Mom always said,
“It would be a sin to waste food when kids are starving in Korea.”

By that logic, it would be a sin to not stroke each other for hours
when dance studios are crowded with lonely people
hoping a bossa nova brings them something closer than music.

It would be a sin to not kiss
when mouth to mouth dummies lie in their cases,
imagining near drownings, their saviors chosen from long lists.

It would be a sin to not get into each others’ pants
when there are used car salesmen out there
eyeing hip pockets as if they were the heirloom rosaries
they lost before First Communion.

It would be a sin for us to miss out on this chance
when there are mulletheads standing drunk and alone
as the DJ blasts Loverboy to herald last call.

It would be a sin to not discover the depth of the way we taste
when there are diners sniffing unpleasantly at their wine,
too afraid of ridicule to tell the server they don’t like it.

It would be a sin to not eat what’s in front of us
when there are club kids on X
starving in Chicago.

It would be a sin to not fall asleep together
when we can. It’s a sin that I even have to say this:
it’s a sin to look at each other this way
without immediately
closing our eyes.

One day I’m going to own these walls
and floor. Tear out the carpet
in favor of fur. Strip all the paint
in favor of bark. I want it sexy enough in here
to make no one want to work harder than I do.
Give me this boneyard and I’ll hand you back a farm.

One day I’m going to be a wheel
someday rolling across the plains
spinning past the desert’s hollow cheeks
all the way from this town to the far coast
and on into the waves.

One day I’m going to never have a bad day at work again
and it will not be my idea when I go, it’ll just be
the only idea anyone has for how to handle my impossible
beauty and lean tongue. Till then I don’t want to hear anything
that isn’t a come-on. I don’t want to do anything
that isn’t a faceplant. I don’t want to, bastard,
I don’t want to.

New/old purchases:

New:
Mars Volta, “Francis the Mute”

I may be giving this one away. It was only 7 bucks, though, so I may try to grow into it.

Hem, “Eveningland”

I loved “Rabbit Songs” so much I can’t wait to dig into this.

Repurchase:

Godspeed You Black Emperor! “lift yr. skinny fists like antennas to heaven”

Last year, I lent my entire GYBE! and A Silver Mt Zion collection to a work acquaintance who promptly moved to Portland, OR. I have mourned this ever since and never got around to rebuilding the collection. I have officially started.

In the guitarish meantime, I’ve been trying to work up arrangements of “Ballroom Blitz” on my ancient (1920s) black slide guitar and of “Dance Away” by Bryan Ferry on my usual instrument. The Ferry song’s pretty much done; the Sweet will take a bit more work but when it’s done it orta be…well, sweet. In a totally bizarre sort of way.

Some reasons added up. Careful; some nastiness therein.

bipolar

No offense intended, but love poems ought to occasionally take a slight detour from well worn ways, don’t you think?

This love will be
forever devoid
of hearts, falling stars,
the sea, the moon,
honey, and moist skin;

for this love is good with ketchup,
vinegar tang on tongue,
shaded far past deep blush,
coating us, rare and red,
perfectly.

Some love
smiles like chintz
and curves gently like paisley,
but this love is burlap
against our asses where we’ve
fallen down half naked on the
warehouse floor and gotten so dirty
it stinks just to be near us —
but we make it again just to be sure.
And then, this love’s
a washing machine
that churns and brings forth spic and span
returning us, cycle after cycle,
to almost good as new.

This love swallows us.
It is no fist sized organ
but a throat that goes
as deep as a whole body goes.
This love’s a pipeline
that ends in
the Mojave Desert. This love
spills out, dries out, blows around,
stings the eyes, gets into everything.

It’s a dustbowl love,
clouds against daylight,
and no moon in sight to break the darkness
around us, thank sweet Christ;

no one can recognize it,
no one can see us well enough
to even try to take it away.

My dear friend Seren was wonderful as a feature. Great erotic stuff, especially the series of short poems she included accompanied by guitarist Danielle.

The open mike was dull as dishwater, frankly. I’m getting too old to sit through stuff like this.

The open suffered most because of twenty four readers, only six were women. Women are writing the most interesting stuff in the scene right now, and they aren’t showing up amid the testosterone barrage that is the Asylum of late.

I hate this. I haven’t been in for a month and it felt like a horror show. I need to read somewhere regularly in order to edit my work, and SPEAK doesn’t happen often enough for me to make it do that duty. The Asylum is home, always will be; but I may need to relocate for a while.

More on this all later.

My dear friend Seren was wonderful as a feature. Great erotic stuff, especially the series of short poems she included accompanied by guitarist Danielle.

The open mike was dull as dishwater, frankly. I’m getting too old to sit through stuff like this.

The open suffered most because of twenty four readers, only six were women. Women are writing the most interesting stuff in the scene right now, and they aren’t showing up amid the testosterone barrage that is the Asylum of late.

I hate this. I haven’t been in for a month and it felt like a horror show. I need to read somewhere regularly in order to edit my work, and SPEAK doesn’t happen often enough for me to make it do that duty. The Asylum is home, always will be; but I may need to relocate for a while.

More on this all later.

I’ve seen you pull coins
from the eyes of the dead
to pay the parking meter.

I’ve seen you and the hemlock vendor
chatting idly by the door
to the stadium.

I’ve smelled a hint of cyanide on your breath
just before you popped a mint
and smiled weakly back at this life.

Until now, you had always skipped that denouement
to get to the wake, where people
congratulated you on how great you looked

in your someday best and painted skin.
So now when we pull you from the water
and see you bloated here and shriveled there,

now when it’s clear that this time
it’ll be a closed box we’ll sit around
to speak of you; now I have to ask:

did all that dress rehearsal make it easier
to go down to the lake this last time,
or were you as scared for yourself

as we always were for you? Did you wonder
what we’d be saying now, or did it all pale
to white light as you sank away?

I have to say, this is not the way I thought you’d go.
I expected us to laugh bitterly together
at all those attempted escapes one day.

I may yet laugh
at you, at us, at this —
but not soon, and surely alone.

I’ve been buried at work today and yesterday so I’ve been relatively scarce here.

Your comments and best wishes on my birthday are truly appreciated. I know I kicked up a fuss about my not celebrating it…and I don’t really; but the generous impulses of my friends were a welcome discovery this afternoon, and I would never want to deny that spirit with crabby behaviors.

I love you all and thank you sincerely.

Inside me are two bones
that form an arthritic clock.
I can tell you that hours pass
because I feel them
grinding against each other.

There are watches under
my fingernails that tick
so loudly it’s no use
snapping my fingers.
A good sense of rhythm
is no camouflage for
the way I’m
winding down.

One day before sunup, I will tear myself apart.

When I twist and snap the bones,
I’ll lose the need to sleep.
When I take my hands off I’ll realize,
once they’re gone, that not hearing the watches
makes me want to hold fewer things.

When time is finally silent
I’ll be older, younger, smaller, grand
as a suspension of belief —

I’ll be frameless,
rapidly slipping across this place
like a breeze,
not ever here to point at directly,
known only
by how things move around me
right now.

As it seems to have crossed people’s minds:

Should I shave my beard? Why or why not?

As it seems to have crossed people’s minds:

Should I shave my beard? Why or why not?

The razor sits on the sink. A few strokes
might open up something hidden
since I was a teenager; then again,
nothing might be there anymore.

There’s a redwood
in California that manages to stay alive
with no foliage, even though it’s hollow
from its top down for over a hundred feet.

I don’t know how much of me
has vanished inside,
but the evidence seems to suggest
that being hollow might be the least of my worries:

see, that naked tree
is three thousand years old,
and it’s alive,
but it’s done growing.

I turn on the water anyway,
splash my face and lather up.
It might be hopeless, but if not,
nothing ever thrives without a little light.

The Lebanese government is resigning.

Boy…these protesters must have been spitting the kind of hardcore, muthafucking shit that Monte Smith was talking about.