"Orpheus never liked words. He had his music. He would get a funny look on his face and I would say what are you thinking about and he would always be thinking about music.
If we were in a restaurant sometimes Orpheus would look sullen and wouldn't talk to me and I thought people felt sorry for me. I should have realized that women envied me. Their husbands talked too much.
But I wanted to talk to him about my notions. I was working on a new philosophical system. It involved hats.
This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising about your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.
Orpheus said the mind is a slide ruler. It can fit around anything. Words can mean anything. Show me your body, he said. It only means one thing."

there the man sat in the pink beret, cross legged at a round metal table painted green in the czech summer sun set setting low on the danube

it hits like trains of triteness from an ocean of left fields. stepping on so many burnings butts has worsened your shoes, in the long run.
the sweet of air and the stick of sweat, what are they any more, any way?
where have best friends gone? where has the guiltless laughter gone?
moved from the hand stitched quilt, warm with a body
onto the stiff, the chill plastic hospital curtain hosting an array of
speaker and listener
all the meaning of any
thing stops one millimeter before touching the ear drums and sort of reflects into millions of indeterminate shards of light exploding before the retina that these things are not things
they are not subjects
they are not stories
they are not songs,
inspiration,
muse,
feeling,
ego pro,
ego con,
he is people
she is heart
the core is not to be found, learned, traded, contrived, understood, tortured, questioned, instigated, meandered into, wandered upon,
just known
is

sorry cracks under my wet back wet with an introduction to what still irks and
what still hurts
it is okay though
i am slow to understand
slower to forgive

passing out and waking to these strangers.. who are these people that have wandered into my life, like it is a room or an open house?
what have you done with my friends
family love solidarity clarity
happiness

such a clever trick played
this boy may never grow up
forcing cynicism and squeezing out the last speckle of smile
like toothpaste

riding my prime like an old skateboard and waiting for the day

shaking hands with old friends and not that
irking not that feeling

waiting for the day

i've been throwing all my pennies into a wishing well

don't believe anything anyone ever tells you unless they have no credibility and sound completely insane (run for the hills, hank!)

let me slip out of my civil servant skirt and put on my conspiracy theorist pant suit.

"If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin...then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order."











NWO 2K12 !!!!!
wana play?
where's my controller!

"kiss that last bit of worn respect for george lucas goodbye" or "no god would let this happen: a 31 year late discovery"

I ignored the impotent surgical revamps of the originals in the late 90s, the last three live action installments, the CG movie, the Ewok movies. But then I found this. It has been there all along, two years before Episode V even came out.

It stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, James Earl Jones and Carrie Fisher. It also stars one of the Golden Girls.

George Lucas didn't direct or produce it but how could he have so carelessly appropriated his intellectual property?

"It is Lifeday, a holiday that is celebrated on Chewbacca's home planet Kashyyyk. Chewie and Han Solo are trying to get to the planet where Chewie's family is waiting for him, but the empire is out searching for the rebels, giving everyone a hard time. While we are waiting we get a look at the everyday life of a wookie family. We meet all the familiar characters from Star Wars and we are introduced to Bobba Fett during a small cartoon. We also pay a visit to the Cantina and meet all the monsters again."

I feel like I've been lied to. Im going to go cry in the shower.

three blow bird stone

i reached into the lower drawer
grabbed the
two pairs of pants and
plaid shirt.
in the top drawer i found
about seven pictures
and seven or eight
notes, some
hand written, some
type written
i thought,

these notes do not match all
that time.

i found
the unsmoked cigar
i looked at the book of short stories
but decided to
keep it
i found the tall mug and had to
pour its water
out
i found the shorter one but
it was already dry
with thick,
dark,
coffee residue
caked on the
bottom

these were the things,
somehow, off

i took them to the
back yard and to the hole
i had dug;
a hole only
two feet deep,
two feet wide and long.
tossed in the clutter.
as soon as i did
i lost my foothold in Place,
became dizzy and compressed
as if pushed and pulled
through a keyhole
by the mud-like passing of time.

i didnt know what i was
doing anymore
but i knew what had to
be done so

i doused
the lot of it
in
lighter fluid and then
threw the rusty canister in,
lit a match and
watched it burn
away

far away
from me

a ceramic
PoPPing
CraCKing

the mugs did not get it at first
but eventually they did
melting and
breaking into smaller and
smaller pieces
those flames were shaped
different than most flames
i usually like fire,
find it calming,
am mesmerized by
it
dancing

but it didn't
dance, it sort of
dragged, sad

i thought about a
bird i had found
once, on his way to death.
hungry and thirsty,
probably, with a broken wi-
ng.
he could not sing or fly, only
lie there, empty and resigned.
i wrapped him
in my shirt and took
him outside,
put him on the ground and
smashed him with the heaviness of a garden stone.
three blows.
i threw it in a plastic garbage can
among discarded construction materials and
old food.
i felt no remorse when i
killed the bird but
later, friends and not-friends told me that i should
have tried to save the bird's
life
i did not see the practicality in this
and did not regret it until
i realized that i take
this approach
with love.
smashing it
when it looks like
it may die
anyway

pudgy angels and mean lunch

pudgy little round
headed
asian boy standing outside
the shop door,
la-la-la-ing
to the tune of
"hark the herald angels sing"
rocking back and forth,
turning on his toe
this fat
little boy
not quite looking like
an angel

dad comes out,
looking mean
barking some Thai, it sounds like
dull scissors cutting
cat skin and
bodies falling down
stairs.
sounds mean, but he's
probably just saying,
"let's go to the car, son.
are you hungry?
want to get some
lunch?"

my dreams are starting to really scare me

i was standing in a concrete room with anonymous others. there was a small hatch, a little concrete door in the concrete wall. one of the anonymous suggested i check out what was behind it. it opened. i had to lay on my back and slide myself in, holding onto the top of the jamb. it was that small. the ceiling became a little elevated as you went further into the cell, but it was barely enough space to sit up. they closed the door once i was in. it was a holding cell of some sort, giving me about one foot of extra space from my body in each direction.
they told me, in 1968, this was where MLK and JFK had to live. they lived
here?
i think, i wouldn't have been able to handle it. it was stuffy, claustrophobic. i could hardly breathe, the air had become suddenly thick and wet and warm. i thanked god i didn't have to stay there, that i wasn't MLK or JFK , but i acknowledged one day i might be, and i might have to.

THE WHOLE HISTORY
HAD BOILED DOWN T
O A MOMENT WHEN
SHE ASKED ME ARE
YOU TRYING TO P
USH ME AWAY, A
T WHICH I JUST
SHRUGGED AN
D CALMLY HU
NG THE PHO
NE UP AND
TWENTY
FIVE MI
NUTES
LATE
R, S
AI
D
Y
E
S
BU
T IT
SOON
BECAM
E OBVIO
US I HAD
LET MY A
CTIONS PR
ECEDE MY A
BILITIES. I W
ENT TO WORK
AND WAS FINE
UP UNTIL NINE
O CLOCK WHEN I
WENT OUTSIDE T
O TAKE A SMOKE B
REAK AND COLLAPS
ED ON THE STAIRS W
ISHING PRETTY BAD I
COULD GIVE HER A CAL
L

sean connery

by five o clock i had had four beers and
smoked 20 cigarettes. what a
terrible headache
by five o clock two people had read a story of mine
and said things that were good
helping to improve my writing, or not
i think in the morning i will
sit alone at an
outside table where i will probably hear
cars driving by in
rush hour
writing or reading or
both
with no leash and no
dog barking
in my ear
nothing to remember or forget
just the bliss of observing and
writing about a pretty girl who looks
lonely staring out the window
wishing i had the dexterity to
draw her
did you see titanic?
i have plans for the morning
i will go to bed early
tonight

The Other L Word

Have you seen those sunglasses they sell at kiosks in malls, the ones with no lenses but plastic bars instead? I saw them and I sort of rolled my eyes. I behaved indifferently but really, I was pretty mad at them. Then I saw a woman walk by one of those kiosks, months later. She looked at them and she laughed and then kept walking. I thought this was an appropriate response. It was the first thing I'd enjoyed in a mall, seeing her laugh that way, a laugh that seemed to come from a very warm and colorful place in her that had never been touched by a shopping mall. The pleasure only lasted thirty seconds or so, but it was still enough to remember, which is more than I can say for most visits to the mall. It was sort of a break from incessant consumerism, social ills that are always on display at malls, the same American Materialist Obvious. Grumpy families arguing with each other, looking to trade moments of spare time or sweat money for gratification. High school boys and girls holding hands, kissing each other on the face, buying stupid sunglasses.

I look at them, kissing like that. I detest them, or it. What are they doing but taking an elevator to the top of a faulty building and flaunting their guts to each other, with an eye out only for what they can take from the other, with a child's understanding of what they are able to give.

But then, there are the others, slowly climbing a mountain back up to someplace. Not "L word" specifically, but at least to some sense of ok.

There's the girl in my class, who likes the boy in my class. It was obvious he wasn't interested in her; he's a cool and intelligent black guy and she's a passionate yet pudgy white girl, not suburban though, to give her credit. They got along, attraction or no. Then something happened. She was miserable for several weeks and seemed to treat him with distaste, reproach. I imagine they had some falling out. But she's better now. I prefer not to know the details, and I won't anyway, but this gives me some sense of ok. Seeing that. People get bad, but they get better. Slowly they climb back up, even if time pushes them.

That's the thing about it, "L word", it comes and it goes like mindless customers at a supermarket. And when it comes, it's flowers, hope, bluebirds, even mental health, maybe even identity. But then it sours, like it does, nine times out of ten, and it stinks like dog shit, and it sticks to your boot like dog shit. You want to get it off, but all you have is this stupid twig, and that doesn't cut it.

It goes, and you get all the bitterness and the anger, the madness and the indignation. It's always someone's fault, in these stages. Blame is relevant and small points are too. Because in this stage small points add up, right.

But then it graduates to a lower tier, a baser place in the human being. Those negative points and arguments and details, speckled all over the dynamic like bugs on a windshield, sort of melts together, just crayons in an oven, like those things we used to make in kindergarten. And no matter what you try to draw with it, there's no control over what comes out. Now, blame is irrelevant. Being cool, walking off, ignoring, feigning indifference isn't feasible. All the points fall beneath this big category that tells you what a failure this has been.

You feel your balls shrivel up into your body as all the plots for revenge burn away in the sun, and the memories you thought you could block or replace become the pictures on your wall you cannot take down. Maybe the wind will blow them, or they will fade with time.

In the mean time, you will go about your life as usual, you will drive down the road and remember and remember and remember and remember and remember and remember and remember and remember

someone's got it worse (MR. T COMES HOME)

heavy thuds of boots or thick soled dress shoes climb the stairs. the sound of the stairs betray so much more to me than they intend to say. slow, awkward, clumsy thuds. the footsteps go into the bathroom. the footsteps' cell phone rings and he picks up. it's T.
i thought so.

he tells the listener hello, speech as slurred as his feet. he talks for a little while, very shortly actually, under a minute. then says, "I love you. you hurt my feelings many times." Then there are a few moments that pass, but no indication of finality to the conversation. hello? hello? i can tell by the banging and smashing sounds coming from his room that he has just been hung up on.

i lay in my bed and am the eyeless witness to this scene. i have just been having a dream in which i am living in a new house with some of my old room mates, some new ones. there is a new set of activities there, but the same things happen. my beers get stolen. eddie and tyree are friends. there was some very dark or criminal aspect to this dream, but i cannot recall what it is. my mom, also L., were in the dream. but i can't remember
what they were doing there.

the timing is incredible, incredible. though it only makes sense. it seems the angel of death has found my address. he seems to follow me and whoever i happen to be friends with at the moment, whoever i am around. ailing us with the same bad luck. they never know it's me that's cause. but it is me. didn't you know? every generation has a person in whom the universe places the battery that powers human drama, and it's me this time. not megalomania or narcissism, just true.

i once prayed in venice for the sun to come out, and it did. i keep telling myself this when i feel too satanic. i can do good things with my powers, i can.

but moments like these i wonder.

T and i, we are the same right now, weirdly enough. this prick who stole my shit. this poor, sad fuck i don't get along with, whose heart is broke all over his bed in a soggy mass, unpartitioned and nonlinear, disorganized. he will probably die alone. we can form a club, i'll tell him tomorrow.

i wanted to cry, i really did. earlier tonight, i was talking to someone about current hard stuff going down in life, and they asked me if i had
cried about it. i was so apprehensive when the question had been asked. but tonight, laying there with a cloud and a fog over me, i kind of wish i had cried, because they say if you don't cry, you just don't feel it deep... or something.

i don't know if i will cry, maybe i will. but i know the troubles aren't over like i want them to be. there is a lone wolf with his head hunched, skinny from starvation, circling my bed, waiting to pounce. he'll have his day soon enough.

then i hear a man's voice from down stairs. it's just loud shouts, testicular, but mumbled. i wonder if it's eddie, drunk. but the shouts come again and it sounds arabic. the man is somehow involved with T. he's yelling up at T, who replies with incoherent mumbling with lots of "she's" and "dawg's." the man doesn't understand because he keeps shouting back up.

who is this mystery speaker? is it T's girl's other lover? are they feuding over a woman? did T somehow get involved in a love triangle involving that girl i've seen over here and an arabic man?

i go down to see. my 230 am rude awakening leaves me with little rational thoughts but a lot of residual dream imagination. i'm afraid i'm going to accidentally get shot by a feuding lover. but the doors open and i see a taxi cab is parked in the front. T didn't pay the cab. no gunshots tonight.

his door is open when i go back upstairs. i tell him from outside his door theres a cab waiting.

yo come in, dog

in his room, there he is, lying halfway on the bed, face buried in the sea of sheets and pain and fuckups. this king of the hill on his mountain of mistakes. this dead body, this 38 year old body, surrounded by pot smoke and a hurricane of much too much but
probably just one thing.
i don't know exactly what was going through my head when i saw that. maybe something like,
someone else has always got it worse.
what i tell him is
the cabs still waiting, i know he's wasted, should i run some money down for him? i ask him and he's just lying there, mumbling, maybe to me, or not.

then he darts up.
oh shit, he's still waitin.
..... yeah
his eyes are open, crazy.
pupils dilated so big you could
fit a plank in there
or whatever jesus called it

he's standing now and assures me he'll take care of it after mumbling something about 20 bucks. i go back into my room and hear the boot clacks or dress shoe thumps, pacing irregularly on the hardwood creaks, and then i hear a body falling into bed, dead.

30 minutes later, i'm still up, writing and thinking, too stimulated to fall back asleep. i check the front and the cab is gone. maybe he gave up. maybe he's in the UAE mob if that exists, and T's on the list now.

either way, this morning before leaving for class, T's door was uncharacteristically still open. i didn't dare check. maybe the dead body was really dead.

two broken hearted beer thieves, living right next to each other. amazing. angel of death must have google now, or he's got a contact in the dmv.

we're both sad now,
i imagine,
T and me
we have dug ourselves into
holes
where stealing each other's food
is trivial and
there are much heavier issues
heavier than the
bitterest ale, the groggiest stout
than 40% or 50%
ABV
in a $12 liter of scotch whisky or
night marinating

he shouts as he walks in the door and gets
fucked up beyond imagination,
doesn't pay the cab,
skips work the next day

i fume, write resentfully
think a lot, plan on the new friends i will make
the places i will go
the places i will turn my back on
i feel quite
ingenuine
in that

at least my door is closed this morning

i drive away from the house,
look at it
my window,
T's window
someone else has always got it worse
sometimes he lives next door

who is all that racket (MR T. GOES OUT)

someone is banging on the
door
20,
25,
30 knocks
oneaftertheother
like a bowling ball quickly down the stairs
eddie gets the door, i
knew that he would
i listen
and then a voice:

"yo b, she frontin' anyway dog"
tyree is upset
but tax season is over
and he is an
accountant
eddie is consoling him now
"well you're done, right,
you gonna go out to celebrate"
tyree is going out tonight
to celebrate.

but
she frontin',
so he may not enjoy himself
as much
out
at the bar
full of liquid bullshit
spewing verbal
liquor onto whatever
ears will hear
his lonely story about a
japanese girl he
used to love,
a child he supports but
does not see, and
a burning couch in west virginia

i didn't roll my eyes
at him
tonight,
tonight,
from behind my door
i think i
understood
we let it out in different ways
but i think we suffer
just the same

so
there won't be any griping
tonight, not from
me
when he has loud, loud,
sad
sex in his room with some
filler, or when
pot smoke spills from
under that door
or when
he blasts obnoxious
hip
hop
i won't gripe
not tonight,
tonight,
i understand.

1 more bukowski

the kid

had trouble hitting left
handers so I got him to
switch hit,
then I shifted him from
left to center,
dropped him from
lead-off to the 6th
spot,
also had him work
on the bunt.
I had long talks with
him about his
career,
told him that
concentration was
essential.
I worked hard with
the kid,
had him take
extra batting
practice,
had him switch
to a lighter
bat,
work on
contact,
the power would
come by
itself.
I had him stand
closer to the
plate,
be more
selective at
what he
swung
at.
I worked hard
with the
kid,
played him
every day
but his average
dipped to
.229 and I had
to ship him
to the
minors.

all that talent
and he couldn't get
it
together.
he acted confused,
disoriented.
my guess was
it's some
broad.

poor bastard.
all that
natural talent
shot to
shit.

I've seen it
happen so many
times.

well, I've got
Sunderson out
there now.
he's hitting
.289,
lots of line
drives,
he's adequate
in the field,
steady.

we oughta be
right in the
race,
come
September.

rain walk

earthworms, fat and
scattered so well
all along
the veneer of
rain fallen on
side walk
like so many swelling
vestiges of my
nature,
lost
in that yellow water
run-
ning
through an accidental creek
nearby

the air is pregnant today
with such sorrow
fit for
crestfallen sunshine lovers
dreary without their sun
gaze at their shoes
when they walk
through the sea, through
puddles,
the unwelcome abscess on
man's sidewalk.
they, seeing so much of themselves in the
concrete and the
traffic
televisions and telephones
more in their vehicles
and coats
than the rain that
covers any of it

where do we go
to get stoned at some party
sleep with accidental strangers
write bad songs. sad songs
we betray our friends
we make big mistakes
kiss the wrong girls
neck deep in sex
we think sick thoughts and
drive home drunk
a head overflowing with
self destruction, and
burn the frame of the car window with
cigarette butts by accident
the car dad paid for

then we sit at the table with mother and father
our green peas and asparagus
macaroni and cheese
pork barbecue that has been simmering all day long
mashed potatoes
that came from a box
but still cooked with love
we talk
or we don't talk
and we eat
like none of it ever happened

from a third floor starbucks, shibuya, tokyo, japan

behind the glass, i looked down on all the black heads as they crossed the streets. it was different from up here, the third floor. down there it was chaos, but from up here, the pedestrian crossings of the streets seemed to be done with the most efficient precision, a mechanic beauty. cars would pass and then stop, then an invisible dam would break and hundreds of faceless heads would surge from each side of the cross walk like enemies in a battle. but when they met at the center of the street, there was no bloody collision. it was an exhibition of the beauty that is human distance, organized isolation. how hard people work to keep the sense of sureness that comes from personal space. the world could be falling, but give me my personal space.

that's what i had, sitting up there on a cushioned stool, drinking coffee at a bar surface set at the window. i wrote and wrote and looked and sighed and wrote some more. i could have stayed forever, but i didn't.

being careful not to lose my orientation, i set out to find some food. i wrote some more in my blue covered, spiral bound notebook as i ate cheaply priced but satisfying and delicious udon at an udon bar. then i paid for my meal to much awkward bowing and foreign gratitudes, and left.

i listened to oasis as i explored the streets. watching people, people, all of them so far away from me, but it was a different distance than i had experienced in big cities of my own native country. these people did not speak my language, i did not speak theirs. it must have been that language barrier that kept them at a safe distance, able to be held in my hand, observed, idealized, i was part of them and there were no words they could speak that could prove me otherwise.

that just wasn't the case back home. people found so many ways to tell you how part of them you weren't.

in a dream state i will not betray in retrospect by calling "happy," i sat on a bench and watched, watched, watched.

i did not have trouble finding the motel. it was tucked away in an alley like crevice off of a side road. i saw my shadow cast upon a wall by a dim yellow parking lot light and remembered that i was different. shaped and sized, dimensioned different. but it was ok, it didn't matter now. i climbed the stairs to the front door, they buzzed me in, i nodded, got to my room. looked at a buddha book for ten minutes and fell asleep with the light on.

at least it's free

tonight's dinner
is a winner
"sliced turkey"
"rice"
"garlic bread"
""ribs""
the food is getting pretty bad
i think they grow it in a plastic bag

a little girl ran away from the microwave laughing
hysterically, clutching a styrofoam bowl. curious, i peered in. easter candy. easter candy?
peeps aren't for microwaving! and the act of it is not
humorous. my, these kids are bored.
and definitely not eating the food
now they let them go across the street to sit
in the field. on sunny days. but
the ra's lock them up first, in the fence.
it's true, they would probably run away,
like dogs.
if this day job were really just a day job to all the people who work here, they would probably be people, or at least "people," or at least they might look like people or "people."

but it's a day job and a night job and life in a
anti-drug
treats back pain, allergies, chronic headaches,
menstrual cramps, irritability, ambiguous sneezing, fits of confusion,
acid rain, inferiority complex, sore throat, itchy butt,
horny cat, lost gerbil, orphanism, starvation,
guilt, war, accidental yawning, sexual ambiguity,
writer's block, block parties, yard sales,
wooden crosses, hope, curly hair, pregnancy,
violet organisms and violent orgasms
tangled shoe strings and microphone strings and cables

home is only their hobby
and their only hobby. oh, and GOP campaigning. my friend's a gov-uh-nuh, didn't you know?

last night, i was french kissing a middle aged woman i didn't know in an elevator in a dream. i could see her feelings sprouting out of the top of her head. they shot up in the air in a condensed beam and bowed back down. it looked like a rainbow with no colors in it. it came near me so i had to stop. i told her no. i told her i couldn't. not with that beam there. everything was sepia. her tongue was wet and warm.

-

since i started caring more about my dreams, i've been less inclined to watch the television when i am bored.

-

i had a haunting dream last week. i dreamt all night until 4am. i had to pee, so i woke up to pee. i was so scared there was going to be someone standing on the other side of my door when i opened it. i kept imagining it, some dark and faceless man with no physical body to bring harm, but some other kind of body that was already in my head. it was the worst kind of fear that comes to you only at 4am when you don't have hold of all your logic, and it cuts so deep into you, and you have no choice but to walk to the bathroom and tell yourself there is no man there waiting, even if you don't believe it. feels like a sad morning when you feel completely alone and it's very cold outside, the air in the bathroom is cold, and you are taking a hot shower and that hot water is the only thing you care about in the entire world. not stepping out onto the murkied tiles, or looking at your face in a fogged mirror, or putting your clothes on. i am not a scared person. but those dreams left me in this state. i got back into bed afterward and put my laptop on my stomach, and started typing down the words and images that passed through my head as i drifted back to sleep. so many things i could not explain and were not from me or this world.

-

sometimes before i go to bed, i run through everything i've done and thought that secretly haunts me. things i only think about when the cars outside my window have stopped rushing by, and the sun has gone down, and my old friends are at new parties with new friends. and i welcome that old fear. i hope my dreams are f'd up.

-

who was that woman in the elevator?

fish in the sea

Knock and Roll

Standing in the kitchen, waiting for some water to boil. It's a dirty kitchen. Grease beads stand firm on the stacks of dishes piled in the sink. Also, a large pot and all 13 pieces of cutlery my roommates and I co-own are in the sink and covered with grease amidst pieces of food. The smooth, cream colored counters are more of a light brown from amassed debris. splashed vegetable oil, spots of dried beer, bread crumbs, black bits of food burned into carbon, eggshell fragments, probably the remains of a sneeze or two all make a home of this embarrassing kitchen counter. I'm freshly woken and showered, so the only state of mind I can handle is a sort of lower brain neanderthal-like griping about my roommates' laziness in kitchen cleanliness.

"fuckinglazy sackless shitpricks fucking take out the trash for once. fuckingdie while you're at it."

But I take back the second part because I don't want to be stuck paying their share of the rent.

I plan on telling them these things to their faces at some point. I'm sick of being the only one who cares about the state of cleanliness. Someone said once, when you die everything you've ever done or thought plays on a TV all the other dead people can see. If that's true, I may as well tell everyone what I think of them right now and save myself the trouble. Life is short and leaves you with nothing, anyway.

My water's boiling. What was I going to use it for? Roommate Dmitri walks in.

Middle-low pitched, slightly groggy Russian accent: "'tsup dude"

I hate these run ins. I don't want to initiate conversation because I know there's not a single question I could ask they'd have an answer to that I'd give a flopping fuck about. He takes a microwaveable meal out of the freezer, opens it and puts it in the microwave. "Hey man, what's up", I grunt back.

"not much just chillin"

beep
beep
beep
vrrrrrr
the microwave lights up from within and a little black plastic tray can be seen turning in circles, whoring itself to the light and heat.

If sitting in your room in an office chair that stinks like your back sweat and has molded to the shape of your fat ass and fat back from 12-18 hours of SITTING every day, is chillin, then god save me from it.

I open a package of ramen and put it into the water. We eat healthy.

chillin. "Cool" I say.

D: "so man did you play that show in new york?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, it was good. Wasn't exactly what I expected, you know, we were the new guys and the sound situation sucked but at least we got out there, you know."

I always get the feeling Dmitri has practiced a script before entering a room and talking to me, and he doesn't know how to adapt to anything I say that may deviate from the script, i.e. respond to my conversation.

"so man you got any groupies?"

haha.

oh you're serious . "Oh, uh, no not really. I don't even think anybody even likes us at this point"

"yeah man, y'know gotta get some groupies. you know, play some muuusic, get laaaid, it's nice"

I stir the ramen. "Yeah, I guess. Were kinda just focusing on music now." I say it in this sort of boring whine-groan that somehow formed itself into words.

My words don't sway him at all. Come on, how un rock and roll of me. I show not the least bit of interest in legs that open when you sing to them, in a drunken vagina that winks a smooth, hairy, seductive eye. I can read it all on his TV screen.

Dmitri: "[What are you gay? What are you mother theresa? Whats this work ethic? Wheres the punk rock and the ballzzzzz???]

that makes sense. but yeah, groupies man."

If I replaced my disinterest and boredom of people with BALLS and MOXIE and SPICE and stopped worrying about destroying myself and just let it happen, and maybe started singing at the right legs, or wrong ones, maybe then I'd be rock and roll. After all, plan A really hasn't been working out. An irreconcilably individualistic character tells you every day how alone you're going to end up anyway. Might as well enjoy it. Can't beat 'em join 'em. One in the hand is worth.. eh whatever.

When you're empty you can try to fill yourself back up but you can also ask if you really are empty and then try to get a little more empty. That's what I do.

beep-beep-beep-beep-beep

Food is done. Opens door, grabs food, leaves door swung open. "alright man, see you"

I just finished transferring the ramen into a bowl, kind of looking at that door, just open, like that, with all the orange and brown and white food pieces stuck to the corners and all. "Bye."

between i and e

I was ogling googled pictures of Bilinda Butcher from My Bloody Valentine when i met Belinda Butcher from facebook.

Earthquake
bukowski

Americans don't know what tragedy is---
a little 6.5 earthquake can set them to chattering
like monkeys---
a piece of chinaware broken,
the Union Rescue Mission falls down---

6 a.m.
they sit in their cars
they're all driving around---
where are they going?

a little excitement has broken into their
canned lives

stranger stands next to stranger
chattering gibberish fear
anxious fear
anxious laughter ...

my baby, my flowerpots, my ceiling
my bank account

this is just a tickler
a feather
and they can't bear it ...

suppose they bombed the city
as other cities have been bombed
not with an a-bomb
but with ordinary blockbusters
day after day,
every day
as has happened
in other cities of the world?

if the rest of the world could see you today
their laughter would bring the sun to its knees
and even the flowers would leap from the ground
like bulldogs
and chase you away to where you belong
wherever that is,
and who cares where it is
as long as it's somewhere away from
here.

THE CHINESE + MBV
(globalize)



beatbop


i'll be with you

clark

impractical wish list

id like to

be a touring musician in the spring
write fiction in the winter
surf, grow a vegetable garden, empty out my soul in the summer
live in a mountain/beach cottage in the fall
be a world traveler year round
never work a desk job
""TBA"" bi-monthly publication (in spite of a dying industry)
graduate then
live in pacific nw then
live in europe, where 2012 is going to hurt less
probably scandinavia for summer breaks,
greece/ something mediterannean in the winter,
northern italy the rest of the year,
searching for a town that hit me so hard i forgot to write down the name
where clean water comes out of cracks in a wall

Niccolo Machiavelli Goes to Gay Paris (at the airport part III)

rachel left her sleep state only to enter a murky wakefulness. crustiness at the edges of her eyes reminded her of tears that had dried in her sleep. she blinked hard two or three times, trying to wrap her brain around this new reality that the airplane cabin was. she'd fallen asleep before takeoff and it was unsettling to wake to the vibrations and muffled hums of the jet engines.

sitting in an aisle seat, she commenced assembling the details of her physical environment. then she began to assess the state of her mind and emotions, trying to recover from the blankness of sleep and remember what she was supposed to be feeling. immediately all the heaviness of present reality came upon her. to what seemed the fullest possible degree of each, she missed frank, she was excited for her new life, she was afraid of everything that now lay before her.

the sentiments lay one on top of the other in thick, opaque layers. they were sandwiched in with her failed attempt to live presently and achieve suchness within the confines of this organism of metal, plastic and fiberglass that was ushering her into a new life chapter. her mind raced and she struggled to catch up.

the barrage of emotion was making her anxious. she began tapping her right knee unconsciously. she'd felt warm when she got on the plane and had removed the beige overcoat and stuffed it in the overhead cabinet along with her bag before takeoff. she was feeling cold now, imagining the cold air of the atmosphere outside the plane, so she pulled the airline issue blanket from beneath her seat and spread it over her lap. she pulled a catalog of duty-free items the airline was selling from the seat pocket in front of her and flipped through it with a distraction she knew was futile to try to tame. the seat to her left was empty, but one more seat over was a thin middle aged man reading Il Principe, in Italian, she could see by the cover. the man had gray hair and a gray goatee and wore black framed reading glasses. he saw her looking at his book and he turned his head to face her and gave her a smile of airplane-neighbor friendliness. she smiled back and returned her eyes to the catalog in her hands which she seemed to suddenly rediscover as the detestable object it was. she put it back in the seat pocket.

she rested her eyes and leaned her head back. frank kept coming back to her in flashes of memory. why did it always work that way? parting seemed to squeeze all the nostalgia out of any place or relationship one was parting from. it then dripped into the emotions, causing upheaval and melancholy. she kept telling herself that the swelling emptiness in her chest would be filled with the joy of travel, the richness of culture; the lonely quiet in her would be silenced by a cobblestone paved village, bakery bread in early morning, people who looked her in the eye, people who ate and drove and spoke and lived not for practicality or convenience, but as conscious members of a history.

soon, the clinging would weaken. she would still miss frank sometimes, probably seeing him in old men and young boys, remembering him in spanish guitar players beneath old town underpasses, but she acknowledged it would be a missing that would give the new life context and significance.

her day dreaming ended when a gray box rolled up from behind on her right side. the stewardess piloting the drink cart asked the man if he wanted a drink.

eh, si, vino bianco per favore.

she pulled a single serving sized bottle of chardonnay from a compartment in her box and gave it to him, along with a short clear plastic cup and a napkin. he smiled and opened his wallet to remove a five euro note which he gave to the stewardess. as he did this, a photo slipped out onto his tray table. it was of him with a woman and two small children, a boy and a girl. they were all smiling, sitting on the edge of a large stone fountain. when he saw her notice this, he laughed

it's my family

she smiled at him, told him they were beautiful. he already knew that, though. the stewardess was now waiting for rachel to give her a drink order.

just water, please.

she complied, pouring water into the same type of plastic cup she'd given to the man. she put it on rachel's tray table, released the brake on her box and moved it to the next row of seats.

rachel drank the water. she closed her eyes and then thought about what she missed, who she would miss, one more time before falling back asleep, jet hums and all.

Nothing is real.