loretta built skylines in her hotel by lamp light

nothing like falling asleep at the wheel
theres a monkey skull on the freezer shelf
begging for a suede handout
with a fistfull of fish and a paranoid stand off
platinum nuances stoking my ego
then a word to the right from the left set in motion
all the beauty of stagnance and the pieces of perfect
got a drum of pure misery and two quarts raw sympathy
baking in a coal fire stove
got me running got me hiding got to be more than a principal
all adaptations taste awful in introduction
but theres road weary criminals
and essential bad gurus
theres a sandwhich shop laced with a decades indignities
and the farmers dry tabacco shell peas with the little uns
while the missus play footsy with the visiting vagabonds
its a whole new world out there man, and forgive the expression
but tomorrow is hideous while today seems just ugly
and yesturdays fair as it hustles away
but isnt it the charm that brings the eyes to the fire
and the blind all the while offer no words of warning
the wisdom has run out of the cups and its fitting
cause the bottom fell out and the thirsts been outsourced

snow plow plantation

with ware of asphalt and backroad dust
my boots speak volumes of the search
slept in box cars and rail yards
beside rivers and the kindness of strangers

faces painted thick with road lust and sun stroke
mom and pop video store/gas station
in a town with three houses and one street light

there was nothing under all those rocks we over turned
no a glimmer of freedom in the oil slicked highways
lost with an atlas that was all destination and no journey

plastic palm trees and pink flamingos decorating the only vestiges of a forgotten generation
the malt shops and drive-ins abandoned by time
all the juke boxes link to itunes and the saw dust floors have been tiled over
a fist fight is a felony and a drag race is is close behind

protests and propaganda lead based toys new influenzas
a war in every living room for thirty some odd years and im tired of peeking out toward the horizon and burning my eyes

if you think you've seen the promise land, i promise your a fool

what soft grace in disregarding the disaster of the season
she's ill but carries handbag full of cure alls and redemption
theres no beauty left
we watched the last of it sail off into the final sunsets just before the switch from analog to digital but i think she could serve as a reminder at least
of the moment before the shithouse burned and the stench of truth caked our nasal passages...

one longstanding memory of dust and clay and rubarb she said what did you want to be before you realized it was over

red lights, blue lights,
glare

and i love the way
he dances
center stage
singing into the mic
greasy hair in face
the occasional break of a
drumstick
drummer,
wasted, shirtless and
slightly
off beat

and i love the way
you lean
and tap yer cowboy boots
as you play guitar
scarf dangling
off yer tight levi's

and i love the way
we scream
and drink
and sway
to garage rock nights

she feeds on the mystery,
no need to plead for answers

Two for Molly

Molly,
you were a vision
dancing in the kitchen
blown mind
sparks flying


Gypsy sits in stockings
staring up from Molly's feet
watching her gently pull
the bow across her cello strings

he was a shooting star
(torn jeans wide eyes hungry rock t-shirt)
she was a shooting star
(hips dreaming on their own, lips, a rushing)
for those two dazzling and finite masses
to meet
in all the far reaching intoxicating space
at
a
perfect angle

a miracle of impossible mathmatics


after quantum physics, after quantum physics shows you the possibilities, the possibilities of a coffee mug.

a coffee mug complete with the inked on recollection of a vacation destination with a fantastic climate for the middle aged.

after quantum physics
shows you the possibilities
of a coffee mug
piping hot
light and sweet
materializing
on a dashboard
at the exact moment
eyelids get to heavy

after quantum physics
we are forced to realize
that miracles
are not physical impossibilities
they are only
only

only

statistical improbabilities

and
those
happen
constantly

lesson from the roads of ny state

we drove 1300 miles
and every song we strained to hear
in the green dashboard glowing
was about us
and we learned

the earth makes granite
and men shape it

light will fall forcefully
on a woman's perfect form

fame is one end
punk rock is another

even water bends to gravity

time and distance
can be masters or slaves

love and poetry last forever

you can make yourself happy

the guitar hung
with all her locks
in the fashion
of angel wings
as they sleep
standing
its pale unfinished
face matching
the imperfection
of her shoulders

wood grain and freckles

in Ithaca
is a head shop
where her lips
admit she cannot
play a guitar
underneath
sandstone eyes

poem written on a lap top at a bar

I've not seen
anyone
who makes the dirtiest scene
shine like you do
maybe it's the colors
contrast in the background
maybe it's the words
that you gussy up
on their way through your lips

two tone trigger happy

its so cold when youre above me
politics and promises
we dance like no one else could
im alergic to the reasons
want to bury my devotion?
want to press your lips against the barrell
cough recoil blister
paint the palace with a thought
and flip the light switch for the audiance

You were always,

Always making Everest out of asphalt

Your ship was always sinking

All of your bridges:

set ablaze

3,000 miles between us

Or one breath,

It didn't matter

I remember the night

You came to me with

Fearful eyes, asking

"Are you mad?"

This is a birth defect

A sinner born

Into a world of sin,

Of broken glass,

Of fallen skyscrapers,

Of dirty grey air

Black lungs

And cigarette butts

But you were the tree growing

In the abandoned factory

There with the glass

Shards and

Rat carcasses;

The homeless shanties,

The unclean

And you were always making Everest out of asphalt

And me?

I was the king

Of the streets you roamed

every time I

grab you and I kiss you

it's not a smooth transition

it's not reminiscent

of some romantic movie

it's only awkward and

I'm always unsure

But as I pull you closer

and push you

against the brick wall

of an anonymous building

on an unnamed street

in the town where

we were both born

your fingers run through my hair

looking for something

maybe for a reason

to forget this sleepless city block

and all the people passing by

the basement stairs

are dark

but your light shines

through the door

leading me

back into your bed

and you're

hidin' 'neath the covers, waiting

your back turned to me, waiting

and I don't want to

be the first to lean in

and I don't want to

call you "baby"

So, I kiss your neck,

your light shining,

showing me the way

A poem was being written
while the planes were crashing
High up in the sky colliding
in the depths of a sad mans soul

jealous
of every girl
wide eyed blind eyed
that ever
craved desired clung to
obsessed over, fought for
endured saved suffered through
loved
me
at least partially
unrequited
those beutiful sad
dancing shining dying
wailing strong enduring
faithful crazy
sighing crying
struggling blind
mad incredible
women
are capable of a passion that these weak bones
can only dream wantingly of

fall

fall
has always been
a perfect season
to feel all of the earth's
great mass
below
wheeling about its axis
the dry cracked hands
of mighty aging gods
with massive
arthritic knuckles
slapping the ball of it
onward clockwise

the atmosphere
a tolerable cool
reminds the skin
that it feels
always unstoppingly
recieving
stimulii

and the sky is all holy painted the way
clouds just whispy enough crawl
past the sadest
moon
of the year

at least
dope sick
eaten away inside
by carrol's hallucinated buzzing
insects and their larva

would be a feeling
a pain
a pin prick
a feather bobbing back and forth
through the mad
invisible
angel wing
sea of atmosphere
guided gently
and unarguably
by the certain gravity
of the earth's great mass

at least that
would be
something
tossed hair in a breeze
marble gleaming in moonlight

her lips
her lips
her hips
her weathered leather
jacket
all the things she is
sway
down the damp 3AM streets
pieces of a ghost
evaporate
in the distance

bodhisatva

budha played cards with the greatest of all the prophets cuz where else was he gonna be able to find a good game. and somewhere between the raise and the call, jesus leans in heavy, i mean with all the weight of heaven and tomorro, heavy. and the son of the almighty asks for a favor. he says the only thing its gonna cost is the traitor's eternal soul, but what it would save would simply be everything.

we became

thin filament arcing across
part of eternity
shook by the wind

one night

the sky was so big that night, bigger then the sea, bigger then god, bigger then new mexico sky, the psilocybin ran through veins electrically, reminded me that i was composed only partially of bones capillaries sinews and muscles, but maybe i was part sky also because there simply wasn't enough room in heaven for all of it, there was ocean and moon and tom and tom's girl spinning or twisting of refracting, all these things were calm and peace and holy, the moon fell across the atlantic in a long column, it told us things about wind and a dancing universe and how tonight the universe wasn't dancing it was breathing at a regular rhythym and how that is a dance to.

(someone elses poem, my version)

these leaves fall
not colors burning
but pale as city autumn

and they are not blood on the street
i remind myself
they are not blood on the street
they are the unstoppable passage of time
symbols
mile posts

three nights ago
brownsville, brooklyn
specifically not washington
square, manhattan
a man and wife stabbed
there was blood on the street
running from his
drunk and torn
artery

but these leaves
paling with the day
these are not
blood on the street

angel and gravity

i met him in the rooms
with burnt coffee
or earlier
wiping the asses of invalids
on the 4th floor
of Community
with a bad attitude

he must of had
a greying soul patch
or a salt and pepper
mustache

and he said the only
purpose we have
on this planet
is to help
others

that's when gary or greg
started with the cocaine
workin doubles
to ease all the
suffering

on the 4th floor
of Community
all those sick
all those dying
on respirators
with feeding tubes
and dimensia
and traction
on their fractures
and the pain
management meds

the booze would bring him down so he could sleep with the cocaine in his veins and the grey mustache and the hair parted on the right side and the masses suffering and the phlorescent lighting

thats how i met him in the rooms
with burnt coffee

fragment arrangement

moments
of mad lonely
myth
in the flesh with
perfect
foregrounds
and backdrops
and the shadows falling as if scripted


it was 1950's silhouette
hilltop, opulant
moon rising
he, star glint wine bottle
(the glass of it winking in the dark)
dangling from loose fingertips
(in the fragile balances of pressure),
raised a
romantic fist
to lonliness, to tomorro
defying fate
denying his stars


these are tumble weeds
dreams
the words collected and strained
from rivers
through tight lips
drained
condensed
from car windows
at 90
the whole rabid world
blowin by
these are women and men
with something
trapped or breaking
these are symbols
etched
painstakingly
in
stones


it was autumn
gold
it was the texture
of crisp electricity,
the polarized molecules,
and the sound of
car engines behind gleaming grills
she
was caught in
a momentary wind
and she was
only real
in a world's
loosest sense


he was romantic
vigorous
tears in the knees
of his jeans
saintly
as silhouette
in the doorway
before
evaporating
into another night
of car headlamps
as roads to heaven
and damp
glistening
texture

the kittens are hogs!

sometimes,
i'd rather be a little cold
in the middle of the night
with only half the blanket on me
laying beside you-
kittens,
in between us.

he said, she said

she's sorry she's so complicated.

an unopened book,
you have to bend the spine a little
bend the cover,
break it in
really read through the pages,
absorb it-

he's sorry he's so inpatient.

train station

hustle and bustle of
rush hour
i, girl with the busted car,
wait
shockingly patient
for the 8am train
Waits on the ipod
cold caffeine stains
on my scarf
sitting,
just like the scattered piles of brightly colored leaves
in the parking lot,
among the crowd
women, men, children
wondering where they are going
wondering what they are doing
this gray day
wondering who sat in my seat on the bench
an hour ago
and wondering
if any of them
are wondering about me

Station

Dancing to that Spanish music
The clearest station on the radio
bare feet on bright clean tiles
Cowbell ringing a jay bird smile

Humming with that Spanish music
rolling shoulders slapping toes
bare feet that could dance for miles
maybe all the way down to Mexico

tiny creature

hand lenses
and long slender drawers
replete with thousands of pinned insects
arranged to display
the clever gradient of life

Puppy

You can fix anything
because you are so small
I can hold you in one hand
you can slip through cracks
and bring back keys
cherish useful puppy

joy ride nebula

Lets get on a rocket ship
and ride
through stars as thick as flies
wiping star dust from our brows
picking star guts from our teeth
in a rocket ship with the top down

Ripped and Whipped

few have i fallen
shards in these lungs
a habit
metallic
when the sun shines
im blinded
and each breath
to drown
so
just so you know
i'm still working it out

goodnight, insomnia

lenses

what i thought was real
was only just a blur;
obscured.
and after all this time,
everything is finally put into
focus-
crystal clear
every single detail;
all the fine print
focused,
to the point where it is over magnified
like looking straight up into
the sun
blinding-
and i just want to smash the lenses.

I'm all wrapped up in 28
My birthday's gonna strip me down
I'm not sure how I'm gonna feel

Driving along a lonely highway
8am, Saturday morning
Hot coffee
Cold air
Chill in my body
And the heat just takes way too long to kick in
Heavy eyes
Dylan's 'Desire' singin' in my ears-
The sky is in many shades of gray today
Yet the leaves still burst in shades of
Yellows and oranges and radiant reds
Making my autumn morning golden.

In Brooklyn with Joe McCall

I like finding things
on bar shelves with other
fliers and magazine
homemade things
do it yourself projects
fliers made in minutes
for a show are the
best ones.
Zines stapled in basements
smears from markers
and stains from coffee
in dark dark bars
or well lit burrito places
I like finding things
and I also like
giving them away

please stop calling stop the letters and the flowers and the sympathy cards
we're living in the moment for a few hundred years and every now and then a turncoat waltzs in and disapers then the coffin and the eulogy and we all breathe bettter you than me the traps reset and we begin to boil our minds to pass the time

im waiting for the idle to reach itss true creshendo
im slipping in and out of conscience
too much to do before the future catches up with you
developing a little cold

postcards from truck stop promised lands

I’m alone on union railroad
Sticking to the seat
Of an empty vagrant’s box car
Crossing midnight city streets
And the girl that’s never on my arm
Is chewing on my mind
And the desert lives in Pittsburgh
Laying switchmen at my feet

And I’m on fire with the lights of passing time
And delusional desire
playing tricks on eyes
Is the rust
dissolving empathy
Or could she ever try to be
The loser in the timeless place
Is only what
she makes you face
alone

lets bleed with all the ambition we embraced a few sad years back missing a few more teeth now and caressing a different woman, still wondering which way you all think your going and who alot of us are, tasting all these runaway lifestyles till the buds turn sour and no ones picked a side and i really need to borrow you car

what is it about september

some where off in the distance we're screaming from mountain tops about all the glass houses we've hit with stones. and the miles we've put on aging buckets of rusting bolts still echo of distant life that won't yet die. im either begging for the way back or pounding pavement forward with no destination. i'm a little tired, shes breathing heavy and telling me dreams come true when you make them and i roll naked in the idea that she might be right, and hell if its all an illusion why cant we lie to ourselves and call it perfect or happy or just plain nice, im on trains bound for everywhere all at once criss crossing the Nevada desert in old fords low on fuel, im home with the kids making dinner watching cartoons and riding a stolen Harley to Mexico with two pounds of grass in the saddle bags missing out on nothing but the day before when we weren't even friends yet. still we scream at empty skys because we know its gonna fall one day, but for the rest of the night at least its over looking the hoards, the excited dull and cheerfully miserable, the divorced infected and the sober peasants, cause its not what your going to be or even what you use to be, its probably closer to what you wanted to be...i think i like that, knowing that were better off not knowing what we think we should know.

I want to be
the wine in yer glass
touching yer lips, staining them
and flowing through yer veins

eh

The volcano died
it was sad
It'll return when the rabbit does
sometimes these things take at least 30 years

the sand is cool and damp
and stillness condenses on the
bottle

the ocean
the churning, tidal,
moon licked mad
ocean of our collective
dreams even stops
mid lap

We got off with
half the time
and all the gold
and songs are
still sung about
us I'm told

glittering tea-lights fill
the sea, and soon it's
brilliantly lit as
a vanity mirror
and I feel my face being washed out
in the glow and the warm
beer and tonight's expectations

The broken screen snapped back into place as the indoor cat slipped out into the great wild world. I did not know this. When I heard him meow I thought it was just a friendly exchange. This went on for a while, until I recognized the growing terror in his cries. Your fucking filthy, don't ever do that again.

And butterflies are still strewn dangerously over America

Today marks 4 years since Walking English first put pen to digital ink. It's been a wild journey, of poetry climbing up from the roots of broken wine bottles and dingy brownstones and the Jersey dirt. I don't know how else to say it, but you still break my heart every time.

even in August
that hot fog lingers
irreverant, like a question,
between bodies and the landscape

10/6/08

Folding panties on the tele with my old man yelling
bout my civil duty to vote
same fight every time
speaking to me like his old man spoke to him, of that I'm sure
Got a top drawer full of naughty things, panties and stockings
mushroom chocolates
at 23
and a room mate who's consumed more lsd than one could dream
Thinking of coffee and a friend of mine
and wondering about my life
making things right
And my old man has a mortgage and watches the news obsessively
waiting for the anchor to announce the worlds over.
He complains about my bed being too low to the floor
and how he wont lick my pussy anymore until it's on a frame
his theory, it's closer to the worms
he's paranoid, like really
He wants to talk about the heavy things in life, things dark and scary and real...
He doesn't want to listen though
He claims he doesn't know me and it drives him crazy
He knows.

"Tell me a secret" he asks. "A real one..."
The phone dies then
and I don't call him back

something subconscious

Oh darling,
your intentions elude me
Are you feeling crowded in this crowded room dear?
You turn the lights on and off
Walk away, scream a name at the top of your lungs
and hang a tired head
defeated

That's what I know
weather I know it or not

Well I've stewed up some theories, seasoned justifications
in response to your actions
I let you get away with it
There I claim fault
and we dance around the room
ignoring what we can not

That's what I know
weather I know it or not

Yet when your skins crawling
in the bruise of morning
We retreat between the sheets
Where your heart is safe
and sorrys left for the mirrors face

That's what you know
weather you know it or not

So you flake away
more and more day by day
and you try to kill the pain
anyway you can
but it grows back like a rose bush
beautiful dangerous
When you sit down by me
pricked fingers bleeding
I wont mind when it hurts
and i wont hide if it gets worse

That's what you know
weather you know it or not...

Waiting with bated breath
Needing to leave it to truly feel like im in it
Remembering California burns
from pages of memories lost or walked off with
And the American River and every river
Where someone set stones primitive

The only thing between us is you and me
and cigarette triggers
and burning down businesses
Stained, glass memories
and of and old lover
lost to opiate cloud cover
Gypsy kittens
and dogs swimming after sticks
Cutting your hair
your face in the mirror
And catching your eye
in lightening moments

There is such power there
Raw in the morning
and in the darkness
Discovering
you're sleepless, your nightmares
you're bold and your shyness
And your heart I would feel
Through fingertips and tongue slips
and in the notes between the lines

Sentimental junkie
you touch me
Keep singing darling
and living your dream
and when you need
there she'll be
behind you always
a light shining
softly the melody
Smiling

another night

flawless idiot in perfect stride with souless music
girl on girl redundence got the crowds bored instantly
population bordom and the alleyways hold all the evenings entertainment
but only for those of us with the right angles and the kind of eyes that dont miss these sort of things

sunset high over Chinatown
as linens dance on rooftops
and the next street over is empty, save
for a lone bicyclist leisurely weaving
down the silent movie brownstone engulfed streets
and on the next block men walk beneath babeling signs
while high above

pamphleters calmly pamphlet
and strangers hearts are tugged
while the streets hiss like burning tungsten
and a man bangs his fist on the table
upstairs a woman is undressing in the thick summer air

America is blanketed in thick licks of purple and orange
and the poetry sings from the recesses of this city

I realized I always see the city against the crisp sky
which means it's never just the city itself,
only it's role as foreground
while the world spins drunkenly
towards the morning's glow.

a scene in some story

last night,
sometime between the wine and dine
a lovely stranger asked her,

"what would you do if you had a remote control and you could rewind and fast-foward periods of your life? whatwould you press?"

that drunken question
playing over and over again
like a record skipping
as she's walking along
cracked sidewalks
feeling the after effects of the wine

and she thinks back to when
he said he didn't love her
and what she would do differently
only coming to the conclusion
that perhaps he pressed rewind
during their time,
reminiscing with old flames

she nearly trips as
she approaches the intersection.
glancing down her old street
she hesitates,
desides to keep going
straight ahead

Geniuses

we don't write on fine
vintage furniture
we write on moldy
curbside couches
we fuck on second hand
mattresses
then we dream
second hand dreams
where we create
revolutionary ideas
that are gone come morning
we wake to a half pack
of smokes
and a warm beer
on the night stand

how much happens in this square of pavement
eighteen inches of the world if that

ishmael takes his cigarette breaks here
amidst clamps of high heels

careful lengths of hair
upon shoulders in the sunlight

Because the world is round
round, and nothing is real,
nothing has to be real,
no one is looking
so everything
is
all right
right here
but next door
a few feet over
the stress
factors

There is a black vein
that runs from
the back of her hand
to the bottom
of her heart and back again

This is not spam.

Day is
peeking
through
the curtains.
My eyes
are drawn
to her light;
I long to be in her arms.

i've spent my time pulling worms from the earth
in a place where time does not exist
& planes look like falling stars
the softest sound crossed her lips
barely audible & to the tune of this,
"You must leave this place. You must go far."

she almost lets me think i can sleep with her

as the sky was dying
slowly
behind her head
and alien eyes
the words
ill and hood and kaballah
spilled out of her mouth
pushed out by her wanderin
tongue
she was surrounded
by tulips and chrysathymums
and never asher her
borrowed
cigarettes
just
let the used up potential
hang there in the
city night
above some spanish
speaking softball game
in bushwick
in the anticipation of gunshots
with cops and their loud urgent
radios
pacing on the corner
she had been a daytime tv
actress
she had been in a car
crossing america
she had been crying
she had been three bottles deep
at some exclusive parties
sometimes before now
on this balcony
in these flowers
under this halfhearted moon
in this lonliest of cities
in her own infinite abyss
wanting one perfect
wahoo moment
and now in her loose
fitting shirt and
occassional cocaine
haze
beth was
a new
mixture
of sadness and peace

Mike Didia Live Painting w/ Entelechy

Check out a photo that Entelechy was tagged in on MySpace

Shared via AddThis

I always see the city against the crisp sky
which means it's never just the city itself,
only it's role as foreground
while the world spins drunkenly
towards the morning's glow.

After Seeing a sign on a Wheelbarrow Wheel that said, "Not Intended for Highway Use"

I had turned my wheelbarrow into a motorized vehicle
I was embarrassed of its clunkyness
and only drove in the back woods of Jackson at first
down Devils Hill where the kids
went sledding in the winter.

When I took it out on the real road to get some coffee
at a Wawa, people stared.
They didn't know what to make of me traveling 35 mph
fuzzy dice hanging off
one handle a nice smelling tree hanging off the other.

I use a metal rake to stop myself and flower pots
for cup holders
Instead of flipping someone the finger I throw
a shovel from
the back seat. The wheel says "not intended

for highway use" but I gotta get to Pennsylvania
or the outer banks
and I've grown so used to traveling by garden
equipment its the only
way I know how

Usually when I wake up
I must swat the sleep from around my head
And stagger through this odd house
It always smells like burning cinnamon

I limp into the kitchen
Careful not to crush my animals
With my big, dumb, pre-coffee feet
Small birds chirp outside in a tree
They sound like a Geiger Counter

I stare at my bookcase
Cringing at how boring half must be
And how cheap the rest probably are
My eyes burn and twitch and squint
And my breath tastes like sour milk

TV sucks this early
When your to broke to call in
I try to stare through the wall
At the bed I can't stay asleep in
The sandman slammed the door on his way out

FUCK MACHINE

I hate my fat jiggling gut
It need be hard, chiseled,
Fashioned like Fuck Machine

Fuck Machine back from shop
It runs on Gin & Tonic
Runs on Rhythm & Blues

Gears and bones churning hot
Fuck Machine grunt like animal
Crickets applaud from window

fortune cookie

"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."

We were eating burnt chicken
Sitting in the 'art gallery'
with gin running through our veins

She said,
I want to buy a farm
with goats and cows
and crazy poets

I told her I'd go with her,
And live with there with the goats,
The cows and the crazy poets.
I'm still waiting for her phone call.

Some nights I’m the air
slightly turbulent
near yr wings

Some nights I’m blue air currents
hanging
silently waiting for motion

party crowd surrounds her
yet she is alone
sitting on the padio,
watching the fireflies
light up the sky
and she only hopes
her beautiful light she shines
will bring that someone special
close to her side

It's not quiet here.
The garbage men come early
4am-ish I suppose
the night clubs and strip clubs and pizza joints and porn shops rumble and buzz in neon nylon stocking night caps
the saloon and it's alley of old whores and shoeshines, toothless grins and tongue flicks
"Come on baby shake it swish it swing it, come baby one more time, oh yeah! Hot damn, gimmie one more! Baby one more!"
Someone screams through a trumpet
kicks a boot, stamps out a cigarette
cursing about quitting for the twelfth time that night
greased up marina punks stumble and lunge
swerving circles misplaced footsteps
steady now down romolo hill
just enough to break pace
and hurl or urinate
(I always cringed when you'd piss in doorways)
Someone fights in the street on or off the phone
or with themselves
the cops are kept busy,
their lights and sirens dance on walls and ping through party murmur
Someones bass is always blowing out a speaker....
Morning doves
Seagulls
Cars trucks and buses
Can ladies
Poets jacked on caffeine and fucking nicotine and thought and bullshit
and maybe a banana nut muffin
and sleep deprivation
Foreign tourists or students piled in hostels
speaking tongues
and I'm wondering if I could learn a language in my sleep
...if it ever comes.

The purest thoughts, and the most dangerous thoughts, occur entwined on the ROAD

Brighton Poetry Read - July 1st

Summer heat, cheap beers, cheaper poets, mark yr calendars, next Brighton reading is July 1st. 10 pm.

To quote of the greatest poets in NJ history, "free your mind, and your ass will follow"

skins exposed accidentally
or almost

green in the periphery
eyes on the road

any weather in the soul
is better than no weather

spring is simply taking its time
this year

The Life of Evil

Forgive me, father for I have lived
I've read evil words
and had evil thoughts
and met evil girls
at evil night spots
I've made evil friends
and helped them stay wicked
I've breathed evil smoke
and drank evil liquid
the evil in my body
has been in evil mouths
I've chosen evil roads
and lascivious routes
I've been to evil parties
and gone on evil trips
I've seen evil films
I've tasted evil lips
so much evil I have done
I doubt you could forgive
but I beg you please forgive me, father
for I have lived

The good

If the good die young
I'll be here a long time
maybe I'll start working a soup kitchen
maybe I'll help reduce the local
sea gull population
antacids pressed into soft pretzels
they won't feel a thing
jobs are scarce lately
perhaps I'll start injuring
gainfully employed seniors
jumpstart some retirement
I could be the one to impregnate
The unsightly women
the ones who'd have no shot otherwise
or start bombing corporate franchises
that put independent business to sleep
NO.
that's just not me
I guess I'm not cut out
to be one of the good ones

It's a rainy afternoon
Hey white boy...
What was that you said?
No I can't explain that
It's Raining all day
Not the sensual rain
The annoying sticky kind
When you've got errands to run

I feel it's breath on my ear
Apocalypse the retarded prince
Naked with teeth gnashing
Sagging testicles & pot bellied
Stupid, feeble minded Apocalypse
Finger pointing in my face
Mumbling something low
Sometimes rain aint romantic

I dreamed I was on a spaceship
Sleeping on the ceiling
Dreaming about being in New Jersey
My cabin mates were sobbing
Everyone's sensitive in space
Not in New Jersey
I hate the rain in New Jersey
Cause it feels like cosmic sludge

Old Lady Soda Jerk

Weird old lady convenience store clerk,
Midnight shift soda jerk,
I look at you and wonder whats on your mind.
Are you good at math?
Do you listen to shitty music?
Have you ever killed a man?
Old Lady Soda Jerk I'm looking into your eye...
your good one.
Old Lady Soda Jerk, is there a god?
Do blueberries taste different in your old lady mouth?
Does it process information differently than mine?
Do you like cats?
Did you ever look good naked?
Old Lady Soda Jerk...
How does time travel in this convienience store?
If you could be an animal which would you be?
I'd be a whale!
Why did you pick that haircut?
What do I look like to you?
Your hand brushes mine as you make change.
Why does it take you so long to make change?
Our skin touches, we're both alive.
Alive at the same time.
Millions of years to be alive...
And we're here now.
Old Lady Soda Jerk I'm standing in front of you.
Across the counter breathing.
You, making change for people.
Me, trying not to stare at your mole.
You never have my favorite soda pop.
Well I must leave now Midnight Soda Mistress.
The lottery ticket man is scratching at his sores.
He's staring at the back of my head.
He needs his fix and I'm an obstacle.

no weather whatsoever
today, in the blank absence of sky
everything is sky

happening rapidly

when you reach red rocks
and the air blows prehistoric
where the only radio stations that come in clear
sing of Him, our Lord Savior
where the desert slumps and sighs dieing
where there is mother and mother and mother and father
and dues are paid
10% a head

where the dust is everywhere copper
and the canyon walls rise to greet the heavens
where the ghosts of dinosaurs thunder
arches bend strange and organic
providing shade and rain cover
where green only lays in river beds
ancient whispers leak through cracks
and eroding family albums
parade rock faces

find a man in Moab
and the lonely boys ranch
find a band that's stonefed
ask about the river pirate
and his WWII S boat

go with him
don't ask questions

i lie
watching the sunlight
shine on my skin
intermittently
through the tree's
slow sway

Weapon of Choice

You've always looked
to the moon
for target practice,
looking to shoot
straight through its
cast white face

man invented gunpowder
two thousand years ago
in China
looking to fire
rockets
to puncture the waiting
insistent
moon

the sky arches rhythmically
and we gotta want to blow
a damn hole it in,
pierce through from
this world in to the next
somewhere in our DNA
there's instructions
to fire wildly at the sky
and hope you can tear right
through it
and you were always more gunpowder
than nicotine and damn I think I felt the blood rush to my head again and it looks like I'm outta whiskey so I wonder if I can't draw this drunk out till sunrise

This was the ending of some other poem but now its a new one

In the future, the results
on Google will determine
how famous you are.
How many hits you get
will determine how much
you get paid and a holiday
bonus is given
for the amount of images
people can see of you.
Wikipedia pages are ads
for everyone in the world.
And everyone will know
everything about everyone.
It'll be great.

Googling Someone's Name is Perhaps the Most Romantic Thing to do as Shown Through a Poem by Joe McCall

When I Google your name
a twitter from
you to me comes up
to meet at the diner
at 5:45

I don't know where
we were going
to Philadelphia
for some cheesesteaks,
a beach to see
constellations, have
a casual conversation
over coffee
but I was probably late
as you waited
in your car
and our conversation
was awkward because my
"getting to know you"
phase of a relationship
takes a lot longer
than most.

The Catholic in Me, Loves the Sacrifice in you

The Catholic in me
loves the sacrifice in you
all the rides you give your cousin
in a car that can't
travel in warm weather
the fries you give away
at diners bought with
change used for toll booths
and expensive video games
for your brother which
may or may not have
zombies.

I give my stuff away too
and eventually I see
us both in an empty room
with nothing left to give
to anyone and we're not bored
and we're not meditating
and people don't come looking
for us or needing anything else.
We won't know what to do
with ourselves. We'll be anxious
and out of place and though
we claim to be absurd now
will really know what its like then.

wild ride in the hyundai-
high on caffeine
and nicotine
long scenic drive
wanderin' west side

the way a body
feels
under the strain
and demand
and demons
weary without
the warm caress
of sleep
eyes burn red
as if angry
or drunk
or both in coitus
the slow ache of lactic acid
runnin hard in muscles
is all

a human translation
of a rigid object
in prairie wind

i always want a cigarette
when i ride the subway
the r uptown
violent as war
i imagine its noises
as the sound
of empty space
screaming
to its lonliness
the torque
of gravity
on the vacuum
in the subway
the r uptown
at this depth
cosmic rays as lines
of singular quarks
still pass through
your body without
resistance and
i always want a cigarette

the way to do this
is slowly
to force all the shit out of my brain veins
because everythings got to be somewhere
and anything
can only exist
in one place

so these bad word lines
poor ideas
if they're on the page
they can't
be in my head

that is the devil's logic

and i can be left
to go on
about sunset love
the zen
of death
smokestacks
and twisting metal in a certain slant of light

little little
observation and existances
that hint in train break whisper and hiss
at some sort of human condition
make us all whole again
in starlight

something something something
about the headphoned black man
dancin with yellow staten island ferry
singin along
to the latest album to save hip hop
this month
his little girl
twisting a pig tail

and how all this happens
in the same eyes
i use
to watch death
occur
again and again

and nicholas cage's voice
monotoan and tired
talkin about
"bearing witness"

and tom waits
always right
and its sadder each time
in starlight
but damp now

in my head
i see beutiful
blood
always well lit running and pooling on black asphalt

and every new yorker
stares straight ahead
like it was
a religious practice
cuz mecca is up there
cuz getting through
to a holy light
up ahead
is a singular point
cuz every footstep until then
is tediou
or empty
or polyester
or a chore

and when i force
all this shit out
with the burn of time
and ink
then i'll be able to talk
about you and me
and eternity spilling out of eyes
and lamposts
in a way
that always seems to reverberate
and never feels
overworked

maybe a fragment
here can come out
resurrect later
a kernal
in the starlight

Sometimes I think I'm just
possibility

a hypothetical scenario
played out by the universe

and her eyes
are theoretical

not really seen, just
postulated

and this madness is really
a thought experiment


Sometimes I think
this all played out

over and over, in an
infinite film

tiny variables changing
various permutations

the sand on the beach
rearranging

long branch (an old twitter post)

I'm gonna need
more than the ocean breeze
to stir
this stagnation.

I post more on things on twitter than I do on Walking English.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.
Man, this even sounds like a tweet.
Fuck.

America is a mixed sand

Which amounts to

Earth

This isn't a poem

Just something Jasmine said

Hooded, over Maker's Mark, by a brick wall

In a city

We both forgot

Years ago

after New York,
painted fingertips of a hand raised, hesitant, at my window,

after wet streets,
fast traffic of souls in heavy coats,

after lights on bridges,
honeyed fruits strung from impossible branches,

after scalding daylight on trains,
mornings slow between darknesses,

after oils, waxes, acids, plasters,
strange faces in frames, relentless laughter and plastic glasses,

after dances,
ah, after dances

after voices of men with little to say
and women who were so much to remember –


here is life, reduced to rice
and one white line, a lovely nothing to either side, at last.

New York put her hands back in her lap,
her secrets untouched in the pockets of her dress

she never knew what to do with our poetry

The Devil in Joshua Fink

the devil found my note book
and wrote some awful things
he did some damage
he made some problems
and made me unforgivable
he found your weaknesses
he found my insecurities
he scratched at pages with impunity
and used swear words to describe religions
the devil found my heart today
and made everything a problem
he made you hate me
he promised me I'd never die
and it was the worst thing ever said
he told me I was beautiful
and no one could be worth as much
and that is why you hate me
the devil stole my mind today
he made all my ideas the greatest
he made all my clothing perfect
every step and movement sexy
every menthol drag precise
he told me I was clever
in the thoughts I found in books
he told me all I needed
was to worship what I am
and to gather those
who needed something to worship

blame cherry tree season,
all that immaculate being afflicted by light

once, we were pink and complete

something shaking in me

sometimes
the hardest part
is realizing
how much life hurts

but the easy part
comes so naturally

and it's all ok
with an artistic fingerprint

with a new lease
on falling apart

sunrise full of needles
i've invited too much light -
i can't see.

and the enormous peace i'm building
isn't mine, at least -
it's not for me.

I don't want to say anything really.
I just want you guys to look up every once in a while
Maybe on a Tuesday, I don't know

Because there's so much Tuesday,
And there are so many of them
And we forget,

And who can blame us
Because there's so much to forget
And there are so many Tuesdays to be forgotten.

I don't want to speak,
Not really
I just want you guys to remember a day

Every now and then.

today my books fail me.
i find a line of birds,

text upon a borrowed sky
between one winter and another.

ancient and foreign,
avid and frantic,

illegible.
i find a line of birds and wait with them

speech comes to my hands and feet first.

relentless beauty,
color like a warm hand

or a cool voice upon me, asking for peace,
my being a razor against it.

all the girls dolled up and somber,
holding lips and shoulders stoic for photographs

with all that softness behind them.
it's about contrast, i suppose,

or completing the landscape
or maybe it's just that everyone loves a pretty girl

when she's sad
and spring is happening to her

A Vague Memory

Courtney,
you were always beautiful
in yer cocaine haze.
I remember the night we spent
together trading beers
and telling stories
or explaining theories.
I don't even remember
how we ended up there.

You were always so tough
emancipated and on yer own
at the age of sixteen.
And I was always in awe
because you floated on air
even with those
monkeys on yer back,
weighing you down.

Courtney,
where did you run to?
And do you remember that night
we spent laying,
playing in yer hair?

The moon sat on the surface of the water like a weighted bobber, and she leaned across and kissed me to let me know the end was near. I shuddered like a question, believing that this was a just another pair of loaded dice. I could not find it in my heart to pour my self into the pot, to become a member of the new world order, a soothsayer. I declined her second attempt for a kiss, and the moon became stale.

The Beach

the blue was blazing

on the waves as they

crashed against the shore and

you hid yourself

in my chest as

you tried to light a cigarette;

unable to

get the flame

to catch the paper

in the high wind.

your mother had warned you

of the rip currents;

of all the dangers;

of that blazing

blue ocean.

and we could hear

the violence of the sea

as the white foam

crashed toward us now.

still,

we found small tide pools

filled with artifacts that

the ocean had brought here,

to the beach.

you picked up

a large sand dollar and,

brushing it off,

presented it as a gift

for my son

we continued down the beach,

your hand in mine,

uncovering

more artifacts

and unsaid words

buried beneath the sand:

my sadness

in leaving the

very next day;

an ex-boyfriend

you'd been talking to...

you brushed this off as well,

presenting it as

something harmless.

I accepted it

and that is where

the sea comes

to swallow me.

'cause when I look into your eyes

I see the ocean;

the possibilities;

the future

and I'm just fine

wading into the water,

with you, love,

on a moonless night.

Visiting the Dream

If we stop and take a look at this

maybe it's full of holes

maybe we're sinking it

or running it ashore

but I can't shake

that image of you

entwined in sheets

and smiling

as I lean down to kiss you

before hopping into the shower

and every couple months

we get a few days

to pretend that it is real life

to pretend that the dream is over

we hang up our phones

to hang up our clothes

side by side

and it feels alright.

it's a fatal habit
blaming things on winds

Poetry Read at the Brighton Bar, Wednesday, April 29th. That should be easy to remember, because 2 x 9 = 18, and there are 18 letters in "Brighton Poetry Read", so you got no excuse for not showing up

his class shrouds him
enough pretty drinks in enough dark rooms
would stop him

a madman's wild haired head
beneath cool water
holding its breath

his whole hope heaped onto a single nail
by an imaginary girl who, once realized,
would pound the world cleanly into place

there would be no need for unveilings

It happens

You know they got there after you and left before you

eight knots on a string, then four,
then two, then a ring,

beneath it, Maria,
a big black earth to every side of her

The buddy system

Right now the world is spinning around at mind numbing speed, and i'm here in this park holding on for dear life. Hold on with me now.

he doesn’t speak the truth so much as
truth passes through him,

water through paper
scrawled with reminders

the ink loosens and pools,
tremulous lines, like scars,

a roadmap
to further truths

and other scars

See?

I've been driving around in a brand new car that i stole the other day. When i push on the gas, it makes me feel high. I suppose the least i can do is find a way to die romanticcally with her, so we never become old friends.

sweet mardou
jack's sweet and brown footed
mardou

and every girl i ever saw
out on a damp car hood

and all the sunrises bittersweet

and the way
the sea is eternity
rolling up
to california
and new york

exgirl's ex

she was lonely freedom falling
leaning on that metal handrail
the winds fingers
grasping at the hope of her hair
always bandana'd
in tight pants
and a desperate hollow sadness
between drags
the words mixed with tequila
(but the tequila never mixed with
the sprite in the glass
only in her stomach)
about graffiti as the big art
and the size of a bigger canvas
and creation

she had gone down
on more girls
that i had wanted to
then i had

the sky is alive tonight

with energy

lightning roars and

thunder claps

it's hurt

it's angry

it's spitting pissed

but it's lonely and sad

and that's why it rains

sometimes it comes

in torrents

scratching mad

against my window

other times there's calm and

you can hear the crickets

singing softly

somewhere

and that's where I find sleep

someone can stop this

You're my new cue, my new spark of madness, a rabbit with the best of intentions, and a belly of worms. You're my new spring, to end my winter woes with the madness and fury of change. Fire burns like you to try to look good, but this is consuming me more like a disease. you are inspiring. you are THAT SCENT. I'll never get it off.

Don't bother

Sometimes people get all nobodied out, but i found that the things we use to do are even less. Sure, you can get upset, it's fine, but you won't like it. It'll make me uncomfortable, which will make me want to leave. And then you can't be seen. That's when you'll find somebody, with haste!

Try harder

I, crustacean, in my shell, watching families of tortoise go past. They offer me protection. They give me light where i had none.

Headphone drama

You lack definition. You are void of inflection. Even in your happiest state, you shock me and the anticipation of your contents terrify me. I haven't known what anyone has actually tried to say to me in 5 years. Convenient. Like a tool.

untitled

the zephyr was certainly titillating
better than any lovers' hands have been
was considerably more charming, even
i'll just take it on a date, instead

the people cling onto their coats as
they walk on by
windy spring day
sitting on the park bench,
the wind blows her thick hair
into her eyes
obscuring her view of the photograph
in her hands
the only left over evidence
and the wind gently
pushes away all the clouds,
blowing the picture
out of her hands
finally she is free

heroin addicts
lie
more than
other addicts
to help
ease you
just slightly
from the hard
world
they wave
goodbye
to

"can u write words for me"
he asked
all heroin
"cuz i been workin on somethin"

and the reggae chords
became neil young
and the damage done

as his boy ran and yelled
in union square

it was all sad
and human
johnny
with stumblin drunks
darin not to see
the horizon

and i loved
yr empty eyes
and songs

g'by purple, g'by girl, g'by time

that girl with purple
in her hair
read TIME magazine
on the 4 train
bound for uptown

captured me
in momentariness

in the flicker of subway
movement
i can see
the impermanence
of things

Short Fiction / Special Edition Idiom

As some of you may already know, I will be working on a possible special edition idiom to come out once a year (most likely the summertime).  I would really like to see everyone that posts on W.E. write and submit for this (especially people that don't normally write prose. Get outta yer comfort zone). Submissions will be open but for now it will only be advertised by word of mouth...and for anyone that doesn't post here but may be following us, I suppose.

Now, onto submission guidelines:

This is for short fiction/prose. No poitry.

Please limit submissions to no more than 700 words (target for just about 600).

Include a Title, so we know what to call it.

Include the name you want to be published under, so we know what to call you.

Submissions may be about any subject matter. In the future, we may look into themed issues or something of the sort, but for now it's your discretion.

Send all submissions to: idiomfiction@yahoo.com

Submissions deadline: July 17, 2009.

Thanks all,

Joe McCall

NJ Turnpike Poem

the Pulaski Skyway rises
in all its black steel glory
and Elizabeth Seaport
stinks on the horizon
as Newark Airport
passes by in a blur
of jet fuel and runway lights

I'm missing home, tonight.
I'm missing all my old haunts
the sounds of the city in my ears
lulling me to sleep at night

The road is all glass
reflecting headlights and taillights
shimmering red and white lights
on black pavement canvas

and it's here I realize
how beautiful all this ugly is
and it's here I realize
how perfect a bridge looks
through the night in the rain
and it's here I realize
I wanna be buried within view of
all these cargo ships and bridges
and the Pulaski Skyway
in all it's black steel and glory

Upon Spending Time With God

when you start looking at God
and I mean really looking at him
spending late nights discussing
planetary alignments and time travel
singing karaoke; talking about women

you start to see
he's just like anyone else
flawed
he's got fears
he tells great stories
and sometimes
he really gets under your skin

it's important to try
to see this being
in this light always
remember him not as a great fire
or as the source of the wind

but remember him
in holy bar room
struggling to keep time
fucking up the words to "Shout"
remember
he's just like anyone else
he's just like the rest of 'em

I Liked Congo Lights

people often forget that
poetry is an art form
I'm sure alot of critics
thought Pollack's paintings were chaos
they showed no artistic talent
but now they are revered
personally, I don't get it

but that's what I love about art
and so thats what I love about poetry
art is completely subjective
different people take away
different meanings

you might see this as
a poem about art
or a poem about
poetry as an art form
I might think this
as a love letter for
a dear friend
that just got a bad review

i was trying to paint a bad
abstract
painting of you
while you played
guitar
out of tune
late afternoon in June
and the sun beated down
on the blue walls
and you and i were burning
the paint splattered across the room
mixed in with the sweat
on our bodies
our movement
painted on the floor,
our bodies
sculpted into one another
and when we cooled down
we layed there,
lazy,
in the haze of summer

return to sender

it was the most beautiful sunrise
that i've ever seen, that morning
at the end, that minute - i slept
shame, it was the precise minute you died
sometimes i feel my decision
is what put you in the ground
i've finally found what i'd been looking for
those answers i'd been praying for
your father told me how you spoke of me
all those plans for us
i wish i knew, i probably wouldn't have been so..
so blushing
his chest clutched my tears,
my hair, his
it was on the tip of your tongue
and only i could taste it
i thought it'd be a dream to feel
but now it will haunt me forever.
i fucking miss you.

amongst the drunkeness and skanking ska kids

you were a familiar face in another time...

we shook hands awkwardly,
like strangers,
meeting for the first time.

the karaoke dying down,
I snuck out to bum a
cigarette off my Senator shouting
obsenities while the
last train pulled away
somewhere nearby

the old-dirt cowboy stood grinning
in his sharp pressed shirt and stetson,
which hid his gleaming white hair

he was somehow floating
slightly above the ground,
full of dharma, saying to me
"What's important is the Joy

That
Is
Why
We
Are
Here"

then he took a drag on his Marlboro, burning
it down to the filter, and inside
a whiskey drunk bodisattva
was singing for the lonely

You are
like the frost
dancing up
the window pane

delicate
and
intricate

The 15 Year Rule

Rolling Stone called it
"The 15 Year Rule",
that pop culture goes in
15 year cycles, once kids
have their own kids,
and those kids get older,
leaving their parents with
time and money
to get nostalgic

and now I'm stuck sitting
in a coffee house listing to
Hootie and the Blowfish
and remembering that a
wise man once said
"same as it ever was"

You Are Your Promised Land

we drank Black and Tans against
the old-forest night
like a lost tribe, without
toaster ovens or fix-a-flat
or the notion of instantaneous
and we moved slowly
on the down beat, and for
a moment I gave praise to
Jah who had delivered us
to Zion, looking down
from the mountain top,
the trees were towers and
the air was thin enough
that you could almost forget
it was even there

This Dream's on Me

you're there with pretty red ribbons
tied to your loss and needs
you smile from across the bar
and plant a conversation's seeds
you lift yourself from the hardness
and your dreadful spiteful deeds
and I whisper to the bartender,
"The next dream's on me"

you stare into your glass
focused on empty lust and greed
scanning down the path
for a young strong worthy steed
but your picture's just the past
and your tears are why you bleed
and as you scrape your dusty pockets
the next dream's on me

and he pours another Collins glass
says, "this one's free"
and your eyes find me finally
and then you see
that your worries are just boundaries
where your mind and spirit meet
and I lift my glass deliberately
"this dream's on me"

I Love You Like Brothers In Wartime

soldiers never lit three cigarettes
with one match
this was to keep the snipers
from drawing a bead on you and your brothers
taking you out softly
in the night

it's the same reason
behind packing your cigarettes
they light faster
keeping a soldier from
giving away his position
in the night

I never light three cigarettes
with the same match
it's bad luck
and I'm never sure
if there's a sniper waiting out there
in the night

35 West Chelsea

I miss my family tonight.

I remember driving home
after a full day's work at the supply yard
my whole body aching
my mind numb
my hair matted from the heat and
the soot from the warehouse
so black
I would sweat it out at night

I'd park the car in my driveway
and maybe have a smoke on the back porch
then I'd walk inside
to the chaos of a newborn
or the screaming
from the vacuum

somedays,
it was easy
it came naturally
wake up, work,
be happy
and there were hard days
there were arguments
but there was always
my bed and my woman
as my son slept sound
in the room we painted for him
in the crib that we bought and we built
in the home that we made there

I miss my family tonight.

as I carry my son to a new bed
that sits at the foot of
my new bed
without my woman
without the same sweet summer breeze
that smelled of the ocean

I miss my family tonight.

I miss domesticated life
I miss being asleep at midnight
I miss my 6 AM alarm clock
the snooze button
and eggs on Sunday morning

I miss my family tonight.

Soon, I'll buy a new bed
I'll have a woman to share it with
I'll paint my sons new room
build him another bed
fall asleep at midnight
hit the snooze on the 6 AM alarm
I'll eat eggs on Sunday morning
and it'll be OK
it's just tonight,

I miss my family tonight.

Three poems about the moon

Sapphic Lights

Reflecting light back to the moon
And broadcasting our girlish love
The moon and I

She can be so far away
And hold me with intimacy still
I swell as she swells and wane as well
With her and only her


Giants in the sky

The sun will burn and blister
And torture the sky with fire
But the moon is a milk sacrifice
Who cools and stirs the mystery



Unrefined is better

Shadows cast from moonlight
Hide the sweetest secrets

Only the truly curious
The naïve and raw
Have the power to unravel

“Damn the refined”
The shadows, they whisper
Just like their mother the moon

There is no need to be polished
You cannot out shine the moon

two beers some coffee and a few miles in

crazy, i dont think i've felt this way in a while, im sure that in any place it all keeps going on when your not looking or thinking or reading a book, lighting a match licking a stamp, the wonderful the beautiful the endless and the dream...i keep looking back at all of you thinking such treasures of sking and backbone and mind, my collection of intellect old new borrowed and often blue what with winter coming and going so freely these days...look at life and the passing of time and place and wind...wind... so i'm tragic and beautiful and a combonation of things we taught each other and promised never to remember, i dig all this future we might actually get to....woke up cold shaddow and sun whisper through cracked blinds and old familliar windows, steal a glimpse again of freedom to choose and to right and to left and to nowhere fast but often somewhere slow and steady i supose, got a dream and in it some players and pawns and crooks rooks and fiends with perfect tales and ombiance and maybe in a nother but this ones got a full dance card ...sample night and day and coffee stain and swirling little disco lights for some other traveler, got a steak knife carving names in the back of my mind for stories you tell the grand kids where you leave in the blood and guts and take out the sexual revolution...i know i know, its been done... so a little bit of what i'm sending out to spin the time is always it and nothing seems to trap this like the down hill in your skivies...can you tell me whats around the bend there baby, can you peer over the horizon and fortell the everything to come? we'll love, if thats the way you see things, do me a favor, keep it to yourself...

love,

a bottle of asprin and a ship setting sail for asphalt seas



'

I'm in line, watching people order meats. A gentleman paler than paper asks for an italian dish or concoction and includes a string of overpronounced italian condiments. The deli worker is not italian. He does not understand this man's accent.

my home looked like
a mass of votives,
some, lit in prayer,
some, burnt out in silence,

it sits in an empty space
while the world collapses
around it
like Joe said
we're waiting for the flames
and I can feel my skin
slowly singe

sometimes all there is
is yellow and black,
fire and not fire,
everything that is pure in the world
and not everything that is not pure

Somehow the ocean
keeps lapping at the shore

somehow these pills
don't work the same anymore

truck stops
pepper the landscape here
along with factories
deserted buildings
turn of the century
warehouses and
storage facilities

all this industrial beauty
from when America
belonged to the working man
all these
degraded shipyards
speak of simpler times
speak of turning the dime
speak of America
when it still belonged to us

North Jersey Song

the planes align
like stars
over Newark
not sure if they're
pointing me ahead
or away
the skies stink
of the afterburn
and we're all just
waiting for the flames
to wash us away
and carry us home

Springgarden Park

it's rank
and dank
mold and mildew
a festering moment
that you can't live through
that's why it's mine
maybe I can take it
I'll crack apart your strength
before you drop and break it
I find you in the starlight
you hug yourself and shiver
you never had the foresight
to guess what I'll deliver
and though the winter burns our fingers
we cheers two frosted beers
and your fears come out with frantic tears
but this could last for years

devil sun
and demon moon
the bulkhead of sense
that I plan to crash through

you're my pin-up girl
and I'm your 50's greaser
our film will go on
this is just the teaser

the double helix
the shot of Irish whiskey
same thing
the first drop of rain
on the back of your neck
your first handshake
with someone like me
same thing

you are the world
and I am the words
that make you seem beautiful

The snow melted off the hood of my car... glacially.

Hey Wait You're Gorgeous

she had eyes
that reminded me of explosions in the sky
hits me like a blow to the chest

a hidden smile
and soft curves
she takes my breath away at the end

What may be now be in idioms

I'm not clear that I think
in the way that you think
because I hear you speak
and that's all we can be now

is language in bodies
ghost in the machine

it's as if I'm poorly subtitled,
and you'll never understand my idioms

Do you hear me?
whistling in the dark
abundance of albatross
hung round my neck

but I am true blue
I am the real Mccoy

and all I want is some truth,
or to be understood

The Mind Immortal

we're all just
looking at the past
'cause it still takes fractions of seconds
for light to reflect and
our brain to interpret
what the hell is going on here

we're like stars
burning all infinite
'cause there's no way to tell
if we're dead
or if we're living

in the time that it takes
for the light to reflect
and your brain
to interpret what exactly is happening
the heart ceases
the blood goes cold
the eyes are already glass
and you had no idea
you had no clue

I'm creating a hell
with women and distances
or proximities
like mines they wait
out there in the night
just looking to get off
taking the whole damned ship
in a flash then
nothing but cold
and the winds of change
are blowing hard on this
new jersey morning
and I fear whats coming
because i can
no longer see the horizon

fuck it

the whole worlds goin' to hell
and I'm just here
to enjoy the show

The Unheard Song of the Wall Heater

Whispering sweetly, ringing, singing a song that can barely be heard over the vent fan.

Made of Sand

I built myself a castle
as I walked across the water
it melted in the wash again
made of sand and bound to falter

I was robbed of all my faith today
I lost hope in what I prayed for
I promised you I'd bring a sunrise
and give you what you stayed for

all your sins have brought you here
your beliefs are there to weave them
and all your demons hunt you now
but I can help you leave them

bring me to your resting ground
let my spirit be your martyr
frail and weak and loose and meek
made of sand and bound to falter

they will tell you not to think
and tell me not to feel
I can find the things in you
that make your conscience reel

the bindings keep you on the mark
the leaders keep you in line
the rules keep you in the dark
and blind you from the signs

'hail Mary full of grace'
we'll save you from the slaughter
this house of cards built of lies
made of sand and bound to falter

- by Joshua Fink and Michael Pascarelli

Weed Segue

you ever get so high you decide you'll be the first person ever to get out of the shower and invent new animals
and in case you don't know how to invent new animals
it's when you stand in front of the mirror, naked, and mimic one
with yoga poses and barn yard sounds
barn yard sounds that rattle like a dinosaur, Amazonian jungle, and whales humping
(emulate an animal squeal)
" that was the orange bandied snow viper"
although it was more of a band than a viper
yet still, the band was actually called, "Snow Vipers"

_ By Michael Pascarelli

tell me when to lie

I walk through waves and waves
Of information everyday
And I’d claim to feel it
If you’ll believe
With flexible language
Comes flexible reality

It’s freak flag is roflishly high

Wearing the hive mind on its sleeve
Marching out of step
More like goofy dancing really
In a coyote costume
Wiley without direct purpose
Into the future
With contradicting intention
But great whooping joy
Hiding hard dark bird shots of malice
Spit with appalling aim
A toddler a teenager an angry mob and a dance troupe
OH ERIS! I do so love the internet

It's funny how things move
in and out of my life
like the garbage that's lying on the sidewalk;
the wind blowing it all towards me.
Englishtown never had any garbage on its sidewalks
even on the windiest of days.
But here, in this new town,
it's scattered all over the place;
the town's imperfections-
and that's alright with me

the drink ain't what I need
it's all I've got

John Cusak

I walk alone in the rain
maybe a scene from
your favorite movie in the 80's
I only wish I knew my way
across town to your house
'cause I'd raise my boom-box up
over my head with two hands
and proclaim my love for you

I walk alone in the day
writing it off as excercise
but I'm really just running
from my notebook
from thoughts of you
from bad television
and happiness surrounding me

I see only you
when staring into cups of coffee
and pancakes
forget about pancakes
you're there, too
you're in the butter
it fucking kills me

I am walking across campus
to my 8 o'clock class when
I stop halfway to take in
the breeze in the trees
the light in the clocktower
and the smell of the place
knowing it will somehow
all be different
once you come 'round

the clouds paint serpents
across the sky
and the night is asking
for our blood
but I won't give in

it's an emptyness
in my stomach
begging for a heart
'cause it's hungry
and it's a heaviness
in my chest
asking for a soul

she asks if I'm
dreaming of her
but I don't even sleep
since she's gone from eyes
she asks if I'm still
waiting for her
but it's not waiting
when she's all I got

the wind's been
blowin' all day
clouds form and
disappear just as fast
it's all fleeting
and ominous

the nights are clear
and cold
and the moon's about to burst
while I feel my heart
is fearing it will do the same

the wind's been blowin'
all day and tonight
there's something in the air here
and it doesn't smell
like the safety
of home

Random stings of code

i can' t describe the ways i love you, they're buried underneath five years of pride, farce, chance, humanity. I can'l get close to you, you're more distant than concept, absolution, certainty. I starve to understand you. I ache when i consider you. Will i quench my desire or will i embrace the potency of fate. My will is to defy. my fear consumes me. the path is always silent, it seems.

pythons wreak of deception, or at least that's what i'm told

the house that time forgot, but mike and i remember

paint pealed and blown about a small room in a house no quite settled
theres a hint of sorrow floating cautious in the air
smells of old newsprint and sweat
the abandoned clothes and dishes scattered perfectly from room to room
giving it that lived in look

carpets rolled up like reposesed sod
the plywood floors soft and swollen
sag with age and experience

posters, faded torn and hanging
reminicent of some long forgotten concert hall
not much left in the fridge
just a box of baking soda no longer fit to do it it's job
i wonder if the light still works

the television turned on it's side ...in a room overflowing with old racing forms and fadded rambling on various note pads... gives the impression that whatever he had been watching was disapointing enough to leave without paking a dam thing

maybe he was pissed about the finale of dallas

who the fuck shot jr, i dont know, but he sure wasn't happy about it

Anubis

Anubis
has laid her down
made his preparations
and will stay with her
for three days

once ready
she will rise
and he will walk with her
to the shore

she will be given the instructions
she will not cry
but with one last look
she will continue on
never looking back

and we
will stay
looking forward
for the shore

Universal Beeswax by fLOT

I know now

The sky’s expansive pastures are forgiving and

Forgiving another forgives yourself

Inundated daily

By suffering of temporal existence

Which blows away like

The lightest and softest snow

On the very top

As gust greets morning on mountain

Same as we are thrust through space

Inside a primordial energetic seashell schwirl

Accepting the outcome

That informs each next moment

The softest snow blown off the top

Hits the cold atmosphere and

Becomes unfeeling and harder

Falling back to grounding at lower elevation

Having a snowflake epiphany

Melting into the warm dirt

Sunrays on brown earth

I know now I get it

Forgiving another forgives yourself

It’s universal beeswax

Not mine

Not yours

Ours

Blowing off the very top

The softest snow turns cold and hard

Then disintegrating falling melting evaporating

Back into the cycle again and

Here we go again!

Like A River

I wish I could flow
Like a river runs
Without stopping drips
Without dropping hints
About phrases long caught in stasis
Left to conclude with no basis
To form a foundation
No ground to indicate
Some forgotten absorption
Taken in and never released

I wish I could flow
Like a canyon crow
Flies high up on the air

Above the ridge and valley
Above the river’s many eddies
Above all the earthbound creatures
Dropping and lifting on currents

I wish I could flow
Like a saxophone blows
Not expressing opinion distinct
Gurgling or peeking out
From under the madness
Or slow, easy, languid
Or shrieking in glee
Easily mistaken for anger

I wish I could flow
Like a river flows
Like a pine cone or
A rock that knows
Whether it is naked or clothed
Whether it is caught or thrown
Skipping over the surface

I wish I could flow
Like a river flows

020209

Groundhog's Day is tomorrow...

I fear the weeks to come

The Bum

Paulie watched the harbor boats
every night before he'd sleep
under a sheet of cardboard
his wildest dreams would creep

come out to the dockyards
washing vessels before the launch
he only takes what he's offered
in mind and principle staunch

the night's cold offers no solace
the concrete harbors no hope
the moon is a constant reminder
of an ever downward slope

Paulie knows about a shelter
where the boys can go to get warm
a brand new shirt and a jacket
and a place to chase away harm

he walks into the cathedral
candle flicker lights up on the wall
there's a sign on the door where he enters
says'"welcome. come one. come all"

Paulie stands in line with the others
a nun hands him a spoon and a bowl
tucks a napkin into his collar
and says, "come warm your spirit and soul."

as the line glides into the kitchen
Paulie smells the broth in brew
and the priest waves the line along
"every one but...you"

"we've seen you around with the others
but you've never spoken a word
of life or strife or daughter or wife
or a single word of the Lord"

"and today you come here begging
asking for our meager offer
but you sleep away your hours
for which our own Messiah suffered"

Paulie leaves the church yard
knowing now he'll never win
and finds the hobos on the railroad tracks
with a plastic bottle of gin

he sips from the bottle neck
and pisses out his soul
and lies beside the train rail
breathing burning oil and coal

Another Last Night

Camel non-filters
and 92 proof rum
some one's screaming in the bedroom
sex or injury
I can't tell
bass is shaking the floor mats
vomit clings to the sink
belly shirts are lifting in the kitchen
drunk or easy
I can't tell
the kids are bleeding on the patio
the glitter queens are stuck in the mirror
pulling tasting wasted grace
dream or nightmare
I can't tell
frost on windows snaps the light inside
bouncing off the moment
blinding everyone from everything
death or glory
I can't tell

Product of Loss

the new child
the new child gone
the tearing moments between thoughts
the hope for what was
what isn't
what we need
who we needed when
the breaking tension of sterile walls
waiting room depression
it's damp out now
and dusk has merely passed
she comes out with tears dried
the procedure
'the excavation'
hollowing out our soul on paper sheets
sign away your child
swipe your card here
and nothing ever happened

time's at fault again

That handsome man is nearer to death I know
Thrilled by an old lecture
On the tee vee

Like dancers with extravagant costumes
And porcelain skin
In old musicals

All dead now

How cruel
That I should fall
In love with ghosts

Screaming blasphemy naked at a fete champetre (garden party)

I’ve shouted obscenities
Into books
That wait to be read

By enemies and friends

I’ve left myself naked
For the sunlight

To make clear all my faults

I’ve jumped
Off the transom
Into the garden party

I could hardly expect to be caught
But I also know that I bounce

forget the toys and playground pleasantries
forget me in your growing
forget the long sweet summer dream
river swimming and cool starry redemption
for your new classics
your favorite brand news
I'm a phone call now
I'm a voice with no new history
I won't age for you
I'll never die in a photograph
Kiss a picture or a drawing I gave
to remind you that I am somewhere
and we'll find each other
in the time between our new living

I wish everyday was Sunday so I would never have to see you again

To begin, they wrote, "To whom it may concern", "My Dearest", "Dear Sir or Madman", and official titles of all types that don't belong strapped to my name. Somewhere at the bottom were things like, "Sincerely", and "All the best", even RSVP information, at times. Scattered haphazardly about the midregion were jumbled messes of nonsensical words, climbing each others stench like a mountain of dung. All of this anarchy laid captive in folds, locked down by an oppressive envelope, until that same relentless army , that band of men and women wound like turn-key toys, dropped these foreign opto-lingual bombs into my mailbox. What will happen to us?

Thoughts on the East

The characters of Middle Eastern written languages look like the wispy loop de loops of smoke that permeates their airspace from the little sticks and cones of incense, and it seems the music of the people accompanies a room shrouded in those fumes.

Their lives and land
are veiled in sand
oh what a mysterious people

Daydream #32

Deicing salt seasoned the frozen streets, crushed to a fine white powder, dirty with the day. I imagined to myself, as I looked at my car in the forefront of this nearly-blank-canvas-colored picture, I could be in the post-apocalypse right now, life after the Great War, a survivor, another chance. It's so cold outside when the sun is screened by nuclear ash, I thought to myself.

we are the birth of a catastrophic festival of innocent dreams and mischievous idealism. slaughter the pigs to feed the crowds gathering at the animal rights protest. double braced re-enforced cynics carry plastic smiles and love cowards. hey darling dig this, if eveything in the world that you fought for got its head on forward and shit up and got fixed you'd be begging for a slap on the ass around the water cooler. it aint your fault, we're born fighting, its the whole point, if this were perfect you'd be bored, wishing for pain and hatred. if the world didn't have the ugly the beautiful would seem so piss poor useless.

replays like vivid cricket synphony every time you stop to help

every girl you meet on the road in a floral dress and sandals holding a tye-dyed hemp bag is the girl of your dreams, she is so consistent and reoccurs through out your many journeys to the heart of nowhere fucking special. she speaks elegantly, but spits and smokes cigarettes listens to marley and has written in this journal every day for the past 10 years. shes charismatic and fun, complicated and pouts when the sun stays too long. adventurous she excites you into some child like rage of fantastic possibilities till you realize, you just dropped her off in a bus station in chicago, only to pick her up in new mexico with darker hair and southern acent.

Triumphant the epiphany, now i can see, the entire world is as clueless as me

Old Poem I Found in a Bag

we were graspin' at darkness
tryin' to find beauty under
parking lot lights
or half moons

shivering in eery silence
surrounded by evergreens
and cold

and I was watchin' you dress
in the afterglow

The Scalding Noon

The onion soup
isn't as good as
I remember
cold

but now the salt has
crusted on
the sides
with the melted cheese
and bits of onion

bring me back
to those days
of dim smokey diners
hot coffee
scrambled eggs

when such things
were worth ordering

and I was nicotine stained
eyes
blearily taking in
the moments
reading coffee news
telling Pete
about
better days
and nights
with women
waking up
smelling of their hair
and staring
bleary eyed

Now these
nicotine eyes
are banned, replaced
by caffine
strains of red
and the pressure against
my corneas
feels like i'm still
straining to be
one with the universe



*Compiled by Keith, Erin, Joe, Mark, and Mac at the Toms River Diner 1/26/2009 11:28PM

415

I remember vividly
those nervous nights of youth
clutching hands as we
made our way from
movie theatre to diner
or to coffee house
treading on rain soaked pavement
breathing in summer nights
and cool autumn air

I remember all those
late night phone calls
and hiding places
I remember that night
you were in my bed
or the time stealing kisses
while making left hand turns
and all the bad decisions
that don't really matter anymore

I remember drunken rants
made from living room floors
when we were fifteen
I remember your
warm skin on
cool nights
and being tangled
in your hair

I always remember your birthday
the christmas party
the fourth of July
nights I made you cry
walking past your house and
later on driving there
when your parents were out of town

I remember all of our
mutual friends
the songs I would
sing to you
I remember every time
I wasn't around
the things I might have missed
the words unspoken
the promises unkept

I remember you
always being there
over months and years
and many miles
I remember the day
when I introduced you
to my ex-fiance'
I remember the dinner plans

I remember the last ten years
I remember last week
and the way you smell
I just don't want
you
to be a memory
or a ghost

Twenty Ounces

I googled you tonight
felt my heart sinking faster
and my eyes growing sadder
in the glow of computer screen

it made me miss you more

I made a
mental case history
on your accomplishments
throughout the day today
I found myself proud
to be a part of that life and
even just to know you

I read the article on
Big Sexy Hair
and laughed at your
tongue in your cheek
knowing it was there
as you typed quietly
giggling maybe
only to yourself

I read about an
open-mic in Chinatown
something you'd written
in those years when
I was no where to be found

I googled you tonight
checked the weather in Portugal
searched tiredly for orchids
and missed you more
more than 20 ounces

restaurant review

Blaspheming perverts
And intellectuals
And romantic men
Like the dim lights
In the restaurant
With its door in an alleyway
Classic lines
Red headed women
And demons

Laws

Laws protect the ones that know them.
Laws are like friends that way.
Laws are only words on paper.
Laws are like imaginary friends that way.

Some laws are not like that,
Some laws cannot be broken.

No, you cannot break the Law of Gravity,
But you can work within the laws of aerodynamics.
Loopholes are everywhere.

you say I'm fulfilled
at least artistically
but I'd never write another word
if you'd merely ask

sadness isn't anything
when you have nothing
to compare it to

the same
could be said
about loneliness

NK268 out of Ft. Lauderdale

waiting on 8pm flight
four hours early
I escape outside
from crying children
and sober drunks
to face warm floridian breeze
and smoke half hour cigarette

taxis fly underneath
steel birds soar above
defying
every thing

and I wish
I was one of the drunks inside
but on a good night
sipping on bourbon
in the glow of bad T.V.
I wish I was
anyone but me
here and now
leaving my warm woman
for the snowy season
north bound

Captain of the Airboat Captains

old men jump on airboats
tell the dockmaster to piss off
and cowboy outta' there
searchin' for gators
sliding sideways into
cattail forest
or muck
or any other bayou debris
they work on tips
and happiness
and a little luck
they drink whiskey
talk outta' the sides
of their crooked mouths
filled with crooked teeth
send their kids to great schools
and spend their nights
rocking in southern glory
on big wrap-around porches
on big rocking chairs
hand in hand
with their highschool sweetheart
gone grey

Furrowed Brow

fuck the calendar
I'm tired of counting
days and hours
or months
until seeing home

I'm tired of waiting
fuck misery
it's just a reason to
count calendar days

and fuck waiting
get here
the lines on my face
are only getting deeper
I'm getting older
and so
uglier

she says I smoke too much
that I'm
a complainer
she worries about my
cough
any cough
"are you allright?"
I love her attention

she likes to hold hands
anytime a hand's free
she likes to
kiss
in crowded bars
she wants me to close my eyes
I oblige
or atleast I try to

I hate these things
all of these
when they're standing alone
but it all fades
standing there with her

a week spent in sun
and I don't care
raining
snowing
or hurricane season
I want nothing
but soft skin
and kisses softer
forget whiskey
forget the phone
forget the ride
remember this
five days of
actually feeling happy
finally
I find myself
sleeping
not overdrinking
not being a fool
not drowning
or flailing about

i heard you twice the fourth time

it's a full moon out tonight
and you wouldn't know it
but there's cougars amidst
so watch your back
they'll sneak up behind you
and take what is supposed to be yours
slatterns in sheep's clothing
pretending to be sisters

"however. the good man at the restaurant and beer provider across the street sent someone to procure my omnipresent order of two pbr forties. a young man who looked exactly like someone i knew in the sense that i knew who they were in terms of what they did, but not as a human being, was talking to the guy running the show about some pamphlets he had. i was casually observing the dude, but became a little more intrigued when the man behind the counter smiled and accepted the stack of proffered booklets. turned out they were issues of some sort of poetic compilation. when my beers arrived, the man/manager enthusiastically informed me i was free to take one, free of charge (i don't think anyone was paying, but he was happy to tell me i could have it). i took it home with the beer, and decided to try and pair them in experience as they held together in acquisition. worked out rather well. the booklet was something called the idiom. i found it to be rather engaging and the content to be surprisingly by-and-large worthwhile. i immediately thought of my preferred originator of grotesque parody, who produces work in keeping with but notably superior to things of this nature. actually, a lot of the content was in the same league, a lot better than i expected it to be, with an excellent variety and some strikingly compelling imagery. a few heavy hitters in the tangible paper product. however, the progenitor of some content was named as this blog, which contains an inordinate amount of drivel compared with the publication i received. this mostly serves the notion that whoever is editing knows what they are up to, and i find that comforting. " -some guys blog entry-


WE should leave some comments on this guys blog. Any pictures of penises would probably be something he would appreciate. Walking English should not stand for these types of comments. I thought when you said butterfiles were volcanoes you meant it.... http://do-me-a-favor.blogspot.com/2008/02/sunshine-snowstorm.html