We Who Are About to Die (Two Audio Posts by Me)

Here you go.

I am reporting from Tangier, Florida and Miami, New York.

Thanks for inviting me, Daniel Nester.

XO

Five

Encourage Good Intentions

Sorry to be insistent
but encourage good intentions
these fist dogs of warm weather
tough humidity last night in the room
making a candy face for ghost cupcakes
I need to give a present to someone
to be present turning inside out
so many things to tell you about
but I never will

Lee Ranaldo and Delicate Steve Cover The Minutemen

Tough Pucky

In this yellow morning
a ton of glow
because spring light
is just so, gosh.
More coffee
in Brooklyn please.
More lemons
and the cascade
of city and sky.
Some implied amber
and then dot, dot, dot
and kiss, kiss, kiss.

Lacan Speaks (Thanks, Daniel Nester)

Look Out There

Look out there: people are in moods I can't fathom. Purple
mountains majestically appear jaundiced and caper-dotted.
In a matter of moments the sun loses its lemon hue,
children dance not on the grass but on styrofoam plazas.
There is nothing better than the bitter taste of Pepsi
as the red sky goes into a seizure, making things appear
closer than they are and then just as suddenly Milk Cow Blues
comes on the radio. I have a dollar but it's muddy. Think of me
as I tip the bowl of cherries into the water, the oily, rusty
water of yore. Take my hand now, let's pulverize the map
and make a bad thing good, maybe with sprinkles,
maybe with bedazzlement, maybe with non-toxic, nonstick,
non-binding grace. We'll get good at it right before we flee.

The Brooklyn Queens Expressway

This chunk of night can suck it.
The B.Q.E. never stops rumbling,
not even for me. Water jiggles
in my glass, an earthquake of light
folded into a napkin, politely. I watched
Andy Kaufman in bed on YouTube
and felt this kid in me awed
by his creations. That he ever was
is amazing to me. I wanted to be like that
but here I am stooped, carrying boxes up the stairs,
putting shoes on people's feet-
who would have thought I'd be here
all tangled in whatever makes a life.

Lifted

Out of everything I burned
I soothed my spine
on handwoven wicker made
of recycled resin. I flipped-down.
It hurts to look at you cross the street
let alone watch you rise into the sky
like a hook was snagged on the bone above
your heart. I want you here.
A slab of light makes me ultra-modern
and supreme. The science of summer
is upon you. Look, now
you've been lifted away.

Hello Trouble

The function of this crown
is to form an apartment on my skull.
Just pressing your fingers against the gold
yields an assortment of texts and messes.
I will lift scores of those articulate enough
to amass the brief doers, the grief handlers
and mostly some stuffed-up grunts.
I am building some literal web stance so you
can change positions and light the complexion
of doubt better than us. I mean, you look purple
when you sing or your lips are blue
or a combination of both. That's not good television.
I love you and your crippled mechanisms of delight.
All you have to do is raise the stakes
and some trouble comes marching in. Hello trouble.
In order to preserve the end, which they say
is fast approaching, I will assemble my thoughts
and muffle my responses with clinical ascensions.
Some worth is like my skin as it approaches
the sky all burnt with the forecast of more
than rain, I'm simple that way.
Say hello on your way there.

Letter

Lion Paste

Risk red plank, risk funny cap,
risk reluctantly crisp. Grilled in beta,
bland chanson like to find food
like lion paste on the menu. Sing!
Make some trouble for all parties.
I think you said they like humility,
patience, and fortitude. I think you was
like all listing to one side enough
to say ahoy like a pirate or something.
I cramp healthy. You were probably special.
Combine it.

(This poem was intentionally mumbled and mistranslated
into Dragon Dictation, an App for iphones).

Drunken Boat - Pony

Thanks, Mike--for the drumming and the video!

Two Birds of Arizona

Someone Would Like to See You

With more individuals looking to the past
as a way to calm the fracas, some have adopted
a meager method of disposal, taking the appropriate
individuals by the ankles and stripping them of their sugar.
This is another way of saying people are crazy
in newer ways than ever thought before.
Only time will really tell if this is an era
of the rugged maximalist or the clingy bleeder
with a headache powder from the sump mechanism.
I'll bet you one thing and that's a bet. You might
be interested in knowing, and other considerations
as you study social class and theory. Design your
own home once you get an education and some cash
to do so. You can grow your own food too. I would
like to become one with you if I weren't so
into you. Then this moment of doubt sets in when
they announce over the Public Address System
that someone would like to see you.

Tracey McTague and Me at The Lungfull Magazine Auction/Reading (I was the auctioneer)

Photo by Schafer Hall

The Least of My Worries

The Films of Terrence Malick (MOMI, May 13-15)

The Films of Terrence Malick (MOMI, May 13-15) from Matt Zoller Seitz on Vimeo.

Letter

Remember

The closest person may be you.
I would like to read what he says to you.
Here is what he says to you:
Thank you for all the honey
and the soothing textures
and the talc on my bottom-
so sweet! I'm not here much
but I'm here for some reason.
I saw a stocky bird that was larger than a sparrow
plop down on the sofa. I saw a fern swallow
a man whole when he fell into it
off the porch, much to our surprise.
I simply want to remember certain moments
that I can devour later. But I was so busy
recording them that they are gone now
except for what I wrote about them.
They were playing the radio in a Salvation
Army and a warbler flew into a stack
of books. Do you know that everything
makes me excited while looking at birds
and gladiolas? I have no choice. My work
has no value so I produce like a machine
that just so happens to be aware of itself.
I should sell t-shirts and wine to people
who want something real. Will you be my
valentine? Maybe the card I make for you
will make a nice paper airplane.

Julianna Barwick in Paris

See You Tonight!

I'll be performing with the most excellent drummer/sampler/percussionist, Jason Nazary. Please come!
Click image to enlarge.

Ghost Spots in Photographs

I see what you mean
about something over my shoulder.
The nearest exit may be behind you.
A guest of some sort is pale by comparison.
Saying a gladiola has a nice design
is like saying a child has a nice design.
The person singing beautifully in the courtyard
has a certain summery way with vowels.
There are people out there who became millionaires
by writing words on a screen. I mean, really.
My efforts here will not be diminished by that.
And so, I shall now wrestle myself free from my body
and mosey on down to the store for a can of coffee.
Oh, the soft wounds of these bland states.
I would love to watch a movie with you
if you weren't so beautiful. I hereby kiss winter
goodbye in a towel, wrap it around a log,
set it on fire, and totally dance around the flames.
Like that would ever happen.

Joy

You might have forgotten something-
a plane will do that. The weather is so much
more memorable outside of New York City.
It is good to roll around on the floor
if you are feeling joy that hard
then the situation calls for it.
The day is round and soothing, it has no edges.
To come home swarming with beautiful things.
I can have that stuff and I won't stain it
or send it back if they leave me here all alone.
I swear right here and now that realism
is such an adorable concept. Now the
skin on your fingers is shriveled from soaking in my light.
What I can do is incorporate my style into your days
until the flowers bloom at regular intervals.
You might call me magic and I'll pretend along with you.
A conversation about time when you are involved
with someone's life the way a pillow is soft
but with that joy you can speak volumes. So.

Sonoran Desert Top 10

1) Hummingbirds are basically hearts with wings.

2) Captain Beefheart lived near here.

3) The San Rafael Valley.

4) Mountain lions could really fuck you up. I will try not to think about them during my run today.

5) Don't piss off a wasp in the Sonoran Desert.

6) John Wayne as Hondo. Silly desert movie. He did have a very distinctive walk though.

7) The golden light of dawn.

8) Tarantulas, scorpions, javelinas.

9) The night sky with bright stars all the way to the horizon.

10) Listening to things around me.

Desert Poem

Somewhere in a desert
Someone is thinking about
Painting a tree red
He wants that bird a deeper
Blue what you hear
Is the sound of bread
Breaking the air around you
There are so many animals
They are so friendly
And the sun though hot
Makes a good warm feeling
On the neck and shoulders
Like for an instant that's all
There is and sometimes that's
Not so bad for a few days
Or more you can ask me
About it when I get back
To Brooklyn.

Patagonia, Arizona

AZ

Sweet desert silence
like syrup in my ears
and what the stars do
in the night sky
is really show up
and mr. hummingbird
you move so fast
while planted in the sky
I thought you were
an old blue balloon
dangling from a branch
oh and that mountain
named wrightson
well you are a no kidding
mountain and you got
it going on good.