souvenir…

“souvenir”

my baseball bat does most of
the work when it comes to
disposing any leftover souvenirs
from sometime prior-to. course
i’ve got enough kerosene to do
the job, but it’s cathartic to smash
before you burn, if we’re gonna
be sensible about all this,,,

pictures burn best & picture frames
smash easier than pieces of
paper exposing the asshole i mighta
been back in my asshole days.
right now a snake slithers across
pondscum water baking in sunlight
(code red kinda day i’m told.)

me & a cigarette both burn in the sun;
too fucking muggy to think about
past lives. i stabbed my
still-burning cigarette out in a
clamshell ashtray i found
on some forgotten beach
trip. don’t remember
when or where.

———————————————————-

quasar the vermillion dust (part 2)…

“heresy on the potomac”

lemming-angels on parade. there
is no crossing post vigil on Vine
Street, where kids play in the street,
fiddling around with zippos running low
on fuel. even with the flint ground
low & sparks hard to come by
everything still gets lit.

all the words spoken, written &
thought require more than is asked
with them. pseudo-intellectual ex-
pressions in daily vernacular. those
dirty looks shot my way feed my ego;
real hatred is as inspired as deep
love but given voice so much easier
than prayer.

shower-clean frame emergent
archetypical; any who follow must
(by all theory) listen to the words &
music. some go on to prove it later,
others sit in creaky chairs telling
stories about that time spit & paper
came together to build a better
cigarette.

quasar the vermillion dust (part 1)…

“as in as was”

knife & a candle or maybe
a bic lighter glowing or
causing the glow. i gave up
trying to figure it out a long
time ago & you should too.
even if i had a dorsal fin
& sharp teeth & cruised
the beach looking for dinner
(as is said by some)
i doubt you’d get more than
a groan from the piss-puddle
jumpers. what can you say
but tough crowd?

fins & teeth to the side; i’m
hungry but for the moment
i’m settling down to listen to
JH trying to crawl out of Wain-
wrights Strange Weirdos. yeah,
symbolism & all that is a
regular motherfucker these days;
tell me all about it.

i’d chat more with the mirror,
but like i said, i’m hungry &
the line gets longer while we
talk. supersonically staying in
one place won’t get me there
any faster. i’m not sure if that
growl was from stomach or eyes,
so far past equivalency of
the moment.

i’ll chew, lick & swallow until
satiation. same as always,
at least when asked.

———————————————————

New series using coincidence as a thematic property. No new form, just irony as it shows itself to me while I wander. Hope you might enjoy it.

marisol reviews the attendent literature…

“someday”

expressively styled by time spent
& a little excess.
no plan to follow
& never too many mornings
waking up to your alarm.

one invitation
was enough to get you here;
looking past unexplainable miracles,
fate or destiny, etc.
that kind of thing
never was my specialty,
even in the years
when nothing was as
probable as everything.

there isn’t any rationale: i
forgot to read your words & licking
the hand holding the pen is my
way of speaking to you while
you move around the room.

everything in time. three minutes
after forever, who will know the
prescience of momentary stillness
just before you take me home?
as you assure me you’ll stay
another night we admire
the inside view from the others
mask. even a kiss that
trumps zirconium conversations.
all questions will arrive;
how & when
is anybody’s guess.

quizzical reflections on
pirate princess radio
with just enough static
to remind us of summer trips.
climbing from bed after
a five year daydream with
frequent pause for
cigarette fantasy-fulfillment
moments; the last of the
immortals reminds us that
sometimes forever is just
a really long time.

————————————————

Nice flip-flops. We know the ending already. The fun part is finding out how we get there. So… how do we get there?.

cheap cigars…

“cheap cigars”

found six swiss army knives
scattered around the house. none
had much of an edge to the blade
but 3
were heavy enough
to break glass.
i ran out of windows
before running out of
red handled knives.

nature of the world
i guess.

where’s your head?.?.?.

“i didn’t ask”

sometimes the answer comes
before the question hits music
& clothes drop off. by now all
the words are scrambled with
clean laundry challenges to
direct the action ever farther
down from intelligent creation
to intelligent usage. i have seen
a face.

but i can’t
find my head. i was arguing with
theophiles & guitarists over some
missed string here or there, a
leibnitzian nightmare to jump from
that precipice because our hero
might be down there & i’ve got
questions for him.

unless spinoza is looking to advise
re: harder, stronger, longer,
it’ll have to wait. abstract discussion
being more my style; i’ll give it to the
junkies to play with while i attend to
something more corporeal. (see,
i can get my head out of the clouds
every once in a while.)

———————————————

Penny ante psychology. You get what you pay for, but assuming you know this at the outset, it isn’t that important. Next time you’re arguing over the meaning of life, spend some time asking why life needs meaning. Just a thought.

musbeok…

“nice to meet me”

after a shortly interminable drive
i let myself outta my car on
beachline & drove off to grab at
clouds floating on the surf
& turtles lodged in the sand.

much as i’d rather stare seaward
& decide on possible surprise endings,
there’s no time because i know
i’m already omphaloskeptic & bloody
to boot. maybe an accident
nobody saw coming?

musbeok;
vagrant screams are absent in
my windpipe. i didn’t bother to
warn me that you gotta
slice the bad bits off yourself
when there ain’t a soul around
to do it for you.

found a sunburned sonofabitch
callin’ himself by my name
waiting for a
ride back from the beach.
took the first chance to go along
& get along, he threw down
with a few bars from his favorite
song. i sang backup
so he could sing lead.

this asshole knew
all the hits. by the time we’d gone from
sand to dirt, we’d hit most of the
majors & even a few of the minors.
like i said;
musbeok.

————————————————————–

Music saves the day. Thanks Mr. Henry, you saved my ass AGAIN. (For someone I will never meet, I owe you a shitload man. Pay it forward, right?). And no, the poem isn’t ABOUT Joe Henry, it’s about something else completely. JH is just my idol.

more than 48…

“more than 48”

it was only our 56th day & i knew
i’d hurt her by chance as well
as i knew she’d never admit feeling any
pain. we’re too far gone for any kindness
to soften the harder edges of what
used to be; i’m already bleeding
at the edge of tears knowing i let
a princess down.

i couldn’t take her where we shoulda
been; my car wouldn’t start & i for-
got my wallet in the coldest bedroom,
collecting silence like souvenirs,
(poems are free to the public)
i can’t sleep on this lonely night.

i told the mirror it was bad luck &
piss-poor timing. i shaved off more
than 48 hours of stubble at 3 a.m.
lookin’ for a smile that had disappeared
hoping it would dramatically reveal itself.
i ain’t angry, just disappointed in a
smile i couldn’t coax out of hiding.
been more than 48 hours on high alert,

she has no interest in Cartesian
dilemmas, even if she worries about
it without knowing what she’s worried
about. forget that fucking Gordian
knot; whether alex cut through it
or not, 56 days have passed & the sun
shines down as the earth rotates. all
that’s wrecked will be fixed with
sleep & the days last cigarette
smoked down to the nub.

———————————————————–

Thomas Paine once wrote “These are the times that try mens souls.” I’d always taken him at his word, but lately it would seem to be far more of a metaphysical than metaphorical comment on the trials of life. Ah well, you do the best you can & hope for the best, just like everything else in life. Off to bed; two days in a row is a real killer & tomorrow is already here…

memetic rhetoric…

“translator’s nightmare”

started out as an exhalation
during an argument over the
possibilities of architectural
transcendence. ended with
a blessing & after that nobody
talked about it anymore.

i realized (after taking too long
stranglin’ simple timeline alterations)
the only option left was to try like
hell not to leave anything behind;
identification ain’t my specialty
but i’ve no evidence to give
& nobody to give it too.

it seemed so important to finish
the project even as sight failed
to aid in the hamburger roll. i
was almost alone without a clue
’bout what comes next;
cigarette tips don’t reveal much
about where we are even as
they burn.

letting go of the last breath
taken on purpose by suggestion
of a friend. rationale of the friendly;
by the time an ultra-light was
reconstructed as a silver torch,
semantics were already on the
way out. names of roses enjoyed
Shakespearean freedom while waves
finally grabbed whatever it was
they’d been reaching towards
since being shoved by the moon.

another cigarette. blue-sky
thunder & waitin’ on a storm
i’m sure is coming to pass.
another deep drag on a
cigarette while i concentrate.
everything goes on as it
always does. another deep
drag & nothing moves while
everything changes.

—————————-

Dedicated to BDS. It takes a lot of intellectual courage to withstand the attacks of the simple-minded. I admire that. Taking it with decency & goodwill shows the true measure of the man. Whether you believe he was right or wrong doesn’t matter. Truly a thinking man’s thinking man.

little syd’s v & o is still on sale!.!.!.

“party for one”

it’s fair because i ain’t
gonna know what happened
when i wake up tomorrow morn.
playing stakes high tits-up
eyes closed always goes
about the same; drink until
lil’ syd gets me warm & pass
the shaver. there’s work
to be done & a lot to get
through. i can take this
one down myself.

i don’t have to play pretend.
all my flags are whipping
in high winds as day rotates
into night, as always. first
lick of the inner warmth of
orange malt keeps me coming
back for more,
just like it used to be. even
the cigars taste like wine. coming
& going’s of the rest of the
world keep fooling the fool;
of course it’s a shock when
truth comes clean.
i’ll get over it.

half drunk for the first time since
last time is only coming home
again if you live in a shit-pile.
i just drive mine under the speed
-limit in the left lane. do whatever
you think you can. i’ve got
physics on my side & going through
me will never work.

music too loud & i’m too drunk
to care. whatever else i was
chasing with orange drank is
forgotten in the clouds of
lemon-smoke descending across
the apartment. last i heard,
everything will be all right
tomorrow: that’s less than a half
hour away. i feel i can make
it then die laughing at myself
trying to live up to a
self-administered nickname.

————————————-

I was so excited to see that big orange bottle staring me down that I barely noticed the price had quadrupled since HS. Amazing what 15 years will do. A toast to the man of the hour; he will ALWAYS be a better man than I, & I look up to him now more than ever. That he can’t be here to reminisce doesn’t mean any of those days are forgotten. Between the good man and the wise man, it really doesn’t leave nearly the mystery you’d think my existence would represent.