Writing: just call me lucky #3

Writing: just call me lucky #3: a. they are standing still, waiting pour their coffees onto the floor the monkey claps his hands they bring him a tray of excuses he p...

Writing: just call me lucky #2

Writing: just call me lucky #2: a. out stars, come and see my dimness collecting the kings fallen road, wall shadows is it you? falling onto the floor pop, pop, pop...

Writing: just call me lucky #1

Writing: just call me lucky #1: A. nerve gas appetites as shouting angry ghosts seeping in with mustard and wine reaching for the white fool struggling with your fabl...

25.19

25.19

Sometimes we pretend at being normal as we gather all the beatniks around the stage. Each one has a little drum in his hand that he uses to tap out a disjointed rhythm. You wanted their lies more than their truths. Together we built a glass palace that stood high upon the hill. When I held the stone in my hand, it felt authentic. I left you here sad and unfulfilled with so much more left to be spoken. I always thought of coming back this way and placing the jeweled crown upon your head. But, I was distracted by the wasteland. It was the wicked void that called me on, to journey forward into dark upon dark. I was standing under a tin roof and wishing I had a friend, someone to play legos with. I conjured mister Bo jangles under the cloudy sky. He danced around your Shirley Temple and we all clapped and shouted for more. You said he was your hero when you used to believe in the magic of dance steps. I wonder what you believe in now. Do you still believe in me? Even when I put the blindfold over your eyes? You said this was ordained by god. You said that god’s blessing made it legal. I never thought of this as a crime. It was your smile that said, “go ahead, take a chance.” You stood there with your papers in your hand, you had on your reading glasses and the blue jean jacket you stole from Herman. I listened as you spoke about desire, dreams, and vision. I always liked you in your sweater and scarf, standing outside your house with your arms crossed. I always wondered who it was you were protecting. Traffic was backed up to the funeral home. We turned around and went back home. It was a little too precious, a little too conventional. We are hiding inside each vignette, meeting at the chateau. We made an external object inside this fake space. Can you feel the pieces work on each other? We are in bungalow two, a small universe. I forced you to touch the evil charm, standing erect amidst the brambles. Sometimes I would pour you straight out of the can. I was only expressing my feelings. It is all about expression now. Before we measured success by individualist means, nightly we threw drunken wild parties. Herman was such a big alcoholic. He would compensate by being overly macho. He was afraid of being considered a cutie-pie. We settled down in the suburbs with our drinking and depression. You would comment on the hunger of nature. We kept humping away making more centipedes. The speed and the energy was all a part of the experience. We are amino acids struggling up out of the slime. We put a grid across our hearts to prevent others from looking inside. You say it is all about divide and conquer, pushing forward the technique. We live in a mechanical world that is filled with and seems to exist only for machines. We need to turn things upside down and live for nature. We need to stop worshiping the machine and begin to recognize and value the animal.

untitled

bending down, touching
some break
they cannot breathe
solid wrapper
my soul bleeds
if I had something
just anything
then I could dance

she was asleep in the next room
shoot and destroy me
like the age
like the trauma
with a stone around her neck
with her hand dances
shouting blue and rattling dark

you stand in the midst of them
as a mother of all flames
we shall build upon your glow
like the hills of Waukon
seeing the river for the first time
my might is bone and sinew
none stays at my feet
only frothy breath of the destroyer

feeling good like a saturday night
like a suicide
the hard evolution
not your original plan
they are hanging from your trees
following you after dark
little green eyes
ready for a change

it is all in the nature
in the smile and the handshake
all these colors coming out of my fingertips
they are the prize
they are the tatse

we were riding the double decker bus
you were talking about your cooking apparatus
how you could turn the cocaine into rocks
we lived as enourmous flesh
inspired and dominating the town
at night we set the town on fire
just for the sake of fire
it needs to be tended in the right way
the devil can't rule by himself

he needs to fill his city with souls

25.20

25.20

You believe that one day you will be able to find your way, that the fever will break and set you free. I realized long ago that it was freedom that you wanted, but you continue to run head-first into that which enslaves you. Dreaming and swearing and constantly falling in love, it is a never-ending madness. Each drop of medicine only makes you sicker. Can you hear the storm clouds approaching? Hear the noise of the workmen as they build for you your tower? You will climb the stairway to reach god as you hold your lucky charm in your fingers. Reciting prayers that you learned as a child as you climb each step, higher and higher, you believe that magic never lies and that god makes all smiles, but in your heart you know the truth. Tonight you will burn your candles in the tower of your heart and you will worship the worm. You consider the worm to be one of god’s most useful creatures. Like the worm, you were born old, much older than you give away. You are sad and heavy and play the part of the tortured soul very well. Most people don’t realize that it is only an act with you, something that you try on for a season or two. Everyone knows your name as Mr. Crowley, but I know you as a brother. You see the bad before you can see the good. One would think that you were born a Capricorn. In all your evil workings you strive to do the right thing. You want to balance the books of karma. The night falls all around you as we go to dinner. You throw off the grayness of the day like a worn coat or a tattered robe. You are evoking a world of thought and feeling. We are coldly aware of the singular absence that haunts our lives. We hold up our drinks and toast the absence. We drink to the emptiness and to the king of nothing. We are familiar with the emptiness and are intimately aware of the various shades of emptiness that makes up one’s life. Mr. Crowley speaks to the emptiness with a full-throated roar that he was born with. He reminds me of the immense world of emptiness that I am familiar with. The day would be over and I would mingle with the crowds, being both pushed and shoved. I would be both fighting for a life and taking one. I dwelled in the realm of contradiction in the mesmerizing spell of the nothingness. When we have nothing, there is no guide to show us the way, no map to provide direction. All previous treasures mean nothing to us now. Our treasure is in the promise of hopelessness. The glamour has been replaced by seduction.

25.19

25.19

Sometimes we pretend at being normal as we gather all the beatniks around the stage. Each one has a little drum in his hand that he uses to tap out a disjointed rhythm. You wanted their lies more than their truths. Together we built a glass palace that stood high upon the hill. When I held the stone in my hand, it felt authentic. I left you here sad and unfulfilled with so much more left to be spoken. I always thought of coming back this way and placing the jeweled crown upon your head. But, I was distracted by the wasteland. It was the wicked void that called me on, to journey forward into dark upon dark. I was standing under a tin roof and wishing I had a friend, someone to play legos with. I conjured mister Bo jangles under the cloudy sky. He danced around your Shirley Temple and we all clapped and shouted for more. You said he was your hero when you used to believe in the magic of dance steps. I wonder what you believe in now. Do you still believe in me? Even when I put the blindfold over your eyes? You said this was ordained by god. You said that god’s blessing made it legal. I never thought of this as a crime. It was your smile that said, “go ahead, take a chance.” You stood there with your papers in your hand, you had on your reading glasses and the blue jean jacket you stole from Herman. I listened as you spoke about desire, dreams, and vision. I always liked you in your sweater and scarf, standing outside your house with your arms crossed. I always wondered who it was you were protecting. Traffic was backed up to the funeral home. We turned around and went back home. It was a little too precious, a little too conventional. We are hiding inside each vignette, meeting at the chateau. We made an external object inside this fake space. Can you feel the pieces work on each other? We are in bungalow two, a small universe. I forced you to touch the evil charm, standing erect amidst the brambles. Sometimes I would pour you straight out of the can. I was only expressing my feelings. It is all about expression now. Before we measured success by individualist means, nightly we threw drunken wild parties. Herman was such a big alcoholic. He would compensate by being overly macho. He was afraid of being considered a cutie-pie. We settled down in the suburbs with our drinking and depression. You would comment on the hunger of nature. We kept humping away making more centipedes. The speed and the energy was all a part of the experience. We are amino acids struggling up out of the slime. We put a grid across our hearts to prevent others from looking inside. You say it is all about divide and conquer, pushing forward the technique. We live in a mechanical world that is filled with and seems to exist only for machines. We need to turn things upside down and live for nature. We need to stop worshiping the machine and begin to recognize and value the animal.

human suffering 25.18

25.18

I can’t ask you questions about the past anymore because you are gone. You were always so much better at remembering the past than I. You didn’t inspire fear, you inspired love. There was a joy in living that cannot be duplicated. When we try to make something that is true and lasting, we discover that which is artificial. I remember Herman standing in the middle of the street with his pants around his ankles as he jacked-off in front of everybody. He was a victim of a struggle which takes place in the theater of his mind. He had purchased his ticket for entry, but was denied entrance. Herman wants a faithful woman. He looks for her on the internet. He hopes that he can have her shipped to his front door, because he is afraid of stepping outside. Herman is hoping to find a monastery in Tibet to begin his spiritual life. He didn’t understand the cold-bloodedness that a war required. Still he would breathe in the toxic fumes of the clouds. He would fight with the stray dogs for the scraps of meat. He is as naked as a savage howling at the moon. Herman needs the earth like we need the sky. Trish was the one that convinced us to move to Southern Illinois. Herman was going to go to school there studying geography or philosophy. Herman built a deprivation chamber in the basement of an old house we rented. We would smoke pot and then float in the darkness. Herman was keeping a journal of the thoughts that came to him in the chamber. In the garage he would hang balls on different lengths of string and would kick and hit them in a pseudo-karate workout. One evening over white wine, Trish told Herman and I about her experiences in Southern Illinois. I always listened to her very intently. I cherished every word that came from her mouth. Her words could paint a picture in my mind that no one else could. She was studying lesbian pornography. She was planning on majoring in it. I lost her somewhere on the hill between the pizza place and the Chinese restaurant. I guess she wandered for days before she found her way home. She was living with a sociology professor who was getting a divorce. They ate vegetables together and practiced white magic. After a year, the professor left Trish for some whore in Cincinnati. Trish moved in with David the Bell Weather and they had three kids together.

human suffering 25.17

25.17

We were looking back at January, trying hard to remember the way things were. We were watching the angels and the demons sway back and forth to the music. Trish was looking for a play on words, something she could tell the gardener. She always upsets my calculations. She questions the sincerity of my heart, asking me if I truly love her. I tell her that I love her more than I ever thought I could love someone. We deal entirely with disintegration, severing the nerve ends, opening up the capillaries, necrophilia, and fetishism.  Inside your pocket you carry a perfect picture. You never let it see the light of day. You stood upon the stoop and gave a speech about the death instincts of man, about this hallucination we all share concerning our desire for self-destruction. You are breaking ground for the new anarchy. We live with dead suns inside of us. I took you to the doctor and he fixed you up. Dr. Loophole threw a flaming comet across the horizon. He is standing on the threshold of a new era. He devours while he is devoured himself and there is more rain, more relics, and more progress. He has staged some amusing riots and has pulled off some interesting séances, but he is still a fraud and a thief. He is building an ark in his backyard in anticipation of the coming apocalypse. He acts upon his beliefs regardless of the consequences. I see the end approaching, but it is not an ending it is a new beginning. He who has a mind to decipher the clues of the riddle will know that the number is 39. We are hungry for the marvelous. We are patriots of the east side. The world outside of these streets only exists as an idea. We would walk to the graveyard to arrange the tombstones, putting the unordered lives into a final order. The old man was a preacher. He was the closest thing I ever came to god. When he looked at me I could see he had a confidence in me that I didn’t deserve. When I stood upon the altar, the world disappeared and time stood still. I was born on the east side streets and lived on the east side streets. My home was the dirty part of town. We awoke everyday to the stink of slaughtered hogs. My father loaded meat into trucks all day. We would wander the streets all day and I have wandered the world all my life. I am the happiest when I am moving down the highway in an automobile. The hum of the tires on the pavement is a sweet sound to my ears. I couldn’t get out of Waterloo fast enough, pulling up nine cities as the miles went past. Sailing up the river and going mad. The atrocities pile up to heaven. The evidence keeps growing and more and more people begin to understand. Once there was nothing and now there is everything. You pull your heroes out of your pocket and set them on the sidewalk, Napoleon, Marx, and Capone. You share them with the ignoble bastards. You share the glory and the hurtful truths. When it got dark, they led us to paths untold. They showed us the magic gate to the magical theater. We didn’t notice that the streets were ugly and dirty. There were the bars and fast women. No one would throw dirt in their eyes on a Sunday morning when god was a storybook character. The older boys would gather in their clubhouse and drink beer until the sun would go down. We played basketball at the schoolyard and football and wiffle ball in Pop Bottle Pete’s backyard. I remember experiencing victory and defeat. We occupied ourselves as best we could, not know where it was we were going. I remember the red glow of the furnace and the men with shovels who fed the fires that devoured the wooden coffins. No one asked any questions back then. We all pretended as if we understood. But there was confusion on our faces. It was a confusion you couldn’t buy at the Franklin Store. We would buy baseball cards and not really know why. We sold our souls to Rocky and Bullwinkle. We worshiped underdog. We watched Dirty Harry kill all the bad guys and still the streets weren’t safe. We still had bad guys who jump out of their cars and bust us in our noses. We walked into the furnace like devils and hell did not spit us out. We stood in front of Bonnie’s house and puked out our guts in front of her mother. I remember Bonnie’s mother calling me a monster as I beat the asshole into submission. The world is filled with assholes. We can never get rid of them.

human sufferig 25.16

25.16

Trish is juggling her abstract ideas. She is ignorant of the individual. She is measuring the patterns in the crop circles. Trish is a great fish out of water. She flops from side to side creating her reality. I cut her open and remove her air sack. Now she just floats down to the bottom. She is an animal trying to remember human speech. She has grown legs and crawls up out of the water. She has found that it is not always necessary to forgive others although she has forgiven me every time. My love for her was a bullet that went astray. It had something to do with her compassion for all the living creatures. She saw beauty in all of the evil. The evil is defined by our life as a machine. We crush the bones of the weak underneath us. We want only that which is impossible. We are timeless and eternal. Trish could not reconcile herself with the world so she turned the world upside down. She created a fiction to help pass the time away. This story she created helped to adjust the world to her. Now the world did not consider her peculiarities as strange and dangerous. Now the world took her in as one of its own. She was the lost child who was found. She was the little lamb that was brought back to the fold. Trish is a piece of art like any other art. Her underlying theme is salvation. The symbols by which she relates herself to the world are exhausted. She detaches the horse from the frame and it hides itself high up in the chandelier. We tried to coax it down, but it was too afraid. This is far more real than reality. The motorized sex borrowed from Darwin. He set up his camera and took precise measurements. We named the horse war and folded it up and put it away for death. Trish dug the trenches around the building and turned on the hose to fill them with water. I see the emergence of this great new empire of darkness.