Hierophany

It was the night before I left
and we’d come back from that
roof-top oceanside bar, both
gotten a kick out of Jeff, living
out of his car, doing anything
to surf — look at those walls, man! —
I don’t know if this was
before the tequila and weezer songs
or after.  I couldn’t get drunk.
We crashed in rooms
opposite sides of the hall
and talked from one to the next.
For twenty minutes, maybe.
I don’t remember what we talked about.
I don’t remember getting up to close the door.

This entry posted by J Rand : 23:13

And now they’re sayin we got somethin in common.
Because we both know water;
Because carbon is easy.
But carbon isn’t easy;
And water drains away.

This entry posted by J Rand : 21:46

When it rains
be reasonable.
Stick out your tongue,
grab a bucket.    God
doesn’t send water bills.

This entry posted by J Rand : 21:01

1.
If I could translate
To you in words
How much it would hurt
To have my teeth extracted
And crushed with a hammer
Before my very eyes.   It
Might make great art.


2.
I debate instead
With friends
Whether an artist can invent his art;
Whether he can conjure novelty out of his thin air.
They say: everything has already been done.

But I believe this sort of transcendence to be possible.
I am a house-band
But yet I make art.
How do you explain this, friends?
What about the word “louge” —
An adjective describing something huge and loud.
The word did not exist
Until I uttered it by mistake.  A fortuitous slip, a neologism.

The new is always entirely possible.

I remember a childhood playpal
Telling me that he could hear — actually hear —
Chinese men cursing in San Francisco, presumably Chinatown.
Who thinks of that?

He is now making music, I am told.
I bet his music is new and grand.
Maybe even louge.


3.
There is some work
I do better sober; other work
I do better a bit mussed,
Messed, fucked up.
So many things are possible — see?
Like the phrase,
“There’s not enough time in the day….”
I would have thought of that on a good day
But it was already taken.
Mad, I lougely curse.
Or rather I let the Chinese from San Fran do it for me.
Do you hear them also?

This entry posted by J Rand : 08:47

Americans twisted
with tornadoes and decisions
about who would lead.

This entry posted by J Rand : 09:48

1
What about these
Islamic Courts?
I’d let my friends
dance on speakers,
wishing only that I
had bigger speakers,
or smaller friends.


2
They’re gonna have to
raise cop pay.
When they do that
the streets will be streaked
with blue.

Same deal with teachers and classrooms.


3
All I asked for
was one meal
your body
the life
the resurrection,
the denuded
weapons cache.

You said, “That’s pornographic.”
And wouldn’t let me take communion.


4
Hands off
to all sinners —
those who buried
their guns
will never dig deep
enough to strike the seam
once called shelter.

This entry posted by J Rand : 07:10