Sunday, September 30, 2007

bent and twisted
the mountain, it kissed us

I never got around to having the holes in my shoes patched up, and it was raining. Puddles, saturated soil that brought on pools with every step, socks wicking up moisture, and I had to stamp out my cigarettes with my boot heels. We listened to Bob Dylan somewhere in Pennsylvania.

We regrouped at a gas station in Hagerstown, and the local girls plied DanLos with pasteurized tobacco. "Awsome," he said. "I could use a new addiction."

It didn't look much farther on the map. Fuck, straight west to the Ohio River. Off the Interstate and the fog set in quick. Clogged the state's veins. Soon the side roads shrunk and atrophied and died and collapsed in on themselves.

Jackson's the driver, and when she lit a cigarette, so did I. Good thing her eyes are bigger than the road. It's sinister. Laid out above America, and the smoke tumbles out the window. There's a literature anthology in the back seat, but it's dark, so I just run my fingers over the rice paper pages.

The road's practically impassable. Unsafe at any speed. Every song that comes out sounds like a prayer, or engine motion. Take me to the river! Wash me in the water! Maybe the government's tracking us by our cell phones. Gravity is stronger below the Mason/Dixon, and Dixon had nothing on us.

Jackson looks spring loaded, hair triggered, and the rest of the car is silent, save for the occasional ipod clicks. I was doubled over in sleep, knowing we're still hurtling around blind mountains, jerked awake constantly by sudden adrenaline movements. The river is still somewhere ahead.

We finally rolled into Grafton at 4 am, and there are lights at intersections, and a kid sitting outside a gas station open for business. We pull and and fall out of our cars, remembering the feeling of being objects at rest. The kid precedes us inside, and we blow in like the nor' Easterns we are. Soon there's gas station jerky, coffee, and sun glasses flying. Stirrers are up by the register.

"Hey, you ever taken route 50? I mean, all the way?"

"All the way from where?"

Hagerstown."

"What kind of fool you gotta be to take 50 all the way down here from Hagerstown to... where you all going?"

"Point Pleasant, West Virginia. For the Mothman Festival."


They tell me I'm walking through blood
and steel falling
and burning eyes
and dense thickets
and madness on at the center of town
and the Rock Show
and clovis
and pitch and blackness
and faces hovering in light
and river deposits
and coal
and revolution
and blueberry wine
and ghost tracks
and fame on the courthouse steps
and worlds I can't see

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

untitled

I was confined
between brick walls
suffocating and choking on
conservative views
smothered by
others' expectations of me
I was dying
I wanted to be free

there's a thick cloud of uncertainty hanging
over my head
and I'm lost
in between county borderlines
torn in different directions
constantly taking u-turns
familiar faces and places
are nothing more than strangers now
and I can't seem to find my place
in this new town
but I gotta roam around
and find my way somehow
I have to let go
to be free
to find me
to be me

untitled

my car's coasting along
these streets
going from one point in my life
to another
and it's nights like these
when i think of those
bittersweet memories
of you
scattered
like puzzle pieces
on a floor
trying to piece together
the good times
the bad times
what went wrong
only, there's one piece missing
and well,
we didn't quite fit
right together
you see,
you and i,
we were one winding road
leading no where
we drove for miles trying to find
some destination to call our own
only ending up at a
dead end
but now,
i'm gliding along
these roads all alone
yeah
some have detours
but i know where i'm going
and this time
there are no dead ends

Fake blood
And forgone conclusions
Collect in me
Like ex-lovers
Or parrots at clay licks
And if this means nothing to you
Start a collection

We are a tank full of guppies
Small and pretty

We are a bar
Smokey and jolly

We are a world of word
And people will know us
When we are dead

Mark
Your snoring kills swans

A reputation in a new community

The neighbors think we’re artists
The cable guy thinks we’re musicians
And the Baptists think were alkies

But what they don’t know
…what would really terrify them
… is that we’re poets

Poets lurk
Poets drink
Poets kidnap and shrink into dark corners
Or waterfalls
With college kids

Poets keep volcanoes in the art gallery
And forgo dining rooms for libraries
And never have any fucking food

Poets work weird day jobs
And only half admit to them

Poets snore
And keep other poets awake
So they write poetry
And endanger there day jobs

my skin has no romance in it
until the air particles or your fingers run along it
and that holy so big sunset
only moves you inside yr gut
with photons colliding in atmosphere and hittin eye grounded neurons

but i've seen too many poets and read too many poems
where the poetry is supposed to be in the frying pan
or dog hair or newly shined shoe or watever lonely
item of this world

what i want is to feel the prepositions and adjectives and verbs and nouns
mounting and entangling in the night
cuz you better believe that there's no feeling
in this whirling universe
until its felt

until then its just one word
kissing by itself

Monday, September 24, 2007

im not kidding at all

I need the fucking internet
I really fucking need it
I need the world at my fingertips
Even if the world is just porno and friendster
Its a fucking SUPER-HIGHWAY
An information super highway
A morphine modern super highway
AND I FUCKING NEED IT
Right now

the scholars called

Call the madmen
And the mapmakers
And ask them if I still need to dance for my money

Ask them if I still need
Be drunk to write poetry

And when they refuse to respond
Or screen your calls

Tell the scholars
I fucking told them so

going back

I don’t fear the china-town bus
Or the eyes of my peers
I don’t fear the cold and lonely night
Or the men who lurk there
To hurt me
again

But I’m scared to death to call you
And tell you I’m in town
‘cause I don’t think you’d care
Anyhow

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I've killed a few swans in my days

Well I didn't mean to
they were crossing the road
and I had to be somewhere
somewhere quick
and you don't even realize you've hit
them till the white feathers are floating
all around in the car and one creeps by
your lips and you almost swallow it.
and then you realize what exactly it is
that you did.
You look in your rearview mirror
and there it is a swan flopping all over
the road.
but that doesn't change the matter
that I'm still in a rush.
so this is my apology to all the swans
out there that i've hit or haven't
hit. I'm sorry but it just may
happen again.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Swans for roomates

The Librarian and the Apotheosis(Hatter) will harness the internet from their shared domicile starting Sunday- posts by those swans will pick up after that day.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

of the "NOW" and the "WAKING" and the suffering "ILLUSION"

...and i'm not gonna come callin again
I haven't lost the magic no, but i have spent too much of it
watching planets explode
and then fall in on themselves...
like Zen
and enlightenment
and those riddling masters
with their logic
not logic
and the grass below their toes is
is not grass
you were
and you were nothing
and this whole freaking thing...
the mess and the madness
the snaps and the stars are
and not
and those dreams are
and not

is the question you ask yourselves before you slip into dreaming, "what illusion shall i wake up tomorrow in?"

each idea
prearranged spontinuity
what of that wind howling children
what of that bold burning woman?

oh and only
holy wastebasket salvation
for those who seek satori
by trying to not try
to seek anything

these are crumpled crippled days
and again I won't come callin
no not anymore
theres no place for all the ringing
or the hearts abandonments and

these are shadows
transparent shimmering
these are "never was'
and "always has been"
and ones left wondering
where is the strength?
where is the love in
a neglected friendship

where is the connection?
i don't feel you anymore
lost in your own worlds
no i won't come callin
theres only so much
pocket change left
and I'm to make sure
that it's well spent

Thursday, September 13, 2007

when you dream tonight
and your mind's world,
painted in your own colors, not with light,
it opens up, all furious sensation
wrapped in pure impulse

when you dream tonight I hope
the taste of wine is still
on yr lips
and the window lets in
the cool breeze

when you dream tonight I hope
the ocean before you is endless
and space-time is a fabric
smooth as silk

when you dream tonight I hope
the landscape exists as echoes
of of every sight and every lust
and every sympathy in yr heart

when you dream tonight I hope
all roads lead straight to horizon
and words bend to
fit around them

when you dream tonight
I hope you treat me kind
while we move like mercury
at the tip of yr fingers

Sunday, September 09, 2007

the lights seem so far below,
and the sounds seem echoed back
from the houses
across the street, flaking
pastel blue tinged by
yellowing street lights
corrupted

and you were watching new light emissions
frame by frame,
and the taste of bourbon on yr tounge
and the cigarette smoke drifting so
high above,
and the lights so far below
and sounds on all sides

and I am lost, I wish it would rain

maybe then the windchimes could be
coaxed to sing, breaking this street and it's silence
for the benefit of your imagination

Saturday, September 08, 2007

we're not talking about baseball or pidgeons right?

HOME

adjective

1. used of your own ground; "a home game" [ant: away]
2. relating to or being where one lives or where one's roots are; "my home town"
3. inside the country; "the British Home Office has broader responsibilities than the United States Department of the Interior"; "the nation's internal politics"

adverb


1. at or to or in the direction of one's home or family; "He stays home on weekends"; "after the game the children brought friends home for supper"; "I'll be home tomorrow"; "came riding home in style"; "I hope you will come home for Christmas"; "I'll take her home"; "don't forget to write home"
2. on or to the point aimed at; "the arrow struck home"
3. to the fullest extent; to the heart; "drove the nail home"; "drove his point home"; "his comments hit home"

noun

1. where you live at a particular time; "deliver the package to my home"; "he doesn't have a home to go to"; "your place or mine?"
2. housing that someone is living in; "he built a modest dwelling near the pond"; "they raise money to provide homes for the homeless" [syn: dwelling]
3. the country or state or city where you live; "Canadian tariffs enabled United States lumber companies to raise prices at home"; "his home is New Jersey"
4. (baseball) base consisting of a rubber slab where the batter stands; it must be touched by a base runner in order to score; "he ruled that the runner failed to touch home" [syn: home plate]
5. the place where you are stationed and from which missions start and end [syn: base]
6. place where something began and flourished; "the United States is the home of basketball"
7. an environment offering affection and security; "home is where the heart is"; "he grew up in a good Christian home"; "there's no place like home"
8. a social unit living together; "he moved his family to Virginia"; "It was a good Christian household"; "I waited until the whole house was asleep"; "the teacher asked how many people made up his home" [syn: family]
9. an institution where people are cared for; "a home for the elderly"

verb

1. provide with, or send to, a home
2. return home accurately from a long distance; "homing pigeons"


...4/18 this year, Chico CA, Railroad Earth just played at the Senator Theater, it's now somewhere around 3:30am and I'm sitting in a small random room in the ever tolerant Thunderbird Hotel with my cousin Sam and about 10-15 folks I've just met...one of the girls has a video camera she maneuvers tastefully through the surrounding conversation. She's filming a documentary on freedom. I'm perched Indian style, with a bottle of local cheap organic white wine dangling from my fingertips on the edge of one of the beds next to Samsa facing the solitary front window. The draperies are drawn as is the fate of many a hotel drapery and the room is thick with herb stink and cigarette smoke but it's not unpleasant or suffocating. A few of us are in a semi circle of mid-music conversation when the the woman turns her cameras eye upon us. Unaware of her presence we continue on in a steady stream of passionate lyrical rambles. The four friends words intertwine naturally in vine fashion like the notes piped though the great mythical god Pan's flute. The camera woman interrupts finally, explains her plight and asks us if she can continue filming. We all agree we've got nothing to hide and none of us are electing to hold any official status any time soon that in later years the possible resection of incriminating video footage may breach the hull on the ship sailing the seas of political empowerment. We are content in our current social class. Liberated and alive. The red light of record shines its beady eye upon us once more, capturing every move and word. Our documentarian proceeds by asking our strange collective a question, the foundation of her back country erection, the spine of her cinematic sledgehammer, the true voice of our nations people, for in these days where our rights of life are continuously threatened we find ourselves faced with questions of intense moral caliber such as "What does freedom mean to you?"

From soul to soul the camera glides consuming all thoughts theory's and opinions with perpetual enthusiasm (for that is what a camera was born to do, map and store the forevers of memory)and when it swivels it's head to look in my direction, signaling my turn to speak in response to her question "what does freedom mean to you?"

I answer: Home

Freedom is home.

Freedom is to feel at home.

Where ever that may be.

Free to be and live as one truly is.

Freedom is comfort, comfort is home, home is freedom.



Now, back amongst the wanning comfort of good old friends of whom I have and do cherish so deeply that even the Mariana trench in all her plunging oceanic glory couldn't hold a anglers photophore to, I am asked yet another like question...

"This is home, right?"

and again, i must answer, for one is deserved of such a question,

"This is home, right?"

...Oh darling, regrettably it is not. Not mine anyway.

In many ways I wish it to be, for here is where you reside, this is the land you love, and in my need to know that i am close to you, to have you continuously in my life, I deny myself, and try do I, to live here by your side...to see what you see and feel what you feel as you dive passionately into this garden states flowering bosom. But oh dear forever friend, I'm wilting living here again. There's too much pollen noise in my eyes (not to mention lungs soul and heart) as each breath adds more weight onto my already weakening chest and the bones of my wings once vacant of worry and free are quickly filling with lead and oh the awful abundance of noise in my head...

No, this is not home. And even with all the words above said...i'd feel inclined to reconsider it, given the fact that this state is indeed the home of my blood and closest relative family...but as we've all already seen the disaster butting tectonic plates create, and in that case, distance is a necessity, obviously, and I'd much rather brave the west coast earthquakes then be the cause to erupt more volcanic emotional outbreaks.

the longer i linger the less i radiate...staying here would mean only to fade...

i am to return to the west with the wind to my back. West where comfort flourishes in my bones and my soul, west where freedom is grown, west where i am truly at home.

...

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

In This House

There's something in this house
It follows me from room to room
There's something wrong with this house
At times, I stand alone in here
I start to shiver
It's only you and I who live here
but there's something else
In the air
Behind every door
It steals my comfort
It wakes me in the night
It grows in our anger
It begs us to scream
There's something hiding in this house
It hides behind the two of us
Pushing at our patience
Until we snap on each other
Where it hides in our silence

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Bombastic Aural Sensations

Saturday, September 01, 2007

guillotines again

I still see guillotines in the distance
But now I smile

And someday that smiling head of mine will roll
And I’ll know for a split second
Why I saw all those guillotines

18 to 34 and backroads

The friendship was rilly genuine tonight
The ride
The song and laughter came easy
And felt right

You came back just in time
Just in time for me to tell you
All the things I needed to tell someone
Someone like you

The friendship felt like it used to tonight
The ride
Was effortless and lightened my heart
I’m glad your home

...this is home
Right?