Loony boners. Ratso Rizzo, his own personal ren dition, wreaks havoc in his skull. And cross bone. Elder abuse! He bl esses hisself as if a hermit who’s just sneezed, and his thoughts with logic twist the stick, the time-stick. The DeL orean’s taken him back to three. He has to pee. It’s not the stretch it presumes to be; but also there’s Pop’s more mature at 3 than 23, or
so many variations of it they have
clogged my brain, making clangy
clamor of all my inner xylophones. And yet, to think, it puffed my pride, he felt me good, knew me better than I did most of our parallel co existence. Will it be pesty-lints
or plehzure? .. I’ll take playtime over the pits anytime! I see myself spit like a marshy mallow on fire as it is blown for the palate
into the hole where
that pal resides. A tongue becomes. Softest sweetest landing for the carbonated sugar. The ooey goo goes down and the tongue knows well how to curl itself del icately around, holding and caressing to milk such divine treasure from carbon-crusted lump,
then down the throat it goes, the charred
gob in ecstatic gustatory symbiosis, like a
sweat-stained dream of being stuck on an
amusement park ride at the point where eu
phoria, say, slams against a wall of vomit that
never quite erupts, so that even the discomfort
pleases. Multiply by all the sexual allusions that a
bird-brain, if duly pressed, might muster. And the meta
phorical fists explode into snaps, the swollen synapses
burst in climactic closure. Re-leaf most abundant!
Is it? When such is stated with the same cocky and unwavering authority as the words, is there not also the prickly twist, an implied suggestion of...uncertainty, the
Sam stood on the sand which Sam saw as dough curled up like a fried slice of bacon, his jewels numb from the sub-zero, his locks twisted in pink little knots like the couple of 800 pound pigs’ tails in Sam’s backyard
pen, pigs what just an hour ago
got quilled by a pair of scaredy-
cat porcupines beaten into
high anxiety by a red rascal of a squirrel come to collect its nuts dug deep a dry warm spring or two ago for a day identical to the one tucked into this negative double digit degree’d december popsicle. Creeped out by the cold crowd, the squeamish squirrel missed his mound due to sunken circumstances and skittered off into the distance, its empty
Once you stop to listen you’re hooked. —John Ashbery
I did aim for meaningful. A bit pleasant. Well-mannered – well, I suppose by virtue of growing up in the South, you’d think that would come naturally. It did not. I like a few
variations on the construct of family, but prefer to build one to my liking. Even though you told me that construction doesn’t work that way, con struction doesn’t work that way. I was blessed
to spend my early years nearby family—immediate, grandparents, aunts and uncles, great grandparents. Not everyone gets that, and I’m grateful. All said, I still prefer one hard-earned, intentional. That’s hard
in me. I say every day I try for better than the last. In everything. Me. The day. Furthering my education. Purposefulness. Efficacy. Steadfastness. Resilience. Health? Some things persevere until they do not, and
I lean heavily upon the impossible satisfaction of having put my best foot forward when it gives and I’m gone. But what of the hedonism so at odds with these puritanical reflexes? Between the logical and the romantic? Just when
I think wisdom kicks in, for what have I lived, stomping each value into a grave, growing new ones, killing them off, all of the unlearning. My best advice is offer less advice. My best life is yet to come, but always now, now, now. Remember
to sleep. Articulate well. Learn generosity during the poorest moments. Find the steepest incline that you might climb on your own. Assert your knowledge, practice the art of stating facts clearly and with flair. Be present. Consciously
listen more often than you speak. Swim in the arts. Step out your door. Greet others in earnest. Pay attention to what goes on behind closed doors. Get to know folks who educate our children. Censor yourself less. Get to know the P.O.V. Become
an expert at something. Always assume there are more than two ways to answer a question or to fix a problem. Be mindful of and
stretch boundaries. Live on the fringe and engage often and
We messed around with the circumstances and got a little turned around. It’s not always us versus them, even though it’s competition that keeps us alive. Only one of us believed that one. And it wasn’t me.
We were both drawing on maps in the Strategy Room, thick books in the hands that weren’t able to draw nice. We were at the point where we were looking up a word or two from every sentence we read. I took a quick survey of those who mouthed what they were reading and those whose lips remained pursed or slightly open. I was good with physics, knew the room’s tension points were generally consistent.
When it came down to the wire and everyone looked up at the behemoth of a television that hung on the wall, garnering central focus, the genre changed from suspenseful whodunnit to supernatural psychodrama.
We stayed for a little while just to watch the top psychic generalissimos do their prognosticating. But this was no science, and neither of the two of us were psychic. Telepathic, of course, we both were, and for a while it was a game of who was going to last the longest. But by the time the third honcho walked up front and center with his crystal ball, without even a nod or a darting look, we were both walking out of the dungeon and into the brightly lit hallway.
Down the marble steps we skipped. We pulled up our sleeves a bit giddy by the beauty of the October afternoon. We felt around at each other’s opinions over where lunch should be taken, and settled on the Greek place a couple blocks into civilization. We were both fond of the restaurant, which gave no visible indication that it was a dining establishment. He had the moussaka and I had the souvlaki, same as always, and we spent the next two hours talking over subjects like penguins and handwriting analysis. We intermittently laughed, often until the tears came
Now, what was I telling you? You’re telling me. —John Ashbery
Someone’s dumb tongue has once again come completely undone is what I’m always thinking. For a while now. Maybe a dozen or so years. It’s not a good place
to be stuck on repeat. Even though the grooves do soothe on occasion, the slip of the needle back into the same circle has its own particular beat that is at odds
with whatever’s stuck being played in a loop. The white noise echoing through my nearly empty head in the middle of the night, or whenever it is I wake up and just stare
into the darkness for however long until somehow I’m moved back into a dream state.
Grasping at straws, he puffs to keep his system afloat, his inertia having gone so forwardly to hell. Let us keep this thing alive by sitting here, he thinks, as if he
is actually thinking. He knows he’s no thing, and to whom can that particular characteristic(?), that thing that he is not—being what he is—be attributed?
This award goes to whom? He knows better than to reward himself, so he works at trying to get the mechanics creaking once more. What’s in here?
he bangs his knuckles at his ear. But, he sees no evil. Cannot provide any evidence of anything, much as he knows that he owes. Oh, he owes and owes.
so hear me out - granted, she has ALL of the resources at her power, and how she acquired them, who really knows, except there are some legendary things like retaking all of her albums’ ownership back in the way that she has, but if you watch this video the thing that’s the biggest to me is the lyrics are great, it's an incredibly lush and very intense and organized large cast choreographed video that goes quite a few places, the music is splendid (an odd thing about it is the verses, i think, are better than the chorus both lyrics-wise and music-wise – i’ve only watched/listened to it twice, though, so i can’t be too sure, time will tell, and the thing it most reminds me of in relation to her output is a more confident, slightly less fancy or percussion-driven updo of shake it off, which is the song that had me giving in to her music for the first time, but then as i’ve told you i saw her on the voice as a coach for a few weeks and clearly she has an inspiring teaching, marketing way, and is at ease with nudging the creativity out of seemingly anyone. it seems quite a unique gift. and she never steers away from her
likeability. which is stunning. always emphasizing the music while combining
the show of it all over everything - and her literal body/dance movements in
this video are at times subliminal. and it is topped ine the end with “written
& directed by taylor swift.” well. she does have it. this is a really good song.
it’s hard for me, too, since she’s too everywhere sometimes. i’m obviously not always into mainstream-wide pop celebrities, but i guess i am moreso
than you are or the alternative-obsessed folks i have known throughout
my hotplate works, too, but it isn’t a source of heat necessary to anything but toasting bread or limping out a box of pasta.
who here has conversations with dead people? a few of the outcasts on burnham street begin to raise their hands until he says
he’s not talking about those kinds of conversations. he’s got his hand in his pocket and we’re all waiting to see which bird balloon, which
coal-mine canary, which version of flight of the bumblebees comes out betwixt thumb and forefinger. who’ll be able to read the cover. people begin
venturing – perhaps, perhaps up to the third row. but no further than the fifth. the ghosts hear these mutterings and respond in kind, knowing the truth of
the matter. only a mother knows how to let her boy go free. it’s the bottom of the barrel for everyone else. spread your wings all you trilingual poets! says
the magician, as the turtle that has just appeared very slowly walks off, stage left.
Written While on an Incredibly Anxiety-Ridden Call with Customer Service
Does it even matter with whom? It should matter that it’s with
someone to whom I’ve forked over thousands of dollars through
many decades, and yet since May I’ve been blocked from receiving
normal services. I even have an old acquaintance, a local one, who worked for them as an attorney for several years, and given that I’ve been so clearly upset and wronged by the way they have treated me since this bizarre suspension for violating a rule but i do not know exactly how or when or whether it was even me or whether I’m simply
being given the runaround, I should reach out to him. Yesterday was a
particularly productive day in which my mood stayed where it needed
to be to accomplish much under really poor circumstances, those being mostly financial, something that continues to really bring me
down given that I have 30 years of experience in a well-paying career
in which I have found it impossible in fifteen years to get a full-time
permanent position, mainly because I have been niched into contractual
work for that duration, causing my quality of life to greatly decrease. This
was catalyzed with by being kicked to the curb by someone I trusted for
around a dozen years. Maybe all of this is neither here nor there, but
this is just to say that I have completed two very anxiety-riddled
calls with companies with whom I have what I would call an integral
and monthly paid account. Oh, whatever. I have more calls to make soon.
I’ve got a therapy call at 1pm. And at 1:30pm I have my quarterly CalFRESH update call. And I have to speak with my immigration attorney at some point today, which, well, if you happen to know where I live and what moment this is in history and the fact that I’m trying to get a 5-year fiance to the states so that we can finally have a life together.
And it will be at least a year before he gets here once I’m able to turn in
the fiance visa application, if I can afford the $700 plus the $400 attorney
fee to do so. And I’m broke. I know I sound such a mess. But when one
is a mess one does sound a mess. Anxiety has gotten the best of me this
morning, but I think I can correct that. And I must. There is too much to do.
Way too much to do. For example, how can I salvage these silly and frustrating words into any kind of thing that suggests it is a poem. Well, voila, it’s a poem.
One problem solved. Perhaps just to create others, and for that I really apologize.
I had a bit of an arc of a storyline going that sort of came to an abrupt halt.
Am I an artist or just a guy trying to make a life for myself in a world that
seems to be losing me with each breath I take? Oh, this cannot be salvaged.
Let it just be called notes. Which is, at times, a fine way to splay out a piece
that one might also call poem (I try at least to convince myself). Onward.
Onward. Apologies. Hello.
Unhinged is Terribly Unflattering and Not Very Much of an Art Form
How does one celebrate the value that friendship brings into our lives? We certainly cannot place a price tag on such
connections, can we? My thoughts go immediately
to my dearest, most treasured friend, the lovely lady
Susanne Swinert. She found me, as friends often do, when
I was at my worst. I was taking out the trash one day, there
was a bit of light rain coming down, just enough, as it were,
to mask the waterworks that were quite literally transpiring
within and about me. Yes, I’d been crying - had been up all night. It was early one morning and I’d been scrubbing and cleaning the place in which I live,
having just moved there a few months previous during a bit of a high moment in a long slump of what had been, for me, the lowest. I was giddy to
have the privilege of such an eviron, after what I rather too remorsefully thought of as a too elongated unfair era. Well, I’d only had the joy of living in this
divine little home for a couple of months when, as my luck would often do for that period I clung to as so tortured took another downturn. To mindlessly mend my insomnabulent
and despondent spirits, I did what I would sometimes do, which is clean. I’d scrub and rub the floors and walls and dishes and furniture as if I were removing all of the dust and rust from my
very soul. But by morning, the task had failed to brighten my spirits in the least. I had twisted the detritus into a few grocery bags that I tied up neatly and was carrying a trinity
of these balloons filled with trash outside my apartment building and to the nearby garbage bins that accompanied my building, where I thought myself alone, letting the rain
fall as it did upon my uncloaked neck and douse my hair, perhaps in an intently dramatic effort on my part, rather than the light rain’s, when out from beside the
fence where the garbage pails would be aligned, where into one of which I was bidding an unthinking au revoir to whatever I had deemed dirty and unworthy, yes, out from
practical invisibility slunk my fine friend, this being before we’d made any acquaintance whatsoever, well, until that very moment. And there she stood, having in essence
made herself a sort of oratorial blockade between me and the release of the last bag of swept nonsense from my new home and the bin into which the other two had
already gone, with a loud, high trill of “R-r-r-r-right you ar-r-r-e, si-r-r-r-, what a gor-r-r-geous mor-r-r-rnin’ it blessed be here at this hour, wouldn’t you say?” I
nearly dropped that last bag right upon her own bonnet (she’s such a wee lovely lady, that Susanne). Needless to say, I swiftly found my manners, toned myself up to as
near her splendour as was humanly possible with some pithy comeback. And we’ve been darling companions ever since!
Who’d say that close ties of friendship go so well together with excellent litigiousness? Well, I’m no attorney, but I’ve worked with many,
and some were pretty fantastic, really, but none can compare with my close pal Kenbrough Clift, Esquire. How often can one draw open the handiness of
friendships when, say, a class action lawsuit is heard being grumbled under-breath such that this good pal immediately comes to mind and
is called. For good measure. He’ll let you know, and quickly, if your pride has been bruised in such a way that it might know amends by soon becoming
awash in cash. How I do love my dear fellow Kembrough! I could list how, I’m sure, from many an angle, and reach the same conclusion over and over, that there’s only one
man I know to call when there’s a stain upon my heart brought about by the crooked practices of corporations and their once dear bedfellow compatriots, the ilk now known as
customer service representation. How long have I know my man,
the distinguished Attorney Clift? Long enough to know he’s a lawyer, that’s for certain. But what’s that thing we
often notice as blaringly missing amongst our colleagues and acquaintances who practice, however firmly, within the law.
Why, a moral compass, am I not right? I’ve never known a man
steadier and more well-versed in what is good (as opposed to well-stained in how to be crooked) than my dearest legal remedy, the honorable sir Kembrough Kavinley Clift (of Clift,
Sire & Remanded, lest any of us need be reminded). I dare you to attempt to find a better man who spends most years hanging about on slews of desparate-sounding billboards.
![youll get yours [heart] soon](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7OYn6HtTqP7H6tOvBRwX5mlAXjjnuZlObzuAzkOW60bI8KHzQN2lzE5BNiLWJVSATvStXlnnqT_gh2fNiaTyBI0-l82owOp7rSvpeo9ONlZboApaQOy2BhkFAxi2lXdkamtlEua08T0IDzCXXPKQtXOZrL4ajzZf4HtA47RYKdRq_WqfWyUW5/s720/youll%20get%20yours%20soon.jpg "mmmmdccclix")
