Wherever You Go

To make myself feel better, I imagine every place I go is merely an extension of my own living room. I close my eyes, breath deeply, and I see an image of the whole universe flowing out from my living room, so now anything that wasn't my living room is inseparable from it. Try it. For me, you reading this, is just another part of my living room. Imagine the universe flowing out from whatever room, or place, or time, that you are comfortable and secure in. Then wherever you go, you are there.

Said to Self

Talking to yourself is okay. Mumbling to yourself, okay. Yelling at yourself, arguing with yourself, or hitting yourself, not okay. Punching self, as I said, no. Punching = hitting. Jumping up and down, screaming to self, once or twice, yes, but no more. Singing to self showtunes, no. Singing "Whoops I Did It Again" never, under any circumstances. See "Banned Songs" post.

10 Points on How to be a True Gentleman

(Some posts deserve to be resurrected, no matter how long ago I posted it. In this day and age, this one is especially timely and poignant. From April, 2003. I suggest you print it out and carry it at all times in your wallet, or billfold, when emergencies or difficult situations arise.)

10 POINTS ON HOW TO BE A TRUE GENTLEMAN

1. Always be gentle, polite, and speak kindly and nicely at all times
2. Never throw things
3. Moderate your nasty habits
4. Think, "I am attractive."
5. Remember to inculcate a feeling of modesty, and diligence
6. Never kick animals, especially at parks and nature preserves, or in front of children
7. Use spittoons if you chew, or a handkerchief if you use snuff
8. Avoid any kind of low drink such as Vermouth, or Gin that is sold in plastic containers, and soforth
9. Attend a Church occasionally
10. Do well, and fear not

A Short Story

It has been awhile, hasn't it? Looking at the budding trees, a space that will soon be a renewed wall of shivering green, I was thinking almost fondly of you. But I'm glad you're dead. And I'm glad I did it.

rude poem

i write this
rude
rude
rude
rude
rude
little poem

It was then when he realized suddenly

It was then when he realized suddenly, with a flash of private joy, that he was living in the midst of golden days...days that later in his life he would look back over, and feel pleasure towards, he'd feel even a profound reverence for these days. What he was doing now would warm his heart and bones as a lonely old man. He tossed the grenade into the foxhole and ducked before it exploded.

good/ a short poem

good
a short poem
i keep it
or i throw it away
that is all there is
to it

i threw a

i threw a
dime
into hell
and
someone spent
it
far below

A SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION

A SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION FOR
A CHEOPS NEEDLE OR SIMILAR
MONUMENT


I FOUND A RUSTED RAZOR BLADE
ON THE ROOFTOP
IN SLANTING RAIN

I ACCIDENTALLY BROKE A LIGHT-BULB
AND SCATTERED ITS GHOST
UNDER MY COUCH

I LISTENED TO THE LOVELY ARIA
SUNG BY THE FAMOUS
LOVELY OPERA STAR

THE PHONE RANG FROM TIME TO TIME
AND IT WAS THE WRONG NUMBER
OVER AND OVER AGAIN

AFTER IT WAS QUIET FOR A LONG TIME
I REACHED FOR THE RECORD
AND I PLAYED THE ARIA AGAIN

THE RECORD
DEVELOPED A SKIP
SO I GOT ONTO MY ROOF AGAIN

I TRIED TO
HUCK THE RECORD
HALF-WAY TO THE STARS

BUT IT ONLY FELL
SMASHING TO SMITHEREENS

IN THE STREET

ANNO DOMINI 1993

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Study the effects of Typography on total strangers.

Lunch at the Beach (The Sand Keeps Piling Up)

Lately, every day Martin goes to the beach for lunch. He eats a few bites of his pathetic hand-made sandwich, with its runny tomato on top of sad baloney, then throws himself down face first in the sand, and cries. A bum who lives at the beach has gotten used to this routine and shouts encouragement from a sand dune away, "Yes buddy! That's it! Let it out! You're crying for the WHHOOLE world!" Martin pretends not to hear the bum. He gathers up the sand around him, to get comfortable, like gathering up covers and pillows. He does this as his tears dry. He does not remember, but he did this same repetitive soothing arm motions when he was a small infant. It made him feel better then, and it still does now. Meanwhile, sand is piling up everywhere, in Martin's pockets, his car, the office...there are small traces, trails of sand to the coffee machine, to Martin's front door...his coworkers don't know what to do, because he won't talk. Martin doesn't know what to do. So the sand keeps piling up.

Note on the Tao

the darkness
is Tao

it does not
swerve

it does not sit

The Moment Snaps

It is past sunset, night settling in. We're crawling along in stop and go traffic when suddenly, a sedan four cars in front of me is savagely rear-ended. We enter a moment that seems unnaturally long. The entire back is smashed in, the end of the car now looks like a frog's mouth. Something like that, but before my brain can come up with any other metaphors the moment snaps, things speed up, there is a muffled explosion as the whole back of the rear-ended car ignites in a scorching blaze. Things are moving faster, faster. I can feel the blistering heat from four cars back. I see car silhouettes swerving right and left through thick smoke, one has come to a stop almost directly behind the stricken sedan -- I have a split second to decide where to go, so I swing onto the shoulder and I aim to pass the fiery car on the right. As I get close, the passenger-side door of the car pops open and a teenage boy jumps out -- I think he screams "Mom!" or "Oh No!", I nearly hit him, and he doubles back towards the front, to the driver's side. I keep driving, the fire getting smaller and smaller in my rear-view mirror. In the fresh night sky, still deep blue with only one star, there is an ominous black puff of smoke going up.

I get home, and the feelings have been building, they crystallize when I get into the house and I see my roommates; I feel like a coward. Why didn't I stop? I don't know if I could have done anything, but why didn't I stop? I go outside, to see if I can see the column of black smoke, but it is too dark to see. I light a cigarette and I ask out loud, as if God was there, "What the hell is wrong with me?"

Vampires

On January 03 at 6.20 AM, there is just a hint of light -- a vague suggestion day is going to arrive. Vampires are hurrying home to their coffins & burial vaults -- but the I15 freeway has been jumping with traffic since about 4 AM, if you can believe that. With traffic like this, it comes as no surprise that quite a few Southern Californian vampires are incinerated while stuck in early morning backups.

6.27 AM now, and the sky has started to turn from cloudy black to the color of plum. At this make-or-break time, lines of cars begin to queue up from the 78 freeway interchange, heading south down the I5. Speeds are dropping, dropping, before the Ted Williams exit traffic moves in the teens. Before Interstate 8, cars come to a dead stop.

At 6.33 the sky is grey and getting lighter. The city begins to hum as surface streets fill up with surplus traffic. All is well, or not -- that last drink of blood in Scripps Ranch or Saber Springs could have been your undoing.

The Last Flight to Niagara Falls

(I wrote "The Last Flight to Niagara Falls" a few years back, probably in 1997 or 1998. I was thinking about this tribute, or story, for the past few weeks, I wanted to post it, but I couldn't find it. So on this day, I decided to rewrite it as best my memory recalls.)

In the final years of his life, my Grandpa had a continuous series of small strokes. These strokes were so small, at first we barely recognized his cognitive abilities were being eroded away, but soon Grandpa's speech and some motor skills became affected. Because of this, eventually he had to go into the hospital.

He ended up sharing a room with another elderly gentleman, named Mr. Zimm, I think. As roommates, there was a bit of confusion on what was whose, because Grandpa and Mr. Zimm were both on par when it came to forgetful & senile. Some days you’d go to visit Grandpa and he’d be wearing one of Mr. Zimm’s sweaters inside-out, while Mr. Zimm might be wearing Grandpa’s base-ball cap. You’d see Grandpa’s sweater was two sizes too small, and the hat on Mr. Zimm was a few sizes too big. It took quite a bit of effort and considerable protesting all around to straighten these situations out, so eventually (unless it was absolutely essential) we just let these random swticheroos of glasses, shirts, hats, canes, etc, be uncontested.

Mentally, at the hospital, Grandpa could be with you one moment, but then at some point in any interaction he would be away. He roamed free, unrestrained through his life’s recollections, thoughts, and memories, past and present.

But no matter where or when he was, or with who, he was nobody’s fool. Due to the strokes, his balance was not so good, so often the staff would make him use a wheelchair. Because he was willful, he would get out of the wheelchair. So they put a small strap that belted him to the seat. On that day, my mother was visiting.

“These bastards say I should get some air.” said Grandpa. “Lets go to the cafeteria.”

On the way there, mom pushing, Grandpa flew of somewhere in his head and was gabbing happily in the 1920s. But when the got to the cafeteria, the sunlight seemed to bring him back to the present situation. Grandpa looked around carefully.

“Hey!” he whispered to my mother. “Shhh. Hey!”

“What?”, asked mom.

“Keep it down!”, said Grandpa. He fiddled with the loose white strap keeping him in the wheelchair. “See, there’s this thing here…this thing and..if I only had a pocket knife. Do you have a pocket knife?”

“No.” said mom.

Grandpa couldn’t help but rolling his eyes and exclaiming loudly, “Jesus Christ, you have no knife!” Then, quietly to himself, “What I could do with a small little knife.”

Back to the room, after he was helped into bed, Grandpa was back in the 1930s, at his desk for the railroad. Blueprints all around him, it was a winter’s day just started snowing, and he had a deadline with a new set of plans. He snapped on the drafting lamp, looked over sheets and sheets with an expert eye and was dictating, positively cracking along, making some side sketches and notes when my Grandma and his daughter came to visit, but he didn’t notice. Mom tried to talk to him, but he waved at her off while he was still dictating in an expansive way, like she was some kind of clueless, interrupting secretary.

After some time, visiting hours were over, and we said goodbye. As we did this, the blueprints, desk, blotter, phone, pens, walls, office, all meted away. Grandpa asked timorously, eyes full of tears, you are going? Where? Why we did we have to go? Why did he have to stay, wherever he was? Grandma soothed him as best she could.

I heard later, Grandpa deduced that he was staying at an airport. This would explain all the young people, the shift changes, and all the random people coming and going. When he decided for sure he was staying in an airport, it became essential to have a ticket. His ticket was for the last flight to Niagara Falls, where he grew up, got married, had children, and spent some of the happiest years of his life. Over the next few days, when Grandpa had visitors, he would first ask if you had a ticket – the right ticket for the last flight to Niagara Falls. It was essential that you understand this, and NEVER say you didn’t have a ticket. Otherwise Grandpa would get quite upset.

A few days after that I believe it was an intern who forgot to strap Grandpa into the wheelchair, and that day he got out, hobbled into the hallway and was clawing through soiled linen containers looking for his hat and more plane tickets, of which the hat, he had on his head. When they tried to get him to stop he struggled with them, cursed, he had to be gently restrained in his bed. This made him even angrier, Grandpa raged, so a Nurse decided to give him a mild sedative. But with the clogged arteries in his head, the dose was strong, very strong – it made him groggy, his eyes became clouded, Grandpa closed his eyes, he lapsed into unconsciousness.

After this accident, still unconscious, he came down with pneumonia. Grandpa’s lungs filled up with fluid that he could not expel. He slept on, and while he slept I am sure he dreamed countless extraordinary dreams. But the situation could not go on, despite the fact he would no longer ever wake up again so we could say our farewells. At a certain point, his consciousness was free to go wherever it wanted to be, without any restrictions, or any tether to his old worn out shell.

Dedicated to Robert Arthur Evans
11/13/14 - 2/15/97

Other Things from Ipanema

1. The Yahtzee Game from Ipanema
2. The Hoagie from Ipanema
3. The Ball of Hair from Ipanema
4. The Angry Under Tipped Waiter from Ipanema
5. The Bum from Ipanema
6. The Yellow Pad of Paper from Ipanema
7. The Bicycle from Ipanema
8. The Certified Pre-Owned Sedan from Ipanema
9. The Socks from Ipanema
10. The Ass Pinching Whistling Perverts from Ipanema
11. The Imported Mineral Water from Ipanema
12. The Insane Hooker from Ipanema
13. The Shitty Hotel from Ipanema
14. The Shitty Hotel Robbing Staff from Ipanema
15. The Rubber-Cement Bottle from Ipanema
16. The Doorbell from Ipanema
17. The All Night Poker Game from Ipanema
18. The Bar Tab from Ipanema
19. The Unexpected Phone Call at 3am from Ipanema
20. The Quarrelsome Oldsters of Ipanema

I Am a Tapper

I am a tapper. I tip tap tappy tap my feet all day long. I try not to, but it comes out, a rapid metronome. Where does this come from? My dad is a clapper and a snapper. He also is a slapper, he'll do a snap clap and smack his thigh when he is in high spirits -- when he feels glad to be alive. I don't think my mom taps, claps, snaps, or smacks. My dad's mother, she whistled. When I tap my feet, it is not because I am glad to be alive, but because I am thinking fast & furiously -- trying to solve problems. So I tap under stress. Where does it come from, I ask again. I do not know.

WHAT THE DALI LAMA WOULD SAY IF HE LIVED IN SUBURBIA AND YOU AS A TEENAGER GOT SICK ON HIS FRONT LAWN AT 3AM

My face is like your face -- a face you don't want to know -- a face you have come to fear and resent. I'm talking about the original face -- in not knowing it, we are haunted by the not knowing. We therefore live in the Realm of Desire, wanting innumerable things to help us forget the original face, which is empty. And get off my fucking lawn, too, in the middle of the night. Another drunk, stupid kid.

Monday morning

Monday morning
I wake up out of a sound sleep
and I feel dead

I'm hung over
I'm tired
I have this bile taste in my mouth

Monday morning piss
Monday morning shower
Monday morning runs
Monday morning cereal & cup of coffee
Monday morning shirt, pants, socks, shoes

Drive my girlfriend to her job downtown
that she hates but can't quit because
it pays our bills

Monday morning driving back for some
reason I see cops cops cops cops
cops cops
I suppose I should feel safe
but why are there so many cops out
on Monday morning?

I get home, parking being a breeze
Monday morning runs again
My stomach feels like I have a boot in it

So here I am now
sitting by the window at the table
in the kitchen

Ready to make my endless phone calls
and I can't take it anymore

I grab the empty coffee cup
and I huck it out the window

It soars through the air
smashing against the neighbors brick wall
just across the way
their kitchen window shoots open
and they look at me

I wave at them
wordlessly, they wave back

I begin to make my phone calls


SF
1993

Stink Bad

His feet stink. The caps-lock gets stuck, accidentally, on his keyboard, and he types THEY SMELL! These socks didn't smell in the morning, when it was cold. The socks had to warm up, then get dosed in some fresh sweat. Sweat like fresh coffee to slumbering bacteria. Mmmmmmmmmmm....sweet sweat. He thinks back to the time in Venice, on the crowded Vaporetto in the night with the two gypsies, a brown color of homelessness on them. The locals edged away from the rank stench of the two guys, who thought being so stenchful was hilarious. When they got off the water bus, grinning, laughing, the Venetians muttered Italian curses under their breath. I'm not that bad, he thinks, coming back to the today, now. Not near that. Not like the time I had that contracting job, ten years ago with the cursed pair of hiking boots that smelled like baby vomit. The cursed hiking boots that smelled like baby vomit. Now that was bad.

mom/ dad

mom
dad
if they
kill me
in iraq
on my
fourth rotation

don't
tell them
when
they
hand over
the folded
flag
you're
"so
proud"

don't tell
them
that!

tell
those
sons a bitches
you're
mad as
hell at
the waste

tell
them
for me

and say
you're
mad
as hell
because
i didn't have
to die

i didn't
have to go
and die
out there
of all
places

if i'm
gone
you can
say
anything
for me

just don't
say
"so
proud"

Piss Me Off & Drive Me Crazy

Here's a few ways to piss me off and drive me absolutely crazy, all at the same time: name a company-wide key server after a girlfriend, pet, spouse, or child. Come up with a codenames for all software projects named only after mountains. Name any kind of test you have to run several times a week after a type of food, or a kind of cocktail, or a dessert. "What are you doing today?" "I'm running Baked Alaska four times on Denali & K2 over Sweet Baby Hailey." Wheee!

Two Mornings, Overheard

I woke up last morning, and as I lifted my head, I heard a voice, like God's, by the surface of the pillow. It was a very quite voice, clean, precise and still. It said, "Every shape started out as a clear idea, whose meaning now is twisted and confused." This morning, while I was waking up, my infant son was sleeping next to me. Half asleep, I imagined he was saying words like, "Pillow...Pillow...Pillow", or "Cloud..Cloud..Cloud" over and over again. I woke up, and realized he couldn't be speaking, because he is 5 months old. I am convinced the two events are not interconnected, but tomorrow, I wonder if I will hear someone talking as I am waking up, and what will they be saying?

Bang

This is not about the rain, or how it rained at the funeral. This is not about the accident, about how her arm stayed soft and warm for a while, how her head was turned so her hair covered her face. I'm staying where James Bond stayed at the end of that film. I'm a goddamn fucking time cowboy now. I'm stepping back, and it's just like it never happened. I've decided to be like Fellini now, and be in a movie like he does a movie where we can sorta dream at will and anything is possible, because I'm in my head now. This is a story of me now in my head. No, I take that back, I want to be outta my head. Rain drops keep falling on my head, just like on the smallest coffin you ever saw. My torso is covered in welts. Okay, go play checkers with my brains— that doesn't sound right, but go ahead. And while you're at it, rearrange the furniture and paint because we're gonna end up divorced probably anyways. I'm going to try hard now, nail this shit down and shine through if I can – to the Lighthouse, ya know what I mean? To the Lighthouse. Fuck you Virginia Wolfe. I'll try hard this time, not make excuses or get caught up in images. It is very simple. I like that word. Simple.

Specifics? Last year I lost my wife (35) and my daughter who had just turned (3) when our Jeep Cherokee (a model 99) overturned and slid on its side and hit a tree trunk. The tree was unscratched. But later it still died. Ain't that a laugh riot? Everybody involved in the crash dies but me. Even the tree. My wife's family has blamed me exclusively for the accident. I think they are angrier that for once I wasn't drunk, that it was just a freak accident not having to do with excessive speed or anything like that. No, to them quite frankly, I was the freak. Fuck you fuck the blame. Fuck up. Fuck over. Fuck off. No thoughts. Dark. Well, a little light. Like in a Fellini film -- things come into focus so slowly at first with no sound, in reverse-dissolve George Frederick is sketching, he eats lunch, he participates in group therapy. On an improbable 'red letter day' he is released, he goes home, he says no I am fine, don't worry. Neighbors show up, ding dong. I just need to be alone, to grieve. He grieves in the empty big colonial style house that is five years old near Sterling, Virginia. It does not help. The house or the grieving. Under control and in his own mind he shoots himself in the head with a pistol.

(In truth, he puts the pistol down. He didn't have the courage to shoot himself like he wanted to. I mean, I don't. I mean, obviously I didn't, as my name is George Frederick. I just buried the Sig Sauer 9mm three feet deep in my backyard, where I used to watch my daughter Sara play, Sara pretending to be a princess of a far way kingdom that I’ll bet looked just like Disneyland. I want a gun tree with 222 little toy guns. No, I don't want a gun tree. I want to write something funny here. I wanted to end this with something more poetic or more semiotically clear, a better symbol or symbolic action to round out the story. But I guess I don't have it in me. My wife once said to our daughter, "Fill me a thimble full of tears, and then...bla bla bha blah blah." I can't remember what she said while I was in the other room being a stone-hearted fuck. Well, I've cried my thimble full and more, and there's no going back once you've started that business. But I took my thimbles of tears and I emptied it. I just cry regular now and let the tears go down my face and splash on my jeans. Some tears land in my hand. I carry them like they are little birdies and I sprinkle them out our bedroom window. I can imagine certain things now, very specifically. Fly away you two fly fly away. And sure enough Jesus Christ, just like in a Fellini flick, I see from the camera's perspective -- zooming up into the sky, all the while looking down at me lying in the Jeep on that rainy night the whole time, the camera zooming away astonishingly fast and smooth as a rocket or missile with no flash and no noise and no smoke. Oh excellence! I know it makes no sense, too many mixed metaphors. But that is how it is, now. I can hear glass exploding, steel crumpling. The seatbelt tight enough on Sara to strangle her. Then we hit the tree. Bang.)

(Live over at www.opiumnagazine.com, today.)

After Our Blind Date

Dear Sally!

I didn't mean to give you the CREEPS. I should have told you I have no hands. Only hooks. Shiny chrome sharpened hooks (think Captain Hook x2), because I take pride in my appearance. So, I promise to be in a better mood when we meet next, also, and not yell at the cabbie that way I yelled! Lordy me oh my, you're a sweet gal, I can tell, very thoughtful and intelligent and I'd like to get to know you better. Please don't say no.

Optimistically,

Martin

Wrencream

Wrencream is old and he slouches. His lamps are smoking, the light in his window is yellow and unsteady, the roof of his house tilts to the south. Nobody visits him because they think he is dead, or dying. They say he steals children, and sells them to the gypsies. But I know more, I see, I look, I watch. I see old Wrencream going out the back door of his house in the early morning, just before the sun comes up. He drags a wheeled carrier he has made out of scraps of wire and wood making tracks the frost. He usually heads over the frozen fields, through the birches, to the abandoned asylum, to look for things he can sell or recycle. Last week he sold an antique bottle to a tourist for a paltry sum for the tourists, but a huge amount for him, and us.

He is old in my vignette, with a huge mane of hair, shaggily cut. He wears boots, he trudges, his trousers sag. He barely looks around, but he knows if someone is going to throw a rock at him. I can tell, by watching him, that he contains an entirely separate thing within his own head. He is quietly possessed by something, but with what, what? What makes him so quiet? So subtlety knowing? You might say in him is a distinctly separate World, or Universe. But not just any imaginary place. I suspect there is an exceedingly rare Universe in his head. As if God created one privately, a better one, a purer one. He plays odd, high music in the night, presumably on a fiddle.

The Fable of Fonterloughighoblo

Getting ready for the big day, one of the elves comes to me, he has his hat in his hand. And I haven't ever seen an elf with his hat off, so this can't be good. He says they can't find the list. I'm so goddamn busy I'm ready to shit bricks and mail them to Timbuktu. What list? I ask. THE LIST. Says the elf. Jesus Jumping Christ in Red Plaid! I exclaim. Did you ask Mrs. Clause? Yes! says the elf. So after that, we tear up the workshops, warehouses, storage & lofts, we rifle through the stables, look under every tree, present, box, trunk, hay pile & bail, turn over every wreath, look in every nook and cupboard, to no effect. Cookies and Cockeyed Crumpets, we're F--d! No List. Who had the List, last? They name the elf, Fonterloughighoblo, and he's not here, so we all go to his house. And lo, there he is, passed out dead drunk, and the list is in shambles, all over the place. I can't make head or tail of it, the pages all mottled, crumpled and smudged. I see he used some of it to start a fire. So there it is, with no list we had to improvise. Because of Fonterloughighoblo, 2006 was the year everyone got a crate of Spam.

Newsflash - Hills Block the View

Hills really do block the view? You must be joking.

On the Side of the Road

We saw this today, at about 8.30 in the morning.

empty room

i loved the empty room
light pink
with the cat
laying in the middle

night time
it was blue
as if
filled to the brim with rain

the
next morning
ordinary furniture
attacked

News Flash!

Thrown over into our booth at Islands yesterday at lunch. JAKE LIKES EMILY!!!!!!!

Selected Excerpts from a Journal

(Selected excerpts from a Journal, transcribed exactly as it was written, circa 2001.* The pages were found in the junk raked out of a partially burned house on Elm Street, in San Carlos, CA, in 2006.)

----

August 2
....Just finished moving into Bellingville, TN.**

August 4
Just my luck -- whose kid has the two-stroke scooter? Who lets thir fucking kid ride the goddamn scooter up & down the road at 2 in the morning?

August 5
Of course, nobody knows who the kid is. Then, later, when I go to the police they let slip that it is, apparently, one of their kids. The police chiefs’ kid.. Can I speak with him? Who, what?

August 12
I go to Martin Blackwell's house. Our absent chief of police. A faded note on the door all words blurred except: florida

September 13
There it goes again -- I get out there with a maglight. Under the dark moon, I hear the scooter shrieking along -- and my light shines all the way up the windblown road, leaves flying and it shines on nothing. Cliché blast of icy wind, the sensation of being brushed by something -- what?

I instinctually begin to back up. I shine the light where I hear footsteps, up the drive. Just blowing, twirling leaves. I turn and when i start to climb the stairs i'm bengmuffled by something - prssing on my arms tripping me panicking I get back inside, drenched in sweat, trembling, I realize what it felt like -- a hand. No bike. No person.

A word a name whispered in my ear. Who, I promptly forgot. A girls.

September 15
There is a shadow in my yard, at twilight. My imagination may be getting out of hand. but after seeing it hang around at dusk, flitting around the yard in my peripheral vision, I imagine me saying to a shadow in my yard.

What do you want?

Fun. Says the shadow. I want to have fun.

What does that mean? Who are you?

Nobody. Says the shadow. Nobody now.

September 17
Tan Martin Blackwell points a .44 magnum at my chest and says his son is dead. He was killed by the first gulf war.

If I come around again, he will kill me. If I ask around about his son, around town, he will kill me. If I tell stories about scooters he will kill me. I don't know if I hate him, if I feel pity for him, I just say goodbye.

He watches me close the fence to the drive, tears in his eyes.

October 4
Carl sits on my porch. Carl rides his scooter at 10 at night. Carl's girlfriend used to live here, back in the 1980s.

At the library, I look up his obituary. Carl died after his discharge. The librarian tells me he walked into the woods with a rifle and blew his brains out. Who else sees me? The phone rings in the middle of the night. The voice sounds faint, slurry. I'm warning you. Stay out of it.

October 7

Via the internet, I try to find the family that lived here. I stay away from the library,

November 11
Dictating from St. Johns Hospital

On Wednesday, October 10 a police car pulled away from my house when I come home. I find Blackwell in my kitchen.

I woke up one side of my face warm, the other cold. Blackwell in firelight. In the woods. My hands tied.

I can remember what he said, almost word for word.

I want to tell you about my Son. My Son. He was the first in this family to ever go to college – football scholarship to the state school here – no big deal but it was something for us. He was so proud of himself, you should have seen him on graduation – poly sci. I didn’t even know what the hell that was. Then he joined up, because he said some day he was going to run for President, he had it all mapped out on note cards, I still have them. And he needed to serve so he joined up and he was decorated – he was a goddamn war hero. Saved his squad from an entrenched position, something like that, but he came back changed. Had no fire in him anymore, was good for nothing, we tried to help him but his mother, she got killed by a drunk driver. And he rode that goddamn 2 stroke scooter after that. Was fucking a 17 year old girl who was running away from home all the time. What a fucking mess. So she runs away again and my pal sees her in Memphis, loitering, on drugs, so he calls and I have them do a special job for me -- a bag on her head to bring her back, because she’s pregnant. They hog tie the bitch and she strangles accidentally on the way back.

Blackwell puts more wood n the fire, takes a piss. Pushes back his hat.

Then my son, he kills himself when she doesn’t call or come back. I never meant to kill her. I never meant to kill anybody. I see her face on milk cartons now and again. She’s buried right over there. Under the tree. So you get up writer. Here’s the conclusion of your story, ain’t you happy, Mr. Writer? You’re gonna get up, go over there, and find her, and her baby. Get up you son of a bitch.

Nosy son of a bitch, poking your nose in where it wasn’t wanted. Fucking with things that don’t concern you.

He propelled me forward, over the fire, and into the tree, and I fell, scattering bones, A skull with fine straight white teeth stared up at me, with a few strands of faded blonde hair. And by that skull, there was a smaller egg like thing, with two holes.

I could see his silhouette, the gun coming up. The first bullet grazed my skull. My eyes were full of blood. As I started to move, another bullet broke my left arm.

I ran and ran, pitch black woods, down a cliff, then into a stream and over rocks and he followed for awhile shooting but then he couldn’t go on.

I think I heard him arguing with...and then they found him face down in the stream with two handprints on his shoulders.

----

* There is a Wednesday, October 10 in 1984, and in 2001

** There is no Bellingville, TN. There is a Billingsville, MO.

love is here

love is here
like a star

up there

yes that far
away

this here stiry

this here stiry is a gost story and i am teerified out of my mind right now typing with one hand bdecause i have fallen downstairs and i think i broke my left wrist after seeing a headless man and nosw ther are two of them is coimg slowly towards me all bloody this is our house our house our house

ADULTS

You know what I hate most about people? It is when they become ADULTS. You become ADULT when you lose your Imagination. After you lose your Imagination, unavoidably, sooner or later you become Offended by things you don't understand. That is the second thing I hate about people, when they decide to be Offended about something. But that is what ADULTS do, they can't help but become quarrelsome and divisive, because having no Imagination makes a person depressed and easily startled -- and we fear what we do not know. We are then ready to be Offended by something or someone. And people without Imagination are afraid of being afraid, they are afraid of fear, they are afraid of others, and eventually, they are afraid of themselves. For these reasons, ADULTS live a piteous, miserable existence.

Now That I Think I Am Awake

Right before I wake up, I dream I go downstairs and tell Phoebe to take a bath. While Phoebe gets in the bath, I notice the bathroom floor has small plastic Barbie shoes and other doll accessories strewn all over it. Then I wake up, I go downstairs, and I tell Phoebe to take a bath. This time when she's getting ready for her bath, I see that the bathroom floor is clear of doll accessories. Then I wake up again, this time hopefully for real. I go downstairs, I avoid telling Phoebe to take a bath, and I get a cup of coffee. I wait for a bit, and I don't wake up again. So now I'm awake, I think. How are you doing today?

persistence

he wrote terrible
poems

each one more
terrible than the last

and he kept
sending them to

this small
magazine that

really didn't
use poetry

and he knew
in his heart

someday he'd
get published there

POST YOUR POETRY

lies sadness
ENTER CONEST
confession to god
PREVIOUS WINNERS
FIND POEMS HERE
separation
POETRY IN MOTION
PREVIOUS WINNERS
stupidity anger
POST YOUR POETRY
ON THIS SITE
revelation
100 GREATEST POEMS
EVER WRITTEN
FIND POEMS HERE

he carries pebbles

he carries pebbles
around in his head

she has a house
full of designer furniture
in her mind

william totes endless baseball
scores brimming with
romance

alice is full of songs
like thousands of exotic birds
all escaping at once

a memorable fancy

to W.B.

i dreamed the reason why there is sin in the world
is because god miscalculated
how far a soul could be positioned from his presence
and remain inherently pure

calling grandma

i call you up
after the operation

you sound angry
i ask you how it went

you say pretty badly
but you're okay

you're eating lunch
and thanks so much for calling

i say i'll call tomorrow
i hang up the phone

a useless
hunk of plastic

one man revolution

you are a one man revolution
with only one idea
ruling a country of one

sometimes

sometimes i think
what it is like to be all grown up

is to realize that there are people
who are better than you at everything
you love

better than you by a million
times they just do it wow magic
just grace

but i keep on going
because mostly i'm stubborn
sometimes i'm sure i got some thing coming up inside
like a diabolical flower
massive crude
natural thing

Joe

In the dark San Francisco night
In North Beach somewhere back in time
I dreamed we wandered the cavernous
mysterious night
from bar to bar

Until we found in a back room
A card game going on
With people all so familiar with each other
Laughing and drinking
Sweating and throwing down cards
Telling wild stories and bragging

And who was there but Joe Di Maggio
So Young and slim and his face shining
Full of himself and his friends
Yelling out and laughing in the dim light
He wore a brown suit and the table shone

I was dumbstruck because
I knew he was dead as I watched him move
Among the sillhouttes and smoke

I was in a time I had never existed
But here he was in my dream
In his prime

(I had this dream a few nights after Joe Di Maggio died)

The Forbidden Chairs and Tables of the Piazza San Marco

In Venice, in the Piazza San Marco, you are firmly not allowed to sit on the chairs and tables set out there. Even if you are ordering a cappuccino or mocha, you are not allowed to sit in the chairs and tables associated with that cafe. No, no, it is impossible! Impossible! Please do not ask why. After getting your drinks, you review phalanxes of empty tables and chairs. They are roped into sections for each cafe by braided thin steel cables coated in plastic. Mysterious and remote -- empty of all butts -- conceptual art under wheeling clouds of pigeons. (BTW - a mocha is a drink you give a little kid, and civilized people drink a cappuccino in the morning, not in the afternoon, you stupid American.)

Night Sashay

In
San Francisco
Depressed & pissed off
I watch a man who lives
In an apartment next door
Straighten things out
In his living room

It is dusk
Night falling hard
Like a ton of bricks

The man moves about
Doing things
Picking up rearranging
Magazines and paperweights

Objects I cannot see
Yet it is easy to imagine
What he does the way
His shoulders move

I can make out what
He is wearing

A sweater
Blue jeans
He is bald

I am surprised
When I see his head bobbing
Very low next to the side
Of the back of the couch

His forehead almost
Disappears past the ledge of
The window

The he straightens up
Looking at some odd thing
He found back there

He continues to busy
Himself

The window becomes
Yellower

Light is falling
Falling falling dying
Just like my emotions
Seem to be smoothing out

Indifference soaking
Into my eyes
My mind
My body
My soul

And as this happens
He looks out and sees me
Sitting across the way
Typing

Staring

He walks out of the room
With a few things
In his hands

A minute later he comes back
Hands empty
Maybe he threw the shit
Away who knows

He stands there
And he looks at me
And I look at him

He moves over
To one side of the window
And as the drapes close
Bit by bit

I imagine how
They must go

Swish

Swish

Swish

Swish

Swish

Trying to Find Out Why Steve Brodie Jumped

When I was about 8 years old, my parents decided to get my sister and I a set of the World Encyclopedia...these were the quaint days before people used thing called "The Internet" to look up stuff. My parents had to put an order in for it, it cost a buttload of cash, and it was to arrive at Christmas. I must say, it was a big deal to get a set of the World Encyclopedia, we were all very excited. So my dad asked me, "Son, when we get the World Encyclopedia, what will be the first thing you look up?" He was probably thinking I'd look up something about Geology, History, or Astronomy. But I said, quick as a flash, "I'm going to look up why Steve Brodie jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge!!" "Who?" asked my father. I then explained to my dad that there was this Bugs Bunny cartoon where Steve Brodie jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge...but I knew that in real life no rabbit drove him crazy. So I was going to find out the REAL reason why Steve Brodie jumped off the bridge. By that time my pa had lost interest in the answer to his question. And when the Encyclopedia arrived, I found there was no reference to Steve Brodie. I wondered about it, and then one day when I happened to see that cartoon again on TV, I realized something. Then I thought f*** Bugs Bunny. F***ing cartoons.

An Austrian Christmas Story

Early, I know, but after seeing the damn Christmas decorations & merchandise going up at the local hardware conglomerate last weekend, this came to mind. So have a Merry Christmas, extra, extra early!

i.

In Austria, for Christmas, the hotel puts on a Christmas Eve bonfire and sing-along for the kiddies. After some songs, Santa shows up with presents, and our daughter gets a few nice little toys. Hot chocolate and cider for all. Very cute. Then I look close at the red paper bag the gifts came in, and I see that there's a sticker on the bag of a big leering Devil. He has a small child over his knee, the kid's pants are down, and the Devil is getting ready to paddle the crap outta the kid with a birch S&M switch. The kid looks terrified, tears spilling out of his eyes, and the Devil looks like he'd gonna bust a nut because he's so happy. Next to the Devil are chains and a wicker basket, to carry the beaten child to the flames of everlasting damnation. Then our daughter asks, "What are you looking at, Dad?" I say, "When you're bad in Austria, you don't get a lump of coal. No, you get beaten by the Devil and you get sent to Hell." I show her the sticker, and after a pause, she says "Oh."

ii.

After we get back to the hotel, I want to snag the Devil sticker to show everybody in the States -- but when we aren't looking, my daughter shreds it into tiny bits. "Oh!" says June. "You didn't like that did you?" "The Hell won't get me!" says Phoebe. "Why do you say that?" I ask. "Because if I'm bad, and I go there, the Hell won't be there!" "Where will he be?" I enquire. "He'll be out SHOPPING! Shopping for STICKS to smack BAD KIDS WITH!!" Phoebe yells, jumping up & down triumphantly. So, case closed. And I hope when I get sent to Hell, the Devil happens to be out at the Mall, replenishing his Infernal Devices. Or better yet, the day someone is damned, Hell just breaks down and can't be repaired. Just be extra good in Austria, don't forget that.

Estranged friends

Estranged friends
I miss you so
I’ll always miss you
Though things seem bent broken
Stretched all out
Beyond recognition or feeling

Here is something in us that loves
This way
Loves completely and entirely without effort
Naturally for ever and ever
Inexhaustible radiant complete
But it still hurts

(Poem Written on the Side/ Of an Old Envelope)

dedicated to Jennifer, who told me

A flock
Of birds
Few past
My window
And I could only
Watch them
For a few seconds
But they fluttered
In my head all
Day
A ghost flock
Of birds

A friend of mine
Sad she
(as a child)
Harbored a
Pigeon in her
Ear for
Almost 3 years*

She says
At the time
She thought all
People harbored
Birds in
Their ears

This is true
And also untrue


* My friend told me when she was about 3 years old she was walking down the street with her mother on a sunny windy day, and she was startled to see a white pigeon fly by close past her ear. When she turned, she couldn’t see where it went. So she concluded that when she cupped her hand to her ear, this soft noise she head was not the ocean, it was the pigeon now nesting in her ear…

My Odyssey

I.

One time I followed this
Beautiful young woman to
Her house from the N Judah line
To see where she lived

I wondered if she had a boyfriend
As I watched her in the twilight
Switching on the lights in
The apartment

I watched in the dark
From across the street
Through the slits
Of the venation blinds and I wondered
What the hell I was doing

She closed the blinds

A television spouted
Blue light in another room
And I walked home

II.

Last night
(two weeks later)
I got very drunk and I started
Knocking the carefully arranged
Bottles that I had
Supposedly meticulously set
To be out of my way

I picked up all the bottles
And I put them under my bed
And put on my coat and scarf

I took a bottle with me

III.

Outside it was silent and cold

I walked along
And I decided to go to her house
Again

Once there I amused myself
By drinking the beer
In the shadows of trees and cars
Looking up at the dark windows
Where I had seen her

I knew I was drunk
And it was cold
Very cold out there in the street

I was surprised how cold and quite
It was

Everything was so contained
And I stood there in the night
And I wondered what I was doing
What the hell was I up to
I was acting like a fucking nut

I found myself opening the
Waist-high gate that was on the
Side of her building

As I entered the slot-like
Side yard I felt as if my head was
Bobbing independently of my shoulders

I looked up
And I could see
A few stars and the cold
Seemed to fall away

IV.

For some reason
I felt very amused
With myself

I was now very amused
Just standing down there
Doing nothing in someone
Else’s backyard in the dead
Of night quite drunk
Off my gourd

I nudged the cement
Retaining wall with my
Toe and I figured out
Which back porch was hers

I was that she had wrapped
Several of her plants
To keep off the chilly air

The cellar was locked

I pissed on the cement wall
And then staggering home

While I was unlocking
The gate to my house
A cop car passed me going
Up the street

Birthday Field of Dreams

After I graduated from college, I moved in temporarily with my parents in Petaluma, California. For awhile I worked nights as a security guard, of all things. I thought I’d make a go at trying to establish myself in Sonoma County, where I grew up.

So one day that was a day off for me, I woke up at 2.30 AM and I had nothing much to do, because Petaluma closes shop at about 10 PM and all my friends were asleep. It also happened to be my birthday. So I decided to watch “Field of Dreams” for an extra special happy birthday to me.

For some reason this night I kept on wanting to cry in certain parts of the movie, but I also kept remembering that this was, after all, just a movie – these people I was on the verge of crying over were actors who delivered lines convincingly.

Still, when the movie was over, I rewound it and watched it a second time – playing the good parts over and over again. When the sky had the faintest suggestion of light in the east, I decided to take the dog for a walk.

We walked a few blocks down to the main drag. As the dog crapped in a newly ploughed field that was the empty lot next to an ice-cream shop, I saw legions of commuters zipping down the boulevard, going to god-knows-what jobs where they probably got pencils grinded up their asses day-in and day-out.

I watched them and I was bored to death, completely alone with nowhere to go, and I am sure they wondered why I stood there on the corner, by the ice-cream shop with a Dalmatian watching them all zip along.

~

Later that morning after the dog had gone back to bed, my father gets up, drinks a V8 and reads the newspaper in the bathroom. He’s gone by 7.30. Then my mother gets up.

It’s funny that I think about this on today of all days, but it’s been about 12 or 13 years since my old man and I really got along, or had any kind of feeling, or relationship.

High School just about killed him and me. I don’t ask him the questions I want to ask because there is no way to ask the questions that could get at the root of the matter.

I think about this as I read the weather forecast.


July 11, 1990

A Sketch Meant to Be Nothing, but Now is Something

For some reason I have been thinking persistently on this particular sketch over the past few days. I was thinking about how it looked when I was waking up this morning. I don't ascribe any meaning to it when I reflect on this sketch, because this sketch is not supposed to signify or diagram a real thing or anything that appears in external phenomenon. It just is a collection of lines, really. I drew it that way, as an exercise in connecting lines that seem to refer to something, but in fact, do not. Over time, this drawing has taken on some subtle significance for me. So here it is.

Bad Restaurant Names

1. Oops We Did It Again
2. The Montezuma Express
3. ShitzBurger
4. Messin' With The Grub
5. La Cucaracha
6. Cramps
7. Dinner With Drunken Chef
8. Cooters
9. Slappy Happy's
10. Fate's Food Festival

...she's tired...

This from one of my journals/ sketchbooks.

I mean, she's tired, really tired, and she comes to the cafe with all these books and she is so tired, with her cup of coffee & I hear someone saying in the background, "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON -- COME ON MOTHERFUCKER -- SHOW YOURSELF!" and the music selection is ending, all this winds down down down and she is sleeping with her hair on her books.

San Francisco, November of 1994.

BLAND

We got a few of these packets with meals while we were staying at the hospital after the c-section. I know institutional mentality can be this way, but should you really advertise it on the products themselves? But then I tried BLAND and I like it. And I can't seem to get BLAND now that we are home. I want BLAND. Now I find I cannot have BLAND.

2 Poem (to P I)

Poem

Dad you are the mountain
I shall never surpass
Yet you are in my way

& God said yes
It is true


Poem


I became richer than bill gates
& bought heaven
And found out \\God was somewhere else

When it Rains, it Pours

Last night at about 3 AM the bed turns to nails underneath me. This is quite painful. I jump out of bed and fall on the floor. My wife asks me what I am doing, I tell her that the bed has turned to nails, and I g*ddamn f*cking can't believe it. She says that I am dreaming. Oh fine, I reply sarcastically, I'm only just BLEEDING all over the floor with 5,000 holes in my skin. But who cares about me? Just get back in the bed of nails so everyone else can get a good nights sleep. I'm sitting there, thinking I might get back in bed, when a flock of floating dog heads start coming out of the corner of the room, where a shadow is. When it rains, it pours.

TEST

1. God created the Universe in seven (7) days. T/F

2. Eve remembers being created while Adam does not. T/F

3. Adam and Eve had tall kids. T/F

4. Satan...

a) Knew beforehand that God was ready to put the Universe together in seven (7) days
b) Likes to eat sandwiches (ham on rye) for breakfast
c) Remembers what it was like when he was an Angel
d) Had his own rebellious plans mapped out, but also felt free to improvise

5. When the _____ came out of the ______ they were really in the _______.

a) Apple...tree...deep shit
b) Devil...garden...deep shit
c) couple..Volvo...distant future
d) mistake...actions...impromptu

6. When I think of God, I feel happy. T/F

7. God feels happy when he thinks about me. T/F

8. God loves a sit down dinner. T/F

9. When somebody is missing something, this usually means that...

a) They have sinned
b) They have "Paid their 'Dime' and 'Took Their Chances'"
c) They have Sinned, but God has forgiven them
d) They are dying

10. Satan licks the key-locks with his tongue at my house. T/F

11. If you are Evil...

a) You know it
b) You know it but you deny it
c) You realize it from time-to-time
d) You hate getting up to do your laundry

12. God is...

a) Big
b) Round
c) Angry
d) Winsome
e) Other (please specify) _______________________

13. Adam and Eve had tall kids. T/F

14. The last thing God created out of nothingness was a ______________________.

15. God likes to believe in....

a) Sin
b) You
c) Me
d) Satan

16. Adam wanted to be a Auto-Mechanic. T/F

17. Eve was a Lesbian. T/F

18. One time Satan disguised himself as a woman and had sex with Eve. T/F

19. This test is going to send me to Hell. T/F

20. Heaven and Hell are indistinct once you are dead. T/F

ANSWERS:

Today is the Day

Today is the day. I am dying, I could go at any moment, but I still have time to be angry. I'd like some juice; the last taste of juice in my life most likely, so where is the goddamn nurse? I've been feebly pushing this crocked button baton thing before Death comes in the room and rips my soul from my body -- and no goddamn fucking nurse. And I hate the view.

In Love with Everything

We go outside to have a lovely cigarette. The night is trembling ever so softly, like a snare drum. I can see the light from the streetlamp, and how it seems to make the leaves in the trees curl, intense, dusty and faded green. You say something to me, and I reply automatically, still wondering at the night and the light of the streetlamp on the leaves, as we sit on the fire-escape 3 floors up. We smoke and smoke the lovely lovely cigarette, in love with everything.

The Guy in the Red Suit

Every time something special is happening in my life, some event that I know I will be remembering for a long time afterwards as a rare and precious moment, this guy in a red suit shows up out of nowhere with his _____ ______ hanging out, babbling loudly, breaking things, throwing up on me. Now I live alone, bereft of companionship -- disowned even by my own family, all because of that weird guy in a red suit. With his ____ ______ hanging out.

break up poem, remembrance of things past

i.

i was fine
but she wasn't

because
she was a jerk

ii.

she was fine
but i wasn't

because
i was a jerk

iii.

do you remember those nights
when we were fascinated
with each other

there seemed to be no end
in the moment we inhabited

seeming solid

we were as delicate as two origami
poised by a window

with no idea how fragile
how transitory things are
through time

The Secret of all Secrets

I heard a disjointed conversation, sitting at the pub, from around the corner, but I didn't dare look. "Shhh. Here is the password, or even, the secret or all secrets....like two guys walking down a road with a mirror. EVERYTHING IS A STORY."

Just a Matter of Time

We were eager to go off to war. Mostly eager for Protecting Home and Country with God on Our Side and Kick Some Ass, why not? That is how it usually starts. Then you have your first mortar round, which was not that bad -- BTW. Boom! War is hell! Ha ha ha. What if I did get killed that day? Nah, then see your friends get shot -- a finger shot off say, or shot in the face, or shot in the groin & head -- or you see a few people get disemboweled on a rum tumm tummy day by high explosives. Laying dead on the roadside, sunny blood black in the dust with a dead goat and a few dead birds. ("They eat their own...", you said almost inaudibly about 300 or 400 times, keeping the mental tires on the concrete of your brain.) Later, you get that sentence out of your head by listening to the "Little Drummer Boy" -- as a joke going back to elementary school. One morning you wake up and turn around the points of the compass, messmates laughing. You know it so sure, you know it's nature now so purely, you will not speak it. It isn't a Great Adventure, this isn't really a War, but a Place where eventually you'll be Dead, too. And the Kicker of all Kickers -- Dead or Alive, you're coming outta this one Dead. And when you know that, what do you do? You write long emails, and you know for sure -- it is just a matter of time.

Sorry

It starts with Sorry
And then they write an Opera

Where they Sorry Sorry Sorry
For at least an hour

Only this time when you hear it
You cry every time

And you forget how angry
You were when you heard the news

For June
2006

When I was the Moon

I dream I am the Moon. I am at once all these things: weightless, radiant, cool, serene. Looking fondly down at Earth, I also find I have a very busy schedule -- lowering and raising the Oceans around the World, ducking for the Cow to jump over me, influencing Lunatics and Lovers, spicing up the lives of Crustaceans, Children, Owls and Wolves...but please, do not "Shoot at the Moon". Howl all you like, but no more "Shooting the Moon"!

The Yellow Toy Pistol

8 years ago, a fat little girl rides down the block on a pink bicycle. In one hand she holds a yellow toy pistol. Daddy is nearby, all slacks and sunglasses - hands in pockets, his gray hair swept back. The sun slants, she rides, the toy pistol wavering. But she never drops the toy pistol, and I find that fascinating.

Hazelnut VS French Vanilla

Day 1: I want Hazelnut flavored creamer for my coffee. I settle for French Vanilla.

Day 2: I want Hazelnut flavored creamer for my coffee. I settle for French Vanilla

Day 3: Ibid.

Day 4: Ibid.

Day 5: Ibid.

Day 6: Getting coffee, I become irrationally angry. I say to myself, privately, in white hot emotional heat, "Why do I settle for French Vanilla? Why?"

Day 7: I try Hazelnut creamer in my coffee. It is then I discover all along I have not been drinking French Vanilla. I HAVE BEEN DRINKING HAZELNUT.

Going to Sleep

I was trying to go to sleep a few nights ago, and so I started thinking about all the horrible things that have happened to me. I wasn't reviewing the usual garden-variety horrible things that can happen at any time, the horrible things we forget about. I was picking particularly nasty memories, reviewing some uniquely awful situations that I had to go through to get here at this place in time. Naturally, after doing this for awhile, I was quite anxious and felt like I couldn't sleep. I felt like something was wrong -- like I had forgotten a crucial detail that I shouldn't have forgotten. Gradually, I became convinced this forgotten detail would unravel the significance of my entire life. It was terrible. Then, switching gears, I realized a man was in the other room with a knife, and he was going to kill me. And then I fell asleep.

Points on How to be a True Gentleman

Category: Me

1. Always be gentle, polite, and speak kindly and nicely at all times
2. Never throw things
3. Moderate nasty habits
4. Think, "I am attractive."
5. Remember to inculcate a feeling of modesty, and diligence
6. Never kick animals, or small children, especially at parks and in nature preserves
7. Use spittoons if you chew, or a handkerchief if you use snuff
8. Avoid any kind of low drink such as Vermouth, Gin that is sold in plastic containers, and soforth
9. Attend a Church occasionally
10. Do well, and fear not

How I Ruined My Life

You buy bike racks for the roof of your car, and you swear you'll never do anything incredibly stupid with them. You watch for trees, low hanging eves, and other not so obvious dangers. You are, after all, a responsible adult who can handle these things. You'll never make the giant mistake of forgetting bikes are on the racks while driving into the garage. This will never happen. Then like a demented criminal fool who ruined the whole world, you ram your precious bikes into the roof of the house while parking in the garage. The world changes at that moment. Stepping from the vehicle, you feel like you have killed someone. There, look at that. You idiot. Meandering fool. Did the neighbors see? Oh keeeerist look at that! Why? You fall on the driveway and look up at the birdies. In one go I have killed my car, my house, the bikes, and bicycle racks.

Life's a Bitch That Way

They find me guilty. The judge sentences me to, like, 400 years of prison...I dunno, 8 life sentences. When he does that, him looking at me with his fuck grey eyes, with his stringy fuck hair combed over his bulging sweaty head, I stick the tip of a pencil into the palm of my hand. I dig a nice hole there while he talks at me, at the nature of my crime, the heinous nature of my acts. The pencil was just recently sharpened, so it goes in deep. I ain't innocent, BTW -- I just didn't think I'd get caught. If you decide to be good, or you decide to be bad, life's a bitch that way.

Test Story A

He decided to write a story with the letter "A" in it.

6.2.98

we know we can't take it with us
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.
.
we aim to drag it out for as long as possible

to keep life lovely

to keep
life lovely

i terrorize
myself

Viva La Volvo

Clown Country

He picked up the telephone receiver, and it squirted water into his ear. He wrote a note to himself with a pen, and it squirted water in his eye. He opened the door of the hotel room, and the door squirted water all over his crotch. His keys, when opening the door to the car, squirted water up his nose. After that, when he tried to start the car, the engine moved rhythmically sounding like a large horny duck, Quaaack...quaaack....quaaack...QUACK...QUACK... --- he knew he had to get out of Clown Country. Now.

Speaking of That

Speaking of that....I know you are a Vampire and you've been trying to kill me. Damn you. All the mirrors have been stolen from my house, and that proves it. Even my silverware. Two fingers like that don't make a cross, you aren't fooling anybody. Besides, I am a Buddhist. The point that you aren't bothered by garlic just means you're an Italian Vampire. No -- back off -- seriously. I see your red eyes and your teeth and your half-hidden bloodlust. The way you jumped over the fucking couch, as if you had springs in your heels, is another indication of your true identity -- a blasphemy, hated by the sight of God, wanderer in the Outer Darkness, etc. Ouch! And what long nails you have -- all the better to clutch me with. Who has Holy Water hanging around the house? Why oh why do I have Holy Water? And where did that sharp wooden stake and mallet come from? You can writhe by you can't get away from me. I'VE KNOWN YOU ARE A VAMPIRE FOR AT LEAST A WEEK!!

Sleepy

I'm sleepy, so I decide to go outside and get the mail. Half way to the mailbox, I collapse on the sidewalk and fall asleep. I lay there sleeping for about 5 hours. When I wake up, man! Is one side of my face sunburned!

In My Office I Have a Small Window

In my office I have a small window, and through it, I can see the ocean. It is not a very wide window, but it is extremely long -- from floor to ceiling. Besides the ocean, I can see part of a white beach, glinting with cars parked by a lagoon. Between my view of the lagoon, beach, and ocean, there is a large freeway. I certainly should go visit the beach and dip my feet in the ocean that I look at all day long. But I never do. And because I look often, and I think about going there, and I don't go -- it becomes more likely I never will. All of us make these kinds of needless concessions throughout our lives. The more used you are to the process of denial, the duller you become. If I find myself quite unexpectedly at the beach tomorrow -- I shall be very very happy.

Going Out the Window

He wanted to call Linda saying it was over, that they shouldn't see each other anymore, but he knew she wouldn't pick up. So he left a message on her answering machine that was so complicated and self contradicting, it made no sense, really, whatsoever.

He kept sitting by the open window after he had hung up. He kept sitting by the open window, after leaving such a stupid idiotic message, a message that made him look badly -- a confused and selfish person full of himself. He hated feeling that he was a confused and selfish person full of himself.

The light was fading. For some reason, he took the cap off a blue ballpoint pen. The cap was smooth and pointed like a bullet. He balanced it on the ledge of the open window. He looked at the bullet shaped cap, balancing on the ledge of the open window. It trembled slightly when a gust of wind blew in the room. Soon it would be blown away. But he would save it from going out the window.

He watched, and right when the cap was going to be blown away, and he would save the cap, a roommate came in the room. Startled, he knocked the cap off the ledge, into the night. Then he realized he had fucked up his relationship with Linda, to try and keep a bullet shaped plastic pen cap from falling out the window.

a poem to my father

when i was in my 20s i wrote poems
looking into our relationship

then i gave up
i thrust through life

now i am aware that every
complicated construct i create

is another snare
another sickening trap

but for you i cannot
resist it

Some Fortunes You Won't be Getting from a Fortune Cookie

All of your childhood memories are completely fabricated.

Haven’t you done it by now, fucker?

You have no lucky number, so get over it.

The harmless pranks of your youth will become the bane of your old age.

Glorious mediocrity will be your ultimate refuge.

Mistaken. About. Everything.

It would be advisable to not answer the phone for four months.

Confucius say, "Piss-off, flathead!"

God hates you.

The Lights Go Out

The lights go out. We go outside, sit on the concrete patio, and eat melting ice cream. You ask, what if the power never came back on? What would that be like? We wouldn't have the news to criticize, we'd go to bed earlier, I say. Ice would be an expensive commodity, and everyone would get portable generators, you respond. The world would become little villages again, I think out loud. Superstition and the burning of witches, you say. Well, that could be, if for instance, for some reason, electrons no longer flow through the wires, I say. We look at the night sky in silence. Little superstitious villages -- and we'd have to do all our fucking laundry by hand, I realize. You exclaim, Shit! No! Like the show where they made that family live like Victorians! We sit and we wait. The power stays out. When the ice cream is inedible soup and my butt falls asleep, you grab a flashlight, and we visit the neighbors. We play a board game with them for several hours, by candlelight. We don't think about the future.

he wrote poems

he wrote poems that had nowhere to go
he didn't know they had nowhere to go
that was a good thing at the time

later he traveled and understood what he had done
he came back and looked at his poems
and he burned them but kept just 1

Afraid

This morning, God told me quite clearly I was going to die this afternoon. Being a priest, I suppose in retrospect I should not have been surprised that God would be telling me things quite clearly. But being a priest, I was secretly a bit ambivalent about whether God really existed. But when God spoke, I was surprised enough to yell out and fall down, hitting my head, when I heard the voice of God.

When God speaks to you, it is not pleasant, it comes through so strong. Your whole body becomes stiff as a board, as if you are paralyzed. It reminded me of an epileptic seizure. After God was done telling me I was going to die this afternoon, I got a pack of ice, and applied it to my head. Then I crawled across the floor and I called my brother.

"Joe -- its me!", I said, trying not to sound panicked.

"Oh, hi Bill.", said Joe, sounding sleepy.

"Joe -- I gotta tell you something."

"What?" said Joe, sounding annoyed.

"I just heard from God. Directly from God! It was terrible!"

"Oh?" said Joe, sounding more annoyed. Like he was going to hang up. But I had to go on.

"Joe - he said...God said --", but I couldn't go on because my fucking asshole of a brother had hung up.

That fucking asshole, here I am getting messages directly from God about me dying and my own goddamn brother won't even listen to me before he decides if he believes in me or not. Or believes in God or not. What an asshole. I hate him! I hate him!! Joe, not God, God. Are you really sure I am going to die this afternoon?

I wait, on my knees by the phone, but God doesn't say anything.

I think about my schedule, and wonder how I can avoid dying. What would kill me? Crossing the street to drop in on Sister Margaret's 5th grade class at 11 PM when they are to be discussing catechism? Having lunch with that tiresome group of ladies who are part of the boosting committee? Mass at 3PM for the departed Mr. Chiantilini?
I decide to try and talk to my lousy asshole of a brother one last time, before I could go out and die, according to God.

"Joe!"

"Aw -- what do you want?", says Joe. "I've got a hangover."

"God said I'm going to die this afternoon."

Joe doesn't answer for about 15 seconds. "Well..." he drawls, "...can I have your golf clubs?"

I hang up on him. Insolent bastard. How I hate him. All sorts of memories and instances from our childhood flood back into my head. Like the time I strapped him to a wagon and pushed him down a hill, or the time he poured beads in my ear when I was sleeping, and we had to go to the doctor to get them out. That fucker.

I wash my hands and appreciate the large bruise throbbing on my forehead in the bathroom mirror. To hell with it. If I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. I was a bit bored with the priest thing. Or guilty too, I walk down the stairs or the rectory, and into the strong sunlight. As I squint, getting used to the brightness of the day, everything is right in the world.

Interestingly, the last thing I think about is not about Jesus, or God, or my asshole brother -- but of Janice, from an affair I had three years ago. How she moved to get away from me. Janice, who now lives in Lower Manhattan, in New York, NY. I imagine she got on just fine.

This is the only great regret in my life. How I ruined her life. I cross the street, smelling her perfume, and that is when Janice runs me over with a Ford Escort, with a screaming baby in the passenger seat.

As I bleed to death in the street, I remember what I said to her when she asked.

"No." I said. Because I was afraid. I was afraid.

Hell

I learn things the hard way. That is why I am in Hell, chained to a fiery rock for the rest of the foreseeable future. The suffering is intolerable, how can I describe it. Surrounded by demons, with their objects of torture, I pray I am dreaming.

I wake up. Yes, thank God, I was dreaming. The sheets are creamy and comfortable. I have expensive pajamas. I live in a large house.

And as I wake up more, I realize; I hate my job, I hate my boss, I hate my mother, I hate my children, they hate me. I hate my house, I hate these sheets, and turning, I see I hate you. And waking up more I realize I am in Hell.

Some Unexpected Hypochondriacal Tendencies

I saw it in the news a few days back, and then after reading about it, I was worried about getting Morgellons Disease -- particularly last night for several hours. And I was worried about contracting it again, today, for a few hours. Then naturally, the more I thought about it, the sooner I'd itch somewhere, and the less I though about it, the more I was thinking about other things. This is peculiar for me, because I do not normally have hypochondriacal tendencies. Hypochondriacal tendencies. Say that five times fast. But I have been around hypochondriacs, even lately. I wonder if hypochondria is as catching as Morgellons Disease?

Meanest Customer Support Person Ever, Ebay

Wow! I just got off the phone with the meanest customer support rep I have ever talked to. She was so self righteous and brisk -- making it amply clear how ignorant I was and how in control she and EBay are. She spoke loudly and precisely, without a hint of sympathy -- as if I was offending her by merely calling about my problem. You see, a few weeks ago I was suspended from EBay. Apparently this happens to many people for a wide variety of reasons having nothing to do with violating any rules. So I followed all their directions about getting reinstated, sending billing statements, my ID, email account information...and still I am suspended! And EBay keeps asking me for more information. They won't even tell me what I am suspected of -- other than saying "...(we)determined that you were suspended under the "Abusing eBay" section of the eBay User Agreement." So I decided to call and see if I could clear it up, or at least find out what I am specifically suspected of. The representative I talked to coldly and unapologetically instructed me to continue with the faceless & endless email appeal from the security department. In so many words, I was wrong to expect anything more from EBay. Moreover, I had wasted her time. What a nightmare!

Be Your Own Soda Bartender - Spropper

Add to the standard cup of ice: 70% Dr. Pepper, 20% Fanta (Orange Soda), and 10% Sprite. Mmmm! Spropper!

I better get my ass in gear

I have only a few days to pack my office, to pack by far the messiest office in the whole building, so naturally I get down to it and I procrastinate. People come by and see I have not even tried to pack. I cut out little paper snow flakes, I read the news, I doodle, make useless phone calls, gossip with people in the hallway, remember and forget to have a cup of coffee. When I feel the time slipping away, I feel a stab of concern that I should be packing -- but then I amuse myself by counting every yellow car that goes by on the freeway, I wonder what it would be like to live in Peru, and how the new office will feel after we are done moving. Shit, I better get my ass in gear. No? I have all the time in the world. What did I want? Oh yeah, coffee.

I wished I could have said something encouraging to you

I wished I could have said something encouraging to you, in your time of depression, but you asked me how I felt and to tell you the truth and nothing but the truth, so I told you I hated you, that you are are disgusting horrible person, and you were getting what you deserved. I told you this misfortune was long in coming, and you had everything to do with it. I also said you were lower than dirt, a scum sucking parasite in life, and you should just go off and die. You took what I said in stride, and even agreed with most of my characterizations. Then, when I looked away for one goddamn second, you grabbed me in a headlock and bit off part of my ear. "I told you what you wanted to hear, asshole!" I screamed, and I bled and tried to punch you in the kidneys. "I know!!" you yelled, as we fell through the Cafe's plate glass window.

The May Day Eulogy for Fritz Christopher, Cat

Happy May Day! Sadly, one of our favorite cats died yesterday of a rare wasting disease called FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitis. He had been sick for about 2 months -- losing weight, sleeping longer than usual, and generally looking poorly. The first round of tests were both hideously expensive and also inconclusive -- but a month later, the second round of tests belatedly confirmed that he had FIP, which is 99.99% fatal. We kept him comfortable, we told him it was okay for him to go, and he died in the afternoon at home, on his favorite couch. For his eulogy, I can say he was loyal, clean, affectionate, never begging for food or being a nuisance in any way, and he especially loved his home. He was a jumper, he enjoyed walking on the banister, and he liked to nap in a patch of sunshine on the stairs. His eyes were large and luminous, the most expressive and intelligent eyes -- full of love. He was so happy while he was here with us -- a castoff cat from the pound. We will miss him dearly.

Kid Doppler

When I was a little kid, sometimes I liked to make the sound of a police or ambulance siren far away, then getting so close it was like, parked in one of my eardrums. Eeeee-ooooo eeee-ooooo EEEEE-OOOOOOO eeeeee-ooooooooo EEEEEE-ooooooo EEEEE-OOOOOO EEEEEE-OOOOOOO EEEEE-OOOOO EEEE-OOOO EEE-OOO! EEE-OOO! EE-OO!! EE-OO!!! EE-OO!!!! That was fun -- it was like the car was far away and it got progressively closer, I definitely could simulate the Doppler effect. You should try it. Then if you can do the basic siren Doppler sound effect of a vehicle parking in your eardrum, try imitating the sound of a freight train passing by you at 75 mph one inch from your nose. O gee -- what would that sound like?

Dream Poetry vs The Orange & White Cat

I wrote some fabulous poems in my dreams, just before I woke up. Fabulous. The poems were cryptic -- but interesting, short, and in a unusually spare style I have never used before. I can recall where the words were on the page, but not the words themselves. In the dream I was pleased the way they were working out. Then I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was an orange & white cat coming at me over the covers. The cat was running at about 45 mph, and he passed my head, strafing me with his tail. I heard him continue out of the bedroom, and he pounded down the hallway. Victory was his.

King Philip III of Spain

Did you know that today, in 1578, Philip III was born? He was king of Spain and Portugal from 1598 to 1621. Many historians don't know this, but Philip III prided himself for his ability to balance tables on his chin, and pry bottle caps off with his teeth. He also was fond of a game called "Baacebal", attributed by the renown baseball historian Walt Swisserson as being one of the precursors of American baseball. Because of this, if Philip III were alive today, he'd be playing shortstop. But very few people know this. So All Hail King Philip III!

Watching a Glove Play on the Freeway

Diving to work this morning, I see glove playing on the freeway. It dances around the lanes quite happily, zigging and zagging, wiggling it's fingers to the speeding vehicles. It looks like it is having a fine time out there. Then a semi runs smack over it at 70 MPH, flinging the glove high into the air. But the glove appears undeterred by this. As I watch it soar towards the sun flapping and waving at us, I nearly drive off the road. I make my exit thinking, "You lucky, happy glove!"

What I have Learned about Meetings

1. Meetings perpetuate meetings. This is because they have a life and culture of their own -- separate from the consideration as to whether they are effective or not. Secretly at the heart of it, meetings are a form of procrastination.
2. Thus, most meetings are a waste of time, because most meetings are not absolutely necessary.
3. Leading to the fact that the longer the meeting is, the bigger waste of time it is.
4. This is because (as mentioned before) meetings are inefficient, compounded with the fact that most people cannot speak and think constructively at the same time.
5. Because of this, you should reduce meetings, because they create contempt between people, and also result in confusion.
6. To force people to be concise, you should automatically reduce meeting times by 50%.
7. You should also forbid meetings that last more than two hours.
8. You should also try to have as few repeating meetings as possible.

Hello. Goodbye.

He thinks of a galaxy of funny and intriguing anecdotes while he is asleep, but he doesn't remember them when he wakes up. So today he writes down some of the lies he has told. I never cheat at Monopoly. I studied hard for the test. My car broke down. I had to stay home from work because my kid was sick. Who? What? I'm sorry I said that. I understand. Don't worry, it will be alright. Traffic was terrible. No, I am not angry. How? Ha ha ha ha, that was the funniest story I've ever heard! When? Where? I forgot. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes. No. I did. I didn't. That is not my bag. I love you. I don't love you. This is the best wine I have ever tasted. That was great food. It was a wonderful hotel. We had a good time. We had a terrible time. I'm okay. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. It was a surprise. I never saw it coming. She's gone. It's over. I'm not a liar. You are a liar. That is a lie. I never lied about that. Hello. Goodbye.