Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Big talk Big

i tell everyone i’m a
writer

because

i’ve had sex

and

i tell everyone i’m a
porn star.

Mod Lit; or my tickle-me-pink aesthetics

[a rehash]


Weird is no
longer all that
weird.

Dada and kinfolk,
well beyond their golden anniversaries,
a 100 years later,
are no longer experimental

but post-experimental.

Even with its freshest incarnations,
it is still old.

There is a literature that lures man away from himself,
and there is a literature that forces man to face himself,

cope,

repent from,

replenish himself.

The one seeks to make the author
invisible thru plot or gimmicks with words,

while the other seeks to expose the author
and hence the common fallacies of his human bothers
either to air out wounds or
just let the gangrene set in,

to either heal or rot away, hopefully.

In my opinion,
art is no longer needed to
merely distract the species from its autistic
window-gazing during our time of obvious crisis.

Art, whether she realizes
it or not, like science, alleviates
and eases this bitch called life,

and both must respond to the needs of the people if they are to be relevant.

As much as I like
Gertrude Stein and
dismiss Ayn Rand,
people even then--even now
and far into the future--will prefer
to read Aynie over Gerty.

the status quo is to buck the status quo.

be a bride of your age, says Bertie, and be a widow in the next.

Pastoral Hymn; or GYNO (II)

well your baby is average

about seven inches long

says Dr. Fourfinger

and look

look

there is his penis

he’s a boy

a boy!

and i say

so you say he’s average right

i mean, you know what i mean

average right

and then the doc looks at my wife

spread out on the gurney

and says

you can dress him up

but you can’t take him out

can you

An anonymous page from my notebook

unpaid work

a cove => ?

all either past or future whores

the banks of piled up beer cans (snowbank)

while the going was good

tipster

oh atheist, you serve disdain like a montheist

antonomasia : ‘his lordship’; those ‘Don Juan’s’

poetic perjury

boardinghouse

escutcheon : the shield in a coat of arms
ornamental protective plate around/keyhole, lightswitch, drawer pull,
doorhandle etc.

to blot one’s escutcheon : taint one’s reputation

Do you remember, the drops of water made her blackraincoat
shiny and we ended up taking refuge in some outlying bistro and
coming back on the trolley, slow and noisy.

a paint & spackle job

arrondissement => administrative district in Fr. cities

my buzzing ears

it stuck in my throat

infrapsychically)

chiromancy

some of the more noteworthy of his noteworthy friends

pince-nez => ?

up with the times

the legend of the Drunken poem

it’s going to be 4.50 sir

4 free beers deep

and longing

not longing

needing, booze runs thick

breasts heave out the

bar/bra the german struts

macaroni clings, whores are getting laid

a real writer walks into a bar

and pays for every other drink.

he makes laughs

Sexy Haiku

A guy with
one leg walks
up to a girl
with one
tooth

and says

how ‘bout some
leg

Denial

That day
my brother
Said she
was gonna
die

but didn’t

I was in denial
as he cried

Mom never died
and
I never got
over denial

sliced open

the bar wench sliced her
pinky on a shattered life
while talking

blood flowed and flowed

‘I can’t afford this, I move in two days’

and this, ladies and ladies, is another
opportunity for Link to shine.

i told her i’d stitch her up

‘I swear I don’t have AIDS.’ up and down, flowing and flowing

they all say that, but Link, if he can, must.

she gives me $2 to go to the store and buy superglue

I sooth a thin layer over my hands for a seal
just in case

she holds the bleeding cut open as i dab it in,
as bloody glue trickles into both our hands.

now we are glued together

we rip apart and i grab for my beer

now i’m glued to the glass

she’s still bleeding
and
i’m just another genius at the bar

Diaper Rash

you sleep a third of your life
but work the entire time

like an inmate, waiting all day
for recess, outside time

the few hours you call life
the few moments you have to look out the window
you are too tired for

you bleed out of your ass
from squat thrusting tons of carcass
at the butcher shop

blood is everywhere, mingling

she cries because she sleeps one third of the day
and lives alone all day at home

i cry because being a bad writer is all i have
and now i lost even that

i work all day
and she can’t be alone

i work all day
and i can’t be alone.

i’ll spend more time
with co-workers
than raising my child

tomorrow, i say, i will be off.

we’ll make love

my muscles will stop burning

and tomorrow I’ll write and fuck like there’s no tomorrow

I was smoking a cigarette out back when

I was smoking a cigarette out back when


the howl of the fire truck
bled into the scream of the
coyotes
in the field

the fires burnt the night dead

and to think

everything was going as planned

Magnetogravitation

she’s all
tits and tattoos
stretching and shrinking
with time

but even
the stretch marks
of earth
is damn fine

the uterus of
superfluous
divine fire

pregnant on hard
iron

she’ll find her
Sancho on her
way to walgreens

while the
core spins
more than the
skin

making days of us

telling lives
before the
cigarette burns

slowly shedding
her
whore exterior

Chubby Girl

my father left because i’m fat
all of my men
all my friends
because i’m fat.

i was raped because i was thin

the other day, on the street, b/c i’m fat
two guys walking by, one said,
look at that fat bitch

so i don’t go out

i shop at night

i live on the outskirts

people tell me to wear sleeves

they stare

i keep friends for years before they leave me

my mother died then my father raped me. he left because
I am fat. they all left.

people stare and say things for my own good, right ?, even if
they are nasty

my fat protects me from the creep, the ass, the broken heart

it keeps me warm.

it is why every bad thing happens.

It keeps me safe.

Link Hates Ink

Link Hates Ink

my wife is
printing
what all
she wants
for the
baby
from
the
web

we run out of ink

and then realized we couldn’t afford to buy more





comment- this is all good and well, link, but we all know that the means of wealth are an arranged marriage between frugality and exploitation. When I say frugal, I mean you must either deny yourself or else be satisfied with yourself, because materialism is the soil true wealth grows in, and a tree cannot be its soil. You know that, I hope. When I say exploitation, of course, I mean you must exploit either the suckers, or the land which the sucker call their own. Your friend, Ryan

Sunday, April 27, 2008

religious people

“The interpretation of religion, as here advanced, implies a dependence of science on the religious attitude, a relation which, in our predominately materialistic age, is only too easily overlooked. While it is true that scientific results are entirely independent from religious or moral considerations, those individuals to whom we owe the great creative achievements of science were all of them imbued with the truly religious conviction that this universe of ours is something perfect and susceptible to the rational striving for knowledge. If this conviction had not been a strongly emotional one and if those searching for knowledge had not been inspired by Spinoza’s Amor Dei Intellectualis [the intellectual love for god], they would hardly have been capable of that untiring devotion which alone enables man to attain his greatest achievements…Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them strength to remain true to their purpose in spit of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious workers are the only profoundly religious people”

Einstein

“Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles. Then I will them PLAINLY, I never KNEW you, away from me..”

Jesus



the most religious people I know
hate god
and
especially godly men

what are you thinking about

nothing, they say, thinking all the time
about Nature
and human Nature
and maybe about how they hate god

but they’re thinking
like the church man is prayin
except
they pray with their eyes open
and their mouth’s shut

staring at walls and tree bark
and spun bicycle tires

thinking about bugs or stars or words or numbers

all live long day

not sure of what they know

the religion of a child
is rebellion and brave

youth’s withdrawal from itself

and

the religion of man
is conformity and cowardice

man embracing man

religion of a child
is the beginning of thought

and

the religion of man
is the end of it

the religion of a child
will bring the stars to man

and

the religion of man
will dismiss them,

the religion of a child
will shake the world

and

the religion of man
will make more it firm



the knowers say
god can do everything
except change

and they go on thinking the
same things
sayin the same damn things

not changing

not loving god enough
to hate ‘em

The most religious people
I know

hate god like
an ex
they love more
than life herself

like saying
fuck you god
like god did
on the cross

the finest mind

at its finest, genius
is pissed away.

it leaks thru the ears

like diarrhea of the brain.
dribbled on carpet black on muck.

forgotten because it did no harm.

Meta Turd

is masturbation afraid of lonely or alone?

in those clouds, I worry over

the self that others see,

the self that I see,

and the self that is seen by the self that I see.

Not really, but that is about as philosophical as it gets

Link the racist

The other day at the bookstore I was
startled by a black guy

he came around the bend
out of the quiet
and I jumped

I used to say,
I’m shy, I’m shy
with everyone. don’t
take my shyness for racism.
I clam up around all you people
I break eyes

On my friendly days,
boy am I friendly to every one

But the other day at the quiet bookstore
When I jumped

that was unacceptable

it was clear to me
what I’d done
who I really am.

I second guessed

Some are made racist by their parents

Some are made racist by the races themselves

None are born racist [a]

In fact, I do not even believe in the concept of
race. [b]
just as a theist believes in God
and a materialist believes in matter
and a dualist in duality
and a monist in unity
etc

A RACIST BELIEVES IN RACE.

I don’t believe in race and even if I did
I am a mix of so many.

So how can I be a racist?…

Then it happens again.
He rounds the corner and I jump.
He says--’Me again.’
I smile and he smiles.

I can think my way out.

but I jumped.

be afraid.

then

we do not know
exactly how much
the believers in race have taught us.



a- for example, a child born in the early seventies had to be taught about segregation and the holocaust and slavery and the inquisition etc.

b- a man may be more genetically similar to a member of a different ‘race’ than his own.

c- aside from a handful (7) alleles for skin color [out of 30,000 genes in the human genome], a handful (7) of branches in the mitochondrial DNA, and the similarities of Y genes for incestuous peoples, I’m not aware of any proof for the concept of race, that blood ugly hypothesis.

d- all of this will take generations to sink into the common sense of the family.

Goya and your Mama

Goya and your Mama

Noncommittal spittle
the mothers of genius have large breasts
and geniuses feed well into puberty
which ends at thirty

it is like fuzz, mommy, but what is it?

you were born a man and now you have thickened up into a nice monkey
god added a hint of flour to your mind
which is slowly gelling into a brain
conscious condensation


lactation nation
he rediscovers the droop and swagger of the boob
in the figure of the swelling
universe
convention of reinvention

my body is becoming a skin tag
really.
soon I’ll be asked to
believe in
the mind/skin tag duality
really.

an alcoholic mother is
cheap beer’s way
of having misbalanced
babies.

Ellipsoidal Voidal
smothers child
with breast
during soap
says she
fell asleep
that he
fell asleep.

‘Do you see Allah
now! motherfucker!’
mr. rosacia
wags at brown prisoner
‘We’ll just have to suffocate you
and resuscitate you
until you do.’

Torture whore.
teething on
bitter nipple

stopped on a corner
the nod of a cripple

her entities
became
parasites
sucking in
eyes

baby smiles
sucking milk from some bitch’s tit

/stop light poems, because there’s only time
to wait around/

flop around

drool tool

I can’t go in there that I don’t
steal at least $1000 of something.
especially when mr young & old boast war

born, bloody, half killing our mothers
we are so hardwired to kill; murder is
so much in the blood
that some of us
are not killers
is inconsequential

Now…!

the image of a grown man
sucking milky blood
from the tit of
his elderly mother
the real artist will
have to do a
family portrait.

Go now,
it is you,
artist, you
are the only
I write this for.

His best friend left town w/o telling him

I didn’t go home but
went to visit Neal at the bar

I’d overstayed my welcome at Grant’s
and killed his beer

I smelt cheap
and irresistible

I should go home and eat with my wife & mother
; dad was about to go to bed from
15 hours of bus driving

He had to come out of retirement
so my mother could have health insurance.
She is rotting away at the ankles

She has weeping ankles
& diabetes
cellulitis &
morbid obesity
& medicine she doesn’t take

I will never see dad again
because if you could die from tired eyes
dad died

Years back mom died
and is the puppet of a smile

Wife is 23 years pregnant
and going to die at birth

I didn’t go home but
went to see Neal at the bar

I caught him in the parking lot

he treated me like a stranger too

so I went home

Buzz Kill

It’s funny how the little cracks become big ones.

That’s what heartbreak is, thrombosis, nervous breakdown, death: when the little things that’ve been getting to ya, get to ya.

when all the little drunken Lilliputians sober up and get a mind

there is nothing they can’t overcome
when they work together

we call them bad genes, virus’, STD’s

the little things gang up on the big things
and always end up winning.

little asteroids kill off big dinosaurs

black holes swallow giants

ego jobs with their little peckers fuck up the whole world

one ugly person ruins a good crowd

the small is big and the big is really so so small

the petty win in the end

the nuance takes the day

the mountain isn’t dangerous

the pebble that hasn’t budged in 200 years
that makes you slip and fall
and wind up ground into
the scree
that pebble there, that’s dangerous

little words kill love

the atom splits

guerilla warfare wins every time

today’s terrorists are tomorrow’s revolutionaries

it is the small leak in a thick damn

as bold as the lava that fist made Hawaii

it is small, and it is going to fuck us in the end

it’s all the careless worries we tuck away

we pretend we forget

that get us in the end

it wasn’t the fire that consumed us but more like a teamwork of sparks

but that’s later, too far down the road to worry over now

Diatribalogue

I couldn’t get it up. I, with pale skin, reptile eyes, 80 grit face. Fresh air blew thru walls and past my space heater at the speed of 9 degrees below zero.

I shake her awake to apologize.

“Knock, knock”

“Who cares?”

Honey…it’s a joke. Have a little sympathy.

A little sympathy is what I’ve been trying for all night.

Knock-knock

Who’s fucking there?

Limp penis

Limp penis who?

You’re no supposed to say limp penis who. its my condom joke

oh I see, a joke without an orgasm. that’s supposed to be like three hours of heavy petting without a punch line.

I’ll give you a punch line

anything to know you feel something. you’re an amphibian. off in your little swampy semi-autistic fantasy world, and lo and behold, you join us, finally, after hours of holding your breath on life, you emerge all slimy and funky in the folds.

oh yea, you ever heard of the reverse hoagie shack?

what?

its where titty fuck you while I rub my ass in your face.

nice, you come up with that yourself?

when it's all said and done, my lovelies, i let everyone down

the big news

engaged already?

shit pal, you move fast.

you move.

then you move fast.

there's fast.

then there's......FUCK!!!!!!!

sorry man i'm always doing this. on and on.

he slips the cock in, and, another christmas miracle, she falls in love sure as a sweaty blush.

then rent.

the fights.

pussy acne.

she smells other women on your fingertips.

better to bleed on the street than be a coward among cowards, you say.

she slaps you red in the face.

love.

there is love again.

you end up knocking the bitch out.

you quit being boy and girl to rush into red tape.

marriage forgot to be friends before becoming roommates.

but this is all pisspoor hypothesis anyway.

where do I go to pick up the tux?

BUZZ the gold miner

buzz has pen light all inside his cap. he makes $20 a week and
lives in a shanty without electricity. He has worn knees and
is so dirty

it’ll never wash off. he is forty, i am sure of it, under seventy years
of dust laid in cracked skin. his dogs look cleaner

“you have to be reincarnated into this. when one of us dies, another miner comes along, exactly one.”

“I lost my dog in the split. My ex is the cook at this here bar. Mary’ll go into heat in six months. We want to breed her, but I come here because I’m a drinkin man”

buzz doesn’t know where his children are. he works at
Phoenix mines in Idaho Springs. In the winter

the mines shut down. he is sitting so close to the tv, he
can hear the history channel over the jukebox. he is
grimier than a bum, he is a mountain man.

“if the hole is grey we’re diggin for silver, if it’s gold, we’re dealing in
tons. the boss stands to make millions, i do
20 a week, sometimes a hundred
in tips from summer tours.”

buzz’s dogs roam the bar. he drinks his beer and
smokes his cigs. the ex brings him chili.

“my water pump is on the fritz. just tried to raise her live but she’s dead. can’t leave my car here either. now all’s I got is a gold nugget I stole out
in the truck, hell I got lots of’em in the shack
but I don’t have the duckets for a new pump, so

i’ll havta sail into denver, 30 miles to flat land, I’ll follow
the river dodging the mountains, until it
disappears at the beer factory…’

Agnosis

A free thinker is so flexible she is stubborn too.

She is so free she cannot choose.

The Professor of Life says
we are constituted of matter and only matter.

Next class.

The Physicist, scarce embarrassed of God,
preaches that
of matter there can be no solidity,
of light there can be no mass,
and that gravity itself weighs not.

It is a hot day and between classes
at the university

I notice that the same sun shines on the philosophy and math and biology buildings.

It is hot, real hot.

real

My tongue is glued to my palate.

I am matter.
Matter is capable of consciousness.
God is that consciousness man speaks of.

Some days I do not believe in greater or lesser beings.

Today I am a common miracle,
bound to the corpse of the universe,
exceptional furniture because, of all the fineless wood, a fragile embryo kicks in me.

Death is the only gesture of motion.

Only the old man who owns the warehouse sits in one of its many chairs.
Tomorrow he is sunk, out of business. He’ll move his fat ass and I’ll join the rest of the heap.

My atoms on consignment….

I am the semiotic of threadbare mechanics, lamely flagellating

Border Wall

walls keep us
in better than out. t-

he weak have to escape,
but the really weak
have nothing to escape from.

the wall is just there
to remind us that

Trombone

I used to moonwalk
until I got so fat I can barely walk.

Puberty doubled my (m)ass
in the short jaunt of a sophomore year

the arches fell
the IQ fell

,intellectual flatfoot that I am.

This means I've taken to water:
dancing is easier under buoyancy,
only lateral motion is a bitch.

The soft swirlee's I pull off with my toes are
at the expense of tendons in my knees
and 360 degrees is the new 90 if it was a day.

And no,

spinning in the other direction will not undo dizziness,

it enhances the queasy sense of invulnerability
that has become my stick-to-itiveness.

gravity hurts.

Is it possible to have given up while at the same time having refused to quit?

Is it possible to give up while refusing to quit?

Is it possible to not give up and quit?

Can we quit and not give up?

Fuck it

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Happy Sanity Discussion

Happy Sanity Discussion



‘depression, I don’t have time for it.’

“I don’t have time for anything else.”

‘what about your mania?’

“I don’t have time in them.”

‘you’re wrong’

“You’re right.”

the meaning of poetry

the meaning of poetry


he lives
life
like when
you
use a word you
don’t
really know and hope
somebody
can make sense of your sentence
really he runs
the risk of becoming an intentional idiot or
an accidental genius
take callow say that I insert her here_______________.
or: the callow flames of white
hot love burn blue or orange. not a very meaningful or poetic sentence
mission accomplished I feel bad unless I’m
writing empty callow sentences Poetry gives me jelly knees and nobody wants to seen
with somebody with…I’m sure if I had a phone it would
be ringing right now: my unflappably
callow cat having been gone for a
few good days offers up a meow
to upend our recent paradise of
silence
crashing on me are: my thoughts,--1) whether to write right now 2) or ever again 9seeing myself as a hack wannabe
objectification novellaist
with carp-pull-tunnel of nasferatuian dimension, alone, superfluous, extraneous, nasturtium, callow, as loveable as Della Reese on the rag 3) “”Don’t tell me writing begets more writing!!!””

If this was poetry, I’d fly

If this was poetry, I’d fly


perfect again
as always
my bed could
take ten of me
my room smelt
like clabbered
underwear
I was
reading calmly
absorbing everything
learning who I would
become again in silence…
perfect silence…
my electricity had been
cut for weeks
…then the fly,
that damned fly
whose wings
was
all the
noise that ever
was
If I were a universe
my cold fate
just became
early fire
If I died
I was violently revived
If I only told the truth
I just lied
If I were beautiful
I just cried
I am none of these
thank god
But I tell you: that Goddamned
Fly has
ruined
my
life for good.

what is fame without philosophy?

is masturbation afraid of being alone?
in those clouds,
I worry over
the self that others see,
the self that I see,
and the self that is seen by the self that I see.

Not really, but that is about as philosophical as it gets.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Accomplished

I am the hardest working man who never finished anything
the hardest thinking man who never created

I do not believe in the psycho lounge--where you hide from insanity--I believe in the madness
of
the
world

Spplatter

some days are word days

some sentence

paragraphs

plots

parallax of soul

penumbra of young and old

parables

periods

phrases

catapultian swing geocentric manic moon phases

ills of yestermorrow

prophit

procrastination of pleasure

Valentine’s

Fresh air
blew thru walls
and past my space heater
at the speed of 9 degrees below zero.

Ice collected on the floor boards.

A skunk farted
in the back yard
and it hangs in the house
like crime.

I can see my breath indoors

she says it feels
like the itch
and the scratch
at the same time.

I couldn’t get it up

and

we had to wait a day late to get the chocolate's half-off

....

It was the best Valentine’s Day I’ve had

because

It’s the only Valentine’s day I’ve had

War Plan; or If you see the Buddha, blow her up

War Plan; or If you see the Buddha, blow her up

“When you know your enemy, then you will know yourself” Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[for the monotheists]

one part
crusader
&
one part
jihadi

they die
and kill
like
God in the flesh

purifying thru blood

they do not
separate
God and State
or
Murder and Religion

they believe in a jealous god
but what exactly is god supposed to be jealous of?

notice they say;
more have died in the name of God
not
in names of God
or
in name of Gods

monotheists bear
the lion’s share
of murder

when I saw the live feed of a crusader getting beheaded
I lost it a little more

and wanted to send them a feed of a jihadi
whose lobbed off cock I’d put in the blender
and mixed with some home brew
and we drank together
as an offering
to war

just so they would know
I’m crazy too

but then I thought…
this isn’t enough

everyone is violent
and so when people
say
he or she could never…
they’re wrong
we can

so can you

I doubt no one
because
I believe in the
power of blood

but
I can’t stoop
to the level so

HERE IS MY WAR PLAN--

you lose
america
because you‘re half-ass

to avoid revenge,
says Machiavelli,
you either
pamper or crush
your enemies

you should be more conservative
than the conservative
and
more liberal than the liberal

according to the 9th sura
of the Koran
if the infidel makes a pact
and breaks it
declare jihad

but if the infidel
keeps his word,
because God is just,
there can be no jihad

so here is the pact
among monotheists

the US should pull support for
Israel
get out of Iraq and Afghanistan

stop making orphans
in the Middle East
and
tomorrows foe will
show you mercy

Napoleon said it,
the best training for a soldier is
poverty and desperation

[guerilla war wins every time]

if you imprisoned my father
I would throw a rock at a tank

if I had balls

and maybe I don’t have balls

we all like to think we have’em

most don’t

you see, Islam would crush Christianity
simply because of her testicles
because of crazy tempered with discipline

so we cut and run

with one stipulation

with one warning

many a time as a boxer I’d lay back on the ropes

knowing the other guy had more heart

was tougher

hell, the ref probly had more heart

but I had punch

and the guy had will

he waylayed me

I was like a purse full of chapped pussies

and then….

bam

I would rock him with a sneaky counter

then knock him out so hard

he never was the same again

so that would be the warning the white man
would dish out to the terrorist

we stopped terrorizing you,
you stop terrorizing us.

[the big terrorist always punishes the small terrorist, ruthlessly]

we will no longer rape your land
and kill your fathers.

we let you be

and if you so much as set a firecracker
in my lawn

it’s on

I give you the place and time
Three nukes in all

One on Mecca

One on Medina

and fuck it

One on Jerusalem

we then paratroop every sort of lowlife psychopath into the major cites
every rapist, murderer, and child molester we got.

we starve them, arm them, then fly them in

whatever happens happens because shortly after we
sail in another round of nukes

wasting them all

then the real war would begin

the mother of motherfuckers

the monotheist would kill each other off

the only just war is
when one man who is willing to kill another
kills
another man who is alspwilling to kill

in this sense
the bigger the war the better

the more monotheist
that die the better

as chairman Mao says--
war can only be abolished through war
in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun

let all murderers murder each other

peace will reign
waiting on the next generation
of watered-down murderers

the plan gives peace
a chance
then suicide

===

all of this
I’m saying
is just bullshit

really

you want to stop fucking with
the Arabs?

you want to save
grandpa’s children?

kill oil
before
oil kills
us

the genius who
does this saves the world

no matter where you’re from
the enemies of the world are the men who do anything for oil

beat the fuel and crush the enemy

that’s all

and if you ever see me
on a ballet

don’t vote that year
or kill me

unBalanced

Is it
possible to
have
fingers
stickier than
Genet
and
redder
than
Villon
and
no one
know
the
better

Denial

That day
my brother
Said she
was gonna
die

but didn’t

I was in denial
as he cried

Mom never died
and
I never got
over denial

standards

There was never
a gold
standard,
only an
Idea standard

Four bullshit lies
to every
decent idea

when we
ran out of
those

there was
the
crack standard

the standard
of empty promises
and loaded guns

some argue
we gave up
standards
of every kind

and pissed
away the
gold

In the US
we only
export
lies

Worthless

i stole beer money from my mom

after i moved back in

at 33

Home was the next best place
from the crazy farm
or homeless
shelter

i could stay out all night
and drink beer

and say so-long to mom & dad before they died
and love them a little more
because all the honorable americans left their parents long ago

i stole Sacajawea’s from mom, a roll of ’em, rare issue,
drank till the sun rose and the moon fell again

i got married and moved my pregnant wife to the mountains

she is back at our cold rental
and i haven’t smoked in five months but i’m smoking right now

as the fire burns i finish my beer and my fun goes with the smoke

during a christmas visit, mom asks what my spare coin is,
fool’s gold with the face of an Indian,
mom who’s lost her
mind
i
love

it’s a Sacajawea, mom, it’s worth a dollar

Monday, February 25, 2008

Bar Writer

Inevitably they come up

you’ve been sitting there achieving a warm buzz
and working out a few hundred words

30 or 40 minutes of peace
you just blew thru your last $3 and didn’t tip
you’re on your way out
and he catches you at the door

‘you’re a writer aren’t you?’

sort of..

‘damn right you are!’

next time he’ll come and sit next to me

guess I’ll have to never come back.

Career Fair

hi

i am a jew from texas

i have bad breath and am a lot smarter than most of your applicants

my resume is science fiction and I walk around with my tail tucked

to another fat man in a stand glaring down his nose

‘if i gave you a million dollars, sir, Mr. ralston, what would you do with it, sir, how do YOU see yourself investing it?’

funny you should ask. i have a million. the guy who hates money…the only guy in his family who isn’t a millionaire. my wife has a million and i’m horrified. i’m here to learn how not to burn money.

i haven’t the faintest idea, really

‘you have to have passion, Mr. ralston. i don’t see YOU having passion. did YOU come here to apply to Merrill-Lynch or did you just need a job, any job, because, you know, to be successful here there can be nothing else, working for us is all you can ever want. to be honest with you, son, maybe one guy all day has the dedication.’

he tosses my resume under the table, and smiles, his bald head sweating like cheese.

‘you need to figure out what you want to do.’

the family’s all lawyers or doctors and i just got a gig as a butcher.

i am a bad employee

i am a bad husband

i do bad with authority

‘are YOU credible to your family sir?’

credible as a cracked nut. they called me loser until they lost hope and then they didn’t call. I can’t afford family reunion anyway….[[i didn’t say this, i think] i said:

you know, prick, my cousin used to work for y’all and
embezzled millions without getting caught. don’t worry tho, he drank
himself dead last year.

shortly after…while i was about to start in on the guys from
the CIA, a security guard escorted me out to freedom and cold air.

Haters of america

you despise America
b/c she is
corrupt & arrogant

Power corrupts.

all are its victims..

china, india...you're next

Ode to Things

We are all wonderful Nobodies

withe the gimmick of Logic

ande the gift of Nonsense

slaves to duty & love

and free

sharing pain & pleasure

and alone

sorting thru names

in an unnamed universe

and proud

collecting objects
we no more own or understand than
air in the lungs of ours
or stars we buy
from towers in the sky

collecting dust

waiting to become dust

floating around that star on dust

slowly becoming what
we love and loathe

Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Young Mother

Mommy is barely 19 and daughter is 2

On Tuesday Brinlee fell off the bed
and cracked her collar

Her absentee deadbeat father comes to claim her.

Brinlee has never met grandpa.

On Wednesday in her fathers parents
backyard, a Sharpe rips half of
Brinlee’s face off

Grandpa didn’t blame the dog.

and Brinlee will never see daddy again

On Thursday Brinlee falls and
splits her head on cement

“Injuries come in threes” says the fellow at Child Services
to the embarrassed day care lady

once a rare beauty

her

flawed beauty brings flawed sympathy

Brinlee is a shattered porcelain doll at day care

While her mom and I get loaded all day
with government money.

TWO Party politic

The problem
with friendship & marriage
is democracy
is impossible with
just two.

a fragile benevolence
of unanimous decisions

and

sometime
dictators

Ode to Things

We are wonderful Nobodies

with the gimmick of logic

and the gift of nonsense

slaves to duty & love

and freed by the things\

that enslave us

sharing pain & pleasure

and alone

sorting thru names

in an unnamed universe

and proud

collecting objects
we no more own
or understand
than
air in our lungs
or stars we buy

collecting dust

waiting to become dust

floating around that star on dust

slowly becoming what
we love and loathe

The Striped Sock

That unmatched sock,

fresh after the wash,

refuse of the laundry mat,

after the dry--an hour in the waiting--of a color, a kind, a way all to its own,

and there is no joy in the surplus, we wish it out of existence

I am that sock

George Bush & Jesus Christ

at least

it wouldn't

be a waste of time

crucifying Bush

Time Lines

Time Lines


I woke up

on the wrong side

of the spinal column.

...zero hour...

My brain is out on errands.

I am lightheaded, groggy, oblivion-fated,


but my body is immortal…

Passion & Mediocrity

It takes balls
to know you don't have
it
And madness
to never give in.

Mediocrity & Passion

I

Awareness

What is it in us
that sees our inferiority?

Surely it is something greater.

Madness

like the blind inertia of light,

massless

unstoppable,

bullrushes on with its own mind and space.

II

lowness.

is only Aware

greatness.

is only Mad

mediocrity.

is both

III

To be Mad without being Aware

is bold

To be Aware without being Mad

is lame

Mediocrity is bold and lame

IV

The lesser man
would just quit
without the obsession to improve;

a greater one doesn’t care enough about
what anyone thinks
to stop himself from doing.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Glare Song

At the capitol they looked at me with

sadness

or

suspicion

or

contempt.

Inside their cars, as the hard sun beat a reflection into the windshields, I could see faces occasionally eclipsed by the sun.

Contempt will turn her head around to leer at you.

Sadness is at a glance, quickly slipping away.

Suspicion, oh sweet suspicion, mother of wonder, science, and sometimes torture
she just stares.

I could smell car fumes through cold air
and all my lungs knew were a long walk.

I was tired and now I am a ridiculous man in paradise.

Maybe today I will pack my boxes to move north and away altogether.

For I too am a selfmade man

poverty in america

one third of the world does not have electricity

we live better than kings of antiquity

yet the middle class shrinks.

people feel poor because they are called poor
and they are poor because they can only see down the street.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Surrealism

I

I didn’t talk
until I was nearly 4

my patents thought I was
deaf b/c I never responded

I talked, though,
my own language

my own jabber
only my bro knew

plus I have levels
most sleep and wake

but I trance out
a good part of the day

twisting my fingers
staring off into nowhere

II

the rebellion against surrealism
began before surrealism

80 years afterwards
it’s not experimental anymore

inspired as the a Pentecostal

I was born into
the séance, the hypergraphia, the missense syllables

at least I imitate shit from
50 years ago

at least I imitate Bukowski
and sick of myself

III

you are trying to
not make sense

and my nonsense
is what’s leftover

after I tried to
be understood

who is
insane
here?

Believers

as dogmatic as any religious
or scientific fundamentalist

unwilling to change worldviews
after contradiction.

You will notice that both types
are as right as they are dismissive
when new facts lie outside of their orthodoxies.

Science is the new religion,
with its own articles of faith and heretics.

What a state of mind I was in when I believed Jesus was God and Man
and an electron was a particle and a wave.

I read this in a book!

How convinced I am that the universe was purposeless because they say so!
Because if I don’t believe it I am an empty fool.

And yes, the universe is devoid of purpose and consciousness,
thus there can be no man or god.

Man does not exist, do you hear me?

the man that was created in god’s image is the god that was created in man’s

He eats and shits as surely as the black hole.

He is a unique recipe called a sun.

leavened with patience and chance

Meanwhile
heat and electricity have the purpose--the manifest destiny
--of going bravely into the new emptiness.

The purpose of man is to dream he can have purpose.

He cannot.

He is another piece of furniture in a universe without shape or direction.
Yes this what I purpose.

Also the universe must be as simple as possible--this is law--it will
be not only comprehensible but simple to the intellect of man,

who under certain experimental conditions seems to behave as a monkey, but when he is observed, like a man.

There is only one reality simply because
there are only one worlds.

Thus neither do I believe in the multiplication of entities.

The disbelievers are believers too.

All is one, yes

Monday, January 21, 2008

Everyone's given up on me

Every one has given up on me
because I write bad poems
but I’ve written more bad poems
than they’ve written poems

and more good ones too

searching for light
in a life of blind alleys

Plus my wife says she’ll divorce me
if I don’t make nice.

This only means my poems
are going to get uglier

Cuttin Grass, an anti-Ode

I mowed the grass in the rain, furiously.

I mowed backwards,
in circles,
in lines every which way.

I mowed one row a day for weeks, sinusoidally.

I burnt gas, killed grass, and had a hootin' of a noise.

I breathed gas and grass, killed a mock forest, generations of crusty beasts, and went deaf, logarithmically.

I filled landfills and stopped short the breath of plants, asthmatically.

A romantic union of thymine kissing wildly under ultraviolet skies; scleroderma, discretely, bit by bit, in time, me

I will've bought the cleanest, meanest cutting machine, before long.

And've evaporated hidden dew under the thicket, to water noon and night, automatically. .

I’ll piss away our grandchildren’s drinking water on a lawn I’ll kill next week.

Icebergs the size off Jamaica are lobbed off Antarctica and the dumpster is full of dead leaves.

I’ll kill the plants and poison the water.

I’ll spray carcinogens on dandelions--the highest known land source of Vitamin A

Let there be more CO2 and less oxygen

Environmental terrorism in the name of euclidean geometry.

I’ll be about to take pride in myself, because a man is as clean as his yard and his haircut, no stray blades, with a heavy foot on Nature and disdain for the common weed.

Because, people, we ought to pick our battles with Nature, and this, is a losing battle, a song to self destruction.

You baby boomers are fat and stupid.
Yall just need to die and get off my earth,
and stop trying to kill my children

Do what?

we see
our OBGYN at church
he has a black eye
“our baby is going to be born with cauliflower ears and handfuls of shattered knuckles like me, right doc?”
the hole in his temple radiates into a nebula of pain and blood clot rivulet

If he is not listening he is despairing

the congregation lets…
we are..
in the parking lot he on and on’s about Gate Theory;
on how nerves filter
silent train tracks next to busy homes
and trashing babies mothers never feel
I ignore him while he delineates blocking things out

Problems

I used to moonwalk
until I got so fat I can barely walk.

Puberty doubled my mass
in the short jaunt of a sophomore year
and my arches dropped then as my IQ is dropping now, the intellectual flatfoot that I am.

That means I've taken to water:
dancing is easier under buoyancy,
only lateral motion is a bitch.

The soft swirlee's I pull off with my toes are at the expense of tendons in my knees and 360 degrees is the new 90 if it was a day.

And no, spinning in the other direction will not undo dizziness,
it enhances the queasy sense of invulnerability
that has become my stick-to-itiveness.

Is it possible to have given up
while at the same time having refused to quit?

Argument; or….

I have my mother’s right brain
and the left of my father.

they argue and I have to translate to my father what my mother means in light of what he thinks she means.

I then turn and do the same for his response to her.

they are two people who have lived together long enough to understand each other
but don’t.

I understand myself a little better than they understand each other.

but I do not understand myself

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

therefore two people can never understand each other

the outsider

Outside

[by link]

“You are your only friend, you are your only enemy.”--The Mahabharata

outside it is cold
my skin boils

why you don’t like me
is my superiority
my inferiority

you ignore me
because I’m smarter

stronger

richer

my cock is bigger

that’s right

smaller

poorer

weaker

woman’ve always hated me

never really invited into the fold
of guys either

invite myself along

but they just laugh and go

rejected by the screeching tires of society

casually uninvited

room after room of people paired up gabbing and laughing without me without exception,

I enter, I leave

the bar, the club, the church, the coffee house

making’em uncomfortable by molting away

intimidated by reptile eyes

“Shut your neck!!!!!!” yelling at one of them on the corner smiling, leaking joy, sporting the unmolested cleavage of their hard-parted hair, spotless faces, perfectly symmetrical ears, isosceles noses, inviting eyes, flirting eyes, tensiled brows, lovely…

a slave to their acceptance

slowly cutting me out of their lives

the outcasts are the first to tap the keg of revolted by me, with their tattoos, fucking staple gun accidents, dread locks, faux-hawks, fuck spikes, dye jobs
they clump together like lard in a spittoon.
obeying disobedience

weird is the new old

too busy being fucked up to look weird your way son

to take in your everyday Halloween

your overcompensation

too dead to live anyother way than this

wearing what a stranger gave me and what’s dirty next to the bed

me, the only normal person left in the world

haunting green parks

having taught my follower that a rose is at the center of galaxies and cells and atoms--the same rose.

taught him that greed & gravity were just a special kind of glue.

he left me too

invented lust bright & early, me and the stars, because freedom is the only possibility of anonymity & amnesia

I, hero to solitude, emperor of the forgotten, wrote this so you would move your lips when you read, I wrote this because you hate poetry.

my poetry, I fucking hate it too

not decent enough

straight-laced and raping you with my eyes

isolation from you

nicer than you

crying more than you

harder than you

smelling like the sickness of mind

woven with shirt tails tucked in only in the ass

bathing every now and then

madness that began with religion

bad writing lobotomizing me

ending me

all the way back to death

again

ever since

you started ignoring me
being sickened by me
fucking dismissing me like silence

a

zero outside the circle

emptiness set amongst the possibility of things

your ridicule is high praise

your disapproval is dignity

the plaything because I make you feel strong

incomprehensible because you cannot understand

reviled like a fool and a mad god

I’ve been to lectures of the great Steven Weinberg attended by a handful of fools
and over heard the street corner drunk soap boxing in the cold

and they both claimed computers will cause a nuclear war

and were ignored

and you rejected me for not being good enough or for being too great

you are what you are, and I am what I am

but at least I’m not mediocre

at least I’m rejected

because…

all I’ve got going
for me
really
is
that
people think I’m shit
too

Friday, January 18, 2008

The Reader

Reader

[dedicated to the thirteen unread, stolen books by Genet on my shelf]

she doesn’t own any books
I ask what she reads
she says, all the time I read
read like cigarettes or sex
I read like fucking lunatics
at the public library coming
in to sip on some warm

I read like most need
she dabs sweat off her brow
dabs the sweat off her brow
she reads

I ask what again
but she cannot throw
me any names
she smiles:
‘I can’t remember them all’

she can only tell
me she reads,
a book a day
sometimes two
because reading
‘..is all I do.’

‘Since school, I read my way through the library
down the line,
one after another,
from one end to the other.”

Who!

Who do you read!

Whoever…

‘I’m a reader.’

Thursday, January 17, 2008

feeling dumb

…which makes me feel a little dumb.

like one of the only times the heart agrees mind.

sigh-COP-athee

sigh-COP-athee

a quarter of the penal system
but the successful ones
go on to business, politics, entertainment
mostly male, no surprise
a kunlangeta, says the Inuits, push you off the ice when no one’s looking,
repeatedly lies and cheats and steals…takes sexual advantage of many women--
someone who does not pay attention to reprimands and who
is always being brought to the elders for punishment”
traits include:
impressionable, self-centered, dishonest, undependable, irresponsible, guiltless, loveless, apathy, callous, appear normal, reckless
blame others not learn from errs
for the fun of it
they are charming
not shy
even grandiose
master manipulators
impulsive, criminal
promiscuous thieves
“Nevertheless, most psychopaths are not violent, and most violent people are not psychopaths.”
“In contrast to people with psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, who often lose contact with reality, psychopaths are almost always rational.”
They have no real ties



Bibliography

The Antisocial Personalities. David T. Lykken. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths among Us. Robert D. Hare. Guilford Press, 1999
Unresolved Controversies concerning Psychopathy: Implications for Clinical and Forensic Decision Making. John F. Edens in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 37, No. 1, pages 59-65; February 2006
Handbook of Psychopathy. Edited by Christopher J. Patrick Guilford Press

Asteroid

First they got Jupiter

Now, Mars

2 down

7 to go

Alien

your inverse
the chiral reflection
The mirror has stole you
Now let there be other beings

Angular Momentum; or, Ownership

I respect what other people commonly refer to as thieves.

There cannot be thieves without owners

who are

weak enough to believe in ownership
a concept which has no basis in physical reality,

but

strong enough to destroy the entire world
in pursuit of copyrighteousness and borders
and fences.

This is nothing but the territoriality instinct elevated and
sanctified by 'laws' that monkey with Nature.

Ownership is the true religion of man

uniting us in self-destruction and justifying our murder.

More have died in this name than any other.

Fuck God.

……..

and I know what you’ll tell me, too.

money makes the world go round

……..

there’s no doubting it

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Morn

Dusk like halitosis
and the succubus stole away
forgetting the tokens
meanwhile I souvenir a rashy burn
on skin thick and thin
like the machines
that broke a long
ass
time ago
and stopped
taking questions
and answering sin with sin
She was my mad oracle
in a cave
dark
and
infinite
in her ten
inch abyss.

An Algorithm for Hate

when i want to be want to be
strong
i hate myself

and

when I want to be
strong
I love myself

no one strokes me better
or
hurts me worse

I give the best hand jobs
and
I can cut a little deeper than the rest

weakness is when
you need
to be loved
or
want
to be hated

but….I am weak

mostly weak

so the thought occurs

If someone loves you,
they have extended your power
in that all of your lover’s knowledge, well-being and opportunity are open to you;

but if someone dislikes you or does not love you,
unless they are very powerful or crazy,
they cannot hurt you with actions but only with words

Hence one has much to gain from being loved
and little if nothing to lose from not being loved.

It takes a lot of crazy powerful hate to meet necks with
even the distant love of an acquaintance.

Indifference

A flock of migrating birds
shat volumes
on the cars of nearly everybody,
a prunish molasses,
and we all whined,
the wicked and the righteous and me,
a few hours later rain poured from the near freezing sky.

Answering Machine

call. not before noon or after noon thirty.
occasionally there are critical transition phases associated with umpteen minutes after the midnight of day.

some calls selectively forwarded to my broker or hairdresser [same]. heed the need, son. love is a flammable gas. fat soluble and as exothermic as a fart.
she wears a warning label like a mini-skirt and dismisses you with a smile of corroded gingivitis face.

glory be.

this ain't no lab fire snuffed out like a rat on the mob don, or some wrestling match where you get stuck for an eternal three seconds in public bliss/shame,
this is for life, son, for at least more than the whisker of time.

my tears evaporate into the cloud of shit and piss on the dust of my rotting dead asshole.

fuck outta luck

actually, I've never been happier”

She was pretty after all

all day long she
was better than thou

this morning she
looked me
up and down
--all t-shirt and ripped sports jacket of me--
and made a sour smile

like phony gold wasting on an old idol

“Are you the temp for the stickering project?”

and of course she’s decked out
in designer earth tones
and dolled to
perfection
--all dyed hair and unblemished makeup of her--

so we worked all day
and finished a hour early
while she was at her desk
biding time

‘um…yes, when you’re done you can park the boxes over there between my desk and the cubicle wall…”

um…yes
and she never made eyes

not all day

in the end
her makeup and hair were
pristine
and free of the skin and hair
pocked and browned
as
the old dry
earth

we packed up
loaded the shit
crammed boxes snug
between the wall and the desk

and were just about to make out like bandits

when she glances up

from her desk almighty

poised

a queen

thin

round breasted

to the tee

she looks me dead in the eye socket

she speaks with gracious authority
but I cannot hear

all I can notice now is her lazy eye

I don’t know if to laugh or cry
commit love or suicide
face facts or pride

but all these cancel

and leave me without heart or mind

just where I like to be

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Temp

Temp

I skip food
all day.
“Feel free…”
says the boss lady
“…to anything unclaimed
in the frig
in the break room.”
except everything’s marked.

“and May will give you
her leftovers…”
May sports a grease dabbed lab coat
with spindly gloved fingers growing
out the ends.
She jabs hot pockets
with thermometers
testing the evenness of
heat
only no one tests the
evenness of the microwave.

and all day damn long
she is doing this

and I am hungry

only they smell good
at first
then the puss of grease
sweats heavy
like
20 grams of saturated american

I am hungry and
nauseated at once

hungry and nauseated like
morning sickness

galvanized tin wraps
everything that isn’t
wrapped in
pastel
frosted pressed glass on sliding doors, open pristine ceilings and spotless guts for vent pipes, hanging paper light fixtures coughing up warm sensuous phlegmatic yellows, cubicle after meshwork cubicle, flatiron grills on the sunnyside portico with withdrawn umbrellas on unashamed lawn ware---everything was so perfect as to wax postmod and crisp and boring as masturbation with your happy hand

as boring as this poem

as sashaying into the
men’s room
and hammering out
a sneak session of my own

on lunch of course

squandering precious goods
I’d otherwise absorb

to kill the stress of hangnails
and swollen fingers arrived at
by hours of labeling
boxing

and to stave off hungry

and that’s sad,
sad sniffing boredom’s ass
like a six headed hell hound

give me your 9 to 5 workaday stiff
never late on bills or the mortgage
or late to work
and one day mingles into another like bar stall piss oder
A homeless man, a desolate man, on the edge of life---
he has a story to tell

Me, today I almost slipped
on wax paper

The guy next over, the guy working so fast
we don’t have to come back tomorrow,
beat me out of next week’s supper

He says: “If I had to do this every day I’d have to slow down, and fortunate for me I got temp work pulling 30 an hour before my real lab job begins.”
I ask him what he
reads, he doesn’t read
I tell him about my home experiments,
he doesn’t care

He complains about the job
and
for Christmas I give the wife my share of food

And...

And…

In
Probability theory
adding
details makes
things
less likely

The problem is,
details make
lies
more
believable

the opposite is true
of excuses

the old Jew who hangs
at the used bookstore claims
to be an artist,
an abstract impressionist
with a brother in NY
who doesn’t tell him which
of his paintings sell
because the old Jew is private
doesn’t show anyone his work
doesn’t sign his name to his work
just sends them off and never sees them again

all of this and the old fart doesn’t hold a job

jobs he says are for wives and wives are for people who can’t paint well

on another day he claims to
be a physicist
and knows his
pop physics
rather well

he also claims
his leather trench
is lined w/ Kevlar
and that
it only stops small
calibers

he knows from experience

he seems to be a walking search
engine--all the authors, topics,
and books,
all the Prigogines, French criticisms,
and…

if he knows everything
it’s because my everything
is small

he thinks foreign literature is shit
and that black conservatives by definition
are uncle toms

I for one
say he exists
and precisely
in the way he claims
to exist

because I would know:

some of us have to lie in order to be believed.

Snipped Butterfly Legs

Snipped Butterfly Legs

freedom is
when
you
can’t
fly
and
lie
flat
on
the
ground
and
smile

The Bone Factory

[interview the third]

safety is our first concern
he coughed
at me
on our tour of the lab

we make synthetic bone
2$ a gram
20,000 a bucket

sometimes acid gets in
the batch
and an extra calcium
hops the train and we
scrap the whole
confounded
outfit

[someone sneezes and all I smell
is enough ammonia to wake the dead]

we’ve upped production fourfold
but no one’s biting
the rooskies are using Cow mandible
HQ is shutting us down

18 years in the lab
and now every job I shoot fer’s got
a long line of phd’s

I turn on the
tube and listen to some asshole
polytician
harp about
science & engineering

and I’m square on my ass
in a few…

…sorry kid but I’ll hafta
pass you up.

you’ll need a Masters to wash
slurry thru
this here bucket
of
stink.

Radio Active Waste Farm

[interview the fourth]

So do you have any questions?

“yeah” But I don’t bother…

I walk a crow line out the door

We just went through a lab full
of samples of Radium, Uranium, Plutonium
etc. etc. etc.

And by the security exit there
was a machine
that scanned your feet
&
hands for contamination

It reads:
Sensor Malfunction
and she said it always
says that

Have you any exposures?

Not any we know of

not in at least 12 years

Prayer Song

Religion saved
me from
talking to myself

and

Writing saved
me from
talking to myself out loud