extext

Bring on the Day

2006-05-06T05:28:00.000-05:00

Bring on the Day

Up before the birds
with an urge to buy AAA batteries,
the FM station plays classics
from Looney Tunes.
By the afternoon my eyes
should be red and runny.
Only people up at this hour
are fisherman and duty nurses.
Something I took
chased away my doldrums.
I wait for the rebirth
of the deadline.

Lindy 1967

2006-04-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

Fractured Map 1

2006-04-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

2006-01-01T18:48:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T18:46:00.000-06:00

Old Pumpkins

2005-12-31T18:14:00.000-06:00

At the Pole

2005-12-31T18:10:00.000-06:00

FSM Sculpture

2005-12-31T18:06:00.000-06:00

Washing straws.

No Sense Pretending

2005-12-14T07:05:00.000-06:00

A broken bird hangs from the wire by
a single talon, For about two bucks
even a cripple can
buy him some oxygen. Mother and
son waltz tethered by a plastic tube
and a tank.

The curly-lock girl forgets what she
asked Santa to bring—some voodoo
troll doll to help
with jealous spells. All affection is
affectation—smoke and tacky ticks
reflected in photos.

Short-sighted passion is the fashion.
Big hearts break at the drop of a
soap bubble. The blind
sheep bleat, “Mary, Mary, where are
. . .?” The boys in the dell buy and
sell each other.

Among Willows

2005-12-13T12:29:00.000-06:00

"I want to be the sky," said the boy
with a shy grin. "It is the only
beautiful thing."
The sun rippled the clouds and shot
arrows of brilliance through the air.
We all see why.

The boy turned his face to the ground,
said sadly and frowned, "Can I
please evaporate?"
Birds guard the door to morning, while
invisible lions defend evening's gate.
They roar wind.

How cool to drift lonely as a cloud
across the pond and down to where
swans swim. "Or
I could be water in a river," the boy
mumbled as he combed his fingers
through his hair.

Surprises

2005-12-12T20:04:00.000-06:00

The boy never saw sunshine the color
of an apple core. He thought he was more
than layers of liquid.
Music slipped between his fingers and
fell def as death. "Who’ll stir this puddle
that is my blood?"

Diamonds are never and rainbows mark
terror. He belongs alone. "Where do I
come from if no one
brought me here?" A big woman in a
motorized wheelchair asked him for
his identification.

“I had a fever,” he said, “but now I’m
cold as chalk.” He could not feel
anything but need
and this made him sorry. The thought
of being anywhere and seeing all this
startled him red.

2005-12-11T18:21:00.000-06:00

Painted Leaves

2005-12-11T18:16:00.000-06:00

Industrial Seed

Serene

2005-12-11T18:00:00.000-06:00

Gray cat in the cold night shines
his amber eyes over the glassy
white winter scene.
Each Mary with her child expects
a blessing. The theory is—biology
carries an imperative.

Billions of miracles later and a
worm can still propound heresy.
Life is at core a
cruel twist—at best a process of
elimination. Take away everything
that isn’t alive.

Under a pile of dried sycamore
leaves a little blue mouse twitches
his pink nose at the
scent of his mousy miss. An owl in
the moon and a dog’s howl echo
distant fire alarms.

Meditation Blue

2005-12-06T12:20:00.000-06:00

I walk the frozen alleys and search
through waste and excess. Hope is
a great evil just as
the Greeks suspected. Leaves blow
up from the ground while dirt falls
down like a sad gaze.

Mud bricks crumble in another part
of this shaky world. The city I live in
is made of wooden boxes.
Hillsides give way under the weight
of a little blue butterfly. Somewhere
in China a boy cries.

Mom gave you the gift of expectation.
Dad let you have doubt. Why this
icy alley and these
hellish yellow lights? Phone calls
do not go through. Hands hammer.
My fingers nail.

2005-09-29T22:41:00.000-05:00

Big Grass

Two Faces

2005-09-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

That’s my portrait. Obviously I
used to be younger. I am no
Dorian Gray. The
artist who drew this died years
ago. Yes, she was a friend but
never a lover.

I sketched the picture next to
it. I thought I was Modigliani
or Klee. I still
have a box of crayons. I had
to throw out tubes of unused
ruined paint.

If I remember his name was
McGuire—a twenty-something
redneck from
Sand Springs. The name is on
the back. Saying this makes me
feel numb.

The Night Bites

2005-09-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

Hard as it is to net the night,
to keep if from falling through
the hole in my
pocket, it is harder to walk
between men and women on the
silent sidewalk.

A dog coughs. A tree shivers. Cars
blink under the streetlights. I can
swim but not like this.
I seek out a girl. She moves off. I
cry like an oboe. Stars become
a black dogs teeth.

I fish for dark matter. I eat cosmic
dust. The girl has her own news.
Young men hold
their arms in midair. Fingernails
sparkle like rippled water. I feel
my jaw drop.

2005-09-27T20:21:00.000-05:00

Ground Marking

A Decade Back or Two

2005-09-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

Don’t look at me like I should have
something better to say. All I can do
is remind you that
you mean everything to me. Don’t
look away. Don’t bet I can do without
you. I’d loose.

I cannot hold your guitar, your beautiful
blue guitar, like sundown
in the Midwest. You talk directly. You
make plain and simple important.
That’s how I feel.

Like Ezra you cut to the bone, but not
to be cruel. You’ll be a star. They’ll call
you Lips, the way
you kiss each word into a song. Lips.
My heart beats that much faster—a
flush of lust and loss.

2005-09-04T08:37:00.000-05:00

American Garbage

Duck Walk

2005-06-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after the storms had passed
and just before sunset, I watched a young
woman in coordinated
casuals and spiked heels as she walked
her duck. A young duck, it must have
been an Easter duck.

I thought, what a wonderful place to
be alive! This morning I talked with
a thin young blond
man about his little girl. He had on
bright red cotton pants, a matching
tee-shirt and

red-framed sunglasses. Stunning.

Alive

2005-05-10T13:10:00.000-05:00

By the fresh trash behind this unpainted
building people live here. Lots of people
live here, down
the alley and along the drainage ditch, big
houses on the front street and tents in the
foreboding desert.

Bare-breasted boys live in cars near
their jobs when they have work. And
women make places
pleasant. They sweep the ground. They
hum at home. They’re never alone but
they always feel so.

The men grow less aware of life as
they mature. They turn into preachers
or bitter pariahs.
Life seeks niches and hollows. Folks
fold their hands over satisfaction and
follow the plan.

2005-05-09T21:09:00.000-05:00

Like a Window in the Wall

Skip It (the truth)

2005-05-09T20:20:00.000-05:00

It’s been so long since when you
and him and the rest of them. Me.
Someone will
have to remind me we’ve played
together, that we’ve me before
before I can realize

that I ever missed you. I lost my
sense of loss. You did not miss
me or you would
have written. You miss my old
lover, but he’s be dead forever.
You’re just sad.

Me. I can’t open a tin can without
nicking my finger. The tip bleeds
a bubble of red.
It’s red as the polish on Rita’s toes.
She sings your songs so well in
her platform sandals.

2005-05-04T21:58:00.000-05:00

By the Front Door

Middle Daughter

2005-05-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

Even “baby” Luanna was known for her
special ability to endure injury, the slap
against the side of her
head, the single drop of red on her cheek,
her bruised eye. As a woman she cries
a flood, slow wide flood.

She weeps, wipes her brow and clears the
table. “So cheerful,” her regulars describe
her. And, Thank You.
Busy keeps her so focused she doesn’t
notice how things turn worse. They so
suddenly worsen.

She says, “you are welcom,” in her broken
English. She. She. The touch goes unspoken
She brushes her
hair. Fields spill smoky-pink flowers. The sky
glows like ashes. Luanna’s child sits quiet by
her and breathes.

Quantum Leaping

2005-04-26T07:15:00.000-05:00

It’s really up in the air and there’s no
good way of pulling it down. You’d
think that the
rain might help. Storms, like history,
only make it worse. The birds don’t
have much use for us.

It’s a cloud! It’s a swarm! It’s a mauve
vapor trail! Anyone moment millions
of people sit
uncomfortably miles high in the sky.
They wait to leave, to arrive, to turn
around & go back.

Seems like this should be a metaphor
for modern life, or an omen pointing
out some stark
future. It’s not. Folks instinctively know
distances have shrunken; that no one
really goes anywhere.

2005-04-25T20:55:00.000-05:00

Early Golds

2005-04-25T20:51:00.000-05:00

X Over Bishop Creek

Words as Windows

2005-04-25T20:41:00.000-05:00

Once I built a garden house out of used
windows. Boys coming down the alley
from elementary school
threw rocks at it and broke the panes.
It took me months to get all the shards
of glass out of the soil.

Now this celebrated man says he thinks
my job is to look out the window. If I open
a window I am liable
to fly from it. The house I live in is all doors
and windows. The renowned man didn’t
mention the value of light.

I live with a person who stares at electronic
windows. He sends e-mail messages to
everyone but me. He
doesn’t talk. I ask what he is doing and he
signals that I don’t want to know. I insist.
Turns out he’s right.

Friday List

2005-04-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

I remembered to make a to do list. I paid
the insurance. I bought a pair of reading
glasses at the
dollar store. I shopped for diet supplements,
bananas and eggs. I washed the pickup
and found the casters

I promised John. I delivered a rug to mom
and trimmed her holly hedge. The lawn did
not need to be
mowed. I spliced the electric wire she sliced
last fall while she was pruning the passion
vine on its trellis.

I bought bean sprouts and extra hard tofu
at the Cao Nguyen Supermarket. I had
spring rolls for dinner.
I brought the roto-tiller back to my house
and turned the garden again. I didn’t have
time for this poem.

Betrothed

2005-03-31T09:11:00.000-06:00

Too many beginnings to make amends,
too many minutes and too many strained
exchanges among
friends, the night does not end. Light comes
from the utility company and a thought is
just a product.

Luaana wears a blue hat and drinks blue
water from the palm of her hand. The stars
fall as if she could
see them. She had the man she needed
and he was so mean. His wink was like
a good sleep.

Her eyes change color, but her teeth stay
white. She doesn’t want him to know so
she doesn’t say it.
The phone is not so expensive, but fees
and taxes are. She has gallons of gas but
he has the car.

2005-03-31T09:09:00.000-06:00

Water Path

Late Night Daydream

2005-03-31T08:53:00.000-06:00

The glass stands one-quarter full. Jack takes
another gulp and wonders about his tears.
Last year he cried
at the thought of a puppy. But that was when
he was a boy. Rough season after season
sours his soul.

Brittle morning before the world wakes up,
he sits and stares. What do you call the
opposite of an
afternoon nap. The glass is one-eighth full.
In another hour clock radios with joke and
laugh at traffic.

Jack rubs the top of his head. He marks
through his last two thoughts. What to do
first--make a
fist, then prioritize until the glass is totally
empty. At his full potential Jack remains
a consummate cynic.

Stables to Let

2005-03-31T08:42:00.000-06:00

One lamp, but gloom would be no
light at all and two more hours till
dawn. Ruby wants
a cow to care for—something about
a clanking bell across a green field
enchants her.

The air is so still and black, Ruby
hears snakes in water; imagines
the last train
of the century a dozen miles away.
She crossed the bridge as she came
to it. So what?

A snap of fingers and the sexiest
gal in the universe turns eighty-two.
Her congestive
heart fails. She wants a bucket of
milk. Ruby used to iron her apron.
Didn’t everyone?

2005-03-27T22:50:00.000-06:00

Jester

2005-03-27T22:47:00.000-06:00

Ducklings

2005-03-27T22:45:00.000-06:00

Ostara Sky

Earful

2005-03-27T08:45:00.000-06:00

Evan says where he’s from, where
he has been and where he plans
to go.
We know his history as a litany, his
itinerary, and that his eyes are dark
sugar gold.

He knows poetry as an avocation,
and what it is like to tutor athletes.
He keeps
football players on the team, takes
class notes, cajoles. He works for
what he eats.

He shares his favorite colors and
his grandmothers’ maiden names.
This is
intimacy at a distance. He wishes
whispers, explains his psychosis
and takes pains.

2005-03-26T22:53:00.000-06:00

Window in Progress

Drizzle This

2005-03-26T22:48:00.000-06:00

Could I be as bad as a boy
aware? Mr. Muse blows a fuse
untying a shoe
and now he wants to yank out
my hair. I’ll eat your rose if it’s
yellow. I’ll settle.

I’ll dive face first into a cream
chocolate pie. I can go all night
and not cry.
I hug a big pillow and swallow.
I peel soft layers. I say prayers.
God is mental.

Henry walks with Father Time
through Chicago, Cabrini-Green
and a diner.
Through thin plaid curtains I see
Fredrico’s white van. Mr. Muse
throws his dice.

Cyber Monk

2005-03-26T11:13:00.000-06:00

Muse spent the whole day searching
through electrons to hone fine points
of law, to track
down the witness with the camera, to
exact supportive facts. He eyes (this
Muse is male),

his eyes twirl like bloody pinwheels,
constellations in Leo, soapy water down
the drain. His search
engines steam, archaic as locomotives
hurling from trestle to tunnel without
destination. Destiny.

All day he’s turned over metaphorical
stones, clicked through virtual libraries
and puzzled unknown
meanings to common terms. He joins
the generation which only understands
mediated reality.

U. R. U.

2005-03-10T16:33:00.000-06:00

The iron man is flaked in rust, his
bolts broken and corroded—gadgets
bust.
What once was the fountain of his
heart is one or two intermittent spurts.
The filter clogs.

Pulse like a stud, or a giraffe, he’s
beyond oil and aspirin. He shovels wet
muddy
confession. He hears what he’s told;
reports all that he supposes. And it
weighs on him.

There is another machine and its springs
wind too tight to squeak. If the man has,
as they say,
“a brain,” it’s so weak. Among rivers of
shock and blood, he gardens and plans
on a lover.

2005-02-22T20:14:00.000-06:00

Muscle & Vase

2005-02-22T20:12:00.000-06:00

Oh Man

Passing Phases

2005-02-22T20:10:00.000-06:00

Gidget had a complicated kidney,
the result of a broken heart after
half a decade of
romance to a brilliant pop singer
whose heart was congenitally
defective, love.

Dr. T. got so upset at the thought
of Gidget’s demise that he pulled
the trigger on his on
career. Now Gonzo’s gone, gone—
like a refrain from Redondo Beach,
all the pretty sand.

Steadman illustrates the essence
of it all by splattering bottles of red
ink and drawing lots
of dotted lines that do not connect
anything at all. Lines and arrows
come full stop.

Simple Division

2005-02-17T12:24:00.000-06:00

Cuss has no use for androgyny. He
is not color blind. To him things are
the way he means
for them to be. It’s much easier to get
along if the world if what you think is
all there is.

The girl comes in and he starts picking
the guitar. She knows to creep about.
Her lights are on.
She carries a raspberry bag and wears
high heels. He has peasant ankles and
house shoes.

Cuss enjoys girls with girth. They enjoy
him too as long as he keeps his droopy
eye closed.
There is no way to grow old. He cuts the
souls out of boots as he plucks pizzicato
blues.

2005-02-17T11:48:00.000-06:00

Winter Bamboo

Obviously True Decievers

2005-02-16T19:55:00.000-06:00

I don’t want to be the barking dog under
your bedroom window. I don’t want to be
the process server
on your wedding day. The wheezy minister
suffers through another outdoor ceremony.
When the cake

explodes I will not jump out and dance
naked at your reception. I will not spike
your tires, I mean,
punch. This is not the bachelor’s party.
I was there. I am the last to come and
first to leave.

Can you tell if I’m coming or going?
I keep my distance with binoculars.
That gun I bought
is just for target practice. I don’t know
why you are worried. I’d never stalk a
schizophrenic.

Round Up

2005-02-14T21:01:00.000-06:00

Put on my cowboy hat and act
like I can ride a horse, like I’ve
been riding horses.
I know how to ride a horse. You
get on and go as far as you can.
Don’t look back.

You don’t look back, eyes wide
focused ahead, because that’s
where the danger
hides. I amble like I know horses,
Tall in tall grass with my bronze
spear. Ya hey!

You keep going till you reach the
ranch over there near Ontogeny.
Put on my black
hat and swagger in starlight. I’ll
sleep with a moon tonight, and
with the horses.

2005-02-13T20:50:00.000-06:00

Cursive

2005-02-13T20:48:00.000-06:00

All Aboard

We Dance (First Verison remix)

2005-02-13T17:00:00.000-06:00

Ignore the obvious. Put the papers
back in the box and forget about
later until later.
Wait to entrust the estate. Don’t Fax.
Wave away the day in one long stretch,
a twist of little finger.

Important that you listen. Imagine it:
Nothing to think about. All of us without
a hint of trouble.
Happy with a shovel as we save the soil.
Identity with a basket full of canning jars
ready to be filled.

Motorcycles and helicopters sing to
each other, mechanical mating rituals
in the distance like
so many drums. Ears prick up. Eyes
widen their focus. Animals anonymously
fall into a trance.

Early Eyes

2005-02-13T07:44:00.000-06:00

Welcome bother sun to this dream,
now when I swing my legs out of bed
the floor will be hard,
and light will spill through the blinds
like lime juice. I will remember my
lover’s name.

Late winter cool, the air sleeps still
and musty as a boy’s smelly socks.
A pulse wells up
an fills my skull with magic. I can
feel stars pulling at my hair ends.
This dream sings.

The night was a desert between
two creatures filled with blood and
being. One kicks
against the sheets of despair, the
other mutters a nonsense prayer.
The sun cleans us.

2005-02-12T21:17:00.000-06:00

Caution line

2005-02-12T21:15:00.000-06:00

Late leaves

Accident

2005-02-12T13:10:00.000-06:00

I ran over a wild shadow yesterday. At
first I thought it was just a black plastic
garbage bag blowing
down the boulevard. It made no noise
as it went under my wheels. It died. It
bled rain and mud.

The shadow lay there even after nightfall.
Streetlights didn’t affect it. I phoned 911.
Who believed me? They
told me what I had was not an emergency.
No one understood the fear in my voice,
my loathing.

Rare and dangerous, wild shadows get
inside your sleep and cause your whole
body to grow numb
and old. I know how shadows seep into
pavement. Finally they percolate to the
center of the sun.

Find Out

2005-02-11T14:56:00.000-06:00

Last night you rubbed your arm and
worried about ceremony. I revealed
that I don’t know
if I ever had a memory. I don’t know
about candles. I don’t remember any
parties.

(Attention! Written under professional,
client privilege. Authorities must obtain
a warrant to read
further.) Our secret is like a pink matte &
metal striped bag in a frozen trash heap
you can’t miss it.

Laser sabers blind commercial pilots. We
day fish, pals by ponds, pool cues and
song. Dianne and
Deepak watch while Captain Hook flies
away on his magic moose. If there is any-
thing you can use?

2005-02-09T21:13:00.000-06:00

Wild Art

2005-02-09T21:09:00.000-06:00

Secret

Hearts & Artichokes

2005-02-09T21:04:00.000-06:00

The way you arrange your
potato
with such simple style
makes me feel all alive.

The how of your fork just
before
you speak. The smile
you form like a sedative.

You define class as rags.
Your clothes
flow and beguile,
natural though not primitive.

The elegance as you butter
your roll
spellbinds me awhile.
Now you offer an olive.

2005-02-07T19:25:00.000-06:00

Apple Core

2005-02-07T19:23:00.000-06:00

Color Construction

Omen

2005-02-07T19:20:00.000-06:00

Henry hears himself make the sound of
an old man, that ugly hacking wheeze,
the short tight breaths.
Not long now till his lungs turn to puss.
He dreams of owning a tool truck, of
being his own boss.

He takes his belt up another notch. This
wasting away cannot be a good sign, and
the yellow skin.
He lights a cigarette. A florescent bulb
flickers. The smoke rolls like a very quiet
storm. He gazes.

Henry has never been old before. Others
will say, “and he was only sixty-two.” His
ice-blue eyes melt.
Time and space remove him from his name.
He is the father he never knew. He leaves
before he is through.

2005-02-06T21:03:00.000-06:00

Paint on Dumpster

2005-02-06T21:01:00.000-06:00

Sky

2005-02-06T21:00:00.000-06:00

February Earth

Self-portrait of a Poem

2005-02-05T21:57:00.000-06:00

Some critics say this is the same old
stuff over and over, but others insist
each single poem
deals with too many subjects at once.
Others wish for a more, “meditative
focus.” OM

The poem wants to know who it talks
about. It supposes that if it were a pop
poem there would be
a 'her' or 'he'. Certainly a 'you' or two, as
in, “iz at chew, babe?” What to do
without a few babes.

Leggy babes and army guys hook up
for beef and fries. The poem would too
except, it’s started
raining. The phone rings again. It’s
that critic who thinks a poem is always
complaining.

Erecting Platforms

2005-02-05T19:41:00.000-06:00

Pound them nails hard against evidence.
Nothing like missing 16 pound penny brites
to cause a man to love
his fingers. Kiss the blister, mister, Feel it
go black under cuticle and dirty gloves.
Damn, hardwood anyway.

Face the music like it’s Sunday, sonny.
Hands on the piano and hymn after hymn
till even old Ray joins
in—voice sharp as angles, like a crowbar
pulling up tin. “We are children of the earth,”
though some of us are men.

Roy’s mouth’s so full of words he chokes.
Where to begin? Meanwhile, the chorus
goes up in song and
maroon robes. Theatrical as all uptown. Oh!
The hammer on lip. This memory and lies.
Mom’s artesian spring.

2005-02-05T19:37:00.000-06:00

Green Tomato

2005-02-05T19:33:00.000-06:00

Orange Converse

Cartoon

2005-02-04T08:39:00.000-06:00

I died last night and went to hell.
My best friends were there so it
was swell. Then I
woke up in the dark. It was cold.
My hands hurt and they felt old.
No, I can’t say why.

I live with strangers in an empire,
chained to freedom by barbed wire.
Such a lucky twit,
it was warm and I was younger.
Then a teacher took my tongue
and locked my lips.

I needed to piss, so I got out of bed,
went in the bathroom. “You are dead,”
said the foggy mirror.
My mouth was dry. I tried to scream.
Token embryos in rightwing schemes,
everything is terror.

A.M. Blues

2005-02-03T14:32:00.000-06:00

Women walking dogs in the morning sun,
blonde dogs, groomed and well-fed dogs,
the women sport wool
coats, gloves and look puzzled in this
dazzling winter day. The grass shines
the color of dogs.

Two women just now and one or three
earlier, stop and start. They precede
the postman who,
of course, loves dogs, catalogues and
Thursday flyers. These moments to noon
lie lazy and quiet.

The breeze wanes. For the first time in
years lights were on in the abandoned
house at the corner.
Someone has put a plastic bag over
the broken window. Fine dogs demand
women and curbs.

2005-01-29T20:21:00.000-06:00

Rick & Coulter

2005-01-29T20:20:00.000-06:00

Country Lunch

Listening to Gene Pitney

2005-01-29T20:12:00.000-06:00

Inside this mushroom home ten years too
late, she slices psyche like pie and puts it
on a platter. Hate
how guys come and go; and Frankie waits.
She runs a bath. She turns into a tortellini,
a dumpling, a noodle.

He moves the plant all the way to Shanghai
but says it’s for the better. He's always been
dumber by a dozen
years. She keeps herself clean but can’t
help writing his name over and over in
the palm of her hand.

She wishes she could jump out of her
thin skin. Frankie wants to be comfortable
in public. She does not
want pity. He is her Johnny, but she
knows there are too many others to hope.
Once in awhile though.

Everyday Needs

2005-01-29T10:22:00.001-06:00

Who did Dude? Brave young stud guy
on electronic prowl for phone numbers
and naughty girls.
Dude did who? When? No one you’d
know and not in awhile. He dreams.
He’s gone wireless.

He shaves close and thumbs his remote.
He slips into active wear and works out.
Dude pumps up, cools
down then goes for a long jog in the park.
If he were a dog he’d reflexively bark
at chicks in spandex.

He showers cold. He eats big meat and
polishes his teeth. Dude hangs out with
buds at the bar. They
tell sorted stories of raunchy escapades,
group gropes. Dude's so worried he wears
a rubber to jerk off.

2005-01-26T19:59:00.000-06:00

Toilet Bomb

2005-01-26T19:55:00.000-06:00

Our Lady of the Machine

She Wanted To Hold Your Pen

2005-01-26T19:52:00.000-06:00

You know, she said, “here, let me help you
with that—I can write that for you.” Luaann
has a nice even hand.
Always has had, you know, She has her
hand into whatever. Her plans are by
design, on purpose.

She has her purpose and she grips it like
a pistol. You write on and never let on
you’re paranoid.
You know, you’ve got your pen well in
hand. You have this need to thrust and
parry verbally.

She wants you to worry. She wants to
get control of your language. She figures
prominently. You
let letters gather as they will. She’ll edit.
She’ll take your words and cross them off
with her lipstick.

Right Place/Wrong Week

2005-01-23T21:06:00.000-06:00

A little more effort and I might be able to keep track of where I am supposed to be. I am the featured reader at the Full Circle Bookstore in Oklahoma City this month. I thought the reading is on the fourth Sunday of the month, but it isn’t. It’s on the last Sunday. I drove the twenty-five miles to 50 Penn Place and was a week early.

I had a big cup of “American” coffee and talked with John and Philip. Philip told about finding a dead python in a cage and a pair of handcuffs. Being fellow hunter-gatherers we traded stories and techniques. He was puzzling why all these things end up curbed. I explained by theory is that as consumers most Americans have lost the ability to value the physical object. The whole point of being affluent is being able to constantly buy new things. If one does not dispose of old things then one is smothered by them. The idea that someone else might want or need the item being disposed is foreign to the affluent.

To recycle requires thought, and most consumers do not think. It is better not to think. Thinking leads to trouble.

This morning in Forum we discussed surveillance and privacy. We shared our experiences which anecdotally would lead one to believe there is an informal “blacklist” of all those who think and hold critical opinions that insures they do not prosper.

I have always believed that the only reason I have not been thwarted by authorities in a more direct way is because I am totally harmless, though antithetical to authority. I have no constituency and no money. My ability to cause trouble is only at the level of this blog. While the press may be free, it certainly is not inexpensive. My last chapbook is only available online because I could not afford to run off even my normal edition of fifty copies at Kinko’s. Not having a job for five months this past year has my budget stripped to the bone. It is all I can do to afford cartridges for my HP printer.

Tomorrow I fill out forms to have new birth certificates issued for a couple of kids.
Then it’s back to probates and bankruptcies.

2005-01-21T19:51:00.000-06:00

Beggar Books

2005-01-21T19:48:00.000-06:00

Block Scan

Poem #211 & 212

2005-01-21T19:43:00.000-06:00

On the front cover of the book there
is a picture of a young Afro-American
man erotically posed
in a drift of new snow. On the back cover
a young white dude is similarly posed
in a heap of ash.

This American scream almost captures
the mood, the nature of our times. Women
buy books. Readers go
blind. Covers are for judges and evidence
is bagged, tagged and stashed away
in case of crime.

The woman in the skin-tight jeans and
clingy little sweater pumps high-octane
gasoline into her
Suburban. As per her bumper stickers
she’s proud of her son in the Army, and
she prays to Christ Almighty.

Entry

2005-01-21T19:34:00.000-06:00

This season we will form a committee of
admirers to select the winner of winners.
We will give the First
Prize Prize. There are so many contests
that some must be better than others,
and one the best.

Categories open, criteria include size
of prize given; a ratio of popularity to
obscurity, the number
of judges to entrants, and fees to enter
to the cash award.

We will not exclude the well know honors,
the Nobels, the Pulitzers, the Presidential
Medals of Freedom,
but they will not be more weighted than
the literature prize at the local high school.
Entry forms will follow.

2005-01-21T19:28:00.000-06:00

Come Alive!

2005-01-21T19:24:00.000-06:00

Drama

Understood Pronouns

2005-01-20T13:17:00.000-06:00

Anywhere in the text of these poems that a pronoun seems to be needed, it should either be easily ascertained from the context of the specific poem, or it is left out intentionally to effect a more general idea. The meaning is to be interpreted as broadly as possible.

In the poem Mantra Society for example, the line “Pills make free” clearly lacks and object to the verb. The line is halting. It almost stutters, as if a pill is being swallowed while trying to say the line. What pronoun is intended?

In most instances it is assumed that the poet is talking about himself. In this case the assumed pronoun would me “me.” If the poet is speaking generally the pronoun “us” would be used, and this is the choice I almost made when writing the poem. Of course “you” is the understood in any command structure and would give a quality of authority to the statement, as in “you will be free.”

The most general pronoun “one” give a soma to any sentences in which it is used. The poem is too engaged to assume “one” as the pronoun.

In answer to the question of what is the pronoun I take the attitude that leads me to the most vernacular answer. My response is, “Whatever.” Pills make (whatever) free. While “whatever” is not often thought of as an understood or assumed pronoun, it is a ubiquitous answer in the vernacular and therefore a general default. I encourage the use of “whatever” as an understood.

Mantra Society

2005-01-18T07:28:00.000-06:00

Where is Victor the Victim? We’re agency
medical men. We’ve come to vivisect him.
We’ve got our
scalpels and saws. We’re surgical soldiers
and Victor’s our cause. Freedom’s a bird
word. Pills make free.

Don’t ask. Don’t tell. And please, don’t do
or be. Where is Victor the Victim? We’ve
some questions
to ask him. We don’t mean to harass him.
We say nothing will happen. Don’t resist.
Don’t hide. Don’t.

We want to take him for a ride. We want
to bring him inside. Where is Victor? We
won’t ask it, that is,
we need to see him, give him a quiz.
What is the meaning of torture? What is
the meaning of is?

Drained Brain

2005-01-17T23:03:00.000-06:00

Victor doesn’t know the back of his hand,
he recognizes some things but not their
names; a bowl of
oranges, a picture of a naked woman.
The words slip away from him like foam
through loose fingers.

This is Victor’s nightmare, that he will catch
Alzheimer’s and his mind will unwind, that
he’ll grow a brain
tumor, or suffer a stroke. He flails awake
like a drowning cat. He fears he cannot
maintain his sanity.

Victor imagines what it’s like not to imagine,
and he can’t. Depression unloads on him
and symptoms show
up and blemishes on his face. His thoughts
seem odd. A slipped cog dislodges his logic
and reason derails.

2005-01-16T22:05:00.000-06:00

Carnival-Ish

2005-01-16T22:04:00.000-06:00

Foolish One

Deadline

2005-01-16T22:00:00.000-06:00

The poet only has two months to finish
this poem. In that time he must find
a muse, and initiative.
He resents what he reads in quarterlies,
not that it’s all bad, it’s just that so much
is sleazy and cliché.

Okay, the middle of January is lovely.
There will be ten, twenty odd people
with limited expectations.
The poet will do his best to overcome
incipient agoraphobia, put on his ego
and battle the traffic.

Fall was fruitful, unknown what winter
has to offer. Fickle muse, it’s his year
for dominant women.
At a rate of one word every two hours,
the poet won’t meet his deadline in less
than six months.

Scanning

2005-01-15T22:41:00.000-06:00

Spending time scanning in old journal pages this evening and listening random music. Currently the CD changer is loaded with Diana Ross, Leonard Cohen, and an Mp3.com compilation from a couple of years ago – when it was still Mp3.com.

Went shopping to day. Looked at movies and toys. All I bought were a few boards to build a little chest for the drawers I already have.

Cold out this evening, but I still went for my walk. Things are quiet with the students out of town for the last weekend before classes start in earnest. I am not sure that classes have started at all at the University of Oklahoma. They really like collecting tuition for there intersession programs.

Lots of places to eat have opened up on campus corner. I keep intending to stop for coffee, but I always walk right on by. The ice-cream parlor looks to be the most copasetic. If I had a notebook computer I could take advantage of their free Wi-Fi.

2005-01-15T22:31:00.000-06:00

Hey?!

2005-01-15T22:30:00.000-06:00

Sunflow

Shopping Community

2005-01-15T13:00:00.000-06:00

As part of the blog project I realized this morning that I can go back in my old journals and “publish” selections with comments. I like having and excuse to look through these old books.

I spoke with an old acquaintance the other day, someone I’ve known for years. Call him Mr. U. He was standing in the domestic paper products isle of Wal-Mart. He said he had just returned a 12-roll package of unscented toilet paper because when he opened it there was an overwhelming chemical bouquet. He mentioned something about how we can’t even manufacture decent toilet paper in this country anymore. I didn’t comment.

Mr. U asked if I was still writing (everyone’s favorite questions). I said yes. I told him about blog and my web site. He said that he had no technology in his house, other that a little old television that he hardly ever watched. He said that he was writing “wisdom verse.” He said he was sometimes writing dozens of poems a day and that he wrote in longhand in spiral bound notebooks. This is hard to believe from someone who seemed very future oriented during the past century, I mean he used to worship David Bowie and the decadent Abstractionists.

What can I say, Susan Sontag is dead. Slavoj Zizek lives.

Old Logs Still Burn

2005-01-15T11:42:00.000-06:00

Brad’s Automated Piano Music cracks ice
on the windows this morning as I sketch
plans for a chest
of drawers. The size of cirgar boxes stacked
in the corner, six Mexican drawers come
from a demolition.

I need them for old and unused body parts,
forgotten bits of poetry, remote controls,
my tiny archives; these
things left over from that period in my life
when I would sit up in bed with a typewriter
and compose haiku.

I had to give that up. My lovers complained
about the noise or they would get tangled
in the chord. Carbon
paper can be a problem during actual sex.
The bed was on the floor and big enough
for love and office equipment.

2005-01-14T10:56:00.000-06:00

Free the USA