Other People's Poetry: Tony Hoagland's "When Dean Young Talks About Wine"

When Dean Young Talks About Wine

The worm thrashes when it enters the tequila.
The grape cries out in the wine vat crusher.

But when Dean Young talks about wine, his voice is strangely calm.
Yet it seems that wine is rarely mentioned.

He says, Great first chapter but no plot.
He says, Long runway, short flight.
He says, This one never had a secret.
He says, You can’t wear stripes with that.

He squints as if recalling his childhood in France.
He purses his lips and shakes his head at the glass.

Eight-four was a naughty year, he says,
and for a second I worry that California has turned him
into a sushi-eater in a cravat.

Then he says,
               This one makes clear the difference
between a thoughtless remark
and an unwarranted intrusion.

Then he says, In this one the pacific last light of afternoon
stains the wings of the seagull pink
               at the very edge of the postcard.

But where is the Cabernet of rent checks and asthma medication?
Where is the Burgundy of orthopedic shoes?
Where is the Chablis of skinned knees and jelly sandwiches?
with the aftertaste of cruel Little League coaches?
and the undertone of rusty stationwagon?

His mouth is purple as if from his own ventricle
he had drunk.
He sways like a fishing rod.

When a beast is hurt it roars in incomprehension.
When a bird is hurt it huddles in its nest.

But when a man is hurt,
               he makes himself an expert.
Then he stands there with a glass in his hand
staring into nothing
               as if he were forming an opinion.

- Tony Hoagland

"clark answered with an apologetic no," or an acting exercise

practicing,

"no?"

it just rises signifies nothing sounds

porcine i think of her bent ass exposed

the o lurches sunward then slumps

waiting waiting — a tick — i know but she does not

punishment is anticipation the second

guessing her nostrils tossed up into the air

surrenders her pink neck bent back ass exposed

again: 

"no?" 

better, 

i think i've got it now.

untitled 12292011115, magic [revision]

a thumb jammed deep in the eye of some tragic blonde

and stain her clothes her bedsheets teach her blindness

you get over pain like with the flick of a magic wand

when she sleeps you open your eyes and inflict love 

preferably she shows you a glimmer of affection

preferably when she is tired and you are tired

just long enough so she lets you beside 

to heal a wound inflict a wound

to inflict a wound is to be kind

to heal a wound inflict a wound

just long enough so she lets you beside

preferably when she is tired and you are tired

preferably she shows you a glimmer of affection

when she sleeps you open your eyes and inflict love

you get over pain like with the flick of a magic wand

and stain her clothes her bedsheets teach her blindness

a thumb jammed deep in the eye of some tragic blonde.

untitled 12292011115, magic

you get over pain like with the flick of a magic wand

a thumb jammed deep in the eye of some other

preferably someone who shows you a glimmer of affection

the only way to heal a wound is to inflict a wound

the only way to inflict a wound is to be kind to another

just long enough so they let you lay beside 

preferably when they are tired and you are tired

when they sleep you open your eyes and inflict love upon them 

and stain their clothes and their sheets and teach them blindness.

sad little de sade

i'd 

love you 

to know

here sit

grey things 

night springs

sad little 

de sade 

no more

at present

the wind

at my back

so far

the moon

at my rear

everyone

blind broken

held near.

CYCOLA

[Oil, acrylic, molding gels — 48''x 36'' — Sold for $25,000]

once sweet

(chrysalis is the word i was looking for — WIKI: A chrysalis (Latin chrysallis, from Greek χρυσαλλίς = chrysallís, pl: chrysalides) or nympha is the pupal stage of butterflies. The term is derived from the metallic gold-coloration found in the pupae of many butterflies, referred to by the Greek term χρυσός (chrysós) for gold.)

deciding on the news, or what hemingway couldn't say about icebergs

trite, trite, trite

it's the power of cross-examination

no, a weak wristed witness

no, the small jewish lawyer 

with the italian last name,

he plays the best lawyer on tv

no, the loudest

no, defeat sounds like dismissal

and the nodding audience misses it

when the witness cuts off the rat's head

these grand gestures

three men, grown men

dressed up

IN SUITS!

unbloodied opponents all lined up

petitioning a fourth man

a loose tie suggests power

(i cannot spy his shoes, black leather

penny loafers, i surmise and move on)

these grand gestures

Lenny Bruce moves with the microphone stand

the best-dressed man 

his smooth gray

hair, pale

blue tie

speaks least, but last

a long-dead drummer taught us

silence is often a grand gesture

the later it gets, the more tomorrow it becomes

the attorneys finger their 

smooth faces, betray a tell

but are bound to winning, like a killer or his victim 

to a chair

"But where is this going, gentlemen?"

this democratic pageantry,

can we arrive at the truth already?

trite, trite, trite

if compassionate consumers have taught me anything 

truth — ice water, nowhere, la petite mort — never

wins an argument.

"It's foreplay we're talking about here, chairman."

Just say it.

The rat picks up his own head

Tucks it under his arm

And returns to his seat,

"Nothing further, chairman"

untitled 121320112028

the definitive experience

sulfur in the air of appearance 

you worked your adult life

to buy the car

flipped onto its roof

right there

the right hand of the highway

irreverent, filthy, fever fast

road flares draw your eye

keeps you away

the definitive appearance

keep truth at bay

sulfur in the air of experience

road flares and pay checks

car wrecks and committee chairs

you worked your adult life 

to buy a smile

speeding down

down

    (the first to nowhere)

to nowhere

forever

lasts forever

flipped onto its roof

down there

nowhere, there

forever

irreverent, filthy, fever fast

firefighters — uniform, pristine — peel back 

both driver's side doors, gut pillowy remains

pull out the body, put the body back on wheels

the definitive experience

sulfur 

the air of appearance. 

paaltiger

ice cream eatin' motherfuckers

H.2D.AR.1126-272011

"the point it to write as much as you know as quickly as possible." -kurt vonnegut

the stifling of laughter does not lower 

its volume, but only remands the high 

frees the middle 

splinters the low register 

to an unsettling alien 

timbre.

"It's not much to say he was our Dante, 

making a distinctively American language out of 

slang, jokes, complaints and rants." 

daisy fried on wcw, nyt 11272011

field notes on the movements & hunting habits of the hired scrubber

instep rises with each elbow-heavy scrub — filthy mop across 

the grey — grey tiles underheel somehow wet and clean, the sap drying.

hidden in the bushes, field notes  

comments on the subject's patience, its hand

work, sloppy, effective, paid, the years of 

cutting — subject puts its tongue to the flithy lips

of the shop's slop bucket 

& sucks.

now, the subject, rocking on the balls of its feet — like a man waiting for a crocodile —

in the tacky grey grout, all gut & regret   passion extinguished by

by?

by what?

i'm thinking, but not writing. 

by whom?

by why?

observation still

inconclusive

subject dashes out the back door

trailed by a roadrunner plume of dust.

[no where to say]

What if the point of the Occupy movement is that a very diverse group of unhappy people sitting numb in front of secondhand televisions knew that they needed to say something, but didn't know what it was that needed to be said?

They felt this ache, this discomfort, they knew the general area from which the discomfort was coming... but how to address that?

For so many of my generation the course of action is usually to hide behind 4 walls, behind a television, behind a laptop, behind whatever nominal comforts are sold to us from across the Great Blue Light. But what about that ache... it's never out of sight out of mind with the ache.

So the OWS crowd came together... ±2 months now... they've been searching.

What will they find? Who knows?
Maybe it's a red herring? Maybe it's a farce? Maybe it's a spark?

I think maybe OWS is about trying to find some answers to these questions we — black, white, red, blue, whatever — have as individuals... or to figure out the questions first, so we can seek out the answers.

And wouldn't it be specious if thousands of people from across the county knew exactly what their answers were within 60 days of knowing there was even a question?

Anyway, I'm sure the riders of the Montgomery bus system were extraordinarily inconvenienced back when, but look what a little action there did.

Don't want to speak for Bruce, but I think the point of the post was, 'Good for the protesters, at least they're standing up.'

[the art of the kill of the screensaver]

untitled, 100220111110

1
i want her
without having to lift these wicked words
water drips from her hair
"i want her,"
but
i want her.

2
across the room
steam from the slow sliding shower door
tongue at my upper trapezius
i turn to her.

3
my head is hidden or is it dark
against her skin, against her
i cannot hear the water running anymore.

i can't sleep / i can't wake up

she rounded the corner. i was standing there with my weight on my good left leg, leaning my left shoulder into the brick wall of a so-so american restaurant. i didn't smile toward her but made eye contact and puckered my lips off to the left until she looked down at her shoes on the sidewalk. then i smiled. she rounded the corner. i was standing there with my weight on my good left leg, leaning my left shoulder into the brick wall of a so-so american restaurant. i didn't smile toward her but made eye contact and puckered my lips off to the left until she looked down at her shoes on the sidewalk. then i smiled. she rounded the corner. i was standing there with my weight on my good left leg, leaning my left shoulder into the brick wall of a so-so american restaurant. i didn't smile toward her but made eye contact and puckered my lips off to the left until she looked down at her shoes on the sidewalk. then i smiled. she rounded the corner. i was standing there with my arms spread as wide as they would go. her eyes narrowed and the corners of her bare lips curled slightly up. my eyes never left the deep black center of her's. i smell her skin the moment before she slips into my arms. then i smiled. 

xxy, again, on week 2 of the 2011-2012 nfl season

Like blood splatter
__an expensive pattern
__on paddle eternal, invisible grain

Whack
Whomp
Her voice looms against the pounding
__train, deafening wifi connection
__four bars of uninterrupted violence

Plunk
Pop
Carve the rolling sky, quick cocaine clouds
__from the teeth of the vibrating afternoon
__like too tight strings
__of a violin

Then she is gone, voice vanishing
despite intentions worse
for imagination,

The symphony tunes, unaffected
Oaken oar washed, rehooked on the museum wall.

"An Accident that Occurred in the Ring-Side Seats at Madrid, and the Death of the Mayor of Torrejon"

i imagine her at rest
propped up in her purple bra
licks of light sneaking through
her bedroom door
a mirror leans against the wall
she wants only one thing more
than to let each one in
then music
her pink lipstick like the light concealing

i imagine she dreams of dancing
loose, wet knees
strawberried hair rushing across a nose
painted fingers reach
up
to adjust the volume knob
cold toes sail across the clean hardwood floor

i imagine she rests
warm and sweating, the song fades
mirrors like smoke fill the room
the door slams shut.

[for jorie]

maybe it's an issue with vocabulary

dark with dialect and black hair, playful

the dictionary kicks up at the puddle

suddenly smaller

stack of books, covers & titles marrying

praise & anti-pith — on balance

from here with perfect warmth of gravity

concept quaint, quiet and quick

the common cold caught in a napkin

like the human condition, we mustn't cure.

[i'll wash them from her while she sleeps]

i know too much about being invited

two fingers on the thoughtless device

and the window with no blinds

the arches of her skinny little feet supporting all those dreams

i'll wash them from her while she sleeps

here are three new colors stacked up tightly packed

towering troubling hung up and visually demanding

imitating sad bruised and beautiful

bellowing bruised beautiful and sad

falling beautiful sad and bruised

the thing about being invited here

two fingers forced into the soft doorbell

beneath her ribs, she knows how the world feels here

and no one can take away her demands, her vision.

click dis shit for hot sweaty ballz in ya mouth

note on untitled, 08102011256

i am an addict; something hairy, something scary, something crawling from the shower; stay away; parking tickets are gathering on the floor; i'm beginning to embarrass myself; love's a serious drug; reading the new yorker is a chore, i subscribed for the poetry, now i'm 'enthralled' by profiles, really just scanning fiction — i live in new jersey, for christ's sake; for days the mugs remain filthy, dirty on the floor; since childhood i've been fearful about clogging toilets, especially at social gatherings in strangers' bathrooms; i think i'll stay away; caffeine is a serious drug; how often should one wash towels? linen? how many fitted sheets should one own? how many is too many rings? i am an addict; pick up the phone; i must outbox colorful, impermanent stings — now i am considered grown; i am an addict; something scared; something crawling; something begging to be left alone.

notebook scan 08092011

you have to associate memories

we identify the artifice with simple programs
extracting borders from blackness, nothingness, ennui shadows fear,
piss-colored paint; get it? here we are, wherever, beside each other and bored bored bored
so we pinch our forearms — easy — and steal little pictures of pain
sideward glances the goal is never to be happy the goal is to never stop
emoting and cradling movement.

the goal the goal the goal is here between my fingers in nothing the goal is nothing
the goal is the goal the goal the goal is to pinch your ass from all the way over there
across the clean white walls of this room.

where love meets

finger the painted scales of revolution

beneath the trembling doorframe

and out beyond the shivering window spot

buried in the shattered safety glass

and inside legion

and nowhere

behind the hailstorm

the earth absorbs one final drop of rain.

sorry i haven't been updating, work gets in the way

you have to explain

something about sliding off the thin, cardboard lid
i remember very specifically there must be a comma
between thin and cardboard … my body’s heat printed onto
into the otherwise cold floor, shoebox shaped like a shadow

somehow subtly connected to this idea of a shadow
the shadow representing something hidden-aggressive
the next line emerges, rhyming mask with dagger
and suggests things are not what they seem

the white door, its gilded knob counterclockwise creaking, opens stage right,
i don’t notice — too involved, self-involved — i must have noticed
eyes close, nose inhales deeply, points of the lips twist up
the excitement of being caught, the rush of causation

you have to explain what you find
you have to explain what you find
you have to explain what you find

"if you want a revolution / return to your childhood / and kick out the bottom // don't mistake changing / headlines for changes"

just a note about me misquoting Jack Micheline

Beauty Is Everywhere

Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire
Even the worm is beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard
On a rainy night
Chasing the red haired girl
Baudelaire
Across the sky
Your raggy pants
Laughing at the rain
Beauty is everywhere
Baudelaire 

— Jack Micheline

Erect Monolith of Ham

sketch: desc. of location (as man), 061420112044

There:

Off to the left on the ash tiles below the legs
Of the yellow folding table, they do not wish to be ID'd
Beneath the lights ( clearly

Disappear, scurry, scurry, disappear


Fans stir the otherwise contemplative air, the night I try
Grabbing the vein — bug wisely — I swear with my eyes, they hide (scurry
Scurry

Now ( There is a woman there

Off to the left on the rotten tiles by the legless
Yellow folding table, moving moist jeans
From machine to machine

     He rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his chin.

     "All my things are here, aren't they?"

Woman:

How best to appeal Councilor? Tell me. If I must be guided, guide me.
There is a rambling now an exploitation of words, and as I rise a rush
Of blood-like cue cards, haughty explanations quick against the bone

Quick

Against the skin, the cold grey tiles beside the ash, the piled upon reason
This quickening grey bone, tell me, Councilor
Guide me

Press yr lips to my neck
Do not only take away this pain
In silence press yr lips
Do not take away its pain.

you are strong

my memory's startling ability
to unsee the real
is not directly connected
to the depth of
my imagination; once i
know you are a
weakness i will never
believe you are strong.

"I stole her nervous hands / her addiction to sweet, soft smells"

"From my mother I inherited my looks and a tendency to migraine. From my father I inherited an optimism which did not leave me until recently." Joan Didion

I stole her quietly waiting on the grocer's line

reading the covers of magazines like a tourist

I stole her nervous hands

her addiction to sweet, soft smells

I stole her short, yellow fingers; her fear

I stole what she generously gave

I stole $15 from her purse, her last $15

spent so quickly, whips of remorse

I smile, opening her varnished music box

desperate for what is inside

I stole her stoicism but not her tearfulness

standing over the frozen soil

I stole her nail biting, the bruises and benign wens trailing her arms

I consider stealing her walking away

from where the grave should have been dug

her passive choices, her hollow body

rides over each crumbling ocean wave

I steal some more money from her wallet.

sketch: up from the cracks purple, lips, light a seed

everything abstract

the numbers concrete and growing

up from cracks in purple, lips, light a seed

a horizontal bloom immediately, then

nothing abstract, even abstraction

she's lying out on the couch, no there's a better word

now she's laying out of context across the bed, sheet

wrapped around her legs, light a seed

a horizontal bloom, then immediately

everything abstracts, my glasses tossed pejoratively

to the floor, i hear fan blades, the dismissal of my body, i see

the sweat soaked into, the judgment immediate

the internal rhyme, light a seed

horizontal bloom, then immediately

soft edges abstract, her beauty smooth in the sweet strawberry

of summer, i am not merciful because i have tasted mercy

i am merciful because i have tasted my own mortality, weakness

the blossoming, bluish blame of she sees the body and moans

the internal i, wrapped around her legs

i am merciful, abstract, floating on the palm of a forgiving breeze

i am merciful, wrapped around her legs

i am merciful.

@BogotaHorribLe

james murphy sits / on jersey sheets / slices stars / tinkers w horizontal bars / in the dark / revives wordless weirdo kids / deadpan scars

Joshua Reynolds: Portrait of the Artist, 1780

skinny arms so tired sunday
times spread across the table
kenny clark barely ascendant
over the twitching din of cars
i sense that love has passed
not chasing the bus

alive three hours now
in northern new jersey
a stand-in for the hudson
which shadows the soul
four fingernails peeling off
a little dead skin

[unfinished, 052920110832]

it has been too long since i've fucked a blonde girl 052720111625

page after page plate
after plate it is obvious
to one willing to study
there are no straight lines.

young queen victoria
tightens her pelvic muscles
with temperate purpose
eliminates the last remaining
vertical slash.

i've tipped the begging dog
victoria's cocksure grip on graphite
the trumpet-like moon the hat implies
behind the nightly swirl of trees.

i see watercolor for the first time
do not retreat into its motion
its high-wire act black and gold
gold and black i am willing to study.

simple rebellions 052520111743

i must be unafraid
not
i must be brave
a handwritten list, graphite experiences
dry sketches, without love and attention
will i dismiss their power?

panicked gasps pass my lips, but salt water burns
a gash from my nostrils, looking out toward the sand
surviving sunbathers and settling, hungry seagulls.

self-pity; stretching and sated; energy depleted by noon
memory a once-rich ruby red awning faded by the sun
self-pity; inevitable avoidance; lingering locks of liquor
lump in the gut; imagine that i am afraid to hold you
self-pity; you will lose me in the fog; it is quiet here now
the world feels at peace losing sleep, the street humming white.

simple rebellions; (self-pity) (compelled to compete (
to make a mark) ) despite; simple rebellions;
(self-pity) (
(self-pity) (apathy) (patience reduced over a low flame;
(self-pity) )

 

for B. before falling asleep

i trust that sand
settles where it must
and waves will lure
shells and lust
back into the sea.

I'm Lost

Hips.
Lips.
I'm Lost.
Here.
It can't Last.

Lips.
I'm Lost.
Here.
It can't Last.
Hips.

I'm Lost.
Here.
It can't Last.
Hips.
Lips.

Here.
It can't Last.
Hips.
Lips.
I'm Lost.

It can't Last.
Hips.
Lips.
I'm Lost.
Here.

love as shorthand

 

for cara [notebook scan]

a round of scorn

"when the sun rose up this morning my baby she told me she loved me"

there is nothing to compare to their stare
not hiding your small gold watch
on my wrist
hoping they notice
because
faces are meaningless and empty
the feedback loop is particularly important

and I draw their attention up towards it

with a nod to the drummer
the band settles beneath the noise
& the lights go zero
there is stillness and nothing
can compare to their still, stifling stare
and your small gold watch should shelter me
your small gold watch should shelter me
your small gold watch
watches me
watch.

for Herman Dune performing in Barcelona in the summer of 2009

russians love joegerace.blogspot.com

 stats for the month:

1. United States 1,598
2. Russia 156
3. Slovenia 113
4. China 55
5. South Korea 43
6. Poland 34
7. Canada 20
8. Japan 20
9. Iran 15
10. Netherlands 14

i am

sex as shorthand

sex is shorthand for something
its falling frenetic system of near-loops
onto sweat-splattered plains i have broken
its code — led by a soft hand too softly
to her door abandoned or unwrapped
vividly protected from above — single words attack from split second splashes
descriptors like: night or tracks in time:
peach peach peach peach
written sloppily in rapid succession
each shame deteriorates leans further to the right
or modifiers of intensity & purpose: hand
its bold appeal in plain script carefully constructed
why this light? why its grace now?
why here in this bed, beneath these sheets?
this long captured shade of lipstick red

3 a.m. — deploy the variables, the cherried unknowables
the dotted n's at the early morning diner three weeks now
falling from a cloud unharmed the rain sex is shorthand
belonging to it.

found in the trash while searching for the past

three chords poorly played, one after the other, and repeated 8 times

I DON'T OWE YOU AN APOLOGY, BUT YOU'RE GETTING ONE.
RECEIVE IT. HOLD IT IN YOUR HANDS. CAN YOU FEEL THE TENSION IT CARRIES? RUB ONE FINGER DOWN THE KNOTTY, LITTLE BLIPS OF ITS SPINE:

I SHOULD BE WRITING MORE, BUT VIDEO EDITING IS GETTING IN THE WAY;
SORRY.

oddnotion

from the window

Sweetness is sweetness though I ache
For something hard and fragmentary
What I find bent backward across my palms —

Shaking, saccharine & of my teeth forgiving
Incapable of love, & tender & tender —
The delicate, definite gender.

note to myself, or engine ends you

I see this textbook blonde walking by the front window of the cafe I'm sitting in. Tall, rail thin, slightly upturned nose, her honey-colored hair hiding her ears and perfectly framing her just-so face my eyes drawn down her body to a gorgeous round ass. Tight sweat pants. Always sweat pants. She disappears from the window, walking to the cafe door. I stare at the light radiating off the laptop screen at my table, pretending to think of something other than her as though someone else would read my thoughts, judge my shallow obsession, my wasteful attraction. I count from 1 to 10 and then casually — there is nothing casual about this, don't fool yourself — crane my neck like some great unlubricated, lumbering machine that survives only on the sweat-heavy labor of hundreds of strong calloused men with too much blood to give, and even then, on occasion, the machine malfunctions and ends some family's boring weekend — glance to my left, lead a bit with the forehead and eyebrows. Eyes track from the tan tile floor sweep up towards what I expect to be, when like a train whistle you hear the moment before the [stretch out that moment ... twittering birds light off a maple; bambi hops through cool tall grass; a hunter, miles off, slowly raises his rifle places the butt into the crook of his shoulder looks down through the iron sights] engine ends you. Blackness. Two glass green eyes, pulled from a kiln slice up — as if mimicking mine in a mirror — from the tan tile floor, chopping my vision in two. I'm suffocating — the machinery is there and ready to work, but the night crew is trying to send a message to middle management — I blink she doesn't disappear and I'm still unable to breath. I must remember to breathe, turn toward the laptop in front of me to compose my thoughts, blink. Inhale. Swing the great machine — casually — left again. She's gone.

poppies [rolling edits]

the definite bisection is imagined
and there are no poppies, signifying
nothing. indifferent men hush
then drain pink over obscured mouths

in this place
no decision

then her — flesh tensing, urgent light spun
kicked off browned-cadmium brick
beside the dun and sand
and oil, lacking comport
bisection of nothing, of nowhere

in this place
no decision

a many-whirled pink existence
they must not be souls nor poppies
those who Are will not survive
its love its loss
the closer they bend, the more real

in this place
no decision

and out toward the burnt horizon, the hanged sky
under blockage, they are small, disassociated
real, though with no sun to create them, incongruous
those who Are — or are Still — refuse abstraction

in this place
no decision

out toward this minor & faraway bough
men lay across the road, without affect
and beside them all, a pair prepares to break
to bend outward
his hand leaves her side, her hands from his

in this place
no decision

the field is ready for harvest
the fields are ready for harvest

(for Anseml Kiefer)

Be It Resolved That The Board Approve

Local Rock Band Seeks Bassist

the pirate's life for me

"She takes it in her hands / like a good idea"

"She takes it in her hands

like a good idea, feeling

for texture, grain, the built-in

limits. It's only as an afterthought she asks

and do you think it's beautiful?"

-from Jorie Graham's 'To a Friend Going Blind'




The simple thing is to look into your hands
cupped over your eyes, nose, mouth, thumbs
crippling temerarious jaw; I was once a child too,
I remember this and I want you to return. I want
I want to remember the shadows the color made
in play across a cobble stone street, the sun 
in play across a street leading from the sea, the sun 
subjecting itself to the horizon. I want you to return.
Because it is abandoned it is beautiful, unsubjected to us upon our pondering steed
our pondering steed, the flat, brown water warm under your golden blanket
beside me beside me besiege me, crashes
into the nearly forgotten, industrial beachhead
there is no one behind me, the shore is cold.
breath slips past my lips, the wind is warm.

Most People are DJs

shitsong #1

big money men slip off their coats

can't risk it: tails all dangling, pressure too severe

perfumed water — or worse — poking up along the pinstripes

professionalism jeopardized, this objective brown wad of cash.

"a big straw hat and a liquid orange suntan / he cooled himself off with a japanese handfan / motioned for silence and then he began / he said:"

Learning English - Lesson Eleven (Irony and Coincidence)

"When the Time Comes to Loosen Up Yr Grip, You Will Know" — 03122011

Purely a failure
the binary scraping sound
steel splinters bite the palm
veins purpling, flush with
pushing against what?
what failure?

Plane across which this object
this pushed thing travels, with
no levity over time
imperceptibly lifted
dropped. against the earth
the not perceiving
the failure; not the pain, the hunger
for pain, what failure?

It doesn't end well, though it ends
precisely as scripted — being separate
from failure — death not its ghost.

So convincingly forced forward, the act opposes itself.

03032011

Publish Post

From March 2005 Journal

 

decomposed haiku for the wind & my love, my one true ring

licks of light, fading
flicker & so a familiar strum
echo voices itself, unsure academy, can
i write this song)   ?   (was my point —
the only light flickering in the sound
wind rattling window panes
the whole of what i've learned fits
into a night, might, so easily delight.

raw data: drafting 110620101130

improv for a certain etymology

improv for one last can of sigh

teeth fall from a seasick mouth
blood soaks the Pittman's Rule
spreading like a drought
abandons every hollow i
reminds the abandoned why he tries
last flickering hope within him dies

the words, all lost from island view
on the eternal wave he thought was you.

DFW/Brief.Interviews

MORNING MIXTAPE

you don't wanna get too damn high
but you don't wanna slip back to sleep
with this skyward movement in mind i present
'the great northern new jersey morning mix'

Neutral Milk Hotel - April 8th
Hercules & Love Affair - Raise Me Up
The Mountain Goats - Collapsing Stars (version from Dilaudid EP)
The Mountain Goats - Ox Baker Triumphant
The Mountain Goats - Maybe Sprout Wings
The Mountain Goats - Alpha Sun Hat
Kanye West - All of the Lights (Interlude)
The Black Keys - You're the One
Animal Collective - Another White Singer (Little White Glove)
Jay Electronia - Hard to Get

Download the mix here: HerehEreheReherE

classification of diction in the first four lines of matthew dickman's 'satellite'

class 1
beneath, above, of, back, down, and, on,

class 2
I'm, me, my, I, I, have, to,

class 3
sitting, live (adj), wishing, blinking, was, shoot, into, print, out, paste,

class 4
oak, plane, Darin, wall,

class 5
the, the, a, that, so, them, them, the,

class 6
would, could

mayan spice #1

more importantly the horse slides.

in on its knees, i won't turn around.
but i know the sound — won't look.
maybe the chili is having its way.
a memory aid — nothing the same.
and everything you'll learn from me.
came from one book. i can tell you.
where, i can say this or there, but.
here is a filter creating origin, there.
like a cornea, truth belies reality or.
here is where the sweat returns.
toy cinch scalpeled before the crop.