Hierophany

The Germans appealed World War I,
  so I was sent to the trenches,
taking my grandfather’s place.
  For days I saw no one, except
an enormous storm of a man,
  who fought for neither side,
but drove a rusted combine,
  collecting back taxes like
golf balls at a driving range.
  As his squeaking tractor scoured
the trenches he demanded,
  “Back taxes, back taxes!”

If you didn’t duck he took up
  your scalp like a head of wheat,
so I dug down, looked after
  my tomatoes and corn.
Jets, too, roared overhead, but I guessed that
  out in the distance, somewhere
amongst the farmland of old,
  large general stores lay empty,
and the highways died silently,
  trafficked only by men with guns,
in haphazard uniforms,
  beating the pavement,
burning gasoline for their fires at night.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:37

Poets can’t even call
themselves poets anymore.
There always has to be something else,
some other business.

Lines can’t be straight
anymore, they must
succumb to curve
like the snake’s back,
bending repeatedly
from one dune in
the desert to another.

There is no almost straight.

Almost straight is the
embankment, marking
the cliff, over which
our poems run,
tumbling drunk,
with the final drops of faith.

This entry posted by J Rand : 10:31

Vulgar is intimacy,
without the intimacy.

Oh, can you see me?
Do you mind if we leave the music playing,
in this empty apartment?

*

We looked out at the fledgling city
from the patio at the Double Tree;
swam in the springs, asking,
“Have you touched bottom yet?”

I’ll try just one more time,
I’ll clap that
mosquito to death in the
air—catch its anonymous
blood in my palms,

the poor bastard
dead in my hands,
its carpets unvaccuumed
its bosomy wife out to play.

I’m sorry I’m sorry
I left this place
so undone, a broken
home never made,
never fixed, never known.

Didn’t help that you left
before I boxed it all up.

*

So goodbye Austin, goodbye ashtray
goodbye flip-flops and sun,
you were the only friend of mine who
knew more about the Senate than
I did and it pissed me off.

*

I’m gonna lie down now,
gonna hit the battie,
listen to the music from the closet,
like it’s some kind of monster
I forgot to pack but
didn’t want anyway.

I’m lying here totally naked
naked to the cardinals,
naked to 3:30,
naked to the white-winged doves,
naked to Texas,
however big it might be,
high in this empty apartment,
my parents down the road
on the fifteenth floor.

Oh, cardinal of Missouri,
have we met before?
Are you on a path
to migration?
To citizenship?
Do you care if I
touch myself
along the creek,
as I watch the eagle work?

Let me reach beneath
your patience as I
imagine the Earth
from orbit, as I
climb in the snow, as I
mark my territory, as I
drink myself to death
in this desert.

Can I piss in your
foreign shores? Can I
get a blue card? Fuck you
mother earth fuck the tides
fuck the moon and fuck formosa.

I spend my final days
among the emaciated
sheep at Bighorn,
in last place, stroking
my handle bars,
thinking back to when I
looked at the horizon,
and saw nothing
but air.

This entry posted by J Rand : 23:58

Prior to my trip
I obsessed over the weather.
Why is this city so loved?
It's so damned hot.

Waiting for some new friends,
the coolness of the bar
and the local beer envelopes.
"John (dawdling) it's your shot."

The GB is built (ice please)
red light goes on.
Both preparing mentally and
physically for the pot.

Homebound Penske-style
no tape-deck and 16 hours;
my liver's rot.
My nerves...shot.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:03

Goddamnit, little bug
what is it with you?
I’m trying to work.

I know you were drawn
to the light when
I opened the window,
but seriously:
it is hot in here and
to open the window is my right.

Landing on my new
silk shirt, settling
down into my hair—
there isn’t any place
for you here.

Now you’re climbing
on the outer wall
of my water jug—
threaten my supply
and I’ll take action.

Consider this a final warning—
I need no provocation—
I’ve tried to reason with you,
wracked my brain
both day and night.
Now out from whence you came!

I’ve opened the window—
Oh God, another!

This entry posted by J Rand : 23:03

I. Confection

Turning paper in triumphant.
Bird droppings on stone bench.
Bricken sidewalk undulations.


II. The Treetops and The Blue Sky

Look at how the treetops rage. Something
that I could not contain rips through
them! I saw blue skies in those treetops,
I saw blue sky.


III. Bolero

Thank you, don’t mind if I do.
Gee, it seems like it’s been hours
since last I spoke, and do you have the time?
Ring. Ring. Ring.


IV. Comfort

I smell potatoes. The breakfast
room is right across the hall. Through
three sets of French doors, someone
outside smokes a gasper…

This entry posted by J Rand : 10:37

stars afar appear
unmired modes of light
here they are; now they are
not miles and miles ago
not a year or years away

This entry posted by J Rand : 08:34

On the floor of the market
young children sang,

Which way does the love land?
Which way to the airport?
Which way do we fly?

But the traders despaired,
dropped to their knees, prayed—

O, great Economy in the sky,
what should we do?
The straight-up
markets of the nineties are gone
and we don’t know where
to put our money.

A deep, sober voice spoke
over the din of the market,

Look to the ancients.
Instead of telescopes they
carved mighty stones and
brought Hubble to earth.

This entry posted by J Rand : 06:11

1. Sleeping in the Corner

So what if I sleep
in the corner?
Soo what? Why should
that make you “freak out”?
That’s just the way I sleep.
It’s the way my ancestors
slept. You might’ve known them.
The Indians?


2. Headline

Just gonna lie here, alarm clock,
have a Parliament. Relax,
maybe read the paper?
Hey, look at that,
“Robot Runs Across Water—
Just Like Jesus Did.”
Well, holy shit.
Get the presses ready
for the Third Testament.

They interview the robot,
he is totally full of himself.
One heretical reporter says,
“Right. I guess you’re not
afraid of anything—
swimming, big dicks,
old people?”


3. The DJ

Don’t despair,
alarm clock radio.
I’ll turn you off,
one of these days.

But it is worried, says to me,
“Did you hear that the DJ
was gonna stop at midnight?”
“No way, man,” I said,
“that’s a ripoff!”

But then alarm clock whispers,
“Yeah, but, word is, someone
dropped a sawbuck
on ‘im and he’s gonna
play for another two hours!”

Rock on alarm clock!


4. The BBC

Truth is,
I need to get it together.
I can’t even find a way to
lie down that feels good.
I admit, the floor is hard,
and my stomach
a bad bowl of soup.
This stuff is killing me.

Alarm clock breaks in,
“Will you listen to yourself,
sayin,‘This stuff is killing me?’”

Go to hell, alarm clock.

There’s nothin but bad news
on the BBC, nothin
but an empty process.


5. Wendy’s

By now I’ve given up
sleeping on the floor.
Like most of the other
ideas I’ve had, it was dumb:
just really boring and academic.

The skein of paint
has reached its taper.
I’m out of Parliaments.
Even the GB has sprung a leak.

Finally, I’m at the counter.
“Yeah, can I have an original
double with cheese?”
And then I pause cuz
they always ask,
“Combo?”
And I say politely,
“No, no combo…
and a great biggie fry.”

The fries are for alarm clock.

This entry posted by J Rand : 23:44

Yo, yo, yo

I don’t have
to use those speakers
you gave me—
the hot ones,
filled with cocaine?

if I want I
can just
throw them
away

right after I blow em out

This entry posted by J Rand : 10:04

For
weeks I’ve
been tryin to
grow a moustache.
But still it isn’t much
better than the teenage clerk’s
at the corner grocery,
the one who cards
me every time
I try to buy
beer.

This entry posted by J Rand : 15:47

I remember the first time
we did mushrooms (the first
time I did, anyway). We drank
parrot bay rum with cola,
smoked cigarettes
and watched baseball.

At the end the only
regret was that
we were outta mushrooms.

We’ll get more you said, so
naturally, so confident. I
wasn’t so sure.

But we got more all
right, we got more.

This entry posted by J Rand : 13:50

I. In front of the Press

Well, Stan’s Ambassador to
the U.N. can kiss my ass. He’s
totally out of control and it’s
making me uncomfortable.

But didn’t Stan’s President
attempt to befriend
Your President as a pen-pal?

The details of that letter
have not been disclosed.
Really—if you must know—
the negotiations have
centered on complex tax
issues and convoluted
stock swaps.

What about the price of oil?

What is oil at these days? Frankly,
I don’t know. (I sold my tank
and got a hybrid.)

*

II. At home

When I lie dormant I think:
if I had to get two things
from Stan, right this second,
it’d be rugs and pistachios.

And oil, maybe some of
that oil he makes beneath.

But when I kick those habits?
Stan’ll be on his knees.
He’ll be begging.

*

III. On the street

I ran into Stan on the street
the other day. His hair was
uncombed and he was shouting
Death to California,
the Great Satan.

Stan, what’re you
doing? It’s really
annoying.

I’m trying to en-
rich uranium.

Well go to the park
and do it
go to the park and
do it for
purposes of civilian power.

*

IV. On the Corner

I’ll just sit here on the
corner with my
rugs and pistachios,
goin through dollars like a
grade school goes through
fish sticks on Friday.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:11

Turned down for another
job today, some public
interest outfit. Didn’t want
it anyway maybe they
were disappointed when I
said I was a fiscal conservative,
that this latest supplemental
is fulla pork. They can smell
it on me—th’aversion to lobbies,
the disdain for raising funds—blown
from key to key in this economic
archipelago.

*

Why’d I start Oliver Perez today?
Gave up four runs to the Nats, walked
four batters. Somethin ain’t right. But
I gave ‘im a chance; said, Come pitch for me,
you can throw anything you want, just
get it over the plate. Maybe I’m a fool but
I thought he had seven innings in him.

*

I’ve had too much to eat and
too much to drink. Unfulfilled on a full
stomach means you’re not
makin good use of what you’ve got. How
many Tombstone pizzas, how many Schlitz?
How many years of schooling, how many
condoms? Somethin ain’t right here, folks.
My power bill’s too high, I can’t wake
up early in the morning. I crave
thunderstorms, lightning, and hail.

This entry posted by J Rand : 13:06

by R.L. Wisdom

Jinn

Before I knew
what bridles my thoughts,
an ethereal presence
guided me unwilling
and unsuspecting into
a new embankment
of its choosing.


Belled

Locust buzzing.
My heretofore unknown
feelings come to bear.
My mind searches
for conveyances;
into the lonely
night they rage.


Rowel

Among the cogs
and permutations a plan
is hatched: it will
sever unceremoniously
what once was. The
only hitch in this
giddy-up boldly wavers.

This entry posted by J Rand : 20:58