December 2009
30 posts
Longest Part of a Minute pt. 1
The longest part of a minute is the first ten seconds…but if 60 became 50 would you miss them? conversations cut shorter and movies less boring…television plot lines never resolved…ten whole seconds for you to miss them all…
an ode in 2 parts to be delivered on time from me…to you
Front Line Flea Prevention
Gigantic headphones on at the store as I’m leaving you a video…I remember the first time I was in the vicinity of love. We’re just passengers trading glances and glasses. The first time that your band played a filthy New Jersey show, I was there in my leather jacket. The acoustics were awful but I still have a Theremin in my ears and the wristband in my pocket.
You made me...
My Muse is Homeless
Post an album and reminisce about how crooked you know this is.
I’m a fiend so you know I’ll check. I’m a stitch and you know I’m wrecked.
A spider tiptoes across my wool gloves never touching on where he was
Back when you used your teeth for the kill - He was making art on a window sill.
I locked the cabin’s doors front and back but he’s good at following...
Update Yer Logo or Sell Out
Everyone knows that the supermarket is freshest at the end of the day..No meat..Crusted over sushi..and Hard bottom barrel bread…The fruit has not been replenished and the cashiers look destined to be anywhere else..the smell of coolant and linoleum reaches your nostrils…the scuff marks from shaky cart wheels remains under your feet…the Redbox with promise and the magazines with...
On Writing...3
“Get me in such a mood that I remember the way we used to…” Here comes the flood that will displace us and leave all this rust on you.
I tried to teach her to dig deep into the ground…how to use her boot edge to mute the shovel’s sound …
And I wrote On Writing for the third time…unriddled the mystery of rhythm and rhyme.
I long ago left to become the spokesman for this...
On Writing...Again
They say you need water to be born again…There is a rhyme and reason to how my time is spent.
My work was never meant to exist in columns…I spoke the Bible so the world could know where we’re from.
“Get me in such a mood that I remember the way we used to…” First comes the flood that displaces us, then there’s rust left on you.
Dictation
Someone asked me why I suck so bad…I said that everything sucks in color…put me in The Great Dictator and watch me shine…I need to throw the frames per second off…let them hear me through that Vitaphone system. They call it a movie palace because you are the royalty suspended from the balcony. I’ll always miss the columns and the facades.
The Garbage Bag Dog
I found my dog under a garbage bag on the corner of Veranda and 8th Ave. I found my dog while the city hummed with open cabinets and tired lungs. The tire marks had matted and blackened his tail. The tire marks had left the car accident smell. He whimpered and coughed with his eyes crusted close. He shook and snorted out the blood from his nose. I took out a napkin with a phone number on it. I...
God Save my Poster Collection
…I took my father ballooning on the 13th of July. We are simple men, he and I. I could write about the fire and the air. I could write about the confines of the basket. Fathers and sons land in other people’s backyards all the time.
…There’s a girl in the big city. I wish she’d get in this February basket. I am the only way she’ll ever go up. When it comes to...
5th Grade Pen Pals
Her skirt is too short in that picture
You can see where her thighs go wrong
South for the winter not to be bothered
I’m sorry I stole as many looks tonight.
We’re sweating it out like Jonestown
Preaching everything backwards and wrong
I know that we’re both simple collectors
Of cheap second hand leather luggage
Making puzzles with a magnifying glass
Just to see if...
Hilarious
They’ll always laugh at you when you tell them what you do. “You went to college for that?” they’ll ask. And no amount of writing or art can make it feel less close to home. No title of “poet” or “filmmaker” or “graphic artist” will make you inheritance any less certain.
There’s a sealed will with your name on it. When you open...
Vintage can still Suck
“You never say goodbye to anyone when you leave a party.”
“Why would I say goodbye to people I don’t know?”
“Well…you know me”
“Barely”
“Still. You should have said goodbye. You just left”
“I had to go. I needed to sanitize my hands.”
“What the hell?”
“Too many bro fives and too many guys...
Tell it Right Pt. 2
I smell like lighter fluid. The cheap kind that smells like PVC pipe adhesive. I’m on an audition line and I’ve just refilled my fire. Once the cotton was soaked through and through, I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop until my hand was soaked, then my arm, then my whole right side. I’m halfway combustible standing on this line, waiting my turn to read my lines. I wonder how...
Tell it Right Pt. 1
“Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” A great man auditioning for Parental Control told me that…hell, he told millions of people who saw him not get selected to be a dater. This is part one of your audition. Part 2 to follow next.
Leather Jacket Smell and Party Glances
There is a lonely truck on the side of your street
Abandoned for a chance at finding guitar strings.
I keep on running to figure out what you need.
To find imperfect where perfection impedes.
A room is full, floor to ceiling, with shoe boxes
Out of style, dated and ready for church.
Her jewelry box is full of rusted lockets.
Inside are men who corroded away.
Tonight is winter and...
Surprise
This is a phone call that the wires refuse to carry…this is a drink that will rip your stomach in two. I am a refugee from a dying country. I am the view from your window sill. Sometimes I wish this were all an old horror movie with cut out villains and blown out sets.
My Grandpa Fought in WWII Too
My mom bought me a pull up bar for my birthday. I am not weak but I am scared that, while hanging in my door frame, I will unceremoniously fall and shatter my knees. She also bought me these weights that you wear around your waist. I think they’re for running or power sitting. Sometimes I wonder if I could power sit in a Taco Bell and burn more calories than I ingest. She tells me that...
I Think There's Something in my Foot
My sister had dolls with stitches for mouths.
She kept a sewing kit under her pillow.
And when the pain kept me broken and lame
The tweezers pulled a hair from my big toe.
Perfectly erect like a splinter no less
It remained stuck in my foot like a shard.
And as she kept pulling, the yarn never broke
As it unraveled and stretched down the yard.
Around the tree. Running flush with the fence
...
Golden Palace River Panda
I go to the Golden Palace River Panda
Because it smells like greasy wax paper.
Their combination lunch special platters
Are all I can really afford right now.
I wish the Golden Palace River Panda
Was an acceptable place for a first date.
The girl relays my order in perfect Cantonese
As if I could tell the difference either way.
There is a warmth in the gigantic menu.
Comfort is in sub...
Her Face on my Toast
Her face is on my toast.
I swear on all I know.
That she’s there on my plate.
She has a butter beard.
Imagine the surprise
When I saved the charred bread
Only to see her thin hair
And her awkward lazy eye.
I used to love what was wrong
With her face and with her legs.
One shorter than the other.
One carrying less weight.
But her legs aren’t on my toast.
Just the way she...
A Note Before Dying
…A young girl wrote to me tonight and asked me for the answer. I wrote “The answer is a Christmas card from 1996. You are five and holding some plastic thing that ended up sold to a sloppy collector at your annual garage sale. What you are looking for is only found in the imperfect blending of photo chemicals during the spotty job done at your local pharmacy.” She wrote back,...
Limousine
I remember this Towncar before the holes in the seats -
Before luggage wheels scuffed and scratched the trunk lip.
This car used to smell like the musk of Saturday city nights
Now the memories are streaked in finger and forehead grease.
There were the old women going to matinees and galleries.
The Chanel on their fur collars somehow ended up on my suit.
That perfect suit sold for the...
On Poetics...
With the snorkel jacket friction
Of an SLR tourist line
After market lenses and flashes
Pictures still ruined all the time.
“His durability must contribute
to his ability to take a punch.”
He fights the way dogs dream.
He is still hungover at brunch.
I am on this relentless search
For buttoned down acceptance.
Embodying the perfect candidate
Under the falsest pretenses.
The...
Collecting Leaves
The tire swing we built
Launched me out on the lake.
And we were in love,
Or whatever that was.
Just like fingernails
You bend
Then stretch
Then break.
Animals are Household Objects Too
No one ever told me that having a staple remover means not having to live with mistakes. I wish for the perfect removal, no rips or exaggerations. Then someone aligns their Swingline just right and fills the bite mark with metal once again. And so it is with teeth and claws - a primitive means to gnash and tear. So it is with office supplies - a primitive way to live our lives. We are just...
Everyone, Everyone
Everyone, everyone makes mistakes.
But all my friends are in such poor taste.
And I’m still handing out scripture cards
At this tweed and tobacco wake.
Viewing hours this afternoon from 12-2.
Viewing hours this evening from 7-9.
Then we’re going to bury him deep down
With his favorite watch and his wedding ring.
Everyone, everyone gets their time to shine
Except all my...
All The Love in the World
Someone once told me that all the love in the world was measured such that it remains exactly enough to keep you propped up forever. I believe in all the love in the world. I believe it’s enough for me. Not too little and not too much. I send hearts with <’s and 3’s and I sometimes forget what that means. To end a sentence with a picture of something that, when multiplied by...
One Television Meets One Clock
I’m an LCD screen
With one line missing.
She’s a plasma display
Recently burned out.
A misleading piece
Of electronic convenience
And a luxury earned
Which serves no further use.
A misread alarm display turns
Morning into the middle of the day.
And a conversation starter
Hangs limply on your wall.
Replace me always. Fix me never.
Just buy a new lamp for her.
The snooze...
Black Sheep, White Sheep, Lather Rinse and Repeat
A needle over
A needle under
Summer passes
With the hunger.
Stitched a hat
From sheep’s wool.
That same sheep
I had to kill.
So I could eat
For one more winter.
So I could keep warm
The arms of a lover.
Wiped the axe clean.
Took my boots off.
It’s the sound made
When a child talks.
It means everything.
It means nothing.
Their voices left over
When the world...
