Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Ten Factors Of the Nervous

I have been endowed to investigate

One biting overture to the Complaint, in G-minor.

Meanwhile there is a saw in a back room sharpening

Two harmless obituaries to eye-teeth.

After eyeing them up and down you aggressively frisk

Three baskets filled with crumbled visionaries of the Baroque (On special).

Due to the high tensile quality of your project,

Four robot hypnotists are arc-welding in underpants.

Because the permanence of things can’t be fixed,

Five normal people play catch-up with a screwdriver.

Because it is useless to parry the paradox we are taking

Six new bong hits of the apocalypse.

No nomadic experience would be complete without Mssr. Jittery’s

Seven near miss air-collisions of the renaissance.

The children, in educated postures, are investigating

Eight high dollar colostomies from the Paleolithic period.

While the Roman statue disproves the virtue of sword point enemas with

Nine obvious testimonies to the failure of this hill (this one).

An over zealous and smeary cavity search which leaves

Ten permanent mausoleum quality scars.


Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tracey's New Accordian




















This coming from the woman who makes sure I am up to date on the latest "Squidbillies" episodes, because, as she maintains, I am a hillbilly. She lives on the West Coast so I usually get them about 6:30 a.m. which usually results in a weird day.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Grove & Libbie
















John and Me went out today to take pictures of the Near West End for their new website. We could've hit four different Starbucks, something rare for our outings, considering the neighborhoods we usually frequent.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Some Gratuity

January 26, 1986, I am fifteen and in ninth grade

For the second time. I arrive to Algebra class

Which is a subject I get only because there is

A serious fear of failure, because this is the only

Private school in the whole Kanto region which means

The whole city of Tokyo, which is a pretty vast

Area of foreign property for there to be more than ten

All English speaking schools, and my parents

Are paying a lot of money for me to get away from the base

And “Social promotion” and things like drug abuse.

So I show up to Mr. Scrace’s class at 7:10 am in Yokohama

After having ridden the train for almost two and half

Hours that morning because the only school that will

Take me is also in another city and I have to got on

The train by five and change three trains before I get

To Yokohama where I have to walk a mile

And half up to the top of the bluff before I’m at school.

So Mr. Scrace, this hoary voiced Australian wack job

Of an Expat, if there ever was a boozey stereotype, he was it,

Except he was more dour than drunk and wild

Manish in his attack on stupidity. “look at you all!” he’d shout

After asking for the Z of the X and Y coordinates

He’d just handed out. “A row of cabbages all of you, in a row!”

And honestly I didn’t mind being compared

To a vegetable. I kind of aspired to it anyway. So I come in

And Mr. Scrace says the Space Shuttle just blew up

And I laugh because I’m not really sure what he’s talking

About, but I think it finally sounds kind of cool.

“You think that’s Funny?” Mr. Scrace always seemed to

Have two little balls of white spit salt at either end

Of his mouth, adding that Hermit quality to the unkempt

Rapture of his prophetic beard. And I have to say

I was afraid. Not for the Shuttle, not for the lives lost and

All that other end of innocence crap the Television

People went on and on about. But I was truly afraid for my

Own precarious future. And as you might guess,

Many years fter I was expelled from that private school

I learned that Mr. Scrace also went mad and was

Sent back to some sheep land institution, lost in Australia

Where Sky Lap melted back to Earth. Thank you

Mr. Scrace, for being so genuinely Bat-Shit crazy.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Premeditated Mooning

Premeditated Mooning




At the end of fifth grade, on the very last day,

I drew a smiley face on my butt in order to moon

Mrs. Stringer the math teacher, who had been

My homeroom teacher the year before.


She’d grabbed me by the head one day for my insolence

And left an orbit of half moon gouges

Around the top of my cranium, a crown of bad behavior.

I knew I had to do something to get her back


So when my friend Barry suggested I moon her I

Thought that was a great idea, but I couldn’t just

Moon her because where’s the originality, where’s the

Punishment, the return scold. No I had


To come up with a pretty good way to amplify it

If I wanted it to go down as one of the greats.

So that morning I snuck my mothers mirror and a tube

Of burgundy lipstick which I threw away


After applying through the magic of the Fovea which

Is that nerve in the back of your eye

That takes the upside down image your eye gets and

Turns it right side up for the brain to process


I drew two big dark, sad, sorrowful eyes and one long

Jagged mouth across the longitude of my

Ass crack. All that day I was heady with anticipation

Not only was it the last day of school,


But I was going to paste it right out of the park with

My painted little wiggler. I had nerves up

All right, and as I saw Mrs. Stringer standing in the doorway

Of her classroom, waiving to all the good


Little ones, the ones whose company I would forsake

In the wake of my revelation, if you will,

I knew my opportunity was at hand. I seized upon the reins

And let fall the buckle shouting to get her


Attention before I bowed to the opposite of her, waving it

Back and forth like a ship to ship signal.

A few hours after I got home, my father stormed into the

House and demanded to know what I had done.


The only thing at all about this story that keeps me in a

Straight face is the fact that a few years later Mrs. Stringer

went mad and was institutionalized. I could claim credit

for that, but on the whole, it just makes me feel bad.









:::

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Monday, August 13, 2007

Demented Particulars



Hear the banal season shear her wool.


The car and bus pay homage to her graces.

The anonymous mechanics in dreary grease

Set spirals out to heal the sick, who then ferment like tea.

What shatters, remains in pieces upon the carpet shore.

Here a bird or two in bonnets and black shoes

Tune up the orchestra of heavy-heavy days

And serenade the leaf-blowers with lament and craze.

Speak this mood around, blast you,

Pitchforks high and measured.

One man in a hat is code, two men in one hat means

One has gone for cigarettes or coal. Still

It is an otherwise calm evening. Our hero hears

Her song. A twittering of mops, bloodstained receipt

Someone’s sweeping up for love. Don’t miss this

One crumb or everything’s changed. Deranged upon

A wool sweater. Or a letter to the heart and dagger tattoo

Of things, worshipful things carrying baskets of knives

To pray on. Dear Counselor, beat back against –

The music is too loud. Such metal is divine.

Sweet Zeus of the guitar solo, turn for turn it until

The concrete comes to powder. I’ll snort the end of days

As all the quiet onlookers heft halos to the sky.

So that’s it, white dwarf, the whale impinged,

The thing upon a mat of weak grass and manure

Buzzing. You hear that? The bodies in the music.

I have great things to say about that, sound of

Constructed materials, goat wig, water coupling

With the statue in the fountain, her great gears

And fish-spew and cocktails to obedience.

Yet still the hats linger. Incomprehensible theater

Of flea scratch on a dog and sunset on fish market.

Seeds and sounds of marching, popping from the soil

To make it all cook, shady, perpetual like smoke

And hope and fishing line. Hear me, hear me train,

Crack the dark with your rail and headlamp,

The moon is filled with clippings. She is a dustpan

Of left over shearing. Let’s hope no one notices.








:::

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Floating Babies




















































I added them to the second IG-88 set.





















Plus I made a chicken ladder so we hopefully won't drown any more squirrels.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Baked Owl Shit

Crayon

One morning I came down to find the family dog
Dead on the rug, two half moons of dried fluid
At both her ends. Grandfather held a plastic bag
While I picked her up and dropped her in.

Frustrated with the slow progress, my brother
Took over digging the hole in the frozen ground.
I stood on, hands in my pockets, I was armless
As the oak tree, also a stump near the horses.

Now in the heat of summer I spot a crayon my
Daughter has dropped, it has also given up its
Form, oozing out its green essence onto asphalt.

If you remove the center, the stains will still
Orbit themselves passing around the absent
Life invisible inside our eventual melting.

























Saturday, August 04, 2007

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

128285394416562500brrraaaiiinnnss.jpg

::


Another Byzantine Icon



Judging from the sad hyper elongated frowny faces,

I’d say there’s a certain catty air about the horn these days.

It’s not just that no one wants to raise hairs about painting,

or that no one grinds teeth at the marble zigzags outside corporate

offices. Not even the predictability of gold leaf in hairdos riles.

But snail one iamb about lumps or philology & the market


wells up, snot-ragging in teary outrages. There isn’t a goat

who doesn’t gnaw on his own belles now & then. The goose

farm is full of waddlers intent to paddle rice paddy furrows.

But in a dangle, one’s got to be as unknottingly precise as that

knot cutter Damocles who bettered puzzle solving with no inclination

towards wit. He’s not worried about healing the paralytic.


So no more swoopy bows, no more pleading knee rides.

We get lumps when we show up, & head measured when we

don’t. It’s the square & round of it. No weaning, or surgical

removal of the tear duct can make it any more inconsequential.

Don’t claw about it. Just paint this up & stab it with a chisel.













::