead me? What tender sprigs whilst thou

upspring from the loam oh My God please let me

let me into that garden, allow me to gander upon the geese

and orient my brain pulp onto the geography of the town

allow me goose down and feather beds and just one word,

any words, a single dose somewhere—some jewel—must be enough

to say this: finally, something worth being said, something

worth sweating over, something worth fighting for, something

worth being anxious about, somebody worth

making sacrifices to, in name of, FOR.

And it comes back to the wayward nature of it all,

the mystery and the backalleys and the Gnar

of these back-street, urban side-cats


grizzly, grizzly


a fresh girl,

an overcoat,

Paris. A tangle of brown hair

I remember being blond. Monica Morrison

and Nicole Sugar and

that blonde who everybody looks at—

is there any star not brightened

by us (the light shining back)? we see

exactly how the light shines—at us,

for you, to him, to her, these things are certain,

they are getting better

we DO just know some things


like lightning is a force none shall betray

For Fear of Death, and

we shall never understand its holy, shattering,

deadly, life-giving! power, oh God, let us understand

we are not alone here, You are all around,

you are in the sentences that hold us together

admitting to know immediately that nothing constrains

the ugly tenements of the human heart except silence

the ugliest science in the silence of kidney stones and heart attacks

and moreover in the stones themselves—the ones we never fully

appreciate, the ground beneath our feet! because every boy

is a fantasy fulfilled,

every day is a heaven to un-glove and hold, Good Morning wonder cat,

I believe in this gold; behold this golden glorious day masters! And mistresses!

Mistrust not each other but in God trust,

yea, in God fear, and only God, in Him, Fear,

that to Not do unto others as you would

is to not live, is to pardon yourself from the party

to the ashtray to the cylinder

gouging down the hill next door the alley, next door the picnic,

next door the rambling old shanty house down the way where

Allan and Gillespie and the Spoonerism man live

dog the lampshade bed-spray and whom he

we

where

what

all those stupid questions

leading nowhere.


a book of faces

glorious, beautiful, sad, imaginative,

porous and Horace faces staring back

inviting us into some magic we don’t understand

but hold like imagined pony-tails

of human women holding

(hopefully) our hearts in theirs

metaphorically speaking, of course.

Like An Agreement

Do you like apples?
I got her
number
how'd you like 'em
(& so forth)

number as in
more numb

i meant
is what she said
is wherein we went to bed
like an agreement.
A good one.

<>
Blockbuster summertime
dropkick bummer why
everybody strums the scribes
for anybody, nobody, herein let us be there for it
forthcoming bloodwork blood perks bold quirks
and everybody says
like them so so so big
a whole old big daddy
crape myrtle and so forth
growing around the eaves
of the sanctuary.

Gayer

It might be getting better. But that doesn't make any better the fact that this blog has lost it's central pulse; there is no reason for it to keep going. This is not a place people go to "check things out." People don't hang out here. My frown is a Rembrandt, and I am gay!!!

Daughters, Ballparks, Or Neither

Of course you probably don't wanna
fire on these, these manta rays I call
"guns." They swim until they arrive;
they swim until they're
done. You know where I'm staying, Starks?
I'll get you that platinum-laced Jersey at
the stroke of midnight, ya heard? Eesh, cameras.
Everybody hates cameras. Just look at them,
looking at you, taking your picture.

Eesh. Anyway today
I grew some words, like celerity, which means "rapidly."
Like rapid celery with celerity these celebrities wither
away with amphetamines and not eating. Tiny,
invisible hair covering their bodies like brineshrimp,
(which is One Word in my dictionary, harumph, yaaaas).
Bulimic is the new bucolic, transplanted like a houseplant
into the cemetery, cool and austere and stripped-down
and unaugmented, as well as serene, not-to-be questioned.
But with all this said it's hard to believe we will continue to
afford the dead the physical space they seem to deserve
when all the living ones keep writing petitions and retching
sweaty violence toward our daughters and
let's just keep them all apart, anyway. Separate but Equal
brand Mouthwash is good enough for me. My gums sparkle
clean and pink health and my sheath never quivers, because
I don't have one, because I don't need a protective covering
over my unit, because I'm a man, MAN, and my testes
hang out like this and my huge Andromeda straw just lays
there, gathering legend, because sperm need to just chill,
brother? Can you feel it? All that biology so thick you gotta
put on some anti-shades to see through all the layers of complexity,
so complex that no sarcasm can put us to sleep tonight; instead,
it's Pure Quality. And an understanding--
as simple as, let's say, "Lay still now for eight hours!"--
of anatomy and miracle glands.

Even Pharaohs Eat Lunch

Daddy's got it backwords, i mean backwards,
back toward the woods i bear my sideburns
meaning firearms: WANT TO FIRE ON ME?

I scuttle ships with the best of 'em, scoop
skittles like the rest of them, chest in chin,
feeling brave & thin, like a mushroom grin
on a day-glo necklace Santa--Christmastime on Mars!
Not again!

& so-forth, Mars bars, broads at the bars with
the Farmar Jersey on and I say, "Hey, nice
Jersey, what's the deal?" And she says, "Hey,
nice try kid, I'm pregnant, feel," and I say
"Great belly. Oh, a kick? Nice talking to you."

(This is needles-haystack--meaning needless--
to say: I'M IMAGINING EVERYTHING)

And her name is Cynthia and her breasts are
fucking fantastic (while we're imagining we'll picture
her topless, hotter than Megan Fox)
and this fantasy tops the list of weird things
to talk about, like cysts, or conversation with the
wife about your lurid trysts.

& I insist not to be a night-bear, not to be afraid
of the nightscare, everything is a nightwear
possibility: the rug, the furniture, Jones' hat
that was mine which was Amanda's and now:
who knows? Time moves like a globe sometimes:
Around, moving like a clown on steroids, getting
angry for no reason, quoting Danny Glover,
telling Mel not to kill himself.

But that's not the point. Another comma, another mid-
spin re-direct check-point check express-lane bypass
and I die of grass--Digress like Reader's Digest
(now online only)...

Throat clearing done. So I want to say:

I can communicate quite well. Deft language becomes me.
Or, I create it with ease. See how concise we can be?

But the usual limits bore me, I do not walk here,
ON THE SIDEWALK, rather in the grass
(maybe pulling up weeds for the fun of it, fuck you
Monsanto)

Which is why I write like this
like a child who absconds from the bus
mid-transit and gets hit by a semi

yeah, i got a semi
every time I look at pictures from semi-
formal Junior year, drinking that potion, juice
& everclear, ever clear that this year I would be
having a lot of great sex, fucking in the old train
station, but that's getting tawdry.

I mean,
The usual inexact man would say
I color outside the lines.

This is kind of true: It's accurate in the same way
that I'm a kind-of-honest person, which is something
we all attest to, but which is almost always a dangerous
lie, more dangerous than the lies we speak.

It is really this: most of us want to be truthful. We want
to be honest people.

But we fail in that. Every single day
it's like I don't recognize the person in the mirror.
"Hi, Douglas Brain here, um, sole survivor of
a recent airplane crash, um, borderline personality
syndrome (something must explain this madness),
borderline drug-addict who thinks he can write well,
well...." I've already stopped talking because it's the
truth, at least the last part,
and they aren't expecting that... but what if it's
all true? What if nothing really means anything? Such
hard work being a Nihilist, yeah right The Dude.

Let me try again:
"Ok, that was an exaggeration. But you probably
wouldn't hire me or date me. I stay up late and am
remarkably slow at ordinary tasks. I'm regularly late.
Women floor me. Drugs have abounded
in my personal life, like friends, except they aren't friends.
They're drugs.

But so am I, DROUGHT, Drugged Main, an animus
you cannot comprehend, a complex snow leopard
in an otherwise warm, canine world. I am a wolf,
a sad legend. My eyes are capable of tearing up
often. I say things I don't mean
nearly as often as I do the opposite.

I am spoiled, undisciplined, sloppy, somewhat arrogant.
But worse of all, I'm entitled, slopping about like an
over-educated busboy.

People at McDonald's probably work harder than me.
Even at 25, you've got to start somewhere.
From now on I'm taking life seriously, but don't
quit reading just yet, I feel prodigious, like a mummy
waking up, casting off the quilts of dead lunches and
a million sad sandwich stories.

Since you asked

1. Dielectric breakdown

I am a horse blinded in a thicket
shielded by everything and nothing
rambling, rambling, rambling;
completely lost.

So this is what it comes to. Angry at most everybody, and probably most of all, myself.

Live cleanly. Drink moderately. Seek adventure
only so far as it fits within a hallmark card
or your online journal
nobody reads, might as well keep it in a fucking diary
locked to the world.

Live clean. Work hard. Be effective
but recreate, give people money,
buy all sorts of things. Want love? How about
an airline ticket to the nearest lovely destination.
Low fares straightaway. Want companionship?
Well, there’s always the internet,
which we swear, says Match.com, connects
actual people. And Mark203 met Skier_hottie24
and damn if its wasn’t sex on the first date,
a spring marriage nine months later and
a rainy divorce two springs hence, with one
unhappy, mistaken child now on Our hands,
groping about like a misshapen question
or an accusation.

Be good, be normal, Do Not Be Strange,
unless you’re a character, wherein TNT welcomes
you (or is it USA?), although you have to be on TV.

Fit in, get a job, move ahead in the world
while the human race inexorably
pushes back the limits of the Earth
thereby poisoning limitless tracts of land,
rivers, lakes, oceans, air, coral-reefs, wetlands –now
practically gone – our rainforests, our heavenly
world right here on Earth the next windfall
for the goddam Gold-Diggers at Mobile Energy Inc.
who give generously at all their local houses of
Jesus, making them helluva good citizen
may God bless them for their charity,
& so forth.

Gross, Comma, Comatose Lime

Aforementioned limbs:
none, as yet.
Still working on it. It was so slippery,
she said, embroidering her daddy's glove.
"Dad will wear this in honor of me and
my great success raising honey bees,"
she said. Her name was Mathilda;
of course, she was a Mousavi supporter.
And Dr. Dre said--Nothing, you idiots!
Doctor Dread is dead! He's locked in my
spacebud! He withered, like the arm,
just now mentioned, of the T-Rex,
(what a scavenger fake!)
when we pursued engagement.
Which won't work. Of course. John Bolton
said so.

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.