Harmon Street Again


I remember the house on Harmon Street
The basement windows of the red brick church
On the corner at the top of the streethill.
Aluminum framed dirty stained glass at ground level
And the fat jolly volunteer policeman
radio geek that lived across the street
that had a treasure trove of toys strewn
in the crawlspace beneath his trailer
The weeping willow
in the sloping yard
of the house on Harmon Street
and the floor heater grating
and crumbly blue flooring in the back room
where most things were 50 years old in the 1970's
and a tiny, frail, white haired woman
called...mawmaw?
she was my mother's father's mother
and she was older than anything alive
i was so young then
the mornings were like candy
and the old woman so nice and loving
and everything was a smile
and it was always time to play
and me and my brother
were the center of the universe
for that few hours
later, in our teens
my brother knew a girl
that lived on the same street
and we rode over there on our bikes once
my brother and the girl
did what 14 year olds do on summer evenings
bikes leaning against a car on the street
and i just hung around
and marveled at how we were in the same place
that we had been when we were babies here
and all of us
played beneath that
huge
old
tree
--------------------------------
why all the badassery?

In nature, an aggressive stance can save you.There's that desert lizard that throws up a big skinweb behind his head and runs towards his attacker as a defense, the Pufferfish that swells up when provoked and Obi Wan Kenobi, who's unearthly noises (original version) and flailing Jedi robe arms scare off the simple-minded sand people.
In Kentucky, most of the police (especially the "stateboys") drive a variation of the Ford Crown Victoria. Astute cop watchers across the state are familiar with the subtle indicators of copness that a Crown 'Vic grille conveys. Ford, like other auto makers, likes to use the same platform for a vehicle, modify it slightly and then sell the modified original design as something completely new or different - like "Lincoln Town Car" or "Mercury Marquis". These big, mid-level luxury cars also happen to be favorites of the over-70 set. An interesting coincidence?
An old couple in a big car is nothing new. They've been told for years that larger cars are safer (James Dean), but i have a theory that there are Ford salesmen out there that are pushing the the unintentional 'safety feature' of these cars in that when approaching on the interstate (where all the over-70 set think that everyone is reckless and need to just slow down) these cars look like police cars - and when most people see what they think looks like a cop, they lay off the pedal.

That was a very poorly constructed paragraph.

It works, though. In Ky, a stock 'Vic, Mercury Marquis or a Lincoln will, from a distance, resemble a police car; these days, with so many unmarkeds patrolling the roadways, a violator (the speed limit should be 80 mph, dammit) can't be sure what color mid-sized sedan an officer is going to be wearing, so anything that looks like a mid-sized Ford sedan is suspect.
So, (i theorize) the old people are being told that if they drive this car, law-breaking commuters that see them in the oncoming lane (or - by some odd coincidence - approaching from the rear) will slow down...making the car a safer car than say, a Chrysler or Chevrolet of the same size.

Aggressive stance can save you?

Now, take this same imaginary, hypothetical logic and apply it to the glut of Harley Davidson motorcycles and the myriad imitations that seem to be on the road of late.
Almost subconsciously, most Americans associate Harleys with big, drunk guys that want to beat the shit out of us and steal our chicks. Why? Because thats what those guys did (google "one percenter") and those used to be the only guys that would ride a Harley...and these guys travelled in packs - like dogs. Bikers were not a nice bunch of guys. Downright menacing. They hurt innocent people - took joy in it. Over the years, they've become aware of the fact that the rest of society is not down with a bunch of big, hairy guys on big, loud bikes that eat too much undercooked beef and spend most of their days blacked out on cheap beer, so they've mounted a number of PR campaigns to soften the image. Look around in your community. There is bound to be a "Ride For The Cause" event being staged by a bunch of "Motorcyclists". This started with the "Toys For Tots" thing that the real "bikers" started doing in the 70's and 80's...so that normal people wouldn't keeping thinking that bikers are drunken, violent racists and rapists...which most people thought they were because of all of the drunken racial beatings, rapes and robberies they had collectively committed through the first half of the century.
So, fast-forward to today. We now have a society in which millions and millions of people are glued to their televisions watching, among other things, "Orange County Choppers".

Aggressive stance?

Being "A Biker" now means...what...that you're not a drunken dirtbag? You're a member of the local Chamber of Commerce? You have accepted Jesus? You care about society more than someone who didn't plop down 25-large for a childish toy? You're not a vain, hypermasculine alpha male asshole?

For whatever reason, suddenly every suburban dad with available credit wants a Harley and a logo-embossed do-rag...and they don't seem to think twice before going out and getting one, - they just do it and BAM - instant badass?

Is it just the television show or does the phenomenon speak to some deeper personal identity crisis amongst males in our society?Are these people in the midst of such personal power crises in their lives that they feel they need to display some kind of striking plumage so that potential foes will at least perceive strength and decide not to...what...beat them up and take their milk money?

Are they trying to seem larger than they actually are - like terrified little desert lizards?
My dad used to be a sensible guy. He can operate a slide-rule, his HAM licence is current and he can shoot a tin can with a marble across the classroom in his physics class. A few years back my dad bought a used Kawasaki Vulcan 750. Its no BMW (a bike about which my dad was known to comment "that's a real machine"), but its not a Harley either. It was a Sensible Bike and he wore a full helmet with a face-shield thing and rode the bike to work sometimes.
He sold the Vulcan a while back.

Now, he's riding a bike that is as close to a Harley as a guy can get without copyright infringement...some 1500lb low-slung Suzuki 'Harley copy'...and he's got the do-rag and all the leather crap (and a 'brain bucket') and i am just left wondering...where is the geek that used to be my dad? Who the hell is this blues-harmonica-playing, church-going, aggressive-stance taking 'thing' that has replaced him?

Who are these people?

Why so much swagger and conspicuous consumption?

Why all the huge, white SUVs?
What is with the pornified 40-something soccer moms with straight platinum blonde hair and olsen twins sunglasses?
Why can't people stop showing off?
----------------------------------------------------
things im tired of

pro-american bumperstickers on foriegn-made cars

oversized vehicles

oversized wheels and tires

people not voting

meticulously trimmed facial hair

speed limits

interest

the Harley Davidson Corporation

anything "tribal"

religious politicians

hicks with muddy ATVs in muddy trucks

country music

rock music

pop music

anything vinyl on the back window of any vehicle

ripped pants

men using hair products

gold

media-induced beauty ideals

"the style"

reading glasses

power

cell phones

ipods

bluetooth

patriotism

the demonization of secularism

fear
--------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I am interested more in the psychiatric makeup of the VA Tech shooter than in the grieving process.where is the edge he fell or jumped over?what in him made him lack empathy?what is the formula that lead him to the answer of "people must die"?i want to read the letter.Its one thing to be angry at being an outcast or a "loner"...its another to start killing people.

one disturbing thought...and this happened after columbine too...is that i feel that mainstream america, in their seemingly bottomless lack of understanding of anything that does not toe their line, will use this as more ammunition in the war against individualism... wierdos will become more and more frightening...that kids will become more and more exclusive and fearful of their classmates that are not like everyone else they know...that this will cause a further polarization in the culture wars. The "jocks" already hate the "freaks" and vice versa...but its always "the loner" and "the outcast" that starts shooting.apparently he "rails against the rich kids" in his letter.maybe they tried after columbine. remember the onion article?

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29298

maybe some pretty people reached out to some freaks - but what did they do when the freaks recoiled or said things like "you dont even know who you are..." or "you represent the segment of our culture that devaules individualism and freedom of expression..." did the pretty people listen, become introspective and begin to try to change the legacy of cookie-cutterality that made them what they are?probably not, because a realization like this might imply that it is possible that they, their parents and their grandparents have all been wrong about what it means to be an american...and that maybe they haven't really made any decisions for themselves, that they've been programmed by their church, their parents, their friends and their television and that they are ruled by fear.no, i'll bet they didn't and i'll bet that they won't after this either because they love their precious fear.they believe in it and worship it.
also, i'm sure it won't be long for right wing radio to begin spinning this into their racist, xenophobic worldview.

Cho was an abbheration and a monster.I am in no way defending him or saying that he's like kleibold and harris in the context of being outcasts.I'm saying that there is a lesson here for mainstream america to learn about exclusionism and fear, but that rather than learn to become less cliquish, they will most likey be bolstered in their sense that everything different is dangerous and that what happened in virgina will help to move this society more towards homogeny and sameness.

I know, its negative and small-minded and all that.Its just that I remember the fear...from the PRMC and the congregations protesting outside metal concerts in the 80s, to the subtle shift towards 'wholesomeness' in rock music (creed, etc) after kurt cobain died to the homogenization and sterilzation of FM radio programming after 9/11.

Fear. Again.
-------------------------------------
to the angry guy on the interstate

i'm pretty sure i know why you're so angry.

you're driving a beat up and rusty 1989 Dodge Ram 50 with "Bush/Cheney", "FLETCHER" and "We Vote PRO-LIFE" plastered all over the dented tailgate...right above where the bumper used to be.

it probably sucks that rather than your situation improving after having voted all of these morally upstanding politicians into office, it has in fact dis-improved.
You also look like Ron White.

http://www.frontrowking.com/comedians/ron%20white/ron_wh10.jpg

That has to suck.

I'm sure it also sucks that i gave you that dirty look as i passed and that even though you tried real hard and made little puffs of black smoke come out of your tailpipe, you still couldn't catch up with me to tell me how much you hated liberals with some sort of grinning, cigarette-holding hand gesture.

No, you have to stay angry and wrong and hungover and try not to get fired from your job as a gopher at the bodyshop that your buddy gave you after you failed the drug test for the callcenter job and got the second DUI last year.

she won't sue for support.she wouldn't do that to you.she knows you're trying.

------------------------------------------------------------
bullies

I've dealt with bullies all my life. I grew up being bullied by my father and brothers, i dealt with bullies in elementary and middle school("I wasn't TALKING to you FUCKHEAD!!") and i've dealt with the more subtle bullying styles in high school, college and the workplace and in "friendships".

They never stop.They are the quarterback, the big kid with the crazy military dad, the smart kid with the mean streak he got from his controlling mother, the girl with the most toys, the cheerleader, the big girl that believes everything her redneck family tells her, the preacher, the banker, the cop, the judge, the president of the united states, the head of the fraternity....so many different people.

But they never stop.
There are inspirational stories about people standing up to bullies but unless they are truly confronted and repeatedly and dramatically hurt and emotionally ruined - unless they are broken, they don't stop. The bullying is part of their twisted makeup. It is part of their self worth and their mental picture of who they are ("I hate weakness. Its just the way i am.") .They are sadists that are addicted to power and most dont even realize it.

The only friends a bully has are other bullies because they drive everyone else away.Bullies deserve as much lonlieness as can be heaped upon them.They deserve to learn that the wages of bullying is tears.

If you know one, dont tolerate it. Dont try to help them, dont get closer to them, dont buy the opiate of the condescending crap that passes for "friendliness" that they try to use to get you to let your guard down so they can get deeper inside you and do more damage and cause more pain.

WALK AWAY.

Bullies deserve to hurt because they love to hurt others.

LEAVE.

Quit the job, leave the relationship, cancel the lunch date, stop going to the church, stop talking to them, delete the email addresses and telephone numbers, block them on mysapce - LET IT GO. They are not worth it and they never will be. They are addicts and they will never change.

They deserve silence.

There are sources online for information that will help you to realize that bullies are everywhere.
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/amibeing.htm

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO STAND FOR IT.

As this society becomes more and more intoxicated by power, bullying will move more into the realm of acceptance and normalcy.

It is everyone's job to stop this drive towards the devaluing and destruction of tolerance and individuality by proving to bullies that in the end, the addiction to power is its own prison and that bullies die alone.

Make it happen.

LEAVE THEM.

I Have Old Man Things

i have old man things

i have old man things
pocket-things that stay
a shuffling gait
a dull back pain
slippers
worn good
shufflingshuffflingshufffling
looking for my coffee
looking for my flashlight
looking for my screwdriver
nap
after lunch
i'll fix the mower later
when its cooler
right now
the dogs know what to do
and that is to sleep
in the sun

J.R.

we drove out to the grand canyon
in 1994
your spring break spent
trying on another school
like a new body

listened to The Counting Crows
too much
and endured
the egomaniacaltooexpressivetoodramatic
desperate outcast
that called himself "sage"
who was obsessed with you
who's new toyota we were in
and who's credit card got us the motel room
when we got to Phoenix
and were dead.

and i had to drink Grolsch
when we camped on the rim
and i had to buy $45 sandals
at an outdoor place in Flagstaff

and we hiked
6 miles downhill
the Bright Angel Trail
to Plateau Point
and we were so
alive
and doing something that was real
with dust and donkeys
and families with backpacks.

the memory is splashed
with early 90's neo-hippy
counterculture positivity
and the Grateful Dead Cornell '77
and my green Woolrich jacket
that i just gave away last year
and all of the colors
of the Frutopia Furthur bus
parked on the ASU commons
and the 6 foot amythest geode
in the foyer of the geology building
and promise
and future
and inspiration
and a beautiful arc of life
peppered with photographs
and belly laughs
and trips to the ends of the earth

you lived big in your short time.
that you died on your way back there
is somehow fitting.

now your youth
stays gold forever
and hangs over the canyon
like a giant
brilliant
smile

seventeen long years

your windows and doors
ive seen a million times
oh the start of this was so grand
such promise
big eyes
we could have stood
on the world
big

until i could see
that you were a ghost town
that countless others
had dropped their tools
and walked away
before they ever drove the first nail
that 'brain drain' is a symptom
of a soil with PH so high
that even a thistle like me
can't take root

everyone around you
has something
some dark secret
some ancient laughy legend
an abandoned mine
a flooded valley
a famous singer with a hokey smile
but you,
you have swept every corner
for culture
and collected and perserved it in a nice
tidy
box
and no one has to venture into these hills
to see "art"

no, my dear, this time is done
i have searched and searched
for the part of us that fits together;
everywhere i found revulsion
and a backwards response
to change
and fear
that someone
might tear your mountains down
and expose you
cowering
in this little corner
of nowhere.

when i burned

i remember doing things

with all of who i was

and feeling

the blank memory

of disconnection

i remember feeling

dismay at those

that seemed to live

without a burn

as i fought the tiny voice

that whispered

"that can be you."



now,

these days

after the fires have dimmed

and halfdreams abandoned

disconnection accepted as truth

time crawls

and disappears

(a process once scrutinized

now all but unseen

save for the ticking of clocks)

im still not sure

that it was ever here

or if that

was ever me

when i burned

glorb

when we last left our hero, his 20-year old Honda had refused to hot-start after he had killed it by releasing the clutch prematurely while talking to his lovely fiance' on his prepaid cellular phone after having accepted his breaded and deep-fried fast food from the leathery barfly working the drive-thru at the local Burger King.

"I love you. Its Monday." and the phone is folded.

"TOMMY, COME HELP PUSH A CAR OUTTA THE DRIVE THRU!"

"I got it. It only weighs 1800 pounds."

Neutral, the car is easily pushed (sans Tommy, who is busy deep-frying artificially0-shaped pieces of chicken and cheese) out of the 12:45pm drive thru lane. Our hero re-enters the still rolling, low-slung cockpit of the CRX and coasts over to the edge of the lot, thinking he may just sit right there and have his lunch rather than eat as his "desk" at his callcenter job where he poorly does mid-level network security administration work for several large companies the company he works for has contracts with because partially educated, quasi-dorks are cheaper than people with MCSE certs.

He tries the key and the car starts - only having needed about 30 seconds to recover from the condition which causes it to not start immediately after having been stopped while at operating temperature. He would have waited, but it seems that the only time the car actually does start back is after there has been some change in his plans; delaying the lunchline at Burger King, postponing a dinner date, making calls to say he would be late...only then does the car start. If he just sits there and does nothing, it would never start again because on Monday things hate you.

So, he just got out and pushed it.

Those pictures.
His brother's 9-year old daughter "gets air on the four wheeler."
They are "dirtbike" people.
They're just people.
It not what kind of people they are that keeps him from being close with them, its just that they're people.

Sigh.

---------------

to the silent

I hear you.

did you only want me in your life when i was broken?

did you only need a friend
when you felt like you were performing an act of charity?

did i not do the right thing?
did i jump out of the box?
did i love outside the clique?

apparently, you will never understand
and you will never reach out
to anyone

note to self:
befriend the meek
the meek need.

so, yeah.
I hear you.

everyone needs friends
and everyone hopes
that everyone has
friends
but no one reaches out
to someone they "don't like"
because they see the negative
in themselves
reflected back


so, goodbye all of you "friends"
that never call
and never write
and never stop by
and never wonder
just what
is going on
and never accept
that not everyone
lives they way you think they should.

if you ever call
or you ever write
or you ever stop by
i will graciously accept you
but you will accept me
and my life
and my love
or
you will not.

never hip enough for the hip
never straight enough for the straight
never anything enough for the anything
we are here
in this empty place
a clearing created by fear
the untouchable place
where noone dare tread
for fear they be branded
as having "changed."


"but they wouldn't dig this town..."

try not to think about it, Alice Childress.

liverspots

you build your life
memories pile
flash at you like photographs
and your day is a mess of directions and time

you build your life
and take the pieces as they fall
from the plate of the strong

all mistakes
all missteps
all reasons

to break your neck
forcing it to look forward
into the rain
sun behind
sunnier the farther away

---------------
marketing
those who plan
and scheme to win
are knowing participants
in their negation
but perpetuate
the corporate dream
of the elimination
of the The Human Element
of randomness
and unpredictability
and true
beautiful
messy
life

atheist

something here can matter
as the natural physical world moves on
something here
can mean something
somehow

colors
sounds
smells
touches
tastes

these are real
this information
is all i have

oh what is the point of any of this
if these things dont matter?

the wrong child

i never wanted to be this.
i thought i'd die
i thought i'd be
something
that i loved
but not this
that i am
sitting here
living
sickly
through other people
who are being
what they want to be.
---

family

thanks.
thanks for being scared of me
and teaching that fear to me
i used it as a dagger turned inward
and killed my true self early
before anything
took root

I-64

i am full of something today
full to the point of feeling
that maybe
I can lift beauty
from the floor
where it has lain neglected
and maligned for so long
that maybe
i can stop this
slow soul suicide
and let tears
be tears
and not an indictment
of weakness
that maybe
i can see
why
the rest of the world
tries
and cares
that maybe
we'll make that trip
and find the road
and knock on the door;
"can we take some pictures
of that old house out there
in the middle of that field?"
----------------------


the old man and the pee

i was all sleepy, so i pulled in behind the McDonald's before the interstate and snoozed for a hour before taking off for work. after the nap, as i pulled off, i saw an old man sitting in there - having his coffee. you should understand how one feels when on has been sleeping in one's car next to a busy mcdonald's drivethru for an hour...its just sort of an empty feeling...you just look around and think "wow. i just slept for an hour in the parking lot of a busy mcdonald's between the hours of 8 and 9 am. i've made some serious mistakes in my life..." and so on with things like that.
as i pulled around - there's the old man in the corner booth - the one with the most windows. he's just kind of looking off out the window at nothing - big droopy face and some kind of old man white ballcap on his head. i can only imagine what he's thinking...and then it came to me like telepathy; he's looking at all of us, scrambling to get to work and make deliveries and getting mad at each other in traffic and thinking "you bunch of fucking idiots. don't you see there's no use in trying hard or going fast when you're only going to end up sitting in some restaraunt stirring your coffee and trying to no to shit all over yourself before you make it back home?"
------------------
again with the stupidity parade
re: Britney
Bill Hicks is alive inside each and every one of us that feels like shooting most of popular culture in the face with one of the big guns with the big flared barrels that the pilgrims apparently used if you believe the cartoons from the 70's which reminds me we watched Fat Albert last night and now i want to hang out in a dump in North Philly and be black and play a bedspring guitar and walk like Rudy and godammit Bill Cosby showed everyone how to rule the world and save the children wasn't anyone listening doesnt anyone care that stealin and smokin is wrong and if Tupac had watched more FA then maybe he'd still be alive.
In unrelated news, Penn Jillette should be running the fucking planet. No specific reason, just because he should be. Big black windowless vans would be pulling up in front of malls everywhere, scores of mindless teen drones rounded up... firebombing Abercrombie and Fitch stores would not only be legal, but required of males 18-25.
and other stuff all mean at nice people who like bad art.
-------------------------------
dogs make poop
lots of it.
sometimes, they're sneaky and they make a bit of it on the carpet.
it comes up pretty easy, but there's a slight residue that the kitty cannot stand for.
absolutely not.
this offense must be met with full and immediate retaliation.
form of: cat piss.
little bastard's lucky i don't pop his ass in the microwave and push "popcorn".
-----------------------------------
you can have it
like aged wicker, crumbling
like a caught fish, writhing
like a held cat, scratching
you can have it
this death is real and alive
thriving
because it drags the past around like a corpse
so that all might have their justice
while it holds together

NEVER let it go.
ALWAYS get your due.
NEVER let anyone forget

eh, screw it
nothing grows here and there is no folky glory in staying where the roots hit rock so early.
------------------------
The Pariah And The Ruby Jewel, chapter .6783
"Take my hand." he said, and tremblingly so, they did. Bob Dylan sang "Knockin on Heaven's Door" and it sounded like "Lay Lady Lay".
"I'm not well liked." he said. "I don't care. People are secondary." "No, I mean really - nobody talks to me at all."
"Listen," she said, "I've spent the last ten years of my life with men who aspired to be lawyers. I'm tired of smiling and shaking hands and acting like I can stand people. Its bullshit." He smiled and thought inwardly "Well, you've bought the farm with this one, baby. I am the anti-candidate."
Suddenly "everyone" evaporates, whispers dying away - mixing with the background radiation left over from the Big Bang.
Three beers later they're on the floor covered in catsup, laughing and trying to stick dirty socks in each other's mouths.
The house stands empty and clean in the sun, awaiting a new story that can't end here.

80's hair

the shape of this vision
on my morning commute
is as much like time travel
as it is a daydream
faces of people
lives moving 'round
in the flush of youth
a scene
things happening
people caring
and hurting
and trying
and crying from the strife
of wanting to matter

the girls
all full of purpose
and love for all the world
smiling as they write
crosslegged on an old couch
or elated from news of
some happening
wild-haired
and eyed
and vivid

i miss you.

the cities
full of idealistic children
and art
and music and literature and love
and significance

i like my dream

dont do me like that

if you are going to leave
the way you came
then i need to know
because if i dont
and you do
you'll drag my guts out behind you
as you walk away

i will become

i will become a statue
of a broken man
of a boy split down the middle
of pride destroyed
by the dream of strength

i will become a statue
and watch over a harbor
and the sharp seas
will lay against my bronze cheek

as the children play i study my hands
in the bright sun
and see nothing
but meat and bone
and so much undone
for fear of mediocrity

sometimes its all wrong
its all a waste
all the endings are bad
everything is sad
and i
just
go on
knowing
there's a trainwreck coming

i shouldn't have bought another guitar.

i want to leave this town

now that i've sucked the corpse of love dry
and proven to the world
of ten people
that nothing is going to happen
and that the trying is over

i want to leave this town
and slip between the cracks
and be devoured by
the wretched mutants
of the underground

and maybe
just maybe
one old bum
will cry
while i sing

no one cares

no one cares about us
though they might watch us dance
in a diner
in a movie
by the side of a western road

i dont care bout anything
anymore
and im turning off my phone
and im going to sing right out of key
and make you love me more
even though i know
we're dust anyway

so when i look in to the future
and i see the crush of time
caving me in
i think i might just
jump ship
cause this road looks like
I40 in the summer

no one cares about us
but they might watch us crumble
and die at their feet
and an eye will twitch
and shoulder itch
and maybe its time
to put that cigarette out
as a fly lands on your eyelash

you are a liar

some are careful
about their ugliness
they bury it, wrapped in sugar
deep down
inside their boiling selves
stomping it.
denying that it is real
smiling to the world huge
and trying to walk through the world
as if they are not here and leave no mark
and all that they have ever done
is love everyone and everything.
but the memory
of the mean things that you have done
because you hate so well
will stay
and haunt you
and never be undone
and every time i am reminded of you
i am reminded of unwarranted hatred and lies.
and i feel good
because i know
that you remember too.
some small justice.
because i know that as long as you live
you will hate.
because you hate so well
you really do.

YOU DONT GET TO PLAY

not now.
you missed it
when everyone was up
moving to the music
you were standing against the wall
in your James Dean pose
too cool
too smart to play
but we knew you were aching
and on fire inside
and we are human
and alive and had to keep going
while you watched
so now
you want to sit
you want to play
the chairs all long rotted away
the game over for decades
but you want to play now
now you're ready
and we can only stare
as you try to fit into your kidpants
and scrub away the wrinkles
and smile some excited, maniacal smile
with your shoes on the wrong feet.
no.
you're late.
go home.

------------

meteorologically speaking
we should have been out
in the rain
rolling and splashing in the mud
like children
we should have been
feeling the living rain move over us
but
it is not shunning the sun
to feel you've wasted the rain
it is just
that it was better to nap
and that sunburnt sleep was good.
it supposed to rain tomorrow again i think.

-------
for years my father worked
though not like me and for more money
still, through a bleak time, he worked.
and dealt with a disintegrating family
and ever more strange and mean children
and lonliness
and let the little 13" color tv at the foot of his bed bring sleep
while the years drug on.

but my father's life is not mine.
this is not a "rough patch".
this is the part where i'm wondering if i can eek out another 12 years here and retire and then sell everything, give all the money to my son and then go floating off into the ocean somewhere on a little boat.

-------
last night i had the strangest dream.
i sailed away to china
in a little rowboat to find ya
and you said you had to get your laundry clean
didn't want no one to hold you.
what does that mean?

i haiku?

a breaker of friends
i spill something on my shirt
and watch your glances
-----
i am an old man
and i did cut off my beard
but i still love you
-------
the beer is all gone
and im screaming at the wall
but then you came back

pretty bird

my pretty bird.
i held you here
in my diseased and broken wings
for a while until you came around
and were healthy enough to fly again
to anywhere but here
because this is not a nest.
this is the ground.

and why did you land here?
well.
i flailed and flapped at you
i saw you circling
aimless
in pain
nowhere to stop
and said "land here. rest a while. though i can no longer fly, i've seen the sky and i know what it can take away when you've been to long and too close to the sun. stop here, let me hold you...let me feel a bit of what it means to fly...i remember...i remember..."
and now perhaps you are on the mend.
but i can't yet open my wings.
for some reason.
they seem to be stuck.

interstate trees

someone thought enough
of that regal oak
to spare him

at least 100 years it has seen
only to stand sentry
mocking a meaningless morning commute
and reminding life-locked losers
that they could have made better decisions.

Diver Down

we're talking less
but saying more
and the tears against my cheek
i will drink
and absorb
encase in pearloid
and bury them under the bottom of the sea
and hold my breath for a million years

inside this braintruck
i see it all from a scary spot
again with timelapse clouds
and technicolor progeria
and reused imagery
and in and out of weeksand almost over a year
to where the wild things were

we're talking more
and saying less
until we're standing
tonguetired
naked
eyeswide
the unsaid spinning round us
nipping like gulls
and we cower fetal
as love crawls broken back to bed
and bleeds there until it sleeps

hoth


and down there
the builders continue

purposeful
driven
oblivious to why

just doing their jobs
following the blueprints

the bunker is to be strong
steel walls
strong enough to withstand a firestorm
or a cold
like that of deep space.

more of an insulation against the cold
since this is more likely than the heat

i will refuge there in fetal
until my skin grows thick again
and i can face
the wintry deadscape

that you will leave behind

sweet and sour chichen
as i waited i guess i drifted to the window. i was drawn by the rain. its that way when you are so much in your mind that you need to look at things in a way feels like there isn't anything there at all.
i drifted closer to the window, thinking of what i had thought to say and how everything is always so sad.
"sir? this you money?" the small chinese man asked - holding up my five.
i had ordered something i didn't want and had taken several minutes to do it, your face floating before me the whole time.
i turned and realized i was now across the restaurant from the counter. i didn't even remember walking. just looking at the rain and thinking...wondering...feeling...fearing.
"yeah. sorry. thats mine."
he took it and rang up my lunch.
as he did i studied his face.
a simple man - probably a normal life - pretty good car, girlfriend/wife - video games, movies - sending money home, some drinking, maybe slight drug use. happy, though - or at least not bearing the weight of the world. i could see it. some things were worth his time, most things he doesn't care about. "i'll bet its good to be him." i thought.
what was i doing anyway? i wasn't hungry...but more because i didn't care if i was hungry or not. she's been going without eating. i know how now. i used to do it alot more. you just live in your mind and forget about your body and it stops bothering you unless something is really important. its kind of ok to not worry about things like eating sometimes.
"what soup?" he had asked when i ordered. ordinarily i say "hot and sour" with a confidence and can almost taste it...but i could barely get the words out...stumbled over them...couldn't remember...tried to visualize it..brown...oily slightly...tofu...tried to say it...it almost came out with a chinese accent; "hon sow", but i managed to get it out. " h---hot n sour."
i lifted my food in the heavy brown sack and it pulled me back to here a bit. walked over to the counter to get the spoon and fork...tried to remember if i had enough money for a drink back at the callcenter..started tasting the food a bit in my mind. almost looking fwd to it.
walking slowly feels good. especially in a light rain. walking slowly feels good because it says to everyone who sees you that you don't care. it feels slow. your body does the work. your mind lets your legs go and keeps at its task of unravelling and trying to make sense the mess of your life.
i wanted the walk to be long. i could walk forever and not know what to do.

dodo

i felt it go
i watched it change
the full constellation apparent
when you faded
something simple
really can be simple
if you let it.
i'm good, tho.
i only walked to the edge and looked down
cause i've been on those rocks before
i only dream of flight
i remain
intact
and maybe the dream is enough
for the dodo.

you can't epitomize him

as the 80's wore on
it all became rather absurd don't you think?
the macintosh
the cats
the peacefulness?
truth is, he killed time.
he did it the best way
he took time
wrinkled it
tore it
and spit on it
handed it to a man
who boxed it and sold it to you.
he became what he deserved
and i am the dead people in his poems
but that nasty old fuck did 15 years in a job
you don't hate a job and do it for 15 years
or maybe you do
if it keeps your soul in a vice
squeezing out the juice
that is of course, for sale
------
crazy drunken fuck
these people don't understand
that for 3 dollars and ninety one cents
they are RENTING
a glimpse
into themselves.
wake up you shitbags
and send you car careening over the edge
full of kerosene and manuscripts
and all the little pieces of shit
you think are you
----
he typed because he was too drunk to write.
he used a computer because it was easier
than typing
now
its instant
soon
no interface
direct from person to person.
----
these dark insights
these visions of the wretchedness of man
the holdings of mirrors up to the world's face
these happen
when you stop
and think
and hate for a moment
and see futility for what it is
and see
that death is the only truth to any of this
that everything is love
and that all any of us have to do
is make it
---
you said it.
you can't epitomize him
and i thought
"this monster?"
but now i see
life is not laid down permament
in words
but time is.
"where the spirit wanes, the form begins."
he'd have died ealrier were it not for the bluebird
were it not for letters
were it not for a true buying of the myth of capitalism
and laying a shit-stained $10 on the nine horse and winning
and a fine piece of ass.
"she put ten years on his life"
well.
thats new math, man.
they didn't teach that in the 30's
----------
but i won't - you know i won't.
i can't.
i'm too pretty.
too palsied
didn't get my beatings
have no heart
can't know strife
never had to hurt
never tried
never cared
and I'M the freak
and I am.
-----
i see the bodies of people
and wonder how those
that work in the field
can not see skeletons
hanging with temporary humanity
see mud and dirt manipulated
into an animal
and then i'm struck
by the persistence of life
that moves this earth
and knows
and drags the knowing around like a club foot
and that just short of dying
there is some requirment
some mission
do not spread the darkneess
that dwells in the hearts of men
for this shall be your undoing.
--------------

upon walking into a tornado

i think i need to lay off this
i feel like a jackass
because i am a jackass
and im laying off today

i awoke - a dream of an old department store standing virtually derilect in the middle of a great city. a grand old building with big dark spires, arching windows frames in darkened yellow brick and other long glass fronts where all the wares can be seen. two businesses could not resist it and still had stores on two of the floors - grand and bright blaring out into the street through the old black framed glass, showing the city what real commerce was when people actually cared about where they bought things. we were working inside on the renovation - carrying the old salvaged windows down the long, wide steel stairs into storage in one of the abandoned rooms. dust and dirt and dripping water...like the building the last scenes of Bladerunner were shot in.


the fable of the snake does not apply.

thou shalt not anthropomorphize.

gratitude is a human construct.


i feel i've been before.
you've seen me once
in worse form
and i eventually left town
disgraced
after bloodying my face against the glass
of cliques
and fear
and protectionism

i've seen me a million times too
shuffling raggedly down the street
stinking of filth and brokenness

---------
a little is enough to pacify
to keep me from trying.
because when i get close to the real thing i start pissing on myself
and running around the party with my fly open.

Alice In Chains

i see you down there.
i know how the walls are built
learn to be a B student
and put the pedal down
for the larger side of what can matter
because soon the storms will come
and you're naked
---------------------

Learn To Forget

Lets sit down right here and forget that this year ever happened.
All of those nights i regret will be like smoke in the wind.
and if i did something to you that i dont remember
then i hope you can learn to forget.
i hope you can learn to forget, my friend

you did not expect that I would get on such a bender
with the crying and screaming and putting my hands through the glass.
you said you'd seen worse, but that you'd be hard pressed to remember.
well, i hope you can learn to forget.
i hope you can learn to forget, my friend.

i've got a young son.
I don't know what else to say.
don't do like I've done;
don't give your freedom away.

and i hope you can learn to forget
i hope you can learn to forget, my friend.

Lets sit down right here and forget that this night ever happened.
'cause you and I know that the rest of them won't understand.
Sometimes a man can't look forward for what he's draggin behind him.

and i hope you can learn to forget
i hope i can learn to forget
i hope we can learn to forget,
my friend.

imitating EC

addicted
addictive
restrictive
contemplationary confrontationalism
only in the ethernet firebreathernet sunscreen.
great yawp of power and conquering
foot on chest
alvamael in miniature
nothing is fair
childhood is the only truth
hence the pain
"the night i was born, the moon turned a fire red"
----------
enabling yes man
perpetuator of pain
sense of self derivational
------------

i can't continue.

i feel it going there again where i have to choose to be a friend or not...and i can't be your friend when i think of you as beautiful.
how do i think of you as not beautiful?
i can't
so i can't be your friend
unless your love is wider than i know
or you want to be with someone who has no dreams
or future
or a life

no, you don't want that.
you've got it good
even if you dont think so.
stay where you are.
dont come over here.
this is quicksand over here

strange
i'll walk down in a moment
and have a cup
and stand around
and watch you think
"please don't talk to me"

and yeah.
i've made it strange
but only because you're not

popular
it is surely strange
to be around
"oh - i know them all"
"i know everyone here"
and still
feel the repulsion
like a forcefield
like a cliche
ruts worn where it has gotten old

yeah, i know them all
but they know me
so its over
over

little redhaired girl
always there is one like you
untouchable save
for a social supernova
but for you
i'll get up early
and buy film for an old camera
and think of you
as i choose the shots
with my heart

a little green bus toy
for you said it was your dream
i'll stash it somewhere
and we'll play a game
that no one else will know about.

middle school letters
3-21-86
Clark,
Hey, whats up? Me, nothing much, just thought i'd write and ask why you told Leslie that you goofed up yesterday? I don't see where you went wrong because she's going to the dance with you isn't she? Last night after you called her she called me and all she talked aboutwas how much she liked you. I hope you like her alot because if you evertell her that you don't liker her all that much I know what she'll do she'll cry because when she found out that you said that she was about 80ft tallerthan you she almost cried. I wish you two get together before the dance because you never know what you'll get if you ask her to go with you. Well I better let you go for now. Bye see ya later.
Robin Bradburn l/s Louie Tillery always and foreverLeslie Johnson l/s Clark Gordon maybe hopefully
Currently listening: Journey - Greatest Hits By Journey Release date: By 25 October, 1990
----------------
gone again
i knew a woman once
i saw her through a window
while we danced slow
her head on my shoulder
a long, sad song
we turned so slowly
rocking from left foot
to right foot
and back
she never looked up
and i shifted slightly
and she never looked up
i knew her then
during that song
through that window
and then she was gone again
-----------------------
west end girls
5-10-86
Dear Leslie,
Hi, how are you? I'm doing great. I had a good time this weekend.
I know you didn't expect me to show up there at your house. Its only nine miles from Paris, my grandparents live there and I like riding my bike anyway.
I liked hanging out there with you (especially in your mom's roomwhen we were listening to the tape with the Pet Shop Boys on it - i hope she's ok with me smoking in there...maybe we should have made the bed..) I didn't know you were an AC-DC fan. Thats cool. I really like the For Those About To Rock album.
Anyway, I guess I should go. I'll meet you in the stairwell right before 2nd period.
Love,
Clark

Sometimes you're better off dead
There's gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head
You think you're mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a West End town
Call the police, there's a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a West End town

In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
West End girls

Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?
(How much do you need?)

In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
West End girlsWest End girls

(How much do you need?)

In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
Oooh West End town, a dead end world
East End boys, West End Girls

West End girls

You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait 'til I get you home
We've got no future, we've got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From Lake Geneva to the Finland station
(How far have you been?)

In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls
A West End town, a dead end world
East End Boys, West End girls

West End girls

-------------------------
Monday, March 06, 2006
its truuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
1-31-86
Dear Leslie,
Hello. How are you? I hope you are doing okay. I'm doing fine. I hate school. You seem to enjoy it but thatsbecause you are so smart. I think you are pretty too and its ok if you are a little bit taller than me. I still like you.
There. I said it.
I was wondering, if you you weren't already going with someone ( i know you like Jeff) if you would like to go with the dance with me? I can wait for an answer and i understand if you don't want to.
Anyway, i hope you can go with me. I'd like that very much.
Your friend,
Clark
PS - I'll be at the table over by the window at lunch if you want to come over and maybe sit with me.

Sister Christian, oh the time has come
And you know that you're the only one to say
Okay
Where you goin', what you looking for?
You know those boys don't want to play no more with you
It's true

You're motoring
What's your price for flight,
And finding Mister Right?
You'll be all right tonight
Babe, you know you're growing up so fast
And momma's worrying that you won't last to say
Let's play
Sister Christian, there's so much in life
Don't you give it up before your time is dueIt's true
It's truuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue (Yeah)

You're motoring
You've got him in your sights
And driving through the night

You're motoring
What's your price for flight,
And finding Mister Right?
You'll be all right tonight

You're motoring
What's your price for flight,
And finding Mister Right?
You'll be all right tonight

You're motoring
What's your price for flight,
And finding Mister Right?
You'll be all right...Tonight

Sister Christian, oh the time has come
And you know that you're the only one to say

Okay
But you're motoring
Yeah, motoring

cliques

im watching it all play out.
eyes averted, knowing.
the broken social scene
a laughable parody
the two-way street of friendship
a long, lonely road
from here on out, there are no passengers
for all of them have ridden prior
their archetypal forms learned, experienced
and tossed aside.

what is this thing that loves life
loves to watch
loves to feel the rush
but cannot jump in the game?

i've seen it all go down
and yet, ive been nowhere
done nothing to make such a claim.
i just know.
i just cannot shake this feeling
of life being a dance
Musical Chairs
and i'm the fellow standing at the end.
---------------

i am a child

i am a child
you can't befriend me any more than you can befriend a corpse.
nothing sticks
never has.
ever.
don't try.
the only thing that helps
is acting like a child

this place is a glowing cesspool


what goes around comes around. you're gonna reap just what you sow. instant karma's gonna get you. this movie is about retribution. i'm paying for it now, momma. I'm payin for real.
step right up ladies and germs and witness the disintegration of the mediocre mind. no one takes pictures of me but me and i always say too much. if it ever all comes together it'll be a helluva day but i think that train has long since left the station. i don't do anything that releases any aggression because i don't have any aggression. note to self: stop shrinking. i don't eat well, I don't sleep well, I don't drink well i don't well well well, what have we here? i've been thinking about this my time business. i figure if you're here and im here, doesn't that make it our time? this is our time. when the truth is found to be lies and all the joy in you dies? three is very much the magic number but three is kinda weird when you're a bisymmetrical, aquasimian biped, watermonkey.i need sumthin real real real fukkin bad, momma i just can't say what it is. i ain't got much but what i got i had give to me. once i realized that life is just something that energy does everything seemed rather useless. we're all just walking around brainwashed into killing time and trying to feel something while the oil companies swing us all around in circles by our lower intestines. no, there is no hope, just temporary pain relief...and then maybe the simple things like the bellylaugh of a baby or the taste of a good cheeseburger mean what they mean and are what they are - which is heroin.
yes, i presume a lot. yes im pretentious but there's no pretense other than im pretentious. I assume you'll read this. you don't care and i don't either. i don't know how to not hurt...double meaning intentional. im gonna get on a bunch of drugs after i get my teeth fixed and just freak completely the fuck out and keep little pet stacks of pebbles in the middle of the street and create grand and glorious monuments to people like Flava Flav and ...oh nothing. i never could be crazy, really. i try too hard. i should get to bed. i have to get up early tomorrow..well, not so early, but later than now. i wish i could go back to being 21 when i had great bulbous acne corpuscles (godammit don't you love that word - say it aloud now: c-o-r-p-u-s-c-l-e-s. yeah. when you say the 'uscles' part let the spit kind of roll and slosh around in your mouth) that would explode out of my seething, crawling, oily flesh like so many bubbles on the surface a hot mud spring. that's just nasty. they weren't big. regular sized zits like any young man who secretes somewhat abnormally high levels of body oils, but they were MY zits, godammit. i made them, watched them grow ...all stretched and distorted cartoon style. I have no idea. I'm bored to tears and don't want to sleep. As i said before, nothing is worth anything anymore but im tired of coming off sounding like a fat, ugly 14-year old girl all writing in her journal and being all depressed and sad and suicidal and knowing that i'm just dumb dumb dumb and have zits and live in an ugly pink room and Jimmy Koepeckne will never notice me over pretty, perfect Marsha Easton and i just want to gouge her eyes with my Mead #2 pencil sometimes in study hall they way she prances around in her mom's expensive clothes and ooh oooh ooh ooh i could just say a curse word, but mom says cursing is bad and a sin and that god loves us all but i wonder does he loves even me with my big ugly nose zits and eyelid warts and one leg shorter than the other and my evil, rage-filled black cinder of a soul? even me? even me who imagines Jimmy doing nasty things to me while i do things to myself beneath my dirty sheets? even me who secretly wishes i could see my english teacher Mrs. Schockley's bush just to know what I'm in for? no, but somebody like John Prine will write a song about me so i can fuck an ugly PFC in a dream and will maybe have one shining moment of release from this ever darkening and narrowing window of existence.

waking dream again

a vague flash of love
lost
from the deep past
a rushing heart
a girl's face through flowing black hair
a laughing smile running
a concert
a car
turgid youth
clean white skin
like a dream
or a scene from a song
or a poem
20 years later
an old man fades
and the paper flutters to the floor

The Dumpstelele

A friend once described to me the "Dumpstelele" [pronounced 'dumpstelele'] - a fabled Tom Waits invention. This was a few years ago. To date, I have not been able to corroborate.
"Ok, Its a steel dumpster, right? He welds the lid(s) shut and then cuts a big, irregularly shaped hole in one side.
Then he welds some pegs on either side of the hole and strings piano strings over it - big ones. Several of them.
The instrument is played by using a silver dollar as a plectrum and a wine bottle as a slide."
Just think about the sound this thing would make...then imagine Tom Waits all drunk playing it and singing some song about being a dinosaur and eating broken glass in New Orleans.
Thats right.
------------

down in a hole

so here
are the last of these years?
to spend shuffling around
peeking out the little jail window
safe behind the steel
but wanting someone
anyone
to come in.
the night is solid out there
but for a half-sphere lit
by the halogen porch light
a little defender
a domestic sentry that says
"somebody lives here still"

i don't want to sleep.
im not done with today
something didn't happen
again
a whole day gone
and the chances are all gone
the doors closed
and im left here
to carry this brain around
as it grows ever more tired
trudging along
towards heat death

yes, i'll grow old here.
not in this space
but in this place
because i've stopped climbing.
the bottom of this well is wretched.
but i know it
like i know myself.

in the dying of the heart
there is a lifting
of responsibility
of feeling
a fleeing of the self
a letting go
like bowels voided
when the body dies.

U2 dream

it was a U2 concert...in what seemed to be a high school gym.
for some reason, they had some famous country jackass with them...i remember thinking that they had to have asked him to join them onstage to make them more popular in the south.
I was right in the front row...which wasn't really a row because it was just people standing around on the gym floor. I was reclining on some kind of chair while most others were standing.
They let the country guy sing his song...which was some well known country standard...only the band didn't know it at all...and even he was screwing it all up and changing it...the only thing that worked was when Bono finally figured what the guy was doing, he sang high, clear, strong backing harmonies to the chorus...which was the only redeeming quality to the performance of the song.
I don't remember anything else from the performance other than looking around at wht i knew to be country fans and feeling some smug satisfaction that they were getting ready to experience U2.
After the show, some people gathered at the stage. Everyone was clamouring to see Edge (i wanted to see what guitar pedals he was using)...i din want to fight the crowd, so i moved over to look at Adam's stuff...which was sort of simple and boring...maybe just a chorus pedal and a tuner?...and no one else was there trying to meet him...i sort of averted my eyes from him and went back over to Edge...i finally got to the stage...and he was running some kinds of wierd vintage delay stuff...and i asked him "Do you use two delay pedals - one set to a single tap and another set to a longer, more repetitive delay?"
He ignored me...and I thought "dumbass - of course thats what he uses. Why the hell did you ask that?"
and that was it.
Why the hell am i dreaming about U2?
-----------------------

and I feel fine
"Well, i know what that song is called!"
"And what would that be?"
"'Its The End Of The World As We Know It.'"
"Thats right! That is the name of the song!" I decided not to mention the parenthetical (and i feel fine) part of the title...after all, we were just getting out of the car at the school..
"Yeah - because he sings a bunch of random words and then says [singing] 'its the end of the wooorld as we know it'.."
"Well, they're not completely random. There are lots of names of people and places in there."
"Really?"
"Yep."
"hmmm."

methinks i know what our next reading project will be.

gray ice dream

my dreams are like movies these days.
it was so wierd.
this family - or at least three members of it - the grandfather, the mother and a boy of about 8 or 9...were out side when something like pompeii happened.it started raining...gray needles? fragments of something...sounded like bacon frying as it fell ...a type of ice? anyway - it coated them almost instantly...freezing them in whatever position they were in - looking up to the sky, the boy was in mid description of something (like my son will do - with his arms flailing around to describe)...and they were frozen and died there - like the pompeii people...and there was a closeup of the gray stuff creeping/solidifying along a tree branch...and as it solidified it took on a shiny, gray metallic color/texture (like ice again?)...and in the closeup...as the stuff creeeps up the branch, it somehow exposes this... we suddenly see a little boy's hand clasping the hand of what appears to be a green tree frog - - you know how they're all bright green and fleshy...and the little boy's hand was clasped in it...and as the gray stuff fully exposed the boy and the treefrog, they go from hard gray stuff to living beings...and the boy falls from the tree and suddenly become aware...that he has travelled time and place...like as the other people are coated and killed, this boy and the frog are exposed and made alive...and we know that the boy is a younger version of the child from earlier that was frozen...and it just gets wierder from there. There are different versions of the same family entering and exiting the same timespace at different times and are all running into each other and there are all kinds of intense emotions and wierdness and disbelief and at one point im running through the 'family home' with the little boy and we're trying to stop it from becoming all Disneyfied...i specifically remember walking down the hall and seeing a Quizno's kiosk and going "Quizno's?! What the hell is a Quizno's doing in here?!" and we run into a big movie theatre - the kind that they have at the mall and we're running up to the back of the theatre to warn avery one...and then i woke up.
but at one point i was driving down a road and suddenly it turned into this rickety wrap-around porch type pathway around this old man's house...and he is the patriarch of the whole family...and the porch -type path is made of almost rotten tree branches with big spaces between them and its all painted gray and white (you know - like a porch - gray boards, white rails) and its extremely rickety and very high off the ground...and i get all the way down to the ground finally and the old man comes out and says something like "yeah - need to take that down" and starts to shake the thing until it breaks and falls away from the house...and people cheered that he had finally brought this old walkway down...lke i had been the first to walk on it in like 30 years or something.
it was like a movie.i woke up with full awareness of it and was all "wow - i have a complete movie idea in my head."then i started to realize how crazy it all was.
I think the premise might almost work though - the different versions of a family being caught in some wierd inadvertant time travel thing and encountering different versions of themselves and learning some kind of lessons from that.
-----------

fading
fading communication.
fading light
fading inspiration
fading friendships
(i feel you spinning around trying all the knobs and switches of us and none of them do what they did before and its all just stopping and you're sad but not too...just ...disappointed...and you are one of many my friend. one of many.)
fading intellectual agility
fading humor
fading wit
fading vision
fading will to live
(really)
fading faith
fading memory.
fading paint
fading clothing
fading fading fading fading.everything gone to black
"don't try"
as i throw my hands
cause every time i try
i fade.
and im exiting now.
more reclusive
less responsive
less involved
until finally maybe this body shuts down
and leaves finally
release
in the movies i'm one of the characrers that gets killed off fairly early.
game over.
thanks for playing.
you can keep all my equipment
i wont need it.
--------------

pj morning
1-20-99
A flock of seagulls. In the middle of a shopping center parking lot. In the middle of kentucky in the middle of winter.Some things just don't need an explanation.
I saw some black birds cross low over the highway this morning. A pattern of imaginary cross hatch as they pass just outside my windshield.
Fruitfly myself inside out."Victory"
"Happy and Bleeding"
"Plants and Rags"
The way she says “began” is exquisite as she pulls my face to her black, cold crotch.I tell her in my weak american way – ‘I would never do that to you.’
My stomach - a burning mass of proof –I smell horrible and I feel like crying and sleeping.So I do alittle of both.Smoking would not be good today.This is all in the brain before caffeineDriving, faster, faster, the faster I go the more I relax.Not really. No real relief. No matter how fast.I think i'm sick today.
------------

eulogy -1997
While i was alive
There were storms
and people
Making do and not
There was soft and hard
Big and small
and everything you have to work for.

I was a man while i was here
if not so boastfully stated every day
and there was everything i didn't understand
and did and didn't want to

There were things that stuck to me
and things that wouldn't take
There were springtimes
and winters
and undefined days
of no future
and there were lovers
at least they thought they were
or tried to be.

Something while you have to sleep
and wake and shit and wor
kand hate
and there were sounds
I thought were me.

and there was drunken Jazz
psuedo sex dancing at 3am
and toilet worship
agonizing pain of being alive
my vomit on my clothes proves i exist.

A million starts and twice as many stops
and no care and no being of what you are.
and there were queers
and freaks with beautiful lives ahead
with no fear
and talented bums
and teachers.
and month-long acid freaks
afraid to make it all real and getinline
and just about a million players
with big, young eyes and
"yeah, man - i can'really doit that well yet..."
and songs that rattled the fucking windows
and real blues with no sound.

I walked through it all
with my heart for sale
and just wanting a little strength
a little proof that i am something.
and i walked through it all
right out the back door
into the desert
which is where i was headed anyway.

I'll dream about this tonight
with my boring television mind
and i'll wake knowing i'm stupid
and weak
and stil have to be.

I want every day to be like fire
and all of my insides worked out so hard
they shine from overuse
and everyone to hear just a few of my words and make
me king of myself
and one good lover - a queen that makes me worthy.
----------------


the locking
The rains were heavy last night.
I was up through them.
Like the final front moving through
to wipe out the last vestiges of fall
and bring in the true death of winter
and i did my thing too
finally saying the unsaid
how did it land?
the silence is news enough.
i guess i'll go back to sleep
perhaps the preceeding phrase
has larger implications than we know.

vonnegut argued that this period is not winter
but is "The Locking"
when nature begins to shut things down
and get ready for winter
which strikes in mid to late january
or even february
and can go on into april.
methinks this one will chill us down
like we've not seen in years.
just a feeling.
-------------------

turtle
they never tell you the secret.
they just back away
never saying things like
"if only you had said this in this way at this time"
"If only you had not done this in this way and said this."
they never let on.
they just stop, and back away and save their thoughts for people who will do nothing with them.
nothing productive.
like try
they don't want to help.
you're suposed to just know.

no, you just get to lose.
you don't get to learn.
or maybe you learn not to try again.
or try to learn not to try
or to remember
but they certainly don't want to help.
some sort of visciousness there.
something mean in that silence
but i do it wrong every time i guess
and you shouldn't have to endure that
you've every right to leave me be
cause i cant move there
and you wont move here
and it was rather a bad idea to begin with
and you don't want to try
because you've seen how i am
and i just can't handle someone like you
who won't open their fucking mouth to speak.
only to bite.

Paula Abdul saved my life

do you think that perhaps we know how to die?
that the soul knows how to end the body without raising use of hand or tool - only the the decision be not to go on?
these stories we hear of lifelong couples separated by the death of one only to be followed shortly by the other - is it coicidence that they reach the end at about the same time - that they are of similar age and the body shuts down just because it is time to shut down or is that it was love that powered these people and when their love is gone, they simply wish no longer to exist and choose, choose to die?
once about ten years ago, i had a bad experience on mushrooms. i left the terrifying party and arrived home - to a singlewide trailer i was occupying for the second half of a month a freind of mine had left behind for the ummer - rent paid - i was a sanctioned squatter.
i laid in my bed listening to the beating of my heart. i am part drummer, and i was on mushrooms, so I started grooving around my heartbeat - building rhythms, polyrhythms and solid beats - all with the steady heartbeat as their core. in a 'drum circle', i am apt to not initiate the groove, but allow it to grow, find it, move around it, into it and then try to change the fundamental beat at the core...the time signature even. what usually happens is I break the jam down...the grooving stops because the core had changed...this is why im only part drummer - this is not nice, communal drumming, it is selfish showboating and it generally makes things not fun.
well.
this night, i stayed true to my nature and began to focus on my heartbeat...trying to change the groove..then realized that I was trying to change my own heartbeat...and in a flash of gut-tightening fear, i felt that I had the power - somehow - to stop my own heartbeat. I had to get away from it but could not..it pumped in my ears and in my chest and moved the bed i was on...my own heartbeat became a frightening thing becaus i wanted it to stop and felt that something in me would stop it if I had to continue to listen to it.
quickly, i located the little clock radio i had (one of the few belongings i had at the time) and turned it to whatever station it was tuned to, which was the local, bad, low-grade pop station. A Paula Abdul song i think was playing. I brought the radio into the bed with me and cradled it to my chest as i curled into a fetal position...listening..to anything other than my relentless heartbeat.
eventually i slept.
i was sure that i could have stopped my own heart and part of me still believes i could have.
is this the power that we have?
if we could simply connect with ourselves enough can we commit suicide without an instrument or physical act?
maybe not.
maybe that was just a bad trip.
you know its a bad trip when Paula Abdul makes it better.
------------------

fade
there are many ways
to let it fade.
grown alone.
given to
detatchment?
its back again
the doing.
the doing over the being.

yes, many ways to fade.
as many as there are
people.

the rules of detatchment dictate
forthwith
you should stop
engagement.

and you looked at me
there in the yard
and I backed smilingly
drunkenly away
in the sun
and watched you recede
and wondered if i'd missed
or was right to hold my tongue.
"if you need absolutely anything"
i heard echoing in my head
and you stood with that thought in your eyes
were you watching me go
knowing you would not see me again?
refusing to smile
refusing to let it be okay
needing the pain?
keep it.
i will suffer no more your weight
or the threat of imminent heartbreak
or the possibility
the truth that
I just wasn't
It.

and now, its true
that I do not understand
that i did not understand
that it was all lost on me
that the reality of moments
non-ethereal
cannot be made magic
by bullshit
by ignoring the elephant
standing on your crotch
by dreaming away into some abstracted interpretation
of real human emotion
explained
like Rube Goldberg
flips a switch

no, the next time, i'm on.
i'm in.
i'm there
with no analysis
do be do be do.
but she'll be scared
of you
---------------

falling down
as I age, of course this will matter less and less to people around me...ill just become a graying marcher in the vast armies of mediocrity.
as long as i don't do any crazy shit like make sombody's head into a hat or drive my car through a church or something, the world will happily let me while away my time tucked away in some litte corner somewhere and they'll clean up all my shit when I kick off...in my sleep...after falling asleep drunk...after having been out at some party where i watched people dance and laugh for a couple hours before i threw my drink in the middle of the floor and walked out.
----------------------

a dream described

you describe a dream to someone, they interpret and describe back to you...only they're talented and can write:

dream of the girl in green

nightly visiting the precipice, salted ocean c
linging to the dream: her face,
the way her hands recede beneath a sweater: green
her hair in dervish whip of coils,
pays frenzied homage to the winds
and her eyes cup saccharine secrets
that belie the depth she’s learned to hide...
what have you gone to find below the ledge?
what do you bring to her upon the sand?
what treasure there against rock reason,
makes you know you’ve found THE thing?
the answer slips in between the dreaming
and when you brush her lips: awakening.

i don't know why im here

I put my son to bed with the radio timer on his clock radio set to 13 minutes. Im almost asleep on the couch when It cuts off in the middle of his "favorite song" and he's almost in tears. He yells from his room to tell me "DADDY!!! It cut off in the middle of my FAVORITE SONG!!!" I yell back to the room, "im sorry - goodnight." and he replies with a diminutive "goodnight." and im more sad than i've been all night.
I eventuallly get back to sleep...unable to move to the bed --the couch is somehow more comfortable...restrictive..closer...smaller. I wake up early after a dream. Mike and I were practicing (full guitar rigs set up outside, but just us - no other band members) on the top of a local building when we see a fully armed military helicopter circling overhead.
We watch as it lowers and bounces off of a huge propane storage tank and splashes into the river. We gasp at each other and start to run, because we know that the chopper was carrying nukes. "DIAL 911 NOW!!!" and i look over the edge of the 2-3 story building...contemplating jumping, but unable to bring myself to do it. There is a click like when you hear a closeby lightning strike and then I see my friend Ed running down the street in front of a wall of fire....then i wake up.
I figure its about 7. I try to doze for a while and realize that i should just get up anyway. I have to put my guitar rig in the car for the gig downtown tonight...plus table lamps. We're using table lamps for lights.

------------------------

the fading

While you might think i look like i might know a
thing or two about the world
the truth is much less interesting.
I've been nowhere and I'm going back to stay
because I know what's there and nothing is in my way.

In this real world i can see the fading.
I can see the dim light.
I can watch life crumble.
I am dropping the reins.
I watch them fall slowly to the ground
as if under water
They settle slowly - giving me time to pick them up
If I want
But I watch them fall, absorbing the full moment of release
Of no responsibilty
Knowing that they will stay where they fall
and rot
and no longer exist.

the pomato song

I guess we had a time.
A meal of just soup and bread.
You said you'd be a pomegranate
I'd be a tomato instead.

I opened up the wine
with a screwdriver from the shed.
I was a hero for just one moment
andyou were the Lady in Red.

I listened to the rain
as we lay in your mother's bed.
I didn't know if you were sleeping
but I couldn't clear my head.

I drove 200 miles
Just to see an old friend
and then drank up all of your father's whiskey
and ruined it all in the end.

"Apology accepted."
This is all you would say
"Apology accepted."
Maybe I'll get another chance someday.

nashville

All the people I owe money to:
I don't owe you no more
and the people I been workin for
Will have to find another whore
I'm gonna leave it all behind
and I don't care if its in vain

'Cause I been here too long, honey.
In the wanin' summer I'll be gone.

I ain't takin too much with me
Just this guitar and a pack.
Got a buddy that went to Austin once and never did come back.
I ain't sayin I'm like him, I don't know just where I'm bound

But I been here too long honey.
I'll be leavin when the autumn comes around.

spock

again - defeat I concede.
Why?
Sometimes, there is beauty in the end of a life;
the finality of giving up
on things
this world
all of the tedium
all of it is secondary
to the internal
the real need
to be free
to not have to
"eat and shit and work"
and just to live
or not
and be free in the choice

constrianed by devices
and this notion of 'time'
this body knows no time
this body knows only that it wants
"and like so many of us, it does not know what"

continually, prepetually.
I give up every day.

US 60 East

You won't see me comin round
You won't see me comin round
You won't see me comin round
You won't hear me talkin loud
No, You won't see me comin round.

You won't catch me gettin high
You won't catch me gettin high
You won't see me comin round
drinkin friday night
You won't catch me gettin high

You know i've seen you - the way you are
Yes i've seen you - the way you are
I've seen the darkness in your eyes
your smile -a thin disguise
Yes i know you --the way you are.

You don't like me - i know its true
You don't like me - i know its true
You've got it in your mind
that i'm a certain kind
and you don't like me - i know its true.

I got no reason to prove you wrong
I got no reason to prove you wrong
If you think you can know a man
by the way he walks or the way he stands
then i got no reason to prove you wrong.

arizona

I'd tell you to leave but you're already gone.
I'd ask you to stay, but you're right here at home.
All of your things are under lock and key.
Still, there's just enough room for my guitar and me.
That boy from out west came by today.
Said he was nervous...didn't know what to say.
I told him its alright - that we talked about it over beers last night.
I'm still trying to forget it.

So it won't make a difference no matter how I feel
And it don't really matter cause nothing is real
I won't be a winner at the end of this game.
You'll get what you wanted but it won't be the same.
There's things I could say that would make me feel better...
But if you go away...

vw dream

I had another dream...I had traded someone an old bus body for an engine - what I understood to be a new diesel engine. I had mounted it on the back of some old buggy frame -like a vw pan with cheap, homemade rollbars...i was cranking it to try and start it and for some reason I could see down the center of the engine - as if it were a tube of some kind. It began to build compression and some smoke began to come out of the center of the engine...It finally fired up and ran very smooth...i remember moving quickly to work the accel pedal to rev it and keep it running. I got all excited about having a powerful, reliable engine and then i realized i hadn't figured out how to cool it...after i started thinking about the radiator setup I got discouraged.

Wierd how VW stuff permeates my being...my old bus sits in the yard taunting me - it hasn't been run in a couple weeks... I need to get out there and play with it...