The Uncanny

Gingrich gone wild like
Destroying America
Numbnuts, deja vu

Ode to Friction

Part of me is a monster
on the run, and the rest
hiding, hoping.  There are a million
little places inside me, at least,
and most of them are
dying the same instant
they are
growing.

They keep becoming each other.

It's the collision.  The bump on the butt
of the door that keeps
opening wider.  The shrink and
curl of time. The accidents
upon accidents upon
accidents.

Smack a monster,
and he comes back stronger, so
maybe let it run.  The antenna is said
to collide with the leaf.  Each brush
of its fur against a blade
of grass is a collision, but
all interactions between a star
and its planets (and a planet
and its satellites) are
perfectly elastic.  Maybe
learn this and let
each object
sort you
like an atom.

It is not possible
to play it safe,
but you can feel
every rub
and let it
fall.

3 Laws of Power

Assume formlessness;
enter action with boldness;
despise the free lunch.

The Enormous Song

The sun had been quiet, almost
too quiet, like one hot ghost, so no one
got so comfortable, not ever.  A freak
mass ejection can occur at any time and
on any level, even in October.  It's kind
of special.  For nine days and eight nights the
          sun recorded the sounds of all the creatures on
          earth, held the sounds inside itself until it spit them, and
          now we could say, the thrill is not gone, not ever gone.
The sun had been quiet, almost
too quiet, like a pallet of pride building
to thistle.  To make sure we weren't hearing
things, we placed our ears against the earth
and felt the deep swallow.
It filled us.  These strange sounds were
           born in captivity and then released, like some kind
           of eternal jellyfish living in the center of each of us.
           No one ever questioned it.  We found out that
between midnight and three AM, we all mimic
other creatures, dolphins sleep-talk in whale, clams
use the language of hammerhead sharks, and so on,
all just saving up a sound to practice later.  After
all, though tried and tripped many times, we
are born copy cats.  Like feeding
           a clear bird stones, the occasional gem
           from a reluctantly open fist.  Now the bird
           can hold the whale inside itself, thereby
set free from anxiety, a fine moment.  The sun had
been quiet, which gave us a much needed break
from the physical plane.  But it scared us. The
striking of two things together is always
important in some way, even empty
figures, slouching through
           summer.  Others will think you crazed
           to wait on something no one sees,
           but you can't really
help it.

War Whores

For me, a lifetime
Of loving is enough
To join the conversation.
I will never be an expert
On antiques or technology,
But I do forgive the ones that
Hurt me.  I have a theory, and
If I'm right, someone should keep
Pushing.  It would be a lot more
Credible if everyone knew
We had something to
Celebrate.  And yet, the war that
Shook us is not over.  It swells. As
If we could never know peace
Without it.

Lap Seed

What of spores and

longing? Scour the land

looking for something to grow.

Not a choice,

             the art of everyone.

Prefer the naked earth and

           practice sitting upon it. Hold

the land we choose to occupy beneath

us. Scatter the bones

of our prey

all around us. Say,

I'm a responsible member

                      of society.

Funny about that.

What are we stuck in?

           I have nails

to hold the galaxy

shut. How we would

wander!

Said the night before,

           Well, tomorrow is

the big trip.

When we were already on it.

Something On Ten and Ninety

It became clear to me about a year ago that I'd forgotten how to look at things.

Between work, the drive to and home from the office, eight hours or more a day staring at a monitor, the simplest objects around me had lost definition and volume; so when my eyes happened to pass over them they hardly seemed to bear any resemblance to my ideas about them. 

Not by choice but by habit, I'd been coasting over every detail of my surroundings. 

So when it'd come time for me to stop and look around me and concentrate on the faint line of presence running between me and any nearby object, I found that, not only was it loose, it'd been cut. Entirely.

Anything that wasn't relevant to my fears or desires had been reduced to blank stimuli, falling far beneath even the most basic value of my noticing it. 

Had I been rushing things? Had I gotten into the habit of stylizing my relation to everyone and everything around me according a single general value--the optimization of efficiency? 

I had. And the reason, when I even made the most minimal effort at reflection, seemed obvious. 

Somehow it had gotten drummed not just into my head but down in me at the nerve level that anything that didn't bear immediate fruit, that didn't seem immediately relevant or beneficial to my "life narrative"--my ongoing vision of where I was and the direction in which I was headed--was irrelevant, maybe even a hinderance to the eventual attainment of my own fulfillment. 

Any moment that didn't make me smarter or richer or more alert or alive, then, wasn't just useless. It worked on me like a kind of pollutant. That was the fear. That was what drove me to take certain things for granted. 

You could say it's only a natural consequence of watching so much television and clips on Youtube. Of scanning articles for certain relevant phrases, of never taking the time to read something slowly, more than once, all the way through. 

There's a running thesis for this kind of behavior. And I'm not sure it's as ancient as we would like to think it is. 

Ninety percent of life is filler. The remaining ten percent is the very marrow, the core and the thrill of it; contained therein are all the reasons for living. 

But what if the intensity of that ten percent, the clarity with which it's felt and comes through, depends on how consciously you work through the other ninety? 

Then cruising past the duller, more workaday moments, the stretches of waiting and sleeping, would only manage to cheat you from enjoying the higher moments. 

Stronger, more desperate souls have tried to conquer that ninety percent. Drugs, drink, sex, adrenaline, art, voyeurism, violence simulated and real. Almost always the struggle has rendered them delusional or bitter. 

The fear, it's always there, the very engine running the effort--what if my life will be like so many, one hundred percent? All filler, sucked dry of marrow, for no one's benefit.   The suspicion being: from that fear originates the whole game of ascension and heaven. 

Time and again, you see it in the arc of one long life after another. Its contradictory realism. If that fear is fully lived, then it's well founded. But if it's given nothing to feed on, it weakens. The amount of filler in your life is proportional to the amount of fear you derive from it. 

But then, who has ever steered their way through so much filler so calmly? 

Three cats living in an apartment, it seems obvious, are much stronger than one human living alone. 

Mother Trouble

          Found his head, but not his center.  In the hills,
under a lit arrow,
 all dismemberment is equal,
     and every death is everyone's.
He must have had mother trouble, they say.  Enough
          to follow him home.
Anyone can amputate a bad day, but
          what about those
who are not sorry?  When they keep
coming?
The world delivers
         each of us a story, so it stands
         to reason that
some will get the short
                           end of the stick.

Please come together,
            all in one place,
            he begged, suitcase in his
stuck hand, the day before he
split.   And later, under smog-smeared stars,
he tossed his
             head into the sky
             to be the moon.
     



                               

Studies

Every Friday, I would stop breathing for several minutes, spaced
throughout the day into pockets
of breathless seconds.

It's more difficult when you're hungry.  Our bodies
want that breath like we can
eat it.   But not breathing
is a dying art.

When she spins, I watch her
arms become wings.  You
can't see the moment that it happens.
It just happens.  When she stops, it's hard to believe
what you saw.

I never participated
in those clinical drug trials, but I did let them
watch me smoke.  They gave me cigarettes and
a blindfold and questions. I did like being watched,
true, but more than that, I liked
being paid.

View From Underwater

To let the ship go, just stop
holding, and know no vessel.
To be the last bastion of total
authority
in this world,
an absolute curse, no longer
for the tail feathers, so
let the chaos.
No hat on
an empty head. Better
to sink, drown, and float. We all
                    know why.

Night Fight

Night sweating like a black ghost.  The dark
will not touch any normal creatures
in this state.  We all suck
the infant song.
Punch the
owner in the bright
white face.
Saved by a bullet to the noose.
This helmet, it looks like a skull
so why not
use toy guns?

[She scratched her cheek...]

She scratched her cheek said

I've been happy this

year. Two minutes, tho 

after midnight the new one. 

And that ambiguous 

pronoun. I as in her, 

as in me? Or her in 

me, me her? Better taken

time felt. Pleasant her

itch had a cheek

to scratch on, 
and I kissed it.

[The golden grunion! He's here!]

The golden grunion! He's here!

A wink of the gills, his

sex inverts invisible 

cheer. She was air she 

was here! Over your left 

shoulder, where oceans start. 

Shored up on a right 

ear. One little nibble...

O hermaphrodite Midas, near!

[Baby at the drug helm..]

Baby at the drug helm, 

drivin us straight into

the universal swear word. 

Not old to drive, but 

young enough to kill 

the age-gasm. Runnin

us down one by one

to hit the pedal. 

More gas, loves

like incredible houses.

Jobs

It's simple, these hands.  The work

is here.  Two hours in a tiny bed.

Then, there are nets

to break your fall.

Or, to show

that if you leave,

they will always 

catch you.

This is what it means

to be a human 

machine.

So easy,

from a distance.

[Bugminster, tonight...]

Bugminster, tonight your zapper 

bullets with corpses. Electric

lager bolts from the tap.

Lepidopteric drunks

they bumble up to it. 

And guzzle their death

from its shocklight. 

The Thing About Time

The thing about time is this:

we can't control it nor

do we understand it.

We just stand our

bodies before its mirror

so it can see itself.

Not Seeking Shelter

This morning sky is full

of many violins.

An enormous symphony . I've slept until

mid-day, and my dreams are still 

with me.

                                              Last night,

there was a movie where a man copes with

great grief. In an empty concert

hall, he sits on a chair in the center of the stage

and plays the saw. Just the man, the saw, and the bow.

Wonderful, alien, underwater

sounds came out. Filled everything. As though

he could be

cut in half.

When I wake up enough to understand

that the sky's violins are

but constant, whirling tornado

warning sirens, I hear the winds come on like

a railroad car. I feel the thunder stick

in my tailbone as the rain

beats the glass of the window. It all

wants in. And I just sit here, waiting.

It's not that I can't move,

it's that I don't.