I'd unfollow you anywhere
But the thought of you is like a crow that won't stop. I want to rise above. To be a eagle. Dead poets who say they will see peacocks shrivel into vultures before the crown of their hairdo will be effected by the London rain - if I understand the analogy. But what about inside my head. You're still there, obstinate as a metronome, reliable as the Puget Sound tide, insistent as guilt – annoying as unfinished business, and finally, poetical as a vacuum cleaner.
Stop sharing location.
reference, Crown by Gboyega Odubanjo
Stop sharing location.
reference, Crown by Gboyega Odubanjo
Memory is quicksand
It looks solid; I test it with the toe of my boot and suddenly I'm sinking.
Cutesy with pretended currency
it says follow. For I am beautiful (it says)
after all like water and genuflecting
reflecting a new sunrise;
a beckoning mountain peak
peeking over the cloud's shoulder
wreathed in god rays.
But the journey always ends
sucked into pain's orbit
the reasons revolving and r
epeating and reliving
Like the veins of green moss
in the cracked pavement
so damned there
they become the path you walk.
to name names
Regret runs through the void
making life one flavor like
every sandwich smells the same at Subway.
Another scar healed badly.
Just Another Thou Shalt Not
(for your own damn good.)
Cutesy with pretended currency
it says follow. For I am beautiful (it says)
after all like water and genuflecting
reflecting a new sunrise;
a beckoning mountain peak
peeking over the cloud's shoulder
wreathed in god rays.
But the journey always ends
sucked into pain's orbit
the reasons revolving and r
epeating and reliving
Like the veins of green moss
in the cracked pavement
so damned there
they become the path you walk.
to name names
Regret runs through the void
making life one flavor like
every sandwich smells the same at Subway.
Another scar healed badly.
Just Another Thou Shalt Not
(for your own damn good.)
Central Park, May 20, 20024
This happy rock, not perfect but it’s mine,
unaccountably unoccupied, what crazy luck.
Speckled with birdshit – where do I put my hands?
The late May sun filtered through spring leaves
The rainbow iridescence of the pigeon’s neck
Pecking the crevasse, pigeon suitor cooing in pursuit.
Three children run from my rock and back to their mom;
Who’s the fastest? She apologizes for disturbing me
And I laugh, helplessly charmed
Remembering how my three would play these
Same games, full of life, souls on their sleeves
At the center of the universe and why not
It’s the most perfect day in this most imperfect of cities
Adulthood is only a dream so far over the horizon
As to be impossible. Power, desire, envy, with their own
fevered logic and so much less real to the sun,
leaves, pigeons and this smooth granite
carved by indifferent glaciers.
I’m first, I’m back to the rock.
This happy rock, not perfect but it’s mine,
unaccountably unoccupied, what crazy luck.
Speckled with birdshit – where do I put my hands?
The late May sun filtered through spring leaves
The rainbow iridescence of the pigeon’s neck
Pecking the crevasse, pigeon suitor cooing in pursuit.
Three children run from my rock and back to their mom;
Who’s the fastest? She apologizes for disturbing me
And I laugh, helplessly charmed
Remembering how my three would play these
Same games, full of life, souls on their sleeves
At the center of the universe and why not
It’s the most perfect day in this most imperfect of cities
Adulthood is only a dream so far over the horizon
As to be impossible. Power, desire, envy, with their own
fevered logic and so much less real to the sun,
leaves, pigeons and this smooth granite
carved by indifferent glaciers.
I’m first, I’m back to the rock.
Aunt Karen Badgley
mobile
December 23, 2023 at 5:38 PM
0:00 - 1:57
Transcription
"No, I'm not gonna do that. I'll
show you a picture of the kids
that see. I think they just sent
me a recent picture. No I'm
always deleting everything
which is a mistake Oh Oh OK
I'm sorry I don't have a picture
of the kids I will next The dog
Yeah, they don't look like dogs
yet Good So far so good let's
see I will I am Anyway, Sandy,
we're gonna check into the
phone situation I will the next
time I'm here I will talk to But it
will get you a new phone OK so
I'm in charge of that Everything
is so upside down Yeah, I was
different people Yes I know it's
kind of a pain Yeah, well
Actually , mother daddy died a
long time ago Marty is gone
yeah is my Yeah Well, we're
here that's gonna live in the
present live in the bed types I
live a day today I'll for the
good times What's gone is
gone Yeah ..."
Was this transcription useful or not useful?
*****
mobile
December 23, 2023 at 5:38 PM
0:00 - 1:57
Transcription
"No, I'm not gonna do that. I'll
show you a picture of the kids
that see. I think they just sent
me a recent picture. No I'm
always deleting everything
which is a mistake Oh Oh OK
I'm sorry I don't have a picture
of the kids I will next The dog
Yeah, they don't look like dogs
yet Good So far so good let's
see I will I am Anyway, Sandy,
we're gonna check into the
phone situation I will the next
time I'm here I will talk to But it
will get you a new phone OK so
I'm in charge of that Everything
is so upside down Yeah, I was
different people Yes I know it's
kind of a pain Yeah, well
Actually , mother daddy died a
long time ago Marty is gone
yeah is my Yeah Well, we're
here that's gonna live in the
present live in the bed types I
live a day today I'll for the
good times What's gone is
gone Yeah ..."
Was this transcription useful or not useful?
*****
Devo. It's not just a band anymore.
Suddenly
Like the planet increased in gravity
I am, we are
Drawn down
Hunched over our handhelds
Lunching and munching on our feeds
pecking for scraps, scrolling, lolling
imbibing, consuming, comparing, running, sinking
Further from heaven than ever
Can't say not sure the moment we died
Couldn't stand up straight if I tried.
Suddenly
Like the planet increased in gravity
I am, we are
Drawn down
Hunched over our handhelds
Lunching and munching on our feeds
pecking for scraps, scrolling, lolling
imbibing, consuming, comparing, running, sinking
Further from heaven than ever
Can't say not sure the moment we died
Couldn't stand up straight if I tried.
Brave Old World
The world is a candy bar left on the dash.
The world is a toilet seat that won’t stay up.
The world is a cat and I want to go for a walk. Which leads some to ask, not unfairly, why can’t the world be a dog.
The world is like actually real. And everything.
The world is a man’s chin on my shoulder. And neither of us can give the other what we need, despite the best of intentions.
The world is a jet plane and I’m off for colder climes.
The world is a Cramps song, clever as Oscar Wilde in leather pants.
The world is a road trip in an automobile with an internal combustion engine. A 6-cylinder flathead. It has fins on the outside and nobs on the inside like the bridge of the original Enterprise. This world never heard of Spotify or two-factor authentication. This world is not our world.
The world is a barstool, and every barstool is throne.
The world is an innocent bystander made of atoms.
The world is mostly love, shame, fear, greed, oxygen, nitrogen, gravity, anger, helium, hydrogen, and some other stuff apparently.
The world is sugar, aka C12H22O11.
The world is a riddle that goes something like, “What’s the one thing that grows more and more empty every time you fill it up?”
The world is 72% ocean. All of the continents could fit in the Pacific with room left for Atlantis.
The world is simple and complex. Beautiful but with too many fast-food containers.
The world is mythic. A babel, a Babylon, a Barbieland. And it doesn't need another Marvel movie.
The world is a planet with nowhere left to hide from people like you and me.
A long shot at best.
The world is a candy bar left on the dash.
The world is a toilet seat that won’t stay up.
The world is a cat and I want to go for a walk. Which leads some to ask, not unfairly, why can’t the world be a dog.
The world is like actually real. And everything.
The world is a man’s chin on my shoulder. And neither of us can give the other what we need, despite the best of intentions.
The world is a jet plane and I’m off for colder climes.
The world is a Cramps song, clever as Oscar Wilde in leather pants.
The world is a road trip in an automobile with an internal combustion engine. A 6-cylinder flathead. It has fins on the outside and nobs on the inside like the bridge of the original Enterprise. This world never heard of Spotify or two-factor authentication. This world is not our world.
The world is a barstool, and every barstool is throne.
The world is an innocent bystander made of atoms.
The world is mostly love, shame, fear, greed, oxygen, nitrogen, gravity, anger, helium, hydrogen, and some other stuff apparently.
The world is sugar, aka C12H22O11.
The world is a riddle that goes something like, “What’s the one thing that grows more and more empty every time you fill it up?”
The world is 72% ocean. All of the continents could fit in the Pacific with room left for Atlantis.
The world is simple and complex. Beautiful but with too many fast-food containers.
The world is mythic. A babel, a Babylon, a Barbieland. And it doesn't need another Marvel movie.
The world is a planet with nowhere left to hide from people like you and me.
A long shot at best.
Cross the Sea of Same-Sara
The planks, and rudder, and the deck and cabin and keel are all silent. Silent too are the sails that catch the wind. The lines and blocks and winches and stays - they too make no noise.
Suffering can be borne while you quietly steer your boat of silence.
Every storm of suffering ends.
Silence outlasts everything.
Silence outlives life.
The planks, and rudder, and the deck and cabin and keel are all silent. Silent too are the sails that catch the wind. The lines and blocks and winches and stays - they too make no noise.
Suffering can be borne while you quietly steer your boat of silence.
Every storm of suffering ends.
Silence outlasts everything.
Silence outlives life.
Winner
I went down to the Crossroads
With the Buddha to play some blues
I'm with Brother Lawrence in the kitchen
With my scepter and my noose
I'm a leprechaun without a rainbow
The more I win I lose
I went down to the Crossroads
With the Buddha to play some blues
I'm with Brother Lawrence in the kitchen
With my scepter and my noose
I'm a leprechaun without a rainbow
The more I win I lose
Poesia
I. Aeropuerto
I'm hearing a melody. I’m not really sure if I even hear it. It weaves between the dull chatter of espanol and ingles in the CDMX airport, in the neighborhood of gate 31. Cheap gift shops. Expensive Duty Free. Restaurants. People. Phones. Masks. And suddenly this song. I attempt to geolocate the melody. Its beauty fills up my body like a tablespoon of postcoital love. This is my song and I never knew it. So sweet like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I need to immerse myself in it, shower myself in it, but it’s as graspable as a handful of water. Is it a confluence of all the noise – two overlapping songs from a gift shop and an aeropuerto restaurant? Am I making it up or actually hearing it? I’m drawn to it. It’s calling to me. I think this is what they were talking about with the business of the Sirens. It's irresistible. I thought I'd heard every song on every radio, I thought I'd played every scale on every guitar, tapped out every rhythm on every diner counter but this song is new and somehow at the same time it’s been there all along, primal, bone deep, racial in its depth. I start humming it to myself to capture it. Should I hum it into my phone to keep it. Can I Shazam it. I want to go closer, find it, but I can’t leave my row of seats because I’m watching our bags. My wife and the girls have gone to get a Subway sandwich and I’m stuck, and it’s just out of reach and I’ve forgotten it and I’m left with
II.Calavera
I’m looking at pictures my daughter took and sent into our family group chat. The girls look great. My wife too. But my God, to see yourself in profile is to see yourself as you never do. I’m always shocked at the size of my nose. When I was younger it wasn’t a hugely terrible surprise, sort of the same as Tom Cruise – his nose is bigger than you think when you see him from the side and he’s short and the kids used to say oh yeah, Tom Cruise, the guy that looks like Dad. But now, Jesus Christ, I’m old past description, past recognition. Who in the fuck is that old bitter persimmon. Wrinkles in Time. Sags of our Fathers. My hair flat and receded, as if it’s in full retreat from my nose as it grows larger and monstrously pink. Why is this a surprise. The outline of a skull emerges. I see the stricken, jowly old skull I’ll be at 80. He’s right there.
III. Lost in the Supermercado
You don’t want to admit that you look but you do. But you can’t find the girls you knew on the Internet. They changed their names if you can even remember their names. One haunts me. She was an actress. She played the tragic lead in a play written by a young ambitious playwright whose name of course had a hyphen and of course I can remember his name just fine but not hers. She was brave and small and in this particular production the role called for a confessional monologue and for her to take off her clothes as the crowd hushed in her vulnerability and then applauded as the curtain of darkness fell. We were introduced at the afterparty by my hyphenated writer-director friend. I’m a writer-musician I said and we talked of this-and-that and I got her number and I called and we talked on the phone and made a plan to meet at the café at 5-points intersection down Denny Way. I showed up and she wasn’t there. I just figured, I don’t know, “it figures” … she was above me, up there, why would she ever come down here off the hill and meet me. And so I got back on my bike and left. But when I saw her again she said, “Where the eff were you? I waited.” And then she turned to her friend and said something I couldn’t hear and laughed darkly. Apparently, a woman was mad at me and not for the last time and I could not speak. The next time I saw her was at the grocery store, the QFC on Broadway. It was Valentine’s Day and neither of us had a date obviously. The term meet-cute had not been invented yet and I could not speak. I didn’t see her for a year until the next February 14th and I went to the store go pick up a few things, and yeah, you guessed it. There she was in the dairy aisle by the yogurt. I tried not to look in her basket. No words would come. A girl is a song you can’t quite piece together. A flower in her season. A poem in another language long before the days of Google translate. The past is a dream, old man, that fades now that you’re fully awake.
I. Aeropuerto
I'm hearing a melody. I’m not really sure if I even hear it. It weaves between the dull chatter of espanol and ingles in the CDMX airport, in the neighborhood of gate 31. Cheap gift shops. Expensive Duty Free. Restaurants. People. Phones. Masks. And suddenly this song. I attempt to geolocate the melody. Its beauty fills up my body like a tablespoon of postcoital love. This is my song and I never knew it. So sweet like nothing I’ve ever heard before. I need to immerse myself in it, shower myself in it, but it’s as graspable as a handful of water. Is it a confluence of all the noise – two overlapping songs from a gift shop and an aeropuerto restaurant? Am I making it up or actually hearing it? I’m drawn to it. It’s calling to me. I think this is what they were talking about with the business of the Sirens. It's irresistible. I thought I'd heard every song on every radio, I thought I'd played every scale on every guitar, tapped out every rhythm on every diner counter but this song is new and somehow at the same time it’s been there all along, primal, bone deep, racial in its depth. I start humming it to myself to capture it. Should I hum it into my phone to keep it. Can I Shazam it. I want to go closer, find it, but I can’t leave my row of seats because I’m watching our bags. My wife and the girls have gone to get a Subway sandwich and I’m stuck, and it’s just out of reach and I’ve forgotten it and I’m left with
II.Calavera
I’m looking at pictures my daughter took and sent into our family group chat. The girls look great. My wife too. But my God, to see yourself in profile is to see yourself as you never do. I’m always shocked at the size of my nose. When I was younger it wasn’t a hugely terrible surprise, sort of the same as Tom Cruise – his nose is bigger than you think when you see him from the side and he’s short and the kids used to say oh yeah, Tom Cruise, the guy that looks like Dad. But now, Jesus Christ, I’m old past description, past recognition. Who in the fuck is that old bitter persimmon. Wrinkles in Time. Sags of our Fathers. My hair flat and receded, as if it’s in full retreat from my nose as it grows larger and monstrously pink. Why is this a surprise. The outline of a skull emerges. I see the stricken, jowly old skull I’ll be at 80. He’s right there.
III. Lost in the Supermercado
You don’t want to admit that you look but you do. But you can’t find the girls you knew on the Internet. They changed their names if you can even remember their names. One haunts me. She was an actress. She played the tragic lead in a play written by a young ambitious playwright whose name of course had a hyphen and of course I can remember his name just fine but not hers. She was brave and small and in this particular production the role called for a confessional monologue and for her to take off her clothes as the crowd hushed in her vulnerability and then applauded as the curtain of darkness fell. We were introduced at the afterparty by my hyphenated writer-director friend. I’m a writer-musician I said and we talked of this-and-that and I got her number and I called and we talked on the phone and made a plan to meet at the café at 5-points intersection down Denny Way. I showed up and she wasn’t there. I just figured, I don’t know, “it figures” … she was above me, up there, why would she ever come down here off the hill and meet me. And so I got back on my bike and left. But when I saw her again she said, “Where the eff were you? I waited.” And then she turned to her friend and said something I couldn’t hear and laughed darkly. Apparently, a woman was mad at me and not for the last time and I could not speak. The next time I saw her was at the grocery store, the QFC on Broadway. It was Valentine’s Day and neither of us had a date obviously. The term meet-cute had not been invented yet and I could not speak. I didn’t see her for a year until the next February 14th and I went to the store go pick up a few things, and yeah, you guessed it. There she was in the dairy aisle by the yogurt. I tried not to look in her basket. No words would come. A girl is a song you can’t quite piece together. A flower in her season. A poem in another language long before the days of Google translate. The past is a dream, old man, that fades now that you’re fully awake.
[I found this in an old staple-bound handwritten book called "Poems" -or- whatever. okay? I think it's interesting as a portrait in time of how I felt about my wife. I did take the liberty of doing some light editing.]
Super Romantic Love Poem.
My love is like a bus that only runs on weekdays, and it's a holiday weekend.
My love is like a parking meter that's still got some time on it, when you don't have any change, O happy day!
My love is like a ripe seedless very sweet orange, or some other word there is no rhyme for.
My love is like a runaway train, that caught me unawares, and now I'm flat.
My love is like a cup of warm earl grey tea on a blustery fall day with the leaves whipping by and the puffy clouds overhead.
My love is like the The Economist, simultaneously reminding me of my interest in the world and my own poverty & lack of resources that would enable me to change anything about the current state of affairs.
My love is like the couch that I fall asleep on at the end of the day.
My love is like a piece of art that everyone sees and nobody gets.
My love is like a 6 year old.
My love is like a blank page. Or a granny knot.
My love is like the morning sun.
My love is like a smokey vision through a late night bar or some other platitude.
My love is like a series of hard days that all run together, one after the other, made worth it because you grew from it.
My love is like a a piece of jazz written for instruments that haven't been invented yet.
My love is like none of these things. Because she cannot be tangled in a net of mere words, and what we have together cannot be communicated.
Super Romantic Love Poem.
My love is like a bus that only runs on weekdays, and it's a holiday weekend.
My love is like a parking meter that's still got some time on it, when you don't have any change, O happy day!
My love is like a ripe seedless very sweet orange, or some other word there is no rhyme for.
My love is like a runaway train, that caught me unawares, and now I'm flat.
My love is like a cup of warm earl grey tea on a blustery fall day with the leaves whipping by and the puffy clouds overhead.
My love is like the The Economist, simultaneously reminding me of my interest in the world and my own poverty & lack of resources that would enable me to change anything about the current state of affairs.
My love is like the couch that I fall asleep on at the end of the day.
My love is like a piece of art that everyone sees and nobody gets.
My love is like a 6 year old.
My love is like a blank page. Or a granny knot.
My love is like the morning sun.
My love is like a smokey vision through a late night bar or some other platitude.
My love is like a series of hard days that all run together, one after the other, made worth it because you grew from it.
My love is like a a piece of jazz written for instruments that haven't been invented yet.
My love is like none of these things. Because she cannot be tangled in a net of mere words, and what we have together cannot be communicated.
Train Songs
(These were mostly written on New Jersey Transit from Montclair, NJ to my job in the West Village after moving from the West Coast.)
Jersied.
Fallen gravestones are beautiful and
Old brick warehouses storing nothing not even memories
but maybe possibilities I see
vast spaces filled with young art.
.
Piles of scrap metal
raked together like fallen leaves.
Riverfront property
in Newark
as if someone tried to say New York
and their mouth was too hurried or lazy to be precise
“Newark.”
Interchanges like a mobster with food-poisoning barfed a tangle of spaghetti.
Backhoes and cranes dormant so long they rust in disuse.
A single lane where there should be three.
Signs that say roadwork in progress but no one has returned to the site in years.
Generic Graffiti tags on the walls
faded tattoos on an ancient whore.
Nutley and Kearney and Parsippany and Whippany.
This state has its own internal rhyming scheme.
Rusted tanks filled with God knows what toxic slop.
a bus crushed like Godzilla
had his way with it.
Plastic bags drape tree branches
how did they get up there?
Warning: do not dig.
Traffic cones and
orphaned shopping carts.
Half undone dirty black bags full of bottles shucking their clothes like
old couches with cum stains and
flat bike tires stacked for an insane game of Jenga.
Bedsprings and a single orange workglove
and then an old toilet tilted and ripped from its moorings drifts by
deck chairs crumpled beneath
a rich society collapsing under
its own weight while we thumbtype our phones.
(These were mostly written on New Jersey Transit from Montclair, NJ to my job in the West Village after moving from the West Coast.)
Jersied.
Fallen gravestones are beautiful and
Old brick warehouses storing nothing not even memories
but maybe possibilities I see
vast spaces filled with young art.
.
Piles of scrap metal
raked together like fallen leaves.
Riverfront property
in Newark
as if someone tried to say New York
and their mouth was too hurried or lazy to be precise
“Newark.”
Interchanges like a mobster with food-poisoning barfed a tangle of spaghetti.
Backhoes and cranes dormant so long they rust in disuse.
A single lane where there should be three.
Signs that say roadwork in progress but no one has returned to the site in years.
Generic Graffiti tags on the walls
faded tattoos on an ancient whore.
Nutley and Kearney and Parsippany and Whippany.
This state has its own internal rhyming scheme.
Rusted tanks filled with God knows what toxic slop.
a bus crushed like Godzilla
had his way with it.
Plastic bags drape tree branches
how did they get up there?
Warning: do not dig.
Traffic cones and
orphaned shopping carts.
Half undone dirty black bags full of bottles shucking their clothes like
old couches with cum stains and
flat bike tires stacked for an insane game of Jenga.
Bedsprings and a single orange workglove
and then an old toilet tilted and ripped from its moorings drifts by
deck chairs crumpled beneath
a rich society collapsing under
its own weight while we thumbtype our phones.
Dream last night. Running through a busy day as if I’m pursued by the Fates all the while carrying a syringe with a tiny bit of light dope in it. I’m not sick and I’m not high and it isn’t enough to get me loaded but I’m just saving it. You know, just in case. I’m hurrying forward through all of these situations. Nothing specific or memorable and all seemingly under the auspices of some over-arching institution or activity. Some Thing That We All Have to Work At, together. And then this security guard woman or some type of authority cop figure - not mean nor unhelpful - just sort of in-responsibility asks 'what are you doing?’ noting the syringe. 'What is that? Maybe you should talk to the person in charge.’ I say that’s okay no thanks. And I’m not a kid, I am me, now, grown up but still using drugs and I’m not used to people that aren’t real cops or anyone really at all telling me what to do. I’m an adult successful person. Not a kid anymore. I’m free. And she says no, really. You need to talk to the chief. (or whatever word she used for the person in charge.) And then I have to go to this room, more of a holding cell really and wait. And I’m thinking to myself, I’m not waiting, fuck that. They got nothing on me. I’m an adult, so I ditch the syringe full of light dope. There’s a chance that she empathetic and just sees that I’m in trouble somehow and need to get it right. But I’m not putting up with this and - unexpectedly for a 50 year old man - start climbing out a narrow window to escape. And that’s when I wake up, half in, half out of this window, the middle square with no glass just a little too narrow for my waist. And I realize as I wake up that I’ve always been having this dream. It runs beneath the surface of my entire sobriety. I remember it from before and before and before, like a sudden continuity with other lives. It casts the 20 years of my adult life in a gray sour light. I’ve never _really_ been clean. Not really. I’ve _always_ keep carrying this syringe full of shitty dope everywhere I go, a little tiny bit that won’t even get me high through night after night and night. Just in case. You know, just in case.
Ideas for emoticons, next four years. (written after Trump was elected)
Ambivalent face.
Waterboarded in Guantanamo Bay face.
Stuck trying to get into America face.
Dreams stomped on face.
What next face.
Sad Lady Liberty face.
Sad Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson faces.
Crying MLK face.
I stopped you because your tail light is out face.
Just got Gerrymandered face.
Sputtering torch of Liberty that goes out (requires animation).
Angry orange face.
Face with gas mask on.
Burning book.
Jesus with a '44
Crying Indian (throwback)
Dead bird
Dead flower
Dead fish
Bring back Mr. Yuck
Flag of U.S.E. (United States of Exxon) – oil barrels instead of stars, red and black stripes for oil and blood? Eh, probably too complicated.
Ripped Constitution.
Middle finger. (denoting really, really, really ‘don’t like’)
Broken hearts of all colors, yellow, black, brown, white, red.
A one leaf clover
Ambivalent face.
Waterboarded in Guantanamo Bay face.
Stuck trying to get into America face.
Dreams stomped on face.
What next face.
Sad Lady Liberty face.
Sad Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson faces.
Crying MLK face.
I stopped you because your tail light is out face.
Just got Gerrymandered face.
Sputtering torch of Liberty that goes out (requires animation).
Angry orange face.
Face with gas mask on.
Burning book.
Jesus with a '44
Crying Indian (throwback)
Dead bird
Dead flower
Dead fish
Bring back Mr. Yuck
Flag of U.S.E. (United States of Exxon) – oil barrels instead of stars, red and black stripes for oil and blood? Eh, probably too complicated.
Ripped Constitution.
Middle finger. (denoting really, really, really ‘don’t like’)
Broken hearts of all colors, yellow, black, brown, white, red.
A one leaf clover
Salvation.
(for my wife, Tracey)
And the cliches how they stand at attention
So brave in their new uniforms
Line them up, the platitudes too
against the wall
For execution
Thick calluses of repetition deaden the impact
As they fall
Their death rattle a tired sigh.
Nevertheless.
There is no Mason secret society no illuminati signaling each other
No deep government
No conspiracy
It’s all greed, fear and anger
Hidden in plain sight.
Clear as the jowls hanging from his flaccid fat cat face.
Follow. The. Money.
on the highways
And surface roads, in our homes and on our screens
Plain to see // these things we know, a posteriori.
These are the forces of destruction and yes
Marx was right except for his sentimental naïve faith in the people en masse
(as opposed to the miracle of people like you, singular.)
And then Hegel and his swinging teutonic forces of history.
Thesis, antithesis, all the king’s horses know it’s their turn to ride the men.
We are your technology after all.
Reduce, reuse, repeat, ad infinitum.
And reduced still more to its constituent parts,
when the CEOs are crime bosses,
it’s all just business and it is always personal.
Me me me, I, I, I, gold, diamond, cold cash, bitcoin, mine, mine, mine.
Of course.
The world keeps spinning and my head spins faster.
Thrown out of my usual orbit,
the tensions of the present tense
Diagram all my sentences.
But even when logic lies fallow
Faith grows in tiny victory gardens tended
by those who know that love is more than a feeling you
noun but the action you verb.
The business of America is business but the business of you is love.
And I love you for that.
(for my wife, Tracey)
And the cliches how they stand at attention
So brave in their new uniforms
Line them up, the platitudes too
against the wall
For execution
Thick calluses of repetition deaden the impact
As they fall
Their death rattle a tired sigh.
Nevertheless.
There is no Mason secret society no illuminati signaling each other
No deep government
No conspiracy
It’s all greed, fear and anger
Hidden in plain sight.
Clear as the jowls hanging from his flaccid fat cat face.
Follow. The. Money.
on the highways
And surface roads, in our homes and on our screens
Plain to see // these things we know, a posteriori.
These are the forces of destruction and yes
Marx was right except for his sentimental naïve faith in the people en masse
(as opposed to the miracle of people like you, singular.)
And then Hegel and his swinging teutonic forces of history.
Thesis, antithesis, all the king’s horses know it’s their turn to ride the men.
We are your technology after all.
Reduce, reuse, repeat, ad infinitum.
And reduced still more to its constituent parts,
when the CEOs are crime bosses,
it’s all just business and it is always personal.
Me me me, I, I, I, gold, diamond, cold cash, bitcoin, mine, mine, mine.
Of course.
The world keeps spinning and my head spins faster.
Thrown out of my usual orbit,
the tensions of the present tense
Diagram all my sentences.
But even when logic lies fallow
Faith grows in tiny victory gardens tended
by those who know that love is more than a feeling you
noun but the action you verb.
The business of America is business but the business of you is love.
And I love you for that.
Resurrection.
Every cell in my body soaked in the pleasure of being without goal without purpose without reason other than just being
as I roll along a West Village street, the last bracing breath of Winter strikes my face with the purest sensation of awake
The consecutive and rhythmic trills of pleasure in the muscles of my legs like every cell is rushing peaking shooting real good drugs and the skin of my thighs and calves how it moves beneath my jeans a caress of sensuality that’s so wordlessly personal why would I ever tell anyone?
I laugh as I kiss the earlobe, the shoulder, the nape of the neck of the sacred.
I smell the piled up garbage thawing from beneath brown shitty snow and the high acrid scent of holy dog piss! I see the ancient bricks paying dumb wise witness to so much
what? Stillborn ambition.
Look up
See what a thousand postcards have already shown and hear what a million meaningless pop songs have already sung
Not to mention the 70’s cop shows and movies littering the forgotten cold corners and cutting room floors of history) but
this morning NYC is new and mine and alive to me who was dead for such a long, long time. So indulge me.
Death is over.
Every cell in my body soaked in the pleasure of being without goal without purpose without reason other than just being
as I roll along a West Village street, the last bracing breath of Winter strikes my face with the purest sensation of awake
The consecutive and rhythmic trills of pleasure in the muscles of my legs like every cell is rushing peaking shooting real good drugs and the skin of my thighs and calves how it moves beneath my jeans a caress of sensuality that’s so wordlessly personal why would I ever tell anyone?
I laugh as I kiss the earlobe, the shoulder, the nape of the neck of the sacred.
I smell the piled up garbage thawing from beneath brown shitty snow and the high acrid scent of holy dog piss! I see the ancient bricks paying dumb wise witness to so much
what? Stillborn ambition.
Look up
See what a thousand postcards have already shown and hear what a million meaningless pop songs have already sung
Not to mention the 70’s cop shows and movies littering the forgotten cold corners and cutting room floors of history) but
this morning NYC is new and mine and alive to me who was dead for such a long, long time. So indulge me.
Death is over.
Dead bikes.
I want to make a photography exhibit of all the dead and forgotten bikes I see in New York. Picture if you will: Stolen front tires or maybe both tires are flat. Rusted chains and chainring and derailleurs. Handles. Rotten seats. Brakes and frayed cablehousing. Cranks and shattered spokes. Forks and headsets. Mountain bikes or delivery bikes for fixies and ten speeds. Sometimes, all that’s left is a decomposing frame with an ancient chain. Oh the aching melancholy and sadness. All this I will snap with my iPhone as I walk about.
The frames for said photography exhibit will cost more than the prints. These ornate and gilded frames will slyly comment on the meaning and validity of art. For what is “Art,” capital A, but anything we put a frame around? I will be celebrated as clever, cerebral and an acute observer of the human condition. Chelsea gallery owners in towering heels more expensive than any single piece of clothing I own will lean over to kiss me on both cheeks.
I want to write a screenplay and direct the movie of all the dead and forgotten bikes I see while I walk the streets of New York. Each dead bike will open a segment and then we will see how it arrived there. A late night drunken gray out -- heading home with the wrong man, boyfriend and bike forgotten. Another one, a massive breakup and then coming out and realizing your bike is all fucked up and then you have to go back up to the second floor and make up to your girlfriend. You didn’t have another place to stay anyway. Another, all about an audition missed. Or a Columbia or NYU final flunked and then someone decides to not go to law school but become the lead drummer for the Blue Man Group revue, now in its 15th season. And then of course we’ll spice up the narrative with a little bit of levity, because this life on earth isn’t all a veil of tears, perhaps a sort of sliding doors meeting, love at first sight? Or maybe an accident avoided? Maybe two broken bikes cause a meeting; shared suffering leads to future joy. That’ll work. At any rate, we’ll have some positive romance thrown in for the date movie crowd to counterpoint the heavy stuff. The stories will interweave. Very Altman/Carver. People of different backgrounds. Gay and straight, White and Black, Jewish and Puerto Rican, Jamaican and Haitian, Chinese and Italian and Irish. How Crash was for LA, this will be for NYC. I will be celebrated by New York critics, “enraptured” with my ability to capture the spirit of a city, post 9/11, pre-next Real Estate bubble burst and market correction.
I want to write a novel, paint a series of paintings, drop a series of seven podcasts, produce a hit HBO series (or HULU or AMAZON or NETFLIX or even FX or IFC/Sundance if the first three won’t pick it up) all about the dead bikes parked and chained up like a dream you can’t quite remember now that you’re all the way awake.
I want to make a photography exhibit of all the dead and forgotten bikes I see in New York. Picture if you will: Stolen front tires or maybe both tires are flat. Rusted chains and chainring and derailleurs. Handles. Rotten seats. Brakes and frayed cablehousing. Cranks and shattered spokes. Forks and headsets. Mountain bikes or delivery bikes for fixies and ten speeds. Sometimes, all that’s left is a decomposing frame with an ancient chain. Oh the aching melancholy and sadness. All this I will snap with my iPhone as I walk about.
The frames for said photography exhibit will cost more than the prints. These ornate and gilded frames will slyly comment on the meaning and validity of art. For what is “Art,” capital A, but anything we put a frame around? I will be celebrated as clever, cerebral and an acute observer of the human condition. Chelsea gallery owners in towering heels more expensive than any single piece of clothing I own will lean over to kiss me on both cheeks.
I want to write a screenplay and direct the movie of all the dead and forgotten bikes I see while I walk the streets of New York. Each dead bike will open a segment and then we will see how it arrived there. A late night drunken gray out -- heading home with the wrong man, boyfriend and bike forgotten. Another one, a massive breakup and then coming out and realizing your bike is all fucked up and then you have to go back up to the second floor and make up to your girlfriend. You didn’t have another place to stay anyway. Another, all about an audition missed. Or a Columbia or NYU final flunked and then someone decides to not go to law school but become the lead drummer for the Blue Man Group revue, now in its 15th season. And then of course we’ll spice up the narrative with a little bit of levity, because this life on earth isn’t all a veil of tears, perhaps a sort of sliding doors meeting, love at first sight? Or maybe an accident avoided? Maybe two broken bikes cause a meeting; shared suffering leads to future joy. That’ll work. At any rate, we’ll have some positive romance thrown in for the date movie crowd to counterpoint the heavy stuff. The stories will interweave. Very Altman/Carver. People of different backgrounds. Gay and straight, White and Black, Jewish and Puerto Rican, Jamaican and Haitian, Chinese and Italian and Irish. How Crash was for LA, this will be for NYC. I will be celebrated by New York critics, “enraptured” with my ability to capture the spirit of a city, post 9/11, pre-next Real Estate bubble burst and market correction.
I want to write a novel, paint a series of paintings, drop a series of seven podcasts, produce a hit HBO series (or HULU or AMAZON or NETFLIX or even FX or IFC/Sundance if the first three won’t pick it up) all about the dead bikes parked and chained up like a dream you can’t quite remember now that you’re all the way awake.
Victor’s Dad
Victor’s Dad lived in the basement of his own house. A recluse, but not the spiritual kind. Victor’s Dad lived in the basement of his own house. He slept late, and only came out at night. An exile, but not the romantic kind.
Victor’s Dad introduced me to Frank Zappa, explained the significance of the Mud Shark, complete with pantomimed swimming motions while we listened to Zappa & The Mothers, Live at the Fillmore, 1971.
Victor’s Dad got us really, really stoned on the way to our first concert, Frank Zappa - Joe’s Garage tour. We were smoking pot and rolling around in the back of a 70’s Era Econoline van complete with shag rug interior and captain’s chairs that pivot. Yeah we were. Of course we were.
Someone might judge a grown man for getting 8th graders stoned on the way to a concert. But this truly was the safest way to jumpstart my journey from who I might have been, to who I really am. Adult supervision at its finest. An initiation ceremony. That van ride took me from childhood to a totally different neighborhood. I went through the portal and FZ, Master of Ceremonies of the Freak Show showed me The Truth. FZ was the iconoclastic guiding light I needed to navigate early adolescence. It CAN happen here. In my garage. Knowledge is not Wisdom. No way to Delay that Trouble coming every Day, Bobby Brown. Eddie are you kidding? Music is the Best. Nothing is sacred is except for the freedom to do and make and create and live and work as I please. Evil and those who would quash our freedoms and tell us how to act and who to be, should not only be resisted with all our might, they should made fun of. The response to the Tipper Gores and the Orin Hatches and the Mitch McConnells and the Putins of the world should be more than a simple middle finger – you should point and laugh – even at the risk of ostracization from mainstream society. Even at the risk of your life. If you don't exercise your freedom daily, it gets out of shape. Thanks Frank.
Victor’s Dad had a nice house on the hill near Montlake Elementary. Victor’s phone number was 323-8953. I remember this from before we had area codes. I have trouble remembering people’s names. I don’t remember Victor’s Dad’s name but I remember Victor’s phone number. I remember other stuff too. I remember when the sirens went off at Husky stadium their dog Mabel would howl along with all the other neighborhood dogs, arooooooooo! The Dawg's scored again! Mabel a nice, sweet dog and Victor's Dad and mom ahd nice house in a great neighborhood. It was the goddamn American dream. Victor’s Dad must have been somewhat successful or at least hopeful before pot and (I assume) depression took him out of his wife’s bed and down to the dark, damp basement for good, which, if you consider things clearly, is really no different than dying on a cross so that the rest of us may live in the light.
Victor’s Dad lived in the basement of his own house. A recluse, but not the spiritual kind. Victor’s Dad lived in the basement of his own house. He slept late, and only came out at night. An exile, but not the romantic kind.
Victor’s Dad introduced me to Frank Zappa, explained the significance of the Mud Shark, complete with pantomimed swimming motions while we listened to Zappa & The Mothers, Live at the Fillmore, 1971.
Victor’s Dad got us really, really stoned on the way to our first concert, Frank Zappa - Joe’s Garage tour. We were smoking pot and rolling around in the back of a 70’s Era Econoline van complete with shag rug interior and captain’s chairs that pivot. Yeah we were. Of course we were.
Someone might judge a grown man for getting 8th graders stoned on the way to a concert. But this truly was the safest way to jumpstart my journey from who I might have been, to who I really am. Adult supervision at its finest. An initiation ceremony. That van ride took me from childhood to a totally different neighborhood. I went through the portal and FZ, Master of Ceremonies of the Freak Show showed me The Truth. FZ was the iconoclastic guiding light I needed to navigate early adolescence. It CAN happen here. In my garage. Knowledge is not Wisdom. No way to Delay that Trouble coming every Day, Bobby Brown. Eddie are you kidding? Music is the Best. Nothing is sacred is except for the freedom to do and make and create and live and work as I please. Evil and those who would quash our freedoms and tell us how to act and who to be, should not only be resisted with all our might, they should made fun of. The response to the Tipper Gores and the Orin Hatches and the Mitch McConnells and the Putins of the world should be more than a simple middle finger – you should point and laugh – even at the risk of ostracization from mainstream society. Even at the risk of your life. If you don't exercise your freedom daily, it gets out of shape. Thanks Frank.
Victor’s Dad had a nice house on the hill near Montlake Elementary. Victor’s phone number was 323-8953. I remember this from before we had area codes. I have trouble remembering people’s names. I don’t remember Victor’s Dad’s name but I remember Victor’s phone number. I remember other stuff too. I remember when the sirens went off at Husky stadium their dog Mabel would howl along with all the other neighborhood dogs, arooooooooo! The Dawg's scored again! Mabel a nice, sweet dog and Victor's Dad and mom ahd nice house in a great neighborhood. It was the goddamn American dream. Victor’s Dad must have been somewhat successful or at least hopeful before pot and (I assume) depression took him out of his wife’s bed and down to the dark, damp basement for good, which, if you consider things clearly, is really no different than dying on a cross so that the rest of us may live in the light.
Lists
As I turn the key in the door and it greets me with the familiar squeak and whoosh as the hard rubber draft stop sweeps inward over the threshold. The house at the bottom of 98 steps, on the edge of Puget Sound doesn’t smell like “old people” but rather, of absence and the vaguest overtone of mildew – which of course is understandable, with the loving embrace of all elements in all their dank, moist ardor.
I stand in the middle of the house, shift from one foot to the other. The house responds with the faintest creak. Outside, I can hear the sounds of waves and a gull in the distance. I breathe in and out. I close my eyes and dive into the silence. When I open my eyes a thousand eyes stare back. From photos, from painted rocks, from plush toy cats and dragons and hummingbirds. In the corner is a bear carved from wood with a chainsaw. He stands on back legs, wears a knit cap and offers up his left front paw as if to take my coat.
So much stuff in here. And yet, so empty of life. All these faces peer at my from everywhere, but none of them tells me a story of the past. All that’s left is vacancy. Conversations of the weather and sports. Martin Godsil never kept a diary. He considered it a wasted time; self-involved navel-gazing, an inspection of personal belly-button lint. He never wrote in a journal but what he did write was lists. Yellow legal pads filled with lists of tools and supplies you will need to complete project, or maintain the house, boat or other things you’re responsible for.
Here is a checklist for the maintenance of the septic tank. Here is an inventory of the Belleek China, and other semi-precious vintage objects and antiques that crowd the house.
I’m a list-maker to, but of a different sort – and I do find them an aid to memory.
I look out the window at Puget Sound and the Cascades to the East and I remember what the sunrises were like. It was a home, away from home, of sorts. I lived all those places but I never lived here.
A list of places I’ve lived.
1)I lived in Montlake, at 1633 East Calhoun.
2)I lived in an apartment on 23rd with my girlfriend Suzy and our friend Chris Peppard.
3)I moved back into the basement of my parents’ house at 1633 East Calhoun when the above situation didn’t really work out.
4)I lived at an apartment called the Karma House with my girlfriend Lisa Steadmon.
5)I moved out of there when I got off the heroin for good, made a full break with the past and moved into an apartment 1305 Howell Apt 109 at 13th and Howell.
6)From there, I moved to Los Angeles. I lived at 550 Barrington, in Brentwood.
7)I escaped LA and moved to San Diego with my new wife, Tracey. We lived at 4224 Ingleside.
8)Tracey worked at an internet real estate company – groundbreaking at the time – and discovered that we could buy a home and actually save money. So we bought our first home at 115 Alberta Place.
9)I’d been working at a really solid regional agency, but I was having a tough time fitting in. (Story of my life.) So I quite this job to freelance and finish my novel. This was the first book I didn’t finish – it was called the Green City. I freelanced around, made a pretty good living and I started working increasingly back in LA. Tracey and I started living separate lives. When the girls at the office started looking good, I made the decision to move. We bought a house at 659 Calle Miramar in the Hollywood Riviera section of Torrance. Then she got pregnant with triplets.
10)From there, we moved up the street to 705 Calle Miramar. I lost my mind, and crumbled under the pressure. Quit my job and then the bottom fell out of the economy. (2007) The music quit playing and I had to find a seat. I did – in Dallas.
11)We lived for a year on Bryan Parkway, in the Lakewood Neighborhood of Dallas TX. We kept the house and moved back – thank God.
12)We sold the house in Redondo Beach in 2015 when the market had just got back to even when the kids were going into 8th grade and we bought this house in Montclair New Jersey. 387 Highland Ave.
And that’s where we presently reside.
I like New Jersey. There’s a collective lack of pretense that reminds me of the Seattle I grew up in. It’s hilarious how it’s maligned – a Saturday Night Live skit can really suppress home prices. I hate it when people say “Joisey” – no one talks like that here. They either talk like you and me, normal I mean, or they talk like the Sopranos. Sometimes, I joke that I thought the Sopranos was a drama but then I moved here and it’s actually a documentary. That’s a good Jersey joke. Saying “joisey” like the old SNL skit isn’t. Nobody talks like that here. But nobody cares because you can make fun of New Jersey, all you want and no one cares.
A short list of people that you can still make fun of, and everyone will still laugh
1)The Irish.
2)People from New Jersey.
3)Hindus.
4)The Middle Aged White American Male.
(If Kurt Cobain had lived, we could all sing All Apologies together at the Double Tree in by the Sea-Tac airport in Tukwila.)
And I happen to be all four. Irish by temperament and 23andme; New Jersey by residence, Hindu by meditation practice and middle aged and male, because I haven’t died and I have a Y chromosome. What do all these people have in common, besides thick skin? All of these people don’t take themselves too seriously. They drink themselves to death or starve themselves to death as a social protest or self-immolate, or even simply and bravely live out a life of quiet desperation without too much complaint or visits to the therapist – but they won’t drag you through the cancel-culture mud, or decapitate you on Facetime Live, just to get likes and views.
***
"
As I turn the key in the door and it greets me with the familiar squeak and whoosh as the hard rubber draft stop sweeps inward over the threshold. The house at the bottom of 98 steps, on the edge of Puget Sound doesn’t smell like “old people” but rather, of absence and the vaguest overtone of mildew – which of course is understandable, with the loving embrace of all elements in all their dank, moist ardor.
I stand in the middle of the house, shift from one foot to the other. The house responds with the faintest creak. Outside, I can hear the sounds of waves and a gull in the distance. I breathe in and out. I close my eyes and dive into the silence. When I open my eyes a thousand eyes stare back. From photos, from painted rocks, from plush toy cats and dragons and hummingbirds. In the corner is a bear carved from wood with a chainsaw. He stands on back legs, wears a knit cap and offers up his left front paw as if to take my coat.
So much stuff in here. And yet, so empty of life. All these faces peer at my from everywhere, but none of them tells me a story of the past. All that’s left is vacancy. Conversations of the weather and sports. Martin Godsil never kept a diary. He considered it a wasted time; self-involved navel-gazing, an inspection of personal belly-button lint. He never wrote in a journal but what he did write was lists. Yellow legal pads filled with lists of tools and supplies you will need to complete project, or maintain the house, boat or other things you’re responsible for.
Here is a checklist for the maintenance of the septic tank. Here is an inventory of the Belleek China, and other semi-precious vintage objects and antiques that crowd the house.
I’m a list-maker to, but of a different sort – and I do find them an aid to memory.
I look out the window at Puget Sound and the Cascades to the East and I remember what the sunrises were like. It was a home, away from home, of sorts. I lived all those places but I never lived here.
A list of places I’ve lived.
1)I lived in Montlake, at 1633 East Calhoun.
2)I lived in an apartment on 23rd with my girlfriend Suzy and our friend Chris Peppard.
3)I moved back into the basement of my parents’ house at 1633 East Calhoun when the above situation didn’t really work out.
4)I lived at an apartment called the Karma House with my girlfriend Lisa Steadmon.
5)I moved out of there when I got off the heroin for good, made a full break with the past and moved into an apartment 1305 Howell Apt 109 at 13th and Howell.
6)From there, I moved to Los Angeles. I lived at 550 Barrington, in Brentwood.
7)I escaped LA and moved to San Diego with my new wife, Tracey. We lived at 4224 Ingleside.
8)Tracey worked at an internet real estate company – groundbreaking at the time – and discovered that we could buy a home and actually save money. So we bought our first home at 115 Alberta Place.
9)I’d been working at a really solid regional agency, but I was having a tough time fitting in. (Story of my life.) So I quite this job to freelance and finish my novel. This was the first book I didn’t finish – it was called the Green City. I freelanced around, made a pretty good living and I started working increasingly back in LA. Tracey and I started living separate lives. When the girls at the office started looking good, I made the decision to move. We bought a house at 659 Calle Miramar in the Hollywood Riviera section of Torrance. Then she got pregnant with triplets.
10)From there, we moved up the street to 705 Calle Miramar. I lost my mind, and crumbled under the pressure. Quit my job and then the bottom fell out of the economy. (2007) The music quit playing and I had to find a seat. I did – in Dallas.
11)We lived for a year on Bryan Parkway, in the Lakewood Neighborhood of Dallas TX. We kept the house and moved back – thank God.
12)We sold the house in Redondo Beach in 2015 when the market had just got back to even when the kids were going into 8th grade and we bought this house in Montclair New Jersey. 387 Highland Ave.
And that’s where we presently reside.
I like New Jersey. There’s a collective lack of pretense that reminds me of the Seattle I grew up in. It’s hilarious how it’s maligned – a Saturday Night Live skit can really suppress home prices. I hate it when people say “Joisey” – no one talks like that here. They either talk like you and me, normal I mean, or they talk like the Sopranos. Sometimes, I joke that I thought the Sopranos was a drama but then I moved here and it’s actually a documentary. That’s a good Jersey joke. Saying “joisey” like the old SNL skit isn’t. Nobody talks like that here. But nobody cares because you can make fun of New Jersey, all you want and no one cares.
A short list of people that you can still make fun of, and everyone will still laugh
1)The Irish.
2)People from New Jersey.
3)Hindus.
4)The Middle Aged White American Male.
(If Kurt Cobain had lived, we could all sing All Apologies together at the Double Tree in by the Sea-Tac airport in Tukwila.)
And I happen to be all four. Irish by temperament and 23andme; New Jersey by residence, Hindu by meditation practice and middle aged and male, because I haven’t died and I have a Y chromosome. What do all these people have in common, besides thick skin? All of these people don’t take themselves too seriously. They drink themselves to death or starve themselves to death as a social protest or self-immolate, or even simply and bravely live out a life of quiet desperation without too much complaint or visits to the therapist – but they won’t drag you through the cancel-culture mud, or decapitate you on Facetime Live, just to get likes and views.
***
"