My Bloody Valentine--Live in Japan

Xiu Xiu

Love Todd

All new Love Todd songs posted here.

Still communicating smile and building harmony.

In

It is still
an angry
pool of gunk
what cuss
lists busts
ink effort
to assay
slugs
poles in
sweet air
lilted thought
came creeping
in
banging tin
inside in.

Poem

I came to a clearing
where my heart was visibly pumping
under my shirt
when all I ever wanted
was small and sluggish
belting it out
in a moment of clarity
later I would remember this
I am a goddamn american poet
and I am watching you.

Here's Something Really Great!

Really. And you can listen to it here

Play it loud.

Play it with headphones on.

Just play it.

Yay.

Light Bright

Here comes gingham punk shine
and his militant apples
all in one gigantic pantsuit.
Known in certain circles as
King Crunk and Wallop,
you'll find animal fur on his impacted molars.
So I sliced his gums
and poured in honey butter and Listerine.
He was into it.
After dinner I stifled his moans with medicated powder
and a fist to the lymph node behind his knee
and damn it if he didn't burst into flames
filling the forest with the smell of roasting cloves.
Light bright, to those still wondering.

Special Saturday Rock Show

Two From Above

Slumber Party

There's always something
unique and unsettling
that's just about to happen
making us uneasy
with machines
distancing ourselves
from the pile
of undones
panicking only
when it's time for bed.

J.H. Prynne

"Said with a flourish, in the morning
be merciful and by the evening
take in the slack"
-J.H. Prynne from "Stamp Duty" in Bands Around the Throat

Best Songs

There are over 100 stories of what you can do for me--I'm just hoping by the time I get back from my root canal you'll have enacted one of them. Like the time we jumped into the water from a rope swing. It skidded along your shoulder and turned your arm blue. You wrote the best songs after that. And still there is the urgency of simply sitting and not letting the day get all slippery and detached. There will always be something you're missing out on, like fresh linens, the paucity of good deeds, the urban sound, you know--all that and more. Still I like the way the jobs get done. Even the bad egg with her manipulation of time and the constraints of knowing it all when no one at all knows anything. Better luck next time when someone is honestly bringing you down, because they will see through you and you'll just have to sort of stand there examining their take on you. Bye!

A Note

Maybe some new furniture would help settle her mind or some sweet little medicine would make her forget that there were little piles of cat food rotting in dishes. But her plans were far from concrete. In fact, her method of gazing at the empty tub, then putting the kitten in it, then sighing, then removing the kitten, then filling the tub up with red food coloring--it made no sense and left an alarming stain in the tub. Then company came and the battle was not to let them get into the bathroom. It was Thursday, so all the papers were being gathered to be put into a bin. She found a post-it note with some words written on it in green ink. The words were blurred, but she could tell they were words. She's got a crisp thanksgiving and a firm handshake. There might be a teeter-totter somewhere with her bottle of medicine taped to it. There's a note on it.

Acting Reasonable

What you can expect when exploring the potential of reason is anger. You might stand up during a fit and have a stroke and believe one side of your hair has turned to marble. You can't put a comb through marble with an arm you can't raise. The lights are lime colored and flashing, making it difficult to read the anger manual. It's Thursday but it feels like Wednesday because there are no meetings today--maybe a root canal maybe a crown, maybe just bring the entire contents of my apartment to the dentist and tell him to fuck it. I gave a little push with my shoulder to open the door leading out to the porch but there was a memorial service going on out there with rustling and sobbing so I curled up on the floor with some peppermint gas. There are a lot of people saying a lot of things which makes it hard to get to know the person speaking. I will introduce myself to the doctors and the scientists and the guy that knows all about logic. I won't stomp around or get frustrated. I'll play chess and start acting reasonable.

Sous Rature

The new online lit magazine Sous Rature edited by Cara Benson is out now. I'm in it along with some swell company. Go here and have fun.

Love Todd: Communicating Smile and Building Harmony.

You can listen to my new songs here

Zoom!

Interesting Paris

Someone I used to know approached me while I was shopping for groceries. If you're reading this: I'm really looking forward to Paris.

Dangerous Clothing

There might have been a dangerous piece of clothing I was wearing. Perhaps there was a piece of shirt that made people believe I was the source of some danger; that they should panic when they saw me or race by me in a van while screaming.

Gaps

What seemed to me. What seemed to be. The distillation of some gap in time to say experience in the vacuum, some void, expect delays from that in terms of space, in terms of years. Long enough to take a vacation from my mouth to your ears.

Not just experience but point of view and the appearance, in relief, of some lack--that element of proud forgetfulness, of a bold unknowing--no shame in that, no curiosity wrapped in a warm flag of non-intent.

So the base, as it were, is airy and spacious, fragments of some broken page fluttering over old bleached bones. Not even sharing the same names for things. The signposts shaved down to the earth, a vast arid conversation with nothing to point at and say here or say there, have you been there?

We can see years or space as the same thing--not so imaginary as now, but real while the language serves only to isolate the questioner more with the answers, full of unknowing, of uncaring, the disregard, the contempt: that's the punishment the questioner gets--stalling out, gliding violently on the momentum of disregard until it's just down with a velocity leading to the inevitable thud of nothing.

All contact a memory, ideas, thoughts, the isolation of experience saying only what we were taught to say to avoid the panic of now so unlike any other now. Say it, but you can't say it with borrowed words. And the lesson: no lesson, and the heads all speak the same words until it's just night all the time howling nothing.

Beckett Speaks

Watch his right hand move.

Six for August