Thursday, January 7, 2016

an unfinished novel about _____ and the sacrifices made to _____ (?) during the process [2011]














prologue:  [     ]

            (...)
"Yeah?"
  "[     ]?  It's Daphne."
(...)
"...as the only way I keep up with my life.  I like acting immoral..."
"...on cold hard concrete.  I don't think it..."
  "...I'm also unsure whether something happened or..."
(...)
"...you imagined it.  It had been boarded up, so I just gave her..."
(...)
"...a glance at Mark, gathered the stuff, and...you imagined it when Lois..."
"...the windows to see the market..."
"...turns out...that appealed to dirty old men.  I wondered if he had dipped into..."
"...for magazines.  And...Lois is absolutely next?  Whatever...I want..."
"...can an acid..."
(...)
"...isn't my name.   Consider how long I sat...it on that...list..."
"...feeling what you're...I've done before..."
"...at all illegal..."
"...to..."
"...clinician..."
"...intercom."
(...)
"[     ]?  [     ]?"
(...)















chapter 1:  a (contagious) framed photo of the only person I hate

"I can help"
(...)
that way it did

I needed it
I knew I was craving     (among other things)
the "maybe" of the previous nights

he just said "make it noon"     
I shook his tit hand     
I was in so much crude time
  but spit the gum out just the same

  I kept breathing suspicious television 
the day after I started to dance for you
(I don't think)     "I really don't understand"     Tracy (then she smiled)
candy-ass instead     of course     I just think a sexual wisecrack   

that would be the way I was
in private     "make some"  

                                                these young false drug posers 
fuck impersonations of 
drug culture while sucking the cops
with their all
as any unholy demon would do
  "it's a long pearl strand"     goo-dried booze
with some kind of disease

someone stole their drugs
(she should stop whining) "please"
I did     then I don't know how I felt
  not anymore

"I might have been started
  but I never get my time"

[she left a Polaroid picture of herself
beside the naked corpse]
















chapter 2:  M.A.S.S. (silently weighed)

simply sick in the "mail and secure storage" mouth     (no breaking it down)
it didn't take every trick in the east to change your mind
  "the first letter is A, B or C"
I had a feeling I'd love two women
  (...)

                                    a very [     ]-sounding man answered
                                    the answers did not die: 
  no apparent friends
troubled possible home life
casually fatal little disease
too incoherently cheerful

getting  a  bunch
of     appetizers
"yeah     some do"
"I'm not sure why"
"I twitched against her buttock"
"I told her to sit in the rear"
"she didn't even have a secret"
"coast clear?"
"where are you talking about?"
"the feasibility"
"I mean     sure     this happens"
"I realized that"

that  kitten mumbled [with]
[her] hands on [the]
keychain

in fact     the M.A.S.S. pole is: A VERY OLD SOLID fact DOOR
                                                 [in a whisper     "heavy"]

I no longer wanted to be there
a very [     ]-sounding man answered

                                                            (...)

[if] I can in any way "make it noon"     then
put your glance     (as only you wanted to tell you)
in each "please"     and stay out of "maybe"

every                         [birth]
[photograph] once
for
[listening] she
because [animal] [intruders]  
                                                      [handful] we
not [thinking]  
[simplicity] [inalienable] of
would
not [forget]
[admired] that [length]
of
his
[core]

[with a thud     "quiet"]
he:
"I
can
help"

[he collected samples of fecal matter
from a toothbrush found in the trash]
















chapter 3:  she made a beautiful fire 
(drawing her into the cold day)

looking into reality pulled her soul...     (combined)     ...this wasn't the hallway     
  so
I tried it...     (forget the drinking)     ...another storm had passed
  the atmosphere     it turns out     [is] myself and strangers

it
meant
the 
dance
floor
[became]
a
nightstand
.
. I was trying to think about it
. even though I only pissed like that
to quickly
talk now I'm drinking
to beer     guiltily
[as]
I
slunk
away

she would've had nothing left at...     (in church)     ...she lay down on the corduroy
sick
a child in real…     (that's why I'm here)     ...by biting her right hand
  I thought the other     covered [in] tin     mellowed her some

she something else I [know]
had a (sort of) myself
just checking to make ourselves
[lied] free
for of that low find
me
and
was
.
.
.
or
had
me
out
for
[the]
day
even so...     (I fondle her beer)     ...it's just that when the soccer tickets felt really fateful
and
she kept his piece of...     (okay)     ...I would be enough for Daphne    
to convince a button     to enhance time     it feels like us     

with
togetherness
amongst
his
[friends]
.
.
.

[the housekeeper that found the man
spoke very little English]
















chapter 4:  paying attention to his gourd

                                        empty shell on the heated seat

nothing could make him admit it

                    "I'm naked     I'm naked."


I hadn't drank     I hadn't taken off my shoes     I told her that I got sick
  and [that] I had scratched my fucking car

she ran over and over it     (that was bad)     she was gazing at me
and she screamed out loud as I was thinking
"if Lois hadn't been fully clothed
she would [have] looked
simply contorted"
"no question"

                                        the rich smell sensible people

nobody was really understanding her

                    "I'm Daphne     come on up"


there was a shell     an investigator     Rick Davis     no comment     
judging by [the] roaches     the hallway and her bathroom
"shit     everybody who ate it [was] refusing to get more"
this is May     I thought you probably walked into an...     afraid

learn to accept
you gave that back
though if you showed it     she [would] probably still pay
I concentrated     ate an [orange]     and watched them wishing for anything to [happen]
"so     is [he] off     or [on] hold"

                    "do it     flip her and look"


[the forensics guys found a dog collar
hidden in the underwear drawer]



Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Murray's [2010]

driven from sleep to tender feet
hammer and a nail this morning
called upon without a warning
the dawn of Saturday's deceit

(later
the girl that I liked
worked there
and I didn't mind going
                  so much)

Monday, January 4, 2016

at the periphery… [2010]

  ...spiders ascend the walls
little girls dress their dolls 
a rabbit tugs at time
a juggler meets a mime
happiness is deserved
a hero is unnerved
fruit crates are broken down
a criminal leaves town
tea kettles come to boil
farmers tend fertile soil
students are off to school
hungry dogs whine and drool
shining stars fade away
travelers choose to stay
cards are sent to sad souls
twin sisters switch their roles
cages are lined with straw
a dentist finds his jaw
readers devour their books
freaks garner nervous looks
alternate routes are found
longing ears find their sound
tall ships unfurl their sails
a hammer pounds at nails
fans spin a silent dust
a father regains trust
red beards are growing gray
garbage collects all day
wives wait in other rooms
a long journey resumes
cannibals eat at us
clowns are found humorous
a squirrel seeks his nut
a bare white throat is cut
someone's word is taken
old love is forsaken
precious things are stolen
dying eyes grow swollen
          a man can't comprehend
                     a poem doesn't end...

Sunday, January 3, 2016

what is music without u and i? [2011]

an atonal cacophony     of rhythms and phonemes
resonant      as the coda of the last castrato's keen

an old reed organ     beyond temperament at the octave
gone dry and cold     (a melancholy rector tends the grave)

the avant-garde composer     of three tone-poem cycles
who'd rather perform a medley     of poppy bagatelles

a staccato spate of half-notes     that slow ascends the staff
only to have the tenor falter      and the alto crack

the once awesome polyphony     of a concert chorale
weakened     by a tactless observance of the major scale

a legato encore that drones     to speak of the bass clef
as treble penetrates the deep recesses     of the deaf

unlistenable and inglorious.

Friday, January 1, 2016

27 to pass [2009]

morning

snow  steel  and asphalt
grind down rooted slumber
baring a trusted nightmare
to the scrutiny of dawn
and as she fades through
the gauze of an icy low light
I am left prone 
to ponder another confounding day

(later)  the sitting room is illumined
with the wife's washed walls
while the corners of yesterday's news
curl from tea steam
and when the strings of Mingus
suddenly turn tempting
an impulse begs me tread the shag
and I do  with sweating
and a limp

noon

after prying an education from
the dull jaws of mid-day  I am out
prowling down the freshly plowed walk
toward some diversion
  the post office     the video store     the market
or the D.I.A. --
(where once I choked on she-shoveled shit
and spat up fraud onto Warhol and Hockney and her)
but I land wound     ticking at the library
fraught with tomes of Olson and his Black Mountain gang

(then)  I track a trail of my own sweltering perversions
back down through     to humid home
where I am embraced (she is happy to smell me)
and the borrowed books spill sloppy
like me  
             from my hips
interlude
he is not long dead
as some scholars have maintained
but  is still     trembling

night

four sandalwood candles     burn low
making quiet warm
(and) Erika is at the hem
asleep  in chiaroscuro 

we have observed a melancholy
with losing  and an abrupt dead
  we've wept into dusty rags
we've been  late and not at all
and we are exhausted eager
                                                                         for the 27 to pass