Hierophany

Can't, Sir

2011-11-22T18:44:00.000-06:00

An inseparable wreck, this body.

Its effort leashed upon its nature—

A mystery as to why,

One of the greater mysterys.

Like the pyramids

or Amelia Earhardt

or the nature of light

or viruses—yes—

viruses handing out their code

like candy at the Shriners parade.

Who are those olde men

riding around in small cars

And where did they get their hats?

6/4/11

2011-07-07T20:11:00.000-05:00

The wanting

of cigarettess

gold dust,

June rain &

ice baby

ice ice baby.

Swap

2010-09-22T17:50:00.000-05:00

Trading, trading.
Creative vehicles
turn air into money.
Tap, tap, tap. Place
an order. Tap, tap, tap.
Do you know what
you’re getting into?
Watch the news,
the news is bad. Tap,
tap, tap. Blasted alchemy:
pull everything out. But wait —
the news turns good. OK, place
another order. Waiting,
kicking yourself. Tap,
tap, tap. Someone must
be on the other side, the
grass must always be greener.
You tap and you tap and you tap.
You get nothing but echoes in return.

Girl

2010-07-24T16:40:00.001-05:00

Give me that serious look,
more of your forehead
Give me those eyes,
the eyes my friend doth know

Oh, Friend
Those are th' eyes
see past the both of us

Garden Diary 2010

2010-05-18T21:56:00.016-05:00

January. I did nothing I can recall. It was a cold month.

February. I trimmed almost all of our trees, save the two maple a-west the house. Those trees need trimming. As for the trees I did trim, my aim was to thin them out. I don't want the Japanese maple to get too big, e.g.

Also, I planted seeds inside in small pots. Tomato, bell pepper, anaheim pepper, basil, and cilantro. Some I set under a light. Some I set atop the HVAC registers. I put only one seed to a pot. I misted frequently to keep the soil moist. Without exception nothing grew.

March. March was sort of cold but all-around forgettable. I tried again to get my seedlings going. I packed the soil less hard. I put more seeds in per pot. I dumped the register idea and kept them either under the light (12/12) or on a windowsill. I had better luck. The tomatoes started first. The bell peppers I gave up on; let the pots dry out; watered them again for the first time in a while just in case and -bang- they grew. I believe the generally increasing temps were the main difference.

Brook and I raked leaves. I began to clean up outside, taking down all of the dead morning glory vines. I put them into yard waste bags. I gathered an old pile of various other yard waste into bags. I swept the garage.

I planted some forsaken daffodil bulbs in pots. Eventually about 40% of the bulbs came to fruition. Ray suggested I packed the soil too hard on them; that I needed to think more about just filling the pot with soil but loosely, instead allowing the watering process (or rain) to pack the soil down gradually.

I took the yard waste bags (nine of them) to Belleville and dumped them along the lake on a windy day when my parents were in Arkansas. By that time the bags held all sorts of yard debris. The twigs and limbs of all the trees I trimmed. Pampas grass. Weeds.

March was a rainy, grey month. Crocuses came up; daffodils came up but ours weren't very good this year. Might have to buy some new ones in October to put in.

It was probably during the last week of March — late by a week or two — that I trimmed back the butterfly bushes.

April. I bought a few more seeds: mixed hot peppers, basil, chamomile. But this time we are getting more sun and some warmer temps (it is April 18 as I write, and we have had 5-10 80-degree days already). Using the windowsill and also just by setting them outside, I got the basil and hot peppers going. The peppers really want to be warm to germinate and direct sunlight is nonpareil. I am either misting seeds/seedlings with a spray bottle or now misting them with the garden hose at least once a day.

Tulips came on and are the best flowers to date.

Clematis darts up the fence as we look out the kitchen window. Clematis along the back west fence is also off to a good start. I attach it onto string to help it get going.

I start spending more and more time outside. I take my shirt off after work and sit on the deck, with a beer, just letting the sun pound me and lick me.

But it's a short honeymoon. The green stuff starts around April 5. Coinciding with them, the blossoms appear on trees. I guess it's tree pollen. Allergies hit, Brook's worse than mine.

I decide to get proactive on this green shit. We keep our windows mostly closed but still it finds its way in through the back door; on our shoes, feet; Squirt. This is evident when I swiff. The deck and porch are filthy with the allergenic green dust.

So I do something I've never done before. I hose it all down. I get both hoses out: black hose with signature series Vigoro nozzle on back deck; green hose with less cool nozzle out front.

Hosing the back deck turns out to be a breeze. I find I enjoy it very much because it really is effective. I use mostly the "FLAT" setting and push the dust away, away, and then over the side of the deck. I do this first on, say, April 5. Again on April 7, 10, 13, 17. Quickly, though, I realize I am gripped in an arms rage. Once isn't enough. You have to keep after it. Especially when it doesn't rain.

And so after a terribly rainy 2009 and a rainy January/February/March, I can remember maybe one real April rain through the 18th of this month.

I also hose down the front porch. There are low areas from which water doesn't really flow. Some probably leaks down to the sub-porch, which I want to avoid. But having a clean front porch is worth it. I hose parapets, columns, chairs, the table, the swing, windowsills, the mailbox. I find it very rewarding.

I have brought out the outdoor/indoor plants: three gerania are scraggly but alive; one is very shy of sun early and so I put it in partial shade; I chuck the oregano/chamomile in the window-style box. I put Osmocote granules in the gerania. I go through them all and clip the dead leaves and branches. They are outside now for good. From the basement I bring up the lavender and the rosemary. I clean them up and feed them likewise. They are happy to be back outside.

Some of the potted, very-late-start daffodils actually flower. I water them not quite enough.

I bring out into direct sun some of my seedlings and also some of the not-yet-germinated seeds. A couple of the tomatoes get burned in only a few hours' sun. So remember: for tomato seedlings started indoors (esp. grown under a light as opposed to in the windowsill) start out with only an hour of sun and build from there.

When nights are down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, I am not leaving the seedlings out at night but instead putting them back on their windowsills or under the light. When night lows are not below 50 I will leave them out 24 hours. I have them, though, in spots outside where they will not get direct sun all day, but only from morning through about one o-clock in the afternoon. I am misting them at least once a day, or watering them in some fashion, trying to keep the soil moist.

I have by this time trimmed back dead branches from both hydrangea. I cut as low as a finger's width above the new growth. I am also regularly watering the east-side hosta and peonies — I'm giving them water by hose, more than I've ever done. They love it.

I have planted chamomile and garden coreopsis seeds in big pots to set around wherever. The chamomile I intend to harvest for tea; the coreopsis I'll cut for flowers inside.

I am watering the out-back azalea more than usual. Same goes for the three azalea out front. Around April 10 (about a week too late) I gets into the two garden plots and turn over the soil.

There was a good amount of our compost on top of each plot. Some wasn't so well so well composted. I tried to take some of that out (corn cob). With the big shovel I dig in as deep as I can, pull up, dump it over. Leave it. The soil is getting easier to work every year; een the bigger, side-garage plot which is a heavy clay soil.

The robins pounce when I cease this digging — worms crawl for their lives. A week later I come back and try to break up any big clods left over (there are some very truculent clods in the side plot). I throw in some 10-10-10 granule fertilizer and work that down. A cucumber volunteers and I preserve it in the small plot.

I have a great reduction planned in what I'll plant in the garden plots this year. In the prime, small plot: one tomato, one bell pepper, and one cucumber. In the side-garage plot, one tomato, basil, cilantro, maybe some lettuce, and then just flowers. I try to make raised mounds or rows where all of this will go in.

Out behind the garage, I let the strawberries run. They are spreading. There are about a dozen flowers back there. Some mint. Otherwise, the hukurah Ray gave me last year is back with a vengeance. Beside that, I tried to weed and then drop a bunch of wildflower seed on top of those weeded areas.

Brook and I move the woodpile and put it in the NW corner of our backyard, out of sight. That gets rid of the wood in the garage and under the deck. This makes me very happy.

Brook mows the lawn on April 10. That's the first time the lawn is mowed. I sweep up. She mows it again on April 17 and I sweep up. The front yard is a disaster and an eyesore. We don't know what to do. Brook bought some jaguar fescue and I'll get it down but it hasn't happened yet.

There are certain events that mark Spring's progression and I want to run down what I've seen so far:

1) Tree pollen: April 1.
2) Yarn doodles: April 14.
3) Whirly birds: April 18.

Also sprouting by the second week are morning glories that I put down around April 1. And wildflowers that I put down around April 1. And some returning bee balm. I have been watering these seeds and seedlings almost daily.

Weeds are starting to get unruly. Hibiscus sproutlings wild strawberries, a whole shitload of others I can't name. To combat this, on April 16 I take the day off of work and go get eight lawn waste bags of tree leaf compost from Shaw Park in Clayton. I spread it first on the garden plots; then around the back hydrangea, in and around the irises; around the morning glories; in the small plot at the back gate (note: a grape tomato volunteered in said plot and I have nurtured it; same thing happened last year such that it seems I don't have to worry about growing grape tomato seedlings anymore).

I use some compost also out behind the garage on the hukurah, strawberries, around a few small sunflower seedlings. I use a bunch on the west side of the house around the clematis, the butterfly bush transplant. We see this area while standing at the kitchen sink. The main idea is to keep weeds from going crazy there.

Brook and I go back to Shaw Park the next morning (April 17) and get just as much more compost. We mulch the butterfly bush, the rest of the irises, and the whole strip of hosta and peony a-east the house. We gets some of the hibiscus there as well. Again, the idea is not just to provide a dynamite food source for those plants but also to aid us in our effort to reduce weeding.

April 21, 2010. I stayed home from work today. It is now 17:00. I have been doing outside work since 7:00. I started by sweeping the front porch. It had a bunch of yarn doodles and tree pollen on it. I then used shower water (via the lovely EBH) to water the small NW butterfly transplant, the western store-bought clematis, and the other westerly butterfly bush transplant. I poured water from the purple bucket into the watering pitcher/pail so I have a more even application.

Then I swept up a whole bunch of whirlybirds from the back concrete. I weeded the wildflower patch. Then I de-whirlybirded the large garden plot; then I tried to work its soil, mainly trying to reduce clods. The clods are mostly clay chunks that I've unearthed. I then watered the result.

I then did a host of other backyard watering. I will note this date, April 21, for the prevalence of a couple of other phenomena:

(1) hibiscus seedlings: I fucking hate these little bastards;

(2) mosquitoes and gnats: as I am outside at 10 a.m. no less the little fuckers are already going at me and I'm like, "It's April 21st at ten in the morning, WTF!?"

So I digress. But I continued on with my outside work. I put in a second tomato seedling. Yesterday, in went the first in the prime plot (the smaller one, full sun). The one I planted today went into the larger plot, i.e. the side garden plot). I also put in a bell pepper seedling into the gate plot where I removed the crocus and tulip bulbs (this marked the first time I've ever dug up bulbs to re-use).

In the tiny gate plot I've got one grape tomato volunteer and one bell pepper seedling. That will be all.

In the prime plot I've got one tomato seedling (4/20) and now three apparent cucumber volunteers. I will pull at least one of those cukes for the sake of crowding.

In the side plot I've got the tomato seedling I put in today. Then I've also go three other mounds I built up today with the intention of planting in them:

(1) basil seedling

(2) bell pepper seedling

(3) hot pepper seedling or cilantro

I have this year greatly reduced the amount of "stuff" I am trying to get into my garden plots. I haven't put down any lettuce, carrot, onion, beans, as in years past. I might try *some* lettuce but it's so much strain on my hamstrings to cull and pick. We will see!

Also today I dug up all of the bulbs that I had planted in pots. I worked all seedling pots so that they only had one seedling left growing in them. I have two plastic pots on the deck (large pots) with

(1) a bell pepper seedling

(2) a hot pepper seedling

I cut a lower branch off of the decorative plum that was growing out onto the deck. I'm not sure if it was "good for the tree" or not; I didn't want it there; I cut it.

I culled chamomile seedlings. I picked whirlybirds from the strawberry patch out back the garage. I watered them. There are a lot of potential berries out there. Thirty?!

A bunch more whirlybirds fell over the course of the day. You can't even tell I swept them all up this morning!

April 23, 2010. Rain today. It rained last night, too. This was the most rain in a 24-hour period in about two months, in my estimation.

A whole shitload of whirlybirds are out there. Worse than ever. So I haven't done any watering the last two days. I pulled my seedlings and potted flower sprouts out from the open. I didn't want splashing rain to dirty them.

Yesterday Brook took the day off of work. She got a bunch more compost and spread it beginning where we left off, wrapping around from the side (hibiscus) to the front of the house. She got most of the front, specifically the Japanese Maple, the three azaleas, the boxwood, and the front hydrangea. She left off at the pampas grass.

She also got some limestone walking stones. We will put them in soon, no doubt.

As for the events that are "coming of season" I want to note April 23 as the first day it feels at all "muggy" outside, no coincidence with the rain that's moved in. Still, I did a brisk 20 minute walk at work and I wasn't sweating. In any event, I'm gonna get the de-humidifier out soon.

Oh, three of the four azaleas are blooming; the pink/red azalea out back and the two pinks out front. The red azalea out front is always the last to bloom. It's immediate neighbor to the west is struggling and might well need to be removed. I walked "the grounds" yesterday before work, very pleasant of mind. Haven't been outside since. Forecast for tomorrow is rain.

April 24, 2010. Mid-afternoon. The rain is here but it was so kind as to allow me first to get outside this morning and spread by hand the Milorganite fertilizer I bought for the lawn. It is an organic, "no burn" fertilizer that I can apply at any time of the year. I just went out with some in a small pail and scattered it like alms all over the backyard, trying not to toss it on especially weedy spots. I didn't spread any out front yet. Nor on...or did I? Yeah, I did spread it out front, now that I think again about it. I've got a bunch left. I'll put more on in September.

I also began my hardcore, super-tedious weed and seed project out front and along the driveway. I am mainly leaving the violets alone and focusing instead on the even weedier weeds. I spent a couple of hours at least mostly going along with the forked-tongue weeding tool and then tossing seed on the areas I'd disturbed.

This is a slow process considering the amount of weeds out there. I also weeded some sidewalk/driveway cracks.

Then I got out a rake and tried some macro-application (vs. micro via the weed tool). So I would broadcast some seed, disturb a large swath of non-grass yard and then broadcast again and then try to stamp it down.

I don't have much hope for the macro application. I have to fix that front yard weed-by-weed. And I need help from B (she has been helping out a lot).

So, yeah. Now it's raining. I have showered. I'm watching the Dodgers at the Nationals on MLB Roku.

What a pleasant afternoon.

The END.

P.S. Whirlybird Apocalypse 4/24/2010.

Untitled 109

2009-12-05T12:14:00.001-06:00

12" x 16"
acrylic on canvas
(2009)

Word Sketch 2

2009-11-30T21:07:00.002-06:00

the hims and the theys
the hymns and the lays
chime and tether
chimera hummus
she says, she says
thelonius the onlius
monk monk
bunk bunk beds
together like a
smorgasboard

Royobroyo

2009-08-14T16:14:00.013-05:00

Checkpoint Charlie Dolce Kevil 400 Where the fuck is Stuckey? Blow by blow western female Roy Mosaic Big Daddy's Ferrarro's for linner all the extras gone by the time the second cab came home when it was light on Sunday morning.

Oh as in Oh really. Rough jeans. Sorry. AJ asleep a blue drink in front of me whose was it who knows what's in it don't know that either tastes like tequila you have to drink one drink an hour according to state law (Blogo). Geoff's pizza went up like smoke when he walked away for a minute. He gave me a hug but I was already smiling (inside).

***

Drinks, early. White wine and beer. Getting ready for an Irish dinner. Artists, rebels, and badboys. The Temporaries on display at the Temporary Museum. 314-962-0093. The number waiter Jen has on her hand in black marker. Jake appears out of the dusk of fish and chips and AJ's red bull and vodka. Roy gets a call from Davíd, who's on the Metro roundabout Forest Park. Sweet. Back at the rooms Davíd says, "Wow. This really happened." Someone turns the music up. There's a beat. There's just something about you baby that makes me want to give it to you. Hour five or so and Roy is way past that. He drops a cinder on the duvet and I score it an E-9. Kevil reaches for the club soda and I thank God for an ally in the war on incidentals.

Tigin. Roy Sr. The next day he asks his son, "You guys eat that fish yet?" The coolers working overtime. We only had to ice them once. Pabst, Founder's, Torpedo. Molly's. Aubrey's. That blonde with the ten-cent rack. Roy in form. James at the bar to get a round for us when someone else comes along and hands me a beer. I don't ask why, I try Bud Dry. Talking to a guy in a Pirates hat, he doesn't know the Cards are playing them, it's just a hat. Anyone named Roy eats and drinks for free.

Walking down the hill to Broadway for MPO's/Lafayette's. Someone gets me a bud and I go right to the dance floor. Pounds and pounds. Me and three others. A little bit of love just above the waist. A pimp wears red leather. Roy: "He went out there and did all of his moves in about ten seconds." Pat joins us. She says she has a husband. All I want to do is dance so that is what we do. The place closes at one-thirty.

Outside we are looking for cabs. Two gals are yelling at each other from opposite sides of the street. Geoff says it would have been some kind of catfight. One of them was wearing some pretty skimpy clothing and something would have definitely come off.

Where are we going? Where are we going? Am I getting in this cab? Am I really going to Pop's? (Or as Jake will say tomorrow, "I can't believe we went to fuckin Pop's.") Pop's was like a dream. Remember one thing and you'll remember another.

Pop's a saloon. Mos Eisely space cantina. Immediately come in and see that gal in the red shirt doing a pole dance on an imaginary pole. She would've danced with anyone and yet she was dancing with no one. High, drunk, still uncomfortable. I order a Bud. Pat begins his verbal assault of the band. "Look at the guitarist. He's wearing a fucking sweater vest." Some gal up on the stage dancing. Alright looking, blond. The dance floor dead except for a couple of OK looking younger gals. I took my Bud out there and gave it a whirl. It's hard to dance to "Everything Zen" but I was doing it. A chunky gal named Lisa came out and joined me. She was cheery enough but I didn't last long.

Roy was working the tables, visiting with ever' girl and woman along the way. At this point, he has stopped remembering the evening a long time ago. He was doing what someone the next day described as the retarded T-rex. I remember one lady he was dancing in front of. Fiftyish, short blond hair. It was Pat who said she was bothered at first but when she realized how drunk Roy was she concluded he was harmless and let herself be amused.

A terrible rendition of a Britney Spears song. Kevil flabbergasted by the $25 beer he just ordered. I had had enough. Pat too. The band is still on and he is really letting them have it now. "You guys suck!" He is drawing some looks from the loyal patrons. I am going around to everyone in our group trying to put together an exit troupe. Kevil was bouncing off of tables. Everyone I talk to, including Roy and Jake, say they are ready to leave. But I can see in Roy's eyes that he is looking right through me.

The band comes off. Some finally upbeat music comes on and a big line dance with full participation breaks out on the once-dead dance floor. Jake has disappeared. Roy I realize is not going anywhere. I am toast. "Roy? Roy?" I give up. But James and Davíd won't leave him. Roy calls these men his troopers. Me, Pat, and Kevil cut and run.

No cabs in sight, just Solutia and Akzo-Nobel brewing up the good stuff. The Oz is to the left. Penthouse and PT's within walking distance. I have cabbie Azeeim's number. Patrick calls him. Several minutes later another cab comes and we get in it. Kevil goes and lays in the back seat, farting. Pat, who had called Azeeim, now calls to tell him (at my suggestion) that we don't need him to come get us. "Yeah, ah, I just called for a cab from Pop's. Sorry, but another one came and we got in it. So we're good."

Azeeim: "But I'm almost there."

Pat: "Yeah, we got another one. Sorry."

Azeeim: "I'll be there in two minutes."

Pat: "We are in another cab."

I talked to our cabbie but I don't remember about what. Didn't have a meter. Jenkins Cab Co. I was kind of afraid he was going to charge us a ton. It took only $18 to get there from MPO's. We pulled up to Hotelumiere. $15. Pat gets it. Kevil wheels himself out of the van. I help him up a bit. He is shitfaced. He might fall over in the lobby. Pat says to the person at the desk, "Two out of three sober isn't bad." It's all fun and games. Kevil uses a wall or two. Pat begins to roll footage on his phone. Glass-backed elevator up. Kevil goes to bed. It's 4:30. Pat and I sit there talking and smoking but I am starting to nod off. When he leaves I go in the bathroom and j-it.

I go and get the bedsheet off of the other bed. I am asleep on the couch about 45 minutes when I hear a knock.

It's Jake. He nods quickly, his eyes wild and tired at the same time.

"Where's the rest of the crew?"

No response. He goes to the bathroom.

"How'd you guys get home?"

No answer. He goes to bed. I head back to the five-foot couch and fall asleep quickly, waiting.

***

Peet's. Me kevil and Jake on the river. Talk of Billie Mays Hayes and his cocaine heartbeat. The Sham-wow guy got his ass kicked by a chick in Vegas yeah there was claw marks and shit all over his face you gotta check out the photos. Jake: "How long have chamoises existed anyway." Someone else says, "Thirty dollars a month on paper towels. Outrageous!"

Trucking out the trash. Filling the cans near the elevators. The far and the near. Onesies. Batties. Fake Amelie's fake tits. Getting very near to them and inhaling. Davíd in the corner on a couple of cushions. Kevil jack-knifed on one bed. Jake jack-knifed on another. Roy on the floor. Me on a short-man's couch. The mini-bar is protected by sensors. A brunch of cracker/sausage/cheese. Bruder basil.

***

That's some checkpoint, that checkpoint Charlie!

The #5

2009-07-30T18:00:00.001-05:00

Live now and repent.
Consolation is a cup of coffee /
tease me tomorrow.

I am Attending To a Sunrise in Jamaica

2009-05-31T11:12:00.024-05:00

First Full Day — morning

I am attending to a sunrise in Jamaica. Rightly I am not awake yet. Waves, waves, dolorous waves. Peltering shores at dayfall.

Why is it getting light in the west before it gets light in the east? The east is dark, blue. A tiny boat out ripping the water is black.

Last night a jumbo airliner flew in from Costa Rica, I’m sure of it.

Brett got a taste, Pat a tree. I put a tiny leaf in my pocket & smiled at the smell.

There is apparently no café ready yet.

A little to the east,
A little to the left,
A little bit of morning,
People-bereft.

Before the grackle wakes,
Only a palm tree sways.
Not blasted, not stumbling.
The thunder
Rum-rum-rumbling.

*

A dove is cooing, asking, “Who cooks for you?” I awoke to, Was it a baby crying? No. Just the wind, whipping through the walls. What a relief to discover, not to have been bothered by. So I stayed awake, to see what of a sunset to see. It got light first in the west. Still today it is overcast, but it is clear to the south & west. Maybe that clearness is what’s to come. The gaggle of quiet Jamaicans below disperses. Security guards? Four guys w/ satchels slung. One has a blue umbrella.

It must have rained more overnight. There is water standing in many places, there as if a surprise to the building. What is this wet stuff?

Sprinklers kick on, it is seven o’clock. By my watch anyway.

I smoked some grass last night & horked some wet yay. Also did a numbie. People were high. And tired on a travel day. I thought I grabbed one of Pat’s 1.5ers but now I can’t find it. The coffee in the rooms is 100% Jamaican.

Second Full Day, morning

I passed out way too hard, way too early last night. Today I will ask my friends: Where all did you go last night? I could not find you in my dreams…

Things move slowly here. The clouds are a good example. Getting water at breakfast is another. I have that hollowed out but tight feeling; hollowed out from booze, tight in the lungs from the fat one.

My joke is that I performed a one-act play last night. Entitled How Not to Spend a Night in Jamaica. E.g. dead as a rock. So I’ll have to be on probation today. Beer only, when I get my thirst back.

Yesterday we were in Pat’s room blowing the fat one. B knocked over a glass and Brett said he was too high to help. “THTH,” I said. It was something Roy would have found funny.

I woke up at 3:30. Had that terrible taste of death in my mouth. It is the dry residue of drinking. I did not know where I had gone, what I had done last night. I was worried that I had done too much coke & made a mess of many things. What a relief to know that there was a reason I had no memory post-sunset: Indeed I has been asleep the entire time. My body cut me off, laid down the law. Thank you, body. I must be good to you, body. Do you believe me, body? The body does not believe, it only perceives. The body is no fool.

Second Full Day, afternoon

There is jerk chicken at a hut on the south end of the resort. The hut is called the jerk hut. The chicken does not look like what I knew to be jerk chicken. The bones are still there. Jerk chicken I knew was like pulled pork. This chicken is barbecued and smoky. Someone asked me where the jerk hut was and I said, “Follow the smoke.” Drumsticks are the best but no one’s guaranteed to get one.

Besides chicken there’s paella that cooks in an enormous skillet. I watched it bubble until it wasn’t bubbling anymore & then it was ready. It has shrimp, pork, & mussels in it. There is sauce for the chicken, one hotter than the other. Today the hot sauce was really hot, hotter than yesterday. After I went over my chicken for the first time (knife & fork) I ate the paella & it had some of the sauce in it & it was very hot. I think it would have been plenty hot on its own. With the sauce it was really hot. Then I went back over the chicken a second time ‘cause I knew there was more on there. I had to use my hands & gnaw on it to get the rest, which turned out to be a lot.

The fella who sold us some things wanted me to bring him some of the chicken. I did but then I couldn’t find him. It was a huge disappointment, walking around w/ a plate of chicken for him nowhere to be found. Then I haven’t seen him at all today.

He looked to me like Alfonso Soriano but he had a goiter-like thing on the right side of his face under the jaw. He wore rubber boots and carried a machete in a wooden case. He used the machete to trim bushes & edge grass. In hindsight I figured someone w/ a machete isn’t the guy who you want helping with things.

On sailing. The guy said we weren’t going anywhere because I was not giving the sail enough slack in low wind. In high wind he said you could flip if you set the sail too tight. He talked about giving the sail belly.

Our maid is Donnette. I left her a note that said ‘You are the best!’ and under it I lay $5 US. But later I tore it up, left a note saying ‘Thank you!’ and under that $3 US. Just now I realized she isn’t very good at sweeping cause we haven’t been at the room since it was cleaned and just walking around for a minute I had sand & dirt on my feet. I thought, Damn next time I’ll pack a swiffer. The people in the room below are outside under our balcony and a bit loud right now; alas, I am too easily disturbed…

*

The door to the balcony is now closed; I am twenty minutes from the last paragraph. I have our music going now inside here. There are rudimentary iPod docks. Our maid’s name is Donnette. Everything else looks real good but I guess the toilet doesn’t get a daily cleaning. There are a lot of rooms for one person to do. No teams of two here.

Soy su camerara is what the maid in Pat’s room said to us yesterday when we were thanking her for helping clean up the broken glass. She said it very matter of factly but in English, I’m your maid. Like, Yes, this is what maids are for. She got us a broom & we swept up while she went looking for a dustpan. She was gone for about 10 minutes. The champagne. That’s what did me yesterday. Forgot about it all til now.

I am growing out a Hemingway stache. The maid came back with a frisbee as a dustpan. A frisbee! I did a double take. Yeah, you could put the big pieces of glass in there, but you can’t exactly just sweep the little stuff right into it. A frisbee! It just about broke my heart.

Second Full Day, night

Dinner was good but long. My back hurt at the end, talk was scattered. Basil, our waiter, brought coffee at the end. For mine he apologized that there was no cream in it. I don’t take cream so it didn’t matter a bit. We tipped him $12 US.

Besides the coffee, I liked the smoked marlin, served as part of a salad bar along w/ some good cheeses & grapes. We went back to Brett & Tab’s room to partake of things. Brett had the lead. I do not know any baseball scores. Today was a Monday. Brett said that his drink for the rest of the trip is piña coladas, Nice & easy.

B points out someone who is writing on a moleskin. We are in a little lounge area. Pleasant but hot. It is time for couples photos.

The music is modern lounge music. I am not too burned. Snorkeling was a workout. As I was stroking out to a dive spot my shoulders felt strong & right. But I don’t know how hard I could have swum without the snorkel. Now Pat & Anne are taking fake butt photos with their elbows.

There are frogs going at night. A high pitched chirp, Bee-Balm, Bee-Balm, Bee-Balm, endlessly, slowly but never stopping. Or, stopping for awhile & coming back out w/ Balm…Balm….

Third Full Day, morning

Anne said to us, You guys are on vacation. You need to be really high. But I haven’t felt really high yet, even with all of the grass we have. We have no way to smoke it of course except as in a joint. Pat tends to roll too tight. When he makes a small one he calls it a pinner. The big one he made yesterday we called a torpedo. It was a real fat fatty. If you want the quickest drawing joint in town, though, Tab is your girl.

It is Tuesday today, which means the only full day we have left is Wednesday. Thursday our flight to America leaves at 12:37 pm. We have to be on a bus at 8:30a. Cars drive on the left side of the road. There are no lane markings. We were talking about taking a half-day trip to Negril, which is south & a bit west of here. That sounds good in theory. Negril has a very nice beach & a stellar view of sunsets. But I want to loaf hard-core today.

Third Full Day, afternoon

Last night we were looking at stars. In the northern sky I saw for sure the Big Dipper. Using that as my starting point, from there I also thought I had: Cepheus (west), Draco (weaving in the north sky amongst the Big & Little Dippers). I debated Tab a bit about where the Little Dipper was. I could not find Cassiopeia. A very bright star in a group of four stars I thought was Sirius in Lyre. Then the other brightest star was a reddish star straight up, west of the Big Dipper. B thought it might start with an A. I also saw the Corona Borealis straight up. Tab & I thought we could see the blurry wisp of the Milky Way until it floated east. That was a big disappointment because it was full of a million stars.

It was one of the best sky views I have ever seen, comparable to the Mojave. Even w/ damn resort light blaring 20 feet away. West of the Big Dipper was a big cluster of stars, sort of shaped like a Cylon bay ship. Just east/north of the Big Dipper’s ladle were a bunch of distant stars, too. I am kicking myself for not bringing my star chart. I did not foresee us looking at stars. But when you are down on the beach w/ a torpedo and the stars are right there on top of you, they are irresistible. We saw several shooting stars. Pat & I were the only ones who saw what I thought at first was a missile b/c it burst into smoke and left a trail. It was the most blatant asteroid I have ever seen.

I did remember to bring my compass/thermometer. I did zero research on Lucea/Grand Palladium before the trip. I am usually above such a load of nonchalance. When we got here I had no idea which way was north, or which way we were facing when we looked out over the ocean. I told Tab south was north and vice versa.

An oil tanker on the horizon I told Brett was coming from Mexico or even Brazil (PBR). But it was really passing between us & Cuba. It could have been coming from anywhere. This morning B & I saw a cruise ship, big as bertha off to our NW. When we looked again a half hour later it was already gone.

Fourth full day, morning

B & I retired early last night. We said ‘To Hell’ with another long dinner (it would have been my second, her third) and delighted in snappy burgers & fries in the sports bar. The rum runner I had there knocked me for a loop.

We came back to the room and watched “JEOPARDY!”. The FJ question was: “Ayn Rand is said to have said, ‘I did not know that The Fountainhead’s destiny was complete until you told me of your admiration for it.’” Or some such thing. I did not know it; B did: Frank Lloyd Wright. The lady who tore up DJ guessed E Hemingway. She lost. The guy who won spelled Lloyd with only one l.

After that I flipped around for a while until I became transfixed by this beautiful French movie (w/ English subtitles) set in Indochina in what must’ve been the Fifties.

It was a French platoon that was not doing so well along w/ their non-Viet Minh Viet associates. The French were lugging around four on stretchers, two of whom died while I was watching. The captain was smoking cigarettes. The French went from village to village. One village chief said that the French upon their arrival must hurry up and leave (taking any rice they wanted) b/c the Viet Minh had just been there & would be back. There were at least two river crossing scenes.

In one, a body on a stretcher was dumped & washed downstream. So too downstream went a machine gun. The captain got very upset. The movie was in black & white. It reminded me of Malick’s “The Thin Red Line.” TRL as me and Roy call it is set in the South Sea, during WWII. Some have said it is based largely on the battle for Guadalcanal. The pathos & struggle in these two movies had the same tone & break. It was a splendid picture & I shall endeavor the name of it when I return home.

I fell asleep w/ the movie still going. I don’t recall turning the TV off so the power must’ve gone off at some point w/i an hour or two of me falling asleep. Brett called from the A&P to say they were hanging out there. But B & I were asleep. I told Brett I didn’t think we’d make it.

I like these mornings here, writing w/ coffee, waves lapping up in Coral Cove. The sun already formidable on my forehead as I face northeast.

I can see what I guess are mountains to the distant south. I suppose they are blue. B remarked that she did not realize that Jamaica was so mountainous. Driving here it seemed that much of it was also hilly. B tells me now she’s gonna go get some photos. The sun is sprinting up the eastern sky. Workers below talk softly. This is our last day here.

B & I were going to fire up a J last night. At least until we realized that we had no light. At some point this week I had a small black lighter. I guess I gave it back to someone. Pat was even telling me to take a black lighter that was sitting on his table, but for some reason I didn’t. I guess I was momentarily confused b/c the one on the table was also a black lighter but not small like the one I had. So I thought, ‘Maybe I didn’t give that little lighter back.’ And I figured I shouldn’t take what would be a second lighter. Ah well. I suppose we did just fine w/o the J. But perhaps I would’ve stayed up & written a bit more, which makes any facilitation worth it. I still suspect I have that little black light around here somewhere ‘cause I don’t remember handing it back to anyone.

Fourth full day, Speed Round

Carts that talk; carts that will run you over; Real Rock; wata; daily rain; daily sun; flounder; sore neck; catamaran; Coral Cove; who cooks for you?; aloe; the painting of the smiling Jamaican girl w/ a basket of bananas on her head; fruit at the buffets, specifically mango & papaya; in-room coffee the best I’ve ever had; robes; slippers; breezes; the cyber hut; wristbands; Tab bambleefled by things; nooks & crannies of the resort; columns; open air lobby; DJ in Boogie Woogie Bar who couldn’t mix salad (thank to Pat for that one); but then later as we passed I heard ‘Like A Prayer’ and wanted to run in there and start dancing; No End and No Beginning.

Fourth Full Day, night

Solar Eric said it was seven miles to the horizon. Based on the curvature of the Earth. I didn’t dispute him. It sounded right, looked right. He wouldn’t say how far to the cumulonimbuses lowest to the horizon. “The sun needs clearance there, though,” he said, “right at the horizon.” Then, Pat I think it was, no Eric said that when there were real bad fires in Arizona a few years ago it shown up red in upper New York State.

Postscript

So that’s it, all I wrote on the trip. Looking back, I wish I had writ more. I thought I was going to finish off the moleskin I was writing in; I was on pace; I don’t know what happened. I got too uptight. I wasn’t feeling the group. Maybe I just gave up.

“Respect!”

That’s what a Jamaican would say upon getting a good tip. It’s a good saying, one I’d like to work into my repertoire. When someone did something thoughtful for me. The saying Keegan shared with me is, “One hand washes the other.” That’s a good saying to apply to being neighbors or friends.

Before I forget, here is info about the resort where we were:

Grand Palladium Hotels & Resorts, A member of Fiesta Hotel Group of Spain
The Point, Lucea, Hanover, Jamaica W.I.
Fiestahotelgroup.com

I miss it. I was comfortable enough there, even though I was uptight too often. I liked the spacious room we had. All of our rooms had meritable views. B& I had just a piece of the ocean, which elated me b/c I’m used to a nothing view. Brett & Tab had a bunch of ocean & the sunset. From their balcony, straight down, a pot plant was growing. A & P had plenty of ocean and an expansive shot of the resort’s courtyard, pool, the bar & restaurant ‘point.’ Quite a tremendous view. We had the cove & the mountains to the south.

I miss the state of mind I was in that allowed me to write what I’ve written. I miss those mornings most of all, getting up rather early, the sun pouring in. Making coffee, screwing around with the room’s electricity b/c the coffee maker kept going on & off.

The floors in the house now feel so clean. The coffee we make here is not as strong. I miss the quizzical weather, the illogical movement of the clouds. I miss the sports bar, w/ pretty good burgers, good fries, & a plate of cheesy nachos afterward. Rum runners. I’ve been meaning to look them up in my bar book.

The transfer bus from the hotel back to the airport somehow left w/o us on it. Even though B & I checked in at the bell desk fifteen minutes early & told them what travel group we were using. So we all took a taxi that turned into an adventure all its own. Our driver just about killed a guy. We hopped off of the main road briefly (construction) and saw roads shaped by torrent. Pot holes aren’t that big. But we got to the airport in due time & tipped well ($70 for the ride, normally $75?) We gave $80+.

B bought coffee at the airport. I worked on sudoku. She got me some really pricey Wendy’s while I watched everyone’s bags. Then I had most of a “beef patty” B got for a much better price than the Wendy’s.

The flight to Atlanta was fine. Going through Customs & Border Protection was stressful but uneventful. I brought back a few things. I got some pizza from Sbarro’s during the half hour or so we had free before the flight to St. Louis. The ATL airport was very busy. I hate layovers. They are to be avoided at all cost — easy to say traveling out of STL.

Unbeknownst to us, the plane back to STL carried the remains of a soldier killed abroad — Iraq or Afghanistan I don’t know. As we were preparing for landing (tray tables up, seats in an upright and locked position, ceasing use of any portable electronic devices) the captain says he needs to ask a favor of us.

Immediately I roll my eyes & figure he’s gonna ask us to stay patient b/c a la Lambert Airport there’s a plane occupying our gate & we’re gonna have to taxi for just a few minutes. But then he says, “There are two military personnel on board escorting a fallen comrade home.” And would we please all stay seated until they have made their way off of the plane.

Whoa. Yes, we can all do that. So when we get to the gate, we are all seated (except for one douche bag who just had to get up & fish his iPhone out of his carry-on stowed overhead). And sure enough two uniformed personnel come up the aisle from behind me & there is some applause. I manage a few clammy claps but I’m thinking, “This is a funeral. We don’t clap at funerals. We should not be clapping. We’ve got this all wrong. We need to be somber, we need to be quiet. That is how we can best pay respect.”

They disembark and Pat says, “OK, you can all go back to being assholes now.” Which was accurate but not funny.

I had a window seat, a few rows in front of the right wing. Row 20-something. Up ahead is the usual logjam of passengers gathering their stuff & filing out.

I look out the window the luggage team as it pulls up to our plane. Sometimes if I’m waiting to disembark I’ll watch as the luggage conveyor sets up & the luggage starts coming off of the plane. I’ll see if I can see my bag.

But then I see the two uniformed personnel out by the luggage conveyor & tram. The lead military guy, a short, stock red-haired fellow has an airport employee come up to him, explain something. The red-haired soldier quickly looks away, appears to bite his tongue. Then he looks up at the little windows. One, two, three, making his way down the line. And then he looks right at me. I can see the pain in this man’s eyes and the anger in him and also the humiliation he is feeling right then.

I avoid his gaze. Seconds later a rectangular white pine box starts its way down the conveyor. I can read the goddam piece of paper stuck to the top of the box identifying who, what is inside.

A crew of airport employees/pall bearers grab several straps attached to the bottom of the box. They have a hard time transferring it from the conveyor to the luggage tram and for a second I wonder if the box is going to fall to the ground. I cannot believe what I am seeing.

Not too long after that, the way off of the plane has cleared and I am getting off of the plane. I don’t know who else has seen what I’ve seen, how many other passengers. I didn’t hear anyone say anything about it. Fresh off of Jamaica & traveling, I did not even think about the fact that Memorial Day Weekend was nigh. It’s as close to either war as I’ve gotten, which is to say not very close.

We all crammed into one taxi and the driver left us off at the local A&P. I couldn’t wait to go get our dog. The next day was work, and what do you know? A three-day weekend after that.

The End

Misc. Haiku 66-70

2009-05-11T23:16:00.002-05:00

66

The cloth
    kept wet
under the pin.

67

    getting past
things past —
    naked in the meramec.

68

    a whole napkin
for a single
    fly

69

You gotta do this,
    you gotta do that —
we’re all lawyers.

70

In the time
I’ve written this I’ve gotten
Two spam messages.

Misc. Haiku 61-65

2009-04-20T23:55:00.001-05:00

61
When I closed my eyes
The sun went behind a cloud,
And it was Friday.

62
I can remember
When I didn’t even know
What Lowe’s was.

63
On a branch silhouetted
By my neighbor’s window,
A cardinal braces.

64
In the midst
Of a roaring party,
An old coffee cup, broken.

65
As I wonder
At a light bulb —
It bursts in my face.

Dear Gunman

2009-04-06T22:27:00.000-05:00

Cybersuicide saves lives.

If you wanna die

Go die online somewhere.

Leave us the living

Alone.

Doctrine

2009-03-27T22:04:00.004-05:00

unscalded
chocolate led
roosevelt to the            truman policy

                  carry a big stick
                     beat dewey

John Randall

2009-03-15T23:01:00.010-05:00

There’s people I haven’t met called John Randall.
There’s a guy who’s sick and shoeless in bed called John Randall.
There’s a man with tattoos and a tie on, singing a song called “John Randall.”
There’s a fifty year-old governor who just drove (by convertible) his precocious new aide to the top of a hill named John Randall.
There he is in bed again, still with his shoes off, John Randall.
They’ve got their arms around each other, asking someone to take a photograph, John Randall.
With a pillow over his head, John Randall.
They don’t realize it’s a tabloid reporter, byline John Randall.
He’s in the back of a portrait of a bunch of people in an apartment drinking Bud Light. He is drinking a beer called John Randall.
He’s holding it there — not someone else, John Randall.
In the seventies his hair was way long and wavy, John Randall.
He has drinking buddies in college and there is lots of promiscuous sex, John Randall.
Out to pizza with his family, look at that cute dog there, oh, that little squirt, look at him he’s so cute. Now the dog is barking, the barking is driving him nuts, actually making him physically sick; causing him to think, God, if a dog is this bad, how the hell am I gonna have a kid named John Randall, Jr?
He’s in a picture with Ted Swindley and three provocatively dressed ladies, who coincidentally manage a hedge fund called, “Provocative Lady” (or, “The Angels,” they aren’t sure yet; they don’t actually manage money — it’s really just a Ponzi Scheme and they’re still looking for their first “investor,” hopefully this joker, John Randall).
He is disabled, living off of it, doing nothing but sitting inside smoking cigarettes, watching TV, John Randall.
This time he says — the hell with it, I’m havin the kids — and the family’s enormous, John Randall.
On Labor Day he campaigns by riding in a big, red cadillac through small towns and the state fair. In twelve hours, he is able to cover a little over half the state. He wins in November with 51% of the vote. Meet your new governor, John Randall.
Put your shoes on, John Randall!
He is getting up from a poker table. He only has six dollars left, just enough for a six-pack of John Randall.
Late at night he would become so paranoid he was afraid of his own smoke, John Randall.
Old loves show through him like dark stains beneath his thin skin. Flimsy layers of paint, fooling himself for years. He’s in the shower when he finally feels it, John Randall.

Dialect of the Fridge

2009-03-07T18:14:00.001-06:00

I thought I heard the sound
of someone tapping on a plate,
the sound of someone
finishing a bowl of cereal.

The kitchen window —
someone climbing in,
causing the blind string to hit
the dishes in the drying rack?

I am bolt awake now,
no sense in ignoring this
call for a second time.

I am up, naked, and rushing in.

Amid shadow I see no one
standing in the kitchen,
or climbing through the window.
But maybe a rat, licking
dinner plates clean?

I pull the cord on the fan-light.
I am awash in a burst of light;
can feel the heat of it immediately,
knowing I am shabbily nude in the middle
of my kitchen, fair to anyone looking this way
at three-thirty in the morning.

I turn the light back off;
there is no rat. There is nothing.
There is only mystery,
perhaps a dialect of fridge I do not know.

My veins are thumping, my head swirls
with the blank sound, the light, the image
of a man climbing through the window,
a rat lying in the drying rack. I go take a seat in
a reading chair, sick with paranoia.
Sleep is hard to fathom.

The floors creak, the fridge hums.
Alarm clocks provide most light. The blinds
are down. The moon is not full but waning.
I realize now I will not sleep again until daybreak.

There is a small knife in the drawer to my
immediate left. It is a sharp knife I found along
a clear water creek in the middle of Tennessee.
The fridge pops again. My wife rolls over yonder in bed.
I wish I were asleep. Tomorrow would be better
for it. More pops, similar to the plate-tapping
sound.

Elsewhere a car on the street, going somewhat fast.
It could not possibly be delivering the paper.

Green water

2009-02-25T20:04:00.001-06:00

dancing rabbit sawdust latrine
windmills whipping like silencer trains
high above the prairie lo
but there’s a real train
and another and another
all throughout the night
as rain dances across
the top of my tent like a million
dancing rabbits, little ones.

Misc. Haiku 56-60

2009-02-08T18:12:00.000-06:00

56

When I watered my jade
With Schlitz
Of course it died.

57

To set the clock
I look to see what time it is
While holding the missing clock.

58

It’s been weeks
But finally I hear it —
The rain.

59

Stuck but not
Dead in winter
Plotting Spring.

60

If someone came and
Hacked to death whatever —
Quiet home.

Almost

2009-01-23T12:21:00.000-06:00

Solid investing always
           slowly develops
      a taste for bad
                   flirtation.
   Vacation rental,
    cucumber petal:
             Sipping on the tea
             of Colombo —
     Oh yeah,
         just one more thing...

Calamari Market News

2009-01-10T07:57:00.001-06:00

                      Nightmare ham,
                                dateline America.
  Tonight's top story:
                         the inimitable error:
the journalists all died
            at the truth.
                             I'm stuck reading
                 about this left-behind
        sense of beds made poorly —
            pissed in then slept in
                 then folded like cardboard.
Next time will be a different screw-up.
The great, big puke-off was only a
              rejection of any kind of appetizer
                  come from the ocean &
                       served with marinara.

Big New York Fundraiser

2009-01-04T23:40:00.002-06:00

         Dad is on stage
             speaking about
        the economy;
              shadows coalesce
           in the cleavage of a woman...

...$100m a day spent on a war in Afghanistan...

...Karzai mulls Taliban negotiations...

          The money in my pocket
   is stolen
             from the valise of my father.
      Later it shall reign/rain
                 on the object of my lust.

         Dad keeps on talking.
         And the shadows play, they play...

A Farmer's Almanac

2008-12-13T09:48:00.001-06:00

I

Over this side
And steel.
Most moisture
We’ve seen in months.
Rusted linoleum;
Tractors cowed
By the slender whim of God.
Banks?
There are no “banks.”

II

This is why you don’t wait.
People gonna make mistakes, sure. But
This is p’cisely why you never wait.
Waitin’ for rain, for the aqueduct.
Waitin’ for the war to end;
For interest rates to move.
Nobody in this family waitin’ for a goddam thing.

III

Well, sure we dropped a well.
And dropped it,
And dropped it.
We found that, ah, cone of depression —
Some bottles of dirty water.
Our poor Mother, ya know.
She gave us udders of water,
Buried deep down in her soul, like.
Sandstone-lined. All she had.
We was just children then.

IV

So
We gone back to readin’ the clouds.
They’re beautiful it seems.
Cirrus curling into nothing
Way up there. Just ice crystals
Casting down white light.
There ain’t s’pose ta be no such thing as white light.
But I tell ya: I seen it.

V

I’m going on record with this
Because I’m in terrible need of an elegy.
Sawbones gave me, oh, a few months I guess.
Don’t matter much.
I came from this land
And I’m going back to it.
Now I’m tellin’ you:
I want a Vikin’s funeral.
If you can find ‘em, throw a thousand husks
Of corn onto my pyre.
Take fish from the hole I leave in th’ice.
Despite everything I’ve said.
Regardless of whether there’s snow on the ground,
Whether the crops rise,
Whether anyone’ left to see me go.

Coffee Shop Audio Sketch

2008-12-01T22:16:00.002-06:00

Third cup.
Jazz.
A man is talking with Ray the barista.
Hum of refrigerator.
Coins. Tip money dropped in a glass jar.
Coffee maker — frothy release of steam, metal stirring along metal.
Drums. Piano. Saxophone.
Fridge door closes; cushioning.
Ray greets a customer, “How’s it going?”
She orders a latte mocha triple shot.
Talk of parking, a popular topic this morn.
Coins again.
Ray laughs.
Air ducts rattling.
“Whip cream?”
“Please.”
Banging sound, a gathering into a bottom.
Frothy whirring.
More banging.
Two men looking, talking, wearing hard hats.
Demonic frothy whirring.
Shuffling, paper crumpling.
Karen arrives, reads Steppenwolf.
Karen shifts to my table though I am wary at first.
Ray, Karen, and I talk about compost heaps of all things.
Spontaneous combustion comes up as a topic.
The shop closes at noon.
Lynn, the owner, gives me and Karen each a clutch of old bananas.
“For banana bread,” she says.
Karen and I walk out together.
They’re re-tarring the streets.
I drive home; it’s bright out. Sunday. I put on sunglasses.

Carbon imprints

2008-11-23T17:34:00.004-06:00

by the cbw

I'm not feelin' you

The way I wanted to

(existential clues)

Where is that grindin,

And my soul asks why?

Cake means two things

And I ain't eating

Like a man w/o a mic

Or a pulpit, soapbox;

Pursuing moby dick.

Q: give me a coffin

So I cannot be

Lonely, on the forked

Road set before me;

Closed on the (in)n

But not quite pin(n)ed

Down, yet respite

Always needs signs

Like leaves in grass,

Raked and gloved.

A century and a half

Behind those times

I translate subtle

Things those may

Despise, but the clime

Corrupted me

Incarcerated by the

Hov-lanes taken

To hotels of that

Ancient (and) constant

aqueduct of safety:

Lockdown = scarred by whales,

Stockmarkets, and

Infinity

)reversible options(

Whitness those

Prescient, un-scientific

Lines; here's hoping

History isn't looping,

Romans aren't sacking,

Sabotaging a 4(all)-seat

Lincoln, frost-freezed

And sorely mistaken;

Feel me lord, for

I am forlorn…

Who cares how many stones?

2008-11-20T17:13:00.003-06:00

It took two stones but
at least I got one.

At least I got one of 'em.

At first I was trying
to kill two of 'em
with just one stone
but it wasn’t working.

Bye Bye, George

2008-11-10T22:51:00.000-06:00

I was in the local dive
when the President walked in.
We talked,
but not about politics.
He said something
about a banana having
a good youth form.
I was like
Good youth form what the hell is that.
He said about how
a horse could have a good youth form.
We really just shot the shit.
It was fun.
I always figured it would be.

The E-mail that Never Was

2008-11-06T22:09:00.001-06:00

(Unknown sender)
(No subject)
(Blank body)
(Not signed)

Manna, Treacherous Sky

2008-10-21T22:45:00.012-05:00

    Poor chap, that tramp —
his beauty
       confiscated
         by filth;

  Left to pray mindless
    ly in the gutter,
      in arrears
         to the street;

At church for his tea-and-two-slices
   his offering but
           a burned-up blade
     of grass and
             still he prayed;

  O, heaven, my galoshes
    are glummed,
   my ears beaten
             by duns;

  O, keep me,
      even though —

The #5

2008-10-12T22:00:00.000-05:00

Live now and repent.
Consolation is a cup of coffee,
tease me tomorrow.

Fall's Green Tomatoes

2008-10-01T14:35:00.000-05:00

Tomato plants
      Are vines.

Make no mistake—
      In fall they leave

An acrid yellow resin
      On your plucking,
            Prying hands.

They’re slowly ripening fruit
      Leaving their seed to the ground.

You’re only interfering.

HTML Party

2008-09-21T21:36:00.004-05:00

But
         if your hover-link starts
         pushing other text
         and page elements
                                             around
  you will be asked

                                 to

        leave.

"He Urinates on his Paintings"

2008-09-12T06:34:00.000-05:00

My claim to fame

is that The New Yorker

once published one of my captions.

No, they didn’t even do that.

I’m worthless.

Advice for Endangered Species

2008-09-04T23:44:00.017-05:00

   The ruddy turnstone of America
       died before my eyes.   This
    poem is inspired by
           but not about her.

     I tried to convince the great libraries
     to pump me full of rotten fruit.
     I tried and died?
     No I tried and failed.

  NASCAR cars awake to find themselves
  empty of engines but slathered in spit and lipstick.
      The Vice Presidents have all
      gone to pasture, revving
      like Alzheimer cows.

Meanwhile, on the North Slopes...
  The polar bears are all dead,
   even the ones we've eaten. The polar bears are all dead,
   even the ones we've eaten. The polar bears are all dead,
   even the ones we've eaten. The polar bears are all dead,

        I admit
        it's late and I don't know
        who to vote for.

Sunrise in my eyes, coffee and rubles.
This is the American Dream.

Wait while I await another good line.

Audubon's Suicide Sonnet

2008-08-29T22:08:00.004-05:00

       Bye bye
    bye bye, birdie
& bye to all the other birds
        I woulda seen
'I been born 30 years ago.
   My best friend, he gets into birds,
       he's too late!    Meadowlarks
            all gone or dead, pretty corn,
                 sweet clover.

Leaving an Empty Bottle of WineAlong the Windowsill of a Canal Boat

2008-08-22T22:50:00.008-05:00

I
   FISA light is
          FISA light is
     knowing what you're
             knowing what you're
thinking
      thinking.

II
   I have been in bed
              late at night
          happy where I was.
     I got up
            and the cupboard poured me
                coffee.
        No one else was up yet,
               no one else was up yet.
            I was the only person awake
            in the entire world.

III
    Moscow mule, moscow million.
Moscow million, I
          don't want to fight you.
   My country hasn't
                       the troops.
       Contrary to what your man
       read over my shoulder
                    on the plane —
  The soldiers are not feeling the wood, —
    they're not feeling the wood, —
       they're felling the wood.
You know,
           getting ready to write
           really old gold
           long old novels.
     Wire between their
         fingers & wire in
   their brains.   Wire, already,
   on their deforested teeth.

IV
    Combined with other candidates' metal content.

V
            It'll look like
              we're raising rhinos
              only we'll be painting the
     desert with watercolor
  we hear sung
      too late at night,
        "Mooie Kaap, Mooie Kaap...."
                 I should have known —
      dry canals signaled
       a drop in the wheelbarrow full
       of gold I got
             back when I thought
              it was worth
              $1000/oz.

FREE HBO

2008-08-13T09:47:00.001-05:00

1
We stayed in a dirty hotel.
Rooms along the shore
and we didn’t get sick.

2
Just down the street
flew thousands of rare birds
though I didn’t know it.
They’re bringing the trolley back,
said someone on local TV.

3
The room was hours
as long as we wanted.
We both blushed.
Our first meal was
cigarettes
and beer
and Rold Golds.

4
The second was a
Thanksgiving fiasco
at an old hotel. Savior
in the form of bread pudding
I ate the next morning
with a plastic fork in
blue Friday light.
A&M played Texas.
We happened upon “Carnivale.”

5
Even though restaurants
not far away advertised creole
as we walked along The Strand
and I asked,
“Does this remind you of New Orleans?”

Misc. Haiku 51-55

2008-08-07T16:39:00.000-05:00

51

What’d I write last night?
The morning is coffee
And looking through notebooks.

52

Twenty-eight and still too scared
To say thrice into the mirror,
“Bloody Mary?”

53

Moon at an acme
That no company could match —
Din of merger news.

54

Kerouac’s best haiku
Were the ones that went
Uncollected.

55

A retreat
Into alcoholism, no
Not me.

thanks

2008-07-30T20:54:00.003-05:00

      who says this thing is a
                                          value play?

           Sacrifice Sacramento

                bunt play send Santo

   Santa brings christmas

              me with the milk and cookies —

An old poem w/ coup d'etat in it...

Frontispiece

2008-07-24T00:25:00.002-05:00

I am far away now from curtains
to lie about them successfully. Lie, lie
Stanford the big Cardinal, weird
redwood evergreen sequoia. But
a dog barking is better than
a car alarm. Energy existence,
I'm a fly in the night.
Sirens now, too.

Summer half-sketch

2008-07-18T22:44:00.002-05:00

        change

                      range hope

     the donor dangled

                                    off of his hook.

The banner was rancid,

                        the lads none too fancied.

            And Prancer fell off of the roof.

That Old Table with the Orange Chairs

2008-07-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

an ashtray from africa made of elephant’s tusk
maybe not elephant’s tusk    I don’t know    three PBR
cans   a trippel   o’mara’s irish cream    seeds: parsley cilantro
arugula mint rosemary lavender basil    a plastic slide-loc bag
w/ raisins    an empty water glass        which you take    &
are filling up now    a napkin   w/ charcoal stains  a spoon
the same remote razor blade   old & dull    razor blade
new & sharp    st. louis football cardinals glass   w/
ice cubes   long since past     a dictionary & thesaurus   I just
feel disconnected    it don’t mean much   drink some water   you say
candles  midsummer night’s dream   a flame    how’d
you get “no” outta that?    alexander, no, better this time
andrew jackson   rolled up upon himself    two pairs of glasses
the word games post-dispatch   candle warmer  lamp w/o a
lampshade  camel lights  notebooks   a water
glass   tourney brackets    now
crystals   popping   drying
enjoy the bump in the road
                 it might be the last.

Leaving Aus-town

2008-07-02T12:04:00.001-05:00

1    Ray, I’m bored: wake up

Actually, my knee is aching, and so is my back. I’ve been packing things. Got up at 4:34. The garbage truck. Did you hear it? Banging mechanical arm, squealing brakes, beeping as it backs up. That’s the last time I’ll ever hear it. I’m drinking some iced coffee. Ate a slice of toast with peanut butter. Have showered, taken the pizza box to the trash, updated my blog. Wow, I’m nearly ready to start drinkin’ again though it’s only 8:50.

Bad heartburn, though. Need to get some meds for that, pepto or Immodium, Tagamet? Don’t think I’ve ever had Tagamet. Drinking some water. Was not dehydrated this morning although I rinsed out four cans of Guinness, a bottle of pinot grigio, a couple Red Hook IPAs, a Bud Light, a big Lagunitas IPA, and our highball glasses.

We drank a fair amount last night but the body load I’m feelin’ right now is from the brownie. I was still high this morning, I think that’s why I couldn’t sleep. Looked at some of the photos. The battery in the digital is not failing as you had said. I looked for the charger this morning unpacking a couple of boxes. I think you heard me cuz I noticed you closed your door.

2    An Act in which Josh Beckett Appears

John [soliloquy]: We’ve got bourbon drinks. Lo, is that rock music coming from next door? — or just a saw? She only looks good, man. But Ray couldn’t care, he couldn’t care less about any-a that. From next door the slice of a lawnmower, the whir of a weedeater.

[Ray enters stage left, John sits at a table with a drink, his back to the crowd]

Ray: Yeah, I guess aluminum isn’t carbon-based. John’s typing, glasses on, halfway down the bridge of his nose.

[Josh Beckett enters stage right]

Josh: Blisters could be an issue again this year.

John [turning around]: I know. Every year, every single year!

3    Ray is sleeping again

Awake, Wisdomonium! The heavens need guidance and the irreducible element of your eye-brow ring. I’ve been sittin’ here all mornin’ just reading your journal — intrasting stuff, about thermodynamics and all?

It’s time to blog, time to fill the U-haul, to swim in the springs, to smoke a spliff, and eat some barbecue. Passed out last nite, more or less. For the better, though. Up at seven today, a little bit of iced coffee, reading Ray’s journal (just kidding!)

Some packing — I am contemplating a shower and, also, I could eat something. The GB is packed away, but I have made other provisions. In fact, Thackeray stands to greet you. Thack the respected Green Colonel.

The coffee is almost gone, Ray. Figured you wouldn’t want day-old café on the rocks anyhow. It smells not so vaguely of smoke in here, but I’ve opened a few more flaps on the tepee and got the palm fronds goin’ so we should be OK.

4    Things Ray won’t miss about Texas

— the heat
— the allergens
— the fake lakes
— deciding whether or not it’s worth it to Mess w/ Texas

Obama and the Art Vote

2008-06-21T22:21:00.001-05:00

Index card.
Assyrian, Joseph the.

I guess that’s what’s meant
about someone from Syria,
or what used to be Syria.

My yellow more pure is
than commercial cake.
Summer watermelon,
two kinds of seeds of.
One will grow in me,
the other will grow
to my new life become.

Activists have already
to court taken this poem
so don’t worry so.

I am waking to wake up,
museum touring the.
Popping pills,
touching paint my
fingers bare with.

Still wet it’s hoping.

Rush baby

2008-06-13T10:59:00.007-05:00

I gave all
of the Red Sox arm bands
20 good workouts
before I decided:
the Chinese equivalent is better.

Advertise an earthquake.
No one buys pain
except to buy it off.
Scramble dollars
to shoot
parity down.
Only organ transplant helicopters
also die in the process.

Eider down,
sea level up.

The weight you've lost
will grow back
like a hungry neutron
when the Inuit
wear designer sunglasses
made out of vegetarian
latté sushi
drive-by media.

I gave the Red Sox
armbands
20 good workouts
before I decided:

The Chinese equivalent is better.

The Tropics

2008-06-04T17:32:00.008-05:00

Every summer I learn the constellations
              over again.         Like tonight
  I thought      hey I’ll camp out, let
                                     the white light of stars
    freckle my forehead.  And under the mesh
of my tent I think all sorts of things as I ogle
those way-out stars.  Where I’ve been lately,
and how I came to be here now.  This is
     the Dominican Republic, this New Amsterdam.  This
           night a dark little life
           I live all alone.      In a tiny little hut made for
Tiny Tim or a wonk or someone who’s eaten
         way too much chocolate and has no business
    with a notary license.
                                          Yes I do swear
   to tell the whole solomon truth    and
bull-riding and fireflies and glowing juice
       and where we’re at in America these days.
And this guy with a shirt on says Real Environmentalists
     Don’t Eat Meat but I can’t quit meat.
                What is it that I’m good at, and
   what am I not good at.       What’s smoky, what’s fruity,
what do I like and what don’t I like.    What counts as a
         long session of anything and have I ever had one.  How long
have I walked compared to others and how much
   money have I made and when can I quit this big quiet disgrace
that I wipe from my face every day, trying to stay clean,
              thanking God, thanking Sirius and then Betelgeuse.   Seeing
    that I’ve got a short night and a long drive.  Unfortunately with these gas prices
              a drive.  But until then, the night, the music, the nasally laugh
  from a site over yonder.  And the crystalline light of requiems still
               burning like rain forests in the tropics.  Oh, who doesn’t
         want one more life?

Stand by Someone Else

2008-05-30T17:05:00.000-05:00

Let’s talk socially.
The people you live close to
can hear you through the hills.
I never wanted to bring the
to bring the bag of chips to your party to
to feel the cold of your doorknob.
The bag is empty but for salt
at the bottom.       Salt is is
pre-hypertension.     So be.
Relax.      Digging for pennies under
the porch isn’t a bad idea.
Just don’t find any dead bodies.

Once upon a time in Belleville

2008-05-08T22:44:00.001-05:00

But I hide behind the spa I had installed.
Gravel and country clubs and khoury league.
Stoners in the high schools,
Businesses long ago come and go.
East end, west end — what’s the difference.
It’s not city, it’s not country. What is it?
People call it Bellevue.
They’re like, “Oh yeah, you’re from Bellevue….”
Sometimes I correct them.
Fast food, soft serve, another big box arrives.
VHS or betamax. Strip malls stripped down.
A search reveals only that my baseball cards are worthless.
Fountain in the middle. Courthouse. County seat.
The name of a place I used to shop for jeans.
Back when I was handing my heart to grade school girls.

Word sketch #7

2008-05-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

   Laptop    sideshow Bob marine
        monkey rail   ghost town

  Santa Rosa    sound
line jumpers
Lovers of the land

ticking clock summer broken windows
the last

   grain of sand I cannot   count

        forever & what then?

Metaphysical sketch #1

2008-04-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

Pervasive life
is the height of chaos.
And curiosity.—
The loss of heat to space
is entropy
and so ash order;—
We wait again
to bubble up as life.
Call it energy if you like...
Using ourselves as another ending,
the next new beginning;—

Commerce, trade

2008-04-24T15:14:00.003-05:00

fed ex tomato plant

has flowers but won't fruit

trucks, planes,

fuel surcharges —

diesel at $4/gallon.

And one word:

Bees.

Antwerping

2008-04-18T10:24:00.004-05:00

Your toes against me moved,
your "best feet." You were told.
Morning herald come
along wearing shades.
My window open all night.
Heels on the cobblestone street
and I can't help but looking.
Down to the plaza and someone
drinking coffee, unfolding a bicycle.
Your best feet against me moved.
Heels on the cobblestone streets.
Not finishing upstairs,
walking alone with frites.
If you weren't the only one of record.

California Haiku

2008-04-10T22:42:00.003-05:00

1

The morning fit with fog —
Morro's stacks and stone
just barely visible.

2

Tide goes in and out —
never the same,
always the same.

3

Standing on rocks
waiting for the tide
to go down.

4

Sketching the ocean,
my fingers wet
with charcoal.

5

Felled by beer,
I pass out while it's still light
in California.

Literally

2008-03-29T19:00:00.001-05:00

The windows the
windows. I’m through with
trying to be the next
great poet you’ve never heard of.
Really,

Morning Prayer

2008-03-22T17:24:00.002-05:00

     write    write    write

Let me write until the morning light.

                 Glory,   frying pan,    coffee.

           Sun, don’t I know you?

              I dream to wake before you age.

Banango

2008-03-17T19:40:00.000-05:00

a mostly banana mango

often confused with the manana

which itself is often confused with

often infused with

tomorrow

Pick-up Lines

2008-03-13T12:46:00.000-05:00

1
Teeth brushing
is the moral imperative
of the go-go dancers
in the convention hall.

2
Picante just the name given
to a sauce with peppers in it.
They don’t even have to be
all that hot.

Lesson Learned

2008-03-01T13:27:00.000-06:00

Used to a have a nice anthology
of Beat writings. Poetry, fiction, excerpts.
I got rid of it to raise cash for buying paint.
That was dumb — but very Beat!

Jopo

2008-02-24T23:13:00.001-06:00

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.

Fortune Cookie Diplomacy

2008-02-19T21:46:00.000-06:00

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.

Water Co.

2008-02-17T21:01:00.001-06:00

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

Here I Am, Lougely

2008-02-11T08:47:00.000-06:00

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?

Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T09:48:00.001-06:00

Americans twisted
with tornadoes and decisions
about who would lead.

Untitled Report on News & Religion

2008-02-05T07:10:00.000-06:00

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.

Brown study

2008-01-28T14:37:00.001-06:00

Dark ocean eve.
The waves along the horizon
Are not even waves because they’re too far away.
That sound is the sound of wind rising,
Asserting itself like a dirty cop.
No second thoughts and no guilt.
I could have been so beautiful.
Crabs are finding their nacred shells,
Skimmers are taking their winnings off the top.
The pier is still broken from last time.
I’m busy naming the next hurricane after myself.
When will I come to land? — who knows.
Guidebooks, clouds, soaring hotels, and sand.
In the waterfront bar, my image on satellite TV
Spins and spins. I can’t make up my mind.

Misc. Haiku 46-50

2008-01-22T14:11:00.001-06:00

46

Royal Success Systems —
Convincing people
That their graffiti is art.

47

Dog ears appear
From the heart of a sleeping ball —
Truck w/ trailer passes by.

48

Drove out to the
Country for some air —
Coming back, the city ahaze.

49 (after Kerouac)

In the Belleville house,
My father’s
Abominable yawns.

50
Is my head back this far?
I was just now having
The night’s first beer.

Landscape: Benelux into Germany

2008-01-07T10:23:00.001-06:00

a.
            A city like Rotterdam

                              bombed, rebuilt

The Nazis said

               submit or we’ll bomb you into the ocean

      The ‘Dammers submitted but got bombed anyway

What’s the point in that?

                              Now, taller buildings

                                         Europe’s busiest port

            A few coffeeshops tucked away.

In a café, cream of mushroom soup,

                 the best bread and a little butter

            in view of the deal-making, sky-scraping

                    torsoffices.

b.
            Pear trees. More than a pair — an orchard.

                    Phew. These clouds. The ones did Bruegel see.

Finally, he thinks, I get to use some lighter colors.

                        Sun burns off the gray clouds

that hung so close to th’orizon, as if shielding a secret.

                              A harvest not yet reaped,

               A greenhouse.      A sign for Mäes.

            Unpack and walk the city.

            Beer from a vending machine.

            Nightfall in Belgium.

                                                Not just me

                       but the whole city

meeting for a party on the pier,

                 urged on by 100 dee-jays.

c.
            ANKUNFT then ABFLUG

         A train is made for getting away,

            a bed for coming home to.

It was raining that morning we awoke in Antwerp,

                              the last morning.

               Tot ziens!

And now, rows ahead,

                              a woman gives me German words for free.

    Undistracted by busy tracks,

                    boys practice football

                     while their slightly bearded brothers

hang kord jackets from hooks over their seats

            and tune up slide-show presentations

   they could give in five fluent languages

                              leaving me entirely

                    jealous.

Shuffle

2007-12-28T12:12:00.000-06:00

Damage by night,
Construction by day.
Boom and then depression.
Glass of this, puff of e(i)ther.
Sweat, flex, towel off.
Screw this, screw that, watch the calories.
Lunch today was a fruit bar.
Worry the afternoon,
Get ready for dinner, have a cold one.

You build something up, you build a beltway.
You find your muse and then you ask her to stop singing.

How could you do that?
You get a bunch of whiskey for Christmas,
Your friend finds you a little grass.
It's the BBC and Amy Goodman
And Tom Ashbrook "On Point" on podcast.

What can I read for information?
Democracy now, democracy now;
I need information.
I was expecting a 1% newsday and
Instead it's 54 — at which Bhutto is dead,
Suicide bombed, shot in the head.

Let's worry (instead) about our own democracy.
One heart, two hats
And a lot of confusion.
Anything could be my dreams.
My dreams as real as this.

Songs for Art and Memory

2007-12-18T22:13:00.000-06:00

All of the great
Songs about memory
And art
Have already been
Written. I didn’t
Have the .
I forget, I didn’t
Have the power.
Picasso said it all about
War, Petrelli could fly.
And here I am feeling
So ordinary.
Let me not have to go
To work
And curse the goddam computer
And overdose on coffee cup cures.
Picasso married the dancer in 1918.
Petrelli saved the world.
I’m content taking love for granted
And writing about the Senate.
I know,
This is just another poem.

Count Dracula Doesn't Count

2007-12-12T22:00:00.001-06:00

When DST kicked in
The door of November
Earth shook with time and temp.

The river covered itself with broken clothing.
The moon was but a stolen egg.

Those of us suing Energy
Foamed butane therms
At the incalculable mouth.

Rabid with due dates
We had the delinquent notion
To run our ceiling fans
Counter-clockwise in winter;

To share the hot air fair.
As if at a hot dog stand
Along Labrador Coast in summer.

Drunk on the boardwalk,
Running short on ketchup,
And seriously pissed off

About the weather back home.

Master & Apprentice

2007-12-01T18:00:00.000-06:00

I

Compare them & see.
The city of youth
Grows up alongside the ageless river,
Becomes apprentice of its flow.
The river is bustling
But always there,
Always also there.
You would think it does
But it has nowhere to go.
The city responds
With pigeons, people,
Seagulls on the backs of boats,
Sligo Enterprises, precocious Sligo Steel.
The smokestacks of necessary factories
Grow first, test the wind.

II

One day, the river knows,
The smokestacks will wobble;
They will wonder what they go to.
But that is later, when the river
Will barely make out the painted words
“Union Electric” fading finally
One bright-white day
Along the brick façade.

III

Before they were empty
Those empty blocks of stone
Churned out their products like a river,
And the barges barged,
And the river flew,
And together they answered the urgent needs
Of a warring nation.
Though the city’s now splayed quiet,
The river still flows,
No older,
But busy filtering phosphate,
Fat yet with catfish grumbling
At the crumbling lock & dam,
Lonely for those buildings once high with smoke,
Once prodding the river with metal chutes,
Once laughing gaily,
Once pumping like the master.

Ambidextrous

2007-11-26T20:12:00.000-06:00

I’m holding two pens,
one in either hand.
One pen is for me,
one is for my muse.
I can’t write left-handed
but the muse can.

When my wife coughs
at midnight,
the heater burns with
orange light.
Tonight.
I lead with my left,
not my right.

Landscape: Inferior Interior

2007-11-19T14:06:00.000-06:00

There is a tightness in my head
As if my eyes were chewing gum.

Today I learned that tequila is not afraid to be its own drink.
That is to say, it does not take orders.

Not on the rocks.
Not(e)s of coconut, pepper, and reminiscent moon.

I have not meditated since last month.
There is no Monastery de Lunazul.

The pop-up pourer on this bottle
Was a nice surprise, said my friend, startled.

Now he is busy making apple bread.
Of the rats in the walls, all are dead.

Plants people the inside because it is cold out there.
Who says I can’t accomplish depth?

Ode to RJR –or– The S&P 8

2007-11-13T09:43:00.000-06:00

I
I want to be respected
When it comes to smoking.
I am not a chimney.
I do not burn coal.
Tobacco leaf, bronzed,
Is strict pleasure.
Not a TV set!

II
Cocaine is OK
For gov’t purposes.
Otherwise, just missiles and snow.
A body.
American Shoe.
Impotence.
This is the age of the stock market —
Born and then risen again!

III
Someone moves behind a screen.
Not only is this not Kansas.
This is sweetheart deals.
BLT’s.
Sundays & NASCAR.
The cars keep making circles
Until the gasoline is gone.
The hybrid of council,
Last in voting,
Wins by ten lengths.
Top speed?
100 mph.

IV
Saakashvili, Saakashvili!
But that’s just a nickname. Fuzz.

V
Someone is smoking in the bathroom.
Someone is making flapjacks
And dousing them with maple syrup.
The real stuff.
All the honeybees are gone
And the trees are dying of dry humor.

VI
So I hold my pen
Like a baby birthing between my legs.
Maybe now they’ll give me those meds.
The red ones
Stamped with the names
Of good mutual funds.

VII
And then here comes the headache,
The stomach purge.
Regret like a steamship
Crashing th’orizon.
It runs on seaweed
And all of its passengers
Are sick
And ready to sue.

VIII
It was all I could do
To keep from crying.
My megaton novel
Exploded before I did
And all I had left
Were these lines…

How the Radiators got Rich

2007-11-09T09:00:00.000-06:00

My body is in
perfect balance right now
but I miss all radiators.

We’ll drink together
(said one radiator to another)
and the heating oil inside us
will go up by as much as
thirty-two dollars a barrel.

They both chuckle like wineslaves.
I awake to the sounds of a coup.

Double Future

2007-11-03T23:35:00.000-05:00

When I died my life became
Nothing but a reel-to-reel
Of all the dreams I’d ever had.
Nightmares, wet ones, lucidity, and flying.
But when I got through with those, my afterlife
Was nothing but the dreams within the dreams.
And now, with that tape flickering
In the empty silence of a classroom,
I’m wishing I’d had at least one dream
Of a dream about a dream.

Getting to I-44

2007-10-27T17:17:00.000-05:00

Every moment has to be important

And I can have one of those moments

Unfloored booze
Electricians munching
On delivery wires

I eat a hunger for art
And fight back
A green tea burp. Hey

Gesso is only the beginning—

Misc. Haiku 41-45

2007-10-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

41

My favorite poets
   Had their own problems—
How reassuring.

42

This is just an act
   Me sitting here stoned and drunk
In the chair.

43

Hey, aren’t the zinnias
   Pretty?
Let’s have another drink.

44

As I watch The War,
   I decide to skip dinner—
The battle of my bulge.

45

Bare nail in wall
   Where my painting hung—
Now I see the sun.

Grain

2007-10-15T08:36:00.000-05:00

Night as hard as
The table we sit at.

Once wood the
Table grew old,
Became a table.

Night, pressed,
Becomes morning.

Icebergs

2007-10-10T08:29:00.001-05:00

1
Hello at the margins.
Hello Inuit suntan.
That feels very dense to me, water.
Grilling heat, goon of history.
The ceiling fills with ice
But falls as rain.
Oil is the new old gold; again.

2
My legs ache
With the memory of beer
This time last night.
Altocirrus when I close my eyes.
In October it's still too hot
For a comforter.

3
Man has changed the world.
Russia owns the Arctic,
All the new shipping routes.
I sign up for art
But all I make is war.

Misc. Haiku 36-40

2007-10-05T10:05:00.001-05:00

36

Hark! The dog makes the sound
Of someone interested
In my poetry.

37

Getting drunk
To the story of Enron—
Alcohol flows like gas.

38

Untamed land
Just waiting to be explored—
From the five hundreds…

39

Swimming the halls of fortune,
Beset by the winnings
Of the greatest generation.

40

Macadamia nut
Dusted with imperial
Gunpowder.

Misc. Haiku 31-35

2007-10-05T09:56:00.000-05:00

31

Flushed Rhine has risen
To welcome our arrival
In the wine-land.

32

Skyline sky,
Skybleached sky.
How many times I will describe it.

33

Coin empire,
You’re running out of coins—
Guess how I paid for you.

34

Sky more blue
Or clouds more white?
What haiku at this height?

35

Heels on a cobblestone street.
Oh, I can’t help
But looking.

Mastodon

2007-10-02T07:41:00.000-05:00

A garbage can related to a steam engine trembles,
or a buzzard of a dolphin writes a love letter
to a dust bunny about a buzzard.
A blithe spirit hovering above the parking lot
starts reminiscing about lost glory, lost glory!—
but a demon for an almost burly food stamp lazily cooks
cheese grits for a paycheck toward a minivan.
The buzzard panics, and a razor blade of the tabloid
earns frequent-flier miles.
Still the hole puncher of the paycheck
teaches a college-educated traffic light how not to blink.
Downtown, downtown. The psychotic judge slyly borrows money
from the hot-tempered food stamp,
because the cocker spaniel pours
freezing cold water on the wedding dress. Ruined.
From the bench he yells at the plaintiff,
“Any bowling ball can figure out a financial spider,
but it takes a real razor blade to seek a mating ritual!” Seriously.
Now and then, the judge adjusts his tripod, borrows more money,
this time from a minivan defined by a bitter bottle of beer.
Soothed by interested, unrated interest rates,
no longer does the fruit cake meditate, nor the pork chop panic;
but a line dancer from the crank case
finds subtle faults with the ocean, throwing her shoes into it.
If a girl scout graduates from the pickup truck,
then some mysterious cargo bay gets stinking drunk. On gin.
A recliner prays, and the blithe spirit related to some tabloid reporter
bestows great honor upon another senatorial chess board. Remember.
When you see the revered fighter pilot,
it means that the cashier now flies into a rage;
that the earring buries our moronic deficit;
that a roller coaster of a cowboy shares a shower with a mastodon.
And there is no room for the judge.

Lasers

2007-09-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

by the cbw

Dreams set on recycle
  Rinse, but not quite repeat

Corner, cornea: my eyes seem askew

Lost in mazes of my sub-
  Basement; flooded by torrential tears

A race is on but I overslept.

Step by leap by bound,
  I try to recover

If a penny was collected by
  Charon I’d be an unconscious
Millionaire and happy to remain
  Forever in the deep

My home is swiftly gone
  And too soon, however,

I am alone and awake.

Ezra Ain't Easy

2007-09-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

1
     I could’ve gone

to see Pound while he was
still in the hospital.
But my mother-in-law hates him
     and it would’ve killed her.
So I just let
           the crazyman be;
     him & Fords,
     Jags, Land Rovers, etc.

2
One of the
           must-read poets
     said he couldn’t write
           with stubble on his chin;
     called for
           a holiday for writing.
In other words,
     a good time
     to swear off coffee,
     not to get too gassed.

3
                        Ezra Brooks
bourbon you say you
           were drinking.
But why then
     do I smell lime
     on your breath—
I am not a teetotaller,
     not a prohibitionist. I know

     there is no cuba libre for whiskey,
     none for fascists the world around.

German 'Scapes

2007-09-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

i
grass blue grass
and green on the hill
one an artist has seen
memorialized, made famous
protected & infected
who sides along it now as a creek
wishing he’d be quiet
before trickling into
the reservoir

ii
blue skies, blue skies & holy
cumulus not beset
by even an ipod as it gathers
          water to share
with the terra cotta village
stuck in song below

iii
danger signs danger
           old train
sheathed   in graffiti res.
rhine races the tracks
all the way
                to Köln.

Another Heckler Discarded

2007-09-12T18:45:00.000-05:00

The CNN International guide to graphics.
How to lose friends
(in 10 days)
w/o trying.
Petraeus tries to persuade us
w/ numbers and graphs
Question marks and unclean spikes.
You know what Twain the junky said.
Persuade us, betray us.
Joint committee puff puff.

Petraeus wears a military toupee.
The heckler i.e. the citizen
of constipated viewpoint
(when WAS the last election?)
(and did I sleep through it?)
Oh yes, the heckler
will be escorted
says old Ike Skeleton
chairman
and chief speech mumbler mumbler
cookie crumbler.
What is the state of al Qaeda Iraq?
the fifty first state...

An hour into Petraeus
and WE
oh yeah, the people
have nothing
null Ø
empty set
empty and upset
empty and on the loveseat
passed out and pissed off

The heckler was our oversight
One voice for a nation numbed
by the neo-doctor's prescription
of confusion and deadlines
re-elect me in the morning.
The heckler said

Just when exactly will these troops be removed?

A question that cut like glass,
and that the brass
saw right through.
Again mr. skelton
the skeleton
instructed that the democrat
(small d, i.e. the unimportant kind)
would be excorted from the room
arms flailing, flip-flops dragging
against the war-worn marble floor.

Rubber screeching against marble
That sound...

That was the Q & A, the T & A
the AT&T—
the anti-trusted FAQ.

It had to be broken up.
One heckler is two too money.
The democracy is alive,
dear prophet.

Another heckler discarded.

No, I Didn't Hear That One

2007-08-26T08:40:00.000-05:00

knock knock
I don’t care who walks into a bar
or who’s there
or how many polock chickens
                      it takes
to screw in a lightbulb
or what the lawyer said
to his shoe or what religion
the shoe was
                      I’m not waiting
I’m not waiting who
for the punchline
of that joke you’re supposed to tell
                      all dirty
and when a phone rings in the bar
& is Jacques Strappe there?
           I’m crossing the road

and you shouldn’t have to ask me why

BF.B

2007-08-21T09:15:00.000-05:00

Breath stinks
Of brandy.
The woman, the drink.
The first girl
I ever slept with
Now works
For Brown Forman.
She’s still drunk I guess.

Heat Haiku

2007-08-18T09:11:00.001-05:00

by R. L. Wisdom

it's too god damned hot
i feel like ending it all
when will autumn come?

water source

2007-08-13T09:08:00.000-05:00

  murmur

                  aria

“there’s a voice there,”
            says the mother

     babble

                           traffic

  in all these ways
  she speaks to me

Mike Bacsik

2007-08-09T13:27:00.000-05:00

           —BASIC.

756*

        "Toss the ball back."

Like they did in Wrigley

       when I was young.

    When a home run

         meant the ball left home

    & if you wanted it back

           you had to run after it

           as it rolled down Waveland...

Misc. Haiku 26-30

2007-08-06T08:40:00.000-05:00

26
Out in a field,
Weaving a wreath
Of cornflowers.

27
Head hurts, sounds
Of the faucet upstairs—I don’t
Want to write any poetry.

28
Reading on summer porch
Surrounded by oak and maple.
Beyond, useless world.

29
Squirrels the lorax
To my bygone yellow patch
Of sunflowers.

30
Alas! A sound the dog and I
Both thought could be her car
Was only a weedeater.

distinct observations of the 1st kind

2007-08-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

by the cbw

helicopters, distant hammering, trees rustlin, plants tussling, a crack-house green-house, dirty white chairs, car engines, pots, pans being pounded, faint TV (very faint), craigs list furniture, ants, a dangerous looking hammock nestled in the ominous shadow, some pot, some water, some sot who sought to wrought a write under a rotten umbrella, flies buzzing, kitchen tinkering, hidden keys, dunhill (full flavor), matches + bic lighter (red), pink railings, one branch of (red) roses, bamboo shoots, a pause, then a breeze, garden hose hidden in only green patch of otherwise dead back-lawn grass, strange bird in house, rugs both rolled and un-rolled, crushed red pepper next to umbrella handle; poll w/ umbrella handle and supporting useful umbrella, picnic table bench that can comfortably support three people of appropriate body-mass-index, five used matches, two fully smoked butts (one marlboro) resting comfortably in the crack of a well-worn picnic table of the typical burgundy hue, cell-phone, pen, ink, motion captured right her……

Fifteen Minutes

2007-07-30T18:13:00.000-05:00

Sky chopper
Knows all the traffic.
Barges float on,
Down the river,
Under bridges.
The clouds signal weather;
The banks give time and temp.
And I find yet another reason.

Misc. Haiku 21-25

2007-07-24T13:12:00.000-05:00

21
Shy but rugged stars
Have hiked the hills
But never walk the streets.

22
I could spend all night
Viewing the moon and writing.
Or I could sleep-dream.

23
The cop who stops to weep
On the shoulder of the road
Slows a thousand speeders.

24
Caught on the tracks
After tagging a train car.
Second coat still wet.

25
When a cry for help
Is hard on your health.
Saxophone doth wail, wail.

Maybe I'll Find Something I Can Use

2007-07-20T14:46:00.000-05:00

Home, going back home. To
Where my parents live, still
Live, on the other side of my old
Room. It’s filled with treasures
Of forgotten days, the
Treasures now forgotten themselves,
Sunk to the murky floor of my life’s ocean
Along with pencil-hearted notes
And the odd extra-base hit I managed.
I go home, look around. I always
Expect to find something.
A twenty stashed away in a spare copy of
Walden, a perc cracked in half and left to rest
In a piece of bad pottery from high school ceramics.
I open a closet so quiet and cold,
So grateful to see me—to see anyone.
I read again through old writings
And I try to believe I’ve found something
I can use. I tell myself I’m in those pages,
I’m somewhere around here. Playing hot/cold
With the past I get warm, warmer, waaarrmmerrr,
I’m burning up!—I find myself
Balled to a crisp in the sock drawer,
Where I’ve always been hiding, mixed in with the
Mexican coins and a dead man’s cufflinks.

The Laws

2007-07-17T06:49:00.000-05:00

The law has found
A nick on my soul.
And begun to lick reasonably,
Like a cat on the porch in late summer,
cleaning its clean paws.
It believes it’s helping
But that’s not the point.
The nick becomes a cut,
Becomes a gash, a wound.
Their maws dripping
With green compunction,
More and more laws
Throw themselves
Into my righteous abyss.
They sink to the bottom,
Always deeper.
They drown in words ambiguous,
Looking back up to the surface
In hopes of spotting someone
Who will shed his robe
And dive on down to them.
Who will know exactly what they mean.

Baseball Haiku 11-15

2007-07-13T10:28:00.000-05:00

11
Whatever he does,
he can’t walk him here—
oh, God, he hit him…

12
Ray and I
call him Joe Table—
José Mesa.

13
Who cares how much
money he makes—
All-Star shortstop.

14
No need to
finish the inning—
walk-off homer.

15
“On the run, on the run:
he can’t get it—!”
Batter waved on toward home…

Landscape: Connecticut 2/07

2007-07-10T08:24:00.000-05:00

          along the long, tidal river
                     an indian word meaning
               college towns
                     a good use of land
          evergreens
                          pine and droopy fir
                          pinecones growing thick
                                 this time of year
               hike anywhere
               hike in your backyard
               up one of those hills
               see a warehouse from there
                                                                  a pond
          industry then forest
          forest then industry
          subdivisions before subdivisions
               advent and yellow buses
               bright as the low-hanging moon
                                 trucking its way through winter-white
                                 & brown/green
          undisturbed trees are islands
                     in a tobacco farmer’s fields
                     red barns for drying
                     long as a runway

          europe colony connecticut

                     a highway knowing where to go
                     a river not dammed
                                 happy with ice
                     its fish headed south
                                 for a night
                                 in the sea-borne city.

          They swim with the lights of disco in their eyes.

Misc. Haiku 16-20

2007-07-06T08:49:00.000-05:00

16
Stars make faces
When they tread the spaces
Between themselves and Earth.

17
Full summer-moon
And arch of garden hose—
You too can make a moonbow.

18
Mississippi
And Ohio confluence—
Almost an ocean.

19
Spending a summer’s night reading—
June bug fights the window screen.

20
Can I love everyone at once?
Moon shrouded
By only a bit of haze.