Like a Library

You have been ignited by fear
so what little awaits you has nearly been gobbled up
by the ushers. A fleet-footed dude, his
speech is deliberately flawed.
I went to Storm King once and it was beautiful
being there and walking around eating
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
You were there, you remember; that wasn't
long ago. I smiled all the way through
getting lost. Four people hunched over a map
in an office, in a small house, on a state park
looking for a way to get us back on the main road.
There will always be people repeating chickens, establishing
rich meat like buttery soft pearls or wings themselves
coated with sauce. A farm that grows shit like that stuff.
Approximately what I weigh is appropriate for me.
I like you inside my room with chairs and a rolling cart.
I love you. When the movie is on the brown rug, things get wavy -
sleepy legs saw scenery all rubber and creamy,
but you know the rest.

Cardinal For Realz

Jim Carroll Reading

Video of Jim Carroll Reading: Here

I remember seeing this clip from the film "Poetry in Motion" and nearly bursting out of my skin because I was so inspired. Thanks Jim Carroll.

Monster - Sincere Blues

I thought this song was worth repeating. Alex is awesome. They have a new recording coming out very soon.

Andy Kaufman - I Trusted You

The Biography of George Bataille

November Poem

It's here that the day breaks
in half, brittle as butterscotch lodged in a molar.
Sadness is reignited wholesale. A winsome
if not pompous disregard for the details
of my life. I've scoured my biography until it is
easy to communicate all the lessons I've learned
in a sentence in order to save myself trouble the next time around.
I promise I'll get it right once.
If you ask you'll hear that I've lived
a moderately interesting life.
I mean, I've done this before, I know the routine,
but I want you to remember the details.
Take a deep breath and prop yourself up so
as to look awake, so as to be alive as you once were.
The air is rippled so the walk to the car is difficult for no
other reason than the thrill of imbalance
and the adventure of moving in a dark time.
When did I start believing things would ever change?
Or that people would ever care what
I said for a living? You're living all the time
even when you're thinking about dying, you're alive.
Should I call for you in the damp night ?
What could you possibly provide that isn't already there?
Are you waiting to lead me in, away from that place
I sought but now reject? This place doesn't need me
and it will be just fine without me, as will I.
I'm ready to go. It's really nothing
and no one here will remember my name.
I'll just be that guy in a long line of visitors
that came and now is gone. Hello Brooklyn.

The Birds of Fairfield

Some birding devotees are in a slump.
All the trust you can yield for them
is hidden in a note explaining trust.
Like a total swamp in November
Brooklyn is slick and shiny black.
I'm riding my bike home to me.
Then more rain, then a call,
then a year goes by and hello.
Thanks for dropping by.

The Biography of Werner Herzog

Selected Robots: An Explanation

Instead of sparking the apparatus
the grunge has been rubbed off to illuminate
the sheen under the grime. Some parable
of workers misted with dust grease
taking the position of the worker
in relation to the work in order to undress
the robot and speak to it in the privacy
of a room like an office or garage. In the olden
days some robots would laugh with creases
where the smiling had occurred on each
side of the aluminum mouth which would
corrupt the integrity of the structure
of the robot. Instead of a celebrity robot
walking into a room or someone like
that with the status of celebrity lighting
up the room if you are friends with one
you will know what I mean: they never
call you back. So let this document serve
as an explanation of workers and what they mean
to the people with status and how we are treated at all.
You'll see what I mean in a minute or two
when you go back to work.

Weehawken?

That's where they dispose of old robots, right? I've been through there. There are some nice people there. Small people, but nice, very nice. I delivered a talk about robots there once to a group of Weehawkens who had gathered in a small sweltering gathering room where they gather. I remember the tiny folding chairs, the miniature fruit punch bowl, and the baby cookies in a huge Costco bag that I had to help them carry in from their tiny car. Yeah, they’re good people (though small), and a good town (though it smells like old robots).

The Biography of Djuna Barnes

Here

I know that it is considered good luck
to kiss in front of a cardinal in Brooklyn.
I can't do much with what came before me
but I do know that a red stain in a tree is a cardinal.
In the palm of my hand is a red dot
or on the street between my blue feet: red.
What more could I do than too little?

I'm walking here.

I habitually check the forecast just to be sure about something,
like you. When is the sting? Bracing for that all the time.
We will promote an end to that, I forecast.
What little could be done while you are still here?
You are still. This is bigger and better than a parade
or a splashy happy headline. It's worth making slash marks in the air
in order to make a point or to motion me over with a finger like, here.

Friends

Friends immobilize the breastplate
and make it difficult to walk down the stairs
without the aid of a long bow
or a stick device with solemn endings.
All sadness lobs the sting
until a dull ache is absurdly
present at the wrong occasion
and this is one of them.
Just as a lamp is all about light
so I am damp enough to swim in sheets
or stoop over a sandwich without
sobbing, more or less. I encourage
you, my once friends,
to bear witness to this day,
to lift arms and softly blow
a kiss to those friends
whose weaknesses end the day
as it began. Oh once friends,
you'll never know
how nice it was to have known you
or to really see you go.

Untethered

Light of the Late

Instead of talking to someone
ask yourself for directions and you'll be ready
to lead the parade into the sparkle of your own night.
The next exchange will be an exercise of mutilation
through deception. It's just a warped idea of the past
swirling around like an untethered astronaut.
A throb hanging on every word.
The sky is shedding fine glass dust
for breathing. I am really just turning into something
vague and musty when my hands are full of you.
The city is quaking and the Lord is motioning for me to come on
into the light of the late. I am not listening to anyone.
I am not home to receive her message.

Complex Challenge

Instead of a drubbing someone will ask you
for directions and you'll be ready
to lead the parade into a park late at night.
The next challenge is a mutation exchange
hanging on every word as though the last sky
you look at will be your own way out.
I'll help you get to work or throb when the
day leads you to eat or consume news the way
one would consume a sandwich say, or some
sugary drink. I am all about you, for now.

Sleigh Bells - Infinity Guitars

When I Look at You

A paper thin slice of apple under my tongue
isn't really there until I yawn. Like most people
in diners, this one is requesting something
soft and maple from you. Lifting my spirits with
syrup while making me spacy with the flu.
In dark pajamas covered in lint. Instead of bribing
you with levity I'll conjure up your mobility.
There, you are mobile. Your limbs carry you from room to room
to me. A man on medicine shouldn't make you feel sorry for him
as long as his cough is getting better.
Now the morning seems brighter with you
in the next room manipulating yarn
into organs that pump blood to my brain.
I hear you stirring or was it the fever
that manipulated the space around you?
I've decided to walk in my home and feel delight
when there is a delightful day to be delighted by.
Thanks for letting me in on you.

I would like to know what happened to you

I would like to know what happened to you.
When did the parts of your body start aching? When did
you decide not tell the people around you in the car
that parts of your body were in real pain?
I know you like to drive, so you drove us crazy
because you never let us know when you were crazy.
Do you ever walk by the towers and
remember the time I got stabbed there? I was always
thinking of you, even when I was not thinking of you
I was, sort of. November in Brooklyn again and I'm
nose-diving through bleak air into the throngs.
Some people that you call your own
pack enough subterfuge and action to liven you up.
That's what we all want at conferences. Even now
I'm sitting down when I should be standing over
you asking you what's wrong with your body. Will you
please feel the good vibes I'll be sending in approximately
3 seconds? I'm starting to get butterflies fluttering
like Pancake's house, all sweet and ready.

Four More From Austin, Texas

Guerrilla Lit Reading Series!

Wednesday, November 18th
The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series featuring
Melissa Petro, Todd Colby, and Christy Hutchcraft
BAR on A - 170 Avenue A @ 11th Street, NYC
Reading starts at 7:30 P.M.

I hope to see you there!

Red Paper Heart

What makes you move
so gracefully across the room
to me with a red paper heart
in the palm of your hand?
The tilted November light
reminds me of Brooklyn
and you. People are texting
all over the place. They use
the same words I use to say
"hello" or "I miss you" or "how are you?"
But I won't let that spoil my
communication with you in the modern
age of mass communication.
We're all using borrowed language
to express our most intimate desires. Anyway,
I'm okay now and then. I feel creamy and
lucid, smiling as the thought
of you makes an instant face
and impresses me a lot.
See you soon, I presume.

Graceful Brooklyn Poem

What makes you move
across the room so gracefully
with a red paper heart
in your hand just for me?
I stoop and the shove of light
from this window makes
me think of Brooklyn and you.
Rain musk and the humid
slow movement that makes
everyone feel sleepy
and solid. To focus more
on personal achievement
like saving the captain of your team
or discussing strategies that seem
leaden to the steering committee.
Are you sound? Is this all that you can be?
I would like you to determine me fit
for consumption. I'll even help
you load the van with your product.

Look at That

Look at that
morning light
it is vegetable
spooning the air
warm on the back
slippery smiles pressed
against my neck
holding me upright
under a torrent
of clasps and buttons.

3 More from Austin

Austin, Texas from My Room

Dear Friends

This morning the aspirin dissolved
in my throat before I could swallow it
and light jazz in the lobby
threw my whole nervous system
into a frenzied coil of woe.
Won't you help me remember
that there are people who want
to do good things for me
like scrub my back with
an exfoliant made of almonds and acid
or send me texts describing
the best day ever in North America?
I am looking into my methods of expression
and not one of them has done me
the service of salvation or even mild relief.
Dear friends, I am ready to be pounced
on like a football under a panther.

My Sky Blue Vans in Austin, Texas

Why Not Be Astonished?

I'll construct an album of thoughts,
a little heap of stuff to call my own
and give to you to peruse in your spare time.
Is this how you use your spare time?
My whisper is a rasp
and you can still astonish me
though my hands are chapped from flight.
I am a problem solver with a PHD
serving media fire like a child serves dirt pie.
I manufacture desire for products
that ripple through your brain.
I can tap your reptile and watch you squirm.
This morning my face is smeared and swollen
from flu and medicine and salt.
Won't you barge in and tempt me with
something gleeful and strong? Won't you
lift my spirit into a cracked windshield
rolling down the hill into a mob of feathers?

Four for Fall & Love

Gang of Four -- Damaged Goods

A Sweater I Would Like to Own

If There Was Something I Could Do

If there was something I could do
I would be doing it and making it
happen in a big way not being misunderstood
or standing around with this pocket
full of motor oil and doubt. I'm always
on the inside of whatever side there is.
I'm scooping out the medicine from a rancid
cantaloupe. I can dance like way better
with my antennae picking up the vibes
and anyway I'm not alone. There will be
times when you will regret what you said
or sent or did, that's just part of the game.
I'm lending my name to the partly cloudy chance
of rain and it's just fine by me to be stirring
in the night with or without you. There are
things on the radio dial I can find voices
and they are calming me down the path.
What is that dangling from the 9th tree?
Oh yeah, the last leaf from last spring.

David Lantow and Todd Colby "Houdini Triptych"

More here.

Give it Up

You might want to let go of what's dogging you
and get away with it. I'm only saying. I'm just
saying it and rediscovering it so when you say
it again I'll be ready for it, having heard it before.
When you say it again for me I'll almost be waiting
for you to say it. Sit in a chair, press your hands to mine,
order in, talk, that sort of thing. That's all we need to do.
Singing in the Rain had a chip on the disc
so it was unplayable. We watched West Side Story instead.
I got up to do the dishes right when Chico went on his rampage.
When I came back I asked what I'd missed.
Clean dishes now and the smell of bleach
curling in from the kitchen. Goat's milk tastes tangy and gamy to me--
which makes it irresistible. I could always taste the color cobalt blue.
I'm tired of toiling away with the reasonable people.
Now that I know you want to walk in the rain with me
won't you tell me where to meet you?

I'm going to run in the NYC Marathon today!