Under Matt's Hat

2009-03-20T22:08:00.001-07:00

smells of campfire
pull open wide
the doors of summer

2009-03-19T08:58:00.001-07:00

striped spring termite
this is not your house
nor is it mine

2008-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

chattering bird
the cat
chatters at

hidden trickles
snow melts
under ice

from the plane
a trail
I once climbed

car horns
cacophony
or night's melody

sea above
clouds below
moving eastward

2007-02-06T08:05:00.000-08:00

pigeons wade
beneath parked car--
hot steam vents

restless cat
electrified!
assults the rug

2006-12-31T09:42:00.000-08:00

faintest cheer
home team scoring run—
the man’s headphones

evergreens
even greener since
thunderstorm

cloud of bees
end their flight
my speeding car

eighty degrees—
palm tree glows
Christmas lights

shrill cry
forgotten kettle boils—
time for work

I sit
shadowboxing skull
doves escape

fog enrobes
the looming coast
curls away

students
clutch books tightly
braving the cold

2006-03-27T09:40:00.001-08:00

2006-03-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

I drift off to zombies,
hackneyed as they are.
Hired extras wait for their cue,
for my fight or flight,
or something like my full, burgeoning bloom.
The clamor of a lion’s claws
he paces the garage
and I am the tiniest of cats.
The claws are rapping--
I’ve been here before
somewhere in the minutes
haunting the space
just before I wake
to bubbling, boiling radiators
my home warm, underwater
as the neon sign
glows into my room
flashing: “LIQUORS.”

2006-03-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

2006-02-08T21:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in a while, because I've been writing essays on Virginia Woolf and Body Language and how it effects a tutoring session in the writing center. One of these does not interest me. Bet you can't guess! Bet you can't eat a whole cheesecake! But thanks to Jen, I am taking the time to contribute to this session of tag, and with good reason.

7 Songs I'm Into Now

1. Vampires of New York- Marcy Playground
2. Rat Poison (for dinner)- Say Anything
3. Thumbelina- Nightmare of You
4. Autumn Leaves [Take 2] - Bill Evens Trio
5. Blue Valentines- Tom Waits
6. She Says- Unwritten Law
7. How Long Is Forever- Willie Nelson

These songs, if not already enjoyed, should be illegally downloaded. Just kidding...or am I?

Tag, Dave you're it!

matt

2005-12-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

The ice age is here.
Bitter cold creeps around,
searching for a doorway, a place to sleep.
I exhale the air in my lungs,
watch it drift over a handrail.
It freezes, dissipates, changes form,
hangs suspended before seeping
into someone's living room.

2005-12-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

I knew Jerry,
the man who went hunting Ayhuasca,
skeletal in a midnight field of husks,
or part of that scene, seen
later through the lens of Patricia Faure
at a Ferus opening so long before
my birth.

Jerry was a carpenter like Jesus.
I used to listen to his bones creak
as he built shelves.
I helped him carry the mahogany slabs
to his converted van.

Jerry, the spirit of Venice
before it became so overrun
with money and houses.

I grew up in Indiana, Jerry,
but you took time with my poems.
Really helped that one about the sea
serenading us to sleep.

Jerry, are you still alive out there
in the big, cavernous, sprawling, lonely West?

(I guess there was an intoxicating spirit
that started to work its way into my blood, under my skin,
like a draft or whiskey buzz.
I miss it badly.)

I’m back home now, snowed in,
and just wondering
if you’re alive or dead,
you broken bulb in a sea of drunken stars,
reaching shadow in an alley of towering palms.

2005-12-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

In winter
frigid air sucks dry
gayest tune

Small box home
amidst sprouting green--
crowded town

creaking sound
ghosts on the floorboards--
old man sleeps

frozen limbs
blue and ivory feet
warm wool socks

2005-12-02T20:41:00.000-08:00

bitterness recedes
pitter patter...bird prints
in the concrete

2005-11-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

world bustles

smoke rises

even in city

heart of peace

a thousand pines

resonate true, eternal

singing song

of prodigious earth

2005-11-26T12:37:00.000-08:00

I stand alone,
On a frozen El platform.
What pleasures have I left behind?

The child has grown
Three feet since last I saw!
Eyes of a hawk

Frozen bird,
Heart chewed out
Onto stark white snow

Dinner party…
Tender snowflakes fall
Against purple sky

Train roars above
Shakes loose the track;
Lion runs through a thicket

A cat’s pink ear
Conch shell by the sea
Hears eternal waves.

Frost grows like mold
On a building’s side;
The city churns

Steam from a chimney
Meanders vertically,
Cars, a horizontal stream

Sun forgives icicles
Winter has arrived
Where have the days gone?

2005-11-26T09:30:00.000-08:00

Downtown’s history is visible
In its layout.
On the outskirts of Los Angeles,
Chicago, St. Louis,
Great buildings jet upward
Pronouncing their position.
“Isn’t the skyline idyllic?”
They say.
The giant sculptures overlook
Their surroundings:
Industry, mainly, moats metropolis.
Wrecking yards and power plants,
All once outskirts of the city,
Now tucked inside, desolate,
Save for artist lofts and storage facilities.

2005-11-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

The West is no longer a frontier,
Nor are we pioneers of the edge of this flat world.
Nestled in a valley below the Pacific winds,
The City of Angels stretches on for miles.

Do you want to go back there with me?

We could take a boat out past the jetty,
Past the pier and churning shore.
Turn and look back at twilight,
On what has become this so frequented land.
The water is dirty as I bob amidst the kelp and brine.

Come back with me, please.

We could erase our names and start again with some new fortune.
So when we turn and life is hurricane as tumultuous as life can be,
We will be within its eye,
assured that the body of some laughing child
Was not dashed against the rocks decades ago.

2005-11-07T17:47:00.000-08:00

Hola

I tend to leave out certain words sometimes,
when speaking to them, so they understand.
Of course, I have respect for foreign men
just as for those who might call me their own.
You see, I am not one to go about
adjusting dialect or frame of mind
to fit that of the man across from me
unless communication might be lost.
So if I tend to leave out certain words
due to their coarseness on the ear or tongue,
it’s only so the chance for relation
is not lost in the garbled transmission.
In fact, when it grows late, and I have had
several drinks and just happen to pass
the busboy on the way to the bathroom,
all that I can muster up is “Hola.”

2005-11-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

Temple

I will not go to Zen temple today.
I cannot face the sitting and the pain
of cramping knees and thighs. The silent room
grows unbearable from the passing trains,
and cars, whose drivers have places to go.
The bell sounds resounds, and each person then tries
to be the clevr’st so that Roshi knows,
that they alone are like the Golden Child.
They tumble over dead, or shout answers
to unsolvable koans they’ve been giv’n.
Those riddles will indeed be their demise.
But alas, I should go down today,
to settle down at least, to make myself
right with the world. To fully breathe at last:
this alone should be my intention.
How can it be, that good men do grow bored,
with touching bits of emptiness they find?

2005-11-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

Storm Chaser

His mind is focused, poised with steady hands.
He’s ready, moving instinctually, letting go.
His body contorted, he gives his weight
to the approaching storm. His face is red
like sunburnt sky. The fire shoots from his eyes
as the ocean swallows the burning orb.
Could it be her, with flesh obscured by boughs
of evergreen? Or is it her, tumbling
through cotton ball clouds, calling his name?
A flash of white, he’s floating with the stars.
He looses grip, his forehead hits the glass.
Perhaps he’s been a bit too loud this time.
He listens, but hears only sounds of sleep,
and steel radiators in the night.

2005-11-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

How far have we gone, now?

If only it were as simple as the shadows in bones.
Stillness in marrow, warranting release,
and the falling of eyelids,
now ten thousand or so notions removed.

Before sight, was the candor of non.
Non-everything, yet condensed as sulfites,
grouped like multicolored posterboard housing.

All under the sun
Equal to the distance from Big Shore--
plane of no substance.

Equal to the distance we must swim back.

A lottery of karma,
borne against its will.

Yet its ceasing--
like the momentary retreating tide--
the hardest task,
surpasses will.

2005-11-04T19:36:00.000-08:00

That hillside--
one could take a charge to it,
and hardly change it,
as if man has no legs to climb that soft soil.

There are craters aplenty
which already glaze the spectators eye.
A few modified-- we have the tools--
made askew in a particular vantage
would not warrant panic
in neighboring villages.

Alas, there is no cable long enough,
to harbor us from that fulmination.
We must either submit ourselves to the blast,
or find some other occupation.

2005-11-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

I can get enough as the Spectator...
I have had enough.

(i.e., In the back of the room, Lucy flips the breaker.
The crowd gasps as the cinema is brought to life. Again
the film plays with the same flaws in the reel, the sound
skips. It is a ball rolling, underwater or perhaps it is the
cloudy nature of the film. Music plays but it does not
correspond with the visual, as if trying to “take off,” or
“separate.” The projector operator is smoking, which
has an ethereal affect on the hall. The crowd would
not mind watching a third time, but the fuses keep blowing,
and it gets smokier until grandpa coughs. The hypnosis
obviously had little effect, his back, his lungs.)

2005-11-04T15:43:00.000-08:00

Regarder un photo du chatte:

Fantastique, no?

2005-11-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

A line of patients wait outside my door,
They have been there for weeks now, taking turns
Peering in through the frosted glass, my name
Etched on the outward facing side. I have
No secretary, no second hands to field
Their fussy, impatient queries. One man
Loves his father, one only loves the Bard.
A woman has trouble keeping composure,
Another sings out of rhythm and tune.
All need amending before they can be
Acquianted with the world; they are such shy,
Demanding seedlings I am in care of.
The wife will soon request me home for supper,
I must leave all this for another day.
Though late at night my thoughts will be with them,
Resiving has become my twilight dream.

2005-10-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

I surveyed the map
watching the maritime blues,
yellows, beiges,
permeate gaps, absent
of homes, wrecking yards.
Then I was over L.A.,
watching San Gabriel
bound into transparency.
A bell chimed, a clock
struck a new light year.
The dusty grid below,
paled, diaphanous.
The vast sheen of sea drew,
the jagged crystalline.

And then it was gone.

The action abated at once,
the crumbling of soil,
the fading hues.
The only constant
(I traced it with my finger)
was the hard line,
where the sea
met the edge of land.

2005-10-20T09:30:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos from our trip back east. I took them from a speeding Penske, just for you.

2005-10-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

The garden
so still in mid-afternoon fog,
in truth- teeming, heaving,
against the barrier of loam.

2005-09-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

I picked a moon flower for you last night.
Through dreary fields and ten-high fence I climbed.
Thorns bled black my iridescent skin.
I thought to grab two, but considered the sin.
The bush was not mine, but yours to begin.

2005-09-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

I prefer the night,
when details are submerged in pools of black.
The neighbors cannot see us.
The porches all aglow,
but the spaces in between-
charcoal, slate.
We lay, my lover and I,
like grubs emerging from soil,
catching first glimpse of the solar system.

2005-09-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

we made paper in the dune cabin

tadpoles / the soundproof knot

always repulsed the die

A league of ships dotted shore / halted

a shoddy canon clustered shot

All living / broke the hell wagon

bobbing synchronically, leveled/

plastic curtain / tacked to the cork board

honed in / precise lighthouses

imferma from the damp

realized the dawn

derma layer / permeated the frost

clocks are collimated to Denver

song repeats / echoing redwoods

skiff and marble shore

2005-09-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

50

in a book/meet me

in the carport/ blue text

grade pink papers/ guzzle vino

perpendicular/ legs knotted

cardigan/ come again

my idols/ my youth

the peels/ gathered

the smell/ seeping

2005-09-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

You have made
a monster
of me/

I intended all along
to be
content/

But your content
keeps me
questioning/

No court is in session,
yet I am
on trial/

Plato and the lyrics
in their
defense/

My will, my normalness,
you have
challanged/

Gathered are my demons,
running
up the hill/

When you have had me,
I opt
to chase them/

2005-09-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

Down two flights of stairs
to the hot laundry room,
the sun laying upon the door
in relentless waves.
So much work
into making a home.
How could I ever escape
the mundane tasks of life?
I could run all night-
free as a bird,
but would still need new shoes
come morning.

2005-09-11T11:57:00.000-07:00

Brownstones are mountains in the flatlands
if I went West if I went East
The mountains there are tired of being looked at.
if I ran if I grew tired
If I stink of sweat will you still love me?
I lay in the grass; the ants claim my body.
Frank Lloyd Wright stands broad and tall.
The windows are all aglow.
How sweet and thick the night,
when all I can hear are the cicadas
welcoming me home,
their songs vibrating across the lawn.

2005-09-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

If Pepe Le Pew ever caught the offended who was
unfortunate enough to have a run-in with a paint roller,
the room would be in shambles.
The display case of croissants spilt across the floor,
the thin, black wired chairs overturned.
Those chairs always made me want to be
thirty-five waking up to stretch and scratch
pouring O.J., reading the papers,
the Eiffel Tower framed in the window
above the balcony,
the Eiffel Tower framed in oak
above the toilet.
The Parisian air would drift in and inspire me
to paint, to make love and I’d be fat and hairy,
but sure of my irresistibility.
Even at age 8, watching Saturday morning cartoons in Indiana,
I wanted to sit in a chair like that.

2005-09-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

There was something about the tree line.
That floral crust was the edge of cognition.
From the highway I could see a sodden ravine.
The richness of soil was evident,
in the density of vegetation that grew sparser outward.
The ground water collected,
where the burgeoning hues were of the richest green.

2005-09-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Vegas is wasted,
still a newborn,
clay-baked and basted
in red and dust.
People dissappear
here alone or together
doesn’t make a damn
bit of difference.
When the sun rises
the newts scurry
wash the cars
run the errands
before they are baked
baked baked baked
into the hard earth.

2005-09-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

So we moved into the new place at 2416 W. Leland Ave. in Chicago. It's huge and great and we'll be staying here for a long time. I'm just too damned tired from unloading the truck to tell you anymore right now. I'll post pictures later. Here's a new poem:

All two point six million fans are spinning
on their axis, growing larger in number every day.
We transport our bodies
from one box to the next, cooled by freon,
operating, resting, travelling.
Shuffled feet kick up dust, stripped of all moisture
in this place. The body is mostly water,
thoughts creep through the spaces in between.
In this place there is only carbon.
People man the machines. We need more power,
more fluid.
Pipe it in and let the mosquitos breed at the puddles
where the tube meets the mountain.
Their eggs waterborne, they are transients here.
They will move on once tremendous losses to their colony
have been suffered.
The fans spin faster all the time.

2005-08-24T23:22:00.000-07:00

The Earth is an organ fueled by sugar.
It helps the fire eat rock and become more rock.

Sugar from canes and islands seeps
Sub-epidermal, then is an enzyme, thick and alive.

All of the sinuous passion of metabolism,
Is excreted by the lava in the center of the earth.

Pimples appear- volcanos in Alaska, Mongolia-
The red-orange puss of a planet suspended in space.

But land is wide; water deep,
And the matter beneath the living surface,

Is more dense than the gray matter of brain,
Forty-eight ounces floating within the fluid barrier.

Bacteria grows freely, it’s part of the atmosphere,
We breathe it and host it, and eventually it eats us.

We have seventy years to beat the mold,
The human fungus. A seventy year average until

Our bones turn to dust, and when the rain falls again
We are washed into the water supply,

And we are drank by our survivors,
then pissed out, yellow names in the snow.

2005-08-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Through the aviary,
sparrows streak yellow,
flashes of blue,
shadows over the ferns.
You capture the light
in prisms,
making it dance-
chase the birds in circles
through the dome sky.
Giant lilies dip close to the water.
A plane of bees
vibrate and shift,
tipping the flowers
close to the ground.
Through the refractory nature
of glass, you fire at the creatures-
the incendiary focus of sunlight,
just missing the birds,
who pause on branches, mocking you,
cocking their heads
to stare down
at the pockmarks below.

2005-08-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

I could walk all night,
backdropped against the Pacific’s aphotic void,
pulled by it’s austere song,
but the refuse would still pile high,
the tenants made aware of it’s fermentation,
drifting down the halls.

I could conceive a singular orb,
of infinite white feathered beauty,
and remain hypnotized by it’s radiant hum,
but the home’s pale wood would still darken,
and the mohogany pale.

I could harmonize with the voice in the hall,
concealed behind a door, hardly breathing,
waiting until it starts again. I could cry out with it,
and reverberate through every dark and forsaken
room of this home,
but the orchids are less tenacious in autumn,
and would wilt without a gentle coaxing.

I could become clay,
and mold into the hands of the Great Sculptor,
but man’s purpose is realized slower
that the spinning of a potter’s wheel.
For there are four seasons on earth,
eighty birds in my garden,
and a thousand heres and theres in a child’s roadmap.

2005-08-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Thank God that if the desire
to create something in His likeness should arise,
there are subtle ways to fullfill it.
When the baker measures out cupfulls
from his bag of flour,
and an hour later pulls out a warm dozen,
he can lord over his kitchen, content
to have mortared his brick into the wall.
Women, at a stage of development,
having attained the likeness of their mothers,
crave something to nurture,
and are moved to find it.
A solitary Picasso hunches over
a foggy beach, feverishly sketching into the sand,
then climbs a dune
abandoning his masterpiece as the tide claims it.
A child buries an acorn in the schoolyard,
and returns a lifetime later
to find a towering tree.

We strive least often,
to create something in the likeness of God,
but when we ask for the ability
it seems we are given
a sample version.

2005-08-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

Shall I sing you the song of lost youth?
Woe is me, my shorts are all gone,
they’ve fallen to my knees in a hurried trip
to courduroy, silk. Worms spin my man garb now.
This body has to feed itself, how sad.
It has to feed others, and is inclined
to stay from the water’s edge, to remain
safely on the train platform.
It is an asset to the community,
a mobile, thinking, shitting vessel of commerce.
The eulogies are all on file, the family
pictures behind ultraviolet glass now,
adding another forty years to their life,
twelve more people will remember my name.
How curious, the ant hill will soon
be inhabited by sand fleas, who will feast
on the blood of the ankles of aliens.

2005-08-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

The heads of my ancestors
visited me in dreams,
delivered packages of frankincense.
Days aren't that bountiful anymore.
Flies have invaded the home,
claiming the pasta, bread, brocolli as their own.
Fucking flies.
The dogs have found new owners.
I am only a haggard man, with a whittle
shouting curses from the porch.
I used to carve soap,
but the tsunami turned it all to foam.
All men have dusty guitars waiting to be played,
dusty lungs straining to be filled,
faded jeans, tattered windsocks all drying on a line.
This house and all its facets will outlive me.
I'll pass on from the floor looking up
garlic butter spilt down my front
socks bunched up around my ankles
the caged animals will starve
a film will settle
The ringing telephone minstrel serenades
my soul, softly,
laying me down.

2005-08-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Squeeze your eyes shut hard enough,
and nothingness between the molocules that make you
will ignite and sponaneously combust.
Far off, four million light years away,
a galaxy implodes on itself,
taking with it ten thousand thoughts.
A baby cries,
the world orgasms,
a blade of grass shadows the entire universe.
All is crazy, all is well.

2005-08-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

The Apocalypse is Neigh Vs. Nothing At All

It would take more words
than gallons of water in all seven seas
to describe the passing of each breeze
and just as much emotion to move the pen to write.

But the sea will dry up
and with it the ink
even digitized files of all the recollections of man
returned to the carbon sludge from whence they came.

Cities watched from afar
that are founded, will flourish, crumble, vanish
and their artifacts are buried
and in one thousand years discovered, learned from and sold.

Every second, ten thousand people
push and pull against brick walls
and one million birds
drift on a lazy West wind.

Does the river struggle at all,
as it flows down the mountain?
Do rain drops protest,
as they fall into the sea?

In a last gasp of air, one discovers,
that the walls were never there.

2005-08-11T20:00:00.001-07:00

"Leave out certain words
when speaking to them,
so that they understand better."
How can they learn
anything that way?
"But maybe they are happy
on the Southeast side."
They are among their kind.
No, that’s bigotry, that’s crap.
People are people.
There you go again.
You have no empathy,
no tolerance.
"They do serve a purpose,
they work the jobs
that are nessecary,
the one’s we don’t want."
Funny then, that we’re
working together.
When we pass on the way
to the bathroom, I struggle
for friendly words.
All I can come up with
is Hola.

2005-08-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

Words don’t soothe like they used to.
leaf
dust
layer
breeze
shelf
day
I tried all of these,
they didn’t fit here ______.
So I died the Fantastical Death,
suffered tremendous losses.
Everyone I knew has moved on.
Even the organ is out of tune.
The homes have all imploded.
I am left with little oxygen
and an itch for jazz.
What if propellant wasn’t required
?
Gas, bread, dough.
I moved soundlessly through the night,
I swallowed wind, my gills opened up.
No one around was alive
so I took my socks off,
tested the black waters.

2005-08-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

I walked around the earth
heel to tow,
toe to heel,
scanning the edges for
(digging for)evolved body:
men without nipples
feet without toes
eyes of architects
philosopher fingers
(the bones that outlast
plastic, beneath
gracefully doctored flesh).
But I was pre-
mature;
didn’t account for the Gout
maiming the heel.
The rich foods I craved,
my hide
saved by which.

2005-08-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

If the Gordian knot were sliced
by Manjushri’s sword,
the waters would no longer stir,
the wind would pass through boughs
with out a sound to those
walking below.
If the wind should cause
and apple to fall,
and strike the hikers skull,
would he flare up in vain?
Or laugh at the human condition
and fly into the sun?

2005-08-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

I love the old bus,
with it’s egg-topped roof,
and big, puffy seats.
My Grandma would have sat here,
en route to middle school,
fresh off the boat from Vicenza.
Sitting here now,
I feel like Cahill,
traversing a Peruvian dirt road,
accompanied by Sherpas
and families with caged chickens,
heading to town
to have them slaughtered and sold.

2005-08-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

The main thoroughfare
is loaded with the confused:
those who have,
those who want.
Some faces are of stone,
looking down from pedestals,
only seeking
to satisfy their palettes
with frivolous trinkets.
Others are red, blown-out,
swollen from the runoff
that collects in their beds.
Both polar ends of humanity’s spectrum
congregate here,
pleading with their eyes.
They throw themselves to the dogs,
the iridescent, fluorescent
stone and iron giants.

2005-08-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Anoint me with clockless skin,
the last human desire
twittering on Time Avenue.

Make the main course contentment,
even in the face of alacrity:
(if the body is a shell, so let it)

man is severed from time
(which is not at all static, mechanical)
best in gardens

where electric color
is squeezed from Flora
blue on the eyes, yellow to heart

I beg of you, “become eternal”
and the tongue
will spell it’s message in circles

never dictating “soon”
which is always “gone’
full to history’s brim

happenings are slow to near
and we’re left with (where?)
catapulted, tumultuous

only misgiving: the one that is
the distance between who and who,
is you.

2005-08-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

I alone contain
the exploratory nature of youth,
who was held in the cradle of transistion,
bound only by the arms of the North Star.
Telescopes and towers were in my defense,
They helped me look to Big World for the unexplained
hues of hornet clay in monsoon,
of wet glass lights over orange highway.
I looked to the Moon, sister time clock,
water mover, Goddess advisor of Grandfather Earth,
keeping watch from her blue oceans
over the doings of Man.
I looked over the battlements,
to the edge of Woods,
and found it teeming with life,
who could not see me atop my fortress,
nor did they care. For they were jumping
from branches and scurrying under rocks,
preparing for the approaching storm.

2005-08-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

The bums have ditched their Monopoly pieces,
Top Hats, Race Cars, and Dogs- spilling
into the murky depths of frozen Great Lake.
Tiny cast iron stars sink to the bottom,
winking farewell to the Eternal Pier.
A busted toll spills its coins onto the highway.
A lone figure moves lathargically, framed in purple sky
one square at a time, careful not to crack
against the solidified earth.
A baby is born, at once shocked into consciousness
realizing it has missed it's window of warmth.
From a vista through a screen,
a woman looks out over her yard,
to the treetops; a mushroom cloud looms.
All the statues of demi gods crumble, too.
Their worshippers see the insides-
more and more rock, dug by former slaves.
They turn their backs to the pinata,
as it’s candy is gobbled up by kids,
who scramble, laughing, possesed by the Holy Spirit.

2005-08-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

If my cat had not been digruntled
over a messy litter box,
if I had just remembered to clean it
on the weekend, when I usually take the time,
if I had realized that her meowing
had a reason, (she was not standing near her bowl,
she was not standing there at all.)
if I had seen her looking to the filth,
then to me, to the filth, then to me,
if I had smelled the funk, rising
like stagnation from a backed-up sewer,
choking the charm and coziness
from the kitchen, invading the home,
if I had realized that toilets flush,
but litter stays put and ferments,
if I had contemplated the complex emotions
that a feline is capable of,
not the simplest of which is resentment,
I would not be here, at the Laundromat,
sitting atop the whirring, stirring machine,
soaping and boiling my down comforter.

2005-08-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

I miss the sidewalks covered in mounds
of slick, clear, frost-spotted ice.
When every spout on the horizon
leaks a steam that hizzles toward the sky,
one places himself from one cocoon to the next,
shielding his tender flesh from the elements.
If one is wrapped well enough, and can venture
into the darkness on the coldest of nights,
his thoughts will be broken only by the groaning
and crunching of hardened snow beneath his feet,
and his comfort invaded only by the overlooked
crevices in his outer protection. There are times
when one is reluctant to even inhale, for the bitter air
is unsuitable for lungs, and the pads
of one’s shoes will soon succumb to the soil
upon which he walks, which is frozen
to such a degree that it seeks out warmth
in the things that come into contact with it.

I miss the abrupt changes in season
from lifeless, gray Winter into Spring,
where the smells of abundance peek
their furry heads out from holes, are squeezed
from the thawing ends of buds, and one is elated
at the mild climate and seemingly limitless
potential of a day. Then Spring evolves into Summer,
where one can roll on the floor, indoors or out,
and feel completely liberated to allow that
which lives out of his home, in. Summer then sees
grayer, turbulent days, in which he lowers
his head when walking into the wind. The street
is blown over with leaves, first red and orange,
then brown. They collect in piles under curbed cars,
and one turns into himself and is given time to introspect
on the elements which make up his life.

I miss these changes, these checkpoints of one’s
place in the year. I miss them because they do not occur
here. One’s week slips by like a movie he has slept through,
and he is left with no conscious groupings of time
that can be looked to in memory, and reflected upon.
Here there is no arresting smells that one discovers
after they have been hiding frozen for nearly a year,
smells that remind him of people he once new,
and places that seemed as if they would be frequented
until the end of his life. This is the dilemma
of a neutral climate, one that is mild for the majority
of the year. Conceptually, a place which sees no extreme
change in weather seems more conducive to joy.
But one may find in time, that once the thrill of sunny skies
wears off, one is left feeling disconnected from nature,
which makes itself known even in an urban environment,
if it is in a constant change of form and intensity.
If we wish to be in always in a state of self invesitgation
and rebirth, which, if not a part of, one’s ambitions might
atrophy, causing him to forget the small joys and curiosities
in nature, then we must submit ourselves to be commanded-
to a degree- by the seemingly mundane effects of changing seasons.

2005-08-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

I would call her rubber legs.

Her call an undistinguishable mix between No and More.

If only the world were so amused by scraps of paper.

The house is empty the house is full, she knows nothing.

She is in the closet, waiting for the toilet to flush,

to go for a dip, splash the filthy water at the door.

When she turns her head until is touches her back, that is clean, no other.

She is on mental leave, watching movement in the yard.

At five, she will circle big cat legs, zig zagging

out of the way, to escape being crushed.

2005-08-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

I would take the buds
if I wasn’t fueled by the dregs of blood
trying for progenesis, I mean telekenesis.
Suspended by flower alone,
she blows death wind over the valley,
a train stops at no port, but in the center
of a great state.
Shock beneath the sewers,
strange how the water tastes grey,
since land mass came into style.
Mammals skid to a stop,
on a dime store novella.
The man on the street with the most people
screams lines from a romance paperback,
change his material, change your life.
Literature in.
My books all have holes.
Termites in the walls.
Antsy in tus pantalones.
Fuck you gringo, don’t print what I say.
I’m leaving until Novembre,
to come back as a stranger.

2005-07-31T23:24:00.000-07:00

Snapshots: “Record my body
the way it is tonight, so when decades
pass, and it has surrendered to
gravity and time, I can remember
that it was once tenacious and supple.
Gather in close and let us
rejoice at the failing of flesh.
We meet in these vessels and share words,
nourishing ourselves at the buffet
near the water’s edge. And now we
know that our passing is inevitable,
and in many ways easier to comprehend,
leafing through albums in retrospect.”

2005-07-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

skin so brown
she uses
moisturizer(mango, apple, cherry blossom)
thrusts arms out
so sleeves aren’t spoiled
throws hands up
like Muslim gazing Mecca
shoots gobs lime green the stuff
all on the face it goes
arms and elbows
she
has dark skin
but it is
no longer
so ashy

2005-07-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

I may be evolving after every meal
but some unfortunates are victims of vertebrae
the spine’s base, nestled into the pelvic bowl
has yet no arms to reach
and grab the railing for support.
Perhaps I do not understand your
corrupt biology. Your own method of turning
ground flour into bone. But we are not supported
solely by the calcified frame of our bodies.
Sinuous expanding flesh works when we
are sleeping. These muscles
replenish themselves and will last until
doctors finish construction on plastic man
inside mt. charleston

You reach out your hand to me
“oh my aching back, oy vay,
we are all victims of time,
someone quick, get the nurse”
I will walk on all fours I say, I will not use my body
as a standby vehicle, waiting until death to relax.

2005-07-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

It’s a fine mess and I cannot leave it.
I tried running toward the water,

was bounced back by an invisible force,
Jedi, perhaps, hidden lines.

the bus speeds directly at its borders,
and collides with unseen walls,

not smashing to pieces, but
slowing it with increasingly even pressure

while the engine revs higher into the red.
Cars cannot help me escape, they form

barriers unto themselves. Somehow they know.
Straight up is no option, for authorities

would be quick to shoot up and seize
me. Then surely we would

be trapped here forever. So down I try,
in a sweated, feverish final go.

This too is fruitless, plotting at the
county’s edge, searching the horizon for helicopters

digging below the electrified fence at midnight,
tubers stuck beneath my ragged nails nod empathetically,

for they are bound by the soil that nourishes them,
and are no longer bothered with this way or that.

2005-07-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

the city grid flickers from above
purple and green, giant circuit board
the operators asleep at their desks.
Cellular phones and traffic lights connect
and evolve, the residue of movement
falls stranger to time perspective.
and the cars with yellow eyes (red
if retreating) pump like digital blood
with no heart source to discover.
cells fit perfectly into bigger cells,
garage doors close, mitochondria sleep
soundlessly on nucleolus pillows.
lights go out on the town tonight
except for transmission spelled out:
“Johnny Loves Jane” in lit rooms on a
skyscraper side. Stock brokers, real
estate agents do this willingly, leaving
their office lights on because the memo
read, “Flush the darkness and
shed light on the cold streets below.”

2005-07-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

When the lights are extinguished
sounds no longer audible
the nerves are soothed
salient toothed beasts
go back under ground.
Two boys on LSD
watch treetops illuminated
old cars burned and abandonded
sit haunted and still
in clearings of the forgotten
corners of Indiana.
Two boys stand bathed in moon
permeated by autumn night
tarantulas on the lawn
skyspace on the horizon- beckons.
They turn toward the blue woods
a hidden ravine,
at their backs: a sleeping town.
They step inside,
their feet growing tentacles-
gray like the fresh earth.
They sink down,
treading deep in the soil.
The forest sways with a wind
as their bodies dissapear into the tangle.

2005-07-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

all the babies have been born tonight
and they are all gone.

you may live in my hovel
sweep up the trash

I will protect you if you
do what I say.

Stay calm and no one will get hurt
even now I resort to UV lights

flickering in the back of my pregnant mind.
can’t go yet, haven’t had a chance

to get out of these shoes spill
my guts to father whats is name.

a life of grime, perhaps that’s what’s in store
and if you please you’ll be dirty too.

scraping for food for change our knuckles on the ground
but you are mine. the hands the legs the pretty face

the sineuous passion like horse glue that
holds it all together.

but I'll never be sold on cheap booze,
substance runs thin the body, precious fluids dried.

no, without you dear, I’d be
addicted to something else, heaven forbid.

2005-07-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

There are constant voices on the sidewalk
old willows scraping at the screen
Dear God! the wind is swelling
and I might go with it
if only for a while.
I think I’ve played the human game
long enough and I’ll set sail
down Ballona Creek if it went to
somewhere that didn’t move.
There’s where I'm headed, see.
Where animals keep responding
to sounds to flickers in the atmosphere
their scalps foil antennae against the night.
I’m spinning here. It’s radiation and its
growing, but Geology is dead
always has been. If it wasn’t, it would
breathe with us, dine with us,
even duplicate with us. But it’s howling
in the wind, the swelling sound.
And I’m stepping into it,
ready to go. Ready to forfeit
the rocks this time. The dead rocks
are null to me and I’ve lost the zest
to peer down holes into
the speckled, laminated land.

2005-07-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

The Crow lives alone.

Craning its neck, looming over
passengers, commited, stopped at lights.
Ha, I am the Green Man,
to hell with your plans.
How does the crow appear to you,
after it licks the salt gone
its body charred from the inside,
its oily black feathers
exposing in patches its cinder innards?
Man's heart is revealed that way.
Blood spilling onto the street,
Regarding his intention,
runs for isolation,
collecting the red liquid as it falls, spatters.

2005-07-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

five business plans for the disillusioned fatalist:

1. invent a human teleport device. beam up Scotties delegate jobs to migrant workers. Live in Upper Peninsula, MI with mosquitoes pontoon boat whiskey 400 miles.

2. test biological resistance in scientific experiment sleeping with Welsh. live double life as money jar for worlds best ____?

3. gossamer takes flight, never returns another spring. Birds overused, trade aspirations for new metaphors.

4. open and name restaurant “All the Caveat You can Keep Down” and admit guests after reciting human extinction probability.

5. confound the most brilliant minds with invention that never fills up, never holds life, cries only when smashed and the broken and scattered glass reads: “are you? will you ever be?”

2005-07-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

I stared down at Map
watching the maritime blues,
yellows, beiges
seep between places where
houses would be.
Then I was above L.A.
watched San Gabriel range
bound into transparency.
the dusty grid below
the vast sheen of sea
and then it was gone.

A silence gripped me,
I saw the scene progress
quickly, endlessly onward.
The crumbling of soil,
the fading hues
The only constant,
(I traced it with my finger)
was the hard line,
where the sea
meets the edge of land.

2005-07-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

Dreamt that I found a cat that had been written on in ball-point pen, which was clearly visible on its fluffy white shoulder. I was enraged that someone would do this and someone how knew that it was a group of mexican mechanics who work at a shop up the street. So I marched up there and inturrupted their lunch. They were all sitting around happily eating.
“Excuse me.”
They all look up.
“Hola, Senor.”
“I found a cat, it had been written on with pen.”
They all gape at me.
“I found...un gato...con boligrafo.” I made a motion of frantic scribbling, violent gestures in the air.
They all sat for a moment, looking at each other, concerned. Then burst into laughter.
“Did you do this?!” I yelled, enraged.
They kept laughing.
“NO BOLIGRAFO EN LA GATO!!!”
They were in tears.
They all must have realized I was serious as I stormed away, fuming, for they yelled, “Losiendo, senor! Losiendo!”

Also dreamt that I was playing a game in a room with old friends, the board for the game was the size of the entire floor. Two people lock arms, and spin singing, “Swing your partner round and round, ect., ect. They all fall down!” At which point the two people break apart, and where they land determines how personal of a confession they have to make. There were also rocks strewn about the playing field, which one was supposed to collect somehow.

2005-07-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

I make no effort
to match the word
or place something
within the free
space
of your absence.
Your likeness fades
from our memories
always proclaiming

all your history’s women
the assault,
Missouri now.
Whether this way or
that.
i don’t know. never will.
you, all around
you, the ghost in the hall.
you, laughter in a room.

hellbent on ending up
always elsewhere
looking toward the window
like a stained glass mobile
-not to break,
but to flourish
when the sun catches you right.

2005-07-19T21:01:00.001-07:00

I’m on an island
and glad
that tide works
the way it does.
For surely,
I would be submerged
had the earth’s spin
wound up a different rate.
Glad for that.
Glad vegetables grow
as easily as they do.
Glad this is not
the Middle Ages.
Glad for frost
receding to spring.
Glad you sing
in the kitchen with cats.
Glad we’re still children
in many ways.
Who can proclaim the nature of man?
Glad I have no clue.

2005-07-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Everything has a credo
mine's elation
yours indian summer
theirs is We can’t get lost here
A water flea
can’t finish a human meal
humans can't stomach raw meat.
I once hallucinated to a red
alarm clock and a body
with toothpicks for bones.
Even then, words were useless.
A glance is majestic.
The tropics frenetic
whether foreign or old.
Typhoid is cured
reads the headline
thank god humanity's saved.
I once knew a man
slipped (sure footed)
backward into Canada
froze to a crawl
realized there weren’t enough
tokens for Yukon,
warm, golden.

2005-07-16T22:46:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt at some Emily Dickens- style poetry. Just an exercise, not to worry, like I'm sure you were.

She sits, a plant within these walls
a pot upon the shelf
but moving of her own accord
and breath of willful health.

Her hearing tunes acutely
to the tones and whirs and clangs
of all the cars and people
that midday traffic brings.

The sun shines down in fragments
upon the unmade bed
and mice race in and out
of the dreams within her head.

At night when we’re all sleeping
she stalks the shadows down
then curls up at our heels,
and joins this sleeping town.

2005-07-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

Just to let the few souls know who happen to periodically stumble into this sight, DePaul accepted me into their Creative Writing program yesterday. Woohoo! Hooray!

2005-07-11T14:10:00.001-07:00

I cannot speak on duration.
Gurus announce their deaths,
farewell, faithful public.
Another feast, empty/full,
a breeze runs through the
polished hall.
I cannot speak on duration.

2005-07-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

I no longer work in a restaurant
but the fat lady woke me up
said time to get ready I was
in an attic. I got dressed appeared
in side door of this old
emplyment remodeled. I'm sick
of eating wooden almonds they
go in they go out they go in they go
out. And I'm an elf now, up and down
the stairs, wacking my head on the
ceiling of this elvish staircase.
Take orders, get the food this is
living. I'm sweating and it's only
when the toilet appears filled
with shit, long garden hosed sized
shit do I laugh, and it's out loud
filling the room, down the hall
tumbling to Bangladesh, dead
in the mailbox, spilt onto the stairs.

2005-07-10T14:09:00.002-07:00

Here are a few images that Jen took of the Grunion Run that is taking place along the West coast right now. See okplusthree.blogspot.com or read the following poem for a better description...

Grunion!!!

Males and Females gettin' jiggy.

Fellow Venetians enjoying the miraculous marine biology.

Me enjoying some Paul Newmans Organic popcorn.

Best Regards,
Management

2005-07-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Standing
on the Western edge
of this continent
staring into the darkness
the soft, gray void where
sky meets water infinitely outward,
the ambassadors of the human race
wait with flashlights
and buckets
surveying the remaining dregs
of each retreating wave.
Thirty, fifty feet out to sea,
eight thousand translucent
hand-length Grunions
bob with the tide,
waiting for their brains
to respond to the conditions,
to set into motion a series
of instinctual reactions.
In pairs, they race
toward the shore
inside a breaking churning wave.
Their silvery scales catch
on the firm sand
In an instant, the male is on her,
his body bent around the female,
contributing his half
of the equation.
The female digs her tail down
into the moist soil,
laying her eggs, buried.
Meanwhile, beams of light
from the excited people, waiting
swing in her direction,
like spotlights on a stage,
her monologue
from one race to another.
She writhes free and shoots
from the sand, flipping,
suffocating, leaping toward water,
praying that the next wave
will carry her back to sea.

2005-07-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

you wonder
why I choose North

always North
closer to
Freezing point

the cold earth balled
in your hand
held out
cupped
just over the surface

crumbles and scatters

why does one choose
this way or that?

down
in the dirt, soft and black
just below the surface
pine needles
anonymous.

up here
North
just inside the tree line

(what better way to go...)

animal esque
untelevised

undocumented
down in the dirt

looking up
the pines needle skyward,
triumphant, trumpeting

and
(any notice will be given
as a distant afterthought)

2005-07-06T21:31:00.000-07:00

Olive,
Alhambra,
Westminster, yes
this is familiar
this I've seen in the night
it will take me through
confusion and turns
but the beach is West
Sun's Northish
for now
this way, steady
should find me home.

2005-07-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

phoned from L.A.
nothing wrong at home
except
boys being swallowed up
by lakes
all-permeating sense of despair
brought on by
consistent freezing, thawing
refreezing of vital organs
with no land visible
buoyancy failing
the pallor of skin
takes on a deeper
shade of blue

2005-07-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

watching cars
line up, a quarter
mile
that one - there
with the broken headlight
will be the last through
before yellow,
red
file in line
again

2005-07-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

Explosions of yellow, red and white,
hang suspended in the sky
on the earth's distant rim
then flicker, and die.
We take off
lights expanding their luminosity
in the weight of purple fog.
Flying East,
Independence Day,
we are bid farewell
by starbursts,
then constellations.

2005-07-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Uprooted from sleep,
sprung from bed in mid-night
to sounds of scratching
in the bathroom.

Reminded of thin walls,
plastic boxes- drywall.
Opossoms beneath the tub,
begging for entry, warmth.

When other animals
stray cats
find the hole in the side
of the foundation,

They are confronted with
beady eyes,
ratlike face and tail,
and sharp claws.

That is what wakes me
in the early hours,
fighting, vicious fighting
under our bathroom floor.

Foreign screams and hollow cries-
a wild frenzy.
In the morning, I wake
and put my pants on,
by then, the fray has subsided.

2005-07-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

I cannot show you that I’m hungry
because you might see it as a sign
of weakness and attack me.
You are the Beta wolf,
guard your throat.

I cannot let you see
that I’m awake, though you can sense
changes in my breathing.
Your face is mere inches from
mine.

I cannot let you own me,
bring you water, food your bowl.
You size me up,
don’t you?
You may live longer than I.

I cannot match your wit,
though I do not know your thoughts.
Even after years alone
you catch my eye,
my ghost wilts away.

2005-07-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

You sit
dormant,
pressed to the foundation
the cool floorboards,
above the hard earth
You do not feel the planet
spinning light years around
your little head,
do you?
Do you know some things
that I do not?
Come down from your
noble horse
small tiger
tender life
You are not pondering
the essence or
other important things, no.
You are watching the sparrows
duck
and levitate
through the incandescent dawn.

2005-07-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

In the sanctuary of this house
dont say a word
i dont know why
there is pause
between thought a speech
couldn’t say
perhaps the weight of humidity
the pressing potential of night
the bounty of youth in summer
assumed eternal
fleeting, unaware
i don’t know why
we leave this place behind
for another

2005-06-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

coloring fields
as God
I shake my can
test the nozzle down wind
the first pass is blue
figures topple over
next red
they die quickly
blanketed, overtaken
wilting amidst the fumes
I lean back
surveying the handiwork
saturated
bugs providing
pockmarks in the layers
which are otherwise
pristine

2005-06-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

Life
persists.
forcing its way
to the surface
bobbing to the top
of this
-barrel of blood-
cluster of sentience

the
opportunity to
continue: livingbreathingpumping
fluids against
the artery wall,

makes a kind of
celtic serpent knot
through
ventricle ventricle
atrium atrium

this biology
perennial,
and I,
grasping, relying.
just as one
reaches into the darkness
for a pull switch
to illuminate a room
knowing
that it will be there
ready,
to submit to the tug.

2005-06-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

it’s Sugar I crave castles of
sugar with moats of sugar
oozing red sweetness onto my
lips not chopped veggies not La
Victoria all vinegar and spice
(i want it quick i want it now)
not meaningless gibulations
involving me and the psyche
a saga taking the pulse
out of me, the head honcho,
the meat man. Not abscess
of heart or the timing of two
or five or twenty as they arrive
some dancing some clapping their
hands some standing still. Hoos that
at my door I don’t want you
I want
Sugar.

2005-06-26T22:25:00.000-07:00

From far away L.A. became an eye,
a riddle a grid but never blinking.
It stayed in my sight until I was
so far up that the brim of earth
gave way to the far off dawn.
No need to flap my wings and
no need for air. For I was
apart from life, so removed from
the rock and the water that I closed
my eyes leaning back against
the void lifting me higher, higher.
I was far from the need of history,
far from reminders and whistles
and bells. Far from the babies
and bombs and tourist erosion.
A transmission crackled through, faintly.
I adjusted a valve, wiped
debris from the glass.

2005-06-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

This house has remained
quite the same. Was it ever
ours? The reddish floorboards, the white paint,
the ghosts standing on the basement
stairs, looking up at the door.
Grab me a can of corn, oh, ancient
love of this home. The same trees
in the yard, they’ll outlive our kids.
Where else do we end up?
Something on the roof,
scurries, chasing its nut. These
friends of ours, indifferent.
All these things, collected,
give away the kids and the dog.
Let’s move back to the cold, cold
city and be alone, together. Let’s
forget everyone and forgive ourselves
for the mistake. Cancel the insurance,
scuba dive in February. (In Boca, maybe,
but this latitude, death is cheap.)

2005-06-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

2005-06-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

If I move slowly enough,
breathing soundlessly against that black
void before me,
I can conquer this room
and the next.
If one hand remains
brushing against the stucco
passing over a lightswitch,
a picture frame,
a window with drawn shades,
the touch sense is amplified.
My eyes widen instinctively,
soaking in what it can
from the inky shadows
of the kitchen,
then the dining room,
and the hall.
The entire block
is asleep at this hour,
when the only sound is
the hum of refridgeration,
the pulse of voltage,
keeping this home alive.
I climb the stairway
on all fours,
skipping the few that creak.
Halfway up I turn back,
sticking a hand out
in front of my face,
peering and grasping into the darkness.
There are no ghosts lurking
behind the couch,
between the books on the shelf.
No sharp light
flashing curiously,
beckoning me
from the backyard.
As I ascend,
I close my eyes,
counting inhalations
Soon they correspond with another-
yours.
I slip into bed,
undetected even by the cats.
My hearing is still acute.
Soon I resign
to the weight of my corpse,
and realize,
you are sleeping alone.

2005-06-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Many people
pass my front gate
but you tread softly,
sweetly.
You are the quietest.

2005-06-19T16:51:00.000-07:00

one may find
the will to live
to create
in food and literature alike
strength in body or spirit
goulash or poetry
pancakes or prose
though through the written word:
glimpses of true nature
whimsical assesment of universe
without food,
nauseous empty feeling
waves of malnourishment
in pit of stomach

2005-06-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

cracks in the surface clay
like tiny crows feet
wrinkles on the jaw,
indicate the persistence
of time
mountains, thick
resistant to tremors
plate tectonics
flora finds its way
the cacti stores its blood deep down
the others live miraculously
without nourishment, it seems
growing a thick shell
somber hues of green and red
a lizard
investigates a burrow
a crow
circumnavigates a valley
waiting for movement-
a sign of life.