1.07.2008
Too Much World
Oh, our depleted and romantic history. And concerning the irony of a physical spiritual icon—or the ability to transcend the evolution of the thinking man: a back porch, an attic. Literal and never metaphoric. Oh this was painful bliss, an invested commencement, a well intentioned arrival, occurrence, emergence. As in, one turn after another, into a spiral of creation. And my skin was in needles, inflamed. There is nothing so painful and removed and lonely as the first full commitment to art. There is no initial solidarity. There is no greeting hall or handshake. It is an isolated entrance, under an extorted, stolen image of the very soul of man. There, it is the unbecoming of the cultural and social self and the becoming of the vast and expendable and expanding single observer. Perhaps, athletically, the baptism is like trying to hold your breath under water with the intent of never returning to the surface. My lungs do not burn. But my skin is inflamed and I am on fire. I am on fire and I am under water. There are always beginnings, simple beginnings. I am not always on fire. But the bleeding events of this weekend, years later, left an acute memory of paralysis: too much world. I was stranded in the turnstile, at first. There have been few moments as embarrassing as the immediate, yes even hasty, return to a social environment after peacefully inhabiting the personal refuge of self-reflection. Next, I stood on the A train for most of the evening, re-adjusting my outfit, patting my hair and asking for, even looking for: Bleeker Street—no, the headquarters for the modern revolution. I have been away for a minute, I explained, only to be ignored, shunned, mocked. Where is the cultural capital of New York City, I asked, by now no longer ashamed but very frightened. I had begun to sweat, as was my custom. It was an absurd question, I gathered, from the responses, the stares—but really? Why? Absurd because the Capital was most assuredly at Bleeker Street or absurd because it most certainly did not exist. No, the latter could not possibly be true. No collective consensus? No hub of intellectual pursuit—the very hunt. Oh, we loved the hunt. Oh, I loved the hunt. The snap into a cultural world after undigging the social phenomena, after seeing principle. Ah, I finally deduced, I was alone. I was always alone. I left the A train in upper Manhattan walked into a Deli in early morning and read the Post. Ah, carnal and incestuous starvation: cannibal starvation. It had started, years earlier, with Nicole. The unethical and inappropriate union, underlining spiritual sex: there are only guidelines in the social order, really. Pretense, coy verbal petting, an engagement of subtle touches. Yes, an infatuation. There is no spiritual survival without extension and I am convinced, still locked in infantile obsession, to achieve extension, expansion. No, it was an amusement, a distraction. I was locked, trained, in meditated attacks: made a pass at me! I have returned to the A train, standing again, no longer hungry—yes, no! I am voracious, I laugh. There is a return in me, finally, a return. I can think, for a moment and see. It did not start with Nicole. The mirrors in the changing room on the fifth floor of Filenes basement—I am this person. It is early morning now, on the train, commuters, readers, activists, some of them, mules, others. Where is the cultural capital, I ask again, a different crowd, not as stranded or strangulated by their own self images, comforted by releases, by the construction and the formulation of idea, principle, evolution. Maybe. It is here, a woman says, mid-thirties, lean, provocative, eager, clever. She points at her breasts or at herself and laughs and exits the train and turns around, looks again, over her shoulder, skirt knee length, coy. Oh, we loved the hunt. I follow her off the train, but not really. I stop on the platform, below ground and wait for another train to run through the city following the endless starvation of a cannibal crowd, an incestuous mantra, a depleted and saturated and uncompromising history.
Synagogue
In synagogue they said my name and the name of my father and my father's father. For hours I heard nothing but Hebrew and now suddenly this, the first family name I ever heard, like a familiar melody in a long strange song. I do not believe. I am in Israel, surrounded by men who I am told have blood that runs like mine in their veins and back through time to Abraham and Adam, my namesake. Blood leading me back to me in the Garden, made from clay, lifted from the God box underneath the wall from which shook out all the mothers and the fathers and that's how the universe was born.
What don't I believe? Above us the women sit in the balcony and and ululate and throw candy when the time is right. The kids down below dart out from their father's legs to take what they can; theirs is a language I understand. My grandfather's niece's son-in-law shows me where we are in the text and he is patient and warm and at first I think sad; but no; he can't express himself to me in English, it is too complicated, he is hopeful that I might come back to into the fold of blood brothers and sisters, family beyond family, I suppose this is all really about home...
...San Francisco, 2002: We are gathered in the living room of our transitional living program for a staff meeting. It is the morning of September 11th, I have my coffee and donut, and Stephen wants to make us a space to process how we are feeling. We try. My thoughts are sad because I believe in the magic of dates, number as doors into the past or the future. If we knew how to the open them then time travel would be as easy as dawn on the morning of your birthday, your death-day's secret date made visible like the moon. Stephen is struggling to articulate his feelings, his eye watery and working towards an answer. I watch Nicole heading down Ashbury outside, her hair pulled back tight, early morning pale of her face, beautiful lips and eyes on the cigarette in front of them. I have glimpsed the ecstatic beauty of certain mathematical relationships, e to the j times theta; and once started a poem that went, "The clock reads 1:07am and I know I love you." I was 15 years old. Olivia's face was the almost too much beauty to bear, but I liked the pain and when the song came on I would sing "You're so fucking special... skin makes me cry" until the hurt felt desperate and endless and wild. Then suddenly all the numbers in the world could not take me out of myself and my poor young body, unloved and touched, virgin, virgin for a long time...
Stephen gives up with a sigh. "We just have to support each other and be mindful of how the residents may need us today to work through the difficult feelings that may come up." He looks around. A year later we would sit together in his apartment, both a little high, and he will tell me that as long as he and I stick together we can make some really special, we have a chemistry, a rare thing... and I think: I've heard this before. I think: Uh-oh. Shortly after that I never saw him again.
*
You can go out west because you need a new frontier. You can go to San Francisco if you have no home, live out on the streets by the park, stay away from the gutterpunk kids in front of Amoeba Records and the undercover cops trying to see if you get high. Find some friends and stick together. Beg a little, play guitar in the BART station and make about ten dollars an hour until they ask you to leave. Change your body with metal and ink, change your sex with hormones; they're free, but the surgery will cost you, start saving up. In the synagogue we face the windows, towards Jerusalem; some men come from their seats to kneel by the windows and pray. When they do I pray, too. My companion takes the tallis and puts it over my head. He places his hand there and asks God for the ultimate blessing on me and my blood and my family. I can't see anything but the light working its way through the cloth, and again there is that strange music but now I feel calm and quiet and loved. There is no transformation, no change but a new story, a date to remember, and a faint burning in my chest I only now recognize must have come from outside my heart, slowly moving in.
What don't I believe? Above us the women sit in the balcony and and ululate and throw candy when the time is right. The kids down below dart out from their father's legs to take what they can; theirs is a language I understand. My grandfather's niece's son-in-law shows me where we are in the text and he is patient and warm and at first I think sad; but no; he can't express himself to me in English, it is too complicated, he is hopeful that I might come back to into the fold of blood brothers and sisters, family beyond family, I suppose this is all really about home...
...San Francisco, 2002: We are gathered in the living room of our transitional living program for a staff meeting. It is the morning of September 11th, I have my coffee and donut, and Stephen wants to make us a space to process how we are feeling. We try. My thoughts are sad because I believe in the magic of dates, number as doors into the past or the future. If we knew how to the open them then time travel would be as easy as dawn on the morning of your birthday, your death-day's secret date made visible like the moon. Stephen is struggling to articulate his feelings, his eye watery and working towards an answer. I watch Nicole heading down Ashbury outside, her hair pulled back tight, early morning pale of her face, beautiful lips and eyes on the cigarette in front of them. I have glimpsed the ecstatic beauty of certain mathematical relationships, e to the j times theta; and once started a poem that went, "The clock reads 1:07am and I know I love you." I was 15 years old. Olivia's face was the almost too much beauty to bear, but I liked the pain and when the song came on I would sing "You're so fucking special... skin makes me cry" until the hurt felt desperate and endless and wild. Then suddenly all the numbers in the world could not take me out of myself and my poor young body, unloved and touched, virgin, virgin for a long time...
Stephen gives up with a sigh. "We just have to support each other and be mindful of how the residents may need us today to work through the difficult feelings that may come up." He looks around. A year later we would sit together in his apartment, both a little high, and he will tell me that as long as he and I stick together we can make some really special, we have a chemistry, a rare thing... and I think: I've heard this before. I think: Uh-oh. Shortly after that I never saw him again.
*
You can go out west because you need a new frontier. You can go to San Francisco if you have no home, live out on the streets by the park, stay away from the gutterpunk kids in front of Amoeba Records and the undercover cops trying to see if you get high. Find some friends and stick together. Beg a little, play guitar in the BART station and make about ten dollars an hour until they ask you to leave. Change your body with metal and ink, change your sex with hormones; they're free, but the surgery will cost you, start saving up. In the synagogue we face the windows, towards Jerusalem; some men come from their seats to kneel by the windows and pray. When they do I pray, too. My companion takes the tallis and puts it over my head. He places his hand there and asks God for the ultimate blessing on me and my blood and my family. I can't see anything but the light working its way through the cloth, and again there is that strange music but now I feel calm and quiet and loved. There is no transformation, no change but a new story, a date to remember, and a faint burning in my chest I only now recognize must have come from outside my heart, slowly moving in.
1.06.2008
Assisted Suicide: American Poverty: 3
The ill frailty of suicide, social suicide, an institutional dismissal of self value—oh, this selfless attack is barbaric, she ponders, muses, at least engages, an active onslaught. A massive run-on sentence, Chet noted, amused, discarded the magazine, exhaled the magazine into the dummy, she is just air and plastic. The clique formed and initially did not intend massacres, no, no: clippings, awkward postings, inappropriate portrayals. Killing is a progressive stance against mutually indolent rival political or ideological parties. Became. It became. It is the third aggressor, the third engager, the man with the pistol, the woman with the pistol, the child with the pistol. I have lost my diction, Steve muttered, mentioned, again, not active, inane. The collapse of the modern idea, put lightly (its crashing destruction into bombs, bombs, bombs), came smooth, tactless, and slinky—yes, he was encouraged to make up words, slow, dumb words. DREGFOTT: to abolish the use of mines. PRIEZTMANPOUR: a well established and sinister military advisor. As in the PRIEZTMANPOUR did not approve, nor recognize, the government’s insistence that it must DREGFOTT. It became worse. The whores were on the street in symphony! Yes, worse and worser. I am dropping bombs on playgrounds, Steve muttered again, muttered, himself, posing as himself, hunched over computer screens in the dark, hung over, vomiting in the shower, pissing his pants, no fucking diction! Chocolate martini—that is the issue, the fucking drink order is killing your brain. No, he ignored it, hung over, dumb, blind, bling-bling, it is all a lengthy dream of disorder, discontentment. I might be awfully incapable, Steve wrote, an entrance into the third paragraph of the essay—for the quick reader, the editor, the man with the glasses who sits in a booth and raises his hand—but the idea is quite enchanting, reminds me of the small of her back—borrowed, or poorly stolen, his editor reminded him, even embarrassingly bad. Yes, yes, I know. I have been bleeding words for the past forty-eight hours, fifty-two if you count the Swedish whore and the Romanian transvestite, but they were fake, fake, fake. Forty-eight, lets stick with forty-eight. Still Steve was making up words, putting himself in misleading positions, next to the camera man, on the couch, in the alley, smoking weed, drinking himself to death. I would die like that, unimaginative, useless, living out a social suicide. That is, is, the death. She ponders, active, the social suicide, the one harboring gangrene in the backyard, my back yard, the cultural plea, undeniable, she, the muse, the muse, she is gone, departed, there is only one more step, Steve thinks, one more step and you are above the crowd, out of the crowd and you can see—see, see. And I walked down two steps and fell into a pisshole of mediocrity, pedestrians, fucking pedestrians. I’ve been needing a new swear word, he mentions, she is casually intrusive, sits too close, smells like lavender, no something else from Latin America, where there is romance, yes, she is intrusive, smells like liquor, yes, new York, liquor and weed and cigarettes, and despair: I don’t know what to wear; I don’t know what to look for; I like green. I am a whore. That was abusive, unnecessary, she is the muse—no she is abusive. In an ultimate protest, the singular most powerful step into a nuclear spring, he enslaves and unslaves himself, against the towering market, to insert, there is no recognition in its finality: do not accept, impose, or infiltrate. Remember her father was a PRIEZTMANPOUR. The financial burden will—borrowed, stolen, poorly stolen for a lifetime concept, object: principle. I have molded my angelic sense, my starved diction (indeed, he was bleeding words on Friday, he lost most of the three syllable words on Broadway and many two syllable words and a box of one syllable words, no, I didn’t see cat or boat in the collection, so tragic). The absence of this fate, enslaved and no longer slaved, to the absence of letters, he supposes, demands then that the only option was, is, indeed the only option ever could be: invent his own precious language and DREGFOTT.
American Poverty: 2
When the time was right, Gary had sex with both of his stepdaughters.
Good. With that out of the way we can move on. Once I saw him drifting through the bright open spaces of 30th Street Station, and I thought: no one here knows this but me. He looked lost, and sad too yes but also certain hardness set about his face I did not know from the Institute. There Gary was a talker, soft & good natured, easy to make fun of...
...when I was young I remember a cartoon like this: a big bulldog walks down the street. he's got this chihuahua sidekick leaping around his feet going on and on with the "are we going to the park, boss? I love the park, boss, I do I do I do-" until a well-timed smack shut the little guy up. I was the same age the stepdaughter when Gary first started. He was like that chihuahua, at the Institute, always prattling at Dr. Ingel's heels. And then the inevitable smack. But now here he was, tight lipped and tough cheeked as the college students rushed to trains to take them away for the holidays; the feeling of Christmas coming up, and days without work or deadlines; I was high and floating through myself, my head up in the vaulted glass ceiling amongst the stray pigeons and the light. He was no chihuahua now. And when Dr. Ingel's interview for the city paper came out -- the one where he called himself a victim-practioner and told the story of what his neighbor had done some thirty years ago -- Gary got there early with the other men, a newspaper under every seat, waiting...
Oh but it's complicated. Abuser and abused. How to document the many ways to cross each others' borders? Once I saw a woman inhabit her secretary. As the weeks went by everything about the manager -- her clothes, her attitude, her weight -- entered in the young woman's being until dressed up fat & angry the secretary was barely recognizable as the baby-faced girl I remember. And the manager did less work than ever.
One time, Mike came in me and tried to fry my brain, though it was my hand that brought the pills to my tongue, my choice to swallow...
Dr. Ingel defended his decision well. Freudian or no there was a time for disclosure, and though I agreed I also smelled blood and it made me nervous, all those men watching him with something singular in their eyes -- they who had fondled cousins and touched daughters; whose mouths has pressed up bare vaginas, who gave with that first strange sensation a shadow that could live for years, a lifetime sometimes of hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response; vaginismus, vagina dentada, frigidity and lovelessness, PTSD, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, talking cures, the ability to keep a secret even when one should not. For Dr. Ingel, it stopped here. He surrendered his secret for a cross and climbed on. These men know naked when they see it, and so they watched, and they laughed when he joked and smiled their congratulations for his bravery, teeth like dull white nails... they know how hard it can be...
With that out of the way we can move on. It will be almost 60 degrees tomorrow, unseasonable for January. But this is 2008, and anything is possible. I store all my favorite songs compressed and placed in the inside pocket of my jacket. I don't get high anymore. Soon Bush will be out of the White House and we can hope to understand what we've done to Iraq. No one stays on top for long. The episode ends with a reversal - the chihuahua struts with that oversized sidekick jumping and "yes bossing" him until enough is enough, and the smack comes because it has to. Because he can. And with that out of the way, we can move on.
Good. With that out of the way we can move on. Once I saw him drifting through the bright open spaces of 30th Street Station, and I thought: no one here knows this but me. He looked lost, and sad too yes but also certain hardness set about his face I did not know from the Institute. There Gary was a talker, soft & good natured, easy to make fun of...
...when I was young I remember a cartoon like this: a big bulldog walks down the street. he's got this chihuahua sidekick leaping around his feet going on and on with the "are we going to the park, boss? I love the park, boss, I do I do I do-" until a well-timed smack shut the little guy up. I was the same age the stepdaughter when Gary first started. He was like that chihuahua, at the Institute, always prattling at Dr. Ingel's heels. And then the inevitable smack. But now here he was, tight lipped and tough cheeked as the college students rushed to trains to take them away for the holidays; the feeling of Christmas coming up, and days without work or deadlines; I was high and floating through myself, my head up in the vaulted glass ceiling amongst the stray pigeons and the light. He was no chihuahua now. And when Dr. Ingel's interview for the city paper came out -- the one where he called himself a victim-practioner and told the story of what his neighbor had done some thirty years ago -- Gary got there early with the other men, a newspaper under every seat, waiting...
Oh but it's complicated. Abuser and abused. How to document the many ways to cross each others' borders? Once I saw a woman inhabit her secretary. As the weeks went by everything about the manager -- her clothes, her attitude, her weight -- entered in the young woman's being until dressed up fat & angry the secretary was barely recognizable as the baby-faced girl I remember. And the manager did less work than ever.
One time, Mike came in me and tried to fry my brain, though it was my hand that brought the pills to my tongue, my choice to swallow...
Dr. Ingel defended his decision well. Freudian or no there was a time for disclosure, and though I agreed I also smelled blood and it made me nervous, all those men watching him with something singular in their eyes -- they who had fondled cousins and touched daughters; whose mouths has pressed up bare vaginas, who gave with that first strange sensation a shadow that could live for years, a lifetime sometimes of hypervigilance and exaggerated startle response; vaginismus, vagina dentada, frigidity and lovelessness, PTSD, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, talking cures, the ability to keep a secret even when one should not. For Dr. Ingel, it stopped here. He surrendered his secret for a cross and climbed on. These men know naked when they see it, and so they watched, and they laughed when he joked and smiled their congratulations for his bravery, teeth like dull white nails... they know how hard it can be...
With that out of the way we can move on. It will be almost 60 degrees tomorrow, unseasonable for January. But this is 2008, and anything is possible. I store all my favorite songs compressed and placed in the inside pocket of my jacket. I don't get high anymore. Soon Bush will be out of the White House and we can hope to understand what we've done to Iraq. No one stays on top for long. The episode ends with a reversal - the chihuahua struts with that oversized sidekick jumping and "yes bossing" him until enough is enough, and the smack comes because it has to. Because he can. And with that out of the way, we can move on.
1.05.2008
stream, 1
I've been thinking of different ways to live the rest of my life.
I could be short, rob a bank, ask permission or grow a beard. I could be tall, walk straight, kiss with both lips and fuck everyone I was attracted to, at least I could try.
Go back to college, go back to elementary school, relearn the alphabet and improve my penmanship. Ask more questions, smoke in the back of the class, get sent to detention and shoot hoops instead.
And why not? Time is short, right? There are no bombs (yet!), no shortages of grain or livestock. I eat when I'm hungry and can always ask for more.
But no, they're wrong, time is long. Ask any mountain and it will tell you. The mountains in Alaska, where I stood at the center of the world, are craggly babies compared to the Alps, where I have never been...
That's it -- I should go to the Alps! I can hop a plane, exchange my currency, marry a Swiss woman who loves me for my exotic character, my uniquely un-American openness. Then I will be happy.
Or could I be happy right now? Is it like a vault, to which I have forgotten the combination is 1 2 3? Or a door, and I am pulling and pulling when it says in clear block letters PUSH? Is it better to be happy than alert? Is there a difference?
I could break down, grow up, be my father, never speak to him again. I could make more noise when I walk. Sing songs about God to a 1-6-4-5 progression in 4/4 time. I could be a mountain, eaten by bears, robbed and left for dead. Looking up at the city sky. Feeling how very long is time, how far the stars...
I could be short, rob a bank, ask permission or grow a beard. I could be tall, walk straight, kiss with both lips and fuck everyone I was attracted to, at least I could try.
Go back to college, go back to elementary school, relearn the alphabet and improve my penmanship. Ask more questions, smoke in the back of the class, get sent to detention and shoot hoops instead.
And why not? Time is short, right? There are no bombs (yet!), no shortages of grain or livestock. I eat when I'm hungry and can always ask for more.
But no, they're wrong, time is long. Ask any mountain and it will tell you. The mountains in Alaska, where I stood at the center of the world, are craggly babies compared to the Alps, where I have never been...
That's it -- I should go to the Alps! I can hop a plane, exchange my currency, marry a Swiss woman who loves me for my exotic character, my uniquely un-American openness. Then I will be happy.
Or could I be happy right now? Is it like a vault, to which I have forgotten the combination is 1 2 3? Or a door, and I am pulling and pulling when it says in clear block letters PUSH? Is it better to be happy than alert? Is there a difference?
I could break down, grow up, be my father, never speak to him again. I could make more noise when I walk. Sing songs about God to a 1-6-4-5 progression in 4/4 time. I could be a mountain, eaten by bears, robbed and left for dead. Looking up at the city sky. Feeling how very long is time, how far the stars...
1.03.2008
American Poverty: 1
That the concert was terrible meant nothing to the lost grillers of cheese, vagabond jewelry makers, kids getting stoned... Mike said "Stay with your family" and we did. I trusted him. I was starting to love his wife, too, a little bit more when we left her in the apartment looking for a cartoon on demand. I can't help it; I love children. But here they were, dirty, kid-faced and un-innocent; a cop came up around one and cracked his head down to the dirt. But not before he flung a bag into the air with a whoop. Mike watching me watch him, saying "They don't care about us."
He said this, too, at work; at home; about our bosses, Isabelle, the sick men and women we cared for; and his college friends, his high school friends, the woman behind the counter at a gas station handing us a pack of cigarettes and gum...
We took the ecstasy first thing and by the time we reached the bathroom my pupils were shivering. I had never seen that before and didn't want to know. I felt good, though the words I wanted were falling a little further and further out of reach, and the gum was sweet against my teeth. Mike was flushed and smiling. We were happy. It was that easy.
The band played while it started to rain and I danced toward the stage and looked away, up the slope where men and women kept climbing the trail to disappear somewhere -- "They're doing heroin," Mike shook his head. "The scene is real dirty, no one to take care of us any more..." Needles in the mud, toddlers on shakedown street, they got your ice cold pharmies there and everyone is promising purity, "This shit is pure." The Dutch were here once. Before them the Indians. Now it is skiing in the winter, and in the summer the lot families arrive for shows. It's tent city, me and Mike and gauzy clouds drifting around like serotonin.
Mike convinces me to take another.
The girls around me are dancing in the mud, one has a watermelon, and in a second my eyes go white hot and I am sweating from all the heat the young bodies make, all their hearts pounding at once. Indian bones, marijuana and rolls, Isabelle's face from nowhere hits the soft spot on my brain: "We are in the world to love the world." I try to keep dancing but this girl is bumping into me, she is dancing no they are fighting, there's a muddy watermelon chunk that they are wrestling for down there, pulling dreadlocks and saying what, I can't hear, the drummer is still soloing but these girls are maybe 13 and 14 I can see where her shirt is torn where her breasts are coming in and my cock comes to in agony as I realize I've never loved anyone in my life and that's when Mike grabs me--
Back home. Isabelle brings new socks. The TV is on and mute. Mike brags to his wife about how he saved me from the mud pit. She is looking at me. It is an invitation. But I already fell in. I am still there.
He said this, too, at work; at home; about our bosses, Isabelle, the sick men and women we cared for; and his college friends, his high school friends, the woman behind the counter at a gas station handing us a pack of cigarettes and gum...
We took the ecstasy first thing and by the time we reached the bathroom my pupils were shivering. I had never seen that before and didn't want to know. I felt good, though the words I wanted were falling a little further and further out of reach, and the gum was sweet against my teeth. Mike was flushed and smiling. We were happy. It was that easy.
The band played while it started to rain and I danced toward the stage and looked away, up the slope where men and women kept climbing the trail to disappear somewhere -- "They're doing heroin," Mike shook his head. "The scene is real dirty, no one to take care of us any more..." Needles in the mud, toddlers on shakedown street, they got your ice cold pharmies there and everyone is promising purity, "This shit is pure." The Dutch were here once. Before them the Indians. Now it is skiing in the winter, and in the summer the lot families arrive for shows. It's tent city, me and Mike and gauzy clouds drifting around like serotonin.
Mike convinces me to take another.
The girls around me are dancing in the mud, one has a watermelon, and in a second my eyes go white hot and I am sweating from all the heat the young bodies make, all their hearts pounding at once. Indian bones, marijuana and rolls, Isabelle's face from nowhere hits the soft spot on my brain: "We are in the world to love the world." I try to keep dancing but this girl is bumping into me, she is dancing no they are fighting, there's a muddy watermelon chunk that they are wrestling for down there, pulling dreadlocks and saying what, I can't hear, the drummer is still soloing but these girls are maybe 13 and 14 I can see where her shirt is torn where her breasts are coming in and my cock comes to in agony as I realize I've never loved anyone in my life and that's when Mike grabs me--
Back home. Isabelle brings new socks. The TV is on and mute. Mike brags to his wife about how he saved me from the mud pit. She is looking at me. It is an invitation. But I already fell in. I am still there.
The Box
One Concrete block weighs one ton. Two concrete blocks weigh two tons. The box is on two concrete blocks. The box weighs one half ton plus its contents: string, a chair, a bucket of black paint, a rubber band, and a hose. The box is five feet long and five feet wide. The box is ten feet tall. On one side of the box there is a door. The door is seven feet tall and three feet wide. The door opens into the box. Attached to the bottom of the door is a block of chalk. The chalk makes an arc-like shape on the floor of the box when the door is opened. The chalk is white. The chalk is not included in the weight of the contents. The door will be prevented from fully opening because of one of the five feet walls. The door is brown and the door has nothing written on it to suggest that it is an opening into a box.
Outside the box there is a light bulb. Inside the box there is a socket for the light bulb. There are no windows in the box and there are no shelves in the box. The socket for the light bulb hangs from the ceiling of the box. The socket is included in the weight of the box. The chair is in the corner of the box but does not obstruct the door when the door is opened into the box. The chair is made of wood and metal and plastic. It is a common looking chair though uncommon because it is not only made of wood, or only made of metal, or only made of plastic. Like the door, the chair is brown and the weight of the chair is included in the weight of the box.
Each concrete block is ten feet by ten feet by five feet. The two blocks are placed directly on top of one another. There are no stairs to the top of the second concrete block. There is a ladder against the wall next to the light bulb. Like the light bulb, the ladder is outside the box. The ladder is ten feet tall but can extend to fifteen feet tall. The ladder is made of plastic and metal. The ladder is green.
The proposed action is as follows: the stagehand, Mark, is to pick up the light bulb, place the ladder against the concrete block, climb the ladder, open the door to the box, walk into the box, screw the light bulb into the socket by standing on the chair, and sit in the chair and paint a black window on each of the three walls of the inside of the box that do not contain the door. The weight of Mark will not be included in the weight of the box. Mark is to regard the rubber band and the hose and the string as unnecessary items. Mark has fifteen minutes to complete the task and will be judged on his willingness and ability to follow directions as well as his ability to fully comprehend, and express, the world of the box in each of his actions.
Outside the box there is a light bulb. Inside the box there is a socket for the light bulb. There are no windows in the box and there are no shelves in the box. The socket for the light bulb hangs from the ceiling of the box. The socket is included in the weight of the box. The chair is in the corner of the box but does not obstruct the door when the door is opened into the box. The chair is made of wood and metal and plastic. It is a common looking chair though uncommon because it is not only made of wood, or only made of metal, or only made of plastic. Like the door, the chair is brown and the weight of the chair is included in the weight of the box.
Each concrete block is ten feet by ten feet by five feet. The two blocks are placed directly on top of one another. There are no stairs to the top of the second concrete block. There is a ladder against the wall next to the light bulb. Like the light bulb, the ladder is outside the box. The ladder is ten feet tall but can extend to fifteen feet tall. The ladder is made of plastic and metal. The ladder is green.
The proposed action is as follows: the stagehand, Mark, is to pick up the light bulb, place the ladder against the concrete block, climb the ladder, open the door to the box, walk into the box, screw the light bulb into the socket by standing on the chair, and sit in the chair and paint a black window on each of the three walls of the inside of the box that do not contain the door. The weight of Mark will not be included in the weight of the box. Mark is to regard the rubber band and the hose and the string as unnecessary items. Mark has fifteen minutes to complete the task and will be judged on his willingness and ability to follow directions as well as his ability to fully comprehend, and express, the world of the box in each of his actions.
1.02.2008
She, in the Vacuum, Proposes
Resolved to completeness—resolve: as in, of course, close, bring to a close, allow and permit closure. The fractured space, cut into cultural insecurity, vanishes in the new year, the month, the day, the hour, indeed, perhaps, the minute. Reckless proposals, pseudo scholars, fake—fake intellectuals, postulate, present, propose: it is not arbitrary. It is not ever suggestive. The combatant force, once united in aggressive peace keeping, keeping together unions, peoples, nations, a protector of historical narratives, of the resolutions, the peace resolution. Responders, first responders to inadequate resources. Our inadequacy rebounds, often, quite often, over the course of any period. She is admired, adored. She is made love to. They are apart, distant, rebound: in-compatible. Again, combatants, forced to re-create the re-newal. Culturally, distinctly cultural in perception, the universe is fragmented and re-written succinctly, unkindly, pompous: any excuse would permeate even a lie as this: this is the undoubted denier: the decider. No, business like in manner, astute, attentive, believable, callous? Forgotten, momentarily ignored only, and dis-proportion-ate being, placate the sultan and allow him to re-enter the quarters of the majestic western world: our world: placate: assuage: and assimilate. This is the primal order of cultural invasion. We suicided ourselves, at the earliest chance possible. We conducted the RE: gain/view/cede. We, our wonderful selves, gardens to our only children, we are the feat of uncanny failure. She is proposing, again, proposing, like a witch, like a crude and stagnant witch. The inverse likelihood of success is not the possibility of failure: never attempt to rule on crude opposition, back and forth, black and white: market value, business sense. Cultural void. It was an invasion, and at first, swift, attacks, on the short handed side, backhanded side, hit, return, a place in passion that is excused by the unresolved universe, the vacuum of space left to blink, only to blink at the mere possibility of growth, production, re-run the industrial strength movement, to another creator, builder, founder, mind. It is the un-natural possessor, equipped simply, now, off the park, condos, water, electricity, gas, energy, oil. The natural attracter. In the ultimate show of respect, ultimate indeed, she unleashed an uncut burden: this, I Resolve to begin. This I Resolve to finish. Oh, of course, the universe, in seconds and in minutes, in those seconds and in those minutes, was, is, fractured, beaten, broken. Even from the vacuum, even in the vacuum, it is a clear break: a moment unlike any moment, a moment once a year, the frail animal in victory, in success, my Day: mine. Spinning in rapid succession, it all comes to pass, fruitful future, life time recognition.
No, dear lord, no. It is only the black vacuum and the tiny ball playing back and forth, back and forth. Dear lord, no. It does not occur to resolve itself to become something it is not. That is foolish, deeply foolish, to suppose it could ever be something it is not. I resolve to ignore it, she spouts, convinced, at least once, that it has fractured, broken, and lent itself to pause, to destruction, at the animal will.
No, dear lord, no. It is only the black vacuum and the tiny ball playing back and forth, back and forth. Dear lord, no. It does not occur to resolve itself to become something it is not. That is foolish, deeply foolish, to suppose it could ever be something it is not. I resolve to ignore it, she spouts, convinced, at least once, that it has fractured, broken, and lent itself to pause, to destruction, at the animal will.
Nathaniel
I sailed to America a thousand years ago on a sharkboat, Nathaniel says. He can hear Saddam Husseim speak and he is lonely. Outside dead birds fall from his sky.
I am 25 years old, habitual marijuana smoker, strange dream dreamer, I date the drug dealer down the block and we can stay friends as long as she gets me high. Nathaniel does poorly on his IQ test, and will not take off his hat. I give him no hard time about that, though Dr. Bromburg sees it as a sign of disrespect. I see Dr. Bromburg as a man-child drunk on this tiny sliver of power over the lives of our clientele. When he takes it off we can see Nathaniel's hair is beautiful.
But it does not change the fact Nathaniel taped his cousin to a chair and made him do what someone sometime clearly had done to him, though he won't admit it. He doesn't see how all we need is an explanation, a reason to believe that this was not casual cruelty or genetic predisposition to monsterhood but a ten year old who has just been through too much. There are limits to things; I once took too many mushrooms too late and unprepared, and felt in the shadow of my wall the presence of Absolute Evil. I fled the house and spent the rest of the night chasing what I thought was my roommate's cat. The cat was home all along, and in the morning, tired, sad and strange, I watched Jackass the Movie until I finally felt a little more sane.
Dr. Bromburg makes video games for his stepdaughter, and makes me play them. They are full of fireballs coming her way, one thousand and one ways to die, bonus points and when the game starts she isn't wearing any clothes. Step 1, he says: find your clothes.
But it is not all that bad. I make forty thousand dollars a year, Bromburg makes me mix tapes of rare Dylan recordings and expects full reviews the next morning. It's not that bad. Sometimes I even like Bob Dylan. And when I get high at home the world is mine to cruise around in, slow and lazy, making connections out of smoke and then blowing them away. Nathaniel never tells us the full story. He puts his cap back on as Bromburg leaves the room and we are alone. I don't ask what he wants to be when he grows up. I don't tell him his IQ score, and there is no mom or dad to ask worriedly what do we do about our little son. I ask, Do you feel like Saddam Hussein sometimes? He looks me in the eyes and says this: I was born a thousand years ago. I sailed to America on a sharkboat but they killed us. I just want to be left alone.
I am 25 years old, habitual marijuana smoker, strange dream dreamer, I date the drug dealer down the block and we can stay friends as long as she gets me high. Nathaniel does poorly on his IQ test, and will not take off his hat. I give him no hard time about that, though Dr. Bromburg sees it as a sign of disrespect. I see Dr. Bromburg as a man-child drunk on this tiny sliver of power over the lives of our clientele. When he takes it off we can see Nathaniel's hair is beautiful.
But it does not change the fact Nathaniel taped his cousin to a chair and made him do what someone sometime clearly had done to him, though he won't admit it. He doesn't see how all we need is an explanation, a reason to believe that this was not casual cruelty or genetic predisposition to monsterhood but a ten year old who has just been through too much. There are limits to things; I once took too many mushrooms too late and unprepared, and felt in the shadow of my wall the presence of Absolute Evil. I fled the house and spent the rest of the night chasing what I thought was my roommate's cat. The cat was home all along, and in the morning, tired, sad and strange, I watched Jackass the Movie until I finally felt a little more sane.
Dr. Bromburg makes video games for his stepdaughter, and makes me play them. They are full of fireballs coming her way, one thousand and one ways to die, bonus points and when the game starts she isn't wearing any clothes. Step 1, he says: find your clothes.
But it is not all that bad. I make forty thousand dollars a year, Bromburg makes me mix tapes of rare Dylan recordings and expects full reviews the next morning. It's not that bad. Sometimes I even like Bob Dylan. And when I get high at home the world is mine to cruise around in, slow and lazy, making connections out of smoke and then blowing them away. Nathaniel never tells us the full story. He puts his cap back on as Bromburg leaves the room and we are alone. I don't ask what he wants to be when he grows up. I don't tell him his IQ score, and there is no mom or dad to ask worriedly what do we do about our little son. I ask, Do you feel like Saddam Hussein sometimes? He looks me in the eyes and says this: I was born a thousand years ago. I sailed to America on a sharkboat but they killed us. I just want to be left alone.
resolution
how quickly we train the eye not to see
the ear not to hear the sound of snow
falling on the hard ground
six hours in new york city and already I am deaf dumb and blind
my head hurts
my heart is full of angry bees
how quickly we turn against the ones we love
lashing out how surprised I was
to find it was my cheek
stinging
the ear not to hear the sound of snow
falling on the hard ground
six hours in new york city and already I am deaf dumb and blind
my head hurts
my heart is full of angry bees
how quickly we turn against the ones we love
lashing out how surprised I was
to find it was my cheek
stinging
sorry S----, I was away for New Years
where to go in 2008? where to sing for someone who knows you mean it? I want that new frontier, inner space, but not mine. some mornings I wake up hating the constellations, The Reluctant Lover, the Libra; where I dreamt of being robbed on the streets of Los Angeles and woke up missing my shirt. where they played pool and danced a crazy conga as we sang "we will not let them win" over a major chord progression I wrote three floors up and half a mile from the grounds of greenwood cemetery, final resting place of revolutionaries and 911 victims, headstones, here lies the sons and daughters of the fathers and mothers of the united states of america, the indivisible, one nation under earth. S---- I hope you wrote something good. You see dots and are holding the pencil. What I see: people I want to touch, sunlight teetering and then gone, a resolution to let it all go. It is 2000 and 8 in America and now is our last chance to become what we need to be. where the neighborhoods change and the subway trains are held momentarily and then dispatched into darkness. where the snow makes a sound I cannot hear, my headphones are too loud, clearly I've got something to say but it just comes out da da da. give me a beat and we'll sing da da dowop pah pah! da da dowop pah pah! it's a new frontier. let's be men not apes let's hold our pens with flexible thumbs slow down and love someone its easy as 5 4 321
you know I mean it. happy new year
you know I mean it. happy new year
1.01.2008
The State Face
Coined, conned, re-capped, evolved: progress. As in, we made progress this month. We undug a treasure. We be-Came greater, stronger ( -er), er. She stutters, coy, timid, indifferent—no, playful and insecure, intimate. She is strongest, greatest (-est), est. The pitiful temper, his pitiful temper, was suicide, ended in suicide, had had quite enough, disguised his own blood as a traitor, a player in another wagon, another ear, another era, another county. Them, he trusted them. She is garrulous when she is undressed, not embarrassed, not hidden. Upbeat, congenial, engaging: wonderful. As in, of course, most recently, the dinner was wonderful. Attended by finely dressed bourgeois, against the common threads of indecency, Ho-Ho, (-ist): the elitist was not unwelcome nor conditioned for humble courtship. The seats were at center Court. This, above all, became our Mantra: Long, long, life the kinship between….Etc, beat, beat, etc. We play it at half-time to a magazine of percussion. She is usual, fitting, and fond of her skin. She was not betrayed by one of them. The blueprint stolen from the fifth floor of the Empire State Building (psst: hssh!) was a guideline to cultural success: a metaphoric blueprint, Harrison mutters, a suggestion. A corporate emblem of recognition. Even unstartled, unshocked, there remains, but to a few of the unadulterated populace, a strong faith, an interest, a belief, in the puppeteers, the man who is the man: undeniably, they reside in high rises, off the park, wear suits, drink scotch, do not anger easily or ever and are inhumane, skinless, cold. As in it is cold outside in January (precisely: well). This would resolve itself in scandal, Emma suggests, removed from the country club residence, unkempt—by nineteenth century standard—properly educated and claimed, eventually, by law school and the unsurprising aftermaths. A drive, a frivolous drive, to insignificance. All of them, she marvels (and Us too!). The indecency, however, is not encouraged nor prohibited, allowed, yes, allowed, permitted, permissive and not depressive to the mass of elected pedestrians, more in the middle, farther father: clan, precipitate a familial despot into our founded utopian equanimity, our class of man, our class of life. She, apart from her graceful indifference while exposed, was less inclined to aggressive assault. It is not visually compatible with the educational models of success, the principle behind thematic exposure—not her nudity, not representations of her nudity—history, political science, why the trends (like science and dams and border crossings compare!) are the trends they are. In physics like in sociology, it is a meager and untapped principle, a beauty contest (no, not a beauty contest). The blueprints, harangue, dear harangue. The cultural diagram of popularity, recognition. It is a metaphoric representation, Harrison mutters again, this time disillusioned and in despair, perhaps depressive by nature, but suicidal? Questionable? The repute of such a willful being would be in jeopardy: to make himself un-exist. He would not make himself un-exist, Emma insists. Trained, as usual, as mentioned, in the strictest of classics, the trainer’s path. And yet, impetuous by desire, the man jumps, a man himself the patriarch and founder, jumps, jumps, and in the recognition, she the recognizer, the artist un-recognized in this time, the artist that must go un-recognized for culture to rebound and become itself again: it cannot be the ironic compliment, it cannot be at all. It must go, abide, in nature and in itself, in no heated face of worldly recognition. There are no maps, Harrison yells. He yells at her, at Emma, at the face of this building, at the face of this state. What is a leap, he thinks, and he jumps and doesn’t expect to get anything and doesn’t get anything at all. Her face, of course, is the face on the screen and it is smiling and thinking what a fool! And he is thinking, jumping and jumping and nobody around jumping and jumping, what a leap, what a leap!
12.30.2007
Six times Six--Likelihoods
I am used, she thinks. Hands calloused, burnt—I am used, she thinks again, and coughs, grins, and clenches her teeth. I am clenching my teeth, she thinks. The plate cracks. She is washing dishes. She throws it against the wall, the rest of it. Tighter, she mutters. You can’t put your fucking feet here, she screams suddenly, shrieks, say—she is washing dishes. There ain’t nobody here, she decides, mutters, confused, smoking. Old, thin, pale, malnourished, yellow. I look yellow. The sun is yellow. I don’t look like that. You ugly goat, he says, smiles, laughs, comes in loud, yes, belligerent, classic and unimaginative. He slaps her on the ass. Hard, iron, and weak. Drinking and drinking. She is worthless, he will say later, drunk, exhausted, removed.
He would not consider potential, possibility. Recognize principle or action or quality of worth—coming of worth. Ambitious, quite ambitious. No, the opposite, she proposes, stretching, stretching, in class. A proposal. Angst, meager. I only want to know the odds, the chance, you know, the number. Four, I have four children. Squatting, stretching. There are characters missing, she mentions, but not on purpose, yes, accidental, for a later correction, edit. So intentional? She blushes, coy, cute. Empathize with her, the instructor supposes, intentional? Again, she blushes, perhaps intentional, he decides. How many years? The whole time. Questions vary in difficulty, some much more frequent and common others rare and seldom chosen, presented. Physical violence, sure, yes, of course. Coarse. Yes, of course. Quick. Emotional violence? Do you really know, sure, I suppose, I don’t know, I suppose. Weakening, no longer blushing, undressed. Panting, erect, solid, singular—and solidarity, of course, the union. Forward, subservient. Verbal abuse? Yes, yes, of course, I mean from what it seems. Aroused. Re-crossing and un-crossing, tempted, sneaking, the small built of skin against the sock, perhaps, not only the sock. She fiddles, with herself, occasionally. No, not often, no not often. He is working. Quick, at ease, aggressive, though. Aggressive.
She is preoccupied, suddenly preoccupied. It is black night. The moon is disappeared. She is preoccupied, the moon is disappeared. He slaps her again. She is washing dishes, only washing dishes. Exercises in human mood, arrival and departure, back and forth, up and down, hard, simple, engage, sweat, sweet, exercises in containment, repress. Press close, firm, it is black night. It is black at night. She is washing dishes. I am used, she thinks again. Thinks back, back into teaching, there was a full sentence, all of it, a thought, a person. Tall and thin and proper and well mannered and manicured and warm. Warm and not wet. Thin and proper? The concern?
Of course. The average adjustment period to a predatory lifestyle, an antisocial lifestyle, is not measured by time but by degree of exposure and age of participant. He is six. Six times six equals thirty-six. A formula, an average, it is not a guarantee. Smile, confident, repress. He is suitable, ignorant. Like apples and cinnamon and holiday. A formula, a statistic. Three out of five, even four out of five. Not real participants or real people. No, just a guess. A reasoned guess. Sure. Very little danger. Of course. Red.
You have a 36x chance of being violent and in jail in two years. It is probably even higher now. Consider the other conditions. Loss of electricity, heat, gas. Yes, higher. Mathematics, statistics. A murderer. The likelihood of snow on Friday. The likelihood of snow on a holiday. The farmer’s almanac. It is three out of five or two out of five. It snows on Friday. Yes, of course, it snows on Friday. The likelihood it will snow on Saturday. Three out of five, one out of five. Four out of five. There are only five people here. She is crying. Washing dishes. The plate breaks. Warm, wet, cold, dry.
He would not consider potential, possibility. Recognize principle or action or quality of worth—coming of worth. Ambitious, quite ambitious. No, the opposite, she proposes, stretching, stretching, in class. A proposal. Angst, meager. I only want to know the odds, the chance, you know, the number. Four, I have four children. Squatting, stretching. There are characters missing, she mentions, but not on purpose, yes, accidental, for a later correction, edit. So intentional? She blushes, coy, cute. Empathize with her, the instructor supposes, intentional? Again, she blushes, perhaps intentional, he decides. How many years? The whole time. Questions vary in difficulty, some much more frequent and common others rare and seldom chosen, presented. Physical violence, sure, yes, of course. Coarse. Yes, of course. Quick. Emotional violence? Do you really know, sure, I suppose, I don’t know, I suppose. Weakening, no longer blushing, undressed. Panting, erect, solid, singular—and solidarity, of course, the union. Forward, subservient. Verbal abuse? Yes, yes, of course, I mean from what it seems. Aroused. Re-crossing and un-crossing, tempted, sneaking, the small built of skin against the sock, perhaps, not only the sock. She fiddles, with herself, occasionally. No, not often, no not often. He is working. Quick, at ease, aggressive, though. Aggressive.
She is preoccupied, suddenly preoccupied. It is black night. The moon is disappeared. She is preoccupied, the moon is disappeared. He slaps her again. She is washing dishes, only washing dishes. Exercises in human mood, arrival and departure, back and forth, up and down, hard, simple, engage, sweat, sweet, exercises in containment, repress. Press close, firm, it is black night. It is black at night. She is washing dishes. I am used, she thinks again. Thinks back, back into teaching, there was a full sentence, all of it, a thought, a person. Tall and thin and proper and well mannered and manicured and warm. Warm and not wet. Thin and proper? The concern?
Of course. The average adjustment period to a predatory lifestyle, an antisocial lifestyle, is not measured by time but by degree of exposure and age of participant. He is six. Six times six equals thirty-six. A formula, an average, it is not a guarantee. Smile, confident, repress. He is suitable, ignorant. Like apples and cinnamon and holiday. A formula, a statistic. Three out of five, even four out of five. Not real participants or real people. No, just a guess. A reasoned guess. Sure. Very little danger. Of course. Red.
You have a 36x chance of being violent and in jail in two years. It is probably even higher now. Consider the other conditions. Loss of electricity, heat, gas. Yes, higher. Mathematics, statistics. A murderer. The likelihood of snow on Friday. The likelihood of snow on a holiday. The farmer’s almanac. It is three out of five or two out of five. It snows on Friday. Yes, of course, it snows on Friday. The likelihood it will snow on Saturday. Three out of five, one out of five. Four out of five. There are only five people here. She is crying. Washing dishes. The plate breaks. Warm, wet, cold, dry.
12.27.2007
Tyson Media Inc
The openings were important, practical, imposing: Large. The eggs were white. The smallest river inside the colonial jurisdiction was Prudence. They named a river prudence? Hank: short, balding, typical, forgetting, noticeably forgotten—he asked the question, coy, out of place. The media staged a sit-in, refused to report unless given advance opinions and stories. ESP, Hinton muttered. Fucking ESP. The sports channel? Yeah, the sports channel. The eggs cracked and small rapid dinosaurs appeared, waddled. They had beaks like ducks. No, she whispered, they taped their cameras to the ceiling. This is an advanced story. Not advanced—advance, you know before it happens.
And that was just the end of the world.
The trash agency enlisted local and then national support for their campaign. Volunteers then members then citizens. Citizens decidedly against (anti) the missile defense system, the homeless shelter initiative, and the world education platform. In a sprint, the agency, the trash agency, unlike the hollywood spin-offs, was actually the trash agency. Zealots circling the islands to the north and the south. You see: the earth was flat.
Like a piece of toast.
The earth was flat and burnt? That is ESP, Hannah agreed. Her camera was on the ceiling. She was eaten by dinosaurs, small rapid dinosaurs. No, the agency enlisted volunteers and they found an island, it is the end of the earth. The earth is flat. They are peeling back time and depositing trash, Sal mentioned, casually, awkwardly, un-athletic. A trainer, then a lifter, then, later, agile, a telecommunicator. Sounds important, significant, vital. Large, Henry states. It would be large. A grand opening of a media tycoon’s firm, property, publication. Like a watermelon. She giggled because she is fat and unused and expendable. Written over, Lilly suggests.
No, the investment was wise. It is nothing past the fifth island, Dan noted. Nothing? Well, an edge and then nothing—nothing at all. Peel back the earth and put the trash there then. It wasn’t a question, a pondering insecurity. No, peel back the earth. It is the way to time travel. If the earth is flat. The earth is flat. It erases the time and now it’s being peeled back. Yes, because of the trash. She was dense, too dense. She taped her camera to the ceiling.
ESP isn’t really a gift. Unless the sun is suddenly attracted to the earth and comes spinning and sprinting out of space. The eggs are white. The eggs weren’t ever white. There isn’t anything under the trash and still they are peeling it back. George detaches his camera from the ceiling and tapes the dinosaurs eating the other reporters. The openings were huge and important:
TYSON LAUNCHES NEW WORLD INQUIRY.
And that was just the end of the world.
The trash agency enlisted local and then national support for their campaign. Volunteers then members then citizens. Citizens decidedly against (anti) the missile defense system, the homeless shelter initiative, and the world education platform. In a sprint, the agency, the trash agency, unlike the hollywood spin-offs, was actually the trash agency. Zealots circling the islands to the north and the south. You see: the earth was flat.
Like a piece of toast.
The earth was flat and burnt? That is ESP, Hannah agreed. Her camera was on the ceiling. She was eaten by dinosaurs, small rapid dinosaurs. No, the agency enlisted volunteers and they found an island, it is the end of the earth. The earth is flat. They are peeling back time and depositing trash, Sal mentioned, casually, awkwardly, un-athletic. A trainer, then a lifter, then, later, agile, a telecommunicator. Sounds important, significant, vital. Large, Henry states. It would be large. A grand opening of a media tycoon’s firm, property, publication. Like a watermelon. She giggled because she is fat and unused and expendable. Written over, Lilly suggests.
No, the investment was wise. It is nothing past the fifth island, Dan noted. Nothing? Well, an edge and then nothing—nothing at all. Peel back the earth and put the trash there then. It wasn’t a question, a pondering insecurity. No, peel back the earth. It is the way to time travel. If the earth is flat. The earth is flat. It erases the time and now it’s being peeled back. Yes, because of the trash. She was dense, too dense. She taped her camera to the ceiling.
ESP isn’t really a gift. Unless the sun is suddenly attracted to the earth and comes spinning and sprinting out of space. The eggs are white. The eggs weren’t ever white. There isn’t anything under the trash and still they are peeling it back. George detaches his camera from the ceiling and tapes the dinosaurs eating the other reporters. The openings were huge and important:
TYSON LAUNCHES NEW WORLD INQUIRY.
family
we rounded up the wind and put it in a coral.
we took turns pushing swings toward the sun, then back.
you bruised your face and it looked like a very beautiful sunrise. you decide you like it better that way, but it won't stay.
"That," said Dad, "is life."
*
we had chores:
-the rotten vegetables go to the compost
-wash and wipe the windows with windex
-write one a story each day
*
Story 1:
The lizard swam back in forth in the bathtub. "Iguana," he corrected, and she made a mental note. They never had pets like this before. Both of them, Sam and Spike, had strange eyes and moved like little dinosaurs. When they died quick and in sucession, the father buried them in the backyard and said, "They weren't good pets."
*
we cleaned up after ourselves and never ate breakfast late. we tried our best to be ourselves but it was hard sometimes, to know how to be. "If I am not myself, who am I?" you asked. We played a game called Pretend and Pretended to be: robots; soldiers; people in space; monsters; families; princes and knights. At night we dreamt of looney tunes and for one week I accurately foresaw which episode they would run next, right there in bed. You said, "What if you only get so much psychic power, and you used yours all up?" We laughed and laughed and maybe it was true.
*
Story 2:
He wished for a toy. He wished for a game to play on his computer. He wished to kiss Kate, Jenny, and Kerrie. He wished to not move away, it was hard enough to find a friend the first time. He was very worried that if he said the wish the wrong way that the universe would interpret his words wrong.
Years later, he saw how the wish, as he worded it, was the problem all along.
*
If Dad had been a writer, owned a laundromat, worked at a pet store, what might have been? He tried all those things, plus selling disposable dental tools, and digital clocks w/letter opener. What if you only get so much time, and then you use it all up? It was hard to be yourself in our house. When we Pretended Sam and Spike were pets, they died and no wishing brought them back. Sometimes Dad spoke and it was like lightning; sometimes we whispered our secrets and they were like a wind, with nowhere to blow but between the four walls he bought for us -- as he changed time to chores for money so we could be warm, watch TV, and dream of who we might be...
we took turns pushing swings toward the sun, then back.
you bruised your face and it looked like a very beautiful sunrise. you decide you like it better that way, but it won't stay.
"That," said Dad, "is life."
*
we had chores:
-the rotten vegetables go to the compost
-wash and wipe the windows with windex
-write one a story each day
*
Story 1:
The lizard swam back in forth in the bathtub. "Iguana," he corrected, and she made a mental note. They never had pets like this before. Both of them, Sam and Spike, had strange eyes and moved like little dinosaurs. When they died quick and in sucession, the father buried them in the backyard and said, "They weren't good pets."
*
we cleaned up after ourselves and never ate breakfast late. we tried our best to be ourselves but it was hard sometimes, to know how to be. "If I am not myself, who am I?" you asked. We played a game called Pretend and Pretended to be: robots; soldiers; people in space; monsters; families; princes and knights. At night we dreamt of looney tunes and for one week I accurately foresaw which episode they would run next, right there in bed. You said, "What if you only get so much psychic power, and you used yours all up?" We laughed and laughed and maybe it was true.
*
Story 2:
He wished for a toy. He wished for a game to play on his computer. He wished to kiss Kate, Jenny, and Kerrie. He wished to not move away, it was hard enough to find a friend the first time. He was very worried that if he said the wish the wrong way that the universe would interpret his words wrong.
Years later, he saw how the wish, as he worded it, was the problem all along.
*
If Dad had been a writer, owned a laundromat, worked at a pet store, what might have been? He tried all those things, plus selling disposable dental tools, and digital clocks w/letter opener. What if you only get so much time, and then you use it all up? It was hard to be yourself in our house. When we Pretended Sam and Spike were pets, they died and no wishing brought them back. Sometimes Dad spoke and it was like lightning; sometimes we whispered our secrets and they were like a wind, with nowhere to blow but between the four walls he bought for us -- as he changed time to chores for money so we could be warm, watch TV, and dream of who we might be...
12.26.2007
The whore of the Horror Plunge
She shows leg. She shows her leg. This is the divorce. Oh, porter! Oh, porter! This is the divorce stage. The early stage. The first time she is engaged in divorce and socially, most appropriately, the last--oh, I apologize, the final. She is american, like the flag is american, like the colors, they too, like they too are american. They are all american. America, Gus mentions, casually: Porter! Porter!
It was a sitcom, the first run through was a sitcom, a love story. She was pretty and short and....no, again: she was pretty and tall and lean and blonde and he was strong and firm and rational....no, again: he was an uncut statue, a human hero, a roman undug congressman. Oh, the Roman's were, yes, were so romantic.
She is on her pill, again, broke, peppered by the whistle, the church bells, anything spiritual at all. Any state leader, moderator, would be encouraged by the moderate music of fidelity. Ah, there is a heroine. She, yes, yes, the she that is completely compelled to be herself is indeed herself!
She shows leg and she attracts attention. There are only three million women in New York City and most of them are not attracted by other women. I am not competing with the other women, Hank insists but the color of the sun, like the color of the earth, is suggesting, perhaps erotically: we were erotic, we were sexual, we were un-crying men, we were loving ourselves, ourselves were so much to be loved--SHE SHOWED HER LEG.
Exposed: finally, exacted, flaunt! flaunt! She has no longer caught our curiousity. There are three million men in New York City and they are not interested in the woman who shows her leg. However, however, simply exhilirated, angered, exasperated, TORN. The whore of the male's animal plunge. The whore of the male and his animal plunge.
The horror of the plunge. I am just a show of my leg anyway, she wrote and she was not upset, not at all.
It was a sitcom, the first run through was a sitcom, a love story. She was pretty and short and....no, again: she was pretty and tall and lean and blonde and he was strong and firm and rational....no, again: he was an uncut statue, a human hero, a roman undug congressman. Oh, the Roman's were, yes, were so romantic.
She is on her pill, again, broke, peppered by the whistle, the church bells, anything spiritual at all. Any state leader, moderator, would be encouraged by the moderate music of fidelity. Ah, there is a heroine. She, yes, yes, the she that is completely compelled to be herself is indeed herself!
She shows leg and she attracts attention. There are only three million women in New York City and most of them are not attracted by other women. I am not competing with the other women, Hank insists but the color of the sun, like the color of the earth, is suggesting, perhaps erotically: we were erotic, we were sexual, we were un-crying men, we were loving ourselves, ourselves were so much to be loved--SHE SHOWED HER LEG.
Exposed: finally, exacted, flaunt! flaunt! She has no longer caught our curiousity. There are three million men in New York City and they are not interested in the woman who shows her leg. However, however, simply exhilirated, angered, exasperated, TORN. The whore of the male's animal plunge. The whore of the male and his animal plunge.
The horror of the plunge. I am just a show of my leg anyway, she wrote and she was not upset, not at all.
Walnuts
The reasons for the seas were lost in long lines coiled and made into the letters A G C T under our skin. "CAT G?" She asked and laughed. "Like a gansta?" But it was only sort of funny. The clouds kept circling the earth, vultures kept to the deserts and eagles were scarcer and scarcer in America. I saw one once, in a small nest, stuffed and waiting for her egg to hatch. "Momma eagle on a Grecian urn, huh?" But it was not funny.
When we were kids she said, "Heaven is like a white line on white paper," and we thought about that for a while before Bob Dylan came on the readio & told us not to think twice. So we kissed, and I walked back home on the empty night roads for the first time in my life. "Click, click," said the traffic lights. Later I would spend many nights on Walnut Street, high and hungover, listening to the lights after a day of school and talking calmly to pedophiles. What was their reason? And what about their victims?
Can you spell evil with four letters?
"L-I-V-E," said Tommy. "I LIVE in a house."
Good job, Tommy. What else can you spell?
"Lots of things!"
Then he would be alright. The ones who worried me were the bad spellers, the kids who didn't know where they lived and couldn't tell you who lived with them anyway. Like Marshall.
"Oh, you're always thinking about Marshall," she said. "Marhsall Marshall Marshall." Then she looked sad. I don't blame her, though. I try to be present, try to stay in the HERE and NOW and not the SOMEWHERE back THEN, or worse, wander off into A LONG TIME AGO...
Can you spell LIVE?
"Nah, I no good at spellin."
What are you good at?
"Rappin."
You want to rap for me?
"Nah."
You sure?
"Mmn, ok." "Freestyle. You write it for me?" Marshall's eyes were very white, and he did not smell very good.
You want me to write down what you say?
"Mmn, yeah. Ready?"
*
MARSHALL's RAP:
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
*
"Wait, you wrote that down for him?" She looked worried. I didn't know Marshall was stealing from someone, a grown man who got paid plenty for the rhymes I made him change. When we spelled out the new words togther, Marshall tried his best to sound them out; but he didn't have the same letters in his brain, they weren't hooked up to sound like A is A and G is G. So mostly I did the spelling. Later, you know, later he---
"I know, Adam, I know." And took my hand.
She already knew this story.
*
Sometimes our memories circle round us and we are in the desert; sometimes we circle around them. The egg won't hatch, it's made of plaster, and anyway there is no Momma Eagle, no Grecian Urn, and truth is not the reason for the sea or what one man does to a boy with his body, or through the radio, or in a quiet office 17 floors above a street named for a beautiful tree. "You're nuts about walnuts," she said.
And that, we both agreed, was really funny.
When we were kids she said, "Heaven is like a white line on white paper," and we thought about that for a while before Bob Dylan came on the readio & told us not to think twice. So we kissed, and I walked back home on the empty night roads for the first time in my life. "Click, click," said the traffic lights. Later I would spend many nights on Walnut Street, high and hungover, listening to the lights after a day of school and talking calmly to pedophiles. What was their reason? And what about their victims?
Can you spell evil with four letters?
"L-I-V-E," said Tommy. "I LIVE in a house."
Good job, Tommy. What else can you spell?
"Lots of things!"
Then he would be alright. The ones who worried me were the bad spellers, the kids who didn't know where they lived and couldn't tell you who lived with them anyway. Like Marshall.
"Oh, you're always thinking about Marshall," she said. "Marhsall Marshall Marshall." Then she looked sad. I don't blame her, though. I try to be present, try to stay in the HERE and NOW and not the SOMEWHERE back THEN, or worse, wander off into A LONG TIME AGO...
Can you spell LIVE?
"Nah, I no good at spellin."
What are you good at?
"Rappin."
You want to rap for me?
"Nah."
You sure?
"Mmn, ok." "Freestyle. You write it for me?" Marshall's eyes were very white, and he did not smell very good.
You want me to write down what you say?
"Mmn, yeah. Ready?"
*
MARSHALL's RAP:
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
All I need in this world is my bitch, my bitch
My glock nine, my fo five
My shotgun, I'll kill you nigga
*
"Wait, you wrote that down for him?" She looked worried. I didn't know Marshall was stealing from someone, a grown man who got paid plenty for the rhymes I made him change. When we spelled out the new words togther, Marshall tried his best to sound them out; but he didn't have the same letters in his brain, they weren't hooked up to sound like A is A and G is G. So mostly I did the spelling. Later, you know, later he---
"I know, Adam, I know." And took my hand.
She already knew this story.
*
Sometimes our memories circle round us and we are in the desert; sometimes we circle around them. The egg won't hatch, it's made of plaster, and anyway there is no Momma Eagle, no Grecian Urn, and truth is not the reason for the sea or what one man does to a boy with his body, or through the radio, or in a quiet office 17 floors above a street named for a beautiful tree. "You're nuts about walnuts," she said.
And that, we both agreed, was really funny.
She was Weepy
He is accostomed to drinking, to binging really. "Unequal abilities actually," notes his wife, Lucy, mild, engaging and periodically afraid. Recent nourishments and acts, while not merely alcohol, considerably improved his standing as most likely to be shot in the face while exiting Melvin's Southern Tavern and Restaurant. "He just has a loose tongue," yes, she remarks, unremarkably, his wife, his long standing wife, his companion, his life partner--she is attached, yes it is documented: attached. Lucy, oh Lucy, she was the athletic samaritan, lacrosse practice and then suicide hot-lines, soup kitchens, yes, yes, of course.
He was most likely to be shot in the face after muttering, indeed perhaps exclaiming, some outrageous claim of human evolution, some claim of familial fame. The bushes, the rose bushes, were an excuse, later an error on Lucy's fault. He seemed the gardening type but his disposition would not permit it, no, his daily habit, his routine, his lifestyle would not permit it. They were life partneres, remember and she was likely to console herself in medicines, cabinets, bathrooms. I am so weepy, she would say and indeed, she would think: and it is my birthday!
There are seldom reasons to excuse the nature of a predator. Escalations do not occur. There is no breaking point--it is always breaking. The owner of Melvin's Southern Tavern did not encourage the action of the man. "The engagement, the future engagement, was more like a promise than a dare," he was quoted as saying. Someone overheard him. It was more like a promise.
"What a way for him to exhale," Lucy said later. He was shot in the face coming out of a tavern because of a dare--no it was a promise. He was prone to binges and they were aggressive binges. There is little but personal attacks at the end of binges. "I hate myself," he said before he died. And Lucy was weeping, right there in front of Melvin's Southern Tavern. She was weeping and she felt very weepy.
He was most likely to be shot in the face after muttering, indeed perhaps exclaiming, some outrageous claim of human evolution, some claim of familial fame. The bushes, the rose bushes, were an excuse, later an error on Lucy's fault. He seemed the gardening type but his disposition would not permit it, no, his daily habit, his routine, his lifestyle would not permit it. They were life partneres, remember and she was likely to console herself in medicines, cabinets, bathrooms. I am so weepy, she would say and indeed, she would think: and it is my birthday!
There are seldom reasons to excuse the nature of a predator. Escalations do not occur. There is no breaking point--it is always breaking. The owner of Melvin's Southern Tavern did not encourage the action of the man. "The engagement, the future engagement, was more like a promise than a dare," he was quoted as saying. Someone overheard him. It was more like a promise.
"What a way for him to exhale," Lucy said later. He was shot in the face coming out of a tavern because of a dare--no it was a promise. He was prone to binges and they were aggressive binges. There is little but personal attacks at the end of binges. "I hate myself," he said before he died. And Lucy was weeping, right there in front of Melvin's Southern Tavern. She was weeping and she felt very weepy.
12.21.2007
the just dead
The madness, least of all, even, un-split, unequivocal sexuality. There were, to count, on the various introductions, five, perhaps even six, inappropriate gestures, slang interventions. Cruel to the least of the un-observant. Unquick? Yes, his reply. Unquick? By chance, evening prayers, morning breakfast, state-house reply. Unquick? Yes, his reply—not un-quick? No, sir. Not here, corrected and verbally confirmed. By voice? Again, perhaps. The uneasy, the squirmy, the wobbly protest, meager, feeble, junky—protest! The junky protest, all of them, the addicts, the depth chart five, addicts, unfounded in the undiscovered……Yes….the wraps, by chance, indeed, by chance, find the wraps:
They are buried after they are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—or just dead, correct? Yes, or just dead. Or they are buried, simply buried. Regardless. Yes. But not suicide?
Not suicide?
No, even suicide. It is beginning to assume that the new leadership will conduct a thorough investigation into the nature of suicide, in a very scientific and progressive manner and in which (of course conclusions are not yet obtained nor in any way pretend to be leaked nor coerced in this statement) the full truth of the all apparently assisted suicides will be appropriately assessed. We believe, of course...of course...
The madness, least of all, even, un-split unequivocal sexuality. She was, to name a few, an exceptional woman. In the midst of unnatural confusion, brought on by the surgical error of one senior physician at General Memorial, there was no accurate analysis, no final and conclusive data, on her final—junky! Yes, she was a junky, a split up and torn up junky. And she will remember that, peacefully, but far from suicidal in her intent, far from intending suicide—from wanting suicide.
They are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—no, they are just dead.
They are buried after they are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—or just dead, correct? Yes, or just dead. Or they are buried, simply buried. Regardless. Yes. But not suicide?
Not suicide?
No, even suicide. It is beginning to assume that the new leadership will conduct a thorough investigation into the nature of suicide, in a very scientific and progressive manner and in which (of course conclusions are not yet obtained nor in any way pretend to be leaked nor coerced in this statement) the full truth of the all apparently assisted suicides will be appropriately assessed. We believe, of course...of course...
The madness, least of all, even, un-split unequivocal sexuality. She was, to name a few, an exceptional woman. In the midst of unnatural confusion, brought on by the surgical error of one senior physician at General Memorial, there was no accurate analysis, no final and conclusive data, on her final—junky! Yes, she was a junky, a split up and torn up junky. And she will remember that, peacefully, but far from suicidal in her intent, far from intending suicide—from wanting suicide.
They are massacred, slaughtered, murdered—no, they are just dead.
11.24.2007
Property Values Appear To be Ok
The buildings are still only paper but they are arguing over property value and crime rates. Possible crime rates—potential crime rates. There were fifteen assaults in the neighborhood most like this one last week alone, Mark insists. He is barely out of breath, sweating—and studying, the papers, the new buildings. The new buildings are only on paper. They are just drawings, sketches, for the other side of town. Projections of what the city will pay and what the buildings will pay the city. It is not a neighborhood like that one, Ruth scoffs. That one was full of—
The criminals are plotting underground now, Seth whispers.
—the improperly educated, Ruth corrects herself. She is apologetic for the slur, the inappropriate slur. The mis-use of the language. We shall applaud the construction. But it is only paper. Only now is it paper. Mark is bending, at the knees and he is staring at the buildings on the paper and imagining them climbing, climbing out off the desk and into the ceiling and through the floor above this floor, into the fifty-seventh floor. Yes, right into Mr. Clayton’s office. Between the sculpture of the naked Madonna, the cheap naked Madonna, taste—
I suppose, eventually, I am permitted tastes that neither suggest over-indulgence nor gaudy and class-less inspiration nor, of course, impoverished histories, social justice orientation, Seth concludes. They hired me to act as a kill then, as I was permitted. He discloses, unworried by the flashing lights, the skin, the human female skin. It is carved into the mold of this purely perfected oasis…ah, that was the quote they allowed me to keep, Seth remembers. Of course. Until she called me—
I am permitted one fire arm and one pack of chewing gum, standard chewing gum, store bought, bodega bought, nothing flashy, fancy. Those weren’t criminals plotting. You were a killer, she flashes skin again. No, he says, I was taught to kill, more likely, they had me to act as I would if I were a kill. They have not legalized it, not yet. The buildings were still on paper, for Christ sake, on the bloody paper, they hadn’t finalized the capital initiatives, the oversight, the policing, the detentions, nothing. It was on paper—
We have ten assaults on this block, Mark notes. Those weren’t assaults, Ruth interrupts again, those were purely fabricated misunderstandings. So they were misunderstandings? Yes. Then they are not fabricated. No, they were invented, not real, no actors—a response team was sent to investigate, to hypothesize, to venture an estimate. Where will we build? Here and here—
And then it lit up. The tree through the floor, through the naked Madonna—the tasteless, cliché, naked Madonna in Mr. Clayton’s office. And they had you to act as a kill? The others were weak, unfed. But it was on paper. The buildings were on paper? Of course the buildings were on paper—you think anybody actually ever lived there. So you were a kill to inhabitants that were not there—
They weren’t there, the criminal minds were below, in the cellar, soiled. No, but there were kills, too many kills, ten, fifteen. In buildings that did not exist yet, did not have infrastructure to house, to be, to act as, a community. So who are you killing anyway, really. It was all on a piece of paper.
I think we should build over here, Mark suggests. He points to a place on the corner of the desk. It is safer over there, he says. Jesus Christ, Ruth spits, it’s a goddamn piece of paper in an office on a desk. No, you could assume, Mr. Clayton didn’t like the naked Madonna either.
[s]
The criminals are plotting underground now, Seth whispers.
—the improperly educated, Ruth corrects herself. She is apologetic for the slur, the inappropriate slur. The mis-use of the language. We shall applaud the construction. But it is only paper. Only now is it paper. Mark is bending, at the knees and he is staring at the buildings on the paper and imagining them climbing, climbing out off the desk and into the ceiling and through the floor above this floor, into the fifty-seventh floor. Yes, right into Mr. Clayton’s office. Between the sculpture of the naked Madonna, the cheap naked Madonna, taste—
I suppose, eventually, I am permitted tastes that neither suggest over-indulgence nor gaudy and class-less inspiration nor, of course, impoverished histories, social justice orientation, Seth concludes. They hired me to act as a kill then, as I was permitted. He discloses, unworried by the flashing lights, the skin, the human female skin. It is carved into the mold of this purely perfected oasis…ah, that was the quote they allowed me to keep, Seth remembers. Of course. Until she called me—
I am permitted one fire arm and one pack of chewing gum, standard chewing gum, store bought, bodega bought, nothing flashy, fancy. Those weren’t criminals plotting. You were a killer, she flashes skin again. No, he says, I was taught to kill, more likely, they had me to act as I would if I were a kill. They have not legalized it, not yet. The buildings were still on paper, for Christ sake, on the bloody paper, they hadn’t finalized the capital initiatives, the oversight, the policing, the detentions, nothing. It was on paper—
We have ten assaults on this block, Mark notes. Those weren’t assaults, Ruth interrupts again, those were purely fabricated misunderstandings. So they were misunderstandings? Yes. Then they are not fabricated. No, they were invented, not real, no actors—a response team was sent to investigate, to hypothesize, to venture an estimate. Where will we build? Here and here—
And then it lit up. The tree through the floor, through the naked Madonna—the tasteless, cliché, naked Madonna in Mr. Clayton’s office. And they had you to act as a kill? The others were weak, unfed. But it was on paper. The buildings were on paper? Of course the buildings were on paper—you think anybody actually ever lived there. So you were a kill to inhabitants that were not there—
They weren’t there, the criminal minds were below, in the cellar, soiled. No, but there were kills, too many kills, ten, fifteen. In buildings that did not exist yet, did not have infrastructure to house, to be, to act as, a community. So who are you killing anyway, really. It was all on a piece of paper.
I think we should build over here, Mark suggests. He points to a place on the corner of the desk. It is safer over there, he says. Jesus Christ, Ruth spits, it’s a goddamn piece of paper in an office on a desk. No, you could assume, Mr. Clayton didn’t like the naked Madonna either.
[s]
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