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Name
Evan T. Swanson
City
Pittsburgh PA
Birthday
02.23
Last login
8/29/2008 at 2:17 AM
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Not currently online
AOL screen name
pocketevan
Contact Email
Ossus.Keeper@gmail.com
Interests
Writing ... Jazz ... Endless Kicks ... Things That Are Strange
Favorite Color
Green I Think, or Black
Favorite Season
Autumn Into Early Winter
Favorite Time of Day
Twilight: Morning
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This Is What Happened Community
dialogue with ego
8/25/2008 at 5:22 PM
because when you're watching me i can't look at myself, because when you're sleeping i can't be awake, because when you want to write i can't find words, because when you crave anything i'm powerless against your whim, because when you believe in time i pass through the long-suffering of life and dying, because i did not choose to be born but you did, because i can't think at all and you just think that you're better than anyone, because i wanted to rest and you wanted to rape, because i wanted to starve while you were hungry, because i
Into The Pale Box
5/20/2008 at 7:13 PM
a real tall cat anyways,
liked to take shots of vodka with
coffee, real wussy coffee too, with lots
of milk and sugar. sweet shit, like he cared
about the taste of what followed that
rotgut russian shit.
he liked to sniff around all the psychic trees,
the neighborhood watch of the mind,
upstairs eating in, i don't talk, nah i won't
snitch out the imp behind my eyes, i just say.
nah, i won't talk, i'll just say it till your ears bleed,
he was a real tall cat, he talked,
talked a good spit a real outside of the box
type cat, dug on the truth, hated on my slang,
this is real, this is pure, he must have thought to himself
in the gleam of new orleans not-yet-midnight, under the neon
of gay-bar new york doubling dollars for dope, a child in the desert
wandering the alien landscape looking at it all like it were
stranger than the moon, sinking into the pale box while the mind wanders,
yes phillip, let's be fucked-up poets together
tossing ourselves as thoughtlessly as the dead soldiers we pile
into a world bleak and unfaltering - forecast:
97 sunny 97 sunny 97 sunny 97 sunny 97 sunny
- and embrace the curse like it was the most wholesome food
we had ever tasted. i think you may have actually made me
the most wholesome food i ever tasted,
but what with all the weed and booze and banged up ragged hunger
i'm not sure i remember it right. handsome old head of yours with
all the front teeth intact by coincidence or conspiracy, i remember that
time i stood on the chair to be as tall as you and almost had
a heart attack, do you have the words?
a real tall cat, liked to spend days asleep and
nights awash in some better-than-primitive-understanding
of a worse-than-primitive-world. he didn't play pinball
and doesn't care about that hipster shit and would
wonder what happened if things changed like things're gonna
i don't think i do, but i already did,
i don't think i did, but it's just what i do,
have you heard? have you heard?
yes phillip, let's be fucked up poets together
hardly getting lost in the world because
we've been so lost in ourselves, not quite
ready to fight giants together after the second fifth
of that nasty stuff went down, thank your fucking yaweh
we were just imagining it anyway, so instead we fought
the night for time, and won, i spose
i didn't know you that well, reality jew,
just cruising through,
hope they don't
always make it worse
maybe even sometimes
make it a little better
liked to take shots of vodka with
coffee, real wussy coffee too, with lots
of milk and sugar. sweet shit, like he cared
about the taste of what followed that
rotgut russian shit.
he liked to sniff around all the psychic trees,
the neighborhood watch of the mind,
upstairs eating in, i don't talk, nah i won't
snitch out the imp behind my eyes, i just say.
nah, i won't talk, i'll just say it till your ears bleed,
he was a real tall cat, he talked,
talked a good spit a real outside of the box
type cat, dug on the truth, hated on my slang,
this is real, this is pure, he must have thought to himself
in the gleam of new orleans not-yet-midnight, under the neon
of gay-bar new york doubling dollars for dope, a child in the desert
wandering the alien landscape looking at it all like it were
stranger than the moon, sinking into the pale box while the mind wanders,
yes phillip, let's be fucked-up poets together
tossing ourselves as thoughtlessly as the dead soldiers we pile
into a world bleak and unfaltering - forecast:
97 sunny 97 sunny 97 sunny 97 sunny 97 sunny
- and embrace the curse like it was the most wholesome food
we had ever tasted. i think you may have actually made me
the most wholesome food i ever tasted,
but what with all the weed and booze and banged up ragged hunger
i'm not sure i remember it right. handsome old head of yours with
all the front teeth intact by coincidence or conspiracy, i remember that
time i stood on the chair to be as tall as you and almost had
a heart attack, do you have the words?
a real tall cat, liked to spend days asleep and
nights awash in some better-than-primitive-understanding
of a worse-than-primitive-world. he didn't play pinball
and doesn't care about that hipster shit and would
wonder what happened if things changed like things're gonna
i don't think i do, but i already did,
i don't think i did, but it's just what i do,
have you heard? have you heard?
yes phillip, let's be fucked up poets together
hardly getting lost in the world because
we've been so lost in ourselves, not quite
ready to fight giants together after the second fifth
of that nasty stuff went down, thank your fucking yaweh
we were just imagining it anyway, so instead we fought
the night for time, and won, i spose
i didn't know you that well, reality jew,
just cruising through,
hope they don't
always make it worse
maybe even sometimes
make it a little better
POISON
5/19/2008 at 6:32 PM
it's almost as if i had hallucinated the earth were real at all underneath the endless long grass waiting for the
dead to climb up through the wet green hills and honor the living with what's left of the body. baby
your body is a temple, let me worship there, there's so much, there's so much to pray for, in this my cathartic
heart-space i have nothing left to say, i have exhausted myself.
a couple days ago i went blind, for a moment all of a sudden the
world went dark, i could feel myself begin to drool but couldn't stop myself, my hands started waving frantically,
i knew there was a cigarette clinched between my fingers but i didn't care what i burned down, in my own mind i had
just dropped through the mattress i was sitting cross-legged on, suddenly i had dropped down into a phone booth.
the phone was ringing, i picked it up, i said "hello" a woman's voice said "hello" i said "are you well." without a question mark
she said "are you alive" without a question mark and then i began to laugh i said "for such a long time it was impossible to tell.
you know, when i was at the party, when i was in the field, when i was on the stage, when i woke in a body, it was impossible
to tell, i would have given you that body you know, but now it appears i have dropped it like a stone and given it to no
one. the language of stars is not hard to learn, but the language of man is difficult to forget." she tried to say something but there
was a bad connection sound "why is it so easy to get lost in a dream but so hard to find a moment of rest?" she asked.
with a question mark. and then
she was shaking me so hard, telling me not to talk like that. telling me not to burn him, cause he was screaming and scared and i was
trying to burn him. telling me not to talk like that. telling me that i was scaring her. i yelled "are my eyes open kat!!" she said "yes, yes, what's going on?" i shouted
"POISON!"
"POISON!"
and then the light came back, i thought it would be comforting, the light came back, it wasn't.
dead to climb up through the wet green hills and honor the living with what's left of the body. baby
your body is a temple, let me worship there, there's so much, there's so much to pray for, in this my cathartic
heart-space i have nothing left to say, i have exhausted myself.
a couple days ago i went blind, for a moment all of a sudden the
world went dark, i could feel myself begin to drool but couldn't stop myself, my hands started waving frantically,
i knew there was a cigarette clinched between my fingers but i didn't care what i burned down, in my own mind i had
just dropped through the mattress i was sitting cross-legged on, suddenly i had dropped down into a phone booth.
the phone was ringing, i picked it up, i said "hello" a woman's voice said "hello" i said "are you well." without a question mark
she said "are you alive" without a question mark and then i began to laugh i said "for such a long time it was impossible to tell.
you know, when i was at the party, when i was in the field, when i was on the stage, when i woke in a body, it was impossible
to tell, i would have given you that body you know, but now it appears i have dropped it like a stone and given it to no
one. the language of stars is not hard to learn, but the language of man is difficult to forget." she tried to say something but there
was a bad connection sound "why is it so easy to get lost in a dream but so hard to find a moment of rest?" she asked.
with a question mark. and then
she was shaking me so hard, telling me not to talk like that. telling me not to burn him, cause he was screaming and scared and i was
trying to burn him. telling me not to talk like that. telling me that i was scaring her. i yelled "are my eyes open kat!!" she said "yes, yes, what's going on?" i shouted
"POISON!"
"POISON!"
and then the light came back, i thought it would be comforting, the light came back, it wasn't.
The Kid
4/26/2008 at 2:41 PM
just like that
another city gets bulldozed
in the vagrant mind, are you ready
for me again? walking lightfoot quiet naked
early morning from the bathroom back to
bed, pittsburgh, i miss your lights, pittsburgh
i miss your light. tickets please, tickets, creeps
in stained suits throwing money at the disease
i blew six lines of cocaine put the pistol in a mailbox,
said "aloha" to the place i thought i loved
before i thought of love. pittsburgh, do your eyes
still snub and promise, sigh and seduce?
do your hallways still echo do your bridges still stand?
are you ready for me again, sweating out the old dirt
whisking ash under the carpet. pittsburgh do you
still play pinochle with your friends and tell
the kids not to get too drunk? are you still the kids?
are you the kid? am i the kid? is that guy old and bearded
in the corner waiting on some smack the kid? is
that model with the wide lips under a tap the kid? where
are we? are you ready for me again?
pittsburgh, i miss your dark pantyhose, pittsburgh
i miss the gallons of color you would wear
in the graffiti bathroom about to win it all but too late
blowing it all over. didn't we ride in the car together
to a hovel with the truth tattooed on its walls? didn't
we go so fast around the turns realizing "it is
not dying, it is not dying"? didn't we burn bodies
by the ohio, and bury bones in the riverbank?
pittsburgh, i miss the sad smile coming over your face
in the late-night let's-get-out-of-this-place diner / dive-bar
i gave you my blood and two grams of ground angel,
trying to trade you for the sweet city snatch that opened up
so charmingly for my child-mind, thinking "make love
to me, give birth
to me" are you the kid? is the kid coming around?
bad, man, straight up cold, pittsburgh, summer rainstorm
to the east, cloud of locusts eating anything, cluster of experts
and expert analysts, i miss your nouveau art abandoned downtown,
i miss you waking me up by singing in the shower, i miss the
masks you hung on your skull. i'd love
to play some cards kid, let's keep it friendly, keep it
fair, i know that you, that the kid, doesn't
come unarmed (tickets, please gentlemen, tickets) let's
play in nothing but our cuffs and holsters, yes?
another city gets bulldozed
in the vagrant mind, are you ready
for me again? walking lightfoot quiet naked
early morning from the bathroom back to
bed, pittsburgh, i miss your lights, pittsburgh
i miss your light. tickets please, tickets, creeps
in stained suits throwing money at the disease
i blew six lines of cocaine put the pistol in a mailbox,
said "aloha" to the place i thought i loved
before i thought of love. pittsburgh, do your eyes
still snub and promise, sigh and seduce?
do your hallways still echo do your bridges still stand?
are you ready for me again, sweating out the old dirt
whisking ash under the carpet. pittsburgh do you
still play pinochle with your friends and tell
the kids not to get too drunk? are you still the kids?
are you the kid? am i the kid? is that guy old and bearded
in the corner waiting on some smack the kid? is
that model with the wide lips under a tap the kid? where
are we? are you ready for me again?
pittsburgh, i miss your dark pantyhose, pittsburgh
i miss the gallons of color you would wear
in the graffiti bathroom about to win it all but too late
blowing it all over. didn't we ride in the car together
to a hovel with the truth tattooed on its walls? didn't
we go so fast around the turns realizing "it is
not dying, it is not dying"? didn't we burn bodies
by the ohio, and bury bones in the riverbank?
pittsburgh, i miss the sad smile coming over your face
in the late-night let's-get-out-of-this-place diner / dive-bar
i gave you my blood and two grams of ground angel,
trying to trade you for the sweet city snatch that opened up
so charmingly for my child-mind, thinking "make love
to me, give birth
to me" are you the kid? is the kid coming around?
bad, man, straight up cold, pittsburgh, summer rainstorm
to the east, cloud of locusts eating anything, cluster of experts
and expert analysts, i miss your nouveau art abandoned downtown,
i miss you waking me up by singing in the shower, i miss the
masks you hung on your skull. i'd love
to play some cards kid, let's keep it friendly, keep it
fair, i know that you, that the kid, doesn't
come unarmed (tickets, please gentlemen, tickets) let's
play in nothing but our cuffs and holsters, yes?
Rude
4/11/2008 at 8:56 PM
"nihilists with good imaginations"
let me tell you
something about a memory i had one time
, just a short memory, one that
happened on me the other day looking
into a fruit basket to find a song,
it was an itchy little rag of a memory
stained with ashes and oil, a mechanic's rag
of a thought,
i one time sat on the carpeted stairs
at the top of them and watched
her laugh so uncontrollably
into a bottle of potato vodka crusted
dirty excavation gear girl in the lap
of a giggling giant, enormous plastic glasses
dully reflecting a projected harrison ford,
angry knocking ignored, almost impossible to hear
through gut laugh of
dirt and smoke on a couch,
i one time sat there and watched,
don't knock like that, you know
he keeps a knife by the door
for a reason.
what are you sniffing around at pig?
i found that little raggedy imagining,
deftly stole a pear and at first
thought to myself - ah to have kicks -
and then thinking to myself
- ah, to have kicks - spit into the scrap
and extinguished a cigarette there,
i promise i threw it out proper, it's rude
after all, to litter.
let me tell you
something about a memory i had one time
, just a short memory, one that
happened on me the other day looking
into a fruit basket to find a song,
it was an itchy little rag of a memory
stained with ashes and oil, a mechanic's rag
of a thought,
i one time sat on the carpeted stairs
at the top of them and watched
her laugh so uncontrollably
into a bottle of potato vodka crusted
dirty excavation gear girl in the lap
of a giggling giant, enormous plastic glasses
dully reflecting a projected harrison ford,
angry knocking ignored, almost impossible to hear
through gut laugh of
dirt and smoke on a couch,
i one time sat there and watched,
don't knock like that, you know
he keeps a knife by the door
for a reason.
what are you sniffing around at pig?
i found that little raggedy imagining,
deftly stole a pear and at first
thought to myself - ah to have kicks -
and then thinking to myself
- ah, to have kicks - spit into the scrap
and extinguished a cigarette there,
i promise i threw it out proper, it's rude
after all, to litter.
Bad News
4/11/2008 at 4:18 PM
what do i have to say? afraid to write because too many mistakes have been made, broke your heart on accident with a toothpick and a wink, just don't blame me baby for where things have disappeared to, it's not my time to rise and shine, it's just my time to wait, and wait, and wait. the music's made sweetheart, you're in there somewhere out there banging pots with a wooden spoon, don't beg the sound, just bake a cake, i want to graze your thigh with a fingernail and prop my head up on a pillow of metaphysics, it's all words afterall. remember the swimming pool backdooring the black-hole in our memories where the life begins and the love ends, craving some short satisfactions. i've got bad news, bad news. i've got bad news for you.
Gypsy
3/27/2008 at 10:00 PM
nothing to say but hungry and sharpee black on paper thin
"your local friendly gypsy, offering
PALM READINGS: $1
TAROT READINGS: $5
DAILY HOROSCOPE: FREE!"
sitting at a coffeeshop concerned for
my sanity afraid to respond to old friends
existing between sheets of fly-paper wondering
where's the money coming from?
"your local friendly gypsy, offering
PALM READINGS: $1
TAROT READINGS: $5
DAILY HOROSCOPE: FREE!"
sitting at a coffeeshop concerned for
my sanity afraid to respond to old friends
existing between sheets of fly-paper wondering
where's the money coming from?
Fuji's All-You-Can-Eat Buffet
3/26/2008 at 10:57 AM
late night real tall way up wondering what's goin down, sweaty concert
and hot club, let's call it midnight drugs and good-morning thrills , five hours
left to go before the work's dried up and our bodies are broke in, you've
got a striking smile red-head-blue-eyes has anybody ever said so?
so tired of looking out glazed over with sleep haze and sad blue chair back-ache,
when you smile, it's rather striking, has anybody ever said so?
you grew up by a cemetery, that's what you said,
found a body in a basement once and it
didn't even scare you, cause what could?
and hot club, let's call it midnight drugs and good-morning thrills , five hours
left to go before the work's dried up and our bodies are broke in, you've
got a striking smile red-head-blue-eyes has anybody ever said so?
so tired of looking out glazed over with sleep haze and sad blue chair back-ache,
when you smile, it's rather striking, has anybody ever said so?
you grew up by a cemetery, that's what you said,
found a body in a basement once and it
didn't even scare you, cause what could?
Spring In The Desert
3/24/2008 at 10:27 AM
morning birds and clear view to downtown
palm trees almost absurd against pink and gold
swimming pools and playful wondering, are you
coming out today? i'm making music again
been croning like fool while unemployed still wandering
sidewalks asking, work? work? work?
huffing the magician out of a stern deck
of dream-cards. no, you're right, i've never
seen anyone dance like that, that way.
palm trees almost absurd against pink and gold
swimming pools and playful wondering, are you
coming out today? i'm making music again
been croning like fool while unemployed still wandering
sidewalks asking, work? work? work?
huffing the magician out of a stern deck
of dream-cards. no, you're right, i've never
seen anyone dance like that, that way.
Forgetting The Storyteller's Creed
3/12/2008 at 12:26 AM
on a long job in the morning dry after work with
602 and violin-solo-sonny, forcing some poor
sucker college kid's brain into action till
sunrise driving off in the loudest
sportscar money can buy boasting "
i love art!" rippling motor sound across
the flat cool earth, describing the day
from the night, glass fire. am i in
barcelona yet? knotted in your legs and arms
and lips am i in barcelona yet? not even
grayscale in comparison to nude model
seductive eyes from elephant skull, death
only the other half of sex, my own testament
to the terminal illness of my self
is simple and unappealing.
i have been found and enveloped by what i ran
from, before, when things were not as they are,
when it was not a time
for choosing sides,
beating on a barrel-drum blind
making jokes about something
we used to dream about that
looked like this.
602 and violin-solo-sonny, forcing some poor
sucker college kid's brain into action till
sunrise driving off in the loudest
sportscar money can buy boasting "
i love art!" rippling motor sound across
the flat cool earth, describing the day
from the night, glass fire. am i in
barcelona yet? knotted in your legs and arms
and lips am i in barcelona yet? not even
grayscale in comparison to nude model
seductive eyes from elephant skull, death
only the other half of sex, my own testament
to the terminal illness of my self
is simple and unappealing.
i have been found and enveloped by what i ran
from, before, when things were not as they are,
when it was not a time
for choosing sides,
beating on a barrel-drum blind
making jokes about something
we used to dream about that
looked like this.
Proof Of Sedona
3/4/2008 at 4:12 AM
there's a touch of red on my boots
and a speck of wonder
spotting my collar.
and a speck of wonder
spotting my collar.
Matchbook That Fell
2/28/2008 at 10:43 PM
so i've been writing these little things called "american haiku" for the past few years, under the impression that i had read allen ginsberg and jack kerouac previously conspired to spiritually transpose the oriental haiku into american english by stylistically distorting it. as it turns out i don't remember if this is true, and can find no source to validate my impressions. regardless my poem "a marvelous series of american haiku" has been given some followup attention, the resultant poems are pretty alright, and i'd read them if you have a minute.
When You Only Want What You Have
2/22/2008 at 6:13 PM
a gutshot at putin and sudden realization of evil
dollarbill world in which murder is fame,
grotesque masks in a nightclub life with screaming faces
and prison teeth. a way out on a friday
before your birthday hustling fungus to hipsters and
cool desert rain with a well-behaved mutt hungry
like a woman anxious for diner stimulation to wear off
in the dust turning muddy almost time for the first of many
fractures in the lens of life to manifest and manipulate
your visions. when you only want what you have
you haven't anything to dream of accomplishing
besides becoming like the sun.
dollarbill world in which murder is fame,
grotesque masks in a nightclub life with screaming faces
and prison teeth. a way out on a friday
before your birthday hustling fungus to hipsters and
cool desert rain with a well-behaved mutt hungry
like a woman anxious for diner stimulation to wear off
in the dust turning muddy almost time for the first of many
fractures in the lens of life to manifest and manipulate
your visions. when you only want what you have
you haven't anything to dream of accomplishing
besides becoming like the sun.
i have no reason to lie to you
2/19/2008 at 8:29 PM
keep making up the truth in a blue striped
shirt thinking over and over i live rock & roll
tracing patterns in the carpet with my pinky
watching you untune an acoustic guitar and
hunting for a match.
what did you first think when they
let you out of the hospital? what did
the first clear sky of autumn tell you on that day
when they let you out?
shirt thinking over and over i live rock & roll
tracing patterns in the carpet with my pinky
watching you untune an acoustic guitar and
hunting for a match.
what did you first think when they
let you out of the hospital? what did
the first clear sky of autumn tell you on that day
when they let you out?
Goodmorning Phoenix
2/10/2008 at 8:32 PM
old enough to jet the tide, halloween on hills made flat easter easier, and all of a sudden a desk
three piles of paper and five packs of cigarettes, two bottles of wine and a half full bottle of sake
three designer carefully hand-selected ball-point pens, randomly set among the pages clip-on sunglasses
poking out from underneath dog-eared associated press stylebook jacket staring me down from hanging on the wall
like strange painting of strange office in 1940s world dead now too long for the collective memory to be sharp, soft instead
soft lighting, the sun sets fast here, grilling in february keeping alive despite the dry death enraged by our insolence
nipping after. notice the blank walls, the black screen, the suede couch, the blank walls, the book shelves the glass heads the jar
of wishes left untouched on top of a cabinet the fan that doesn't spin at night, that doesn't spin 89 inches off the ground instead hanging
still like an innocent ring of petals around a stained glass flower the blank walls the time it takes to create is equal to the time it takes to experience, accelerate your creativity till its velocity matches your experience and feel alive as fast as you live. seven o'clock from old squaw peak sunlight crosses the desert and touches the city for the first time, three minutes later and the entire city is bathed in gold the sun is risen the day begun.
three piles of paper and five packs of cigarettes, two bottles of wine and a half full bottle of sake
three designer carefully hand-selected ball-point pens, randomly set among the pages clip-on sunglasses
poking out from underneath dog-eared associated press stylebook jacket staring me down from hanging on the wall
like strange painting of strange office in 1940s world dead now too long for the collective memory to be sharp, soft instead
soft lighting, the sun sets fast here, grilling in february keeping alive despite the dry death enraged by our insolence
nipping after. notice the blank walls, the black screen, the suede couch, the blank walls, the book shelves the glass heads the jar
of wishes left untouched on top of a cabinet the fan that doesn't spin at night, that doesn't spin 89 inches off the ground instead hanging
still like an innocent ring of petals around a stained glass flower the blank walls the time it takes to create is equal to the time it takes to experience, accelerate your creativity till its velocity matches your experience and feel alive as fast as you live. seven o'clock from old squaw peak sunlight crosses the desert and touches the city for the first time, three minutes later and the entire city is bathed in gold the sun is risen the day begun.
The Enormouse Blue and New Physics
2/10/2008 at 4:20 AM
it's beautiful out here. the sky is enormous, the sun is bright and warm, new little big city edged in by palm trees and mountains, desert massive and everywhere around you in the dark. you can see the entire moon,the entire earth. i'm rewriting documents for a russian physicist whose english is horrible. his physics is revolutionary and he garnered a lot of support in st. petersburg but needs to have his work rewritten in order to connect with the american science community. everything looks like a sweet fruit.
quickly now children, don't want to lose anyone
2/4/2008 at 12:34 PM
notice i have changed my city of residence in the panel above this blog feature.
that's cause i'm gettin the hell out of the woods and walkin the desert.
today i'm packing in fast forward to MIA printing out ticket information writing up resumes to spam a new city losing time daydreaming about a new apartment making calls collecting memories saying goodbye again out here to here
that sort of thing,
all very exciting
just thought i'd call it to your attention. as a natural side-effect of this egoic entropy our brains dream up we want other people to give a shit.
that's cause i'm gettin the hell out of the woods and walkin the desert.
today i'm packing in fast forward to MIA printing out ticket information writing up resumes to spam a new city losing time daydreaming about a new apartment making calls collecting memories saying goodbye again out here to here
that sort of thing,
all very exciting
just thought i'd call it to your attention. as a natural side-effect of this egoic entropy our brains dream up we want other people to give a shit.
sludge
2/1/2008 at 12:09 AM
i travel
with a pack
close to the front
striding
with the tall ones
waiting
to be acknowledged now
go fuck
yourself with that
attitude, coming
out of nowhere to touch a
hustler who walks six inches
taller than he stands rollin
like that, it's not a wonderful day
to do anything but smoke cigarettes and
blunts and swallow barbs on a wire baby
lay here next to me on the grass
and dirt play like an old soul saying
half-wise mottoes under your breath in the
back room looking like a bad dream play like
a real lady lookin out the last window
i haven't busted out yet breakin for a morphine kick
wanna throw acid in your face
just to watch you move there are coupons
on your table under piled pumpkin guts do you remember that night?
running with the pack? or pissing in the sixth-story hallway
of that office we broke into through the grate uncovered over the parking garage?
middle finger to a camera crazy on that last spliff and covered in sludge
from the squirrel cage roof looking at a moon that doesn't think, or care,
or crave, or feel...like this?
with a pack
close to the front
striding
with the tall ones
waiting
to be acknowledged now
go fuck
yourself with that
attitude, coming
out of nowhere to touch a
hustler who walks six inches
taller than he stands rollin
like that, it's not a wonderful day
to do anything but smoke cigarettes and
blunts and swallow barbs on a wire baby
lay here next to me on the grass
and dirt play like an old soul saying
half-wise mottoes under your breath in the
back room looking like a bad dream play like
a real lady lookin out the last window
i haven't busted out yet breakin for a morphine kick
wanna throw acid in your face
just to watch you move there are coupons
on your table under piled pumpkin guts do you remember that night?
running with the pack? or pissing in the sixth-story hallway
of that office we broke into through the grate uncovered over the parking garage?
middle finger to a camera crazy on that last spliff and covered in sludge
from the squirrel cage roof looking at a moon that doesn't think, or care,
or crave, or feel...like this?
Inventory
1/29/2008 at 12:25 AM
one beaten gold-plated zippo, berry chapstick, bandaged wrists bloody fingers, blue shirt with popping buttons, black wallet packed with cards, the world of light craving validation, a rug made of the sun, two sleeping pills, coca-cola vintage glass, shaking everywhere, shaking everywhere, conventional worries, conventional routine, conventional crisis, women troubles, time, plenty of time, enough time, nothing worth keeping long enough to wear out besides a body wearing fast.
a bold knock on a black door and a voice saying come back when your'e dead
a bold knock on a black door and a voice saying come back when your'e dead
morning
1/24/2008 at 7:38 AM
the same green horizontal lines, a dirty outlet, white power cords, a stuffed donkey missing an eye glaring with the one good eye, half-hour late, outside the sun, inside the cold, too bright, too much snow, i cannot wait for the desert to free me from all this weight and memory.
but that was a long time ago
1/17/2008 at 11:41 AM
now i don't do anything nearly so exciting. vernacular of a defeated self. a voice, a recording of a voice, a recording of a voice singing a gypsy song while the ocean on which you pitch drags out another island and drowns it. i was taking a nap in a beige recliner in the house i grew up running away from, dreaming about a tropical-themed bar on a beach where a bartender with a black bowtie was singing baritone when suddenly i woke up and looked at the television, on the screen there was a small community of africans laughing and howling with pleasure because the first permanent well in their village had just been tapped and water was gushing from a pump. a real tear welled up in my left eye and crept down my left cheek. it's beautiful to see people thankful and happy because of something they actually need.
it' isn't easy to find the singing lady in a haystack
1/17/2008 at 1:33 AM
jungle quilts piled high, a cushion of enormous proportions poking up almost into the clouds with a tiny little pea at the base, now there's a folktale i don't remember the moral to almost slipping on the sidewalk where it is unshovelled washington dc february and i'm trapsing in a blazer heavy with drugs to a restaurant where my baby waits for me to casually plan a novel on the back of a placemat and then refuse to tip her with a wink. guns pulled and greasers turned into spots.
or better yet, what you can't?
1/15/2008 at 10:38 AM
some things are just absurd.
ever hear a dozen people
forcing themselves to laugh
in an elevator? i wish i
was the one making that money
and throwing it off a roof
in the form of half-dollar coins
killing thousands. i wish
i was the one on a plane to
vienna hunting down bachmann's ghost
trying to ignore how much
my flesh begs to peel from my bones
it wants to be closer to her so badly.
i wish i
was the ridiculous one
pleading for your attention
in the dusk and aftermath, what
can't be done poor poet?
can you imagine?
ever hear a dozen people
forcing themselves to laugh
in an elevator? i wish i
was the one making that money
and throwing it off a roof
in the form of half-dollar coins
killing thousands. i wish
i was the one on a plane to
vienna hunting down bachmann's ghost
trying to ignore how much
my flesh begs to peel from my bones
it wants to be closer to her so badly.
i wish i
was the ridiculous one
pleading for your attention
in the dusk and aftermath, what
can't be done poor poet?
can you imagine?
why not do what you haven't yet?
1/15/2008 at 12:42 AM
beat the words into names,
call the names into the world
make a world around you from
the imagined landscape
you probably grew up in
but never grew out of.
adoration? shit girl, just
beat the words into names.
call the names into the world
make a world around you from
the imagined landscape
you probably grew up in
but never grew out of.
adoration? shit girl, just
beat the words into names.
why do you do what you've done?
1/13/2008 at 12:27 AM
systematically destroy all rational thought. then gather the components of the system employed to this end and exterminate them randomly.
only in this way can you baptize every motion of the mind to the holy cause of poetry.
you've got me all wrong baby. all wrong.
only in this way can you baptize every motion of the mind to the holy cause of poetry.
you've got me all wrong baby. all wrong.
i'm right now waking up to wonder how much of what i've said has been tape-recorded
12/10/2007 at 8:29 AM
do you love the good-morning view (?) behind a vase and a votive candle with a skinny white jesus on it gray framing brick building changelessly for hours until sun finally comes up fully and the world is illuminated for a short span till again we've gotta contend with the dark but right then morning, the good-morning view when this is my house and where the hell did she go? wasn't i supposed to have some little muse in this dark-eyed bed making rings out of posies and stringed instruments from rubberbands and refuse of my soul, some little whim that clutches to me and will not allow a single night to pass unproductively without dreaming? tomorrow i shall not be a poet. must be every minute or else what have you? sink piled high with cooking supplies and cracked mugs/dishes filled also with rustwater two doors antiwar protest signs and the sadsmoking country singer with strong jaw and firm badass glance frying your heart from the wall. the end is never gonna happen, traveling to europe, standing naked of skin in a mirror of science, the homoerotic strain between the lawyer and his law, the gateway drug of doublethink and that horrible unhappy hippie stink, how did it come to this baby? WHEN in time did i stop catching your eye? WHEN in TIME did my voice stop convincing your ear to listen?
Shrimp Chop Suey
11/16/2007 at 12:59 AM
real hard manual labor is difficult, my hand is swollen from impact with a sledge hammer. i was chiseling at concrete bits all day. pity me!
i watched a fantastic one-man show about a year ago, i forget what it was called, but part of it was about "the revolution" and how the mousy intellectuals who talk about it would be completely unprepared for the real-deal shit.
i suppose that's me
Kristi - it was probably the strip club story that got her attention. it's an alright one, by which i mean it's almost unbelievable. fuck, we're beat as hell girl. oh, it's 1:25 a.m. right now, sorry i didn't hear you when you asked the first time.
lost on the liquor
i watched a fantastic one-man show about a year ago, i forget what it was called, but part of it was about "the revolution" and how the mousy intellectuals who talk about it would be completely unprepared for the real-deal shit.
i suppose that's me
Kristi - it was probably the strip club story that got her attention. it's an alright one, by which i mean it's almost unbelievable. fuck, we're beat as hell girl. oh, it's 1:25 a.m. right now, sorry i didn't hear you when you asked the first time.
lost on the liquor
General Tsao's
11/6/2007 at 4:39 AM
'm laying here in bed not having had a cigarette for many hours thinking about how truly blank life seems to be. pleasure has been gradually drained from this still frame of a life i live, waking up walking out the gas station "any buy one get one deals today?" and the dark-haired twenty-something proud to have gotten through high school boy of obvious eastern european ancestry with the lazy eye who works nearly every day because i suspect he plans on getting married and needs a bit of security (i eavesdrop professionally and all he ever talks to coworkers about is the girlfriend he lives with) will lift the newport sign which conceals the tobacco discount deals and say "yep, camels camel lights marb mediums newports and those weird new things from camel" they're usually pretty well stocked cause i guess they make money on them, and rightly so, everybody who knows how much serotonin nicotine releases in your brain also knows that the government makes it WAY too fucking expensive and ought to flock to stores which frequently participate in buy one get one deals. i'll step outside the gas station, strike a match, turn my collar when it's cold while i exhale the first hit and if i've got two packs imagine myself lucky for being that much closer to death. hey, something's got to kill you. I walk back to my house and for the first time actually look at the condition of my livingroom diningroom and kitchen, because typically all three rooms have been completely trashed by my roommates and neighbors overnight, beer cans on the floor, all surfaces, and occasionally in my mop bucket which people believe is a recycling can, ashes spread out from ashtrays like petals from a flower, torn magazines painted-on newspapers elaborate chalk drawings on construction paper marijuana seeds on the kitchen coffee-table disorganized piles of books referenced clothes randomly strewn on couch and diningroom floor. the bohemians only want to be real to eachother, but hardly real to ourselves what's the point? oh nevermind, it's only gonna take about fifteen minutes to clean up. so i take those fifteen minutes after text messaging whatever friend i think is available to divert me from the inside life for a night and throw out trash sweep floor spray table with windex stack books light incense cause for some reason i care then up to my room where i play my music and make my magic. i try to compose a haiku for the morning every morning and frequently abort after first line. pathetic poet, impossible to create with all this bare-floor-blues baking hash dreams for the future, impossible to see beauty when everything beautiful in your own life get's walked on by poet self, impossible to convert sound into poetry when the poem has left you talking to yourself on a cold roof in early november naked with a bottle of rum and humongous moon, impossible to believe in Love when you're sleeping on Your Own Couch so she can have the Bed, impossible to remember faith when doubt has accomplished so much more, impossible to see through the mist until something real appears because this whole time you've been spooning out your eyes. then the long boring fights which we call friendships play out for an hour or two and everybody else gets ready for work but i don't cause i don't have work yet but hopefully soon these casting directors will be calling me back and maybe a better agent than ralph (who sounds fat and has an assistant who calls me "andsome" without the "h" and demands i get those photographs taken of myself soon, like next week or something) will notice me and help me maybe get some big exposure and then i can live the way i want to...yeah, then it'll all happen. as they get ready i sit and smoke and wish i would have finished that haiku earlier but dammit i just don't have the words in my mind. eventually i go upstairs and shower, a nice long hot shower with plenty of time to think if only i had something to think about besides inaccessible wisdom and the madness of our hard-wiring, i wonder what ben gregory is up to? i think he got back from new york city the other day with lots of dough from selling paintings on the street, i don't know why he's still in pittsburgh when he could make a significant splash in a big town. oh, yes, time to lather up with my gray loofah and become actually clean and oops don't forget to brush your teeth today man the stains are bad enough without you ignoring them how you ever gonna get a job in front of a camera with teeth like that? oh fuck, i forgot to call james about that money i owe him, but then OUT of the shower. and into the sound of oliver future or josa gonzalez or frog eyes or interpol or lovely imogen or nick drake or some equally hip recording artist and then button the shirt belt the jeans blame the cat for headache spray deodorant fuck with hair sigh light up again go catch bus steal meal flirt somewhere for no reason evan just keep to yourself more, just keep more to yourself, more, just keep to yourself, just keep yourself. the house is not empty when i get back, justin is there instead of in his studio apartment four blocks away, he's complaining about a lover and drinking yuengling from the bottle in my kitchen with part of the boy's club we call our social group, misfits and maniacs dylan gets a call and tom makes food and i make a fool of my-egotist-self, maybe i'll get that money back to james tomorrow, he didn't call so i might as well go buy something tasty to drink from the pizza place up the street stays open till eleven! the night is always cold here lately cause my landlord still hasn't come to turn on my heat and...well, that's really the point i guess i was trying to get to with this whole rant, the nights are always cold, and i don't have anything here to keep me warm.
Kung Pow Chicken
10/26/2007 at 10:18 PM
my uncle is a pianist in laguna beach, he plays at the rex carlton. he also records music (check him out. Dan Troxell. google will help you) and plays a bunch of romantic and folk music. oh, hymns too. so i was listening to him tonight while driving back to my childhood home from a football game at my old high school and had one of those heartbreakingly beautiful moments of real and pleasurable despair. i grew up in an INCREDIBLY rural area, and while driving down my dirt road, listening to "going home" played by my uncle on CD, passing the only lamp on the road, a gold tree - the only object lit up by this lamp besides a driveway - lost all of its leaves at once in a strong gust. that's about all that happened to me today, tomorrow it's back to pittsburgh and cleaning/gallery awesomeness.
Crispy Duck
10/25/2007 at 11:52 PM
i dropped out of college at the university of pittsburgh last week, school is too much of a bureaucratic pain in the ass for me to put up with right now. i don't think i ever really wanted to go to college, i don't get along well in formal learning situations, they're stifling and ravage a person's creative self faster than piranhas can strip the flesh off a rat - oh, and i've got problems with authority. when i got out of high school i wanted to travel, i had already done some minor hitch-hiking around pennsylvania and southern new york, but i'd only ever been out of the country to go to canada and had never seen the west. two and a half years later and i still haven't been off the continent and haven't seen the pacific coast. my parents convinced me that if i didn't go to college right after high school i wouldn't be able to later. i don't blame them, but i think it's time i dealt with this stir crazy nature of mine. you ever feel like there's someplace you've just gotta see? i'm a dreamer, my wanderlust isn't necessarily geographical, sometimes it's a shift in perception that yields a golden flash of happiness which comes with discovering something new around you and occasionally more rewarding something new inside you. oh, important! money is a terrible convention that inevitably makes us all its slaves. that's my first concern, raising the funds to get the hell out of here. if you have any ideas about creative ways to make extra income, shoot em my way! stay tuned for stories about a crazy kid working full time in the months to come.
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