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.

A Sick Man

Today, I am sick.

It's funny to me that 

I can say, without a

reservation, "I am sick

today," because what about

all the other days?

I had a chat with the devil--

only two weeks ago.

I'd wished I was dead

one month ago.

I tortured a cat

two months ago.

I cut your stomach

with a knife.

Three months ago I 

broke up with her.

Four months ago I

cried about how much

I cared.

But YES! I am sick

today.

More than other days--

because they have a name for it.

Bronchitis

with

residual sinus infection,

ear, 

nose &

throat.

The works.

So I'm not going in

to work either--and

they say some things

about idle hands I

can't quite remember.

The mind is surprisingly limber in this phase of sickness:

the body seems to suffer from the attack of invisible enemies,

but the mind is moving manically, maniacally, forward.

To Be Amphibious

O how I should like to be amphibious,

moving neatly between worlds only

barely aware of one another.

 

And I could climb the highest peaks of land,

and plumb the depths of the deepest ocean.

 

One place I’d breathe air.

One place I’d breathe water.

 

And when in the one place the sun begins

to burn my skin, a hop and a skip puts me

in the cooling world of water.

 

It’s a pretty intense environment change,

if you think about it long enough:

 

A world full of air—oxygen and whatnot,

and an airless world—a world where air is

trauma, violence, and death.

 

And when in the other place I become prey

for some rascal of a violent creature, I'd 

locomote myself to land.

 

I’d as you to keep in mind one very important

item of significance, pretty please:

 

I’m talking about not only walking and swimming

but being resident of terra firma

and spending whole weeks wet.

Is the stuff inside you amphibious? Does it manage to cross the natural bounds of possibility with a fluidity uncharacteristic of ensconced dogma.  Thou Shalt Not!  But you do, don't you?  I know you do.  I find an unnatural comfort in this knowledge, I will have you know, because to me it means an act of obfuscation.  Do you understand that I don't know how long you've been a salamander?  I always thought of you as a creature of infinite talent, but to deny your salamanderness seems to me an exercise in insurmountability (I mean, I have tried so many times, and failed utterly).

Some days I feel evil.

You gagged on the 

filth I served you,

without once trying

to see if it had any

flavor.

Come to think of it,

I think you've got it

all wrong:

what you call your freedom

keeps your wrapped in chains,

paralyzed.

And you so clearly

love your paralysis,

you want to be 

paralyzed,

from the neck up.

I need someone who's

strong enough to be

who they are consistently,

and never lean on me for

protection.

I am the supervillain 

all your comic book

childhood tried to warn

you about, and you 

never listened.

Egoism is my biggest 

issue these days, and

it can be one helluva

trip from there to

humility.

It's a fall from the heights to the concrete or pavement, hundreds of feet or stories below, followed by blood.  A blood bath to be rather more specific, a violent, angry, gushing geyser of sable-dark gelatinous goo.

You're always so quick to tell the tales of yore: yourself the protagonist, actively choosing and acting autonomous, but a life lived too far into the past can only serve to tear apart the future--by way of the present.

Be careful where your

focus lies, because you

can learn to see any 

old thing you want

with time.

It's pretty clear to me

that it's appropriate to

keep in mind all manner

of time, because it's what

we live in.

Time to act alive!

the act reveals desire I

I slept all day

and the train is empty,

ominous overtones both

of gross vacancy and 

hidden vagrancy.

The word "gross"

can be extremely powerful

when understood as a verbal 

act of disgust:

sub-conscious desires

are made imminently 

clear where physical

acts unwittingly match

language.

As Time Goes By Reference

Your hints drop

like boulders

on butterflies.

It's cold and I'm

under the covers.

A man doesn't 

like to be talked of

when he's just

behind a curtain.

I Hate Your Nextel

Whenever I hear some 

jerk on the bus,

with his Nextel

beeping,

and his pithy

quasi-conversation,

I think that 

somewhere 

there is a whole 

other bus

full of people

just as annoyed

as the one I'm on,

and the bums me

right out.

Today I am a Hunter

The space between my navel

and my backbone seems

to be diminishing,

but it's a little bit 

like diminishing returns--

rather more appropriately 

said returns on diminishing

because:

I feel okay about things,

there just isn't much food.

But I am getting leaner

and require less.

There is much resistance

but I am powerful

and power thru.

It has been said:

the hungry dog hunts best,

and so I guess I'm on safari.

Prepare the Serengeti for

my arrival God:

I am famished

and your population of

wild antelope might

take a hit soon.

I am coming for you life!

A lean and powerful

hunter stalks your trail.

I smell the blood of 

your wounds--

as a result of the last

swipe I took at you.

I see the broken limbs

that mark your trail--

making it easier to 

stay on top of your path.

I feel the warmth 

of your excrement--

exciting my knowledge 

that you must not be far.

I hear your howls in

the middle of the night--

you are valiant, worthy

prey, and so you taunt me.

I taste the nectar 

of the inevitable--

a meeting of the

minds... as it were.

Superheroes don't take

the subway,

guys carrying boxes

of syringes do.

In the thickness of sound,

you have no more to say

to me.

comfortable

It's funny how comfortable

I feel with solid weight on

my back.

It somehow manages to a-

lleviate the pressures of 

metaphor.

Soothed.

Soothing.

Calm in this place.

Peaceful.

Big selection of European preteen shoes.

Remarkable events, flowers, occasions,

Dr. Jay's ladies,

emergency exit,

pull panel in at edge,

push window out.

See the world through chocolate eyes...

complete optical service, most insurance

accepted.

Free design on all ten of your fingers.

Fingerprinting, photostats, notary public

special.

The buffalo springfield

It is a whole new world for me.

How?

When?

Where?

What?

Why?

Did it happen?

I guess I'm not so sure these day.

When we act we obviously reveal.

It's the way of man.

Uncontrollable.

Here I stand

on the edge

of a feather

expecting to

fly.

To fly seems like a magnificent feat.

A song

This is a song

for no particular 

reason.

This is a love

if only for the 

season.

& they're both about you.

This is a life

I hadn't planned 

on living.

This is a song

I hadn't planned

on singing.

This is a love

I hadn't planned 

on having.

& it's all about you.

I'm no Nostradamus--

some future-seeking fuck.

So I don't know what we'll do.

I don't know if we'll make it.

I don't know what to say, but

we'll make it thru today.

Make it thru today.

Sing a song

for no one in 

particular

and let them

know you love

in particular.

Funny?

It's a funny sort of day:

head's in a weird place 

and can't contain thought.

There were no weapons

involved in the onslaught,

only devastating words.

The father's no replaced

by the resounding, "No!"

of things I can't control.

Rejected.

The goalie's glove hand is 

covering the puck of my

desires.  Goddamn it.

All is lost.

Hopeless.

Trapped...

again.

No getting out this time:

the bars are far too thick,

the locks are far too solid,

the prison far too secure.

Out! Out damn spot!

Quit your staining ways!

Inconsequential consciousness

trafficking decisions made

subconsciously.  A medium.

Nothing more.

Come and work through me.

Please.

"Have we missed our opportunity?"

"Maybe."

It seems to me that maybe, in context,

pretty much always means, "Yes."

We did try tho, didn't we?

Battling against the odds.

We fucking tried, didn't we?

More than most people can say,

I'd reckon.

But it's never easy, is it?

How do we define love?

Why do questions seem

to come easier than answers?

A glitch?

A pain with the idea of solids?

Would we rather question the

state of the universe from an

inconceivable distance--wounded?

I guess I'm at a loss.

How long?

How long ago was it?

It's hard to know.

Years?

Tears?

Changes?

Lifetimes?

Ages?

When did it happen?

When did what happen?

It, of course.

The changeover.

Naturally.

We learn by observation

and experimentation.

What grand life experiment

do you have planned?

And why won't you let me in on it?

I'm living in her, too.

Her... here.

To think of all that's happened

is probably as close to futility

as we can imagine... and yet.

My leg is touching hers.

She sleeps next to me.

I can feel it.

Watch the brow furrow in dream.

Watch the lungs fill the chest.

And exhale to empty it again.

I wish I could collect her in my arms

and ensure she sleeps soundly and

undisturbed, that she finds some

kind of peace in what it really is.

I told her things I wouldn't tell the mrs.

I gave up things I wouldn't normally give.

--Why?

It is unquestionably the most complex

mish-mash of unaccountable events

and uncompromising fatalism I have

ever had the distinct pleasure of being 

involved with, and in a way...

how does one begin something that feels

cosmologically infinite.

3rd Ave

Bum finds slice of cake in garbage and

can't believe his luck.

Irish pub every other block.

Pharmacies as frequent...

I heard new york yelling

It is impossible to hear in New York City.

So much shouting and so many machines

make it an exercise in futility.  It does.

There is no hope of hearing Blake when

he yells, "You ran into my truck you fuck!"

or the duly appointed voice of the MTA

thanking you for patronizing their services--

"Thank you for riding with MTA NYC transit"--

through the headphones blaring Absolutely

Sweet Marie into your naked hollow ear:

"to live outside the law you must be honest."

No hope.

It's truly time to go

It is truly time to go now.

The impact you have had

on the lives of those around

you can, and ought, to be

congruent and consistent

with the impact on your own.

And yet it's not right now.

You're meteoric in your job--

a job you are not suited to do--

but your total lack of time

to pursue desires leaves you

cold and weary of humanity--

Sociopathos runs rampant

'round the folds of neurons

in the gray matter of the mind.

You need sometime to you.

You need to be comfortable

walking in your own skin.

You're not there now.

You've been there b/f,

but now...

You're lost beneath layers of shale and brick and unquestionably rotten debris--the kind that houses rodents and roaches, feces, and leftover bits of filth--that make it very difficult to breathe on days when the pollen count is high...

I am the only one...

and so are you.

Relationships

The relationship of all things is the

history of the method of production.

To love is a complex miasma of unique

histories of variations of production.

Techniques and strategies oftentimes

underpin decisions of fight or flight,

and the strategy of flight is oftentimes

characteristic of techniques of fight.

Yes, love is that complex:

to desire with an unquenchable thirst,

to need with an unfathomable depth, &

to relish the pain sandwiched therein.

Questionably motived entrance into

relationship status ought not happen.

Tired old words...

It's that tired word exhaustion that

seems to be taking over my lexicon.

Every muscle I have bemoans its daily

existence as an inconceivable torture.

History

We discuss the nature of history in my 

house,

in terms of whether or not it is

affecting

the present enough to say that we don't

even

have control of the one thing we're living 

through.

We can affect only the present?

How much does that suck?

I guess I'd like to think that by some

infinitely

wise being's whim we have been

instilled

with the capability to affect the

present,

the future, and the past in such a way

that 

our legacy is present in its passed

significance.

Oh no, that's how it is on the sign:

The Mistical Order of St. Gabriel's Church, inc.

A quiet moment has presented itself

as the ripest strawberry of the day,

and I'm too exhausted to take advantage.

That, my friends, is a textbook bummer.

A six train to one twenty fifth

and a bus to ell gee ay international

remind me I'm not doing any writing

and it breaks me in ridiculous ways:

tearing the sensitive scrotum skin

and scratching open my o-ring, or

ripping my wrinkled crows feet

from the edges of my eyeballs.

these dreams of you

I had a terrible dream that you

were forced to choose between

boys, and I eagerly awaited your

decision--

only to have you choose another

as I lost my clothes at the 

laundromat and felt my heart

break.

It did not feel right.

It did not feel good.

But we both wound up leaving--

not a little bit worse for wear--

and making good on our oath to

act

as is action were the only thing

important to our existences,

and to ensure that these actions

are consistent throughout time.

Always read the fine print

Always read the fine print,

and always check the wind.

Words mean so much and

winds show us the such and such.

I once signed a contract in blood.

I tore it and mixed it with mud.

But the devil's made three copies

and had them witness by notaries.

This song sucks.

There is a sinister power in

"Act not matching desire"--

a control unseeable,

unreasonable, &

unbelievable.

not while i was driving

To think and drive down

Detective William Gunn

Avenue

or to cogitate down

Bob Marley Road makes

no sense.

But it reveals something

you might now really want

actualized:

but fuck if I know what

the hell that damn ass

bullshit is.

On Pride

Having had quite a number

of unusual interactions

with the human element

of the world, it occurs

to me--all of a sudden and

completely unexpectedly--

that interacting with a 

group of lions is honest

(and far preferable to that

same interaction with a 

group of lying wolves in

their wool overcoats).

sounds

Early morning circus sounds

ring around commuters:

ConEd timpani

screeching bus solos

stand-up bass footsteps

pedestrian pipe organs

and

constructioncatcalls

swirl to create mornings.

Call it what you will,

I truly enjoy the circus:

duggaduggaduggaduggadugga,

creeeaaak, screeeaach,

doo doo doo doo doo,

"Watch where the fuck you're going!

and

Froot froo!  Lookin' good MaMa

make me happy in a way.

As full of freaks

as it may be

everyone loves 

a good circus.

things and stuff

Things 'n' stuff stuff 'n' things to Eli I am 

so eloquent and poetic.

But to Eli the cacti's tines possess

eloquence in abundance...

Art thou cacti?

I am not a tine.

Doesn't thou seest how that doth not

respond to mine query?

Which query?

Art thou cacti?

A succulent query it is.

You r quite skilled at not answering

preguntas...

Walking

To walk

down fifth avenue

at or around

six o'clock in

the morning--

taking healthy 

tokes from the

early morningness

of traditionally

busy streets &

forgetting where

you are, in a 

really good way--

is a truly special

experience.

Lex, Park, 

Madi, 5th...

walk them 

all when

they are

vacant...

see how 

much your

head spins.

Jansport Backpacks

Jansport backpacks 

have made a name

for themselves lately:

affordable lugging 

apparatuses under

the guise of quality

backpacking tools.

It amazes me time to

time that we should 

be so involved observing

everything, we forget

that we are also life's 

unwitting participants.

Waiting for Revelations

Perpetually waiting

for an eternal psychotic

episode--when I can't even

manage to get the ones

I've got to stick around--

is making me into a most

unpleasant person to be

around... especially for me.

How do we affect change?

How do we affect change?

An almost violent upheaval

in thought and word and deed

can be difficult on psyches

built for stability, can't it?

Sifting through broken thoughts,

clamoring to find the pieces

that will fit neatly together,

is a fool's inconsequential

journey into madness.

And so I am going:

question after a

delicious, grotesque,

filling madness.

And perhaps that's how.

To describe you

curious as a cat

in the rain

wondering where it comes from

and where it goes to again

that's how I would describe you.

Shiny as a fallen coin, 

new, on blacktop

shimmering in the sun

waiting to be caught up

that's how I would describe you.

Juxtapositioning

pleasure and pain,

Aristotelian 

magnificent gain.

Colorful as the sun

when stared at for too long

beautifully blinding me

(so sublime and all)

that's how I would describe you.

Lovely as a cigarette

that seems to burn long--

feeling good and feeling bad

seem for once to get along--

that's how I would describe you.

Do you wanna know what happened?

You wanna know what went wrong?

I tried honest, faithful, and truthful

on everyone I knew except me.

And I found myself wanting.

Wanting more, wanting less.

Having too much, not having enough.

Breaking too easily, 

if I break at all.

But there's always an

unknown

unnamed

want,

biting at the root of it all.

And brilliant words break on the page like a wave on a shore:

lean and powerful when they hit, but washing away in only a

moment.

Brilliant words are hard to come by.

Brilliant words don't come when they're called.

Brilliant words are hard to find,

But I'll keep on searching--

if it breaks my mind.

My lightbulb was burnt out, you see.

Dark.

And I was busy,

there were things to do...

at any rate,

repairs were delayed.

Then I stepped on a nail.