A Natural Orchestra for a Story Book Beauty

This is an older piece.

She sits in her room

listening to 45s

as she stares out her window

Watching raindrops touch down

against the canvas of this desolate town

And the lonliness

begins to eat away at her hoplessness

and the hoplessness

only leads to more lonliness

and the boredom...

the boredom spins 'round

with the records that she bobs her head to

This single room apartment

smoky and dimly lit

only by a single light bulb

that hangs in solitude

amongst the cloudy, grey, damp air

Even the dust begins to die

in agony with the sound of the rain

against the window

"Each false thing ends."

-Wallace Stevens

walls dissolve
bury ache in empty space
the makings of pearls,
sea and sun hurtle
toward our white names

Solved by Sam Flot

SOLVED

by Sam fLOT

Flashing out from inside the burning inner being

Self-Learning indulgently to take in the flow

And accept what comes towards me

To make the best of all the waves informing me

Ceaselessly, slowly building chaos

Into some kind of chatterbox order

Sane only when considered with static undertones

Overlaid with blissfull excavation extended

Coming out from the natural middle

Coming out from consciousness of bended emergence

Combining clarity of vision to the physical world

Permeating any false considerations

Rendering them useless

So that when all the ifs are added up

And all the maybes are subtracted

Then we can understand the beauty of the rift

We find inside ourselves

Inside so far it was outside almost any type of

Literal canvas or painted window

Any drumskin or stop sign

Searing into the middle center soul

Based inside but often displayed to humanity

Like newborn chicks try to cross the highway

Blasting out in all directions

Exploding asteroid parts

Sent through the universe in perfect syncopation

Over dimensions already uncovered to finish up

With all these cohesive parts

Making one giant puzzle

Ready to revolve

Evolve

And be solved

compressed tempo
compartments, havens, the weight of space
song,
the cadence of days

The End and After (Working Title) - Chapter 1

this is the first chapter of something I'm working on. It was originally meant to be a short story. It has kind of grown from there, but I will be working on a series of short stories dealing with the same character but before the series of events that bring us to this "book," The End and After. Let me know what you think so far...negatives appreciated just as much as positives.

I had been riding freights for days. Waking up screaming to a box car filled with empty pill bottles and various garbage, from dreams of the way life was before the shit hit the fan. I could feel the train slowing down now, so I packed up my bag quietly in the dark, pill bottles rattling and rolling all around me as the brakes hissed and squealed. The train still slowing. I grabbed my bag and slid the door open. The night wind rushed in and I could smell pine and smoke. I was somewhere in the Northwestern Territory. Below me, a nice grassy hill. "Thank You for the little things," I said looking up at the sky and leaped off. There's no such thing as a soft landing in train hopping, but this was as good as it could get.

The grass was wet and my feet gave out beneath me. I slid for a few feet on my ass before rolling to a full stop. I stood up and brushed off.
"Coulda' been worse, McDell."

After months of riding freights and hiking the territories alone, I was completely comfortable having conversations with myself.

"Just remember ol' Willy Burnaski. Son of bitch never looked where he was leapin' and ended up half stuck in a tree. 'Course the other half kept on fallin' to the ground!"

I had a good laugh at my own sick joke. Of course, Willy had been a good friend of mine, but you just gotta' laugh at life sometimes. Keeps you from going insane after you've seen a thing or three. And I had seen my share just over the last five or so years.

Back in 2012, everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar and the world ending. And on December 24, 2012 some of those people were dead on. Only, it wasn't Wormwood or Planet-X or anything alien. Just our own dog world shaking fleas off its back. A massive earthquake sent a piece of Africa plunging into the sea, which created a tidal wave that completely wiped out what was once the eastern seaboard of the United States. Mass panic erupted all over the world, starting huge riots and total Anarchy. Governments were overturned or just given up on. I guess everyone just figured they were already dead. Millions died and mass suicide became very popular for the following few weeks. Luckily, I had been living in what was California at the time. After everything happened, I got in my car and headed east to see if I could help survivors. But there were no survivors; You were driving down a road that was once sprawling farm land, far from water, and all of a sudden there was the ocean. It was very sobering.
No survivors.

this ones gonna hurt she thought
as she lay down lonely for him
this ones gonna take the cake
and run away with it

this one, she though
this ones not
this ones not like all the rest

all tears will be bitter sweet
if the fire burns and dies
hearts are never hopeless
she lies helpless by his side

this ones gonna hurt she thought
this ones gonna make her cry
this ones gonna steal her heart
this one will change her life

Wine Thieves

Learning the styles of wine thieves
and layabouts
with their bohemian in the night
and their magic squalor

With blankets and pillows
And blankets of smoke
With artifacts of daily life strewn about
And art of fancy littering the walls

We wait in front of the collective unconscious
for the new archetypes
to show themselves
to the philosophers native
to philosophers raw and new

For them to make myths out of
And sing them to women like lullabies
In the blankets and pillows
And blankets of smoke
And wine stolen

My ex had a Sigmund Freud figurine glued to the dashboard of his van.

He was a psychology major and obviously, a huge fan of Freud. And on drunken nights, when I would reveal my "repressed" feelings or said something that intrigued him, he would turn little Freud's adjustable head over towards me. Then he would try to psychoanalyze me.

It bugged me out.

I broke up with him.

I was never really into astrology. I came across a book on astrology one day shelving in the non- fiction area of the 130s at the library I work at. To kill some time, I started reading it. They say those with the astrological sign, Scorpio, make great shrinks. Scorpios like to pry into other's thoughts, analyzing every single detail. They usually can read people very well. Yet Scorpios are some of the most secretive, private people you will encounter. It usually takes them a while to open up to people and don't like it when others pry.

My ex and I were born just hours apart.

My ex and I are both Scorpios.

picking apart law
invitations, alarms
the physics of kingdoms

So this waitress,
her eyes heavy under
the weight of piped in soft rock,
bad lighting, and another night
with walls heavy and creaking
and rotating,

and time slowing down,
and her head
stretching away from her
feet, pulling apart

she doesn't really think about physics,
and if you ask her about it,
her eyes just sink deeper
and no light escapes

a river of grace
shimmering drops of grease
in the sun
shifting colors
before my eyes
molten and prism-like
breaking down words and
thoughts to their
own unique hue

"I use to think that the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time... but it's not like that. It happens overnight." Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Are You Awake and Free?

Are You Awake and Free?
by Sam Flot
10.18.oh2



Are you Awake and Free?

When will you even commence to understand?
When will the confluence of our powers be reunited and brought to fruition?

Are you Awake?

When will our physical beings come together to communicate on a realm other than existential?

Are you free?

Do circumstances leave you available for a chance to get together?

Are you Awake and are you Free?

Do you have the imagination, fear, pride and appreciation for beauty to keep up with us?

Do you have a sense of humor?

Are you Awake and are you Free?

Do you have an ability to lose logic and suspend impending reality?
Do you know how to punch with the Rolls?
Do you go with it or resist the flow?

Are you Awake?
Are you Free?
Are you Awake?
Are you Free?

Are you Awake and are you Free?

blink

to touch your face gently
and run my fingers through your hair
was an image
tossed and played in my head
quick, and fleeting

and for a fleeting thought
to suddenly become real
is astounding, yet comforting
our arms wrapped up in each other
our fingers intertwined

each holding on to the moment

It is her alluding that reels,
The noiseless picking and tolling
A mind superfluous
Is no mind

love hums the blood
beats the surface,
insect wings striking fruit

within the clothes
the bones clank
the palms pull closed

you never looked that good in blue

slaughter the innocent with me...
i brought enough to go around
lets spill intestines and bile
baby
we'll paint the town explosive
and eat chicken parts from garbage cans

don't run when the sirens blare
thats how you know its fun
and don't get any embers on you
its evident theres more to come

oh, one more chapter and this book is far from over
i'll keep writing if you keep telling me what it says
i'm not intangible yet darling im just slurring my inhibitions
got a ticket to the out house ballroom

meet me in the room marked fuck

Buddha's Brain Game

Buddha's Brain Game
by Sam Flot

Teasing Buddha's Brain Game
Situated by his buddy the bodhi tree

Facilitating a game
Of words and philosophy
Slipping subsets into genres
Slipping anthems from aphorisms

Spreading the words
Amongst the People of Peace
Who respect moments of Dharma
Dropped on their
Non-coconut heads

Not becoming a mango
But becoming understanding
Of the inter-relational basis
Of vibrations
Between me and the mango

Between me and
What I perceive to be
My illusion of myself

My perceptional mind-state
Understanding
How fruit and energy and
Chaos theory and
Elephants folowing elephants following elephants
Attached to each other

Leaving no elephant behind
To be alone

and

If you ask
Is it always because
You don't know
Or are there occasions
Where maybe you either
Already know the answer
Or don't need to know
But wanted to relate
Or wanted to cause
An interaction?

On a sidewalk
Or on a dance floor
Or in a heartbeating moment

Which may have just
Come and gone
Or which may be right now
Or maybe not just yet
========================
poem copyright Sam Flot 2008

I smelt the sea today
and the moist, briny air
cooled, and left my face
crusted in salt

into our palms we take
june, earth, our daily name
we seep into the world

"I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make. It is this that gives birth to meaning."
-Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes

apartments and cars with no air conditioning

sunburned skin
saturated in sweat
musky scent seeping out of pores
sultry summer days

eddie vedder
was a holy
seattle saint
soaked through
his flannel
and vocal chords
til all
the so human desperation
of north wood
and late nineties
leached
out
as sound
and halo

these new days
leave me
each one

as new men
each one

grasping
with fingers
so desperate
and hopeful
and clean

at meanings in
the sunrises

these skyline visions
lie and move
features of a great
sleeping beast

and we all creep as its parts
in the dark

suzanne
of the
long haired night
you
tremble in yr sleep
then turn over into
peace

i hate to see you
stumble in the storm
but
on occassion
the wind
and the light
and the multitude of dazzling
characters

will catch you
falling
just right

this mist
obscures
the peaks of
the Verazano
as these mornings
obscure myself

idol worship

Ernest Hemmingway drove an ambulance during the Great War

"the great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking."

-Mario Rossi

525 Mountain

525 Mountain

I bought an umbrella on Wednesday. White, with a white handle. It’s the kind conscientious women buy when they’re getting married; I suppose it looks good in photos. I was thinking of using it to turn a poem into a sculpture.
This was just after the usual drive to work. I started the trip on the turnpike, in a gray haze that made the buildings and the sky seem like part of the same work in progress. The buildings looked untouchable, yet eerily close at the same time, as if hovering just above my dashboard, barely out of reach. From there, I exited onto Rt. 525, where, for at least 9 months, a crew of men has been either building a mountain or taking it down. Enormous vehicles circle endlessly up and down this giant mound of dirt, and the number of machines in use there increases daily, seemingly exponentially. On Wednesday, there was all of this, plus an airplane.
A good friend of my father’s used to have a plane that he would jump out of nearly every day, at least in the summer. I remember asking him once what it was like to fall through a cloud. He always looked at the uppermost edge of something, like a beach umbrella or a flagpole, in preparation for explaining something this important. All he could seem to come up with this time was that falling through a cloud is wet. He said that, the first time it happened to him, he thought it had started raining.
Yesterday, on the drive to work, it was raining and it was not raining. It felt like there was a sick student’s spittle suspended in the air all around me. Men in yellow hats had begun building a wall around the mountain, so I was thinking I would never be able to tell just what it was they were doing. For the first time, a red truck with a rainbow colored umbrella above it was parked at the site, selling breakfast sandwiches and hotdogs, so I figured that whatever was going on had to be something important.
When I got home, I watched something on TV about art and craters. Apparently lying in a crater keeps the horizon from seeming too hazy and the center of the sky from seeming too clear. So, if you’re lying on your back in a crater, the sky has the same degree of clarity no matter where you look. With the proper consciousness, said the astronomer who described all of this, this clarity makes you feel unimaginably close to the sky, as if you are in the atmosphere, and one with the universe. He spoke just like an artist, low and slow, only without the hesitation. He looked right at the camera.
This morning, I noticed that they had finally put a sign at the bottom of the 525 mountain, yellow and black, official. It’s tiny, and half hidden behind the wall. I was driving too fast to see it on my way to work.
I quit my job today. My students worked and didn’t work. Mostly, they made plans for the summer. I did everything I could to make sure they looked in the proper place as they painted, but nothing I did was successful.
On the drive home, I slowed down in front of the sign. A woman blared her horn, and the guy at the hotdog stand shook his head at me, wiping earth from his eyes. All I managed to read on the sign was something about a gravel company. So the only conclusion I can come to is that they are selling the mountain. I still don’t know whether they are putting it up or taking it down.

cool.

Tried to leave this as a comment but my internet service is being selective as to what windows it will open. Arg..

I think writing short stories is a great idea, not only because it can help with publications, but because it can help us address subject matter we may struggle to address in our poetry. I think it's often liberating to work outside of our usual medium.

PLUS it will kill more time at work.

"They say if you get far enough away, you'll be on your way back home."
~Tom Waits "Blind Love"

In an attempt to create a complete body of work, as writers, I thought it would be "cool" if we all tried our hands (quite literally) at writing a short story.

The idea here is to have it all published in The Idiom (I hope), our "sister magazine," if you will. And further more, to start shopping a more complete body of work around to be published by a larger publishing house (no offense mark, I love you).

After speaking with a few of you, I thought this would be a great idea since alot of authors write poetry and short stories and novels etc etc etc. Also, I just thought it would be nice to see some more stuff come from Walking English and end up in the Idiom as well.

The target being to have a final draft/post up on the website in July that would accumulate to anywhere from 2-6 pages, I'd say...but you tell me.

If putting it on Walking English worries anyone about plagarism, we could always mail it directly to the idiom or pass it amongst ourselves for constructive criticisms, cheers, sneers and Pam Griers.

Comments, Questions and Criticism are all greatly appreciated.

before pulling taut our answers

we slept

a slack hammock of questions

"To hell with the universe. Think of something."

-from Endgame, Samuel Beckett

I don't really know anymore
what's real
maybe someday
you can move back here
and we can be who we are
in all those dreams that we dream
or maybe
you're just my muse
something to fall in love with
on weekdays
when it's quiet enough
to think back and feel
the echo of memories
sting me in the gut

I remember why
I'm the ugly casanova
'cause you make me feel
like I've got it all

even with your
flirtatious criticisms
as we go back and forth
inflating
deflating
eachother's egos
just to see
who will lean in first

When I think of you
I think in poetry
and it all makes sense
every line sounds rehearsed
every smile seems faked

when I talk to you
I talk in poetry
it's gritty and real
but it just sounds so pretty
'cause I'm talking to you

You took the wheel again
and we began sliding back
down dark city streets
bellie's full of beer
and our hearts filled with youth
once again

here we are
rainy city streets
will always remind me of you
smiling back at me
from the driver seat
as I grip the dash
'cause you're way too close
on my side of the road
'cause you're way too close
for me not to fall in love again

every exit is an entrance somewhere else

-hamlet or rosencrantz and gildenstern are dead

to begin
as a movie
somewhere in the middle
with backstory

but to begin all the same
and wonder
if the phonix
perching with new eyes
still possesses memories

of what the old ones saw

the girl who likes rain
digs her nails in
the small of my back
like suggestion

all we are is eyes in the night
adjusting

when i said she looked great in the wind
i meant

the world was frozen breathless
it and the bustling just ceased all the spinning
an axis undescernable
only her hair filled up with dancing momentum
in all the punctuated static

i was telling her everything

and when she shifted one converse over the other
said thank you, tilted her head to the south

she was honest and subtle

her brown curles settled
and the rest began to unwind again