It's Over

I've been feeling this phrase lately. So many things seem over. Obviously, the year and the decade (depending upon how you count), but so many other things.

It is my opinion that the 60's weren't really over until 1995 when Jerry Garcia died. Maybe it was Woodstock '99 that stomped on the burning corpse, but Jerry "checking out" as Bob Weir once put it in a radio interview, was the true end, I thought. Phish was weakening and all things hippie just started to become less interesting to the world after Uncle Jerry was gone.

The 70's have not yet ended, from what i can gather. They've not come back, they've just never gone anywhere. They were in the background though the 80's (porn, big cars, big, swaggery schlock-rock) and even Freedy Johnston observed in 1995 that the "Seventies Girl" that had found his old girlfriend's suitcase in the attic wasn't staying over. The 70's will probably never be over. I'm ambivalent about it. I rather liked the 70's. They're full of yellowed linoleum, big stereos and my brothers and sisters, mom and dad. I was a kid and music was on the radio. It was not a bad time.

If you listen to the economists, The 80's didn't end until the crash of 2008. All of the heady gambling that was born in Brett Easton Ellis's characterization of the facade of the 80's ran straight through until the housing bubble burst. Even through the gay 90's, 80's style guys still smirked from the sidelines in their v-neck sweaters and fratmullets. They were there and they didn't truly think (or care - probably still don't) that wealth had an image problem. They probably are still un-ironically and back-slappingly piling out of Hummers in the parking lots of strip clubs with pockets chock full of coke-sprinkled fives.

As an aside or perhaps an addendum to the previous paragraph, i'd like to say something about rock groups like Poison, Cinderella, Trixter, Poison, Motley Crue, Poison and Poison. It is NEVER going to happen. The world will never be nostalgic enough to let you make a comeback. EVERYONE is embarrassed that they listened to your shit in the 80's. Stop trying. Stop poking your head in the room every few years with your devil hand flying and your tongue flicking. You may not reenter the party once you've exited.

I can't even write about the 90's. I'm still there. I still drive down the road and look up at these hills and have this sort of weird St Elmo's Fire-meets-Slacker-meets-Singles-meets-hiking-in-the-mountains-while-simultaneously-attending-Lollapalooza feeling. I'm not sure the 90's are over because I'm not really sure they even completely happened with any definable clarity. Of course, from the vantage point of some 20-somethings ('Cuspers' as some pop sociologists have dubbed them), the 90's are "Oh, so very over". I guess the absence of Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails and to a certain degree, Pearl Jam on the national stage gives a sort of "over" feeling to 90'sness. Maybe. Probably. Maybe the 90's really ended when Kurt Cobain pulled that trigger in that sad, empty little gardener's hut in Seattle in 94. Maybe. I'd be happy to let the 90's end there. It sure felt like an ending. A gigantic, blood-splatter of a full stop, but there were years to go. We had to pick up all the pieces. We had Frank Black to hear and the Foo Fighters and and right towards the end everyone suddenly wanted to be Gram Parsons via Ryan Adams.

So, decades are over. Now a new one is over. "What the fuck was that?", is all I can say. One of you kids can write about it, I don't care. Paris Hilton? My Morning Jacket? Coheed and Cambria?
What. The. Fuck.
Good things about the past 9 years - pissed off, 30-something comedians. Patton Oswalt, Doug Stanhope, David Cross, etc. Even Jack Black - if you are into the fat, ADD-suffering, narcissistic metal-head in the corner that won't shut up until you let him on stage at the open-mic, but i'm not. I have two words for Jack Black - Brian Posehn.

Anyway.
"It's Over."
So much is over.
My 30's are over.
Another relationship - a marriage this time (What_the_fuck.) is over.
Elementary school for my son is over.
Being "A Musician" is over. SO over.

So much is over.
Myspace has been over for a while now.
Facebook is over.
Twitter is over.
Social networking via a computer as a phenomenon itself feels over. Who wants to sit in front of a computer anymore? Do it from your phone. Do it while you're driving. Do it when your date goes to the bathroom. Do it when you go to the bathroom. Better yet, don't. It's not really that much fun anymore, is it? I mean - everyone is out there and if they really wanted to see you or talk to you, you'd be talking to them or seeing them in person, right? Right?!

You know what else is over?
This note.

One thing that is not over is this snowy snowday. Maybe the boy and I need to go back to the Walmart lot to see if the e-brake 360's are as easy to do as they were last night.

Oh, and there's still some coffee.

this might seem vain, but it feels like the best way to explain this to many people at once.

I've been talking about "becoming a teacher" or "getting qualified to teach" for a couple of years now. i was on path towards the MAT for middle-grade science here at MSU.
I did not arrive at the conclusion to teach lightly, but when i did decide, there was a sudden firmness to the decision that even i was surpised at.

the more i am exposed to teachers, i find that the best ones have a few qualities:
1. they have wanted to be teachers since they were small
2. they stay in the same community or school for long periods
3. they are very nice, nurturing and loving people with huge hearts.

The only thing i have ever truly wanted to be was Jimmy Page.
Tried that, didn't work.
The second thing that i wanted to be was "something in social science...maybe anthropology or law"..
This vision materialized in high school.
I never tried. I got to college (undecided), roomed with an environmental science major and declared the same major the next semester. I had joined this program not for scientific reasons but for idealistic ones.
Wrong.
The word "science" should be in all caps. I didn't have the background or aptitude to be a science major. I got the general stuff, but BIO171 stopped me at the door to real science.

Fast forward a million years to 2008...when i get this flash of "I can teach!" along with a severance package which landed me back here in school, which is a great place to be.
The thing is, the more i know about teaching and the more teachers i meet, the less excited i am about it. A friend said recently "I have wanted to be a teacher since as far back as i can remember, and its really hard for me to want to stay in it sometimes."
If i am coming to the profession with mediocre enthusiasm and sketchy core knowledge, what kind of a teacher will i make?
A frustrated one, is what i envision.
Is a bad teacher better than no teacher?
I don't think so. Bad teachers break hearts and spread disillusionment.
I don't want to do that.
Whatever i end up doing until my body and mind start completely falling apart here in the next 20 or 30 years, i want to do it with at least enough interest so that i don't screw up people's lives...and end up even more bitter, jaded and pissed off than i already am.

So, law. The old first track.
I have thought about law school since high school.
The thing is, my grades are bad and my life is complicated (kids, house, etc)...so i start to balk after an entrance meeting.
I have been looking at the bulletin board outside the legel studies dept in Rader every day for weeks.
"What does a paralegal do?"
Well, some say "glorified legal secratary".
Maybe.
Thing is, I'll be near something that i think i love more than teaching...and i won't be mediocre.

Also - i can still go back for the MAT if i want...and law school won't seem so far off with a paralegal undergrad.

The point of this is to counter anyone's impression that i was insincere about teaching. I can do it - i just don't think i'd do it very well...which would be painful for everyone. Especially me.

these years go by
and we waste them on anger
and we waste them on politics
and worrying over
what
will happen
if

when we should be laughing
and spilling coffee
and making love on the floor

and we change
and our children grow
and
and
and
nothing moves faster
but we fear
that we understand time now so well
that unwatched it slips away
like the reins of an old horse
that is really just plodding along
pulling us home on the wagon

sleeping
stumbling through this
half alive
half awake
sacrificing the dive
for fear of the bottom
when we should be demanding a higher board
and a deeper pool

these families
no one made them from clay
we are happening now
we are messes
and simple sunshine
and tears

i know these things
i KNOW them.

and yet, i pull my hood over my head
and trudge through
with my eyes on the ground
numb from pain
stumbling and empty
careful for fear of falling
when it is the fall
and only the fall
that can free me

you always rocked, man.

you rocked before anyone else did.
and then you snuck it to me.
best shit ever.
rock.
"check this out"
cranks the knob on the right farther than YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT

but then it starts and
it HAS TO BE THAT LOUD
for you to understand
that you should move the floor
in the very beginning of Children of the Sun
big old 70' shit.

Marantz.
Pioneer.
JVC
Klispch.

big stereos
"yeah, now see: that's a perfectly balanced stereo signal."
and it looked like an amorphous blob on an oscilloscope screen..but it sounded like the intro to "Hot Summer Nights" off of 5150.

you brought the rock.
you brought it back on tape from Oneida.

remember when we visited down there and me and my brother visited you and you introduced us to your friend -another long-haired dude. looked like a rock star? like you, man. you were a fucking ROCK STAR when we were kids.

but freaked out, didn't I?
i was little.
they thought we were the same me and my brother.
they had us wear matching sweatsuits.
remember?
the were bright green with a blue stripe down the side.

she had shaved our heads the week before
me because i would get up and go to school without brushing or washing anything.
i think we both got it at the same time
but it was my fault.
my brother had '-pretty much-' straight hair
but my hair was a fucking nightmare.
it was harder in the morning, so i gave up for a while.

but she fucking shaved it.

remember when she did yours?
i do.
i wanted her dead.

so.
we're there
at Oneida
to see "Brother"

and this dude kneels down
when i am just beaming at you
like i was at from whicheth cool flow
freaked out to be at my big brother's school

BIGFANLOVEYOURWORK

dude says
"hey little dude, whats up?"
and puts out his hand at me

i thought the you had introduced me to this guy as a guitar player
...to a dude that was in your band...
and a i freaked out

and i looked at you
and then at him
and i knew i'd never be that cool
and i started crying


because - cool hair, man
COOL HAIR.

VERY IMPORTANT FOR ROCK DUDE IS COOL HAIR...and here i was....NO HAIR...too much.




i was like 9.
10.

i was fucking BALD.


i was trying to be cool.
i was trying to be you


just like my son is trying to be me.

i'm never going to make him cut his hair again.
i'm serious.
ever.


The Rock, man.
you gave a great review.
its still a model.
when we all play together, there is nothing more true.

I'm in the back of a car.
75 Nova or similar.
We're moving.
Joints keep coming.
The Budweiser between my legs has a conical top.
Journey's "Send her My Love" blares full and clear and loud from the speakers in the deck behind us.
I swim in the song, my head nodding forward.
Night. Midnight or later.
We're on a country road moving fast.
I nod and rock with the movement of the car, jostling against the girl next to me.
Joints keep coming.
They're smaller.
I take a sloppy pull from the beer and fumble for cigarettes.
I get one good one from the crushed pack and throw the rest in the floorboard.
My jeans are tight.
Ash in my beer and forget.
Another pull from the beer.
I put my hand on the girl's knee.
Her jeans are acid-washed.
She moves my hand off her knee and on to mine.
I try to look to my right to see her, but she's a blur of white billowy cotton, tanned skin, gold earrings and brown curls.
I can smell her a bit through the smoke and beer.
She smells good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL3vmVjYjBQ&feature=fvw

It rather blows to be alone.

Sometimes it's good. Sometimes, if you really actually want to do something alone, its good.
Like read or write or play an instrument.

Or other stuff.

Generally though, it blows.

It blows to know that there probably isn't someone somewhere having trouble getting you out of their mind.
It is not a good thing to be left to only your thoughts and desires..and responsibilities.
Sometimes you just want to go back to bed.
Or drink.
Or both.
Or just sit there and keep clicking and clicking and clicking and waiting and wondering.
And getting fatter and older.

I think I'm going to go to Wal-Mart and I'm going to go to bed and drink.
Not necessarily in that order.

i knew a woman once
we danced
so slowly almost
not moving
but just enough
her head on my shoulder

the song was long
and i thought to joke
and moved
just enough to send the message
that if she was done
or felt awkward
i was okay with that

but no
she stayed
and i held her
and we danced
and we stepped
and turned around
moving
holding
we were there
and then
the song was over
and it was like waking
from a dream

Out here on the east end ain't nobody none too bright. There’s the Stevens boys what owns damn near everything and who knows what else. All kinds of characters roving around in jalopies looking for work and liquor. Somebody’s feedin em that chopped ham, keepin em regular like I reckon.

I should've left for the city bout 15 year ago but got turned around and stuck behind this plow for damn near ever. Hold a second while I take off these goddamned boots.

Can’t trudge around out here without a decent set of boots. The mud gets so thick in the spring it'll choke a mule. I ain’t never seen a mule.

When they make the wine they dance around on it and can’t stop till it’s all juiced out and what with their feet like they were dancing a clog or a jig.

I don’t need time for anything. It’ll just slip on anyhow and there just ain't no sense in trying to do nothing. I get up on the hill sometimes and just look and watch. It’s like that, the hill. You just want to stand there and feel it - where it is and what it’s saying about what you done to it.

Those goddamned vines can’t stand up to this kind of pressure. I’ll stop on the road and hack em out of strangers' land I hate em so bad. They’ll kill an oak or others but the poplars just drive right through em like a ramrod...lest the vines catch up and they do.

You leave a log laying any more than a few weeks out here in the spring and big thick green coils will start sproutin up under it -that’s them goddamned vines. They’ll grow a root bigger’n a hog leg if you let em.

But I got em chopped out. Went up there with a machete and an axe and run through two decent mowers takin em out.

Goddamned vines.

I can walk around wherever I want up there now - cept a couple steep spots I was feared of rollin the mower down. I left everything that was oak or bigger than 3" round. That old dead pine is bound to fall this year. Its about 30" at the base and I reckon bout 25 30 foot. Been dead for years and is loaded with early pinecones. Reckon she just gave up right during a big spring push and never dropped em. Still got most of her branches what the snow strips more of ever year.

She’ll go this year probly and take down Hamilton’s power line and his fence probly too. I can’t see no other way to fell it without some real manpower what I ain’t got and cain't get.

My saw's down anyway. Reckon a bad coil and no baffle and what with Stihl parts a steep as they are a feller’s well on to just do without.

But I’ll just stand there and look and smell the morning sometimes. Especially after a big rain with the brooks are running high and its just rush rush rush. Everything clean. Everything downstream. Everything somebody else's problem.

I’ll walk the perimeter, crossing over onto Hamilton’s place where he pushed his fence line over a couple feet into me over the old fencerow. That’s what a fellow does when he's trying get every cent that he can out of everything he knows around him. My granddaddy was that way. I know the type. You just let em take. They’ll stay within the law mostly.

Its tough back where the reservoir pond is. That terrain weren't meant for walkin and the barbed wire crosses the creek and makes it damn near impassable. But I’ll go back there in my slippers with a cup of coffee and get dew soaked just to make the round. Done it three times in about 6 year I reckon. Just want to walk back there and see what is.

See what is.

Reckon I’ll pull on this bottle a spell.

We were little boys. We went to elementary school together. We stood by the fence at the field house at Paris Elementary, hooked our fingers on the fence and watched the cars. We estimated horsepower. We knew some cars didn't have "pickup" while musclecars always did. We gave them voices as they passed. We made sounds. We laughed. We were little boys. We were friends.

We imitated the intro to The 6 Million Dollar Man. A crushed Mountain Dew can was Lee Majors; "WE CAN REBUILD HIM!!! {uncontrollable laughter} WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!!!
We were genius.

We were pals, me and my buddy Jeff. We didn't give a shit what the other kids were doing. We kicked a can around or explored the boundary of the track and field area - the places where the other kids weren't. We were explorers.

My buddy Jeff got big in high school. I was a thin, sickly little drunken pothead and a smoker, but he got "thick." He told me once it was "Quit smoking, get thick." I was too much of a rockstar by that point to buy it. Smoking and being fucked up was more important than any physical attribute, but he knew. Him and his buddy Chuck knew.

I transferred to Bourbon County mainly because the white trash kids and then later the black kids were beating the shit out of me at Paris Elementary and then moreso at Southside. Jeff and Chuck had nothing to do with the bullying and were always friendly towards me, but i think they sort of watched from the sidelines. They just were somehow naturally immune from ridicule. I think nobody fucked with these guys because Chuck was bigger than everyone else and Jeff had this crazy brother that everyone either looked up to or was scared of. I also had a brother like that and he had a gaggle of friends that were just...i don't even know how to explain them. Nobody fucked with them, i know that. Between Andy J, Mike W and Mark K, nobody messed with these these cats. Mike was a computer genius, Andy was just menacing and Mark was crazy. My brother Dan and i used to taunt the other neighborhood kids, "You can bring the Army, Navy Air Force and Marines. Fuck it, I'll bring Andy J--------."
They always knew we'd win.

So, i jumped from Paris to Boco in 7th grade. I had begged my dad to switch me, since i was getting kneed in the gut during lunch and constantly fucked with between classes by the white trash and some black kids. I was this timid little knot-haired white kid. I was a natural target. He finally acquiesced and i came to Bourbon County Jr High in my second round of 7th grade, which i already failed once at Paris.
While at Boco Jr high i had my first girlfriend, Marsha, which i stupidly dumped for my second girlfriend Alicia and i then i discovered pot and Metal.

Metal.

Black Sabbath.
Iron Maiden.
Judas Priest.
Ozzy Osborne.
Alice Cooper.
Led Zeppelin.
The Scorpions.
Van Halen.
Motley Crue.
Etc...

Metal.

Around sophomore year - maybe 1987, Jeff and Chuck showed up at BCHS at the same time - having transferred from Paris. These guys knew more about intimidating other people than any kid in the school. They could laugh at anyone and didn't need to be with the 'in' crowd to be popular. They just were just somehow automatically the coolest guys in school. They dated sisters, the most beautiful girls in the school. They were unstoppable and me and my brothers were on the inside because we had all already been getting stoned together for years. Besides that, my older older brother Charlie and Jeff's older brother Mark had been friends. We smoked a lot of pot and drank a lot of whiskey and mostly laughed at Mark, who just seemed to be several steps ahead of everyone. Mark made a party. He was just fucking crazy and and we all just laughed or were scared.

So, Metal changed everything.
Everyone started trying to play Metal. Chuck was an amazing drummer because his dad had played forever - allegedly having toured with Rod Stewart and others. I got a guitar (My buddy Will traded a legendary broke-down, ragtop 71 Plymouth Satellite for two guitars which he later gave me before he went to the Navy because he was so tweaked on acid he was afraid he'd destroy them) and started to play some Metal. My brother Charlie had been to Oneida Baptist Institute where he had learned, via a list distributed to students, which music was prohibited at this boarding school in Clay county, Ky. It of course included

Black Sabbath.
Iron Maiden.
Judas Priest.
Ozzy Osborne.
Alice Cooper.
Led Zeppelin.
The Scorpions.
Van Halen.
Motley Crue.
Etc...

Charlie brought all of these tapes home and I learned.

Jeff learned too.
He and his buddy John bought some equipment - a Big Monster Peavey halfstack which Jeff would use to play The Metal and John played The Bass.
They tried.
They mainly pissed Chuck off. He was so advanced that no one could catch up.

As i said before, Jeff and Chuck dated sisters. Lisa and Tammy. They were the top of the heap, these girls. They all seemed like rock stars to the rest of us, though my brothers and i occasionally would run into our old peers and ..get stoned, jam, whatever. Maybe cruise around in my brother's 68 Chevy or later in Jeff''s 69 Camaro.

I think Lisa and Tammy both had Nissans. Tammy''s was white and Lisa's was red. Lisa's was a Pulsar i think. I wish i could remember what Tammy's was.

Anyway, rumor has it that Jeff and Chuck were racing each other in the sisters' cars on Hume Bedford Road one night when they came around a right-hand corner that was -and still may be- banked to the left. Chuck and Tammy made the curve, but Jeff and Lisa didn't. The red Nissan went tumbling through the fence and off into the field off the side of the road.

This was extremely fucked up.

I remember noticing Jeff's weird, bruised and blackened eyeball and Lisa's teary, quiet reverence while they gave school presentations on how fucked up and wrong drinking and driving can truly be...in the lobby of BCHS..during lunch with pics of the wreck everywhere.

They were sober after this.

Sometime after this, while walking in town I somehow scored a single joint -probably from "Hog Jowls" - and sought out my old friend Jeff. I was giddy. I had "bought pot". I Never "bought pot". I thought "If there is anyone I 'd dig getting stoned with , it'd be Jeff." so i stopped by his house. He was home alone. This was maybe midday on a Saturday. Maybe it was summer.

"Hey man - smoke this joint with me." I said, after hanging around for a few minutes.

"No way, man." he said. "I quit."
"Yeah?" i said.
"Yeah. Stone cold."
"You sure? Really? Come on."
"Nope. Clean. "
"Well , shit. Ok.

I pushed him a few more times that day to smoke this special joint with me.

He refused, though so we just hung around, watched MTV, listened to music, got Mark's Strat out and ogled at it. We never smoked that joint.

A few years later he showed up at the house one winter Saturday in that dark blue 69 Camaro. There was about a couple inches of snow on the ground. We took a ride - me, both of my brothers and Jeff in his car and we smoked that joint.

I got so high my face hurt from laughing. Jeff got so high he damn near wrecked the car on the way back from Lexington.

That was the last time i saw my buddy Jeff.

there is still some semblance of order here
as i toddle around
though your things are no longer here
still, i wade through our history
every day
they descend like ghosts
our memories
and nude pictures of you
everywhere
pieces of us
your tissues still beneath the bed
your wedding dress still hangs in the closet
among the baby clothes never worn

and i have work to do
years to travel
somehow to make this matter
somehow to not want to die
as i fall darkly to sleep
cringing on the couch
sleep
come fast and stop this
awareness.

i'm going to cut down your trees
and tear your lilies from the ground
and cut down the tree
that you carved our names into
i am going to stare
out the window
and imagine that everything is on fire
surprised it isn't already

your love is gaudy and loud
trashy and tattooed
sleazy and gun toting
public, flashy
superficial, empty
purposeless and desperate

your love is diseased and drunken
stupid and misguided
heartless and selfish
gluttonous and blind
your life, your love, you.

your writing is small and public.

i was looking at your picture
when the song came on
random
and spelled the same
your wedding beamed at me
Cheshire
and your birthday candles
winked at you

there are some years here
and they will grow
but i will remember that summer
drunk and intense
and trying to be
real
and still feel

i just can't
let go that little nugget
of maybe
that we'd have been ok
maybe if i'd shown up
you wouldn't have
laughed me down
weird would have been fine
and maybe a little normal
would have been wierd

but here,
in this place
this far out into the ocean
floating and bobbing
and waiting to die
i can only watch you
as you watch me
from the railing of the ship
in your wedding dress
as i just float away
no waving
just watch
until we are smaller
and smaller
and the sun finally goes down
and the ocean sky comes up
and i finally get to do that one thing
i've always wanted to do
maybe you haven't gone inside yet
maybe you're still there
wondering if i'm looking up too.
you are.
i know you are.
goodnight.

two fights

i've seen two fights in passing
in the past two days
women
gesticulating with mouths open
eyes
if not full of tears
then full of pain
mouths agape
mid-word
as men stood

the first, looking at the sidewalk
his too-white hat too sideways
his too-white wifebeater tucked
his facial hair too neatly trimmed
she was in pain
in her too-tight flared jeans and bright-yellow baby-doll t-shirt
and he was shamed
and she was right
and he was wrong

the second woman
at the rear driver's door
of a mid-90's Cherokee
door open
standing
the man off the starboard bow
her arms flailing
yelling at him
as he stood
shirtless, bluejean shorts
moving slowly away
as she explained
all of this is too hard
you have to help
you have to not hurt

i would blame the women
i should blame the women
but i just couldn't
and can't
and i don't know why.

i am taking back the moon
it isnt yours anymore
it is
a satellite
in an almost perfect geosynchronous orbit
but it isn't yours
your love no longer lives there
you eyes no longer shine back
when i look up
from my porch
at the moon

there is no mystery
to the pull you feel
there is no magic
in the moon
there is no inspiration
it is but a cold, dead planetoid object
that perhaps once was a part
of this earth
but no more

December 19th, 2008

"Hey."
The voice said.
Like the sound of a cheap wooden screen door against its frame.
Like the sound of a child's voice coming from another room as a tape recorder worked in the 1960's, documenting something.
"There's a virus coming."
"Do you hold yourself back from spilling out over all of us for fear you'll fill us all up and we'll pop, or is that just all that you are?"

It had spoken before, the voice.
Bones age and internal organs slap and squeak against each other as we move ever towards decrepitude.
It said "Hello." once.
A BIG word, in a dream. A word that is almost BIG enough to end the dream and then is, following me into the darkness of the waking night.

Old, greedy people are screaming about politics. Psychotic with pathological rage, they stammer and steam themselves into dementia. The right will die of stroke and their children will load their weapons and buy huge vehicles with the inheritance.

All of the things no one can say bounce around inside of us, swelling us out, like steel balls in a tin sphere, every hit making a dent, causing a stretch.
Swelling.

I was sick when i came here, bent inward from the word 'special'.

"Hey."
Little words.
Nothing matters.
All so much theory and analysis and describing of natural systems.
Words are all.
Words are feeling is life.

i have tried to fit all of the pieces of everything that was handed to me inside of here but they all grate and tear like rocks.
only what was originally here can fit, other things fall away.
slipping, sliding out
wrong.

hated is hard to be.
i made a mess of every chance i had
to be strong and real
traded
for the safety of loud drunkenness
and the people i knew
drifted away
content in the feeling that they weren't needed
and weren't wanted
or maybe the inverse is true
and it was only
disgust

but i still hear you
mumbling under your breath
"omigod, fuck you."
but you can't kill me here
you can't stab me anywhere
i haven't already made a hole.

these bright days are sometimes the most gray when you have taken everything beautiful away. i would die or sleep right now but for a word from you to stay.

-0--

this time i must stand and watch while
like i said
my heart
and all that lives in me
strings out behind you
as you walk away.

no, this time
i scream and disintegrate
as is my lot
for the damage i have done
this is mine, this hurt
this damage
this death.

all the symbols
all of the signals
all of the information
becomes cacophony
whirling round me
i cry in my sleep
and cry in the bright sun
and hurt right here and right now
standing on this wood
while you look down
look away
think
"i gotta go".

---

extinguish

we would have stayed here
and the rain on us
the end of a hot day

we would have rolled here'
and watched the embers pop
as raindrops made little mushroom clouds in the ashes

we could have laughed here
holding our heads up on our fists
and undressed slowly
and clamored beneath the sheet
as we stayed just out of sight of the campers

i needed nothing but you
right here
all of the beautiful things are yours
all of them
everything
all beauty is yours
i can have none
without seeing you in it

i will be ever more blind
without your eye for love
and this
collapse
just as i was learning
how to focus.

----

take this choice wherever you go.

these days
the sun and rain
they come together
trying to squeeze in
through the same doorway
trying to be
needing so much to say
i am here

these days
i sit on the porch
and drink beer
tucked sideways under the eave
slowly
sip
drip
and wait for a signal
for two bars
so i cant tell you again
i'm trying to catch up with you

these days
she wanders around
with a deep cry of everything
and wanting to be
in the water at all times
and i have to say no
that the water is polluted and dangerous
and that it is time to go inside
and cry ourselves to sleep again

these days i wonder
how did i even make it this far?

it just hurts
and it should.
i deserve it for what you went through.
i'm sorry for everything.
i'm sorry for having been the saddest chapter in your life.

go and find your real love.
go and be beautiful.
go and be happy.
if you stay
you'll only become more disgusted
as i try to struggle out
of this monster skin

just don't lie to me anymore.
if you want to see him, see him
and stop seeing me
and letting me feel like you might come back
and that there might be hope
tell me its over
tell me i lost and he won

i know you think that i won't love you like you want
i know you think i'll hurt you
and as long as you think that
you'll be right.

so all the sad songs make sense and apply to this end.
they have weakened it, cheapened it.
it is much more painful than any of them even let on.
i could never sing about this with collapsing into a heap

and i hear you in my head
and see you crying
and saying its not fair
that you tried
and you stayed up nights crying
while i slept
and that you tried
and that you loved me
and that you just can't do it again
i know you can't
i'm not asking you to anymore
what an audaciously selfish thing to
to ask you to come back to me
after that

go.
i'll find some way to forget everything
to not imagine you
with someone else
to not want you at night
and in the morning
and in the middle of the day
to not remember
and hear you in
little turns of phrase
and silly things
that i will say to our daughter
to not imagine you and your camera
everywhere around here
to not cry
when all of this happens at once
i'll find some way
to just sort of stumble
through the rest of this
wretched fucking life
that i never should have mixed you up in in the first place.

i will die here in this little house
everyone will go
the walls crumbling around me
the weeds taking over
the dogs circling
circling until they too
die
in their sleep
in the yard
i will die having never climbed out
of the well
having watched the days spin by
and everyone change
and crumble in time-lapse
as i lay here
watching
doing nothing
watching
the world go.
i will die here alone
in the middle of the day
with nothing
and no one
and the birds will chirp
and the wasps will circle and bounce
and the cars will go back and forth
as i just die
over and over and over again

Saturday, May 16, 2009

take this choice wherever you go. these days the sun and rain they come together trying to squeeze in through the same doorway trying to be needing so much to say i am here these days i sit on the porch and drink beer tucked sideways under the eave slowly sip drip and wait for a signal for two bars so i cant tell you again i'm trying to catch up with you these days she wanders around with a deep cry of everything and wanting to be in the water at all times and i have to say no that the water is polluted and dangerous and that it is time to go inside and cry ourselves to sleep again these days i wonder how did i even make it this far?

Friday, May 08, 2009

the excavation i will need to dig deep to see this done there has been so much put in to take out will be big i will start on the surface a turn of phrase an inflection expunge a quirk a song expunge carve out so much and in so many places fine little intergrown bits i would have to be a surgeon to leave everything thats me.

i have always thought
that we can reach fully into each other
and that we can connect
completely
in feeling
in thought
in word.
but it isnt true
so small are our words
so little they can do
compared to what we need
to "say"

sometimes, we can't say
and must simply let
touch
be

Sunday, May 03, 2009

weak we escape to our places i in my book in the kitchen her to the bed i to the the broken sleep of the couch her to the old pictures that should be backed up soon i to the bed her to the laundry assisted in chaos by the toddling engaged girl i to the machines locked and rusted her to the toddling engaged girl and the phone bleeping proof still, they listen and talk i to my book of short stories and her to the bed curled fetal not waiting but there still.

Like a Snail (Lucy)

Sunday, April 05, 2009

like a snail i remember the memory like stumbling over broken glass through windowpanes through sculpture intricate delicate and crashing broken behind me onward onward for more only everything will satisfy this except everything won't fit the full grasp ethereal ghost vapor so i pullback deluded no more like a snaileye quick instant back to one place one time as i stumble to the crib and reset you again bottle, blanket sleep

Saturday, April 18, 2009

in the end talked so much done so little tried to be so many different people never you never real always partial like the fabled plaster sculpture plaster over chicken wire shape of a small man broken empty and black inside why so much wreckage why not just one thing well why not one strength true above all else thyself be yourself in the end there is nothing else.

i have assassinated
everything
that was me
carved out the past
killed myself
i have been on crusade
against insincerity
in myself
and have had to clearcut
raze
everything

whats is left
is a body
a man
and some time
time to not make the same mistakes
time to care
to find something
real
outside myself
or perhaps
inside

i've got a few minutes here. maybe i can belt this out.

i'm done.
im done with addiction
im done with facebook
im done with myspace
im done with being negative
im done with feeling dominated
i'm done with partisan political anger
i'm done resenting other men for being men
im done thinking that i know what other people are thinking
i'm done acting like i know anything i don't
i'm done trying to fit in with intellectuals
i'm done

today i start new.
today i try to smile
today i at least try to trade a sword of anger
a tool against my weaknesses
for the power of yes

maybe.
unless i get mad about it all.

the anger is so deeply seated in me
i can't find its origin
i cant't remember not being angry

thanks dad.

the lion's share you always get
while your sister aches and groans and hurts
the lion's share you always get

while you stand and take the lions share of time
money
faith
energy
your sister aches and watches and hurts
while you take and take and take and take
and she dies and cries more and loses and hurts
and you get
more more more
for you to waste and smoke
while she gets
sober
and her eyes open wide
and you wonder why they thin
into angry slits
while you gobble and take and choke on more and more
and wonder what all the fuss is about.

"Hey."
The voice said.
Like the sound of a cheap wooden screen door against its frame.
Like the sound of a child's voice coming from another room as a tape recorder worked in the 1960's, documenting something.
"There's a virus coming."
"Do you hold yourself back from spilling out over all of us for fear you'll fill us all up and we'll pop, or is that just all that you are?"

It had spoken before, the voice.
Bones age and internal organs slap and squeak against each other as we move ever towards decrepitude.
It said "Hello." once.
A BIG word, in a dream. A word that is almost BIG enough to end the dream and then is, following me into the darkness of the waking night.

Old, greedy people are screaming about politics. Psychotic with pathological rage, they stammer and steam themselves into dementia. The right will die of stroke and their children will load their weapons and buy huge vehicles with the inheritance.

All of the things no one can say bounce around inside of us, swelling us out, like steel balls in a tin sphere, every hit making a dent, causing a stretch.
Swelling.

I was sick when i came here, bent inward from the word 'special'.

"Hey."
Little words.
Nothing matters.
All so much theory and analysis and describing of natural systems.
Words are all.
Words are feeling is life.

i have tried to fit all of the pieces of everything that was handed to me inside of here but they all grate and tear like rocks.
only what was originally here can fit, other things fall away.
slipping, sliding out
wrong.

hated is hard to be.
i made a mess of every chance i had
to be strong and real
traded
for the safety of loud drunkenness
and the people i knew
drifted away
content in the feeling that they weren't needed
and weren't wanted
or maybe the inverse is true
and it was only
disgust

but i still hear you
mumbling under your breath
"omigod, fuck you."
but you can't kill me here
you can't stab me anywhere
i haven't already made a hole.

sturgill’s

the old man is still there
in the dust and peeling plastic
in the rusting junk
and half-repaired stereos

i feel vaguely a violator
that i'm not really allowed here
in this hokey hallowed shrine to halfame
in the this tower of bluegrass babel
i feel vaguley that
i'd have gotten looked at sideways
as the old men sat in the back
and smoked
and played badly
and sang offkey
with heavy reverence

i would have been asked
"there somthin you need?"
as i wandered among the tables
of discarded yardsale junk
wondering
why do people even try?

but i am here
somehow a winner
that he tried and and i didn't
and he's dead and i'm not
and she talks in bursts when you enter
and then is silent
when she finds out
you dont play bluegrass

and his eight dollar and ninety nine cent cassettes
will yellow and crackle where they are
secure in their display racks
so the kids caint steal em

and maybe i'll buy this LP
of ELO's Greatest Hits
and maybe i wont

and maybe i'll buy
the old Huffy Strider
like my brother had
and maybe i won't

maybe all of your old things
will die with you
as the world stands back and wonders
why do people even try?

our fathers build in us
their houses
that we must demolish
if we are ever
to survive

i swing my bat
and glass shatters
wood splinters
i am manic
through teareyes i see
destruction
as i swing
and swing
and swing again my bat
breaking everything
that is you
and is not me

old land is worn
hundreds of years
thousands of feet
have walked this dirt

roads over roads
buildings up
and then down
and blood
and oil
and mud
in these old places
where people live
and have lived
and will live

this land is not fresh
or rich
this land is trod
a hundred years
and more the dirt like iron
or a person itself
than like dirt

do you see the poetry of me?
the sad arc of time
the death of music
and the heartbreak
of the abandoned muse

do you get the joke of this
that the delusion lasted this long
that it took
decades
to see that life
is all that it is
and not what it seems
in songs

well, no matter.
the poetry joke stands
and the longer i'm sober
the funnier
it all is

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.