Dark Matter

I have to say, the value and pleasure of clear breathing is often overlooked.

I have a newfound respect for it now.

Felt more active — repaired plumbing today, worked on a paper for school, hung out, went out for Thai food and brought it home, then dozed off in front of Forensic Files.

I’m still snuffly, but ought to be ok by tomorrow. Need to make it to the Asylum for the feature by Kat Sanford and Ed Zeppelin — got a debt of sorts to repay.

Sleepy time; of course, still have to finish restringing the archtop. Some things you just can’t leave undone.

Now that I’m home today, I am SO going back to bed.

Sick Still Sucks.

I am SO not going to work tomorrow.

Sick sucks.

By now, a lot of you will have heard about the controversy surrounding the Hot 97 crew on NY morning radio, who have been suspended indefinitely after playing an atrociously offensive “We Are The World” parody related to the tsunami tragedy.

Here’s a link to an article I picked up from Google News regarding the situation.

http://www.thuglifearmy.com/news/articles/50775/

Read through the thing and tell me if the conclusion is as fucked as I think it is.

I am sick.

I have a fever. I’m stuffy, drippy, and pissy.

I’m also awake — because one of the joys of this is that I can’t use my equipment to sleep.

In addition to the Bipolar stuff, I also have severe obstructive sleep apnea. I stop breathing 1-2 times per minute while I sleep.

Anyone who’s had the joy of sleeping in a room with me while on tour or at Nats knows something about this — I have (or had) the Snore of Great Power and Terror as I choke, over and over again, in my sleep. I’d toss myself up against the worst of ’em, including Danny Solis.

That is, up until 2001, when I was put on a CPAP (constant positive air pressure) machine. The condition was starting to affect my heart — it can be fatal if not treated. So this thing blows 14 lbs. psi of air thru my nose and down my throat all night, every night. Keeps the passage open.

Every night I hook myself up to a mask that makes me look like an elephant man and I drift off to lovely slumber. Really did change my life.

The only time I can’t use this is when — you guessed it — I have a cold.

OTC cold meds are no help, because they interact weirdly with my OTHER meds.

So — a cold for me causes all sorts of extra misery. And this one’s shaping up to be a doozy.

No one showed up for SPEAK tonight, as I expected, so I sat and sniffled and snorted and read some poems by Mark Jarman for 45 minutes or so, then went home.

The poems were good. The slipping, sliding, and freezing while driving were not.

I was in bed, I think, by 10, and now I’m up.

Love this season.

—
Since I’m only a half-mile away, I will be at the space for SPEAK tonight, just in case some of the folks who aren’t online show up. I doubt much will happen. We’ll reschedule the “hunger” theme for another night.

Drop a comment or a line if you are coming, just so I know.

—
I have a crazy day, so won’t be around much.

—
Snow again. 5-10 inches, depending on where you are.

Baby, we got us a WINTER.

—
This note from the Pharmaceutical Poets’ Society:

Medications, properly prescribed to the right patients, can help. There’s almost no such thing as “always bad” or “always good” when it comes to these meds. (I preclude from this obviously flawed meds like Halcyon.)

Using a drug as a panacea, not having adequate therapy, not monitoring it correctly, not including proper spiritual/dietary/lifestyle guidelines, and (most of all) incorrectly prescribing the drug for mild or even NON EXISTENT issues IS wrong.

I am tired (old story) of losing friends who refused treatment because they were afraid of losing their creativity, their souls, or because of some false notion of not wanting to give in to Big Pharm.

Big Pharm sucks, yes. They push and hype the meds beyond the point of sane usage. But it doesn’t mean that the drugs are automatically of no value.

Save your credibility, by all means; save your creativity, and be skeptical of every claim. Do your research.

But recall, please, that death and catatonia and total dysfunction don’t make you a particularly productive artist, either.

Johnny Auschwitz

Call me what you want, pretending that
cherry rivers and greasy smokestacks
are all mine for which to atone.

It’s true, there are miles of burned skin dangling from
my heels. I’ve dragged that stinking trail behind me for years.

Don’t be so quick to turn from me.
I checked and you’re still at it.

You’re all still sorting — unkempt from neat as a
needle, their dead flags from your live one.
Red over blue, cross over crescent,
dark over light, pyramid over star.

Offer me something
to make me stop laughing at you

and maybe I’ll go away.

A break from the crap I’m doing at the moment.

Steven Colbert is on “Fresh Air.”

They are making a “Strangers With Candy” movie.

It had better be good…

Please for your attention:

This today’s word is:

UVULA!

Please, again and thank you, for to be making each reply here be of sentence containment of the word of today.

Then we will continue this amusement by someone else to have choice of word their journal next day.

Again, to the happy mirthmaking!

Pleasure for all! I begin with short poem of Japan and bastard version:

Thy uvula has
such perfect lineaments!
Ah, lump in my throat!

You of course may be of prose making reply, ha ha!

Thus we start this amusement and pleasure to follow in great amounts of big fun!

Roughly 2 feet of powder.

Roughly 10 degrees out. Wind chill well below zero. Still blowing around and drifting.

Nothing moving: state of emergency declared.

I’m shoveled out, cars moved, driveway plowed. Going out to clean up in a few.

No Hut tonight for this boy…sorry, kids.

Have a ball and stay warm, NE crew.

Four bottles lined up
on the desk in front of the screen.
I keep them in order to make sure
I take them right, though in fact I take them

left to right, in the hope they’ll make me
right, less prone to stupid associations,
puns in place of thought, overripe
feelings.

I visit them three times a day:
once when I rise, before descending to the kitchen;
once in the afternoon;
once before sleep.

At night there’s a cat on the bed
and a night light in the corner:
charms against the void because
the pills are good, but not good enough.

In these early hours the cat and I sit in front of the screen
and he knocks the bottles down like dominoes.
Then I pick them up and put them back in order.
One for stability, another for the same, one to pick me up,

and one to keep me from going out and barking at imaginary cars.
The cat’s pleased, and as usual knocks them down again.
I pick them up again, sick to my stomach
at how long I’ve been playing this game.

Blizzard conditions.

18-26 inches.

Fucking cold.

Fucking windy.

Fucking fuck.

On the Junction Street sidewalk
a body is almost ready to be taken away.
Daylight’s not being kind to him.
The flies touch and go in rising numbers.

The stain on the sidewalk looks like an umbrella,
but that won’t keep the rain from washing it off.
Someday, maybe, but not today.

The tense cops wait for the technicians to finish.

Two kids in the watching crowd
push each other around, and their fathers come to blows.
Bloodlust, once freed, is contagious.

On the fringe of the ugly crowd
a shrunken man knows he’s currently unaccused
and likely to remain that way. Tonight
he’s going to sleep well.

Kill or be killed?
The difference is so small sometimes
that you need to wipe the blood away to see it.

The storm’s upon me, I will bow and submit.
I will sit on the rocks by the shore.
I will watch the waves come over me.

I will launch from the rocks,
slide under the waves,
and drown.

In the morning you’ll find a body like mine
with seaweed in his hair and long lines
of green stretched behind him like contrails.

I won’t be there. I’ll be long gone.
Where am I headed?
To places where the body is unwanted.

The world is vast and
open if you travel
unencumbered.