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]