Gustave Flaubert

On a whim I picked up Madame Bovary, thinking it was going to be a chore. It wasn't. Flaubert is a true writer's writer. Amazing. A real live 'dead novelist.' Not stuffy, but pretty, accurate, lyrical, patient. Sentimental Education is just as good. Ah, to live in Paris. Anyone who likes literature, READ Flaubert. To compare, he's similar to Proust, but less verbose and windy. Flaubert is flawless.

Fragments of a Writer

I'm good at hating what I once loved,
or forgetting what I was before I once loved.
I'm good at leaving things
behind, unfinished, rotting
inside-out like dead wood.

Slowly, things take shape,
come together like mysteries
where the obvious one is guilty all along.

I'm good at being alone, humorless.


Small Towns

Before going into town, a small town, I stop at a pond I used to fish in the spring when I lived in this town. To get there you go by foot. Underneath the concrete bridge laden with bathroom-wall-markings. The sound of snow melting, and cars passing overhead. Through dead willows capped with snow, and parallel to the dark, green, running river. You'll pass a discarded, rusted dishwasher. Branches, heavy with snow, will snap. The sky cool and clear. Gusts of wind will lightly blow snow off the branches. Through the trees, and to the left, you'll see the pond. Still, reflected gray. All is silent. Imagine sleeping, but being awake. Only, if you wished, you could stay here forever in this wintered silence.



The lust that was there
still lingers
like a break in the weather--
a warm day in December.

She was my world,
she was my secondary world.

It all ended on a park bench
(the snap-back-on-of-a-bra),
when it began in a different time zone,
with different weather,
in a different season.

As a writer, I will never stop recollecting my life.

How things can fictionally intersect.
How I can recreate it,
build it to my liking.

Flawless, through the eyes of an artist, is this good season.

The lust that was there
takes me away
from what is not here anymore.

This dead December
it aches like a good thing,
all color gone.
Only browns and greens.

All the leaves from all the trees have let go
like the people in my life.

Now, like an afternoon fishing,
I remember when they held on so tight,
but I do not remember.
The river is frozen,
and my fishing pole hung up.

I sit in a lawn chair
on the bank of the river,
but the chair is empty--
no one is there.
The trees are bare,
and the river is frozen,
and my fishing pole hung up,
and the white chair is empty.
All the leaves from all the trees have let go
like the people in my life.
They say: "We will see."
They think: "The year has been a disaster. One bad season after another."

And it has been.
But, just in time, I turned it around.

And they say
nothing,
because the chair they look at on the bank of the river
is empty now, finally.
The boy who once fished there has retired.
Still, there is a break in the weather.
The river is thawing.
However,
a storm is on the way, they say.
But today, it is warm,
and the frozen river is thawing.
and a fire is going in the hearth.

They wait
for the chair to be occupied once again.

Sometimes you feel like an elf

. . . And I did, finding myself packing cookies on an assembly line to Christmas music while it snowed outside. Anyway. . .

Angle-Less

All is silent.
Warm air comes out of
the vents of my car.
Snow comes down on everything.
They have me working in a warehouse,
boxing cookies,
off Industrial Center Blvd.,
where only warehouses exist.
Masses of warehouses and parking lots.
Sparse space here.
This parking lot empty, everyone gone to lunch.
My car at the end,
then a stray field, then a highway.
In the field are stacks of skids, hundreds,
covered in blue tarp, torn, flapping
in the wind and snow
among this field in the night.

Lately, others have been
light bulbs in the night,
beacons offering places to stay,
money, or food.

Kindness.

In the distance, small lights glide
on the highway.
Snow falls on
and around my car.

I doze off for some time thinking of kindness,
how it covers all angles,
angle-less, spreading like light in the dark.

Like Even Sent Love Letters

Syntax of the Soul

This life we live is full of memories
which pain us or bring us joy.
Either/Or,
they are moments frozen in time.
The past, like a November afternoon
filled with sun and leaves,
an unwritten letter finally wrote,
and even sent.

We move on, finally, from some,
cut loose and break free forever.
Like giants, we inhabit the Earth
(on drunken nights, pissing in alley-ways.)
(on sober mornings, chopping wood.)

Just imagine a match burning
out.

A river running.

A date. A relationship. An engagement.

The overlook of a great city.

We cannot possess another's heart,
so no jealously.

We cannot choose another's choices,
so no anger.

The syntax of the soul
can be easily read
like a series of fragments
that compose a story:

without anger, without jealously,
we overlook a great city
and realize we are the root,
the afternoon root growing
like dead leaves and sunlight in November,
we are matches burning
out,
we are burning dates,
moving on like relationships,
drunken men in alley-ways,
or staying,
like even sent love letters.

Inspired by the poem 'The Lost Son' by TR

The Lost Girl

I.

No one can do anything,
and if they could,
they wouldn't know what to do.
The signs are there: exhaustion, apathy,
so says the news,
and the pieces they're doing on suicide.
Kids these days
are offing themselves at a high rate.
It's what happens in college.
All these college kids--
the parents withdraw the student,
and send them through the rehabs.

II.

She'll find herself
with parents hovering above her
in a small hospital room
like a room
with only a strip of carpet to walk on.
Hopefully.

III.

Four white walls.
She's given up her will.
No medication.
No clothes, shoes, books, or music.
No parents, friends, or money.
No phone, purse, or cell phone.

Just her: socks and a nightgown.

This is the baptism,
the psychiatry ward
is a baptism without water,
and it's attendants
are angels or demons, only human
on a good or bad day.

With horror, she'll sleep it off,
but awake with nowhere to go,

and she wakes, closed off,
windows barred,
with only a tiny skylight to look out of.

There is no transition,
like streams of water running through gravel parking lots,
with geese, who've forgotten to fly south,
aimlessly floating
under a blood red sky,
and bare, wrangled, and paralyzed trees...

IV.

Soundless,
she is in a different time zone.
She's never been here.
The weather is dry. Cacti rise up
out of hard dirt. Purple lilac live here,
under shade that comes like a hand
over the mountains.

Everyone is kind.
She lounges by a green pool, pale.
In the afternoon, on a summit, equestrian therapy,
set against those shaded mountains,
and fields of Paolo Verde trees in bloom.

Who has she left behind?
Where are they now?
When is it enough?

Wild horses handled who once roamed these fields.
Sweet grass is eaten by the wild pigs
who wander into the fenceless facility during warm nights.

V.

Noise, waves crash--
drowning out schools of children
playing at recess.
She thinks: "When I was a child. . ."
Young, and in love with a boy;
winter in Ohio;
great open spaces where there weren't before.
The wide rivers small and rocky.
The land, dying slow.
Scarecrows, with hay bulging from flannel,
stand erect in fields
cut low.

Young, and in love with a boy
who she's left behind.

***

Big fish swim in the Pacific.
Schools of jellyfish float silently underwater.

Waves crash.
She's lies by the ocean, tanned.
Unaware of the underbelly of the Pacific.
The sun blinds her.
The boy has become an old memory.
Silently, she lies,
with the noise of the ocean drowning all out.

new poem

Winter in Ohio

Trees are nearly bare.
Leaves hang on, shrunken and crisp.
Wide open spaces where there weren't before.
Long parking lots are empty.
Behind the homes by the rivers,
canoes are hung upside down.
The great rivers are small and rocky,
dry, cold, and bare.
The land is dying slow.
Clear, azul skies stretch and stretch.
Scare-crows, with hay bursting from flannel,
stand erect in fields of wheat
cut low.

Joy Drips From Everything

Today, filled to the brim
With joy
Like the fire in this hearth.

In the garage, Larry constructing
Tiny wooden reindeer.
The buzz of the circular saw,
The rotating of the drill.
Greg, contemplating over instructions of stuffing,
While putting a ham into a plastic bag.
Paul, asleep on the couch by the fishtank.

I’m unlike myself today, happy,
Fortunate, poking this fire, drinking coffee.
The television plays a parade,
Yet goes unwatched
In an empty room.

Outside it has finished raining;
Water drips from trees and fences;

I can see now that
This day will only stop increasing,
The rain stop dripping from power-lines,
After the dinner’s prayer.

But, so what? I could be wrong.
The day’s joy could go on, and on,
Forever dripping from everything.

The Balloon Which Divorces Itself

The Balloon Which Divorces Itself

They lived together.
Did normal things together
like go to the movies,
or go out to Denny's,
where a clown would go from
table to table
making balloon animals.
It was a Roman Holiday
that this family was living.
This went on for six months,
husband and wife,
brother and sister,
all living together
although the couple was separated.
Rarely in the same room.

Then, one day, just like that,
the wife took the microwave,
and both children,
and moved out.
The husband, being at work,
had no say in the matter.
Maybe it was better that way.
But, I'm sure you're all wondering
what drove the mother to decide?
Or, what took her so long?
Well, ask yourself what you would've done.
For, I guess I forgot to mention,
the husband had a business,
and the wife was still in graduate school.
You understand the dilemma?

But, the mother had to begin again,
from square one.
And both father and mother would remarry,
and both children would grow healthy,
but what about those six months
when life was up in the air,
like a balloon which rises, and rises,
then divorces itself,
shrinks, and falls.

Two new poems

A Story

He had been a smoker since fourteen,
And now, at fifty, his health was failing.
Spots littered all over his lungs.

Nonetheless, he knew the hell out of cars.
Just give him make, model, and year.

You could call him a grease monkey.
When he was fourteen, there he was,
Say, in the moonlight, grit-stained face,
Underneath a car stealing a carburetor.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there,
But stay tuned,
Because it comes into play later on.

He had one thing going for him: a daughter.
His pride and joy.
In all respects, she was beautiful.
Long brown hair, oval face, turquoise eyes.

Anyway, that’s off point.
Let’s stick to the script.
Let’s just say she was kind-eyed,
And married to a computer man.
Kind of nerdy, glasses, fidgety.
The two had a daughter of their own.
You see, that makes him a grandfather.

One afternoon, he was filling up,
And there was the computer man with a whore
At the gas station. What luck!
Well, maybe she wasn’t a whore,
But she was a woman
With another woman’s husband, let’s say.

Turns out, he tells his daughter
About the whore,
But she doesn’t believe it, can’t comprehend it,
Or doesn’t want to.

So,
And for lack of a climax,
He smashes computer man’s leg in
With a tire iron.
What irony, right?
Hey, what play on words: iron, irony.
But, I don’t have to spell things out, anyway.

So long ago
All this was before
The spots on his lungs showed.
Before he grew too thin,
And before his daughter disowned him.

She was his whole life, his daughter,
And he loved her enough to fill up an entire room.



Calm After the Storm

Washing underwear
In the motel room’s sink
With shampoo and a bar of soap.
The drain is stopped, and the water a light brown.
I’m alone, as usual, in my motel room.
On the table, an overturned book.
Waves of smoke leave the ashtray.
The microwave is chained to the refrigerator,
But what is the refrigerator chained to?
Chain or no chain, I can’t complain.
For this is all of my own doing,
Plus, just today, won fifty dollars on a scratch off
To rent out the room for the night.

My underwear floats, then submerges,
In the sink.
All is quiet, for a moment.
The shower beats against the wall,
And heat escapes under the door.
There's the hum from air leaving the furnace,
And the slow rumble of cars passing on the highway.
This is the calm after the storm.

New poem

Pronounced Dead

Being homeless, I'd been sleeping
in my car for days.
Nothing too exciting about that,
except for this morning
waking up to the flashing lights
of an ambulance,
and a technician knocking on my window.

I was pronounced dead
by an early morning jogger
who must've peered in and saw
a man in a casket-like position.
As for that,
there's only so many positions to use
when sleeping in a car.

And as for the jogger,
good for him, I say.
I say, look all you want--
Peer into my windows,
and phone me into the authorities
as a dead man in an abandoned car.

+++

The ambulance driver points at me
through a frosted window.
What's new?
The police have been knocking every night for days,
and there I am,
rolling down my window,
looking at my fate through tired eyes.

First poem in a long time

Deaf and Mute

I find myself living
at the Roadway Inn.
Cars from the highway rattle the rooms.
Walking toward my motel room,
a deaf mute,
my apparent neighbor,
opens his door a crack,
and sticks his head out.
Signals me
by holding a hand up to his ear
(pinkie and thumb protruded making a phone).

I've been living inside these rooms
for three days afraid of my corrupt neighbors,
and think of this fear
while this man's wife,
also a deaf mute,
uses sign language to talk to me.

So, this is the American Dream.
Just me,
and this deaf mute couple.
Even them,
they just want to eat,
want me to call their daughter,
and see if she's coming soon with food.

But, you see, there is a strange man
standing in his doorway at room 608,
waiting for something I can't see,
and this couple's daughter isn't
coming for another day,
and the deaf and mute husband looks up astonished,
as his wife has just tried to speak to me.

Unfinished short story

Robert had been in love with Mary for years, since they met in college. She was always with someone else though, and the two got to become just friends. Robert wasn't sure if he still loved Mary or not, but was sure he had become a sort of confidant, or shoulder to cry on.

For the most part Robert was OK with this except every quarter of a year he would profess his undying love to Mary.

Mary was an art student, now an art therapist. In debt up to her elbows. Always moving into a new apartment, and getting into or out of a relationship. Nothing ever lasted, and when things got too overwhelming she called Robert, crying, which he didn't mind.

Around two years ago Mary met an Indian boy. He moved in with her, and Robert didn't hear from Mary for six months.

Falling in love with the Indian boy was the worst thing Mary could've done. It's not that he beat her. OK, so he hit her. She stays with him. Maybe she likes it, who knows. Falling in love with the Indian boy was the worst thing Mary could've done because when the dust settled, and she got out, Mary saw that time of her life as important.

The importance that she gave to the Indian boy was misguided. It occurred to Robert that the Indian boy really did a number on Mary. Kind of brainwashed her into loving things about him that the outside observer would see as ordinary: the Indian boy didn't have a job, didn't go to college, etc. The Indian boy transformed these realities into being, as Bunyan calls it, a worldly-wise man.

Mary believes this stage of her life was important because she fell in love with him. But Robert believes the Indian boy was important to her because Mary thinks she fell in love with him.

Another thing: Robert and Mary had nicknames for one another. Robert called her firefly, on account of him being an Ohio boy, fond of the quiet nights where all one sees are stars and hundreds of fireflies. Mary called Robert raindrop, on account of her being an Ohio girl whose heart beat for rainy, spring days when the flower venders opened up their street-stands.

However, currently, we are between months. It's August, the dog days, as they call it.

Robert drove, sweating through his pants and shirt, in a Pontiac without air conditioning.

Mary had something important to tell Robert, and he agreed to meet her at some rest area between their two apartments. Robert wondered about rest stops, between exits, carved out of fields. The rest stop is the asexual phase of the androgynous lesbian.

Robert watched as Mary departed from her red Honda, as cans feel out of her car onto the asphalt. Mary was small, tattoo-ridden, with oriental made-up eyes.

"That mother fucker," Mary said.
"Who?"
"He lost my puppy."
"Oh, no," Robert whispered, "that fuck head."
"That's it. I'm done with him. For good," Mary said.
"Un huh," Robert said trying to be convincing.
"My mother is out looking for her right now. She could be dead."

Robert and Mary looked around the rest area. Vacant. Mary was sweating through her shirt, showing a black bra. Her red hair was matted with sweat.

"Poor Ruca," Robert told her.
Mary paused, looking for something else.
Robert began, "I thought you were through with him."
"I was," Mary said, "I only wondered if he could watch Ruca for the afternoon."
"So you're talking to him?"
"Yes, but no more. I mean, to lose a month old puppy."
"There's no coming back from that," Robert said.
"That's that," she said.
"Oh well," Robert said.

"I've been so anxious lately. Ruca's been sick all over the apartment. There's just no time," Mary sighed, itching her armpit.

"How did he lose Ruca anyway," Robert asked.
"Oh Jesus, don't even ask. He got annoyed with her and let her out in a backyard without a fence."
"And you trusted him with your dog?"
"I don't know. I just thought. . . maybe."
"That's that," Robert said."

It was a terribly hot Ohio day. Robert and Mary were both sweating through their clothes. The rest area remained vacant. The sun beat off the friends' cars.

Robert sat wondering what Mary hadn't told him.

"Is everything OK?" he asked.
"No. My dog is lost. Jesus."
"Right," Robert said, "but what if you find her and she's OK. What if he finds her?"
"What are you talking about?" Mary asked.
"I guess losing the dog was the last straw."
"Yes, that is what I'm saying. I'm through, this time, with him."

Robert could hear the words, even their meaning, however could not comprehend Mary being done completely and forever with a love that still twisted her so with confusion.

"Do you still love him," Robert asked.
Mary sighed, "I don't think so, not now."
"What's love anyway," Mary said, "I love you, so what's love then?"
"You love me as a sister loves a brother," Robert said.
"But we've made love," Mary said.
"Though we never talk about it," Robert said.
"I love you and we've made love Robert," Mary said.
"What are you saiying," Robert said.
"I'm only saying," Mary began, "that I loved Steve until he lost my dog. Even when I said I didn't love him, I still loved him."

first short, short story

So, This is Living


Fields of corn were being harvested. The town was a small town just outside the state’s capital. Steve and Arnold drove into Ashland in the middle of October. Steve drove while Arnold looked out of the window.
Arnold was just out of college and a decade younger than Steve, who had a wife and two children. The men were selling tax equipment to the different business owners in the small town.

Each man was dressed professionally—shined shoes, pleated pants, ties, and suit coats. They rode in the Honda, jacketless.
Steve was an experienced salesman, and now considered himself a financial consultant. Arnold, just out of college, still considered himself a student, and the job as only temporary.

Steve was fat, red-faced, red-haired, and wore a red beard. He drove and talked continually on, chewing tobacco and every so often spitting into a metal can.

They pair of men had been driving for two hours.

“You can do this. You have the personality. You seem to be a sharp kid. Don’t forget to give yourself more credit,” Steve said.

Arnold looked straight ahead out the window. He went long periods with saying anything. Steve was still growing accustomed to this. He sighed.

“O.K. now let’s review: the acronyms S.E.E ad L.A.R.C stand for. . .?
Arnold looked at his manual, then stated: “Smile, eye contact, enthusiasm, listen, agree, rebuttal, and close.”

“Yes. Exactly,” Steve said growing excited, “remember ABC—always be closing. Its all a system; its all in that manual; stay within the system and you’ll be fine.”

He continued on, “Let me put it this way. You’re a spitting image of me six months ago. You’re Steve, six months ago. The beautiful thing about Vantage Point is that you move up. Its all about management, getting six figures. Jesus, look at Deuce.”

Murphy Williams II, or Deuce, had been the manager who interviewed Arnold. There was something about Arnold that Deuce liked. Arnold was knowledgeable, and didn’t talk himself into ruts. He was good looking as well, which helped. Arnold still had the baby face college graduates keep until it is broken by living.

Arnold looked at Steve. The Honda continued to drive by brown fields of wheat and corn. It was overcast. Wind swept through the open windows.
“Deuce started out exactly like you and me. Ground level, cold calling and hearing ‘no’ a-l-l d-a-y l-o-o-n-g.”

“Look at him now,” Arnold said.

Steve glanced at the student through his peripheral.

“Exactly,” Steve said, “he’s making six figures now.”

“So this is living,” Arnold said.

“Exactly. You start as a trainee. The move to trainer, then assistant manager, and then to manager. It is all in the manual.
Arnold held a thick packet in his lap. Steve waited, then sighed.

“Look at me. I’ve been in sales my entire life. Banking, and before that, mortgaging. I left all of it. Gave it all up, for this. I’ve been in this six months. Its all a matter of time. Its simply a numbers game.”

Arnold grew frustrated. So this is living, he thought. Then it occurred to him, or rather, he grew confused. Had Steve been selling him this entire time?

Arnold let the feeling sit, with silence, wondering what it meant to be an actor. He looked out the window. So, the actor had a stage, and knew that he was performing. Further, he had stage directions and a script.

The student thought—the actor becomes something else entirely, a character with or without morals, specifically portrayed in careful lighting.

But no, Steve was not acting. He had, in fact, become a salesman over time, and could no longer separate the child from the adult.

Steve spit tobacco into the metal can.

“Look at it this way. My boy is in cub scouts. Next, he goes to boy scouts, and then eagle scouts. It is all a matter of time and keeping with it, through thick and thin.”

The student wondered what Steve was talking about. Steve paused, then sighed.

“It’s a rite of passage,” Steve said.

“Sales?”

“No, remember you’re not selling anything. You’re helping the owner out, saving him money.”

“So helping someone out is a rite of passage.”

“Now you’re getting it, boy.”



Later, Arnold would find out that according to the business owners and farmers, the two salesmen were just individuals passing through their town.

Afternoon would take light.

Soon, the corn being harvested would be bought, husked, and boiled. Buttered and salted and eaten.

As for now, the farm hands continued to harvest.
Every time the silence between Arnold and Steve grew almost too fat, Steve exercised his rite to educate the student on sales.

Something strange happened today. It was a good thing, though. I starting reading poetry that I liked. I read and read Raymond Carver and Robert Frost into the night. Re-read all my dog-eared pages. I listened to music I liked—I listened to Oasis. I smoked cigarettes in my room. Cold air came in from the night into my bedroom. I looked at my fishing poles and the old tackle box given to me from my dad, and thought of all the fishing I’ve been doing recently. Good fishing, catching a lot, even at the river. I thought about driving to the park and falling asleep under a tree, and then waking up to a pee-wee football game—the flood lights and parents screaming. I thought about my own life—don’t we all in that poetic way? I thought about my friends, my sponsor taking me to the magnolia record store where I got the Oasis CD. Guilty pleasures, maybe. But I came up with this poem:

Broken Belt

I watch, lying in front of a church,
Cars pass on the street
Like soft and silent orbs into the night.
My belt, my father’s old leather belt,
Has split into halves.
Carefully, I take each end
And hide them away in the church’s vines.
This has become my life:
A broken belt, alone at night,
Nowhere to go, nothing to do,
And frustrated about it all.


I thought some more about Raymond Carver. Him as a struggling poet. Working as a janitor at a community college. Attending that same college and meeting john Gardner. What dumb luck. I thought into the night about my next move and what it should be. Another job, then pay rent. Live like this, singular, but not. Happy. Happiness comes over me tonight, into tonight, unexpectedly. One night in the future, I'll remember the night where I was happy enough to stay up for it.

There's the river. There's always the river.
This river: low, shrunken in October.
Islands of gold weeds sprout in its middle.
Blocks of concrete
(with the roadway)
stand from an old bridge.
Faded, spray-painted, chipped, and screwed.

Leaves fall lightly from trees.
Every so often, a branch snaps--
the sound similar to an image
of a couch disarded to a curb.

Branches overhang the shores;
wind takes the leaves down river;
light lessens the water.

There's always the river. This river
only slightly grazed by us with garbage.
This old river, always
lessened by light and us.
If only it was as is without us
growing and winding freely with its course.

Children's book

My roommate and I are starting a new project. I’m writing the narrative of a children’s book, and he’s doing the illustrations. We’re writing a children’s book, called

Grandpa Joe and the Island Hotel.

Jerry and Quentin sat bored by the fire in the living room. There was nothing to do so the two boys sat doing nothing. The two friends sighed, looking glum.
For a moment, they thought.
Just then, Rebecca, Jerry’s mother, walked in looking for her father, Grandpa Joe.

“Have you two seen Grandpa Joe?” Rebecca asked.

“We’re bored,” the boys exclaimed.

“Do you know that you’ve just asked the age old question?” said Rebecca.

“We have?” they asked.

“Yes, of course. . .” said Rebecca, “the question of what is there ever to do.”

Jerry and Quentin sighed.

“We’re on vacation, we’re not supposed to be bored,” they exclaimed.

But Rebecca knew what to do.

“I’ll find Grandpa Joe,” she said.

Just then, Grandma Sue came in looking for her husband, Grandpa Joe, so he
could fix her accordion. Before Grandma Sue could open her mouth, Jerry and

Quentin sighed, and said: “Grandpa’s not here.”

Just then, Rebecca’s brother, Uncle Jimmy, came in looking for Grandpa Joe, and asked: “Has anyone seen Grandpa Joe?”

Again, Jerry and Quentin sighed, and said, “He’s not here.”

Then, in walked Grandpa Joe with a hatchet and armful of wood.
“You all look like you’ve been thinking,” said Grandpa Joe.

“Thinking what?” asked Uncle Jimmy.

Jerry and Quentin sighed, and said, “The age old question…what is there ever to do?”

First Half of "What I've Read!" post

This is not about writing. This is about reading. I can’t tell you how or why I became intrigued in reading, but I did, at lets say age four, and have been ever since.
You don’t read, but get your first books read to you: Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, O the Places You’ll Go, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.

Even when entering kindergarten, then first grade, you still get read to, but usually on giant carpet rugs. This time, between kindergarten and fifth grade, I only remember a select few, though to my teachers’ credit, there were dozens. I remember Where the Wild Things Are; Titanic; Freak the Mighty; BFG; Swan Lake.
Then fourth grade came, or before fourth grade. At the local library, I joined the book club, and did so for many summers to come. I read Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, Judy Blume’s Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? series. The R.L. Stine Goosebump's series, Mathilda, James and the Giant Peach, Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Yearling, The Bridge to Terabithia, Hatchet, The Secret Garden, The Phantom Tollbooth, Island of the Blue Dolphins, A Wrinkle in Time, Number the Stars, Maniac McGee. Ad infinitum. There is an entire world of good literature out there for fifth, sixth, and seventh graders.
Unfortunately, seventh and eighth grade was a different time for me, which we Americans call puberty. Although in honors English by then, I simply didn’t have time to read. I played sports. When I did read, it was text books. Maybe this time in my life was so traumatizing that retrospectively looking back, I remember nothing, so as to save myself from embarrassment. Maybe Sounder and Mr. Popper’s Penguins, but that’s all I got.
High School was the big shift. Kind of like the gear shift. The tactile shift.
More honors English and more books. Everyman, and all Charles Dickens. A lot of Shakespeare. Things Fall Apart. Jane Eyre.
Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
Buck's The Good Earth. The House On Mango Street. The Red Badge of Courage. The Great Gatsby. A Farewell to Arms.
For Whom the Bell Tolls. The Sun Also Rises. The Iliad. The Odyssey.Death of a Salesman. The Crucible.
Gone With the Wind. The Things They Carried.1984.
In four years you can read a lot of books when you are forced to. And I was forced to. However, by my junior year, I lost interest. No more honors English. Now regular English. Different people in these classes. More apathy, and I loved it.
But the big shift came in eleventh grade. I took a poetry class, for some reason, and have since “stuck with it.” Well, it’s an on again, off again, relationship.
I started buying books, and buying books for people. For girlfriends, for teachers. I was shameless. See a book, buy a book. I can’t say what happened, but when reading and writing crossed, they stayed together like two good friends. I started slowly with Hemingway. Read all Hemingway. . . . . . . . . .



O.K, second half to be announced at a later date.

Art Festival


Sparks ignite
from a man with a long metal mask
welding two pieces of steel.
Two women, possibly friends,
illustrate on a concrete wall.
Other people glance
with eyes that lean
over cups almost spilling with beer.

Bands play. Different clouds of smoke
float.
I drink from a paper cup of lemonade.
A yellow rind floats on top of ice cubes,
while lemon seeds collide with one another.

Behind still glass
are three white rooms
where profssional paintings hang.
This is an art gallery
in the center of an art festival.
People, men and women, walk the rooms.
They disappear, then reappear,
disappear, then reappear
within these quiet rooms.

I catch a women's eye on the street
or we glance
then glance again
over cups.
Something happens, but nothing happens,
as I disappear into the white rooms.

Valleys with Hills of Sawdust

October comes,
Stripping the land of color—
Green apples fall ripe from trees.
October comes
Stripping trees bare.
The grounds are air-raided, dug up,
Made ready for winter.
Dry brown shrubs have died,
And are ready to be dug up.

Today is darker, overcast.
The air is chilled.
We’re at the dumping ground
Picking up damp
clods of hay
Old trees
wooden rods
Off of the trailer.

All to be shredded.

Piles of wooden chips surround us,
Hills of sawdust,
Crowding up next to the myriad of workers
Walking the grounds.
Motion. We all continue to move
among these valleys. . .

On the horizon, a storm is coming.

A post Dedicated to ee cummings and Suburbs

For a brief moment,
I looked for a television camera
Filming this scene:
father drives in driveway
black asphalt new-black
two healthy children
y o u n g boyandgirl,
in swimming suits,
yelling: “D A A A A D.”

But there wasn’t one.
This was real life,
And I found myself
With a handful of sticks, mulch, and small leaves,
Of varying greens and blacks,
In the palm of my hand.

Then, the color yellow,
and the Egyptian pyramids came to mind,
but only for a brief moment.
Kids crossing the street with a wagon
brought me back to reality
and I found myself
with a handful of sticks, mulch, and leaves,
of varying greens and blacks,
in the palm of my hand.

This is my life.
Picking up
From where I left it off:
a suburb in the suburbs
Within the bright yellow of an afternoon.

I've thought about school. I've thought about writing, and writing in different forms. Writing letters--I've even wrote two, but alas, they've gone unsent. Poems, plays, short stories.

I've thought about reading. Reading Eliot, Stevens, Dante, Roethke, Frost, Yeats, and Whitman. And actually I've read most of who I wanted to read, but I haven't written what I wanted to write. I think the problem is that I can't figure out what to write about, how to write, or in what way to write.

On a side note, I probably like your favorite band. There's a reason what they are your favorite, and I can probably see somewhat, however momentarily, through the same lens as yourself. I call this 'coming to where your from.'

I've been studying, and reading 'The Waste Land' for this blog, but I'm a ways away from coming to any conclusion. In the meantime, as said by Spacehog, I'll write down two poems I just wrote...

A Movie Scene

When the music-of-life stops,
like in slow motion,
and she jumps around noiselessly,
exuberantly, happily,
she receives shivers.
Continues to dance a strange dance.
She is not dancing sexual,
nor any other way--though her arm-hairs stand up.
She is having individual moments
and individual moods,
and she receives each as if a gift.

It is like she is at a funeral service
for someone she loved a long time ago.

She is inspired, and really doesn't dance,
but walks on the sidewalk somewhere, I can't tell.



Death is a Misplaced Object

On the promenade
behind the funeral home
among two geese picking themselves
I recollect: "I have a lot to learn."

My Grandfather John has died.
My father, in a tailored suit,
carries himself differently.
Announces me as: "My son. . . "

By the promenade
the stream searches, and finds,
a green pond filled with lily pads.
Sun sits on leaves.

By a stream, I think of death.
I think of death by water
finding other waters,
or of death just as an individual stream appearing by a road.
Like death,
today seems the first day before the next season,
or like a watershed in the middle of a far away field.

Gertrude Stein

I’m starting a new blog project. Every week I will be writing on a different modern poet. By modern, I mean a poet from the 20^th century. I’ll write what I think of their lives, their works, their deaths. I’ll write about the poet and the poetry. I’ll write about Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, cubism, allergies, the color green, and much more.

Today, the poet is Gertrude Stein, and the poem is ‘Picasso.’

http://lumpy-pudding.tumblr.com/post/64566809/gertrude-stein-portrait-of-picasso

 Stein writes: “This one was one who was working and certainly this one was needing to be working so as to be one being working.”

The whole poem goes on like so. The first three sentences are as follows:

“One whom some were certainly following was one who was completely charming. One whom some were certainly following was one who was charming. One whom some were following  was one who was completely charming.”

Stein’s poem has the form of a short story started, but not finished, by Faulkner. The sentences are long and winding, repetitive, and use the same dozen or so words.

Stein even said see wanted her poetry to have ‘sameness.’ No focal point. She preferred portraits rather than stories. ‘Picasso’ is a portrait, not a story. Not a narration. Subject matter was not important, according to Stein.

A quick way to describe Picasso’s vision: “When he saw an eye from a profiled view, the other eye did not exist.” He saw flat surfaces stripped of hidden meaning. Stein’s style is similar. She strips down her writing to words that are not representations. Language, to Stein, equals calligraphy. In other words, language or words do not represent or symbolize something, but are actually ‘the thing itself.’ The concept is that Stein utilizes what is seen, rather than what is remembered. When one sees a profile of a person, the assumption is that the other side does have an eye. Both Stein and Picasso assume nothing. There is a continual blank slate, a flat surface, which is filled before their perception by what they immediately observe. But, how does one describe Stein’s perception?

            The reader can assume that Stein’s subject is Picasso. Her poem is about an artist whose style she appreciates and deviates toward. Stein’s gaze, her perspective, her style, really has nothing to do with Picasso in the sense that he was a painter who painted this or that and lived this sort of life. Instead, her perspective in poem ‘Picasso’ is objective. Let’s return. . .

“This one was one who was working and certainly this one was needing to be working so as to be one being working.”

The action of working can be the work of the artist painting, like Picasso. Word choice is Stein’s style. In order to be, Picasso had to be painting. The artist is being an artist when he is creating work. What is the individual itself, though? Being what? By unusual choice of words, Stein brings into question the existence of the individual with . . . “this one was needing to be working so as to be one being working.” This sentence operates on different levels intellectually—it can be meta-art, if work is painting.

I'm pretty tired of writing poems that really aren't very good. Poems that don't have the quality to ever be published. Most of my writing this month has been that way, and the sooner I realize my writing this month has been below average, the sooner I'll write poems that are above average. But when this happens I'll have no clue, because writing won't be relevant to my life anymore. Soon enough, I will quit writing, expel any creativity what-so-ever from my life. There will be no more narration. The music will end. Art will imitate life. And with imitating life, art will become a parrot. A squawking remembrance of the past.

I'm tired, really, of writing the same way, the same style, the same bends and turns. I'm kind of tired of writers who repeat their cadence with every new sentence. For something different, read Laughter in the Dark or any Salinger or Thoreau. If you're into that sort of repetition that tells itself I'll do it different later, then read my past posts in August.

Maybe I should explain: "'If you're into that sort of repetition that tells itself 'I'll do it later'" means. . . if you're into a writing style, a specific brand, like a line of clothing items which are different, yet all have the same logo somewhere on them,  if you're into disguises, masks, then there cannot be any change through sweat that dissolves fat.

Anything that talks to itself convinces itself otherwise. Anything that talks to itself convinces itself of something false, usually.

"Anything that talks to itself, convinces itself," said the conscious to the man in a black overcoat.

This one even puzzles me.

I Listen to Sound

Smoke lingers as the moon rises,
and the light wanes for a quarter hour.
Smoke lingers from my cigarette.
Night will soon be complete,
and I'll sleep like this smoke.

The harsh difference
between summer air and air conditioning
irritates me
like the slap from an ex-girlfriend.

I want to laugh, but can't
like the stale taste of dinner's coffee.

However, this is it.
From tip to tip,
ear to ear,
I listen to sound.

I hear my voice searching for my ears.

Semi-Connected to August 9 Post

Love is a Driver Without a Passenger

I met you outside
to return your apartment key.
There was a warm, August rain between us.
You laughed as I high stepped bare foot
through grass and mud to your car.

It rained down on everything.
Claps of thunder sounded.
I couldn't hear a thing but your laugh,
or see a thing but a slight profile,
distant like the faded faces on coins,
through the car's fogged and cracked window.

You drove off as I stood there.
I couldn't help but wonder
what your car looked like in the
bumper to bumper world
of traffic in the rain.

It was very hot today

How I would read this upcoming poem: 5 vignettes that are connected together.



100 Degrees

The grass is dead.
Street workers handle shovels
and some drink from cans.
Heat waves rise from asphalt.

I let the electrician into an empty apartment.
The wooden floors are warped
and dirty from vacancy.

Outside the back window,
a child glides half-nude
down an aluminum slide.
Clothes hang from a line.

Sweat hangs from my glasses.
It must be 100 degrees.
Someone has written and left MOM
into the dirt of a window.

The electrician, wearing fire-proof gloves,
has his hand deep into a heater.

New news on the home-front: new poem.


Moving Clouds   


Tonight, a commercial airplane passes overhead
as I continue fishing.
No luck tonight, and its utterly dark.
The grass is soaked, my socks wet,
and I keep losing my train of thought.
It begins someplace,
and ends up somewhere else.
Then, I return to fishing.
To my bait colliding with small sunken rocks
on the bottom of the pond.
I wonder if, comparatively, I'm a true fisherman.
Who would say?
My eyes coast around the pond.
Light emerges in places.
One man wears a miner's light.
Finally, the Big Dipper
emerges boldly from a series of clouds.

Here, On the Outskirts

New poem of the week. I wish I could be like those bloggers who have a poem of the week. But alas, you, ACorkAndABottle, have no structure. Screw it, I'm done free-writing. Here is, again, my poem of the week.


Here, On the Outskirts


Lightning flashes
silently white
on the horizon over the city.
It has already rained here, on the outskirts.
Alley street lamps blur.
Pavements glisten from slick oil,
and there is not a sound within earshot.
Silence, so it seems--
a suspicious companion.

Any second now someone will shout in the distance.
Slowly, it will begin again.

"(Untitled)"

How I Want to Die

I want to die with a clear mind.
In a hospital bed, with no one watching.
Hopefully, I simply leave.
Just like that.
Without wondering where I've been
or where I'm going.

You and I, two half-moons in a summer light

Because I've deactivated Facebook, this blog is probably going to be less read. But, I'm going to post the same, but more poems, and less blog-ery stuff. Here's a new poem . . .


As We Walk to the Corner Store


We’re half-seen like quarter-moons
as we leave the building into sunlight.

Next, you’ll say that you’re on the cusp
of a nervous breakdown,
and I’ll stumble into an explanation of a past experience.
Then, you’ll say something about your exhaustion,
how your muscles ache,
as we walk to the corner store.

As we walk to the corner store
I see you in short jean shorts,
and I’m reminded that it’s summer,
though at this point
seasons are like pools I don’t swim in.

We walk past a pool full of new water
and tenants upright in plastic chairs.
Everyone is dressed in bathing suits
which reveal winter skin.

Grass lifts into the air
from the running lawnmowers
of the lawn service.

Classes are finished and school is out,
as we walk to the corner store.
What to do now?
We’ll walk to the corner store for lemonade and cigarettes.
Then?
Then, we’ll rupture inside air conditioned rooms,
and bleed out onto porches.
Summer is simply a combination of sunlight and temperature,
and the veil between us had faded.
You and I, two half-moons in a summer-light,
Are, whether we like it or not, close friends.

Three lawnmowers continue to cut
separate small patches of grass,
as it flies into the air behind us,
as we approach the busy street
on our way to the corner store.

Old drafts of some-what pretentious hoop-la that I haven't had the chance to read

***

Find what you’re looking for in the cabinet—

The white cup with the broken handle.

Tell me about it,
And how its every angle affects you.
I believe that may be your excuse for coming.

It’s time spent,
Lost-touched and separate.

Let the half-hours pass.

***

I caught a song on the radio today-- it was a Harry Connick Jr. one. I thought that it was ridiculously infantile. I think it was from the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack. Suddenly angry, I almost succumbed to the craziness and confusion of anger, of shame, of regret. Why do we feel the need to laugh? Why do we feel the compulsion to express everything we are thinking? Why don't we repress it, engrave it so it becomes incomprehensibly intertwined with our opinions? Then, maybe your cleverness will take a walk. Maybe if you're angry, you should let it go unresolved for the rest of your life, until it turns into boredom, regret, and confusion. You should sacrifice yourself, forget about what makes you happy, reject yourself. By doing so, you'll be doing someone a favor. Then you will stop feeling. Reject the body and accept the brain. Maybe then you'll stop caring about money, and the cleverness of laughing at a Harry Connick Jr. song.

Because he's not funny. And you're probably impressionable and corruptible, or incorrigible.

Please, be quiet. Stop, and forget everything I am. Listen to the air conditioner, or something. Or do what I do, and listen to yourself, and hate yourself. I command you to die alone, and never teach another student for the rest of your life. Don't publish anymore papers on acadamia, because everything you write parades around like an italicized thought. Why should I follow your rules on your terms. I forget if that was a question or not.

***

"Lost" --Ethan Frome? John Locke? Although at times it seems like another Jack bauer-ish 24, it's not. And when the show flies too close to the suspended disbelief sun of God, it backs away...and with good reason. I know, I know, the "Lost" finale was last week. There were going away parties. I even know the finale was some 6 hours long. My favorite sports writer even dedicated a dozen or so podcasts to the series, and a final dedication to it with an hour and a half long podcast (with three TV critics, each going about 30 minutes). But, I didn't listen to it, or any of his other 'Lost' podcasts. Here's the link, for all you "Lost" fans:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=2864045

. . .it's the 5/24 podcast. Also, 5/14's podcast talks with the "Lost" co-writer Carlton Cuse.

Anyway, I'm just finishing Season 1 on sidereel. One thing I wish was different: the show should be on Showtime or HBO. It could be so much more explicit and sexual. What's for sure, is that it's probably the last show 'of its kind.' Basic cable, really? To give you a quick idea of the shows I like:

1. Six Feet Under
2. Dexter
3. Breaking Bad
4. Seinfeld
8. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
9. Arrested Development

Nothing wrong with Dexter. Absolutely nothing. A cool and calm serial killer? With reason and morals? Born out of blood? Hits everything on my wish-list, plus it's on Showtime.

***

Can't write. Haven't been writing. Haven't felt like it. Nothing coming, really. Some good ideas, but nothing past that. Even then, ideas are short to come by. But Stephen King and Bill Simmons say, that as writers, they read or write a couple hours per day. Even with reading: haven't been doing it. Can't do it, don't really feel like doing it. It's not writer's block or laziness. I haven't moved on from writing, like I do with relationships. The conclusion I would say, concerning my lack of writing, would be: if I never wrote another day in my life, I would be ok with it. If I wrote every day, from here on, and never got published, I would be ok with it. If I never accomplished any of my honest goals-- becoming a professor, grad student in New Orleans, or owner of a cabin in Wisconsin--I would be fine with it. If I in fact became a secretary who sets out glass bowls of candy I would still be something. If I never travelled I would be fine. But enough of the 'what-ifs'

There are a few things I do when I can't read or write: I read Samuel Beckett, write about sports, listen to Elliott Smith, watch a movie, or check my cell-phone for texts. In this case, I'm going to write about sports, because a lot has happened in my sports-world--the NFL draft, the NBA playoffs and the Cavaliers second round loss, the Cincinnati Reds in first place, the NBA lottery, the upcoming NBA summer of free-agency, the upcoming World Cup and U.S.'s draw, and probably more.

***

Being an Ohio sports fan, much of my sports-world rotates around Ohio related teams. So, for me the NFL draft is all about the Browns, Bengals, Ravens, and Steelers. Being at heart a Browns fan, I know more about their draft and offseason than any of the latter. Colt McCoy. I'm elated with this pick, and with the time in the draft they got him. Shorter, but shifty in the pocket like a Brees. Light arm, but accurate. Won and won in college. Played in the high pressure and insanely loud state of Texas, for high school and college. The best way I can explain it: the burnt orange of Texas translates fatefully to the brown of the Browns. The colors compliment. However, it's long term. McCoy won't start in '10. So, what can Cleveland do-for-me-now? They can win 6 games, and hopefully beat Cincinnati twice. Other than that, they can find the high potential between Mangini-Holmgren.

I know the Bengal's fan. He grew up in-and-around Cincinnati. Later in life he goes to the home games, but also listens in on his AM-headphone-radiostation to the commentary. Early in life, when he first begins to appreciate the commentary and analysis of the game, he attaches the team and this analysis to home-town pride. A mob of un-curbed enthusiasm walks, in union, into Paul Brown in continual agreement.

I know the Bengal's fan better than I know the Browns' fans. I live, and have lived in Cincinnati, as a Brown's fan, for my life. I've argued with genuine hatred with Bengal fans. Ironically, the arguments always start with the 'cities' of Cleveland and Cincinnati, and end with the team' mascots. There is never a solution.

But I have the advantage of being a fan of the team from their city which I'm not from. Or, I'm a fan of the city that I've never lived in.

***

Movies I've watched recently:

Exotica, U-Turn, Valentine's Day, Angel Heart, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Deep End
A Walk in the Clouds, Cache, Oldboy, The Salton Sea
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, George Washington

Lost Highway, Trees Lounge, Layer Cake, The Dreamers,
The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Professional, The Sweet Hereafter,
Brothers, Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Bright Star, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2012,
Broken Embraces, Disgrace, You The Living,

Shutter Island, Leaves of Grass, Chloe, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans,
Humpday, Chop Shop, Mon oncle Antoine, Brick, Without Limits, Hable Con Ella, L'Enfant,
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, The Class, You Can Count on Me, Paranoid Park

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo-- A gothic, lesbian computer hacker and a political journalist have seriously (in my opinion) great chemistry.

2. Leaves of Grass-- Edward Norton plays two characters who are identical twins: a stoner and an Ivy-league, Classics professor.

3. L'Enfant (The Child)--The casted couple are unfamiliar faces, but perfect for the film. Best ending of a movie that I can remember.

4. Oldboy--A man kidnapped and locked in a hotel room for 15 straight years. Why? And what does he watch on TV?

5. You Can Count on Me-- I've been wanting to watch this movie for awhile. Mark Ruffalo as a drifter-- doing the Kerouac-beat travelling brother.

***

Genre takes away mystery, as I've recently found out. Or, genre takes away that specific quality we appreciate in art. Another way to put it: the definition of a term takes away the intuitive meaning we naturally give it. The mystery of meaning is really our enjoyment of the feeling which is unexplainable. Genre, like all definitions, will take

***
A man announces to a crowd: "I am lying to you.". . . So, is the man telling the truth because he confesses to being 'untruthful,' or is he lying, by saying, 'I am lying to you,' and by using the verb 'lying' in the sentence.

***
So begins the idea of absolute truth and certainty. Pilgrimages and journeys have been made over the question of reality.

***

You start reading, or listening, on a whim. There is an assumption, like what you're about the hear or read or listen to has already been heard, read, or listened to. There is a comparison, or a prior conviction.


***

I've finally started Stephen King's book On Writing and a volume of Yeats's poems. Something from King's book: ". . .good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun."

***

Little did I know it would mean nothing just a week later.


***

--"Who's that singing?"

-"Edith Piaf."

--"What's she so upset about?"

-"Her lover left her, and she sees his face everywhere she goes."

She sings, 'You say things that make my eyes close.'

***

I'm writing this while waiting for the film Hannah and Her Sisters to finish illegally downloading, so I'm trying to finish this post in '15 min 47 sec.' The movie is another Woody Allen. For the most part I'm choosing to watch it, among the infinite list of internet movies, for a few reasons:

Its a Woody Allen from 1986--an interesting in-between time for directors in general. I can only compare my attraction to 1986 to the '86 or '87 David Lynch film Blue Velvet-- its my favorite Lynch film, after Dune but before Mulholland Drive, because its more polished than Dune but less experimental than Mulholland Dr.

I'm finding that Woody Allen has done a lot more movies than I thought, however I follow the same opinion of a friend that all Woody Allen movies have a recurring element that tends to dominate his movies (you decide what the element is), and thus most of his movies are the same. So Annie Hall is revisited over and over if you were to purchase the Woody Allen box set at Boarders (which I have). But what director or artist doesn't have this hackneyed fault?

As for the march madness tourney I'm really looking forward to the Michigan St/Northern Iowa game --mostly because I'm a huge state fan. Hopefully CBS airs the whole game because they really missed the boat with state's last game vs. maryland. Vegas is giving them 1 1/2 points but the overall feeling is that N. Iowa should win by, say, 4 pts. I feel that either MSU will either win by 1/2 pts or get blown out. I'm discovering every game that involves a team I'm a fan of is not a game where I should hedge my bet. Nonetheless, I'll be watching the game with my dad, an MSU grad, hopefully with his self-proclaimed famous nachos, and German beer.

***

As for what I'm reading right now, my cousin recently gave me Stephen King's On Writing which is pretty awesome, and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildstern. I feel both books are sort of must-reads for the reader/writer.

***

Finally, here is an incomplete poem I've been working on, but cannot find a way to end:


In Treatment

From the glass bowl in the cafeteria,
full of apples pears and peaches,
we would fill up a paper bag
with a half dozen Red Delicious
and walk to the horse stables.
On the way, Charis Ann and I
would stop by the small pond
and watch the orange coy zip
from rock to rock.
Clear sky spread purple and gold during these evenings.
We would split the apples
into halves against the wooden fence,
and reach our hands through the stable's gate
to feed the horses.
The stables overlooked
the shaded Santa Catalina Mountains
and acres of rolling ground
sectioned off by picket fence.
The Paolo Verde trees were in yellow bloom
and purple violets emerged into groups
from hard, dry Tucson dirt.
These horses were once wild horses,
but now were domesticated horses
helping patients with therapy.
The first time I met Henrietta
was in front of my focus group in a gated ring.
Coincidentally, I chose the alpha-female,
and she wasn't enthusiastic
as I shyly approached her.
My glands were inflamed from the horses' hair and hay.
She drove her hooves into the ground
as I sneezed repeatedly.
This was Equestrian Therapy
and my life long battle with allergies was surfacing.
Henrietta's frayed tail swatted flies
while her muscles flexed smooth and taught.
I ran my fingers down her long nose while snot
dripped from her nostrils.


***

I guess I'm in-between days--its Monday and my next final isn't until Thursday, and then Friday, and then spring break.

***

Well,

Lost

Jack is the story, and it's a good one. Stay tuned, because it's only season 3.

Poetry Award

Recently, I finished third in 'The Undergraduate Academy of American Poets Prize' category for best single poem for U. of Cincinnati. Here's the poem, posted again.


The Conceit That Unravels Into Meaninglessness

In the meantime, I'm living here,
keeping the house in order for showings.
Everything, from the paintings on the walls,
to the furniture on the patio,
has been tagged for sale.

I've been here for weeks.
Just today, I answered the door,
told telemarketers so-and-so don't live here anymore,
made coffee, smoked a half-dozen cigarettes,
had a beer, and walked the rooms trying to hear a sound.

A friend once told me
(First, prefacing the advice
by liking it to tombstones
above dead bodies)
what she does when walking into a strange place:
she imagines each face
to be a face of her past--
the young girl who looks up to her mother to speak,
or the teenager with a mouth-full of braces bagging groceries.

But what happens when the faces inside the rooms I enter are owned by dead people?
And I find myself walking past photographs
of this deceased elderly couple,
and past their son's collection of paint-by-number pieces
hanging on the walls.
I catch glimpses of myself
from the small mirrors on every wall.
No one is coming here unannounced,
so I can act this way.
Everyone went west after the funeral
and I find that I can't remember
the original placement of things.

I know the date
only from the newspaper.
I leave the shower running
and fall asleep nude.
Nude, and asleep with the shower running,
I am the pretension of a misplaced object
that has become a conceit
which unravels into meaninglessness.

***I don't know. Fine enough. The school has a ton of good writers, good poets much more refined than me. Especially the women, or young ladies? I don't know the expression. But for the most part, the girls dominated the contest in each category: short stories, poetry, playwriting, essays, and compositions, etc. I don't know much about the female writer, because I don't read many female authors. But from what I've observed of women, they are less, I would say, troubled . . . or less rough around the edges. They remember, or keep in mind, the forms of composition. But a writer is a writer. Men have Faulkner, women have McCullers. I cannot choose and it probably doesn't matter.

So I'm going to keep writing, and hopefully my writing gets better. Better scope, less serious, more humor, less measured, and more creative. Recognition doesn't matter. When you're ready, you'll get recognized. Even then, it doesn't really matter. I let it go because

there is a quick and sudden excitment, then you do it all over again, but hopefully better with the added experience you keep in the back of your mind. And it is continually improving, getting more refined. Exhausting, this pursuit of improvement. Putting the pieces together, the concepts you've read and learned ardently. Eating pages, eating books, eating music, eating films, buying, adding, improving, expressing it all in a long, drawn out single breath. I let it go, with the hope that it will come back when I need it. Fall lazily into my lap when I least expect it. It's not patience, because I'm not waiting or expecting a thing from writing, or from you.

In my world, cleverness does not exist, nor do expectations. Meaning unravels into meaninglessness. You begin, then get tired. Rest back into meaningfulness. Hopefully, eventually, I rest less and less, and watch less television. 

Bolding, italicizing, quoting, capitalizing, and separating a single word

I know everyone likes movies, and for this, I am definitely in the majority. However, there's a certain kind of movie-buff that I'm thinking of. Not the fan of Garden State. Not the fan of genre, or director, or actor. Not the fan of the box-office, or of the made-for-television movie. Not the critic, or the sport's fan who marvels with curiosity at the off-beat. Not the athlete who enjoys sports documentaries. I think the type of movie fan I'm looking for is . . . myself. How original. What I'm saying is, is that there is always something wrong.

Nothing can live up to my exact preference of style and meaning. That's not to mention the fact that I don't bother with what isn't my speciality.

That being said, the type of movie fan I'm looking for is probably my opposite, though I'm not sure. Or-- when you make a decision, everything opens up. The person who has no opinion is not enlightened, but only anxious. I would know. The person who has a dominating opinion, does not make a decision. It's similar to Russell's paradox:

There is a town, where it's required that every man shave daily.
You are not required to shave yourself.
For the people who don't want to shave themselves, there's a barber.
The town's law states: "Those who don't shave themselves are shaved by the barber."
The question is: "Who will shave the barber?"
(I'm infinitely indebted to the graphic novel Logicomix)
***
My point, and I think Russell's ultimate point as well, is that we are all 'the barber.'

(The barber cannot shave himself, for being the barber, it would mean that he is shaved by the man who shaves only those who don't shave themselves."

Also, the barber cannot go to the barber because he would still be shaving himself.)

So, we are all barbers, or ostracized movie-buffs. Or exceptions to the rule. Or paradoxes.

BUT... we love to be entertained. So, going along with Beckett's credo of: "There is nothing to express, and nothing to express with. There is only the obligation to express," (Conversations with Samuel Beckett and painter Bram van Velde) I want to make a new list of my favorite movies:



1) Happiness--The stories of various characters intertwine and relate. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a perversely sexual character. Also, the movie throws in a gay therapist.

2) Miller's Crossing-- An old Cohen brothers film. Seamless dialogue . . . that can be embarrassing at times. However, far-and-away my favorite Cohen brothers film ( above Fargo, Barton Fink, A Serious Man, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, No Country For Old Men) I think that says enough.

3) The Dreamers-- An American student in Paris during the 1960's revolts. The movie is meta-film, and has some incest.

4) The King Fisher-- Robin Williams is a homeless man.

**

So, what have I learned while writing this post? Well first, the Cohen Bros. are very underrated. Second, we are never going to agree, cannot agree, cannot even agree to disagree.

Thus, we come to the axis of my post: a paradox is-- a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory, or absurd, but in reality expresses a possible truth. ( I understand the word 'absurd' to be the definition relating to the 'theater-of-the-absurd' : [plays] stressing the irrational or illogical aspects of life, usually to show that modern life is pointless)

Also, the word 'self-contradictory' : two propositions related in such a way that it is impossible for both to be true or both to be false.

First, sorry for this. Second, welcome to my life. Seriously.

Anyway, so, a paradox is a proposition that seems like [two propositions related in such a way, that it is impossible for both to be true/false] or a proposition that seems like something which stresses the irrational or illogical aspects of life, showing that life is meaningless.

Or. . . A paradox is this 'OR' this. OOKKK, OK dictionary. Paradoxes are absurd--illogical, meaningless. We are "barbers," or men who cannot shave, but who live in a town which requires that men shave daily.
We are breaking the law.

Intuition says that I should end this with the sort of literary technique which I think of as "the-build-up-before-sex-and-calm-cum-afterward" OR "the-sweet-here-after" or  "the final 4 1/2 minutes of a basketball game, where the lead changes continually, but the team you're rooting for ends up losing."

*** Everyone enjoys movies. I'm no different. "The previous statement is false." Or, who can know if it's true, or if I really mean it. Am I really no different?  Probably. I'm probably no different. Most likely, I'm controlling the conversation, or undermining the girlfriend I don't have, or graduating from a previous life-level. However, you're listening to me, although I don't notice or care. I'm no different than you-- I like Brad Pitt because I think he's an accurate and visceral actor. I believe Mr. and Mrs. Smith was great. I like John Cusack, therefore I liked him in Serendipity.
But, what about my love for literature, my love for women, and my love for sports? What about my love for literature, women, and sports.
I am a paradox, and so are you:
you enjoy the rush of gambling, but despise the feeling when you lose,

you are empty, on and off, throughout the day, during work--even though you are making money, while around other workers. You are not an 'employee.' You are the exception to the rule. You are a paradox. This is not your life until you encourage yourself that this is your life.

What about being an American; a blond hair, blue-eyed-22-year-old; a poet and brother; a son and student?

What about being the man who enjoys movies which fit the abstract criteria of his cross-hairs. What about being empty or full. What about being the person to grotesquely illuminate the paradox of the barber. What about writing with good intentions, but instead, writing into abstraction. What about abstraction? What about you, the voyeur, the reader, who uses his cross-hairs to narrow down my illuminated and grotesque intentions and transform them into failed attempts at something you understand only by intuition.

Three Poems About Death

Ok, well, I'm officially finished with writing for a week or two. I'm exhausted. However, the three poems I'm going to post, I have entered into another contest. The prompt, or prize award, is the 'best collection of 3-5 poems.' So, I wanted to give the three poems I entered something in common. The best concept I could think of was death. For the first time, I used a voice which I was most comfortable with, and I think that's why I'm actually proud of these three pieces. Tell me what you think.

Art of Dying


Lately, the news hasn’t been good.
On and off, she’s been dying for months.
It started with a single spot on her ovary,
so they cut that piece out.
Then it started with a follow up appointment.
Turns out, the cancer had spread,
and at the least, she can’t have children now.

Now that she has it full blown,
her mother tells her that it is genetic.
Her mother tells her that she had it,
and that her mother had it.
They found the cancer before it got bad though.
Something then passes between them,
mother and daughter,
which they don’t know what to do with.
Sure, the mother is supposed to go before her children.
We all know that.
What if, as a subject, death is impossible to avoid?
Confronts and makes friends with you,
like a mother does when you’ve grown up.

The change that comes over a mother,
as her child comes into adulthood,
is the change that’s now come over you.

You’ve breathed a sigh of relief,
because as the deformity was cut into,
then taken out of you,
it left you disfigured and impotent.

You, the woman who loved being
the woman pregnant with death,
has now given birth to it.

This dying art,
of living the death
we are born into,
has now accompanied you.

Thus, you are unafraid.



Death As Life-Affirming


The diagnoses is not good,
and I would know.
I work with dying people every day.
Her blood is too thin, and her liver is failing.
They are considering pulling the plug.
There is me, my husband, the five of them, and a doctor.
They’re discussing the possibilities around a table.
They argue: “She would not want to live like this.
She is only alive because of the breathing machine.
And she can’t do dialysis.
Dialysis will kill her,
because her blood is too thin.”
People spend days, at most a week, in the ICU:
She’s been here for three and a half weeks.
They argue: “Do you want to pull the plug?
She’s a fighter, she would want to fight.”
There is screaming and shouting and crying,
and extreme sadness.
Then, there is silence.
I realize the husband
has been silent up to this point.

I don’t know why I’m here,
and I don’t want to be here.
I ask my husband why I’m here,
and he takes my question the wrong way.
He’s been debating with his brothers and sisters,
and is worked up.
He whispers to me: “If I ever get to this point, please,
just shoot me.”

Misery is something
he wants me to put him out of.
I’ve seen that look before:
Death as life-affirming.
And I’ve seen the look that
my father-in-law quickly gives me:
Death as the final breath of his wife.



Rooms


There was a time
when I thought I couldn’t die.
I didn’t think that far ahead.
No one close to me had passed away,
and I also hadn’t died yet.
But, still, even when not thinking about Death,
He was thinking about me.

I was born blue-faced, with the umbilical cord
wrapped around my neck.
Later on, I flipped my Honda three times,
from hood to underbelly,
into a ravine.
I opened my eyes, alive,
and climbed out of the window:
Much like I did when being born.
My father told me: “I don’t know,
I just don’t know. Freud would say
you have a death wish.
Do you want to die?”
This was not my first serious accident,
but the third or fourth.
I went through three cars
during my first two years with a license.
It got to be a farce within the family.

Then, years later, something happened.
It was not a suicide.
Please, stay with me now.
Every second,
someone is born and someone dies.
You open your eyes, alive,
astonished and confused.
So goes my on-going relationship with Death.

In a room,
the midwife takes out a child:
Much like what happened during my birth.
Subsequently, another room
is lowered into the ground.
In my room,
I am belted to a bed,
with a catheter, IV, and breathing tube.
I open my eyes,
alive and confused.
My immediate family hovers above me,
in this small room.

Finished Poem

Well somehow I finished a poem. This first poem has been submitted for a particular contest. Please tell me what you think. I think this is all I'll post for now.


The Conceit That Unravels Into Meaninglessness


In the meantime, I'm living here,
keeping the house in order for showings.
Everything, from the paintings on the walls,
to the furniture on the patio,
has been tagged for sale.


I've been here for weeks.
Just today, I answered the door,
told telemarketers so-and-so don't live here anymore,
made coffee, smoked a half-dozen cigarettes,
had a beer, and walked the rooms trying to hear a sound.


A friend once told me
(First, prefacing the advice
by liking it to tombstones
above dead bodies)
what she does when entering a strange place:
she imagines each new face
to be a face of her past--
the young girl who looks up to her mother to speak
or the teenager with a mouth full of braces bagging groceries.


But what happens when the faces inside the rooms I enter are owned by dead people?
And I find myself walking past photographs
of this deceased elderly couple,
and past their son's collection of paint-by-number pieces
hanging on the walls.
I catch glimpses of myself
from the small mirrors on every wall.
No one is coming here unannounced,
so I can act this way.
Everyone went west after the funeral
and I find that I can't remember
the original placement of things.


I know the date
only from the newspaper.
I leave the shower running
and fall asleep nude.
Nude, and asleep with the shower running,
I am the pretension of a misplaced object
that has become a conceit
which unravels into meaninglessness.

Eye for an eye, mother fucker

   Things seem to be happening all at once concerning writing. A fellow UC english student approached me with a cool idea about a publication, along with a few other UC undergrads. The idea is a publication of UC students by UC students, in the form of an e-book (Im not sure what the 'e-book' is, but I get the idea its a little more relevant than a chap-book.) Among the myriad of details I was given about it, it sounds pretty serious in the sense that you'll be able to buy it online, and we would have to give a % of the sales to UC for the use of their name. Anyway, its supposed to be due for publication in mid-June. SO BUY IT, when I'm able to give more of the who-and-what about it. Also on the writing front is the yearly UC writing contest, May 1st, where the winners are given pretty good cash prizes. Soooo, my backlog of writing seems to be coming in handy right about now, although I really only have one poem ready-- I have a short story, short play, and about fifteen other poems in the works. First, I wanted to post the one full poem I have finished . .

The Price is Right

Water from the metal shower head
Beats like a heart-murmur
Against the glass door,
Though the shower is unoccupied.
Above the ivory sink

A square mirror collects condensation.
Small drops supplement, then fall,
Leaving a clean trail.

Under a canister of shaving cream
Is a perfect circular rust-ring.
Its morning in southern California,
And a breeze comes in through the window's open screen.
Behind the bathroom's wooden door
I hear Drew Carrey commentating
On The Price is Right
From the living room television.

From the canister, I apply lather--
To the temple
And down the cheek,
Under the jaw line
And up to the temple,
Under the jaw line
And above each half
Of the upper lip.

Shaving is like skating on ice
Covered in six inches of snow.
The razor parts and takes everything.

Like a heart beat
Water beats
Against the shower's glass door,
As steam rises to the ceiling.
Its as if I'm skiing
Through the eye of a heavy blizzard.

Above the sound of running water
From the faucet and shower head,
I hear old women, in the distance,
Nervously guessing the price of a cleaning product.


Here.. is... the... beginning of a short story I've been working on. . .

In a sunlit park 10,000 small, blue and silver, Independence Day wind-mills, spin in perfect circles, while in perfect 100 x 100 lines. Sunlight catches the silver, and breaks apart reflecting infinitely into no particular direction. A three year old girl, in a pink dress, jumps up and down inside the array of moving wind-mills. Its Sunday, and traffic procedes as normal along the outlining streets. Its spring, and people procede as normal with picnic-lunches, frisbees, and kissing. My dog, half-beagle and half-husky, timidly approaches the myraid of rotating, planted wind-mills. She is two years old.

****
Anyway, someone once told me the word 'myraid' is one of the top ten over-used and pretentious words in literature, and I just realized I've already used it twice in this post. I don't especially like the word 'myraid'. . . it reminds me of the word pyramid.
O.K.--a quick list of my favorite words
1. riven
2. beatitude
3. ether

The Last Five Movies I've Watched

1. The Painted Veil
2. From Paris With Love
3. The Ninth Gate
4. When A Man Loves A Woman
5. Sherlock Holmes

The most startling of the five movies has to be When a Man loves a Woman-- with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. A young meg ryan and andy garcia. If you're imagining meg ryan as a mother of two and suddenly becoming an alcoholic, then your exactly right. I think I really like this movie, but I'm not sure yet. It kind of came out of nowhere.
*****

I would listen to any Bill Simmons' podcast, rather then go out 'on the town' and see the opening of a Shakespeare play on Broadway. I would rather talk about it later, instead of talking about it now. Between cigarettes and alcohol, I choose cigarettes. Between hemingway and fitzgerald, I choose Hemingway. Between sports and literature, I choose literature. Between family and friends, I choose myself. Between College and High School, I choose to not attend class. Between Fiona Apple and Liz Phair, I choose Fiona. Between Nirvana and The Black Keys, I choose Joseph Arthur. Between Elvis and Andy Warhol, I pick Elvis. I choose dying on a toilet, rather than listening to one more expert.

Digression rather than progression.
Absurdity rather than creativity.
Zooey Deshanel rather than Katy Perry
R.E.M over Prince
Vignettes that make sense, rather than stories that make sense

*****

"How are you?" He said

"Good, good. Its been a long time. How are you?" She said

"Good, good. I know! You never answer your damn phone." He said

"I know, I know. I'm changing networks. I'm fed up with Nextel. My signal keeps dropping." She said

"Ah shit. Really? You should try Sprint. I haven't had any problems with it." He said

" Thanks. Really, thanks. Anything has to be better than Nextel. I'm caught in a contract, though." She said

"Ah shit. How long? Get a lawyer. I have a lawyer I know who can help." He said

"Lawyer. A lawyer? For what?" She said

"For the contract." He said

"My cell-phone contract?" She said

"YES. My lawyer is a cell-phone-contract-lawyer." He said

"Really?"

"Yes, really really." He said

"Its been a long time." She said

"A really, really long time, I would say. I've called you, though." He said

"I know. Its my fucking service. I don't know what to say. Its just the service." She said

"I know I know, that sucks." He said

"Of course, but I'll live. So, anyway, how are you?" She said

"I'm good, I've been travelling, but I'm back in town for the weekend. Are you back in town?" He said

"Ah shit. I was last weekend for a funeral, but only for the service. I'm back in Texas." She said

"Jesus. What are you doing in Texas. People rot, carry guns, and vote Republican in Texas. I never knew you lived in Texas?" He said

"Southern Texas." She said

"So you have a gun now?" He said

"Hell yes I do. Eye for an eye, mother fucker." She said.

Red Light . . . Green Light

The heavens parted, and I haven't smoked a cigarette in three days. For some reason. But its 8 AM on a Saturday and I'm up, drinking coffee, and half reading a poem I wrote last night. I feel a little like Adam Sandler in Big Daddy when he thinks he's up early enough for McDonald's breakfast. Anyway, the Cavalier's first post-season game is today, so it got me thinking about my favorite basketball or sports movies. 1. Hoop Dreams 1. Raging Bull 2. He Got Game 3. Blue Chips 4. White Men Can't Jump 5. King Pin Sports movies are tricky, and I found when thinking of my favorite ones, certain borderline films had to be left out. Like Better of Dead, or A River Runs Through It, or even Caddyshack. All formidable choices though. It got me thinking about my favorite actors, and I really wanted to narrow the list down to one man and one woman. And then my favorite movies in general, and I wanted to narrow that list down to one movie. So, my favorite actress has to be Liv Tyler. I need to dedicate a post solely to Liv Tyler, and her ability to do nothing effortlessly. On the opposite spectrum would probably be Natalie Portman. She's pretty good too. I could watch Liv Tyler sit on a bench for an hour and a half. Then, my favorite actor would have to be Billy Bob Thorton. Something about him makes me laugh uncontrollably. Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro come in close seconds, along with Zooey Deschanel and Jennifer Connelly and Emmanuelle Seigner--and any other actresses with thick eye-brows. The least favorite actor award goes to Glenn Close and that red head from Sex and the City. My favorite movie could be Stranger Than Paradise. I also got to thinking about my hollywood crushes in chronological order. I think my first major crush was Willa Ford. And my current crush is that Beetle host from 'Sports Nation.' With Willa Ford, I went so far as to buy her address on a website. This was 8th grade, I think. I never got a reply though. That's not to say I never got any replies from famous people. I sent letters to Tony Gwynn, Patrick Roy, and Tony Hawk . . . off the top of my head. . . and received autographed photos or sportscards back. That was around 5th grade. But no response from Willa Ford. I wonder how many people wrote letters to J. D. Salinger and got no reply. Oh well. I sent an email to Scoop Jackson, about Spike Lee in Reggie Miller's documentary 30 and 30, and actually got a response. ********* Or, we begin, as is, in a good way. Then, there is a middle where we deviate and experiment. Finally, there is the beginning again, as it was at first--the middle, as it never could be--the end, which looks the beginning in the eye, and realizes it is the reversal. But there is no flashback. There is no meaning. There is no final answer or knowledge of where one is going. There is no supplication. There is no Time, because Time is Earthly. Time is a philosophy denoted by color. The End does have an exit, because I've seen a dead body. There is nothing there, absolutely. The corpse is something we see but only understand through our memories of its life. A dead body is an empty object. Stale blood and a dead heart that does not rise or fall. A heart that doesn't rise or fall is a useless object. We are born with a rising and falling heart, and we die with the same heart. So there is a beginning and an end. There is a stoppage of life. You stop a car, then accelerate again. There is no stoppage of life. To stop alludes to begin again. The heart does not begin again after it officially stops. Then what? The heart stops rising and falling, and exists as a useless object. The heart is the sun and the moon, when beating. How would you compare death? How do you compare something that you can only witness from your own perspective: You are bed-side. Your grandmother or grandfather are on their death bed. Slowly, their breaths are further apart. Minutes apart. Then the breathing stops, and does not start. You wait, wondering if the breathing will begin. But it stops, forever. Someone puts a gun to their head, and shoots. What can you say about it? The aim is to famously prove. The evolution of depression is suicide. The erosion of life is death. The connection is an evolution toward death. The word play of sound is universally despised. You die in childbirth, you die in your twenties, you die in your thirties. You die in your eighties. There is absolutely no way of expressing--we've covered and covered it--layer upon layer--the deed has already been committed--and we are a couple of first loves speaking a secret language . . . the obligation to express is like asking the question 'What's the occasion?' God is a hypothetical question. Faith is a suicide hotline. The metaphor is the occasion the simile must dress up for. Reality is the unstable, suicidal man calling the suicide hotline, and discussing philosophy.