Merry Christmas!

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, 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, 2007 was the year everyone got a crate of Spam.

Remember Me?

Hi there. Remember me? We met a few weeks ago at a bar when we both were getting drunk. I can't remember the name of the bar, but it was the one with the huge patio with colored electric lights. I pretended to smoke, because you'd go out to the patio and light up ever 20 minutes, even though it was about 25 degrees & freezing ass cold. One time I loaned you my jacket, you looked cute in it with the sleeves hanging down 5 sizes too big. I noticed your hair was light, but not blond, and your eyes were hazel with fine gold flecks. You also had a cut on your chin, you said a motorist opened his car door when you were riding your bike and you crashed into it. The guy didn't even check to see if you were okay, he drove away and people stared at you laying in the street. You seemed to like me because I didn't try to come on too strong or say the typical guy things you hear all the time, but you said I shouldn't be too interested, because you have a boyfriend. But later I overheard you saying your boyfriend is an asshole and you think he's sleeping with his ex-wife. I want to say I'm nice on the outside, and if you get to know me better, you'll find I'm nice all the way down to some dark unpleasant secrets. And if you get to know me to that point, my behavior could do a subtitle change. But I think everyone is like this, to be honest. I think you are experienced enough to know that. I am not looking for someone experienced enough to know that we all have dirty secrets, deep down. But I think it is unavoidable.

Scrapping the Universe

In Heaven, there are mixed reactions to the proposal of shutting Creation, the "Universe", down. Hell, on the other hand, is delighted. Satan and his band of merry rebels think they will be getting all the scrap if external phenomenon is retooled or unmade, just like last time, which happened so long ago you couldn't quite imagine it...and it really isn't any of your business. Hell goes through quite a growth spurt each time interdependencies are all unmade. There is a sort of silent agreement between Heaven and Hell, regarding the size of Hell. Hell shouldn't be too big, and certainly not too small. And the requirements for a bigger Hell goes with the creation of a new universe as two peas in a pod. God isn't slimming things down, you see. He's trying to get it right after many excruciating attempts. He almost has it down, the Genesis thing. Now Heaven will convene for about 45 million years and talk it through. That is equivalent to about 2 weeks our time.

Train and Teredactyl

A few days before Christmas, little curly haired Julian, who is almost 3, mugged Santa. But it didn’t start out that way. Paul and Molly took Julian to the Mall, stood in line so Julian could sit on Santas lap. For small children this can be a harrowing, horrifying experience -- it usually ends up being good -- but sometimes the wheels come off and a small child has a complete mental breakdown. When his time came, with some trepidation, small Julian looked at the funny guy with the beard in red. And right there and then, Julian made the blessed & magnificent mental connection between TOYS and SANTA. "TRAIN!" exclaimed Julian. "TRAAAAIN!!" He yelled again, almost jumping up and down. All was well. Santa acquiesced, and so Julian left the interview very satisfied. But then a bit later in the toy store, Julian saw the best rubber teredactyl in the entire universe. On the way out of the Mall, passing near where Santa was set up, Julian launched into action. When his parents were within striking distance, he broke from his Mom and Dad, running as fast has he could for the fat guy in red. He barreled to the front of the line between kids and parents, jumped onto Santa's lap, screaming, "No TRAIN! NO TRAIN!!! Ter-DACTL!!! TER DACTL!!!!" So this Christmas, I do believe Julian got a Train and a Teredactyl. Never get between a 3 year old's Christmas gift idea and Santa!

Poem - winter/ snow

winter
snow

i stand
outside

i listen
to the

crackling
trees

their limbs
covered

in a fine
layer of ice

CM Evans - 4 Poems Live Over @ Opium Magazine

Four of my poems are live over at Opium Magazine. Opium is online, and also goes out to print. Issue number 5 is the latest off line offering, featuring writing, poetry, illustrations and more. David Barringer designed the cover & Todd Zuniga edits it, along with an army of tireless lit volunteers. Please do pick up a copy.

Poem - nevermind

carrying an
over under
shotgun
cold to the touch

see
moisture beads
on the steel
as i look around

i thought
i was real but
there is nothing
in this moment
but here and this rain

falling soft rain
in a wide field
of just stubble
rising gently that way

soon i
nevermind
shift the gun
walk on past a fence
walk on


From POETRY from the CITY of BRASS
by CM CHICAGO

Christy's Mom

When you were an infant, your mother decided she had to leave. It could have been even in mid-sentence, when she was talking to your father. She literally walked out of the house one day, with the clothes she happened to be wearing -- not a scrap of luggage, not even a toothbrush or a comb. She never came back. You told me your father was stoic about your mom going, he hardly ever talked about it. If you ever asked him about your mother, he said he wasn't sure why she left or where she was. At first you asked because your dad kept all of your mothers things, he never cleaned or cleared them away. It was like someone was on vacation, or away on business and they'd be coming back any day now. As you grew up, you saw over time how her perfume bottles and erring holders, coils of necklaces, small crystals on her side of the bureau got old and dusty. The jewelery tarnished. When you dad wasn't around, you looked at her dresses, and other clothes still in plastic dry-cleaning bags hung in the closet, with her shoes. Over time the articles of clothing got dead, and deader, which is impossible for inanimate things, but it was still true. Later, when you were 25 and had a little girl of your own and dropped out of college, your sister said mother was married again. Your mom was living in a big expensive house in Burlingame. One afternoon you drove to the house, and spied on her when she parked on the driveway. You watched her walk into the house. She wasn't smiling, she seemed very serious with frown lines on her cheeks, cold. You didn't feel like meeting mother after you saw her face, so you drove away. You never hated her, either, until then.

Me and Bobby

One evening out riding, I clipped a side-mirror on an expensive sedan. When I crashed, I bent the front wheel of my bicycle and smashed down on my shoulder, ribs, and hip. I remember laying for a few seconds in the street, a truck narrowly missing me. I jogged away, dragging the bicycle. I was more afraid at being caught by the angry owner, than if I was seriously hurt. Eventually I was home where I found one of my roommates, Bobby, cooking a late dinner. I examined the bicycle in the kitchen while he cooked a big meal. It was fucked. My ribs hurt. My roommate was happy & ate and there was nothing to do. I had to do something, anything to not be alone like this. I decided to walk to a little cafe, but when I sat down and had coffee, the cafe was closing. I picked up my cup and put it into a grey overflowing plastic bin on the way out. Alone again, I walked back to the small flat. My other roommates had come home. Silent disapproval was in the air. I had left the broken bike in the kitchen and Bobby, who hated the other roommates, was blitheringly drunk. I watched Bobby play a guitar, drink more beer, and howl songs about love, while the other set of roommates watched television in the back of the flat.

Ten Ways to Cheat Playing Monopoly

10. Roll for other people. If they aren't attentive, under or over count the roll for your benefit

9. If you're playing with kids who can't count money quickly, short change them

8. Tell people Boardwalk and Park Place aren't worth buying

7. Swap out the game dice for fixed dice for important rolls

6. Ply your opponents with alcohol, help them make the right decisions

5. Throw away, or hide the game rules, and make up rules beneficial for yourself, when needed. For example: establish an informal rule that all monetary penalties from Community Chest and Chance not payed out directly to a player, get put into Free Parking.

4. With #5 in place, if you take a break and nobody is looking, skim money off of Free Parking

3. Hide Monopoly money from another game set all over your person for those must needed purchases -- do this also with an assortment of good Community Chest and Chance cards hidden to replace any bad ones you get

2. Be the Banker

1. If you are going to lose the game, right before you are bankrupt, kick the whole board over, Say, "Oops!"

Fucking the Man

My parents wanted me to learn about being responsible, and learn the value of positive work ethics, so that summer they were done with my ways and insisted that I work at a Real Job in the Real World. It was important that I get a dose of reality, rather than spending 6 weeks out of the summer being a camp counselor at a boy's summer camp far away in Leggit, California. So that summer I got a job packing in a mail order warehouse. The job was for a small catalog company. I was a good packer, the pay was okay -- far more than I earned working at the summer camp, and I broke down old cardboard boxes with my boots by kicking the boxes so hard they exploded. My co-workers were, for the most part, friendly, affable kids. They were also dishonest, lazy, and contemptible of the hard work they had us doing, day in and day out.

I discovered this was the only way to beat the system that we were collectively up against. What mattered more, above honesty and positive ethics, was the appearance that you were fully engaged with something and always willing to do any task. And while you did any work, you always should be on the lookout to take a secret break, have a beer, take a smoke, go somewhere you were not supposed to be, or amuse yourself in innumerable ways bored employees amuse themselves to run out the punch-clock. Occasionally, if it was safe, you could pilfer unimportant things that wouldn't be missed. It was important not to be fired, it was important to get paid for any kind of overtime, it was essential not to give in to the man. It was a mark of distinction to have a contempt for the Boss, a sly knowing contempt, to never be caught with the accusation or perception of having a "bad attitude". Being found contemptuous was not playing the game with the correct mindset. This showed a certain lack of skill.

I must admit, through all of this I learned quite a bit about the Real World, working my Real Job. I also understood what we were up against, I sympathized with the other packers. I was also surprised the one afternoon when Rick was fired, Rick being about 25 and the King of the warehouse. He was at the top of the packing hierarchy because, for starters, Rick was the only person qualified & mature enough to drive the electric fork-lift and pull palettes down from the huge shelves. We all understood how impressive and dangerous this skill was. I was surprised, because Rick was the best of all of us at Fucking the Man. The managers never seemed to catch on when Rick Fucked the Man. But I guess one day he pushed it a bit too far, but I am not sure how. As the King, it wasn't for Rick to screw up, he had it set up too good to throw it all away.

Discharged, I remember him walking out with a placid expression, escorted by the top manager. Though the manager was furious, Rick's face was calm, even blank, as if he was looking at a serene scene a thousand miles away. His final check in hand, he got into his spit shined red Trans-Am, the kind of a Trans-Am that was all souped up & cherry, meticulously taken care of with a bit of faded paint. As we kept working, he drove out of the parking lot.

Here is another short story.

Here is another short story. But I will call it a vignette, because it is hard and true, even though it ridicules. Because in the last moments of your life, what will you be thinking? For instance, I am sitting on the edge of this hard cold bed, minutes to dawn, with part of a Brady Bunch rerun stuck in my skull. My mind has been co-opted. It is the episode where one of the Brady boys has his voice changing, so when they sing the song he makes a funny sound when they get to "...it's time for a change." The scene was supposed to be ironic and cute and funny, but it is corny now and stupid. Now it is inane to be stuck with this, I wanted to have a dignified death, a kind of a martyrs death with the right thoughts, not puerile disturbed mental flotsam. The cute stupid singing part of the episode is lodged firmly in my minds eye, an idiotic mantra. The mantra reveals my vanity for a "heroic end" -- not just the result of a bunch of commonplace, run-of-the-mill series of trivialities.

Now I see it is dawn and I hear the squad turning out in the yard with their rifles. They are pissed off that they couldn't sleep in, some of them are hung over. One blows his nose repeatedly, loudly without a handkerchief. I hear them talking: Why can't the fucking officer just shoot me in the head with a pistol? Can't we get this over with as quickly as possible? Then when they settle down, because Pleše arrived, a kid shows up with a slip of paper. Is it a reprieve? And for a second I am free of the stupid skit. But then when Pleše sends the kid away and he orders the men to unsling their rifles, but one last overriding question interrupts all other thoughts in my head. And I don't care anymore about the whole thing, just get the answer now as the cell door opens. One last question must be answered. I look at a drunk cold frowsy soldier with a cow-lick, his belt loose, cigarette stuffed in between his lips. What the hell was that Brady kids name? Peter Brady. A smirking, sniggling Peter Brady. Time to put the pen down. Goodbye.

beware of dog

in alleys
the sign it says
BEWARE OF DOG
but most times
there is no dog
dog long long gone

but every once
and awhile
admiring in solitude
the yellow trees
when i'd want no dog

then there is a dog
snarling bouncing
barking
tail waging
with no BEWARE sign at all

Happily Ever After - Award Winning Film Short

Super news! I just found out two friends of mine (Gary Cohen from Adobe, San Diego and Lidia Sheinen from St. Petersburg, Russia) just got first place in the experimental film category at the Rhode Island International Film Festival for their film short "Happily Ever After". It was their first attempt at film. Here is a link to an interview of Gary and Lidia, at the film festival.

Click on the "Play in Popup" link under "Lidia Sheinin and Gary Cohen - Happily Ever After [29:00m]" link to hear the interview -- and here is a tip -- at about 20 minutes into the interview you get to hear who created the logo for Scared Mouse Productions.

Click here to see the award winning short they made. Here is their blog.

Book Read - Treasure Island

I just finished Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island". It took me about 3 days, I took my time. I never managed to read the story cover-to-cover before, but I always liked the map*, plus other assorted illustrations. With memorable characters & action, and many clever twists in the plot, Stevenson penned a first rate adventure story, while also defining a whole genre of how Piracy and Pirates are portrayed with this small book. For a start, the majority of historical pirates didn't bury treasure -- mercantile in nature, most pirates would have found that plainly insane. Crews wanted their spoils as soon as possible, shared out amongst the crew. Pirates didn't talk the way Stevenson's pirates talked, or use the expressions they use so vividly in the book. The Jolly Roger, parrots, maps with "X marks the spot", and one legged Long John Silvers were props from Stevenson's own fertile literary imagination. An interesting note is the person & personality of Long John Silver is modeled after a friend of Stevenson's, William Henley, writer and editor. The only thing that tripped me up (or made me read more carefully) is the language usage can be arcane -- but the lexicon has not shifted as far as, say Shakespeare. For the influence this book has had on our images of swash buckling men-of-fortune, a heroic mythic mien still very much with us, it is a worthy and enjoyable read. To think this tale all started out with a simple hand drawn watercolored map -- drawn on a rainy afternoon by Stevenson's stepson Lloyd Osbourne, plainly marked with "Skeleton Island" and "Spyglass Hill".

* Note, there are many versions of this famous map. Most of lesser detail or quality. This is the best example I have been able to locate.

Poem - nancy you shot

nancy you shot
the .22 from the porch
the light was right
we could see sunshine
on the bullet
as it flew from the barrel
to the fence-post 60 yards away
like an electric bee
or the fastest fly that ever was
autumn afternoon
time for wine and a cigarette
it is funny the things you remember
we don't know what we forget

Rejected by the New Yorker

Three of my poems were rejected by the New Yorker. Yay! I'm waiting to hear back from Poetry Magazine, I have four poems off to them. Getting a poem published in either, for me, would be like a squirrel from my backyard getting a gold in weightlifting at the next Olympics.

Trying to Locate a Scary Book, Recognize this Symbol?

This has been driving me nuts. See the above symbol? It comes from a book I read back in elementary school, juvenile fiction. I can't remember the name of the book! Hopefully somebody can tell me the name or author of the book if I describe the story. Main characters are an older brother, younger sister. I think they are pre-teenagers, but just barely. Brother gets a job mowing the small town cemetery's grass. Sister tags along, because the graveyard is cool and creepy. The brother makes wisecracks about the various people buried there and makes up a series of satirical rhymes using names on tombstones. Then we are introduced to a mystery -- there is a mausoleum, or large gravestone with an angel on the top of it. The angle points towards a part, or corner of the graveyard, where a certain plot is. This plot is where a family is buried, reputed to be witches. The person who put up the angle blamed this family for the untimely death of their son. The kids examine the cursed plot tombstones, but there is not much of interest. Then, before Halloween, the kids notice that someone has drawn a symbol on one of the gravestones. In red paint, I think. This (above) is the symbol. Then some stuff happens, the kids have their eye on the last living member of the "witchy" family -- an old woman who they are naturally very afraid of. The girl ends up getting kidnapped by the old woman, who turns out to be a witch. The old lady tries to bargain the girl's soul away to a demon the witch invokes, but instead the demon tricks her and turns the old witch into a Douglass Fir. Ring any bells? Book had some illustrations in black ink.

every time you think back

for my father

now i am away from there

separated by not only distance

but time

i write about this and that

and i see that even my worst

wasn't that bad

i find i miss people

not the places

and also by remembering

i am forgetting

it is some kind of rule

every time you think back

a part of the past fades away

slowly slowly fades away

oh it isn't so bad

this melting away of facts

of details or faces

otherwise it would be

like having to hold

a red hot iron in your hand forever

yes all things subside

they must settle

and be gone

A Ride for the Abbot

You were a fraud monk. The abbot of Sera Mei monastery knew this, but he ordained a few young men who were studying with you. The abbot never outwardly criticized you for being a phony, for having no faith, but later after the ordinations he wouldn't come into your house. He stood by the curb, outside on the sidewalk in the cold San Jose night. After the ordination you giggled, sitting in your snug little house. You giggled and giggled at how successful things were going. You laughed because you had asked the abbot to come in out of the cold and the abbot had refused. I think you were the only person there who truly understood what that meant, the abbot not coming in to your house. The abbot waited and waited for his ride while you didn't give a goddamn, because he wouldn't come in. June and I asked the abbot if he was okay. He stood there for about 40 minutes while I tried the phone number to the place he was staying, it was wrong. June and I drove him home. When we got to the place, he invited us in. We sat in the living room and then he started to laugh. We drank tea and he asked us many questions and told us his stories. We got the correct phone number for the house he was staying at. When I called to see how the abbot was few weeks later it was hard to hear the person on the other end of the line, and besides they couldn't understand english that well and said I must have the wrong number.