the way the neglect of your
intrusion is
fondly recalled
lost
bartered for
offers rescinded is
almost why
i remember you fucking my hand in
the cab and lips parted and the
stretch of gauzy blocks at
dusk and a smile beneath another
smile emerging in the smoke of
your hesitation
and promises loosely shaken from
provisions and cinnamon hued
skin and freckled and
pink and
lost
tentative defied ultimatums
and this
is almost why
stray on my canvas painting shook out
lines
argued as profound
travelling always at nights and in
them and at
them bulletproof or
isolated and as them walking
me into my own chapped mouth
rubbed smooth on you and
abandoning medicinal escapes at
the brink of
exhaustion is almost
why
now
three nights of dreams of you wake
me and
puncture my lungs
stopping each
other pausing
me quietly and
your interruptions don't
resonate any longer and
your doubled smile doesn't
fit in my hands anymore and cuts
them deep and your curvature doesn't mean
shit
again and the city isn't colored
green or
brown or dark brown or dark brown
reflecting anymore
missing the nothingness
the rank dissolving occurrences
where i
found you and
you and you and at
times i am creased
disheveled (and you)
bold and
denied
proud and suspicious
yammering heartfelt in the ears of
cynical associates or cynical at
stunned gazes never
quite
fucking
right is
almost the reason we continue
to meet
Friday, December 28, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
fiona apple
and it's not money
set on repeat
echo
nonchalant in t-shirts years old
jeans don't fit and
collect the spills and torn barely
bond to frame
tonight its fucking freezing and
quiet and you drink yourselfself calmly into the
dullest most sympathetic stupor and you
hold the moon outside between distant
hands and she smiles whenever i
close my eyes we always
had that
it's the admitting part that's the killer
it's watching long fluffy curls of delicate
advice fan out in strands around
it's the rustle that remains in the bed you
don't sleep in anymore or
that's missing from the one in which
you do
it's listening to music without words so
nothing muddles these toxins
so when you find yourself singing or
spitting out blood in the sink or
scratching the back of your neck to
find an old wound you don't
lose it when her voice bellows
instead
you listen to drums and humming
equipment
you are able to stay (did i
already smoke
that cig
yet? no)
set on repeat
echo
nonchalant in t-shirts years old
jeans don't fit and
collect the spills and torn barely
bond to frame
tonight its fucking freezing and
quiet and you drink yourselfself calmly into the
dullest most sympathetic stupor and you
hold the moon outside between distant
hands and she smiles whenever i
close my eyes we always
had that
it's the admitting part that's the killer
it's watching long fluffy curls of delicate
advice fan out in strands around
it's the rustle that remains in the bed you
don't sleep in anymore or
that's missing from the one in which
you do
it's listening to music without words so
nothing muddles these toxins
so when you find yourself singing or
spitting out blood in the sink or
scratching the back of your neck to
find an old wound you don't
lose it when her voice bellows
instead
you listen to drums and humming
equipment
you are able to stay (did i
already smoke
that cig
yet? no)
Monday, December 24, 2012
burial - truant + rough sleeper
i don't know what it is about burial.
burial is a british musician from the UK who makes music i can't even begin to understand. and no, it's not a result of having just pricked my skin on his bizarrely beautiful anti-music. i've listened to every one of his songs hundreds of times and i understand them and i don't fucking understand them at all.
a rigged patchwork composite of recorded sound effects, overwhelming vinyl crackle, rainsounds, whispers, clipped slipshod drums, videogame bits, mashed strings and jagged murmuring vocal samples and lullaby bassline meshes. all this seemingly disparate matter composed into soundscapes that echo condemned buildings, sneakers sticking to wet concrete, lost souls dancing against streetlights like moths, neon lights spelling out your truths, passing cars, humble banshee girls next door, your mistakes, your redemption. your secret favorite thing. the shitty stupid thing you said to her, what she looked like when you said it and how she looked at you. and, later, his music has that fucking indescribably impossible, anachronistic, chemical component: it says "it's ok".
i've listened to burial since i first started listening to him. there's a reason his ramshackle tunes have persistently remained in the unforgiving eye of the culturati. an anti-persona, an anti-musician, he paints a weird welcome and we all flock to it. he really doesn't give a shit, except he totally does, he bleeds into these minutes released in their always-too-slow trickle. longing for an era he missed by making music out of time, music that doesn't exist anymore, except he's making it, so it does, fucking up the spacetime continuum.
time travel. wet concrete. factories churning out smoke in the distance, away from us (doesn't really matter...right?). there's a sound that comes off four houses down as we walk, it's a bark, a dog-sound, it's the dog we grew up with as a kid who died. there he is, four houses down. we walk past. we're not crying, right? no. we're adults now and we don't cry about that shit.
but there he is in the headphones. scratching away at that shit. soon our steps are catching his stepless rhythm, we find it, or find its lack of rhythm. and then we are walking, walking. and feeling miserable but alive. there's the diner we like, tonight we don't go in, but it's there, it exists and things are OK. we walk past the graffiti that's still there from last week, we appraise it again, amused and inspired by it, until it is in our peripheral, curling around our right arm with just the lightest tug. we'll see it tomorrow.
and oh god there's the elevated train. like an angel on ragged wings, ragged tracks, shaking the very earth, and it splits through the headphones until I am listening to "Stolen Dog" behind its casually beautiful carnage.
there is very, VERY little music these days that stirs a conversation within me. 2012 was a fantastic year for music and there was plenty bubbling in my little humble android player companion. i would talk your ear off about it if humbly permitted. but the truth is that very little of it communicates with me, back and forth and back again, aside from burial. i listen to great records and I marvel at their greatness, their decisions, their failures and immense accomplishments. their impressive fidelity, their curing properties, their escape. and i listen to burial and i speak with it, and i walk with it, and it grounds me, sadly, pleasantly. and i know it even though i would disagree with every choice, every badly placed beat, every tricky fucked up gritty missed trigger. if i knew him i'd be like why the fuck, and who the fuck do you think you are, and come on clean that shit up, and come on come on. and there at the 13:04 mark on "Rough Sleeper" is that fucking bizarre synthy bit that starts up, it comes on twice, twice before the end, because that's all that was there, because that's all that was needed.
it's always exactly right, shabby and worn and stubbornly confident. it plays coy, and plays serious, and fucks with you, tricking your ears, painting something forgotten. at night it joins me on walks home from work, or walks home from walks. it's background music, except it's a feature film made entirely out of background pieces. it's the video from Infinite Jest. it's about the only characters you care about, but you've forgotten their names or wondered if they ever had any. or if that matters.
burial released his last bit recently. it stops and starts, it shrugs and straightens its tie. it doesn't know if it's interesting, or if you'd care about it. but everything within it is indiscreet, and its emotions shoot true.
the thing with burial is that he doesn't have any "tricks" you're not aware of; it's all true. he's a terrific liar, for sure. he hides in plain sight, a scribe for a history half-experienced, a guide to the only city he knows, the city that's not your own. but it's all true.
burial is a british musician from the UK who makes music i can't even begin to understand. and no, it's not a result of having just pricked my skin on his bizarrely beautiful anti-music. i've listened to every one of his songs hundreds of times and i understand them and i don't fucking understand them at all.
a rigged patchwork composite of recorded sound effects, overwhelming vinyl crackle, rainsounds, whispers, clipped slipshod drums, videogame bits, mashed strings and jagged murmuring vocal samples and lullaby bassline meshes. all this seemingly disparate matter composed into soundscapes that echo condemned buildings, sneakers sticking to wet concrete, lost souls dancing against streetlights like moths, neon lights spelling out your truths, passing cars, humble banshee girls next door, your mistakes, your redemption. your secret favorite thing. the shitty stupid thing you said to her, what she looked like when you said it and how she looked at you. and, later, his music has that fucking indescribably impossible, anachronistic, chemical component: it says "it's ok".
i've listened to burial since i first started listening to him. there's a reason his ramshackle tunes have persistently remained in the unforgiving eye of the culturati. an anti-persona, an anti-musician, he paints a weird welcome and we all flock to it. he really doesn't give a shit, except he totally does, he bleeds into these minutes released in their always-too-slow trickle. longing for an era he missed by making music out of time, music that doesn't exist anymore, except he's making it, so it does, fucking up the spacetime continuum.
time travel. wet concrete. factories churning out smoke in the distance, away from us (doesn't really matter...right?). there's a sound that comes off four houses down as we walk, it's a bark, a dog-sound, it's the dog we grew up with as a kid who died. there he is, four houses down. we walk past. we're not crying, right? no. we're adults now and we don't cry about that shit.
but there he is in the headphones. scratching away at that shit. soon our steps are catching his stepless rhythm, we find it, or find its lack of rhythm. and then we are walking, walking. and feeling miserable but alive. there's the diner we like, tonight we don't go in, but it's there, it exists and things are OK. we walk past the graffiti that's still there from last week, we appraise it again, amused and inspired by it, until it is in our peripheral, curling around our right arm with just the lightest tug. we'll see it tomorrow.
and oh god there's the elevated train. like an angel on ragged wings, ragged tracks, shaking the very earth, and it splits through the headphones until I am listening to "Stolen Dog" behind its casually beautiful carnage.
there is very, VERY little music these days that stirs a conversation within me. 2012 was a fantastic year for music and there was plenty bubbling in my little humble android player companion. i would talk your ear off about it if humbly permitted. but the truth is that very little of it communicates with me, back and forth and back again, aside from burial. i listen to great records and I marvel at their greatness, their decisions, their failures and immense accomplishments. their impressive fidelity, their curing properties, their escape. and i listen to burial and i speak with it, and i walk with it, and it grounds me, sadly, pleasantly. and i know it even though i would disagree with every choice, every badly placed beat, every tricky fucked up gritty missed trigger. if i knew him i'd be like why the fuck, and who the fuck do you think you are, and come on clean that shit up, and come on come on. and there at the 13:04 mark on "Rough Sleeper" is that fucking bizarre synthy bit that starts up, it comes on twice, twice before the end, because that's all that was there, because that's all that was needed.
it's always exactly right, shabby and worn and stubbornly confident. it plays coy, and plays serious, and fucks with you, tricking your ears, painting something forgotten. at night it joins me on walks home from work, or walks home from walks. it's background music, except it's a feature film made entirely out of background pieces. it's the video from Infinite Jest. it's about the only characters you care about, but you've forgotten their names or wondered if they ever had any. or if that matters.
burial released his last bit recently. it stops and starts, it shrugs and straightens its tie. it doesn't know if it's interesting, or if you'd care about it. but everything within it is indiscreet, and its emotions shoot true.
the thing with burial is that he doesn't have any "tricks" you're not aware of; it's all true. he's a terrific liar, for sure. he hides in plain sight, a scribe for a history half-experienced, a guide to the only city he knows, the city that's not your own. but it's all true.
Friday, December 14, 2012
my body has a shitty tomcat inside
my body has a shitty tomcat inside and
he leaks poison out the corner of
his ragged permanent smile making
dainty repulsed hustles through
street filth texture aching limbs
philosophizing old haunts
remembered vivid aching
at times there are distant noises
and he looks very seriously at the
noises as if they were things come
unraveled but displacing the air
until he is hungry again
then when he swivels around
the scene renders to primary
colors and tension lines
i don't know how to speak to the
things that don't know my animal
they regard me with congealed
confusion lazily knowing me
they ignore him
which makes him rub their legs rudely
he finds a corner to play with a
piece of stray trash very briefly then
sleeps deep
and every introduction is a fiasco of
insecure learning and
paws catch on the clothing of strangers so
we stare at each other awkwardly as i
disengage
my tomcat is lazy yet emptied of
homelands he
barely holds his own recent scenes down and
when he shrieks and
coos into the wet bread of night he is
throwing his own precious energy away and
couldn't tell me why
the parklands and gaunt alleys and other
nightmares of nowheres are
where we divide
he into the dreaming and
i into the dreaming
he leaks poison out the corner of
his ragged permanent smile making
dainty repulsed hustles through
street filth texture aching limbs
philosophizing old haunts
remembered vivid aching
at times there are distant noises
and he looks very seriously at the
noises as if they were things come
unraveled but displacing the air
until he is hungry again
then when he swivels around
the scene renders to primary
colors and tension lines
i don't know how to speak to the
things that don't know my animal
they regard me with congealed
confusion lazily knowing me
they ignore him
which makes him rub their legs rudely
he finds a corner to play with a
piece of stray trash very briefly then
sleeps deep
and every introduction is a fiasco of
insecure learning and
paws catch on the clothing of strangers so
we stare at each other awkwardly as i
disengage
my tomcat is lazy yet emptied of
homelands he
barely holds his own recent scenes down and
when he shrieks and
coos into the wet bread of night he is
throwing his own precious energy away and
couldn't tell me why
the parklands and gaunt alleys and other
nightmares of nowheres are
where we divide
he into the dreaming and
i into the dreaming
Sunday, November 18, 2012
repeat
might be the will to reopen
joining with the wind
night appears before me like its joking
centers the longing to reappear here
what two hands do to disarm this
patience
these thrills are beyond this
patiently i reach beyond this
alarmed by the symbolic and
the last song spinning around the
last song spinning around the
last song around
summers
out there
like a tonic for the wounded
emptied of its tears
whole in the june light
what do two hands do to disarm this
patiently these thrills are beyond this and
i reach beyond the summer skin for
the thrill
lost in these years
and the last song spinning around
the last song spinning around the
last song
joining with the wind
night appears before me like its joking
centers the longing to reappear here
what two hands do to disarm this
patience
these thrills are beyond this
patiently i reach beyond this
alarmed by the symbolic and
the last song spinning around the
last song spinning around the
last song around
summers
out there
like a tonic for the wounded
emptied of its tears
whole in the june light
what do two hands do to disarm this
patiently these thrills are beyond this and
i reach beyond the summer skin for
the thrill
lost in these years
and the last song spinning around
the last song spinning around the
last song
Monday, November 12, 2012
after and before
sunday light
drunken mirages below
14th and she is corralled in her
own streets
misbehaves
like a vaulted hellion before the city
meets a hurricane again
tonight there will be rain in these
streets and
she runs her tongue against the
smooth aluminum rind of a beercan
she doesn't know me enough to
keep me anywhere in mind
the thought of my name summons
jingles and loops
i imagine her so defended against
the barest approach of my humble
memory i could be an allergic mishap or the
weather eighteen days ago
summaries of this night and others exist
somewhere
scrawled in a two word note
tumbled in pocket with keys and disinterested
nicorette and 54 cents wrapped
tight in a pointless receipt like a
lover on the
next to last
day
drunken mirages below
14th and she is corralled in her
own streets
misbehaves
like a vaulted hellion before the city
meets a hurricane again
tonight there will be rain in these
streets and
she runs her tongue against the
smooth aluminum rind of a beercan
she doesn't know me enough to
keep me anywhere in mind
the thought of my name summons
jingles and loops
i imagine her so defended against
the barest approach of my humble
memory i could be an allergic mishap or the
weather eighteen days ago
summaries of this night and others exist
somewhere
scrawled in a two word note
tumbled in pocket with keys and disinterested
nicorette and 54 cents wrapped
tight in a pointless receipt like a
lover on the
next to last
day
Saturday, October 13, 2012
delete / gently
and he crosses paths and makes a funny stumble like
this is not deeply felt
it narrows closely
like a thickly drawn line of words
adolescence is permanent markers and
songs of crass nullified defiance and
cigarettes proud and elongated chained
repeated and remixed into
conversations with strangers to flow
over them like blankets punched with breath
and more words
these are more words
keep coming
scatter my eager entrance into
pocked regret
find my wrecked reflection in metrocards and
underneath beer glasses in the packed bar
residing in my handled relics
transfer meaning and submerged eloquence to the
objects touched in travel
i seek definition in privately held things
finding it
wretchedly disappointed in it
color each segment of the sidewalk with
thoughtless steps to somebody else thinking
i
can't
be
here
for long not long i snaked a careful finger on your smile
touching your mouth before it parted before
rediscovering its shade
no shadow hides me and
i would erase this
becoming the cul-de-sac of a bruise
hands of strangers welcome me rudely
expectantly
erroneously
i drink two beers that say
fuck you
and leave
if i am young and recast as traitor to
all these careless mishaps
then fuck you is a smile that welcomes and enervates me
that walks me towards your wall
yet i pick these moments gently
if i am old and crushed by fuckups old and young i
cruise with it
i lift it from its odd angle
i put it down
this is not deeply felt
it narrows closely
like a thickly drawn line of words
adolescence is permanent markers and
songs of crass nullified defiance and
cigarettes proud and elongated chained
repeated and remixed into
conversations with strangers to flow
over them like blankets punched with breath
and more words
these are more words
keep coming
scatter my eager entrance into
pocked regret
find my wrecked reflection in metrocards and
underneath beer glasses in the packed bar
residing in my handled relics
transfer meaning and submerged eloquence to the
objects touched in travel
i seek definition in privately held things
finding it
wretchedly disappointed in it
color each segment of the sidewalk with
thoughtless steps to somebody else thinking
i
can't
be
here
for long not long i snaked a careful finger on your smile
touching your mouth before it parted before
rediscovering its shade
no shadow hides me and
i would erase this
becoming the cul-de-sac of a bruise
hands of strangers welcome me rudely
expectantly
erroneously
i drink two beers that say
fuck you
and leave
if i am young and recast as traitor to
all these careless mishaps
then fuck you is a smile that welcomes and enervates me
that walks me towards your wall
yet i pick these moments gently
if i am old and crushed by fuckups old and young i
cruise with it
i lift it from its odd angle
i put it down
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
months
maybe it was the sound of you that
i used to miss
earlier when i was walking in the
panicked nightwalk later before
what was early to rattle me just
the nonchalance of your silence
i am waiting very patiently and appropriately sullen i
curve steps that fake boldness at our doorways and
other things which
jointly owned
claim our elements
this stops being nostalgic
becomes the affected gait of
smells that mix into the furniture
books weave into each other like
spidered legs encounter the breath that shared
becomes less than the
breath that's
there
where i sit
dangling
feet held hover above the ground
and nothing
gathers here
we are a grand emptiness
the background music cheery and resonantly
echoes beyond the patina of dusty
memories where we painted this
all you did
agrees
i shake hands with it
and
all i did
drifts aimlessly
she finds it carefully
pushes aside petals like a surgeon
further days cough when they
inhale this powder
summer is a firearm
i play with it carelessly worn
your clothing muttering like a bomb
take it away to
where your will withdraws
it's ok
smelling like a headfucked vice
it's not here at all
it's where you were
i used to miss
earlier when i was walking in the
panicked nightwalk later before
what was early to rattle me just
the nonchalance of your silence
i am waiting very patiently and appropriately sullen i
curve steps that fake boldness at our doorways and
other things which
jointly owned
claim our elements
this stops being nostalgic
becomes the affected gait of
smells that mix into the furniture
books weave into each other like
spidered legs encounter the breath that shared
becomes less than the
breath that's
there
where i sit
dangling
feet held hover above the ground
and nothing
gathers here
we are a grand emptiness
the background music cheery and resonantly
echoes beyond the patina of dusty
memories where we painted this
all you did
agrees
i shake hands with it
and
all i did
drifts aimlessly
she finds it carefully
pushes aside petals like a surgeon
further days cough when they
inhale this powder
summer is a firearm
i play with it carelessly worn
your clothing muttering like a bomb
take it away to
where your will withdraws
it's ok
smelling like a headfucked vice
it's not here at all
it's where you were
Saturday, September 22, 2012
old stupid text to dead love
nothing is well. not speaking with you like an ocd kid dodging sidewalk cracks. like a lost flavor looking for closed restaurants. like the words of a favorite novel written into a dirty joke on a bathroom stall. like dead flowers garnishing the wrong grave.>
somewhere in between the insecure permutations of a ghost, drifting through a cage of patterns and memories (calling it a home) and the defiant experiments of a mad composer, painting surprise improvisations where none would sound appropriate. humming favorite songs on poisoned avenues. sitting on a friend's stoop, knowing that there is no one in 100 miles who cares what Lost Highway is about.>
but it's essentially ok and smoothly consumed. he promised himself long ago that the streets looked like this: drawn out, wavering and unsteady. every step led to something lost, and whenever he held things he was practicing. they were a rehearsal.>
somewhere in between the insecure permutations of a ghost, drifting through a cage of patterns and memories (calling it a home) and the defiant experiments of a mad composer, painting surprise improvisations where none would sound appropriate. humming favorite songs on poisoned avenues. sitting on a friend's stoop, knowing that there is no one in 100 miles who cares what Lost Highway is about.>
but it's essentially ok and smoothly consumed. he promised himself long ago that the streets looked like this: drawn out, wavering and unsteady. every step led to something lost, and whenever he held things he was practicing. they were a rehearsal.>
somnambulance
we barter in swirls of nostalgia
precise
we take milligrams of
i like to meet calm skies with half a
smirk to hide the dry residue of what arrived here
to be here without assistance
free and fucked
fleeing through streets to points known by
a disregard of the known
shrugging off reductions
meeting my carelessness and
wiping the hair from her face
another beer at a gathering
we connect
separate
don't walk signs rattle
become lapsed torches demarcating
impossibly elongated streets
exchange themselves with others
my emotions and growing concerns melt down my legs
blown around bus exhaust fumes and partially
eaten takeout drunkenly draped on fire hydrants
gathered in and consumed
selfish when i want my own window
take it with me for later
name it for me and guard it
ventilated in my conjured gusts
none of this is real
reassure
steeped in my shadow material
ego decommissioned
in array and out of time
never
ending
the
day
after
precise
we take milligrams of
what we used to be and what we wished we were
back when an alarm ringing clear out of a dead road
reached us now and found
signal in words no one will see or hear
me redistributed into chemicals
the years repeated tunes come on slow
when it's right it stuns me flat between the eyes but
when it's wrong it's below me
above me it's soaring past
like hair through fingers dry
on dry on
skin responsive to anything
on dry on
skin responsive to anything
i like to meet calm skies with half a
smirk to hide the dry residue of what arrived here
to be here without assistance
free and fucked
fleeing through streets to points known by
a disregard of the known
shrugging off reductions
meeting my carelessness and
wiping the hair from her face
another beer at a gathering
we connect
separate
don't walk signs rattle
become lapsed torches demarcating
impossibly elongated streets
exchange themselves with others
my emotions and growing concerns melt down my legs
blown around bus exhaust fumes and partially
eaten takeout drunkenly draped on fire hydrants
gathered in and consumed
selfish when i want my own window
take it with me for later
name it for me and guard it
ventilated in my conjured gusts
none of this is real
reassure
steeped in my shadow material
ego decommissioned
in array and out of time
never
ending
the
day
after
Sunday, September 9, 2012
the color of dusk
her skin her skin. these were repetitions, as words rather than images as he always thought to himself in language her skin. prone to droning, he returned to the vision. dark brown, like smoothed soil, or the beginning of the morning. he liked to smell it through the perfume she didn't need. when he walked to the gym at 4:45AM the ground was always wet from some lost rain he hadn't been around for, her skin her skin. sometimes she was naked and sometimes she wasn't. sometimes she was angry or upset but most often silent. he sung with recordings of damaged men at night, along with whiskey her skin. crooning like a lovesick cat; the comparison cooled him, so he became abruptly silent. that was somehow worse. that was somehow worse her skin her skin.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
nowhere
i step out in a long city cluster
manhattan after work
prickly and exhausted before my
first beer and you inexhaustible
afterwards and among ten
minutes and much later in the
solipsistic venue
collecting brief faces and their
voices and private cantankerous pleasantries
the girl from sarah lawrence insists
that she is not a lesbian well she
was kinda but she's not a lesbian at
this moment she is not a lesbian
she has a boyish charm to match
her haircut and an easy laugh
the bartop populated by tech
industry social misfits and men in
suits for no reason
we slur speech stunned in the
amber light
weathered wood facing off against
the securities of this intoxicated
band of roomed elephants
i get obnoxiously loud on more
than one occasion and i'm not
exactly sure why
i celebrate nothing but my own
casual harm and shitty moves
skulduggery gambles in search
for your scratchy profane timber folded
into the communal noise like wings
they move air by me and at me and
everything in motion only further
hides you when you leave
i remain there remain remain
remain joining
jagged pockets of conversation being
shifted into others sometimes
browsing bored aroused
inspired drunken spreading the
honey of my failures on men
who i touch behind the shoulder in some
kind of fraternal gesture that only exhibits after
3 whiskeys
i avenge petty smiling arguments
remember most names bandied
about and smokechat strangers far
more elegant than i
think i catch my doppelganger in the bathroom
talking himself up out of a severe liquor rush
my feet firmly planted on the sticky floor in
fakeass zen
it will be three hours later still
a friend and i
sit on the sidewalk and eat nuclear waste pizza and
she cries and we talk about old cracked loves and
it is the quietest part of the evening
i think about auburn hair except
i don't think i know her hair
it only reflects barlights and ozone meshed stars
i only know her hair through hazes
i call her and she misses it and i leave her a voicemail
she calls me and i miss it and she leaves me a voicemail
manhattan after work
prickly and exhausted before my
first beer and you inexhaustible
afterwards and among ten
minutes and much later in the
solipsistic venue
collecting brief faces and their
voices and private cantankerous pleasantries
the girl from sarah lawrence insists
that she is not a lesbian well she
was kinda but she's not a lesbian at
this moment she is not a lesbian
she has a boyish charm to match
her haircut and an easy laugh
the bartop populated by tech
industry social misfits and men in
suits for no reason
we slur speech stunned in the
amber light
weathered wood facing off against
the securities of this intoxicated
band of roomed elephants
i get obnoxiously loud on more
than one occasion and i'm not
exactly sure why
i celebrate nothing but my own
casual harm and shitty moves
skulduggery gambles in search
for your scratchy profane timber folded
into the communal noise like wings
they move air by me and at me and
everything in motion only further
hides you when you leave
i remain there remain remain
remain joining
jagged pockets of conversation being
shifted into others sometimes
browsing bored aroused
inspired drunken spreading the
honey of my failures on men
who i touch behind the shoulder in some
kind of fraternal gesture that only exhibits after
3 whiskeys
i avenge petty smiling arguments
remember most names bandied
about and smokechat strangers far
more elegant than i
think i catch my doppelganger in the bathroom
talking himself up out of a severe liquor rush
my feet firmly planted on the sticky floor in
fakeass zen
it will be three hours later still
a friend and i
sit on the sidewalk and eat nuclear waste pizza and
she cries and we talk about old cracked loves and
it is the quietest part of the evening
i think about auburn hair except
i don't think i know her hair
it only reflects barlights and ozone meshed stars
i only know her hair through hazes
i call her and she misses it and i leave her a voicemail
she calls me and i miss it and she leaves me a voicemail
Thursday, August 30, 2012
making my escape
the opening of the day is golden
crimson burning through and i
taste private metered segments of
it collected through previous hours
and on the remembered texture of a
new tongue in brooklyn
i'm the bottom bit of the last beer of the night
spun in my mouth before
licking handwriting into you and
down your neck
or not
maybe didn't happen
hours of the day colored and
repurposed by disintegrating spurs
of the moment meet me here
along the long dark street where i
once lived and rarely visit
always recalled in nighttime as if
daylight never weighed it down as
now it hovers heavy and sacred
always in bronze twilight
always hollowed out and wet with
summer air
always the same bar
with the same space in the back
i'm late to find you and your one
drink grin mellifluous and easy
when i sit down we are away from
those next to us
later on i am thinking that we are
farther away
we waver stray
abandoning laconic clues to me
where the fabric is softer and
warmer underneath it your
voice raspy and leading
farther away i don't meet you
or never have
or have
or never thought to come
not really looking for anything
nothing really found or surrendered beyond
roundabout glances and the feel of
old streets pivoting near
hair pushes away softly and
gives
walking through the shameless
laughter of late night basketball skirmish
pausing and giving ourselves to
calm
until the breeze is too close to you
as now it hovers heavy
i could walk endlessly like this
dreaming and not sure and
next to you and afar
the proximity of you and the old
neighborhood and my own
footsteps cascade reassuring
echoes as the season dies slow
headlight eyes scurry and scare the
shadows down the avenue
i find myself in step with them and
join their
road
to
leave
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
graffiti and old cars
every thing alive and dead becomes
due for the next life
we wear them in colored hair
in gym minutes
in long draws on a craft beer
momentary lapses of reasons are
countries under flaked wheels
destroyed by this illusion this
destroys and leaves all pieces real and
handled by those arrived
before we arrived to destroy
it could be any stolen morning
destroy destroy
laughter heard through
headphones jockeys for space and
attention to
take the requisite steps to
approach her (though longing
for new nighttimes she inhales
through her nose fiercely and
repurposes my weaponry almost
absentmindedly as a car
almost devastatingly in her
refusal to speak even once destroys and
it could be any lost conversation with
her until
gutted eternity) though longing though
only occurring in the friction of
strangled time and never
approaching her only
in this destroy
destroy destroy
speaking with an old friend though
longing she
knows what i loved of her
most definitively is the same strength she
nimbly produces in my idiotic wake
and the silence is more articulate
than my jagged aching destroys
me though longing like
the old faded paint of the
neighborhood's names hallucinate their
former colors and summon themselves
to form in the sunlight
remembering their own radiance when
the nighttime still encounters them
peeled of splendor though longing
i could be that hungry image
finding her elements in the cast
shadows of cars destroys
i run around the neighborhood
painting and signifying the recollected
variations as much as i
speak to her or reach
conclusions built of parts fresh
from the factory and
unknown by any touch
everything is new and
nothing
repairs my
machinery image in the
darkened
glass
sways
due for the next life
we wear them in colored hair
in gym minutes
in long draws on a craft beer
momentary lapses of reasons are
countries under flaked wheels
destroyed by this illusion this
destroys and leaves all pieces real and
handled by those arrived
before we arrived to destroy
it could be any stolen morning
destroy destroy
laughter heard through
headphones jockeys for space and
attention to
take the requisite steps to
approach her (though longing
for new nighttimes she inhales
through her nose fiercely and
repurposes my weaponry almost
absentmindedly as a car
almost devastatingly in her
refusal to speak even once destroys and
it could be any lost conversation with
her until
gutted eternity) though longing though
only occurring in the friction of
strangled time and never
approaching her only
in this destroy
destroy destroy
speaking with an old friend though
longing she
knows what i loved of her
most definitively is the same strength she
nimbly produces in my idiotic wake
and the silence is more articulate
than my jagged aching destroys
me though longing like
the old faded paint of the
neighborhood's names hallucinate their
former colors and summon themselves
to form in the sunlight
remembering their own radiance when
the nighttime still encounters them
peeled of splendor though longing
i could be that hungry image
finding her elements in the cast
shadows of cars destroys
i run around the neighborhood
painting and signifying the recollected
variations as much as i
speak to her or reach
conclusions built of parts fresh
from the factory and
unknown by any touch
everything is new and
nothing
repairs my
machinery image in the
darkened
glass
sways
Sunday, August 12, 2012
river
it is that rare night which finds me
limber-smiled
brokentooth bold
distracted hands open to the sincere
wordbuzzed and calmhearted
encounters at the other end of friday
unspooling smalltalk and bon mots at strangers
at the bartop a gorgeous blonde in formfitting fabric
positions
her hand up for a hifive and i meet it with no
small grace
she chitterchatters
we muse mockingly on the bartender as another is tapping my
shoulder with a nervous joke i gratefully
consume with my first sip of beer when
my drink arrives i am not lingering with them but
returning to my table and other faces
her tattooed arms are young but somewhat masculine
wearing bakery years on her small rocknroll frame with
virginia hair pushed back and sunburned and
in her eyes maybe a cool river of forgiveness that isn't really hers
and
as if gathered on the shores of interlocked strangers
where the essences of decommissioned loves circle in the salted wind it
pours forth unhindered by the self-conscious airs i employ
and at times the bar becomes isolated in its noise
and we find pockets in it which are
like blooms
or intimate theaters and
i find that i am less conversing with her than
with other lost women
i wonder if i always do that
i am speaking with a distant love
with an envelope of braided hair and photographs
touching the freckled cream of her hip when i am touching her hip when
i am touching her soft
echoes of movement that duplicate and expand in response
to the noise and airconditioning
we steal the food off of somebody's abandoned plate
conspire and tease
drunk and pleasant
bewitched and summoned by these semi-transparent yearnings
in aforementioned virginia hair which smells of cornstalk and handrolled
cigarettes yet
other women manifest and fold their fingers and unfold and
repair me
medicinal ghosts of this burial ground where we
all connect if only to add commentary to our roadmaps made
precious by lost time
she stays with me too long i surmise
i leave her with the newly materialized guy she doesn't want
the one she was supposed to know
limber-smiled
brokentooth bold
distracted hands open to the sincere
wordbuzzed and calmhearted
encounters at the other end of friday
unspooling smalltalk and bon mots at strangers
at the bartop a gorgeous blonde in formfitting fabric
positions
her hand up for a hifive and i meet it with no
small grace
she chitterchatters
we muse mockingly on the bartender as another is tapping my
shoulder with a nervous joke i gratefully
consume with my first sip of beer when
my drink arrives i am not lingering with them but
returning to my table and other faces
her tattooed arms are young but somewhat masculine
wearing bakery years on her small rocknroll frame with
virginia hair pushed back and sunburned and
in her eyes maybe a cool river of forgiveness that isn't really hers
and
as if gathered on the shores of interlocked strangers
where the essences of decommissioned loves circle in the salted wind it
pours forth unhindered by the self-conscious airs i employ
and at times the bar becomes isolated in its noise
and we find pockets in it which are
like blooms
or intimate theaters and
i find that i am less conversing with her than
with other lost women
i wonder if i always do that
i am speaking with a distant love
with an envelope of braided hair and photographs
touching the freckled cream of her hip when i am touching her hip when
i am touching her soft
echoes of movement that duplicate and expand in response
to the noise and airconditioning
we steal the food off of somebody's abandoned plate
conspire and tease
drunk and pleasant
bewitched and summoned by these semi-transparent yearnings
in aforementioned virginia hair which smells of cornstalk and handrolled
cigarettes yet
other women manifest and fold their fingers and unfold and
repair me
medicinal ghosts of this burial ground where we
all connect if only to add commentary to our roadmaps made
precious by lost time
she stays with me too long i surmise
i leave her with the newly materialized guy she doesn't want
the one she was supposed to know
Monday, July 30, 2012
chances are / spies
and it is late in the miracle evening and
a soft savage breeze demarcates the remnant sand caught between eyelids and
angry language and
it is a kind of strength he
finds himself saying to no one
it will be weeks someday
at some point he will eat a muffin
or stamp out a capricious cockroach before bedtime and
like every other dead thing it will
be dancing
patient in the tufts of his hair
it is arguable that he will be listening to music
or reading a random book from his shelf by the guide of a torn
receipt shoved meaningfully in at page 97
he will give a woman money for a thin bottle of clear rum and
she will hand it to him with practiced boredom
chances
are
he will remember the lines in that Peter S. Beagle novel again
the ones that circled his pre-adolescent mind feverishly
utterly rapt
almost repulsed by
their symmetry and ungainly honesty
he will walk a short circuit through a one bedroom apartment
speaking with someone on the phone and instantly forget who he was
speaking with until their voice returns
he will consider this no meager victory
there will be long pauses followed by cruel activities
he will step on her foot in the crowded bus
a child will kick him gently as he exits
back on the streets
he will be staring at a sign for a breakfast special in a faceless restaurant for a while
he will not know or understand if he wants to eat here
someone nearby will be angry at someone else
somehow this will cause him to come to a decision
he will remember the lines in an old novel
in the way one recalls closing a book
more intimately
than opening it
a soft savage breeze demarcates the remnant sand caught between eyelids and
angry language and
it is a kind of strength he
finds himself saying to no one
it will be weeks someday
at some point he will eat a muffin
or stamp out a capricious cockroach before bedtime and
like every other dead thing it will
be dancing
patient in the tufts of his hair
it is arguable that he will be listening to music
or reading a random book from his shelf by the guide of a torn
receipt shoved meaningfully in at page 97
he will give a woman money for a thin bottle of clear rum and
she will hand it to him with practiced boredom
chances
are
he will remember the lines in that Peter S. Beagle novel again
the ones that circled his pre-adolescent mind feverishly
utterly rapt
almost repulsed by
their symmetry and ungainly honesty
he will walk a short circuit through a one bedroom apartment
speaking with someone on the phone and instantly forget who he was
speaking with until their voice returns
he will consider this no meager victory
there will be long pauses followed by cruel activities
he will step on her foot in the crowded bus
a child will kick him gently as he exits
back on the streets
he will be staring at a sign for a breakfast special in a faceless restaurant for a while
he will not know or understand if he wants to eat here
someone nearby will be angry at someone else
somehow this will cause him to come to a decision
he will remember the lines in an old novel
in the way one recalls closing a book
more intimately
than opening it
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
egress from a brightly lit land (part 3)
i tread these roads with some modicum of trepidation and
neatly stored fear
gathering supplies in wait of the requirement to pursue new roads
with a nuzzle she motions to the horizon as if to
a new purchase or series of bad scenes
when he turns around she
disappears
appears
here there is soft music around the dying fire and
other adornments for sleep to shudder through
the crackling fibers and whispered conversations and
though nothing is secure or steadfast we hum in
unison to the sunlight to come
til it is the middle of night
and one mind might be awake in a sea of muted
voices
alone on this night he finds himself leaving the security of
fabric to find a private surface upon which to
feel the blue air of the evening and ponder curious
calendars yet to be made real in
months that flutter into time made
disturbed and intricate
into a flipbook of hours
of pretty faces and ill-received mentions or malapropisms pasted to
beloved tattooed skins
he communicates to nothing and nowhere in self-interested playlists
merges with his own dishonor
becoming one thing
a mutant of his faith in the ideal and his own
craggy movements through the pride exhibited by strangers with quick
smiles
trust really a peculiar currency always at the ready
bartered handily with the faces that darken these roads and yet
not sure why
the bold reaching of irrational misspent youth has gone black and dry
he is old now
as grasslands frozen gold in repetitions of sunlight
a consummate liar possessed with disbelief
alone for these mere moments in the dying firelight
maybe at a loss for the dramatic yet making
manic urges
blood rushing to hungry arms
alone on this night
perhaps leaving these fellow travelers behind and scraping the dew and dirt to
fill up my footprints
before him
every highwayman and cold trickster and solipsistic gypsy feeding off the milk of the road
leaving his blankets and bandaged remnant gear
neither alone nor released
he has shaken off her fragrance
clothing only smells like me and moonlight
the only sounds elemental
the only sky grey then forgiving the early morning
the only shirt soft from repeated washing and wear
the only reason a promise wasted on a lover's burning glance
the only movements these movements
owning nothing but clenched sentences
the only thing real is this place
the only thing that leaves it is
what's left
feel the blue air of the evening and ponder curious
calendars yet to be made real in
months that flutter into time made
disturbed and intricate
into a flipbook of hours
of pretty faces and ill-received mentions or malapropisms pasted to
beloved tattooed skins
he communicates to nothing and nowhere in self-interested playlists
merges with his own dishonor
becoming one thing
a mutant of his faith in the ideal and his own
craggy movements through the pride exhibited by strangers with quick
smiles
trust really a peculiar currency always at the ready
bartered handily with the faces that darken these roads and yet
not sure why
the bold reaching of irrational misspent youth has gone black and dry
he is old now
as grasslands frozen gold in repetitions of sunlight
a consummate liar possessed with disbelief
alone for these mere moments in the dying firelight
maybe at a loss for the dramatic yet making
manic urges
blood rushing to hungry arms
alone on this night
perhaps leaving these fellow travelers behind and scraping the dew and dirt to
fill up my footprints
before him
every highwayman and cold trickster and solipsistic gypsy feeding off the milk of the road
leaving his blankets and bandaged remnant gear
neither alone nor released
he has shaken off her fragrance
clothing only smells like me and moonlight
the only sounds elemental
the only sky grey then forgiving the early morning
the only shirt soft from repeated washing and wear
the only reason a promise wasted on a lover's burning glance
the only movements these movements
owning nothing but clenched sentences
the only thing real is this place
the only thing that leaves it is
what's left
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Swarms - Old Raves End
http://swarmsuk.bandcamp.com/album/old-raves-end
An absolutely incredible, lush and ponderous record. You can hear it for free on Bandcamp or kick the people a few euros to keep it in your headphones. Well worth it.
Just wanted to mention it, since track 3 was an inspiration for the previous poem and was played on repeat as I wrote it.
An absolutely incredible, lush and ponderous record. You can hear it for free on Bandcamp or kick the people a few euros to keep it in your headphones. Well worth it.
Just wanted to mention it, since track 3 was an inspiration for the previous poem and was played on repeat as I wrote it.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
ojo ojo ojo
the flicker of your eyes
renders dollar store shelves of
rainbow colored plastic shit smashed
with riotous sledgehammers
the flicker of your eyes rushes crowds
of well meaning itinerant children
into tomorrow's parks tugging at
shirts haggled on tables in times
square
the flicker of your eyes destroys unopens
destroys unused gated fields suffocated with the idle
debris of unthinking candy bar wrappers and
erects quiet faced guardians to stand
watch over lost spaces and welcome
those who need them and everyone
needs them
the flicker of your eyes drinks every
bottle in a bar dry and fills every vein
dead with clumping heroin slurry and
every bronchial tube with sweetly
violent smoke violet through diner
neon and burns every hangover
the flicker of your eyes is a cruel
irresolute madness backbroken on
the quick injurious words of a lover
seething across a street learning a
penetrating truth
the flicker of your eyes is a child
touching everything in the store
and getting the shit smacked out of them forced
to the parking lot in hideous
unjust tears and finding a space too
massive to even understand filled
with more people who don't
understand or care than it seems
there are grains of sand on a beach's
anthills
the flicker of your eyes is a fucking bitch with
finger deadset in chest coloring you with each
bit of pressure knowing you and rendering you
soluble in dust with each knowing pierce
the flicker of your eyes knows me through you knows
this through this finds me thinks me whole runs
me lost past post offices closed from disuse in the
reflection of caribbean goods windows and ghetto
doctors offices chased by the slow gait of a woman's
decisions like music flickering
the flicker of your eyes fucks with parallel universes and
unchanges changed decisions and changes and decides and
drops judgment like tropical hail rattles the walls of jails with
hope and mystical longings makes the free feel chained up and
ruined with jagged movements in your eyes
the flicker of your eyes tries makes efforts for me it walks with me
through the cities that won't stalk my failures for me following
me swallowing edges of manhattan in pieces guardrail by stoop stairs by
moonlit bad choices stacking bits of a hundred country's voices til
babylon is a bar i decide on on a moist summer eve i find the roads
where your dilated pupils migrate the movements of intoxicated strangers that
touch my arm reminding me to hoist expectations while murmuring the
lyrics to car alarms your eyes
flicker making me healthy urging each sidestep to danger no closer to better
off without the observation of sirens either bad intentioning females or police
textures watercoloring the contents of my pockets violently transfixing a
touch to my shoulder insecure your eyes flicker and ask directions demure and
unknown standing before the map lacking the craft to find stations which
fill me even alone empty and unknown standing in wait like my passion will
speak for itself as it disregards the words that insist to wait for
the flicker of your eyes bold and unyielding and standing on chairs too loud talking
loud yet fucking with sarcastic prettyboys and debonair rooftop partyclub
gogetters smacking fourteen dollar drinks out of their hands like WHAT and
screaming shitty obscure options to deejays on tuxedo dancefloors with utter
sincerity prepping moves in mirrors to shake strangers to
the flicker of your eyes intelligent unbelieving melted salt caramel confrontational
anarchic confounding predictive debunking thrift store riches and favorite
cookbooks with flair
the flicker of your eyes is a one dollar fifty special on hot dogs at gray's
papaya panhandled on a wednesday afternoon to the tune of vegan supermarket
muzak and samples of mexican food dropping quarters in the empty guitar case
of a travelling headfucked hitchhiker playing blackjack with bad acid trips for
good ones and doubling down
your eyes flicker and mountains go unclimbed and elementary school poetry withers
unrhymed and awkward in the hearts of bad students with more ink in the margins
than homework assigned accomplishing empty gibberish for the bathroom stalls of
their furious fearless minds learning curse words to mouth in the mirror to present
snickering to bullies before untold acts of cruelty
your eyes flicker and everything stays serene to contrast the stutter of a pair of ill-
fitting denim pants at the shindig you thought you'd stand out at spitting game to the
pinkhaired character smiling at the goofy unkempt bold motherfucker who keeps
ducking out to smoke his pack of unfiltered social anxiety in the windswept solace
of lamplight leaning on the brickwork in torpor
your eyes flicker and the city speaks cruelty even in the lack of your flickering
eyes looking for judgment and redemption in a smile to accommodate these
wasted yet urgent grasps for reason and the cosign of a strapless bra shuddering
close to my blathering mouth territorial for purpose in your effortless mouth
territorial
i flicker when you watch me
jumping in and out of your vision
surreal and televised
conquered and yielded
your most minute graze thrilling
your most particular shift documented
ruined in your careless glance
a jazz solo in a muted cough
the flicker of your eyes annotated
footnoted and obscured to smaller text
muted trumpet when you speak
never speaking when you speak
you are here with me
the city only ever a memory
witnessed
replete with imagery cataloged in disfiguring prose
the flicker of your eyes recording me in silence
epoch in a grateful glance
we could be nothing and you'd forget each of these words
but when you watched the sidewalks shifted alignment
i stepped north to go east
then you ordered hispanic sodas in the confusion and
all i tasted was sugar
renders dollar store shelves of
rainbow colored plastic shit smashed
with riotous sledgehammers
the flicker of your eyes rushes crowds
of well meaning itinerant children
into tomorrow's parks tugging at
shirts haggled on tables in times
square
the flicker of your eyes destroys unopens
destroys unused gated fields suffocated with the idle
debris of unthinking candy bar wrappers and
erects quiet faced guardians to stand
watch over lost spaces and welcome
those who need them and everyone
needs them
the flicker of your eyes drinks every
bottle in a bar dry and fills every vein
dead with clumping heroin slurry and
every bronchial tube with sweetly
violent smoke violet through diner
neon and burns every hangover
the flicker of your eyes is a cruel
irresolute madness backbroken on
the quick injurious words of a lover
seething across a street learning a
penetrating truth
the flicker of your eyes is a child
touching everything in the store
and getting the shit smacked out of them forced
to the parking lot in hideous
unjust tears and finding a space too
massive to even understand filled
with more people who don't
understand or care than it seems
there are grains of sand on a beach's
anthills
the flicker of your eyes is a fucking bitch with
finger deadset in chest coloring you with each
bit of pressure knowing you and rendering you
soluble in dust with each knowing pierce
the flicker of your eyes knows me through you knows
this through this finds me thinks me whole runs
me lost past post offices closed from disuse in the
reflection of caribbean goods windows and ghetto
doctors offices chased by the slow gait of a woman's
decisions like music flickering
the flicker of your eyes fucks with parallel universes and
unchanges changed decisions and changes and decides and
drops judgment like tropical hail rattles the walls of jails with
hope and mystical longings makes the free feel chained up and
ruined with jagged movements in your eyes
the flicker of your eyes tries makes efforts for me it walks with me
through the cities that won't stalk my failures for me following
me swallowing edges of manhattan in pieces guardrail by stoop stairs by
moonlit bad choices stacking bits of a hundred country's voices til
babylon is a bar i decide on on a moist summer eve i find the roads
where your dilated pupils migrate the movements of intoxicated strangers that
touch my arm reminding me to hoist expectations while murmuring the
lyrics to car alarms your eyes
flicker making me healthy urging each sidestep to danger no closer to better
off without the observation of sirens either bad intentioning females or police
textures watercoloring the contents of my pockets violently transfixing a
touch to my shoulder insecure your eyes flicker and ask directions demure and
unknown standing before the map lacking the craft to find stations which
fill me even alone empty and unknown standing in wait like my passion will
speak for itself as it disregards the words that insist to wait for
the flicker of your eyes bold and unyielding and standing on chairs too loud talking
loud yet fucking with sarcastic prettyboys and debonair rooftop partyclub
gogetters smacking fourteen dollar drinks out of their hands like WHAT and
screaming shitty obscure options to deejays on tuxedo dancefloors with utter
sincerity prepping moves in mirrors to shake strangers to
the flicker of your eyes intelligent unbelieving melted salt caramel confrontational
anarchic confounding predictive debunking thrift store riches and favorite
cookbooks with flair
the flicker of your eyes is a one dollar fifty special on hot dogs at gray's
papaya panhandled on a wednesday afternoon to the tune of vegan supermarket
muzak and samples of mexican food dropping quarters in the empty guitar case
of a travelling headfucked hitchhiker playing blackjack with bad acid trips for
good ones and doubling down
your eyes flicker and mountains go unclimbed and elementary school poetry withers
unrhymed and awkward in the hearts of bad students with more ink in the margins
than homework assigned accomplishing empty gibberish for the bathroom stalls of
their furious fearless minds learning curse words to mouth in the mirror to present
snickering to bullies before untold acts of cruelty
your eyes flicker and everything stays serene to contrast the stutter of a pair of ill-
fitting denim pants at the shindig you thought you'd stand out at spitting game to the
pinkhaired character smiling at the goofy unkempt bold motherfucker who keeps
ducking out to smoke his pack of unfiltered social anxiety in the windswept solace
of lamplight leaning on the brickwork in torpor
your eyes flicker and the city speaks cruelty even in the lack of your flickering
eyes looking for judgment and redemption in a smile to accommodate these
wasted yet urgent grasps for reason and the cosign of a strapless bra shuddering
close to my blathering mouth territorial for purpose in your effortless mouth
territorial
i flicker when you watch me
jumping in and out of your vision
surreal and televised
conquered and yielded
your most minute graze thrilling
your most particular shift documented
ruined in your careless glance
a jazz solo in a muted cough
the flicker of your eyes annotated
footnoted and obscured to smaller text
muted trumpet when you speak
never speaking when you speak
you are here with me
the city only ever a memory
witnessed
replete with imagery cataloged in disfiguring prose
the flicker of your eyes recording me in silence
epoch in a grateful glance
we could be nothing and you'd forget each of these words
but when you watched the sidewalks shifted alignment
i stepped north to go east
then you ordered hispanic sodas in the confusion and
all i tasted was sugar
Sunday, July 8, 2012
palabras
some of these sundowns the dreams somehow
pierce some of the blank blackness echoing every
single night and
i could be remembering something i lost months or years ago
could be finding it like a drawn breath in
pierce some of the blank blackness echoing every
single night and
i could be remembering something i lost months or years ago
could be finding it like a drawn breath in
dawn light and i fight suffocation
to return to it
recline into the chemicals of waking like
rubbing the arms of a long lost green chair before standing up
to breathe in all the incineration i've caused
it's fast and slow
like the drift of her through hallways last night
a phantom adjusting the stupid things i've placed around
the house
woke up today and cleaned it like life or death
put together the broken shelf and replenished it
with scattered minutes and hours we spent in dusty
bookshops
finding fragments of her poetry bookmarking half-read chapters in her
messy script
i'm sitting on a freshly vacuumed carpet
squinting and cleaning my glasses to discern these
words
words used to be all we had but they transformed in the grind
of years
drained of their direction she
angled them into herself
we used to sit and read to each other passionately in that shitty
studio apartment with the junk lamp and the proud
futon i purchased and pushed home in an abandoned shopping cart
it happened a little bit, later
sometimes we found a passage here and there in someone else's writing
and escaped for a minute sitting close together with averted gazes
but she stopped reading me poetry
very quietly
in her way that she has
in her voice always too loud (i called
it her portorican voice
sweetly) in her abrupt and running movements were
the silent withdrawals she demonstrated
the ones i pretended to ignore
words used to be all we had
we wore them and placed them around each others necks
and kissed them and fucked them
we strung them through the house
we machinegunned them with cocaine and
sometimes even took the ones we didn't say and
said them to each other
in my dream she's a laughing spirit
flaunting through burning doorways
destructive
troublesome
angry
i drink her fury and chase her
tearing at myself
pulling off outfits of myself
her distance mocks me
i stop chasing her because it is
the only way i can imagine that she will
find the joy i neatly removed
i wake up and clean the house
i put all the words away and they are neat (not neat
like she used to put all the words away) and square
and spilling over with her blood
i sit on the carpet and read the words she left
behind
almost none of them are complete
little fragments
i find myself mouthing my name written in her hand as if
it is her words mouthing my hand written in her name
i am still sitting here
i've been sitting here for months
not knowing how to write myself a space where she remains
i put the words back into the words and put
them back onto shelves of words with other
words of hers maybe hiding in the the words of
others that i haven't found
that maybe she hasn't even found
i know them
i don't have to look for them anymore
recline into the chemicals of waking like
rubbing the arms of a long lost green chair before standing up
to breathe in all the incineration i've caused
it's fast and slow
like the drift of her through hallways last night
a phantom adjusting the stupid things i've placed around
the house
woke up today and cleaned it like life or death
put together the broken shelf and replenished it
with scattered minutes and hours we spent in dusty
bookshops
finding fragments of her poetry bookmarking half-read chapters in her
messy script
i'm sitting on a freshly vacuumed carpet
squinting and cleaning my glasses to discern these
words
words used to be all we had but they transformed in the grind
of years
drained of their direction she
angled them into herself
we used to sit and read to each other passionately in that shitty
studio apartment with the junk lamp and the proud
futon i purchased and pushed home in an abandoned shopping cart
it happened a little bit, later
sometimes we found a passage here and there in someone else's writing
and escaped for a minute sitting close together with averted gazes
but she stopped reading me poetry
very quietly
in her way that she has
in her voice always too loud (i called
it her portorican voice
sweetly) in her abrupt and running movements were
the silent withdrawals she demonstrated
the ones i pretended to ignore
words used to be all we had
we wore them and placed them around each others necks
and kissed them and fucked them
we strung them through the house
we machinegunned them with cocaine and
sometimes even took the ones we didn't say and
said them to each other
in my dream she's a laughing spirit
flaunting through burning doorways
destructive
troublesome
angry
i drink her fury and chase her
tearing at myself
pulling off outfits of myself
her distance mocks me
i stop chasing her because it is
the only way i can imagine that she will
find the joy i neatly removed
i wake up and clean the house
i put all the words away and they are neat (not neat
like she used to put all the words away) and square
and spilling over with her blood
i sit on the carpet and read the words she left
behind
almost none of them are complete
little fragments
i find myself mouthing my name written in her hand as if
it is her words mouthing my hand written in her name
i am still sitting here
i've been sitting here for months
not knowing how to write myself a space where she remains
i put the words back into the words and put
them back onto shelves of words with other
words of hers maybe hiding in the the words of
others that i haven't found
that maybe she hasn't even found
i know them
i don't have to look for them anymore
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Gabo
Marquez has dementia and phones
his brother with simple questions
his life unwritten unfurls as a banner on an
endless battlefield
wrapped around the forgiving and
contemplative eyes that always stared at me from the severely
worn paperback with the Rousseau cover
i miss Gabriel Garcia Marquez
i miss the music of his poetry describing a thousand
foolish characters and the smells
of his cities
i miss not knowing who he is when i read him and
not caring
i miss the bookmark his work of loneliness crafted
connecting me to my love
and the sound of her laughter when she found herself
reading it again
i have always been proud of him and i don't know why
have always lived with his souls
have nestled in his blankets in awe
i still find myself
returning to his words like the door of a
lost home filled
with antique intimacies and the voices of dead relatives and
the feel on my cheek of chilly fog emanating from
the wondrous ice of gypsies who will
die and never leave
his brother with simple questions
his life unwritten unfurls as a banner on an
endless battlefield
wrapped around the forgiving and
contemplative eyes that always stared at me from the severely
worn paperback with the Rousseau cover
i miss Gabriel Garcia Marquez
i miss the music of his poetry describing a thousand
foolish characters and the smells
of his cities
i miss not knowing who he is when i read him and
not caring
i miss the bookmark his work of loneliness crafted
connecting me to my love
and the sound of her laughter when she found herself
reading it again
i have always been proud of him and i don't know why
have always lived with his souls
have nestled in his blankets in awe
i still find myself
returning to his words like the door of a
lost home filled
with antique intimacies and the voices of dead relatives and
the feel on my cheek of chilly fog emanating from
the wondrous ice of gypsies who will
die and never leave
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
putting things away
know it kinda starts to look that way
stricken and healing
dug below the soil like a dog in summer
reaching for the cooler
myths lower than the sun
denser that the last seven
words we shared
searching for below
after enough nights of
composing strength and excuses in
decomposed brain cell
reverie
we signify and play together in the
ambivalent sun
and scraps of our connective
memory circulate in these
lone meanderings
linked by the returns and bent streets of
our lives
choked as the
dream of you
shimmers
maybe all of these swept recollections
define a
cracked child
who looked for
you
never looking for anything
or
a crass thickheaded adult
who (looking for a
cracked child) kept time with your
sincere agreements
who smiles when he's insecure
he looked for you
when he didn't know what
anything looked like
it starts to look like him
this
scavenged cave graffiti
clueless notes wet with past
intoxicants in the
scrawlspace of notebooks or
the blank pages of novels
he
would fill the blank pages diligently
looking for the answer in an awestruck phrase or
a pretty fist of words
he had a lot of ideas
they formed dense cancers of
unfulfilled infuriating notions
sometimes
they were merely
anecdotal and weightless
filling the conversational air with
strangers
sometimes
they were
precious and secreted away and they
weren't real without you
until and
of
you and even
with you
i'm in the process of
forgetting your smile
a very dry and witless task like
a prep cook rendering nature
to compartmentalized
utilitarian
refrigerated
contents
i find myself cutting your smile into
thin rings of wet amethyst like red
onions staining every surface of
memory
i collect their perfect order
scattershot into
plastic containers and seal them
against the elements
taking your bent sleepy legs to freeze next
to crushed basil and coffee ice cubes
i gather your hungrily offered kisses
slightly parted with reassuring tongue behind
the supplies for our dead pets that
we couldn't bear to discard
i fold the sweet way you correct
the bottom left corner of your panties with a gentle
snap into the linen closet tucked among
medicine and cocoa butter
i somehow do these
mundane things
with love
very carefully
sullenly
without defiance or anger
very softly
with a kind of stupefied distance
i know it appears diligent
inspired even
maybe it might appear as if i understand it completely
scientifically
maybe it seems as if i accept it or i'm facing it with
confidence and verve
it starts to seem that way
bereft of bitter self-destruction but
a little bit fascinated with my own movements
listening for your echoes in
strangers
watching for your echoes
i know it looks like i am buried by them
it starts to look that way but
i am unfettered
sprawled in these pages
nothing pulls me down
Saturday, June 23, 2012
the bronx: a shopping list
spinach
milled flaxseed
green platanos
the name of that person who plays the saxaphone every saturday morning to the first arcs of sunshine exploring cracked sidewalk quadrants vibrating the weeds and crabgrass in between their teeth
dr bronner's tea tree soap
a 50% success rate with the paid laundry machines
a guy on the subway who isn't doing that wide-stance seating bullshit rubbing his knee against mine in some kind of weird alphamale exultation
a senior citizen in my building who doesn't think to herself why the fuck is this guy living here every time i doom her afternoon into sharing these cramped quarters with me for 45 seconds
whole wheat potato bread
bustelo (find it on sale somewhere)
a halfway decent sushi restaurant closer than 12 bus stops away
a pair of jeans that aren't fucking bedazzled or pocked with any number of stylistic piercings and medallions
any one of ten thousand gorgeous single mothers picking up their kids from the bus stop outside the projects on webster ave next to western beef
(check out western beef the sale on canned beans is thorough)
pomegranates at the korean market where they're always so cheap for some reason
turkey coldcuts for the cats cuz they likes that shit
a handful of yellow pills from an old friend
red cabbage
some kind of weird vegetable i've never cooked but should experiment on
hair stuff although i lack the most basic awareness in what i'm supposed to do with my hair
30 people at the gym who don't stake territorial ownership on three stations at the same time
a sandwich boarded aggressive WE SELL GOLD AND DIAMONDS guy on fordham road who doesn't stab me and my complete lack of gold and diamonds with weaponized business cards
pearled barley
lentils
some free time and the resolve to render them alchemy-like into a pot of soup i won't despise after two days
a new mattress not soaked with loathing
a sidewalk not spackled with weeks of moldering dollarstore trash
something else to walk beside instead of angry or disinterested parking lots
the balls to play 3-card on fordham at least once
bleach
cheap rum
a lottery ticket
papayas
cigarettes
paper towels
the energy to stay or leave
lemons
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
egress from a brightly lit land (part 2)
bonfires to
dance around
singing in your underwear with painted slang runes on skin
you sing your elders
you sing for the lost skincracked molecules of friendships
for the couple on the bus formed around their infant like a forcefield
you sing for what you admire and in the sarcastic face of what you condemn
you sing farces that make light of your insipid and self-absorbed struggle
you sing for absorption spitting cachaca into the blaze
hair whips like a bucking loa soulspanking jerky movements
you sing stupid haircuts
bonfire as panopticon
restless in the center of your own surveillance
you sing calm and croon self-destructing questions
you sing explosions back into themselves as cat claws
you sing consumptions and empty threats
sing old lives that emerge from the heat as nickelodeons animated underneath each error
sing subtitles for each wrongdoing
sing roadside secrets and grand admissions
on the edges of your society we post gypsy tent towns
permanent camp on the borders of your disgrace
we eat
we eat for the first time in a long while but in the dim lanternspace
we eat as if we remembered
there are sounds that emerge from the roads
reminding us of exile and half-confident promises and
the taste of poisoned waters warming
scars reminding
it is quieter here
with those sounds soft and distant and constant and
somehow beautiful
in the darkness the echoes conjure pleasant hallucinations or memories or shadowy dream material
and we recall crippling dangers with humor and pained laughter
we would not trade this night
for all the certainties
we left
behind
Sunday, June 17, 2012
clinic / i'm ok
killed 2(
gunman
inc
luded)
killed 2(
7 wound
ed inc
luded)
killed 2(
the rest
are exp
ected to
survive)
killed 2(
wounded
at rest 2
waiting
2
arrive at
their dest
ination
alive)
in the drag of a lost universe
between the ears and bleeding
captives of deadly ambivalent serotonin place
one foot in front of the other
and wander to the end of their halfbaked goal
there but for the grace of chemistry
and featherlight
dice go
2(wound
ed inc
lusive)
exactly
the same
our pains are identical
even as the maw between
our actions renders no
unity or sympathy
exactly as different as can be
we are both exactly irrelevant
2(wounded)
one continues to elude
you killed 2 because there is no country
for the suffering to own
one of them was you
because you never owned anything
but suffering
not even yourself
Saturday, June 16, 2012
crotona park
i am walking past titanic project buildings in the
buzzing sanctity of six
ay em bronx sidewalk fabric
soaked with miles of porous graffiti and
shrines to the lost beloved of
this forgotten city dangling
the scraped blemished gatherings of fumbled garbage preyed
upon by transient wildlife and the footprints
of commuting mothers are
early morning musical notation
deciphering dawn preludes and
the mournful painted bicycles of dead commuters
the earlybird intoxicated napping on apartment stairs
before being jostled awake by somewhat gentle superintendents who
then walk past the tattoo shop's shuttered windows arms
inert at their sides with brooms and featherweight tools
when she walked around in the morning
in panties and a long shirt teasing
the curve of her ass and the first
drops of awakening are the sounds of a camera seeing
the dawn
i become very small and insignificant
aquatic in the pond of a shrinking brain
i smell the remnants of her shoulder in dented cotton
dead molecules brought to life
as if walking through a city
morning by morning
chemically lengthening and destroying
with lumbered angles of the sun
filtered by leaves and bits of dream
alongside no one and nothing
are
cities of old
infecting moving limbs with the
virus of lost children now men the
virus of lost children now men the
virus of lost children
buy a grapefruit juice across from the bus stop to
feed these painkillers
flowing through wage slave capillaries
and my tongue presses hard onto
nerve endings thirsty for
other tongues
languages concocted of mixed nocturnal drinks
she leans forward on the table with
tumbling hair
-i'm nearly there-
is the only refrain
nearly next to something other than suffering or
mixed reunions with
previous cutouts of selves to be
shuffling neighborhoods like cards held
close and next to me
i walk to work these mornings
smoking pieces of these mornings
finding the plausible elements filling these lungs
i shake off last night's blood like a wet dog
buzzing sanctity of six
ay em bronx sidewalk fabric
soaked with miles of porous graffiti and
shrines to the lost beloved of
this forgotten city dangling
the scraped blemished gatherings of fumbled garbage preyed
upon by transient wildlife and the footprints
of commuting mothers are
early morning musical notation
deciphering dawn preludes and
the mournful painted bicycles of dead commuters
the earlybird intoxicated napping on apartment stairs
before being jostled awake by somewhat gentle superintendents who
then walk past the tattoo shop's shuttered windows arms
inert at their sides with brooms and featherweight tools
when she walked around in the morning
in panties and a long shirt teasing
the curve of her ass and the first
drops of awakening are the sounds of a camera seeing
the dawn
i become very small and insignificant
aquatic in the pond of a shrinking brain
i smell the remnants of her shoulder in dented cotton
dead molecules brought to life
as if walking through a city
morning by morning
chemically lengthening and destroying
with lumbered angles of the sun
filtered by leaves and bits of dream
alongside no one and nothing
are
cities of old
infecting moving limbs with the
virus of lost children now men the
virus of lost children now men the
virus of lost children
buy a grapefruit juice across from the bus stop to
feed these painkillers
flowing through wage slave capillaries
and my tongue presses hard onto
nerve endings thirsty for
other tongues
languages concocted of mixed nocturnal drinks
she leans forward on the table with
tumbling hair
-i'm nearly there-
is the only refrain
nearly next to something other than suffering or
mixed reunions with
previous cutouts of selves to be
shuffling neighborhoods like cards held
close and next to me
i walk to work these mornings
smoking pieces of these mornings
finding the plausible elements filling these lungs
i shake off last night's blood like a wet dog
Monday, May 28, 2012
egress from a brightly lit land (part 1)
we take small steps out from what
many like to say is a dark
nightland
a dim graphite-hued landscape
where everything is dead and faded
the truth is
it's very bright
too bright
bright enough to delineate the most
strangling detail in hyperfocus
both lies and truths
illuminated with equal shading
spoken crisply and eloquently and
the faces of the past aren't as
some sloppy distressed watercolor
but really a professionally animated decoupage
individualized and bordered and
sharply recalled
ready to bleed the vomit of your own
magnificent fuckups directly into your
mouth
twisting your own language
torturing you
slicing off your cock
digging beautiful dragon's teeth of glass
into your starving arms wet and pliant and welcoming as
egg custard
laughing delicately then
heartily til you find
yourself horrifically laughing back
we drag our way through the technicolor
trying to understand it at first
well
trying to understand it for a
really
long long
while
we ponder it
we arm ourselves intellectually against it
then with it
helping it for a while
then we combat it again in
a kind of schizophrenic musical trench warfare
catching ourselves by our own thrown projectiles
it could be months lived like this
elongated and tallied by the measures of
sleepless eternal evenings
clutching our cold brains
fraught with dreams of justice and reconciliation
dramatic gestures devised
celebrations of delicate grandeur
deadeyed
zombified by what we lack
to pursue a jagged path through we
generate the loveliest distractions:
other people
the centers of our bodies
intoxications and pharmaceutical delights
flickering entertainments
twitch dopamine carousels
riding the hypothalamus bareback and hitting
every obvious obstacle right at the fucking knees
progress is pitilessly slow and mired
sometimes we turn around and are being chased
sometimes we are chasing the stoic end of the day
sometimes we are chasing the fragile morning
sometimes we find we are simply running for some time
you would think that when we hit the gate we
crash heroically through it with
all this stored kinetic energy and
the fury of the chase but
this land never moves and though everything in
this land is moving nothing is moving and
we get there right at the edge of it and
this is probably where we stay the longest
and this
is probably
where many others
still
live
and we think
about that
and we are
no longer
moving
many like to say is a dark
nightland
a dim graphite-hued landscape
where everything is dead and faded
the truth is
it's very bright
too bright
bright enough to delineate the most
strangling detail in hyperfocus
both lies and truths
illuminated with equal shading
spoken crisply and eloquently and
the faces of the past aren't as
some sloppy distressed watercolor
but really a professionally animated decoupage
individualized and bordered and
sharply recalled
ready to bleed the vomit of your own
magnificent fuckups directly into your
mouth
twisting your own language
torturing you
slicing off your cock
digging beautiful dragon's teeth of glass
into your starving arms wet and pliant and welcoming as
egg custard
laughing delicately then
heartily til you find
yourself horrifically laughing back
we drag our way through the technicolor
trying to understand it at first
well
trying to understand it for a
really
long long
while
we ponder it
we arm ourselves intellectually against it
then with it
helping it for a while
then we combat it again in
a kind of schizophrenic musical trench warfare
catching ourselves by our own thrown projectiles
it could be months lived like this
elongated and tallied by the measures of
sleepless eternal evenings
clutching our cold brains
fraught with dreams of justice and reconciliation
dramatic gestures devised
celebrations of delicate grandeur
deadeyed
zombified by what we lack
to pursue a jagged path through we
generate the loveliest distractions:
other people
the centers of our bodies
intoxications and pharmaceutical delights
flickering entertainments
twitch dopamine carousels
riding the hypothalamus bareback and hitting
every obvious obstacle right at the fucking knees
progress is pitilessly slow and mired
sometimes we turn around and are being chased
sometimes we are chasing the stoic end of the day
sometimes we are chasing the fragile morning
sometimes we find we are simply running for some time
you would think that when we hit the gate we
crash heroically through it with
all this stored kinetic energy and
the fury of the chase but
this land never moves and though everything in
this land is moving nothing is moving and
we get there right at the edge of it and
this is probably where we stay the longest
and this
is probably
where many others
still
live
and we think
about that
and we are
no longer
moving
hielo / one hundred and four degrees
maybe it's nothing
cigarette smoke cascading cancer over
old blankets
suffusing particulate suffering as
murmured words
absorbing errors and freewheeling
mental imagery and crushed romantic
dirges into this weathered fabric
rescuing images from the past like a
cloudy sky
she's kind of weird
like that
maybe
it's nothing that she wakes up
early to chuckle over something she's
reading
or make perfect coffee and
hypothesize the day before
bothering me but
it always
seems
to
be 155 in the morning now it
angles into the room like
shafts of ambivalent sunlight
awoken with the ghosts of her and
the hateful architecture of the day
positioned before me
i gather my diseased moorings close and
angle towards it
and
maybe
enlightened by nothing
to nothing
i procrastinate in the softer unseen
edges of her
and designate abandoned boundaries where her
gentle breath breathed tunnels into
mine and
submerge into the discordant ink where her
prose met
mine and find my
enemies in what remains maybe
it's nothing but
the mythic refrains circumnavigating these
streets and rooms which are forever
our moments
a frozen garden
where
nothing grows
or
dies
cigarette smoke cascading cancer over
old blankets
suffusing particulate suffering as
murmured words
absorbing errors and freewheeling
mental imagery and crushed romantic
dirges into this weathered fabric
rescuing images from the past like a
cloudy sky
she's kind of weird
like that
maybe
it's nothing that she wakes up
early to chuckle over something she's
reading
or make perfect coffee and
hypothesize the day before
bothering me but
it always
seems
to
be 155 in the morning now it
angles into the room like
shafts of ambivalent sunlight
awoken with the ghosts of her and
the hateful architecture of the day
positioned before me
i gather my diseased moorings close and
angle towards it
and
maybe
enlightened by nothing
to nothing
i procrastinate in the softer unseen
edges of her
and designate abandoned boundaries where her
gentle breath breathed tunnels into
mine and
submerge into the discordant ink where her
prose met
mine and find my
enemies in what remains maybe
it's nothing but
the mythic refrains circumnavigating these
streets and rooms which are forever
our moments
a frozen garden
where
nothing grows
or
dies
Saturday, May 19, 2012
you may have just won ten million dollars
he will never
hurt himself
he will absorb and
conjure and perjure and
suture and culture but
not injure or
enfeeble or dart
across the surface of
an eye or meet
soft redemption in
hands that run through
hair or asleep in
chemical tendrils be
destroyed
he will
stay
forever
trapped in some kind
of a creased permanent
stance like a specious
bookmark
made of magazine clippings
and fucking stupid taunting
habits and immature
somnambulist ideas and
sincere loathsome
molecular destruction in
a
dream
yesterday
my
left arm and hand sliced
and shredded and scarred
over a mix of
old wounds and new and
the pinky torn off
below the knuckle and the
scars like braille or dna
held down by the throat
unable to speak
or wake until
woken
i was
able to be
silent and dreaming
i remember waking up to calm
adjacent nightmares
i remember a soft breeze at night
blown over and around our
furniture and mixed in
with our breath
the sounds of partying neighbors
and backyard dogs baying and
our selves redacted to
an atomic whole
i remember rhythmic iloveyous
and passion and complacency and disinterest and
verve and thrill and pleasant boredom and
ravenous bloodthirsty boredom and elegant
sated boredom and the boredom of
knowing how not to be bored and avoidance and
the lack of faith and the loss of it and
my old dying frame a hideous
portrait and my face something to be
idly destroyed like junk mail
this is what it looks like
when i'm just walking around:
a king bullshitter
self lacerated
drunk & drugged
staring at pedestrians who
cope like master craftsmen
going through the motions of
emotions breaking up the
composite motions of
smiling hello or buying a granola bar or
taking a shit or two-stepping the subway
stairs or feeling for the right grapefruit
near the end of a given day i
expend the limit of my energies paying
for groceries with a debit
card exactly like a normal
person
hurt himself
he will absorb and
conjure and perjure and
suture and culture but
not injure or
enfeeble or dart
across the surface of
an eye or meet
soft redemption in
hands that run through
hair or asleep in
chemical tendrils be
destroyed
he will
stay
forever
trapped in some kind
of a creased permanent
stance like a specious
bookmark
made of magazine clippings
and fucking stupid taunting
habits and immature
somnambulist ideas and
sincere loathsome
molecular destruction in
a
dream
yesterday
my
left arm and hand sliced
and shredded and scarred
over a mix of
old wounds and new and
the pinky torn off
below the knuckle and the
scars like braille or dna
held down by the throat
unable to speak
or wake until
woken
i was
able to be
silent and dreaming
i remember waking up to calm
adjacent nightmares
i remember a soft breeze at night
blown over and around our
furniture and mixed in
with our breath
the sounds of partying neighbors
and backyard dogs baying and
our selves redacted to
an atomic whole
i remember rhythmic iloveyous
and passion and complacency and disinterest and
verve and thrill and pleasant boredom and
ravenous bloodthirsty boredom and elegant
sated boredom and the boredom of
knowing how not to be bored and avoidance and
the lack of faith and the loss of it and
my old dying frame a hideous
portrait and my face something to be
idly destroyed like junk mail
this is what it looks like
when i'm just walking around:
a king bullshitter
self lacerated
drunk & drugged
staring at pedestrians who
cope like master craftsmen
going through the motions of
emotions breaking up the
composite motions of
smiling hello or buying a granola bar or
taking a shit or two-stepping the subway
stairs or feeling for the right grapefruit
near the end of a given day i
expend the limit of my energies paying
for groceries with a debit
card exactly like a normal
person
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
uzumaki / kiss in the parking lot
the murmur of
crooked wildlife
a mirror of ice of
arms of
glass of drifted
animal darkness chasing
through cruel grateful
dreaming sleepless counterfeit
bloodless architecture soaked and
hollow
when removed
a hand disturbs when awake
like a stranger breaking
my concentration
then
refocusing carefully
temporarily
for the most miniature
moment to try to
find in them the most
rudimentary trust
cold blood in
a voice in a very
small machine on
a street in the
sun recorded by
a security camera
Friday, May 11, 2012
bookmark
not
really
sure
maybe it's the supernova
of incongruous loneliness
spread upon a sunlit day of footsteps
or it's xanadu
in ten breaths that separate
the thought of her
from ten different
inhalations
that occupy a mesmerized
valley of disjointed
anarchic
resilient
jealous
dreamily indistinct and
tortured daggereyed
rooms
where every object
is a talisman
wrought with grave and
disgusting memory
where
possessed with simmering
self
hatred
that disturbs any
shaky attempt to nourish
or push forward or
comply
not really sure
maybe it's the
bubbling liquid
surface of
the real
maybe
muscle memory
replete with soft
goosebumped arms
hands roughened by
life and motherhood
always causing a weird
distraught gesture i've
tried to hide
like a pill
under the tongue
not
really
sure about
what lies under the tongue
an honesty that presupposes
fear
a
dark urge
punishing whoever
would place stupid faith or
gamble their crumbling joy to
this deft ghost
he haunts our old roads our
words and narratives
he kisses the empty space
he mumbles
not really sure
he picks up our books
he doesn't know
what they
are for
really
sure
maybe it's the supernova
of incongruous loneliness
spread upon a sunlit day of footsteps
or it's xanadu
in ten breaths that separate
the thought of her
from ten different
inhalations
that occupy a mesmerized
valley of disjointed
anarchic
resilient
jealous
dreamily indistinct and
tortured daggereyed
rooms
where every object
is a talisman
wrought with grave and
disgusting memory
where
possessed with simmering
self
hatred
that disturbs any
shaky attempt to nourish
or push forward or
comply
not really sure
maybe it's the
bubbling liquid
surface of
the real
maybe
muscle memory
replete with soft
goosebumped arms
hands roughened by
life and motherhood
always causing a weird
distraught gesture i've
tried to hide
like a pill
under the tongue
not
really
sure about
what lies under the tongue
an honesty that presupposes
fear
a
dark urge
punishing whoever
would place stupid faith or
gamble their crumbling joy to
this deft ghost
he haunts our old roads our
words and narratives
he kisses the empty space
he mumbles
not really sure
he picks up our books
he doesn't know
what they
are for
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
camera #4 / Bedford Park to Fordham Road
junkie in bad sneakers on a long stumblish walk
past the ubiquitous subway sandwich shop sandwich board
bored and fretting
the bus is close but legs feel free
taking me past quinceanera bakeries
and fake toys at family dollar
little farther
i'm wading through auto chop shops and
pitbull collars
shoptalking around the homeless
lined up at P.O.T.S.
holler for spare cigarettes and scratching lotto cards
lot of closed up storefronts
battered faces eye me warily
carwash kitty dashes past the morning daring me
to chase him through the metro north fencework
too late for the second bus intense
doesn't even stop for a splitsecond
the school is filled with recess yard dramas
i fastwalk past the stop sign persistently ignored
or be gored by an impala
or the SUV with the smiling family
new bodega opened up 6 months ago
never needed in this neighborhood
yet they never leave this neighborhood
cross the street
fordham trumpeting its million shopper march
neverending trinket tables
shell games and WE BUY
GOLD AND DIAMONDS fables and
the storm sounds
of the train
avoid the rain under the best buy shelter on the corner
i disappear behind a door
wearing karma's
garments as
armor
past the ubiquitous subway sandwich shop sandwich board
bored and fretting
the bus is close but legs feel free
taking me past quinceanera bakeries
and fake toys at family dollar
little farther
i'm wading through auto chop shops and
pitbull collars
shoptalking around the homeless
lined up at P.O.T.S.
holler for spare cigarettes and scratching lotto cards
lot of closed up storefronts
battered faces eye me warily
carwash kitty dashes past the morning daring me
to chase him through the metro north fencework
too late for the second bus intense
doesn't even stop for a splitsecond
the school is filled with recess yard dramas
i fastwalk past the stop sign persistently ignored
or be gored by an impala
or the SUV with the smiling family
new bodega opened up 6 months ago
never needed in this neighborhood
yet they never leave this neighborhood
cross the street
fordham trumpeting its million shopper march
neverending trinket tables
shell games and WE BUY
GOLD AND DIAMONDS fables and
the storm sounds
of the train
avoid the rain under the best buy shelter on the corner
i disappear behind a door
wearing karma's
garments as
armor
Thursday, May 3, 2012
guru / trev
he was a shitty yet
willing parent
to a kid with
shitty parents
he liked to fight and
defend
smoked careless blunts
with a seasoned
efficacy
climbed trees on acid
always had this
girl or that one
standing very elegantly a few
feet away
green or purple natty
dreadlocks
and a smile
that brought those
around him out of
bad trip nightmares
perched on a central
park midnight rock
spitting weird elastic truths
or sitting in the
6th ave taco bell by
the window before
the fire
deconstructing a chili cheese burrito
cackling like
an illuminated isaac
newton
he played hackeysack
he scared off the
plainclothes de-tecs
smoking a cigarette
eating an avocado or
spooning out a mason jar
of skinned coconut and honey
or laughing larger
than my entire lifetime
anathema to assholes
peacebringer
ducking out when
the scene was shady
we exploded lighters and
conducted other
petty mischief
around fort greene park
or gobbled a quick slice
of brooklyn pizza
high on chocolate thai and
blathering about
saturday morning
cartoons
he giggled like a child but
later straight fucked up a
drunken asshole near NYU
who was
talking that bullshit
completely ignorant
of the fact that he was
speaking to the negro brooklyn
buddha in
black jeans
a dedicated smile that could squash a
lifetime beef or
send shivers down
the spine of those
who would
do harm
sitting at chelsea pier (he
pretended I was fucking
him and his girlfriend to
ditch unwanted
suitors) we smoke
cigarettes and
try together
extremely
hard to make sense
of it all
i called his house
once
his father's inebriated
voice barely
knew he had
a child
let alone a man
who had
saved
my life
willing parent
to a kid with
shitty parents
he liked to fight and
defend
smoked careless blunts
with a seasoned
efficacy
climbed trees on acid
always had this
girl or that one
standing very elegantly a few
feet away
green or purple natty
dreadlocks
and a smile
that brought those
around him out of
bad trip nightmares
perched on a central
park midnight rock
spitting weird elastic truths
or sitting in the
6th ave taco bell by
the window before
the fire
deconstructing a chili cheese burrito
cackling like
an illuminated isaac
newton
he played hackeysack
he scared off the
plainclothes de-tecs
smoking a cigarette
eating an avocado or
spooning out a mason jar
of skinned coconut and honey
or laughing larger
than my entire lifetime
anathema to assholes
peacebringer
ducking out when
the scene was shady
we exploded lighters and
conducted other
petty mischief
around fort greene park
or gobbled a quick slice
of brooklyn pizza
high on chocolate thai and
blathering about
saturday morning
cartoons
he giggled like a child but
later straight fucked up a
drunken asshole near NYU
who was
talking that bullshit
completely ignorant
of the fact that he was
speaking to the negro brooklyn
buddha in
black jeans
a dedicated smile that could squash a
lifetime beef or
send shivers down
the spine of those
who would
do harm
sitting at chelsea pier (he
pretended I was fucking
him and his girlfriend to
ditch unwanted
suitors) we smoke
cigarettes and
try together
extremely
hard to make sense
of it all
i called his house
once
his father's inebriated
voice barely
knew he had
a child
let alone a man
who had
saved
my life
pray
i'm self-improved
honed to a superfine edge
a careless knife
wild hair
fucked up jeans
mumbling through the errant city
mind emptied
taking the next unknown corners
mesmerized by mirrors that play
videos of the insecure child
with a badluck god
he was insincere
sometimes he ditched synagogue to
play streetfighter at the
candystore
sometimes he wrote
secrets in the corners of the
looseleaf behind the
pink line and then
tore them out
burned them
eradicated
ate them
sometimes he intoned
murder prayers
concentrated ill will on
his enemies like
orbital lasers
sometimes he stole large
things which were small or small
larger things
sometimes he died
back when he was
supposed to
sometimes he
was still here
honed to a superfine edge
a careless knife
wild hair
fucked up jeans
mumbling through the errant city
mind emptied
taking the next unknown corners
mesmerized by mirrors that play
videos of the insecure child
with a badluck god
he was insincere
sometimes he ditched synagogue to
play streetfighter at the
candystore
sometimes he wrote
secrets in the corners of the
looseleaf behind the
pink line and then
tore them out
burned them
eradicated
ate them
sometimes he intoned
murder prayers
concentrated ill will on
his enemies like
orbital lasers
sometimes he stole large
things which were small or small
larger things
sometimes he died
back when he was
supposed to
sometimes he
was still here
what time is
he is sincere
he waits for culminating
reason in the folds of icy blankets
brain cell massacre
the hum of machinery
the sounds of lonely technology
warmed by ideas and options
he has always known
the years that poured forth
had always been possessed of a
certain magic
a phantom haunting his own
objects
a decade of painful material accumulated
ornamental and tenuous like
a faded translucent garment
favored
as veritable avatar
playing the part
of himself
it doesn't stop
being night
the chemicals
are always emptying and
become mysteriously
replenished
the circuits of daily
life continually
routed and fulfilled
the familiar strangers are
always waiting to be
reactivated
a distant sound
doesn't alarm him anymore
for a few seconds
he forgets himself
he waits for culminating
reason in the folds of icy blankets
brain cell massacre
the hum of machinery
the sounds of lonely technology
warmed by ideas and options
he has always known
the years that poured forth
had always been possessed of a
certain magic
a phantom haunting his own
objects
a decade of painful material accumulated
ornamental and tenuous like
a faded translucent garment
favored
as veritable avatar
playing the part
of himself
it doesn't stop
being night
the chemicals
are always emptying and
become mysteriously
replenished
the circuits of daily
life continually
routed and fulfilled
the familiar strangers are
always waiting to be
reactivated
a distant sound
doesn't alarm him anymore
for a few seconds
he forgets himself
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
the world is round
it's past the time
he woke up
emptied of resources
a vast collection
of blank refrains
perfect mantras that
celebrate these
hollow derivative
gestures
teenage lies and self-mythologized
conspiracies
angry solutions to
homebrewed situations
the art of convincing
the half-interested to fuck
this damaged scaffolding
decisions whose pedigree a poisoned
brain jettisoning accountability
putting on adult garments that
filter sensations like touch or
shamelessly absorb the crass
sunlight
calendars emptied of meaning
beleaguered journeys down mystic
nocturnal freezing dawn avenues
prescribing value and achievement to
events
alchemy constructing cracked armor
he collected antiques
odd old phrases
former glamors
underlined text in stolen books
literary snake oil
remembered adrenaline
disintegrated tshirts
betrayals
passionate angers
smoking the soft moss that inevitably grows on a romance from 14
years ago
he thought memories were a building material
he thought he was old enough to enjoy his simple needs
young enough to make each warm day new
he thought that avocados on sale for 99 cents and
they have those greek yogurts he likes
he thought trains running local between yankee
stadium and fordham he
thought be home after midnight don't
lock me out thought25pushups
inthemorningthought wonderful pronunciation
of hebrew for a spanish kid thought
the world isn't round
it's flat
like a map in a nintendo
game
he woke up
emptied of resources
a vast collection
of blank refrains
perfect mantras that
celebrate these
hollow derivative
gestures
teenage lies and self-mythologized
conspiracies
angry solutions to
homebrewed situations
the art of convincing
the half-interested to fuck
this damaged scaffolding
decisions whose pedigree a poisoned
brain jettisoning accountability
putting on adult garments that
filter sensations like touch or
shamelessly absorb the crass
sunlight
calendars emptied of meaning
beleaguered journeys down mystic
nocturnal freezing dawn avenues
prescribing value and achievement to
events
alchemy constructing cracked armor
he collected antiques
odd old phrases
former glamors
underlined text in stolen books
literary snake oil
remembered adrenaline
disintegrated tshirts
betrayals
passionate angers
smoking the soft moss that inevitably grows on a romance from 14
years ago
he thought memories were a building material
he thought he was old enough to enjoy his simple needs
young enough to make each warm day new
he thought that avocados on sale for 99 cents and
they have those greek yogurts he likes
he thought trains running local between yankee
stadium and fordham he
thought be home after midnight don't
lock me out thought25pushups
inthemorningthought wonderful pronunciation
of hebrew for a spanish kid thought
the world isn't round
it's flat
like a map in a nintendo
game
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
seize
i try to
stop falling apart and
there's the blackest
sun ive ever seen this
green reflection like the
inverted camera of a
pond shifting askew what
was a smile to
self the
sound of footsteps and
pride there
is an echo and
addiction and
blood inside a
smile to
selfishness and
everything is quiet and
calm and muttered in
a pleasant harmonious
language
i walk around
im the most normal boy in
the world
Monday, April 16, 2012
the fuckup
missing
folded
legs
outline on a scarred heart and
in the choked remembrances
a kind of miserable peace
because of an act of mad destruction
a resolve to tear
two hearts
to
two hearts
and watch him desecrate
watch him despise
as he conquers the real
with an army of old ghosts
and watch him feel heroic and
flex his loose judgment and
render two hearts to two
hearts to gather his own
headfucked world
watch him dissolve and
deny the chance to fail
taking any nearby
nearness for
profound
shithead philosopher
pouring another round and
lost in the irony
he pushes everything away and his
heart is like two hearts much
like every heart
one damning and afraid and
one damning and afraid and
one risky and one
that is used
to
breathe
Thursday, March 8, 2012
shell game / frontman
not handwriting
or words between
or wet shadows or
a touch on dark clothing
choose melting surfaces to mate and
rawfeel elements to carry
slower and delicate downwards like
an ache
grows
in rooms that were never mine
mashed together like remnants of
thoughtless consumption
the only thing between sweet pure
heart and madness and
the bitter end an incalculable puddle
of time culpable and
i shift the scraps that once held my
name or names
and it is all a hastily assembled
bit of 3-card for
passersby or
i
swear i've had my moments
me hero
me bold or sharpened
dancing all the right moves
me invisible
me shutting my damn mouth
me opening it to say the right thing
me correct
me heeding my own warnings
learning a bit of guitar or some scales
but i've mostly stammered while
strumming shit luck like an
instrument of vines
only writing it down
when i can't remember the words
or words between
or wet shadows or
a touch on dark clothing
choose melting surfaces to mate and
rawfeel elements to carry
slower and delicate downwards like
an ache
grows
in rooms that were never mine
mashed together like remnants of
thoughtless consumption
the only thing between sweet pure
heart and madness and
the bitter end an incalculable puddle
of time culpable and
i shift the scraps that once held my
name or names
and it is all a hastily assembled
bit of 3-card for
passersby or
i
swear i've had my moments
me hero
me bold or sharpened
dancing all the right moves
me invisible
me shutting my damn mouth
me opening it to say the right thing
me correct
me heeding my own warnings
learning a bit of guitar or some scales
but i've mostly stammered while
strumming shit luck like an
instrument of vines
only writing it down
when i can't remember the words
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
upstares
when i reached for the banister for balance this morning my
hand pulled away sticky
yellow subway paint
i left my negative fingerprints behind
voids of tiny whorls and took
new ones with me
something significant in the exchange
stumbled artifice in something
as brainless as a rush hour commute
hands joining dozens
threaded in the movement
phantoms reaching for reassurance
we go up
up
hand pulled away sticky
yellow subway paint
i left my negative fingerprints behind
voids of tiny whorls and took
new ones with me
something significant in the exchange
stumbled artifice in something
as brainless as a rush hour commute
hands joining dozens
threaded in the movement
phantoms reaching for reassurance
we go up
up
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