A Little Protection

It turns out that life is difficult.

No surprise there—at least to those

who are living—but

what might surprise most folks

is the extent to which we can really

protect ourselves and

provide for the unintentional &

how necessary this skill actually is.

 

The key, as it turns out, is not located in excess

but in having a very clear conception of what you

actually need to survive.  The turnaround is the

fact that it’s not in having too much, it’s in having

just enough: too much is a burden.

 

Be sure you have food,

or you’re going to starve.

Be sure you have shelter,

or you’re bound to feel the

wrath of the natural mother.

Be sure you have clothes,

or you are going to freeze.

 

These things will ensure you’re survival.

How you go about them is your business.

What you want to eat,

what you want to live,

what kind of clothes

you wish to wear…

these are your business.

 

My food is simple but nourishing.

My home is modest but enclosed.

My clothes are not expensive but warm.

 

Once you have the things you need, that really ought to be enough.

Then, it’s easy:

all you have to do is take care of them,

and that’s where it gets slightly more complicated,

but realistically, maintenance

is a small price to pay for the certain security of certain survival.

Just

a little protection is all it takes sometimes.

Eli’s Top Fifty

(At the request of a loved one, and in no real particular order :-)

1. Quiet contemplation (priceless)
2. Wailing away into the night on the guitar (guitar $150, years of practice: 4)
3. Making soup (variable)
4. Letting the fingers flash across the keyboard (macbook: $1500, time)
5. Porch conversations that last well into the night (time and a companion)
6. Writing letters using pen and paper to those you love far away (pen: 1.00—or more—paper: cheap to expensive)
7. Throwing the disc in Prospect Park with loved ones (disc: 12.00)
8. Free reggae festivals in New York’s Central Park (Free)
9. Watching Mary Poppins in my underwear and drinking a martini at 9am (gin: 20.00, olives: 3.00, Mary Poppins: free as a gift)
10. Making tortillas from scratch (flour, water, pan)
11. A nighttime run around Ochang Public Park (shoes, sweats, living in Ochang, South Korea)
12. Clipping your fingernails AND filing them for better guitar action (fingernail clippers and file: 6.00)
13. A perfectly prepared martini (gin, olives, ice, cocktail shaker, cocktail glass)
14. A perfectly prepared Manhatta (whisky, maraschino cherries, ice, cocktail shaker, cocktail glass)
15. Catfishing (rod, reel, stink bate, weights, time)
16. Discovering anything (a sense of danger)
17. Ulysses (19.95 for the Gabler Edition)
18. The Annotated Ulysses (29.95)
19. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (book: 13.95, movie: 19.95)
20. Literary criticism (gray matter restructuring)
21. The “Weight” of a philosophy tome (Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness”:  18.00, five pounds… roughly)
22. The burden of existence (hmmmm)
23. Long hair (time)
24. Writing simultaneously in five different notebooks (variable from 3.00-18.00)
25. May All Beings Be Happy (12000 SKWon)
26. Experiencing something for myself (fear)
27. “Actions reveal subconscious desires” (the ability to see in superficialities)
28. Wagner’s Ring Cycle (75.00)
29. Receiving baked goods in the mail in Korea from various parts of the world (friendship)
30. Maintaining three blogs (time and thoughts)
31. Consciousness (who’s to say)
32. Consciousness (of) consciousness (lots)
33. Shisha, food and beer in a Moroccan place in Seoul with a Moroccan, and Irish, and another American (45000)
34. The blank look on the faces of Korean middle schoolers when we play hangman and the words are: Phenomenological ontology (priceless)
35. Simply Calphalon 3qt. Saute Pan (85.00)
36. Simply Calphalon omelet pan (45.00)
37. A good 8” Chef’s knife (30.00 and up)
38. Wandering (the fear of being lost)
39. Exhaustion (work)
40. Spooning (companion)
41. Driving down backroads a little bit lost (car: 1500, untamed roads)
42. The shape of the female hip (what price could be placed on a curve like that)
43. Nalgene bottles (8-12.00)
44. A good walking stick (found, as in, the former branch of a tree)
45. Wool socks (Merino, from New Zealand: 12.00/pr)
46. The Keyser Quick change capo (14.95)
47. The ease of reading and difficulty of understanding of Hangul (time and practice)
48. The Nichomachean Ethics (12.00)
49. Skype (free download)
50. The internet (Thanks Al Gore… I know you didn’t invent it, but thanks for the help)

Anybody want an iPhone?

It turns out that hunks of machinery,

however fancy, and fine and shiny

are nothing but machines

and show themselves to be

when they stop working just as you need them.

 

Wandering Mindspace

It is quite cold in Korea these days,

and I feel the coldness in my bones—

or maybe I feel the coldness in me.

 

I am sinking, somehow, faster than I can possibly swim,

and nothing and no one is anywhere near to

pull my head up above the waves.

 

That’s the thing about swimming though:

you have to be able to sink before you even consider jumping in.

 

The cold is a worry in so far as cold water is not conducive to

conducting a proper swimming session,

or, at the very least, the session won’t be lasting all that long

and is largely based on how much you

are capable of enduring.

 

The cold is always an endurance trial,

with day after day of icy arctic blasts attempting

to sway you into a more indoorsy type

of environment—away from the unreasonably

inhuman environment of the out-of-doors.

 

“Conduct thineself accordingly!” the brainmeat screams out.

“You know what you are getting yourself into!

Do not run yourself into the ground chasing down something

you have never been about to define yourself.”

So, on a fool’s journey we are going.  Acceptance comes first.

 

Traveling through the moors of endless bracken

with a backpack full of nothing and nothing as

the goal.

 

No-mind.  Is it the same as the unthinking?

Satirizing no mind might find us eating our

young, swiftyly, and laughing at ourselves

when faced with facts of indubitably imminent

failure.

 

Yes, perhaps that’s the way to go.

Forge on ahead.

Go where you’re not meant to go.

Persist in pain.

Do the things you weren’t meant to.

Endure it all.

Be whatever you want to do, man.

 

Such clearly dangerous thoughts streaming through the mind’s eye,

and yet it feels so delicious as it pours onto the page.

Is it real?  Am I real?  Who’s to say?  And who’s to really care if

I am one or the other or all or none? 

Cannot we for one second remind ourselves that there is nothing

and nobody to stop us.

 

We are we are the youth of the nation.

Stupid pop songs resurfacing suddenly.

That’s the danger of the cold, I guess.

 

Holiday Poem

It occurred to me—

Well, I guess to be perfectly honest, it

Was mentioned to me

That thanksgiving is on Thursday.

 

“Which Thursday,” I asked honestly.

“This Thursday,” came the reply.

“Bugger.”

 

That last bit came not so much as a realized unfortunate,

But rather as a realized lack of realization:

Without the kitschy reminders and horns of plenty to

Remind you to buy loads of food and that

You will soon be subjected to the unnecessary prattling

Of your dearly beloved friends and family,

You don’t think about it.

 

I have been trying to avoid holidays lately,

For no reason, really, other than I wonder

What a world would look like in which the

Cumbersome commercial realities of most

Of these loathsome forced socialization

Events were not so consistently present.

 

Funny that each corresponding holiday involves the buying of something special.

These are the ones I’m especially miffed with:

V-Day: Choco, hearts, valentines for the kids, pink things;

Hallow’s: candy, candy, candy, decorations, face paint;

Thxgvg: so much food you could feed a third world country for a week on America’s excess on this one single day;

X-mas: gifts for everyone else, more food, and travel expenses.

 

St. Paddy’s I’m strangely comfortable with. 

Any holiday that involves a body heading to the pub and getting’ pissed up with his (or her) mates is a holiday I can get behind—

Which sort of does an unfortunate job of illustrating where both my and the Irish priorities really lie, doesn’t it?

 

“But it’s about remembering,” one might say.

“Some things you don’t want to remember.”

Most of the time it’s just a reminder you’re alone,

Or a reminder you don’t have a date to the party and you have to find a good single costume,

Or you don’t have any family,

Or precisely how much your family sucks,

Or how poor you are,

Or any number of other negative things.

 

I’m on a personal hiatus from holidays.

Enjoy them if you will, it doesn’t really affect me,

But please, please, please,

Don’t force me to want to celebrate.

Forced celebration feels a little bit false to me.

 

 

 

To Infinity and Beyond

Time is rushing now, and

perhaps it's because I am

so involved with existence,

which is a nice thought to

think, don't you think?

Time can slow to a crawl

when one is bored, and in

this life of endless possible

possibilities, there's just no

need for boredom.

Welcome to the land of the

active.

Even when doing nothing,

the mind can be wholly 

engaged and verdant and

living in exultation for its

infinite probability

of awesomeness.

Actions Reveal Desires IV

With two South African oranges, 

two liters of Minemine mineral 

water,

and the fall leaves falling and

reminding me that time moves

ahead 

whether we like it or not, I set 

off up the mountainside smiling.

Cogitations of existence's

essentially ephemeral

nature keep me company

climbing inclines, enjoying

gentle declines, and 

there's acceptance in my

thoughts--nothing more.

Just enjoy.

Full stop.

Just be.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Composed Reflectively while Toileting

Every day start anew.

Bring out a clean sheet

of the nicest paper you

happen to have lying

around,

bust out that pen you

have been saving for the

really important writing

and start.

Because you cannot know

whether today will be 

your last opportunity to

use them.

So start today as if you'd 

been given a second chance.

Re-Discovery

To discover is a special thing.

To re-discover the importance of a day is a very special thing.

 

When we are children, our daily interaction with existence is so precise,

So momentary,

So involved,

So instantaneously important,

And yet we tend to forget about it’s importance as we grow older,

 

To the point that our days move past us in uselessness.

 

And then on an un-special day,

A realization:

 

“This is the day that lord has made,

I will rejoice and be glad in it,”

 

Still has heft if thought of as:

 

“This is the day I can make for me,

I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

 

Choice, you see.  Choose.

Pick, because it only barely matters.

Choosing is an act, and in the act we learn so much…

No matter what.

 

Choose life.

Do not wander blindly toward death

As if it were the ultimate goal of existence,

Because every day is the culmination of your existence,

And it could not be otherwise:

 

The future exists only in the imaginary

The past exists only in education.

 

Set goals, but do the things today that will

Accomplish those goals by understanding

That you’ll need to pull from your experience

And understanding.

 

Stay away from always,

Not because you shouldn’t,

But because you CAN’T always

Do anything, ever.

 

Re-discover yourself daily.

Ascribe childlike importance to

The mundanities of existence,

Now that you understand.

 

And for your homework:

1) Accept

2) Smile

3) Enjoy it

 

These are your experiences we’re talking about here, and nobody can have them but you—

That’s got to mean something in this existence where re-discovering a discovery of re-discovery

 

Is possible.

 

Dreams... not the Fleetwood Mac Kind

"There is no dream mood for moldy bread."

"But that's what there was, 

just a loaf of moldy bread."

Oh, damnation, maybe I'll have to figure

this one out with my years of dreaming

and analytical experience as my guide.

It is interesting to note, though, that I have been

thinking a lot, and it's important to emphasize:

A LOT,

about excess and possessions and uselessness,

and I think we're at one of those spots ripe for

a full stop.

Bread only can go moldy, truly, if you have so

much

in terms of other food that you can't quite get

to it

in time, and so it reminds you of your excess

by its

very natural way of growing green life on it.

But we think of life as a possession.  Maybe we

think of it, sometimes, like a loaf of bread, on

the top shelf of our refrigerator, radiating its

existence to the world, when in fact, because

of sloth and inertia and excess and whatnot,

our existence is not radiating, really at all.

If it is radiating, it is only because moldy

is a support of a certain kind of life that

is actually, slowly, eating away at your

own.  It causes your life to be useless

to you and everyone around you, so

you radiate, not a superb existence

or magnificence, but rather more

like a smell--a truly foul kind of

smell it is, too.  Leaving bread

leaves you with a useless pile

of possessed excess, doesn't

it?  Resolve has taken hold

of me recently, if only for

illustrating the freedom

of consciousness to be

in a whole new way, 

and I resolve from 

now on to use the

things I buy and

buy less, so as 

to avoid the

pitfalls of

excess.

Language that has no heft 

finds no echo in its listener.

Feeling It

Can you feel it?

I bet you can…

If you work at it.

 

The power of being?

It’s everything see?

Just be.

Just enjoy.

Ask yourself here:

Who am I right now?

 

There is an undeniable

Amount of pain in the

World,

 

There is suffering and

And anguish in the day

To day,

 

But keep in mind words

And the reality of your

Ability

 

To say, “I experienced all,

And I’m still right here,

And I can still enjoy my

Existence.”

 

Happiness is a state of being.

 

Don’t put too much stock

In your possessions,

 

They, like you, will pass

From this emphemeral

Plane,

 

The difference is that they

Cannot go, do, be without

You.

 

You are important because you are.

Make shadow puppets on the wall,

Enjoy the everything/nothing flavor

Of water,

Laugh copiously,

Love enduringly,

Live every year daily, momentarily,

They are all precious.

Smile decadently, because people

Will want to know,

And when they ask your secret say,

“I am.”

 

Rejoice when you have food

Because flavor is a bonus.

Pray whenever your breathe,

Because “you no breathe

You dead.”

 

What are you doing?

Where are you going?

Who are you being?

Nothing?

No.

Never.

Always all.

 

 

 

 

 

Re-Presenting

Brain clouds have managed to move through

The midnight sky of my mind,

And I find myself having to consistently ask

Myself, Where am I right now?

 

Thinking to much of the future

And contemplating the past is

Really only to avoid the present—

 

Bills are always past due and

How will I pay them next month?

 

Where am I right now?

Re-Presenting myself.

 

I am here and alive, and I’ve got that going for me.

What could possibly go all that wrong, so long as

These are maintained.

 

I possess the ability to think, and rationally at that.

The world presents itself to me as a world full of

Possibilities for me.

 

The words on the page are comforting and

And I possess the ability to make meaning.

So again, where am I right now?

 

Breathe and be, breathe and be, there is no

Other way, because all we can control is

Now, and where am I right now?

 

I’m here in my basement studio. 

I have a job I’m going to soon.

I have clothes enough for two

And food when I get to work.

My needs are being met—and

Actually being exceeded, see?

What can I have to worry about?

 

May the things of my life never possess me.

May I be comfortable in my asceticism.

May I go placidly amid the noise and haste.

May wanderers always find sustenance.

May existence be joyful for all.

May you find comfort in joyful existence.

 

A Convo with a Seeker

Tell me your fears

And share your dreams:

passionlove—

like passionfruit.

“I think you're very curious about the depths of love. 

Love is the most complicated thing in the world…

easily

more complicated than astrophysics,

more difficult than the Ironman,

more painful than a hot iron through the eye,

and once you wander into its depths

there's usually no light.

You have to find Your way

You know.

Don't write about love, he said,

you are too young.

You cannot know.

This is not an attack at your knowledge,

it just isn't possible.

You have to experience it.

It's the only way.

And it will break you down

before it can build you up.

I dunno.

I guess that's been my experience:

I dunno.

And love comes in all forms, too,

you're exactly right.

I've told you of the ways I love,

and it hurts people—

myself at the top of the list,

but I can't be in a false relationship in that way.

Not that the relationship is fake, 

and the love is never false,

it's just parameters ringing false.

It’s just different.

My love is not a romantic kind of love.

It is deep and it can be fiery and passionate,

and perhaps in that it is a bit romantic,

but I don't like romance.

When do romantic movies end?”

“At the beginning.”

“Precisely,

always rings false to me.

The chase is one thing,

but love is about more than the chase.”

“So what do I do?”

“That is an entirely different question, isn't it?

Only you can decide.

I won't be able to solve your problems for you,

and you're wise enough to know that.

I guess what I can say is,

you're at the quintessential crossroads.

Your unrest is a manifestation of something.

You can push it back down and accept that it is what it is

or

you can:

Go. Do. Be.

I once had an interesting conversation with a man at a lake in a park by my apartment.

We were talking about how we've both been so broke we don't know where the food is going to come from,

and

he told me he was in Australia and picking up things in the park and people would take him to get food.

He was homeless and broke and alone and in Australia, but he wasn’t unhappy.

I was sitting on a couch in the winter with no food in the house, no way to heat up, and huddled together under a blanket.

I had a thought:

it is well known that money can't buy happiness,

but it can absolutely buy comfort—

never happiness—

and comfort and happiness are only barely related.

I guess if you're asking me what to do because you want to go do be, there's no real answer, and I think it would lose something if there were,

but

you HAVE to be comfortable and happy in being uncomfortable

because it will be uncomfortable

and it will never turn out as you plan.

You should see my apartment:

a TV I don't watch,

no furniture but

a tiny bed,

a tiny fridge,

and if I think about it long enough...

the way I'm living would drive some people mad.

My mom can't even imagine it,

and she’s pretty creative, eh?

I don't even really have any food,

but I guess I'm really comfortable in this place, and

I get so happy here on some days, tears well up.”

No Rain

No, it's not raining,

the trees are simply

shaking off the wet

of a foggy Monday

morning,

and I can see ten

thousand silken

homes in the

tall grass out

back,

shimmering as

temporary jewels

and shrines to 

what we think is

possible and 

important.

Upon Arriving

And so,

with two bottles of

duty-free red label,

they put 

me thru the turnstile

and turned me loose

inside.

I have traveled much

today,

and have only a little

to go,

but the bulk and the

ocean

lay behind me like

so much

red tape torn thru.

I am she in her

studio, but I'm me

and she's she, and 

that makes us a

little bit different.

Red, neon crosses break the

skyscraper apartment building

skyline,

and somehow the stairway of

plant, page, bonham, and jones

seems

all too appropriate.

Self-flagellation

You know,

it's not that bad so far,

but I think 

I got in on the ground

floor,

and that is usually the

best way

to enter a building, yes?

I do have to be aware

of the very

real possibility that I

could slip a

little too far into the

world of the 

alcoholic foreigner in

a place where

it is possible to become

something else,

something better, some

thing more, and

sometimes the sound of

my own voice

grates on my delicate 

ears.

Filling Out

A confluence

of enigma

makes pervasive

paranoia almost

normal.

What?

Why?

What the fuck?

A long hair

and

a no-hair

seem to be the

best of friends.

Prosthetics hang

around my neck

like the crown

jewels.

Fishing

Critter and crickets and

hawks and doves come

forth in a burst of song,

singing here we are

tra la la la la, only

worried about our

biological imperatives--

as is evidenced by our

presence we survive,

and as evidenced thru

our number we re-

produce.

Tra la la la la.

It is cool by the lake--

take that any way

you would like--and I 

am hoping for fish 

to find their way to

cooler waters deep.

And the sky at sunset

has so many shakes of

lavender I wonder how

it could be painted, when

I realize suddenly there

is no way to paint it:

the method doesn't exist yet,

the technique is nonexistent,

and only one artist existing,

could have manufactured it.

That is it's sublimity though,

it is un-reproducable to the

mortal arm of an existence

who has only one creature

capable of marveling.

(Although I think I ought to say for it being one of the only things we do that other animals don't, we do it far too little...I'm up off my high horse now.)

The sky blazes and then cools.

Lavender is replaced with blues

and the cool dark womb of the

evening settles down around us.

The Porch

The porch is a welcome haven

from my storms--

a partial shelter given that it

protects me from

the rain

but not

the wind.

Days can be as full as you can

make them, and I

tend to attempt for maximum

fulfillment at every

moment:

make it 

filled out

like an epically long application

for employment, a

task I have become intimately

acquainted with in 

the last

full days

I've had.

But for now, I guess I'm left

with understanding

that the fuller your days are

the more important

moments 

on the 

porch

become.

Defining My Wandering

Meandering mindspace

means mountains can be

demolished with a right hand chop,

means molehills become

almost insurmountably massive

to the workings of mortal limbage,

means limbage is a word

no matter how much Webster

may or may not agree with you,

means your life my take

an unexpected turn toward the

Koreatown actually located in Korea,

means times and distances

and spaces and neurons and eyes

actually means something cosmically,

means you and I are meant

for something far, far greater 

than we ever could have imagined,

and means more than some

thing we can define.

Thanks Pah-Dree

I just don't know

what I should do:

stay and fight in

some way,

or run and see how 

it goes?

The Language the world

is speaking to me is as

foreign to me as the

language of Ugandan

or Greek or Uzbekistanian

or Cambodian or Brazilian.

Build a canoe,

put it on water,

see where it 

floats on the 

planet and stake

out a place 

for me.

Thanks padre.

Un-Special

On a not-so-special night

a gift was given,

a legacy passed,

and there was

significance in the gesture

beyond mere movement.

Given the gift of history

by an un-man,

by an uninhabited

crustacean home

by one of whome most of 

the things of me are lost.

And it means.

The Things We Said One Night:

The way a rug

Really ties a room

Together,

Sometimes things

Wind up on point;

 

And the way we

Sometimes wind

Up together

Makes me feel

Things are all

Right;

 

I always feel like going,

But tonight I’m staying;

 

Take me to a place

Where all I want to

Do is linger just a

Little bit longer;

 

Standing on the street

Knocking the smell off,

 

Writing the blues.

Night’s comin’ in

Soft,

 

Trumpet sounds

Breaking the night

Of circus freaks.

 

Bring it.

Bring whatever you got.

 

I got rope in my pocket,

We might need it;

 

The night illuminates

A clip holding nothing,

 

She’ll show me a story

In a photo;

 

Helio had a mullet

Like no other

And jazz sat next

To blues in a bar

And said,

 

“Tell me a story.

And make it good…

 

The dirtier the better.”

 

Helio had a mullet

Like no other,

 

Well, that’s a helluva

Way to start a story;

 

“Write that down, Eli!”;

 

It was sanctuary with a cigarette.

They’re tearing cigarettes from

Beer and ripping up us apart;

 

Welcome to our circus;

 

The night is but a pup;

 

Clean air act, huh?

Let’s go smoke about it;

 

I ain’t got no body.

I’m just a jigab,

I got nowhere to go;

 

Now here;

 

History,

His story;

 

Circus;

 

One drinkà;

 

You gotta wanna watch;

 

A lot for a little bit;

 

And I love that the bar is;

 

That isn’t a drink,

It’s an hourglass;

 

Where the fuck is Graceland?;

 

And to think… three hours ago

I didn’t want to break a twenty;

 

And I got four loads of laundry

A sigh and a bunch of scrubbing;

 

And then the pen felt so right on the page

And the wind was moving westward,

 

Calling,

Groaning,

Needing,

 

And then the bottle ran out;

 

I’m gonna bathe in your mistake,

I’m gonna wash in your waste,

Welcome to our circus;

 

Coolest bartender that wears camo;

 

You gonna pay your twenty bucks

Or you think this is free soup kitchen day?;

 

I brought a bottle opener to her gun fight;

 

No one

Knows;

 

Eli?;

 

No, not like that,

Like this: Eli.;

 

Pimpin’ the carnies,

“Hot dogs for free!”;

 

There’s something about walking away

And knowing that when you return,

It’ll be the same as when you left it.

 

What’s this?

 

It’s nothing.

And it’s something.

And it’s everything;

 

My pockets are empty!;

 

Teresa, RN, BSN

Eli Taylor, BA, MA

 

Alphabet soup stock;

 

Who needs ‘em?;

 

“This is for her:”

Welcome to our Circus

 

Face and symbols,

 

Peace Love and Gonzo

Eli;

 

A wandering Ulysses for the modern age,

A Leopold blooming,

A Stephen on a walk:

 

Fly, fly out!

A voice inside

Cries go;

 

I have the stink of days on me;

 

Oozing.

This is not my poem:

This is a writing game

I am writing in your space

aware I might now be welcomed here...

but so be it I am here

thinking of adventure

thinking of fun

and thinking how we might just be 

putting a big red bow on a pile of shit

funny

sad

ironic

insert adjective here

I know the answer is d.

All of the above.

I know we will have A good time

but it's hard to really enjoy yourself

when you're invited to just dinner and

not the over night

knowing you must go "home."

So Long New York

One more time

trapped in rushing 

subway crowds

being piled in with

others, rushing to get

there, and creeping

through underground

tunnels at a crawl--

knowing you could

almost walk that

fast if you were on

the surface, but not

being able to do

anything about 

it.

One last time

watching central

park crazies

in their variety 

of activities: hula

hooping, roller 

skating, sunning,

running, contemplating,

painting, chilling

and they are 

so peaceful-given

the shitstorm

that is their

life, and just for

a moment

the reality of money

is called into question.

The pain their life 

seems mitigated (for

now), and things are

going to be all right...

finally.

One last time

at Union Square

catching the

Four/Five and

having to cover

your ears as

it makes the

turn into the station

because the

whine of steel

stopping thousands of 

pounds of

steel can cause

you to wince and 

hurt in ways

you didn't know were

possible, in ways you

hadn't in your wildest 

fantasies imagined as

even resembling a thing

that was remotely even

possible.

One last time.

One last time.

To Travel Is To

She sleeps better in her tour van

than she does in her own bed:

it's the hum of the tires,

you betcha.

Anti-climactic,

but not like us:

goin' out in style

motherfucker.

And giant white crosses

posted up in vacant fields

scare the Jesus out of me.

I've just discovered that

my sunshade can extend

and Paul Giamatti looks like 

the guy who played Latka on 

Taxi.

Passing muzos - 

traveling musicians.

It's just incredible.

It's like the history 

of your life.

Joan Baez - Spring

Carly Simon - Summer

Carole King - Autumn

Joni Mitchell - Winter

That time we listened to

Joni in the middle of July,

recklessly unworried and

unthinking of the future,

and the sun shone full

through Pennsylvania fog

metaphorizing something.

Come in from the cold.

I guess I was at that point

I realized I need a stand-

up bass player with harmony

capabilities

and a snare player with a 

variety of indigenous people's 

drums.

And I love the idea 

of one barren tree,

old and leafless on

the side of a road,

standing strong on

verdant background.

You can't pigeon-hole me 

motherfucker.

My style will be to play

in whatever fucking

style I feel at the moment.

Covers, delicate acoustic work,

reflective Buckleyan electric,

and angry power chords

racing up and down the neck.

All it's about is

all important 

music after

all.

The illusion of New York City is:

You're driving really fast

when you're not.

You're covering distance

when you aren't.

And realities are really

you are driving kinda slow

and not getting very far

to boot.

If my dick had a hand

it would slap you.

Cigarettes and Jack Daniels

at eleven in the morning,

and a jibber, just

to wash it down.

I guess that'll teach us

to take the cigs inside.

Finger yoga:

a collection of poems 

by

Eli Taylor.

You wanna help us score

some silver foxes?

Rape, etc.

That's a helluva 

title for something.

Then,

we shared a perfect 

orange, purple, red and

fire-colored sunset,

followed neatly by a

perfect blue and green

ocean-deep sunset.

And it feels pretty

special seeing the sun's 

final burn and the

subsequent cool down.

Tearfully beautiful.

I forgot we saw the most perfect shade of indigo yesterday.

Now drink

you bastards.

I love you

very much.

Tennessee skies and

mountain air

inspiring radicality

of mind

stand as beacons of

what is possible.

My life is now my own.

No security blanket... well, soon,

and no secret language to master,

and no hidden competitions,

and the honesty is just so

important.

No half-truths.

You have to be done lying.

Being of two minds is entirely

too much work.

Humans do unnatural things,

and mostly to each other...

I made myself sad.

I made myself happy.

Talking of Things

Talking of things

great and small:

philosophy, history,

action, the future,

the past, incidents

of intrigue, and at

least fourteen of

the most fucked up

consortations you

can imagine.

Here we are my friend,

poised on the edge, near

the precipice of three-

fold understanding--a 

rare feat indeed--and 

determining principles

are nothing more than

fortitude, will and desire.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Fight!

I want.

You Affected the Fabric of My Life

Everything is everything and everything

is nothing.

I make love to cliches.

Godspeed.

Make love in odd places.

Smile with Mother Nature.

Never give up your pride or your voice.

Everything costs too much.

Don't sell your soul to afford

nourishment.

A bucket full of orphan pennies grows in

infinity.

Shiny.

Perhaps no one sees a use for them...

yet they wait.

And multiply.

And take you places

beyond your wildest dreams.

Fiji?

Maybe.

Maybe the potential places are better 

than any place one can fix concrete 

dreams upon.

Whistling winds tales of fins nobody

knows where the little girl spins.

She spins and drops and I move on.

The piano man has nothing on me.

TalAkrtkfjxhdgi take the lpogjj Ip long a

way.  Up up home.

Please write something here:

Casablanca lily espied on a means of

commutation.

Crystals glisten in fluorescent light.

Hunter asks,

"Can you smell it, man?

Breath it in."

Visiting an Historical Place

Well, here you are bruh.

The birthplace of the "Martini  and

a Guinness" order: "I like to

think the Irish and the English are

battling it out in my stomach."

But O! the things we used to say.

My Currents

I guess I believe in power

and feeling lean and powerful--

like your back is strong

and can carry anything. Anything.

and I guess I believe we

are water, flowing into internity,

fishes swimming through

us like we swim through humid

July days: feeling like the 

world is some fat kid sweating on

us, totally oblivious to the ick.

And in our surfaces, the currents

give us style.  Those areas

the water swirls around and

creates dimples and

pimples and falls and white.

Are these not the most 

celebrated?

And if we are powerful water,

then the currents give us shape and

beauty.

If I am any kind of man,

then I owe it to my current-makers:

those tireless pushers for 

my painstaking pursuit of beauty.

(sorry about the flurry

of alliteration there)

Um...

so thanks for the drinks,

and thanks for the day,

and should tomorrow find

you face up in your grave,

buck up, bucko, don't despair,

I was the one that put your there.

Writing Game #1

This is a writing game,

please continue in what

ever manner pleases you

most.

Organic dream wishes:

healthy, practical, convenient.

Did you know that olive oil,

yes, that magic cooking fuel,

is simultaneously nature's secret

to healthy hair?

Seems like a lot

to ask of a body

expecially when

two full meals can

be had for ten bills-

and we're talking

singles here.

Do not lean on door.

Schedule your free consultation today.

No way!

The next stop is

nature's secret.

Does it bother anybody

else that the word with

the largest font in the

Free Abortion Alternatives

poster is FREE! I mean,

yeah, i guess it's important,

but aren't we assuming 

that all preggo teenies

are looking to hide things?

That sets an unfortunate

standard :-( sad smiley ).

Oxymoronic nothinghood.

Moving

Why is it that corporal reality 

never gets any easier to understand?

Because I've just told you that

I will be extricating mine from where

we both live, and, whatever it

means, it is pretty ridiculously hard

on both of us.

We are not even together

anymore,

and yet the idea I cannot

simply go

to where you are wears on

the fabric

of my already delicate and

already

schizophrenic mindset (read:

psychotic).

And then there will be times

when, on a sunny, parkday, 

all I will be able to think of

will be days of red wind and 

cheese and the chatter of a

park full of conversations 

that mean next to nothing

in comparison to your talk

of Godard and my prattle of 

the importance-both from a

journalistic and political point

of view--of Hunter S. Thompson.

But fuck them and everything 

they're talking about: you and

I were there, and that is pretty

goddamned important to me.

I guess saying good-bye-

when accompanied by 

physical distance-can't

be much more difficult.

No Give

Welcomd to the world of the

uncompromising,

a world populated with assholes

and failed seekers,

a world of unparalleled angst

and angry folk singers,

a world of the few

Constantly misunderstood by the many.

And why wouldn't you want

to live in this world?

Here we stand,

please challenge us.

It's what we need.

The very thing you think

is helping you,

it the very thing keeping

us moving through

the world.

Funny that our most productive

day

should simultaneously be our most

destructive.

I'm pretty well done

love muffin,

and I hate

hate hate

hate hate

over cooked meat.

A man is nearly falling 

cycling down the decline

of the Brooklyn bridge.

Do you know why contractors get

away with hosing so many people?

Most people don't have any idea 

exactly how long it takes to build

something,

anything.

And the jackhammers destroying

the road are pretty goddamned

soothing,

pacifying.

Violence is being done.

Metal

wound around

metal

wound around

metal 

is not nearly strong

enough.

Enough.

Enough.

To support the over-

whelming weight of

history.

3:18 and the world is angry.

You want what it is possible for me to

give

and now what I am willing to give,

which is

a mighty, mighty incongruity.

And it has been a mighty long day.

There is so much polished

marble in New York City.

And I have walked 

barefoot

through the filthy

Brooklyn

night on congruous

streets.

And if I am to be hated...

sobeit.

So be it.

So Be It.

SO BE IT!

We Do What We Must

Here we sit in pain; 

prospectless on all fronts.

I have hurt so many of

those I would call friend

that I am starting to

lose all track of time--

of time and space and

place and meaning and

it makes me madtired

just thinking about it,

and my brain is running

on the body's emergency

ketones due to the fast,

which makes me Major

Uncomfortable.

Shine on you crazy diamond:

a pink luminescence clouding

daily interactions with light

refracting and blinding with

reminders of unquenchable thirst.

Expect to fly

and you just

may.

Expect of fall

and you must

fall.

We are all aware of cartoon physics.

Tables with chairs on top of them in the back barroom of an unopen mind collect dust from lack of use.

Categories of nonchalance. 

disinterested

uninterested

conspiratorial

conjugal

baroque

contemporary

modern 

post-modern

recollected

reverse

empathetic

painful

joyful

classical

fucking 

anejo

reposado

blanco

categorized

sodomized

unrecognized

unintelligible

cantankerous

wankerous

causeless

careless

functionless.

"Why is it that every time something

needs bending around here, I, Bender,

get called in to bend it?  

Bend this girder, bender.

Bend this coat hanger, bender.

Bend this beer can, bender.

If I wasn't a bending unit this would

make me very very tired."

"...existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and loved, and that we exist by virtue of activity (i.e. by living and acting), and that the handiwork is in a sense, the producer in activity; he loves his handiwork, therefore, because he loves existence. And this is rooted in the nature of things; for what he is in potentiality, his handiwork manifests in activity."

Keeping It Inside

You are drunk

and ready to 

vomit.

The cool breeze 

of train winds

suffice

to keep entrails

from expelling 

insides.

And I am coming

from a school of

thought that

wonders why you

didn't when you

should have.

That you love me

is undeniable, and

something

absolutely worth

holding onto--how

ever 

that might be.  But 

if you think about 

things now,

there isn't much we

could do to loosen

the grip.

Then fucking fuck,

you've got to meet

you half

way, which, with my

half off the picture,

is more

actually more like 

meeting you all 

the way.

The Power of Busing

The power of busing

is inherently impotent.

I can take you there--

you miserable sac of

worthless fucking ex

cremental ridiculous-

ness.

It is safe, this under-

standing of humans,

because, given choice,

we choose the aweso-

me card every time.

Choice.

Thank God!

The Least

Your tone, lately, has been awkward

and fairly thoroughly evasive--to say

the least.

Always so forthcoming and so wise,

prattling beautifully in probabilities,

the least

of which could cause a man's brain 

to melt into his esophagus.  It's fun.

The least

likely thing to face almost utterly

improbable statistics is probably

the least 

likely thing to win.  Did you give up 

the idea of the "romantic long shot"--

the least

frequent mathematical calculation

ever performed.  Maybe it's been

the least

frequent for good reason?  Maybe

so.  I mean, I guess it makes sense at

the least.

You are poetic to my ear, but lately

I have heard something other than

the words.

An Observed Woman on the 2 Train

She wishes she was them:

big where it mattered

small where it counts.

But she is not them,

she cannot be.

It makes her so sad

it hurts me.

Lean your head.

Weep.

Repine.

Sleep.

Divine.

Traveling

You are unaccountable:

            the way your eyebrow raises in that way that says, “You’re talking out your ass aren’t you?”,

            the way your mystical mouth manages to enunciate everything I need to hear,

            and the way I can’t manage, no matter how hard I try, to get that thing you said about dreams

 

out of my head.

 

To love is indeed a strange verb.

What is it, exactly, that you are doing?

It is a verb—

that bit is undeniable—

but what kind?

 

The mountain air broke

through St. Christopher’s

lungs,

trying to illustrate to him

precisely how dangerous

things are,

and he breathes it in and

breaks his lungs, and he

says,

 

“I am sorry wind, please

see that I love you dearly

now,

and see that I see what

you are desperately trying

to do,

but know I must travel on

toward the unknowable.

 

You act out of love,

and for that I love you

but

we all know the things

we do in the name of

love

can certainly contain

the most selfish motive.

 

You love me because I

love you, and everything

you are,

but you do not love

me for me,

you love me for what

it is I can

do.

 

How can you love me

in myself,

when I don’t know myself

from me?

 

So I take my lime green accessories,

and I water down my waterproof boots,

and my one-person tent has been prepared,

and the infinite beckons me on, broken lungs

and all.

 

You big-breasted whore of Babylon, Be Gone!

I can take no more curvaceous connivery.

And yet,

and yet,

I want you all so bad.

No No No No No

Go Go Go Go Go

Do you reckon I miss you?

Well, know goddamn well I do.

I am cursed to love.

It’s all I know to do.

 

But take your strappy sandals,

and take your fantastic words,

and take your knowing smile

away from the unworthy.

 

One cannot worship at the altar and physically communicate.

It, unfortunately, doesn’t work that way, and I know you are

not real.

It can’t be.

It’s oh so good

and I want to touch,

but I walk.  Walk on.”

 

He takes up his

walking staff,

fills his water

canteen once,

 

takes a sip from

the stream,

and leaves—a shell of

a man.

 

 

And now I don't know

what will happen.

It's quite a catch-22, if

you think about it.

You care enough for me

to want to know

what I have planned in 

my unseen future,

But simultaneously, simple

facts are difficult 

and what I have planned

will probably have

adverse affects on some

if any, of the kind

thoughts you may from

time to time think.

I think we are all pretty

clear with whose

fault the ending of "us"

actually was--not

a doubt at all about that

particular mystery--

and I think I'm something

of a pain magnet.

I bring it to me, everyone around me, 

and I don't really have poles either:

wreckless shit just piling up at the

patchwork fence that surrounds me--

a heinous rubble testament that

sometimes make me wish I didn't

have quite so much land, because it

can be fairly difficult to maintain

appearances--

And now I don't know 

what will happen.

I did love you once.

I know we made it there.

I believe you think so too, and

for every good reason; we

did make it to love.

Perhaps I'm a sentimental sophomore,

but I do think that is something that

ought to be honored and upheld.  It's

impossible to know what may have

been.

But I am gone as the wind.

I checked out already, I think,

and we are just waiting for

the final shoe to drop.  I have

been living in Exhaustedville

for way too long, now it's naptime.

I could say I'm sorry forever.

Things You Get Used To

You can never get used

to the slap of the handicapped

accessible subway seat:

every single instance of

upward motion equals the

SLAP! 

of plastic on plastic hard love.

And you may get used to 

so many things in the city: 

being asked for a cigarette

on any errand you might be 

running, with some guys

hurt look following your

denial,

the rhythmic clanging of 

Walter's change cup at the corner

of Flatbush and Nostrand,

and the possibility that on

any god-given day of the unholy

week, you might find that

 

you, 

yes you,

have been vomited on by some unwitting fellow passenger who has just managed to get a little bit of motion sickness and, although they tried so hard to make it to the door between cars in order to spare everybody the pain of knowing that they were in a vomit care, it is, unfortunately rush hour and this is an express train between express stops so you know it's like shoving people out of the way, and he just doesn't manage to make it there.

But you get used to these things.

And you can even get used to the 

idea that you have to gently let

the set up so it doesn't slap, but

if you forget and that super-loud

SLAP!

happens in real-time.  

Fuggedaboudit.

You're a little scared.

The Sight of You

Morning-heavy cobwebs

break against my face

and mayflies trapped in

June, held fast by silken

means, are wondering

why they are not me.

 

And nature teaches us to look up

and see the sprawling majesty

surrounding our overwhelmed eyes,

while cities teach us to look down

and watch that we walk carefully

without catching another’s glance.

 

Go then in to nature children and

see the majesty of god—

 

you’ll see it in the city, too

but differently, you see:

 

it’s the space between

 

the space between the

 

difference between free

and oppressive majesty.

 

I smelled you

briefly

on the street

today.

What a day...boring

After four long hours of sleep, 

this motherfucker found him-

self on a Rockaway-bound A.

Having never been there before

he did not know what to expect;

however, he was full of piss and

vinegar, so he set off into the un-

known.

He got a little bit lost, at first,

and was accosted by a group

who pretty clearly out to

have nothing to say to him.

Evading the accostations by

virtue of ignore-ance, he found

what he had been looking for

Rockaway Community Park...

and it was empty.  Nobody and

nothing around.  Good and bad

because it was a vacant day

on a beautiful day in the sun.

But our intrepid traveler was

not to be detoured, and thus

it was that he made a find:

a wooden footbridge to a pier.

Only one meal per family can

be pulled from Jamaica Bay

during any given week, through

order of the state of New York.

You do not walk on sand there.

You do not walk on dirt there.

You walk on bits of broken glass

strewn about everywhere there.

He sat and played his guitar, he

ate a ham and cheese sandwich,

and he smoked a depressing

cigarette, tossing it into the shit.

It hurt his heart, this scene.  It

hurt him something fierce: the 

only thing, god-given thing, in

the area, and all we can do is

destroy it.

Painful.

Hurtful.

Causing more wanderlust than ever.

No humans around.

He collected his things, sunburned

now, and made for the other

side of the island.

The beach was nice.

The water was cool.

The wind carried the

chords from his guitar

as an offering to the 

gods.

A smoke.

A walk on giant boulders.

A walk along the boardwalk,

and one helluva long train

ride home.

But he was not done wandering,

our Ulysses of Brooklyn and 

Queens, and he found himself 

in a part of Brooklyn he'd never

seen.

New York is all backwards,

he thought to himself, with

the population running away 

from the ocean, as opposed

to toward it.

A secret science meeting later, 

and that makes for one hell

of a day.  A long, tiring, sun-

baked day of eye-openings.

Confusion

How and what and where the fuck

did things get so fucking ridiculous?

Nothing makes any goddamn sense 

anymore, and I'm pretty sure there's 

no motherfucking way it will again.

but the question remains, and that

voice, unkind, at the back of my mind,

is asking me what the motherfuck

to do now.

I don't know.

I want to hold out longer.

I don't know.

How can I know the future?

Godfuck what weak ass bs this

life has turned out to be, yes?

Just confusing, and trying and

painful and sublime and there.

Gigantic Pain

What is pain?

Is it my furrowed brow?

Is it my confused stare?

Perhaps it's the shard of mirror 

angled through my gray matter.

And maybe it is the gray matter.

A giant walked the earth,

saddened by miniatures

swarming around his feet.

His tears watered their soil

and his feces fed the ground

that fed their family's faces.

It was by his will only that they

existed

because it was his will that he not

obliterate.

He was kind and gentle 

but unwilling to protect

forever.

Sad-eyed giant of circumstance,

desperately needing to be needed.

When will you exercise that

massive will inside your soul?

The pain of the paralyzed.

Fuck you, James Joyce...

Maybe I'd have been better 

if I hadn't ever known it...

Overheard

Dre v Busta on the train today,

a long-winded conversation

battling about personal preference.

The only way to know for absolutely

certain would be to compare facts:

albums sold,

gold, 

platinum, 

diamonds,

cars, 

houses,

bitches,

blunts,

bling.

Facts.

There is no way to argue the truth

of who was better.  We cannot compare

truths.  There is no objective truth.

History is not static, because it compares

truth.

The facts are simple.  Acts are far more complicated.

When we study facts, we are looking for the trends.

A logical progression,

a consistency,

an inconsistency,

a wreath-hung door on every page.

And we do it come at some kind of understanding, 

some kind of truth.  But until we come at some kind

of truth,

we argue

the merits

of our personal tastes.

You know what we're really arguing about don't you?

You know what we are actually getting at?

Do you know what our act reveals?

I want to be better than you.

That's what we all want, isn't it:

to feel fucking better about our

shithole existences, so we argue

our point of view to prove in an

incontrovertible way that I am 

better than you.

There is no point in 

arguing the veracity

of personal truths.

Train Fight

I tried to fight the 

train last night:

drunk and alone I raged

at it's blue plastic and 

metal bars.

With unendurable

pain in my heart I 

flailed at its substance.

With a sob I cried:

"Man is not meant 

to give up this much!

His soul is too precious

to no be able to decide

its path!

And you crush it into

useless powder and ash."

Soul salt - add a dash

to make a dish taste of

significance.

I hate the train.

People suck.

There are so few redeeming

people in the world--at least

of the population I have met

--that I sometimes ask myself:

"Why bother?"

Why should the exceptional 

humans be the exception,

instead of the rule!

It's always possible to be

exceptional, it just takes 

loads of work.

O to be exceptional...

My Life is Full of Fear

Fear of the future.

Fear of failure.

I fear the inability to hear.

I fear the inability to see.

I fear loneliness.

I fear publicity.

I fear the unknown,

the unknowable

and the unknower.

I fear language.

I fear truth, 

truth more than anything.

Something that its outside of social or historical determination, and has been determined to be undeniable...terrifying

I fear the undeniable.

I fear desire.

I fear biological imperatives.

I fear jouissance.

I fear innocuousness.

I fear fearlessness.

I fear fecklessness.

I am afraid of almost everything that goes through my head, but I am not, for reasons I cannot begin to explain, afraid of death.

Though death comes for us all, it will always be an unsolvable mystery of how, and in universal ignorance I take great solace. 

enough solace, at least, to not be afraid.

I fear hegemony.

I fear power.

I fear money.

I fear control.

I fear controlessness.

I fear fascim.

I fear totalitarianism.

I fear democracy.

I fear regimeism.

I fear Reaganism.

I fear racism, and the destructive wave it splashes across humanity since the beginning of time. 

One of the greatest mathematical improbabilities in the universe--"mankind"--reduced to hating, hating physical characteristics.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle."  --Karl Marx, 1818-1883.

I have nothing to write

I have nothing to write, but the weight of the pen feels good in my hand, so I will write about nothing weightily.

I have, for a long time, considered nothingness the comfortable blanket they place over one's body as it lies in a casket.

It is, in point of fact, the only time where nothingness actually exists.  At all other times there is pretty clearly something.

To me, this is a very comforting thought.  Nothingness can be attained.  

If, when we die, it is true that there is heaven, then it is also true that one can never achieve that old saying, 

"I'm not doing anything."

You are always doing something if you are existing.  There are bodily processes that are constantly in motion,

constantly doing something--and absolutely, positively, undeniably, unmistakably never, ever

doing nothing.

Is it because I have nothing better to do than contemplate nothing that I do it? 

Or is it rather that there is truly something to this investigation?  Or both?

To act is to love.  That was some Freudian shit right there, as I mean to say: To act is to live.  

What kind of sub-conscious shit are we dealing with here?

The Savage

In the valley of Eagle Creek,

an uninterrupted sound

managed to break the

silence.

It rang out like a shot 

from a double-barrel

sawed off, and echoed

off & down

thru crispy morning air.

Like a shot, but not quite.

Like a shotgun, but not

quite.

It was in fact a scream.

Susan had screamed and set 

the birds free above the trees.

The cause of the yelp was

discovery: the body of a

badger being eaten by a

man.

The act was savage and

unexpected--she could

still see the frost on the

fur--

and the blood frozen neatly

on the ground.

The man had frost on his fur,

and blood smeared on his mouth.

He ate with his hands

the meat from the bones

and drank it all down 

with the

blood-stained snow on

the ground--a demented 

version of Kool-Aid she 

thought.

And after the scream he turned slowly,

cocking his head to one side, and spoke:

"Your trapped in this moment, you know.

You cannot unsee.  You have seen me, 

and I am wild.  Feral man.  This blood and

this scene will inform the way you live.

Normally, I would kill you,

but I think I already have."

He turned back to his

feast and Susan stood

still on that place of her

wounding--

moving through waves

of terror, pain, injury,

hurt, acceptance, and

resolve--

and took her place beside the man,

using her hands to rip at the flesh.