They Can Teach You How to Write Poetry
There are many fine writing programs available in many colleges and
universities, seminars, and retreats across the United States, for a price.
Money is of course an issue with most people, but excluding that hitch,
anybody can be taught how to write various forms of modern or ancient
poetry. The academics are slick sellers and capable professors. Wear a beret
to class and take notes.
This essay isn't about that. Let us accept the given: you can be taught how
to write acceptable, publishable poems (time-frame open). You can spend most
of your life in college writing environments, and maybe even be quite happy
and content and a proficient poet. Do it, and ignore this shit I'm spouting.
I don't care about you.
I'm 44 years old. I work as a press operator in a plastic reinforced
fiberglass factory steady 3rd shift in Erie, Pennsylvania with 100 employees
all in different worlds: from an underground poet to a guy who slaughters
pigs and cows, from weight-lifter kids who must guzzle testosterone to old
Bill who's been working the same job since 1956, from Polish, Puerto Rican,
to Delbert and the KKK. It's easy to be chewed up by it all. I am honestly
blue-collar.
Be blue.
Introduction over. The Coltrane cassette is too. It's 5:30 a.m., Sunday
morning. I'm reclining in a recliner in this apartment livingroom. Ann is
asleep in our bedroom. My biological clock is not a normal clock. I was
planning to wash the dishes, but started scribbling in my notebook. Janan
invited me by e-mail to compose something for AlienFlower's poetry essay
workshop archives, AND a pipe-dream blooming through the dust of Mars has
opened though it's barely dawn.
Look, if you aren't astonished by personal karma, if humility hasn't aged
within your skull, stop reading this now. Buy a poetry-writing book.
America's libraries are the best on the planet, and there's always amazon
dot com, or Barnes and Noble. Go buy.
If, however, your senses transcend commercial politics and mass social
logic, allow me to blab a while. Relax, friend. Let me tell you about a few
natural laws of the universe and the life of a poet.
First thing, smoke marijuana. THC and poetry are inseparable. I realize this
is wrong of me to say, but Ezra Pound said exterminate the Jewish race.
Poets are all very human. Forget the legal or ethical aspects, whatever, and
just say yes to marijuana. Smoke a whole bunch. I am not condoning under-age
usage though. Those under 18: fall in love. Otherwise, smoke dope.
Daily.
For years.
Decades.
What I mean is corrupt thyself.
Veer from sanity.
The disease of innocence must be eradicated.
Whenever survival is easy you are eating too much, living too well, cocooned
within the dark, dead womb of capitalism like a normal pupa inside an empty
TV void. If you crave and strive for comfort and comfortable reality, I've
lost another reader. Fare ye well. Eat tofu and forget my name.
Is there still a person remaining who fits this essay's structure, this
continuing absolution? Have I purged all the unfaithful writers who stumbled
here this far?
There's an old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." You are
thusly cursed.
Light your pipe. Now write.
--Ron Androla
http://www.the-hold.com/ronandrola/ -- newest website
http://enhancedphotos.com/cgibin/board/view.cgi -- ron androla's pressure
press presents
------
FEATURED POET: Nicholas R. Morgan
Nicholas R. Morgan, aka Jellygun, is not a sober man. He lives in Texas
where he works in a bookstore. He is a savage artist, a painter, also. I'm
venturing to postulate Hunter S. Thompson fucked his mommy back about 35
years ago: out popped Jellygun! His messegeboard's url is
http://members3.boardhost.com/jellygun/ -- tho he frequently posts & then
deletes his material. Catch him if you can...
Rocky
Owed this bliing bling dealer
Money for a week now,
He stopped off the other night
And started asking for his cash
Luckily I had some friends over
A lot of them, backdoor barbecue..
Handed the dealer man 40 bucks,
"what dah fuks this shit? You owe me 110 dollars."
"what about my cell phone charger u asked to borrow for a day? It's been two
weeks!"
the bling bling tattoo mexi guy who obviously lifts weights was busy popping
a zit on my cracked middle mirror with an exorcist postcard on it. I bet he
has never seen the exorcist.
"I told u im gonna give that shit back tomorrow." He retorted.
Yeah, just like when he never returned my insurance papers after basically
stealing my truck for a night and morning..
"Gimme my cell phone charger and I will give u the rest of the money."
He looked pissed off and shit, but what was he gonna do? Jump me? kick my
ass?"
Not with out a good ass kicking himself..
I'm sure he could kick my ass maybe.., I'm a skinny out of shape drug ladled
drunk whose weight keeps going down..with a love handled gut..
"I aint playing with yo ass no mo dawg" he told me..
"fine, great, I have your money, but you don't get it, till I see my cell
phone charger."
"I aint playing with yo ass no mo dawg." He said again, still squeezing
something on my cracked mirror exorcist combo."
The next day I buy a new cell phone charger figuring he will never return my
old one.
The next day I was alone at my house. No back up.
I call him and try and make things cool.
"Fuk that shit, I told you I was gonna return that charger."
"It's been two weeks, I got 20 bucks for you, then I figure we are all even,
keep the charger."
"Fuk that, I want my money tonight, and if you don't have it, im coming over
and some shit is gonna go down ho!"
"What kinda shit?" I ask? Pushing the situation..
"you gonna get your white ass kicked by me, that's what!"
"so now you are threatening me with violence?"
"Hell yeah b###h, I want my money, I want it now!"
"Well I want my dam cell phone charger back!"
"I will tell you this one more time Norman, I aint playing with yo ass, I'll
bring your charger back, but if you don't have my money some shit is gonna
go down."
"Well ####head, I had your money, the bulk of it anyway, until I had to buy
a new cell phone charger today considering you were just going to keep mine,
which is worth 60 bucks right there!"
"It's on then!" he spat, hanging up on me.
I sat and had a few more xanax, a few more drinks,
A Valium,
Called him back, tried to rationalize things..
Saying I didn't want any trouble..
"then come up with my money in an hour b###h, or me and u are gonna fight."
"Cut me some slack, I buy shit off u all the time, bring u in new customers.
U'll get your money, maybe not all of it tonight, but I'll come up with it
in the next few days."
"Fuk that, I want it tonight, or me and u, we will go at it, fight."
I finally snapped..
"U wanna be like that? Fine, come on over, I'll fight u right now on my
front lawn, no weapons, no guns, no friends around, just me and you- u
####ing greedy mother fuking wana be rap star bling bling pimp dealer dork
fuk!" the whiskey had kicked in
"It's on then b###h!" he yelled..
"make it be on bro, but whatever happens, violence whatnot, you will become
my enemy now, and there are many ways to get back at enemies. Your choice,
im sitting here waiting, lets do this shit then tough guy. I haven't had a
good fight in a while."
"All right punk, u asked for it, im on my mutha ####ing way b###h."
"Come alone pussy, just me and you, one on one, fight." Come now.
he hung up
I had another drink.
And for some reason wasn't that concerned about the outcome
Sometimes when you stand up to assholes
They never show
But if he does, I aint gonna fight clean, I know a lotta dirty moves..
First thing is, take their vision out,
With a quick double poke with two fingers to the eyes,
A blind man can't fight well, no matter how many muscles he has..
I haven't been in a physical fight in a while, well,
I have had my ass beatin many a times..and at times.. beat some ass..
But tonight, I feel lucky, and I almost want him to show up now..
Just watching the clock.
Alone and ready for anything
Whiskey filling my rage
Pills calming me to a point
I just called him back.
"You got my money b###h?" he asked
"maybe, just come over right now, I'm waiting."
He hung up. Never showed up. And now is serving 10 to 20.
---
White vans
the white van pulled up
I was hungry, stoned, putting fiction books into crammed shelves
About two hours into my shift
All the vicodins were gone- I had eaten the day before
6 in one long/ short/ magical wonderful day..
15 don't last long, like a kid in a candy store with enough $ for 15 candy
bars..
eat quickly, try not and look backwards..
So it was just a tummy full of water and st johns wort
Few kind bud hits and energy drinks..
I didn't see the white van pull up
But I saw janet, sitting in the middle table
Big wooden middle table in middle of bright bookstore..
her name is janet,
She is insane they say- lady maybe late 40's, 50's?)
who comes with the rest of the crazies from the white van
They are from mhmr ( mental health mental retardation)
They invade the bookstore I work in
About 2 or three times a week
There is like 15 of them
The white van is large, they all line up-
For the free coffee- it's really weird- we always run out of coffee
Like a 2002 version of clockwork orange meets one flew over the koo koo's
nest
I like it though, they make for good entertainment from the mundane fuks
I work with, the un original
customers that splatter the scenery with their greedy
credit card right winged bible thumpin eyes-
anyways, I walk up to janet, a fat obese lady who wares salvation army
clothes that are to small, and has this wild hair jettin in all sorts of
directions,
like some butcher cut Janis Joplin-
she likes to call me Charlie, she has some fetish with Charlie manson and
the helter skelter book.
"how are u today Charlie? U cut your hair for the cause?"
she asks..gigglin
"yeah.. it sure is hot and sweaty in texas." I respond
she laughs this crazy janet laugh
and I start putting books away again
I hear her say, " mr. mr. mr. mr.. come here. Mr.. come here.."
So I walk over to her
And she looks crazier then ever
"do u like black people?" she asks, very loud.. with a dead serious look on
her face
she comes with tons of black crazy people as well in the white van-
. Oh yeah,
she is white, she reads helter skelter-I get it-
"sure I do, why not?"
I ask
She goes into this crazy weird laugh she always does.
I stare at her, smiling.
Her fat gut hangs out of her small t-shirt
Her mustard stained sweats
Her sloppy crazily placed lipstick smears
She laughs that crazy laugh, making me a tad uncomfortable
As I put more books away
I stop for a minute and stare at her again,
something about her eyes man, just something..i dig..
then
A Christian employee perfect college no problems graduate girl went to
school gonna get married snob romance reading girl love my fukin parents
walks by janet
We both stare at her
"I don't like women, they make my bowels want to explode"
janet says
I try and keep myself from laughing
Janet laughs.. drool slobbering down her thorazine lips..
"I got problems with my bowels, my stomach always hurts" she says..
The girl she was talking about, a new girl, I don't know, gives me some
paranoid look,
I explain to her later about the white van, and she just looks more worried,
People truly do fukin suk most of the time, go ask alice,
So anyway, all the fuking brilliant crazies are invading the store
This one black guy just walks around laughing all the time
Talking about Donald duck
And how he hasn't had a drink in 3 years
And he always has this weird moldy old aa blue book in his back pocket
That he always thinks that I think he's stealing it
So he pulls it out all the time
And tells me he isn't stealing it
Like I would even care
I see little mutant freaks steal from the store every day I work-
And I don't care- it's not my job to work security-
So this really tall skinny black man
Who might be Janet's boyfriend
Keeps talking to me
In this weird 70's pimp black man voice
"I aint never seen no alligators, motha fukin Donald duk, u think Mickey
would know? Ha, what that gonna be with war.. like Disney land .. ha.. aint
that a b###h.. yeah, donald duck didn't ever give anything out to them..?/'
he tells me..
we both start crackin up laughing, I couldn't help myself.. in a strange way
I under stood what he was talking about.. it was like a poem u read. U sort
of get it.. but even if u don't at times.. u still sort of like the vibe
from the words. its all about a smile sometimes..
other crazies walk around with that distant stare in them eyes
in strange clothes, they smell too, really bad smells
I like them, I want to work with them,
on my days off, second job for evaluations for lit characters-
maybe get job application at mhmr
the person, their leader that drove them all on their field trip..
says..
"time to go"
they all walk towards the door. Janet turns around..
"bye Charlie"
she grins at me
"goodbye janet" I say , standing at cash register-
she turns around
with a glow in her eyes, as if she is amazed I know her name..
"I got a man, your daddy!"
she yells
laughing as she walks out
I see the skinny black man with the donald duck infatuation take her hand
Two with coffee in hands
Walking across the street together
Heading towards the white van
Other white van people
Come out of the shadows
Limping, twitchin, staring up at the sky..
Smoking.. in some other world id like to be in-
It was time for them to go.. what wonderful people
Truly beautiful people to be around
another guy I work with heard it to
the Janet comment
we both couldn't stop laughing
as they left
with worried customers looking over
I stare out the window of the texas bookstore
Pumping on the empty coffee
And I tell the girls I work with
I got a new girlfriend from mhmr.
They all laugh at me
And one says
"even the retards reject u!"
they all laugh at me,
I put away books,
and wonder why people are so ignorant to things that are interesting for a
change..
I need a second job
I picture myself changing Janet's diapers late at night
As she tells me of helter skelter
Laugh all u want
Sometimes nothing is funny
But your own retarded expression
In a cracked mirror
Each day is an award winning independent movie
I want video cameras implanted in my crossed eyeballs so you to can laugh at
my world
---
Mumbo jumbo
It was midnight. I was just starting to get drunk. When the phone rang. My
phone never rang much. I stared at it. I didn't have an answering machine
and figured it would stop ringing after the ninth ring. It didn't. I stared
at it more. It kept ringing. My curiosity got the best of me. I picked it
up, slowly putting my ear to the receiver. I didn't say a word. I was
nervous. My heart was racing. Then I hung up. Taking the phone off the hook.
I sat for a while listening to that awful loud noise of a phone off the
hook. I stared at my apartments lonely walls. I wondered who would be
calling me at midnight. My only friend had to work early. I know it couldn't
have been him. Not Vivo, couldn't have been. I licked up the last of the
white lines that were sitting on this half cracked corona mirror my mother
had scored at a garage sale years ago.
Awake 2 wisdom teeth poke through gums each on a separate side
causing puffiness, irritably, & annoyance you awake hungover on a Sunday
wondering you even slept all out of narcotics
also now have stuffed up nose& stuffed up head a gargantuan infected
bubble like whisky zit on your nose that your girlfriend keeps saying to
"put tea tree oil on it! Jocko moelocko
feeling out of place
in one's own skin
crawl along with jock shoes
wondering where
the exit door is
& why anyone cares
about anyone's body
let alone opinions
on alien treadmills
stop picking at it!"
it's time to go to work
at your shit job all day
& deal with happy people
in a shitty way
could drink till the sky blew up
Drink till the bomb was dropped
could sleep till the sun rose
Could fiend till my heart stopped
could drink for no reason at all
Drink till we shared smiles
could wake to the deformed moon
Could do anything in nothing
Couldn't
It be
Just
Another
Mumbling
Man
Who said
he could
sit alone
and listen
to the waves
that melt
on to the
shore
of my
whisky glass
my boredom
must dive into
the words
in die o log's
in sheets
that breath
sweat
could eat a stale echo
with deaf screams
lesbians
and loners
reading together
todays bravado bag,
tangled with emotions grasp
yesterdays cavity
sleeps short
from memories
to far gone
lesbian at work
sitting in break rooms
reading Hannah
she smells delicious
me reading Hesse
her breath, an essence
in the warmth
of our minds
entangled in words
my intellect fixated
on her very being
her girlfriend
would kick my ass
she takes a piece
of my calzone
pushing Chinese grub
aside
yet refuses
the red sauce
dip
her smile like
elegance itself
clock stopping
for just
one
splendid hour
------
FEATURED POET: Bart Solarczyk
Bart Solarczyk has been active in the underground lit world since the early '80's.
He lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife Tami, dog Otis, & a few cats.
He owns Rolling Rock Beer Brewery, or at least thinks he does.
He stays high. He plays acoustic guitar & writes songs, sings them loud into the Pittsburgh night. He is a frequent contributor to http://www.the-hold.com, & is the author of near a dozen chapbooks. He's tattoo'd, is quite large, & was nicknamed "Bluto" in highschool.
Red Wine & Oxycontin
Baby baby baby
stick your head in gravy
I'm all shipwreck
& shadow tonight.
---
One Fine Morning
Fred woke early
to discover
the cat had kneaded his wife
into an enormous loaf of bread
he stretched
astonished
then lifted his nightshirt
& asked the bread
for a blowjob.
---
Li Po
a hat full
of wine
by the river
my face
the moon
in my hands.
---
POETS
In person
most poets
are punks
bad ass
when the typer's
talking
but not too much to say
when you stand
& stare them down
I know this
cause I've met
a lot of poets
I'm a poet too
motherfucker.
---
Billy
I'm high
he's retarded
we both like
comic books
when we trade
Billy's not so stupid.
---
3 Haiku
Dirty ashtray beach
beer cap bent like smiling clam
listen -- I am God
*
Bricks dropped like old friends
young & drunk I pissed here once
thinking of that now
*
Broken Arrow Ranch
full moon -- electric guitars
Shakey lays it down
---
Tami Poem
It's hard to write a poem
with Tami in the room
she's everywhere
beauty crowds the corners.
---
Centuries of Wednesday Mornings
I get too drunk
on Tuesdays
& the hump
is that much harder
discipline escapes me
the ancestors call
I dive into
the gene pool.
---
The 3 Stooges In Heaven
Moe doesn't
look like Hitler
& Larry is
downright handsome
Curly spins
on a cloud
nyuk
nyuk
nyuk
there is
no Shemp.
---
Orange Alert
Orange alert
the terrorists
are coming
Tom Ridge
tells me
to be careful
but not
to change
my plans
shaken & confused
I follow
Tom's advice
I planned
on getting drunk
& I do.
---
Season's Greetings
Midnight sirens
tear December's
icy pall
there's blood
on the crib
& the shepherds
have fled
clipped-winged angels
squawk & fall
like broken doves
God spits at a star
& laughs
cracks another
cold beer
scratches his balls
& sends for a fresh
warm virgin.
---
Heat
I sniff her ass
we fall in love
at the dog show.
---
Gone
Suddenly I rise
walk upstairs
& change my clothes
took fifteen beers
to get this far
how many more
to save me
how many more
to rock me
from your absence.
---
October Boy
I light my pipe
blow smoke rings
that stretch into
halloween faces
be not afraid
my children
see how the
jack-o-lantern
smiles
his empty
head burning.
---
A
Anal asscrack
always angular
amazingly asymmetric
alien ashtrays
atomize against asphalt
as Anglican acolytes
are awkwardly assaulted
astraddle altars
Allah
always altruistic
asks Adam's advice
about apples
as Andy
an atypical aardvark
ambulates aimlessly.
------
FEATURED POET: Bill Beaver
Bill Beaver lives in Arizona in a 100-year old house. He is a multimedia
artist, teacher, & all-around poetry saint.
arts mart
th mayor & his wife they stop by
cause this tiny art fair has the head of the
U of A Art Department
as it's "featured artist" hizonor has the noids
flinches when th gay Hispanic photographer
from th Daily Star flashes him maybe he's
expecting assassination or a creme pie
everyone crowds around El featured he is
fat & eyes th women hizonor doesn't
visit th rest of us escapes in a chauffeured SUV
him & Beth, his wife r god parents to April
my crazy multiple personality coke whore
lover who's locked away in a mental hospital
I never met them though I chewed out Beth
once over th phone I still miss April despite
everything she got me started doing this
was here w/me one year ago she could sell
AC to Eskimos sd she'd stand up for me
be my little pit bull th crowd around th famous
one disperses but about 1/3rd stay they have
bucks they buy things I have had two good
months when we leave featured artist has
grad students to help him pack in June I'm
to be featured artist will some one help
me pack? it's all such a joke maybe I'll
do a photo essay of th dog turds in my
back yard something a crowd of art lovers
can get it's teeth into ...
---
polymer clay
I'm printing w/polymer clay
separating a digital
image trace onna slab
of this stuff cut away
some
apply ink print
cut away
print
build up colors til
an image
I've come full circle
20 years ago a security
camera & electronic
card inna Apple II
first scanner
in my kitchen w/Oupee
we hung my kid's toys
from th frig slow scanned
then dot matrix printed
full circle
now I explore
real surface paper
wood cloth
stone
I want to print
th fucking sky
moon
apply 32 bit RGB color to
th rust red sands of Mars
faces on th Sun!
spots dark regions
blackest dot center
absolute zero
huddle around it
cool yr hands turn
yr back from flames
20 years
howling down
toward coolness
singularity
absolute zero
all of us
everyone
howling down
spiraling into darkness
I want to pixelate th fucking sky
I want to pour Photoshop into
my fucking
fucking
brain
---
spiritual
people at th next table r talking religion
I hear th name Meher Baba
we had his goofy mug on our
VW bus he protected us on
all our dazed wanderings across country
from psycho truck drivers mean cops
& from ourselves
went to his center in Myrtle Beach
they had his '57 Chevy on blocks
like a shrine & everyone
sd "Meher Baba" instead of "I"
it wuz pretty creepy he wrote that
disciples sometimes mistake th smell
of thr own shit
for spiritual awakening
I think this happened
people say they aren't religious
but they r spiritual
this means little means one
doesn't stomp puppies or
torture kittens
spiritual
only thing I work on
is getting smarter which
means eventually u realize
u know nothing
I don't see much point in
any of it Meher Baba wuz silent
for 20 years
I think that about sums it up
---
dream
I had a dream the other night
of an operation
they took my brain out
sliced it like a ham
sewed it back
the dream took place
after
I cldn't remember
why this had happened
in fact my recovery
rather slow
I think the reason
is they shuffled the slices
before returning them
to my skull
last week Iris
my oldest daughter
her boyfriend Mike &
myself we all had birthdays
she turned 20 but has an ID
sez she's 23
We went drinking w/their friends
young 20's
someone is talking
about her Transformer collection
I think
"Transformer?"
see Iris at 6
realize this beautiful young woman
next to me
I saw her being born
I have a strange feeling
looking at everyone
like I'm washing out to sea
Iris & Mike leave w/a designated driver
wish I did
5 am still drunk
go back to sleep
hungover & 52
I don't realize
most times
feel so much more aware
unless a mirror intrudes
"Wut th!"
yes
definitely
with out a doubt
they shuffled the slices
before they put back
my brain
---
Steak & Cake
Blythe, CA
Hills like crushed concrete. A wide street. Burned-out motels, boarded
diners, gas stations nothing left but a frame of the sign. Architecture from
around the early seventies like all structures past a certain age have
internally combust, burst into ruin. Steak & Cake, it's still open, a white
cinder block survivor of an earlier time. 114 degrees outside the swamp
cooler whines like an old dog. Waitress has way too much lipstick, penciled
in eyebrows & looks like she is wearing a wig. Order the special, meat loaf.
gravy & mashed potatoes, canned corn, a few tiny specks of lettuce. She
smiles. She likes a man w/an appetite. It arrives quickly on a hot plate.
Oprah is on TV. Not the regular Oprah but the notorious Blue Oprah from that
low orbit satellite only beamed to rural areas. The subject is sexual
healing. The facilitator is talking to a woman in a low voice. She has her
eyes closed. He is feeling her up has a breast pulled out is rubbing the
nipple has another hand up her dress. Oprah has passed out a sex toy to the
women in the audience. The Dol-fiend, a smooth vibrating slip of plastic.
She sells them w/her recommended books. The studio is buzzing like a hive of
hornets. In the booth in front sits an old farmer, rough cotton shirt, bib
overalls. He is gaping at the TV, he has no teeth. He is rocking back &
forth in his booth. Somewhere in back they are talking about the meat loaf,
unintelligible but the tone is very positive. On TV the facilitator has
stripped the woman has her ankles behind her head is laving her clit w/a
snaky tongue. Oprah's eyes are bugging, her mouth open flecks of spittle at
the corners her hand holding the Dol-fiend a blur between her legs. Motion
blur, 30 frames per second. National Television Standard for Color - 60
frames per second interlaced actually, 60 frames per second even
horizontals, 60 frames per second odd. A steady picture. One bit taken out
of the green to handle old black & white broadcasts. The old farmer has
disappeared. Maybe he is lying on the floor. America is having multiple
orgasms. Labia fluttering like an anemone in a tsunami. Concrete hills,
Interstate slick, double long semis are sliding right through inspection.
Time to leave. There is no cake. In front of the register a sign - "Riley
has cancer could you please help her out." The waitress lifts her wig every
follicle burned off by chemo. Toss in a fiver. Outside it has gotten one
degree hotter. Suddenly three more buildings fall spontaneously to ruin.
>From the early eighties the process is speeding up. Inside the old man is
still flopping around on the floor. Oprah is humming a happy tune. All the
women in her audience, in America, in the world - are humming along. Riley
takes the five dollar bill and tucks it neatly into her bra. She smiles. She
likes a man w/an appetite.
------
FEATURED POET: Chuck Kindle
Chuck Kindle is a poet from Erie, PA; student, father, new grandpa, jack of all and connoisseur of cheap wine. There are bloodstains in his dictionary.
i knew a girl named collateral damage
who changed her name to acceptable loss
the day the cameras came and the tears stopped
forever down the run of her little brown face
and i'm a karmazakov a porn star i'm john fucken holmes
riding the ass of a thousand different oblivions
all of which leave me unmoved
encompassed by nothingness and twirling my cock in concentric circles
centrifugal force
ankle restraints and self laceration instead of vitality
i am a tonsured monk who arrived at apocalypse
with a shotgun under my teeth and a lot of questions i'll never ask
for when the voyeur is ready
the peepholes will appear like a peckinpah film
spread across the dialectical horizon
grainy edged and forever out of context
a girl object is raped and she likes it
her moans and her arms radiate toward the gods
and fall into disrepair
her heaving breasts perk she absently smiles
charlie chaplin dismounts silently and falls to the floor
cunt of existence cunt of death god is where
god is where
god is dead or he's butchering jews down at the corner
or he's strolling through the hood lookin for a date sayin
jesus christ
don't you ever brush your teeth a shot rings out
a head explodes like zapruder film and splashes the sky
beautiful man just beautiful
spatter evidence turns me on
somebody find the president's brains
scoop them into his container evanescent as steam
when marilyn arrives tell her start the show without us and for god's sake
leave the sleeping pills in plain sight
cheap bourbon and a starlet pose
bobby will you die for us martin
will you die for a dream within a dream where the dreamer never wakes
that disintegrates that is particle storm over hiroshima
that is a pile of kurds gassed in the sun your mother
reflecting her atomic structure and thinking of pond scum
charlie manson mothered me
after forceful penetration on the cellblock floor
grandma my i have you too or uncle joe
charlie's tit are as dry as the british empire
i am a camera now
i am palestinian duct tape and a box on my chest while my girl waves goodby
she was a good girl once shalom yourself
motherfucker i am a hole in the great is
across the serenghetti plain watching children dry in the sun
i am a desert quenched with pain
end without beginning pal
phil ochs like a mistletoe still clamoring for peace
some bits of dorothy stratten skull like talisman like loaded dice
death fucks a sad whore tonight in lieu of chess
she cries and nods.
---
a herd of flies
a herd of flies graze upon the blackened skin
of some nameless boy in the africani sun who is but pasture
who jesus christ displays his death
under skin like a muslin shroud
he blinks his eyes looks at the sun and waits
and something from a mother's throat like razorblades
like sandstone on your forehead
this happens everywhere at once these lives
upon some children's bones and mercy
is a girl's name name under FUCK THE WORLD
on the men's room wall so discrete
the junkie on the bed hatching death and probing veins
Miles slinks from the stage door into an alley thick
with neon tears and the night sweats a whore's death
god is a surveillance camera
god is a crackhit watchin some porn film
god is a bullet head
rat eye in the corner tv on the wall
let's watch some war hon oh dear
war is all jim jones quickly quickly quickly people
remember the hits we cooked dead babies in the air
baby baby
baby she came to me dreamlike no question
of mini-skirts and the algebra of doom
wounds appear like hungry mouthes insects
under the skin
john the baptist watches all droopy eyed on his platter of eternity
the faith healer's wife is lifeless on the bed
bums by the garbage can fire
conflagrations in the skein of time and your boy in the men's room
thinkin next fat fuck while your daughter sleeps
the voices in your head safe and sound and sound
and fury sound
father bequeathed a killer's heart
there is yellow tape and that look in your eyes
i cannot pass.
---
this girl with eyes in her hands
this girl with eyes in her hands
complains of darkness in my lungs and dude
nails god and a tree around his neck
and if god is dead or if he's merely nodding
to peter at his feet sayin man what a view as much with his eyes
or if you ever called me sweetheart once on valentines
while i cooked dope by candlelight in the next room
still love is but two smokes in the dark as black
as mother's eyes
postcards from afghanistan
junkies at your feet
and some girl at the desert edge waging a flyswatter at nothingness
at that poison sky the greater part of death
a mushroom cloud dead child casserole
and some voices from the ruins which is all
do not fuck the mad do not go
with girls who neglect their teeth and fuck your brother
and scar their arms callin baby
baby i'm a vessel slowly spillin
i never even wanted wanted peace since every breath is war
with the lungs who just as soon'd sleep
ever since my 14th birthday and 18th street
mother had a stake in me and cheap perfume
and light dies in another's eyes like mine
she moves the stem to avoid lipburns like stigmata
like rancid flesh flowers like jesus died and wept
and died again that squares may thrive and sneer
upon the crackho in the tiny skirt that is anyway fucked out
deaf dumb and done with fear
upon the wino in his dreams and the vomit at his feet
and every girl who knows my name and the crachouse door
the dead end bar the price of ass the noseleed's face
and their dead eyes their dead eyes
the red head girl who can't cry
bing crosby beats his boys crooning to hisself
bob hope is almost gone.
---
i knew a man who stared into space
i knew a man who stared into space
where occasionally tears could be seen like rain
and the rain smells like wet exhaust and if
my heart door bolts like a cell
there aint enough light in your little eyes and if
ida learned to blow the harp i could bend some notes
for jimmy hoffa and jesus christ and the gas fired world
rumbles past the busstop like a black and white parade
like kennedy procession through the dallas afternoon
where the secret service scurry like mice and look to the sky
doom is only doom
some grey shit in your trouser cuffs and the wife
tryin to hold it in
fuck the innocent fuck
peals of laughter ringin from the sky
jesus christ is dead and gone
left us here to carry on
my boy ali
is free of arms and
they're singin happy birthday to castro
in harlem tonight
where interogative ghosts creep through his beard
god in the throes of death
god the insect sealed in stone
revolution's what the world does
and trotsky and me and the killer down the street
pass on the way with vertiginous eyes
betty short in her pieces
smiles cross her throat
fatty arbuckle cries alone
fucked to death
black betty
black betty how far from here
till the dead erupt in flames will your arms
like tendrils
continue to encompass all of this
if we call it adream
if we say to hell
with shakespearian angst
captain dreyfus on his stone bench and tommorow
and tommorow
you guttering flame our dead girl.
---
lookin for a wife in the psycho ward
lookin for a wife in the psycho ward
where sadness mates
like bunny despair and the poverty
of lovely women
is the worst kept secret on the floor
the killin floor
the chilly floor
the bottom floor of the heartbreak
motor lodge
i seen
it in your eyes
like numbers and stars and scars
from here to the open wards
your ropeburn neck
your shoestring void
no
my prospects are not sunny my history
is swollen with failure
i have no razorblades
no cologne like a mystery cloud
to cloak my sins i have
hospital deodorant and a shirt
that ties in the back and if
all the catgut that ever closed me
were in my hands
we could hang from the ceiling like chandeliers
like ripe fruit
like star-crossed lovers
a coupling of stars.
---
on the brink
on the brink of five worlds
and no one to call sweetheart
would you put the gun down and come to bed
no one
to watch the flames with or remark
25 miles of sailors
too lost to swim
too forlorn
to call your name or avoid the sea
the occupation of death like vichy france
like moscow after sundown
the emperor's men straggle home
butchering horseflesh and searching the sky
for one thing to believe in
to say
the general is a vain cocksucker
is the provincial impulse
no article of faith dear
the war goes on
the screams fade away
and the general takes a short-cut
and sometimes on the brink of the brink
i call your name
and see your tears in the sun and think
fuck anyway the many mouths of consciousness
fuck forever the pie eye of redemption
we've left test tubes of us
drying in the sun
that will not be found or broken down
we overflow our crimes like cheap wine
and if there's one thing left in jersey to love
it's you.
---
mothers looked
mothers looked for their babies
and their babies looked for babies
there were
gnashing teeth and strands of hair
and the cleveland skyline
opened its arms in flames
and no one found god
brother
as lost as ever
selling jews down the river choked with oil
selling photographs of girls
who've been to the war
and grace
the dogs in the sewers move with grace
gazelles on the desert plain and the female form
figure skaters and virgin whores and fighter planes
tie your shoes joe we are
a coma slowly lifting
and six bucks short of a righteous drunk
i am
a righteous drunk
autoerotic and selfmade I played
ruby's finger in the ninth
for which a soul I pay
stumblebum and democrat
sin without redeemer
redeemer
without sin I saw
the savior in a dopeline with outstretched arms
I saw him cueing up for public cheese
and the current of death
pulled my fingers apart
I saw
a girl with long legs and razor eyes
who was more than this
a wound on my to do list
sewn together with extension cords
falling from the roofbeam like christopher
past her breastbone
deerticks landmines woodlice
we proliferate
never as sewn as we seem
janine kirk half buried in the sand
abbie and sharon and
lizzie short piece by piece
rebecca bain
while her baby looks on
there are
fire escapes in to the flames
and whole catwalks over nothingness
no factory floor
no cauldron of fear.
------
FEATURED POET: Jim Chandler
Jim Chandler, aka Jazzbo Koontz, has been editor-in-chief of THUNDER
SANDWICH since the '80's, first print, & now cyberspace.
a bad birthday poem
Your love
was like
a green garden
stumbled upon
in a search for
reasons not
to seek
the healing
blackness
of final night.
This is not
an angst poem.
This is
a poem of
love and
admiration,
notions that
can
go hand in
hand.
At this stage
in life
I am
drawing near the
end
of my road.
It has been long
and crooked,
filled
with potholes
and mountain
peaks,
valleys
of despair
and wide
rivers of
sparkling colors.
Skies the
color of two's
and twelve's.
The object
of the trip
is to
remember
that without
war there can
be no victor.
Without
the dark
no light and
without wind
no seeds
to spread
afar.
I cannot see
the end
from here,
it is beyond
the next grade,
the next curve
in this sweet
terrain.
But I can
hear it calling
and I can smile
and say
fine
it's been
a sweet ride
here's to another
next time
around.
I only hope
you're in
the shotgun seat
blazing with me
grinning at
the tug of
side load
as we wind
through forever
chasing what
comes after
---
churn (in the same vein)
what i need is
a shady spot
over yonder with
the woman
i love
i don't expect
eons
in these clothes
on a few moments
of respite
near the
journey's end
but maybe
when we churn
up like new
cream sweet
in the
light of a
different day
we'll
still cling
to particles
of one another
i
can always hope
and if doesn't
turn out
that way
i'll never
know it
---
booze
at 10 i'd steal
a pack of the old man's
camels & fill a big
empty listerine bottle with
some of his booze
make sure to run water
back in the fifth so
the loss wouldn't be
so noticable
then off to the
lumber yard
i'd cut through
wooden valleys
between stacks
find a shorter
pile somewhere in
the middle
my nose filled w/the
smell of sawn pine & oak
poplar & sycamore
momentarily
good sweet camel &
kentucky's finest
sipping whiskey
i'd sip away
lying there on my back
atop a wood stack
with the blue sky
revolving around my head
my mind flying
w/the clouds
on alcohol & tobacco
i could get
high just
inhaling those
unfiltered shorts
a drunken
young thing all
full of myself
i'd dream of
killing people
i'd heard
about in
someplace called
north korea
& about
hank williams
who died drunk
in the back
seat of a car
& about my
fishing pole
& the river
swimming down by
the bluffs where
snakes sunned
on the rocks
the wooden
planks on the
bridge that
clattered musically
when cars passed over
4 years later i
drank a whole fifth
of the old man's
seagrams golden gin
while the folks were
out juking one
saturday night
they came in after
midnight & found me
lying in the
kitchen floor
out cold
dad was angry that
i'd drunk his booze
but i heard
a trace of pride
when he said
you drank that
whole bottle
by youself
that listerine bottle
& the woodstacks
were the start of
a half-century road
to boozeville & back
w/all the good & bad
that brings
but damn
i hope to tip
a couple more before
they slam the lid
and say
so long
old hoss
ride
steady
---
injun
injun wandered all
over town believing
he was about to get
in the middle of a
gunfight with the
dalton gang
a weird looking dude
with a bandana tied
around his head
and hair down his back
an unusual sight in
1953 if not today
he would run between
tootie's store and
the bank firing rounds
with his forefingers at
longriders only
he could see
and sometimes in the
pool hall the guys would
give him a half dollar
to get on a pool table
and drop his pants
and show his huge
purple dick the
result of skin grafts
injun got after he
turned over the
kerosene lantern while
screwing his sister on
the rickety kitchen table
and burned down his
shack and burned up
his sister who was
retarded like injun
both the products
of a long line of
cousins and closer
banging away in the
hillside nights and
the product of their
unions wandering small
villages with finger
firearms and burnt
purple dicks
------
FEATURED POET: Cait Collins
Cait Collins is webmistress of THE-HOLD (http://www.the-hold.com), a
tireless cyberspace vixen.
speed limit 69
I am trying
to do something
with my website
anything
make it new
original or
different unlike
the rest:
I've changed
the scheme in
as many times as
I've
69'd
in my life
took a photo
beatin
my tongue
along a nice
friend's
dick and
my vibrator
after
I fucked
myself
good and I
light incense
cones
wear em like
dunce
caps whirring
hari hari
krishna musk
from the top
of my head
like
my bowl
and my cigarette
on fire
like hell
plus I am
inside a salt shaker
looking
out at you
through
a lens
and
I even
painted myself
like
marilyn
manson except
with color but
without
the abortion
in my
eyes
posted it
all
at the front like
headlines
on the cover
of Hit Parade
besides
I look better
as
an attraction
so
it might not
matter
if
I don't know
shit
about
dynamic html
XML
la la lava java scripts
CGI
style sheets
c
a
s
c
a
d
I
N
G
style
sheets with
style and
W3C, CSS, CSS1 and
2
or
marilyn manson's
eye
balls
welcome
to my new website
motherfuckers
speed limit
69
---
uncle billy
uncle billy made
mucho money
ma bell personnel
uncle billy never
dated
man nor
woman
and he didn't have many
good friends
uncle billy
the loner
smoked like
a dozen diesels
Marlboro menthol
he brought
his own beer when
he visited
horse piss
mom called it and
he wore a blue knit
winter skicap even
in the summertime but
o he loved
kids us
kids
especially
my older sister and
I and
many times he
stayed
at the house
fell asleep on
the blue/green plaid couch watching
television programs
throughout
the night
mom bitched
saturdays
early afternoon
sis and I went
places with uncle billy like
the movies
the zoo one time it was
the Franklin Science Institute
in Philadelphia and
afterward
he
delighted us
with hot fudge sundae's
at cowtale dairy
bar
uncle billy footed the bill for it all all of the time
uncle billy was rich and
famous
to us we loved
uncle billy
uncle billy took pleasure
in generous xmas gifts
mom and dad couldn't
afford
6 kids
limited funds
dad the naval shipyard smokestack artist
mom stirred homemade hamburg
stew
we wore goodwill duds
my mother disliked uncle billy
mom disliked me
mom never loved herself
dad was uncle billy's brother
in the middle
of one night
uncle billy
looked down
over
the side of my bed
"shhhhhhhh'in" me with
a forefinger to his lips
in the dark in
his flannels and
his blue knie skicap he
crawled in
rubbed my budding
breasts
with the cup of his hand
his mouth subtly grabbed the side
of my neck and
his hand
passed
up my nightie and
he slid his finger
in
I pushed him
away
whimpered
get away from me
I never yelled like
I wanted too
never told never talked
no more hot fudge sundaes with
uncle billy uncle billy
didn't visit much
anymore anyway
I was 13 and 1?2
mom dad my sisters brothers
never found out any of this
unless of course
they come across this
poem
---
i sleep with pens
i love considerate men
especially
the considerate man
in bed
next to me
dreaming
for hours on end
ahead
of me
then i edge in
without a sound
rub his unconscious pecker good
night
lightly
through the blankets
it's 5:00 am and within
the next second i am sound asleep
too
the next second later
it's 6 and
i used to be
sound
asleep but
the considerate
fuck
alongside is
an early
riser he
nudges my shoulder
"hey babee you gotta pen?"
"o yea," i grit
"i gotta pen
doncha know
i sleep with pens
what do you prefer
a classic ballpoint feltip rollergrip
name yer brand
sharpie pilot a fine cross perhaps
shoved in yer dickeye
let me pour you
a hot bottle of
indigo ink
and bring you to fountain pen
paradise
dude
hold on while
i pull a bic clic out
of my ass and
then
you can write me
a god damn
dream
while
yer at
it
---
close my eyes
my brother/wife in jax
are sellin' their
250 thousand dollar
ladeeedah florida home
then they'll live
in a 249 thousand dollar
41-ft motor home so
they can save up
beacoup bucks
the next 10
years and
retire
in their early
50's
she's a bank loan manager
my brother drives
a truck for
Hill's
they don't bother
with the rest
of my side
of the family who
live in an environment
of modern doublewides
down dirty dusty dirt roads
on acre+ lots and
i also have an empty
acre+
i keep only
as an investment and
it's situated across
from
all of them
i visit on invite
update my brother's
computer
(that's probably why
i was invited)
top-0-the-line steaks chops sausage
smokin'
on the grill
some kinda fancy schmancy
port wine
ceasar salad
we sit
around the round
perfectly dressed glass table
cloth napkins in napkin rings
and they say 'grace'
altogether
i roll my eyeballs
and then
i just sip wine and
chomp salad
amen
---
**tongue pierthingths are thuper**
iths not that i talk thith way
all of the time
iths juth becauths
i hadta open my big mouth
thpread it ath wide ath
i poththiply could
so pj
the thlamdunk totally thwamped with wild and
crathy gothic tattooths and pierthingths
all over himthelf and
one hunk
of a body pierther
could thick that thick
neethle
thraight through
the heart of
my tongue
------
FEATURED POET: Mark Hartenbach
Mark Hartenbach lives a hand to mouth existence in an Appalachian ghost town along the Ohio River. His chapbooks include-"Monster Poems" (Fingerprint Press), "Giants, Windmills & Snake Eyes" (Smiling Dog Press), "Appalachian Koans" (Tandavapoetry), "Ten Houses" (Monkeyboy Press) & a handful from his own non compos mentis press.
tarot cards, television & time machines
the night commands our complete ambivalence
though we've waited for years
for some sort of compensation
for fighting our way through thick plotlines
but there will be no grateful soul kiss
no release point
we will not be singled out as good soldiers
we can only hope our hearts will be warmed
by random thoughts
that speak when there's nothing to say
that make sense of the indifference
beyond betrayals, beyond sentimental value
beyond raging at the wall
where a mirror once hung
beyond photographs of all those lovers
that we survived
& who survived us
beyond the table rising
to tell us we're being watched over
beyond the discretion of a deck of cards
that never blurt out
we're in for more than we bargained for
---
spontaneous blues
it's much easier to say
what we are not
than to confess what we are
i hook up my halo
clip on my wings
& sink into silence
i write a moving story
that's drowned out
by a crashing halt
i crow about beauty
for it's own sake
when i'm running short on ideas
i black out my most memorable features
until i wonder
where i've been
i throw the entire deck of cards
into the air
& take a snapshot
to commemorate the occasion
i title it
spontaneity
i frame the photograph
then tuck it away
in a dark place
---
appalachian gospel songs & death bed confessions
if you drive far enough away to where life gets smaller but the stories
get bigger, you might find what appears to be a shallow grave out on an
abandoned piece of farmland. that's filled to the brim with hastily
scribbled forget-me-nots, torn ticket stubs from forgotten events, a
pressed flower from the family bible, broken heirlooms, broken treaties, broken
clocks and broken bones. you mght come across singhed around the edges
documented evidence and brown brittle highlights from someone once up to
their chin in loss. someone sworn to memory for seemingly no good reason.
someone who's muted cries for attention and staggered stains seep from the
ground. someone who's mother warned them to leave the monster in the box.
told them about how those black marks in heaven add up. how the deck of
cards don't lie. how the dead always get shoved to their own side of the
bed.
the muddy details of every story come dragging their heavy feet through
the dirt. along the dotted line. intent on leaving some sort of sign they were
there. that once there was an ascending arc in the story line. leaving
scratch marks that are sure to draw judgement from the good church folk as
well as the festive bottom dwellers. that will coax anger from even the
sunnier side of life. that seem to scream out, "have you heard one single
word i've said?"
---
i cannot hear america trying to sing
"the pure products of america go crazy"
-wm. carlos williams
those dharmaggedon eyes, grim esthetics
sculpted corners & golden genetalia
are all the clarification needed
everybody want to watch the lizard dance
so they're willing to put up with some poetry
if that's what it takes
this is before the golden age of television
or death valley 1969
this is before generic
entered the consumer consciousness
before campfire stories were replaced
by politically correct sound bytes
rationalized gesture, pyramid eyewear
darling clementine stripped down
to false anarchy
horns of plenty got the masses dancing
in neat domino lines
ritualized chaos
for today's revolutionary
never been so happy to have two left feet
i don't speak small world esperanto
but mumble
bottomed-out divinities
& wail at great white fortunate son
who is amused enough
to tip accordingly
---
the thirteenth passion
what am i holding out for
molecular precision or intellectual completion
either way
it's a slippery campaign
too proud to advertise
too shy for mass pipeline
& decomposed vocabulary
offers little encouragement
more spine-tingling evasiveness
than imploding ennui
lone do-wop sounds more
like quasi-religious chanting
than greasy love call
soul dialectics for the bump & grind vanity set
this not my groove thang
shaking toward eventuality
nor conqured flaw set before inquisition
as proof of straight & narrow
nor happy medium
& all it's ugly connotations
if i whisper i'm pegged enigmatic kook
if i shout
drooling lunatic on the prowl
ransacking status quo
phraseology for the disenchanted
instead of simple cathartic bop
---
a poem for my father
wondering what all the ruckus
was about
i found a man
who insisted that someone
was always standing
in his light
so i blew out
all the candles
& he thanked me
it was nothing
i said
& left him
standing
alone
in the dark
---
where i sleep
even my unmade bed
is littered with books
where wittgenstein & jakob boehme
come crashing together
scattering 17th century mysticism
& modern western philosophy
creating a chaotic text
with divine overtones
& an oxymoronic wink
a new unrecognizable animal
that leaves blood behind
on my pillow
---
a world without end
"a world without end"
(a three-legged dog finds a place in the sun)
sometimes hiding out is necessary
to illumination
a place where we can make something
from our distractions
& our shuffled perceptions
a near constant visionary state
that makes rational, linear thought
extremely difficult
if not impossible
that overwhelms
conventional behavior
& common sense
an imbalance that can't be
chemically rectified
some need an asylum
where they can pray
to the patron saint of the outsider
the marginal, the isolated
the illegitimate
some need a place
to wait out
those long silences
between bursts
of the ecstatic
others require a shelter
while they search for a way
to bridge the gap
between themselves
& the world
---
the tribe of ishmael
there's a tribe who's wandering
has been misinterpreted as a curse
their bloodline is untracable
& follows a natural course of events
sometimes there's a painful undertone
to their voice
but its more than bourgeious angst
it can be soft & sympathtic
or loud enough
to disrupt the proceedings
if needed
they spring up like weeds
& will be be around long after
all the cultivated flowers
have withered away
their cut & paste abstractions
will be around
after the plot has broken down
they mutter prayers of thanks
for all that they've been blessed
not to have
which is considerd contemptible
in the land of nod
the home of gimme, gimme, gimme
they find beauty in disfigured numbers
shattered records of living & dying
in misfired neurons
in twisted limbs
& scar tissue
when they happen to run in to one another
whether on foreign soil
or common ground
they pass on an imperceptible nod
or conspiritorial wink
that won't rouse suspicion
from mister charlie's minions
they never pledge allegience
to any flag
its idol worship
according to whatever good book
you subscribe to
or if you're simply a student
of the human condition
they know jerusalem
is a state of mind
not subject to turf wars
they believe its arrogant & foolish
to presume anyone is chosen
over someone else
wherever you may think
they might be
they're actually somewhere else
they insist on the freedom
to crumble up that map
of the new world order
the one with bloody fingerprints
all over it
they insist on the freedom
to sing joyous
or moan low down
to dance or tremble
to love with no strings attached
dedicated to all my brothers & sisters out there from the tribe......
------
FEATURED POET: Ori Livneh
Ori is an unstudious student and an unpersonable person from an unsituated city... a bard across the border, a sometime fabricator of pacific prosody and atlantic anthems...
collaboration via earthcam, ori & ron:
an egg on drugs
<*ron 13:12 EST> oh ori don't you feel the
incredible lightness
well
<*ron 13:12 EST> the wonder of blood & mind
i know what you mean but not today
<*ron 13:12 EST> ageless we are all ageless
<*ron 13:12 EST> & bloody & mindful &
<*ron 13:12 EST> bleak
bleak?
<*ron 13:12 EST> oh ori bleakness is the quality
of awareness
<*ron 13:12 EST> death knows like breath
the sky is blue and transcendance of oneself
seems like a pretty optimistic thing to do today
turning inside out wet laundry
<*ron 13:12 EST> like fuck the blue
it will within time
<*ron 13:12 EST> turning inside-out wet jeans
<*ron 13:12 EST> craddling breasts of english
teachers
cock sticking out of boxers brushing against
zipper
<*ron 13:12 EST> who poo our halitosis
<*ron 13:12 EST> our mental faults
no mental faults
<*ron 13:12 EST> with cock spearing toward
heaven or moutain-high hell
only flawed breasts too many flawed breasts
<*ron 13:12 EST> flawed breasts are beauty
<*ron 13:12 EST> flawed women are wonder
ill-sized nipples & crusted blood
<*ron 13:12 EST> ill-sized?????
& all unpastuerized mismatched
<*ron 13:12 EST> ah
<*ron 13:12 EST> but are they sweet
the taste you taste is you
<*ron 13:12 EST> are they suckable like flesh
candy
breasts are mirrors except warmer
<*ron 13:12 EST> mirrors & tentacles
<*ron 13:12 EST> & worms
<*ron 13:12 EST> breasts spilling blue gel
pleasantl intestinal worms
<*ron 13:12 EST> blue gel tears
blue jeans tears
<*ron 13:12 EST> belts
khaki vomit
<*ron 13:12 EST> quakes down her leg
<*ron 13:12 EST> poor girl
siesmic toss
<*ron 13:12 EST> poor flawed woman
<*ron 13:12 EST> eathquake'd open unto
blueness
blueness is mental and ephemeral translation of eyes space is not
fluffy...
<*ron 13:12 EST> sponge us
with or without soap?
<*ron 13:12 EST> where skin collects
coagulations
pus
<*ron 13:12 EST> blue scab ruin
<*ron 13:12 EST> squid
hair like crystalized pus
<*ron 13:12 EST> khaki vomit spills from her eyes
<*ron 13:12 EST> meanwhile we think of
oozing upwards towards heavens or blue/green algae mountaintop
<*ron 13:12 EST> coffee
<*ron 13:12 EST> & a joint
sex in south africa
<*ron 13:12 EST> & too much love
<*ron 13:12 EST> ori liventh, ron androla
<*ron 13:12 EST> 3/18/2001
---
strobe-light sex fragments
the bedsheets and blankets are made of shiny translucent glass, your body
is pitted and charred. we are dreaming in siamese when reality slices us in
half, and for a second i'm cock-proud, in that fresh plastic-wrapped bread
protruding from bakery shelves sort of way. so what if my penis is
inquisitive. so what if your nipples are hard. so what if your fingernails
dig into my flesh. we live in freeze-frames, incapable of motion. let the
dust settle, love. let the blood crust.
---
the bomb
so this is it the Bomb is coming everyone is calm and controlled there were
drills and radio programs and announcements from government officials
dressed in suits and simulations and flyers and the odd hastily written
booklet full of ideas i.e. what to be caught doing when everything suspends
and now with six or seven minutes left as dusk descended the human race came
together into a mosaic of atypical calmness and certainty the Bomb is coming
and is going to suspend everything and suspend time very humane if you think
about it as it detonates the thoughts pulsing through your head will freeze
and hang for eternity and any physical stimuli will linger on your senses
forever and so in an orderly fashion people of all descents and races and
sexes (and sexual orientations) go about indulging in whatever they see fit
to indulge in permanently men go to fuck their wives and scream with delight
as orgasms wash over them and homosexuals bury their quivering cocks in each
others ass and seven year old girls slide a hand down there and everywhere
are people stuffing themselves with cheesecakes and lard and pills and
rubbing cunt hairs against expensive handmade rugs and some peculiar souls
slice their wrists and splatter blood all over the wall and heroin and
alcohol and ether and morphine flowing in mighty rivers everywhere and in
the middle of it all as time dwindled away i put a leash on my white dog and
put on a tophat and walked outside carrying an umbrella into the rain and
dusk and paced slowly up and down the street and imagined frightened people
everywhere peering at me through the windows and thinking wow, what a
gentleman he must be.
---
bomb pt. 2
electric hum of yellowed out lights and inertia singing us sleepless,
restless, in circles, coasting on neutral, synapses flick off safety and
fire, neurons on drink coasters underground; embryo'd by lush car pets &
crumbled leather. awaiting the fiddle hiss of ICBM silo doors opening at
twilight. awaiting the day we'll wear our bright white shirts and sunday
pants, sitting on plastik garden chairs quietly (smiling), each holding up
our styrofoam cup. each styrofoam cup with our initials engraved in gold
lettering, and our bodily liquids carefully collected inside. and under the
blue blue skies and the almost painful chirping of birds the bomb will come,
washing over us like saltwater against our feet. the shockwaves will sooth
our fears, disintegrate our bodies into litter that will decompose in final
heartbeats while dispersing our indestructible cups into the heavens in
giant eternal flocks that will explode onto each other, and our liquids will
entwine and it'll be like it was, when we were young, when we had perfect
teeth, when we loved each other, when we made love to each other under the
heavens, with minutes to go before sunset, as everything turned red on us.
---
unfinished story that will never be finished
I.
i woke up to the ineffable sound of 10,000 simultaneous car crashes. when
the ringing in my ears stopped i got up and shambled to the kitchen to make
some coffee but i was all out. through the windows the sun dripped menacing
spectrums that leaked through cracks in the glass and spun about the room
strangely. there was a terrible breeze about that made my chest hairs curl
so i tightened my soft, ragged robe around my shoulders. there were these
flashes of unbearable noise replaced by eerie silence, and it smelled
vaguely of september. i walked outside.
II.
it was sunny outside, so i squinted. my calloused bare foot landed
hesitantly on a sandpaper carpet of rough conrete and microscopic shards of
glass, sending alternate currents of numb pain and sun-baked warmth up my
spine. several cars were accordioned into houses down the street, though the
occupants were absent. fallen showers of chipped-off paint reminded me of
painting i saw in a museum once, and i felt very relevant reminiscing about
art on such a brutal morning. the tranquil hum of backup generators
everywhere seemed to lull everything and everything and me to a drunken
sleep. the thought that i am the only human being left on the planet struck
me and i promptly sunk into a deep slumber on the pavement next to my house.
III.
i dreamt
of fishes
in flocks
choking on water
swarming cyclic
tornados around me
reflective jelly eyes
conceding nothing
hollowed faces mouthing
distorted expressions
those comatose
birds, oh limbless spirits
immobile daubs of suffocated muscle
in a midnight flight
of paralysis
III.
i woke up, out of breath, and went to get some breakfast. i knocked my next
door neighbor's back door down with one smart kick and swung it behind me to
trample the flowerbed. strutting into the kitchen, i began whistling an
improvised militiristic melody, and promptly started tearing the cupboard
doors off nonchalantly in search of food. i had a grilled cheese sandwich
and a raw tomato, that i purposely let drip down my chin.
---
two interwoven monologues
nostalgia says: ahh see time doesn't touch me i squeeze nimbly through the
cracks between the seconds live entire lifetimes in that quick inhale before
speech.
birth says: in that gushing you emerged -- beautiful & liquid-- then you
wept.
you looked so small and now you do too.
nostalgia says: you embrace me when you lay in your bed no matter who you're
sleeping with-- see you and your lover spooning?.. i squeezed in between
there
too, aye, that molecular crevice in between the warmth the two of you
generate--
i'm a vampire.
birth says: yr lungs exploded so softly into the world..
nostalgia says: sharp hooks that grab and tear at your sleeves in the dark?
no
sanctuary. the only freedom you have known from me is that infinitely thin
void
when they cut the cord dripping with mucus from your tummy and you became an
individual-- the moment before the first moment became past, when you were
born.
birth says: i remember now.. your fingers were so tiny--and how they
clutched
insistingly around your mothers thumb-- you glowed-- gurgled & smiled--
seems
like yesterday-- yes, yes-- i remember...
---
STATE OF THE UNION: POETRY IN AMERIKA
POETRY IN AMERIKA
IS A FAT & LAZY ANIMAL.
ALL TOO RARELY
SPORADIC MUTANTS SPAWN
WHO WILL NOT SUCKLE
ON THE MAGNIFICIENT BREASTS
OF POETIC RELIGION, BUT!
WILL UNTIMIDLY BRANDISH
AN EXPOSED GENITAL
AND EXPLODE BLOOD-WINE
SOME WET POETRY SOME ART;
SOAK EVERYONE WITH IT
THEY USUALLY END UP
DISILLUSIONED DRUNKARDS
REJECTED FOR DISTURBING THE PEACE;
FOR AWAKENING POETRY
(WHO LIKES TO DRIFT SEMI-CONSCIOUS
ON PLUSH STATE-SANCTIONED PILLOWS
OF GRANTS AND ACADEMIA)
BUT POETRY
IS NONETHELESS STIRRED
AND WILL BUDGE AN INCH
TOWARDS INFINITY
DRAGGING ALONG WITH IT
THE THOUSANDS OF FLEAS AND BACTERIA
THAT DWELL IN THE SWEATY ARMPITS
WHO WILL PATIENTLY WAIT FOR THINGS
TO CALM DOWN, FOR POETRY TO SLUMBER AGAIN
TO START MASTURBATING,
WRITE VOLUMES OF IMITATION VERSE
THAT READ LIKE A BAD PORNO.
YOUNG POETS OF AMERIKA
LET US NOT LET DECAY
INFECT ANOTHER GENERATION
YOUNG POETS OF AMERIKA
TAKE OFF YR PANTS!
TAKE OFF YR PANTS!
TAKE OFF YR PANTS!
DISPLAY COCKS & CUNTS PROUDLY
COMMENCE FUCKING.
---
another subway fetish poem
my train dives into
the station
and upon seeing me
she halts and unfolds
her doors
reaching to embrace
the space
between
her & me
a carnivorous
60mph metal love.
smudged torontonians
my hypocrite brothers
swim in the apathy
of her pretty belly,
scared of eye contact.
they don't bother me.
there's a familiar,
cozy anonymity to them.
there's a familiar,
cozy anonymity to slipping
into a blanket of boredom,
but not them, not today.
i choose to play dice
with the universe. i get on the next train.
the people on this train
have all chosen to get on the next train.
we're disembodied ghosts,
our selves projected unto
the other train. everyone
stares at everyone else
right in the eye
& there's nothing there.
it is as if
the universe
picked up her skirts
& scuttled an inch
to the left. strangeness
bubbles up through the snow.
i barely survive
my indian crawl down the street into my bed.
today i am upset that tomorrow
came with such ease, with such a yawn
with such indifference
to my god games. i imagine
a sunrise bursting
over hiroshima
the morning after.
---
what we are
beauty is putty-like, assuming
strange shapes in my memory:
that time i was fucking you
from behind on the edge of my bed
has evaporated into animalistic
forgetfulness. that same pedantic
impotence that has us fearing
honest expressions is the one
that keeps the records upstairs;
moments of being raw & dynamic
are all lost, and instead the long tally
of all indecisions, like a fraudulent tax form,
is the pigment that colors
who we are, what we remember.
what actual things we've done
are accidental slips within nebulas
of missed chance. the universe is defined
by the black void, not the brief glimpses
of stars. i have an easier time
sympathising with the nothingness
between the molecules of my body
than the molecules themselves.
every action is a shadow
that mimics and taunts us. love
is so serendipitous. i distinctly remember
being helpless as i collapsed into your
softness afterwards, how i
traced letters on your breasts.
what guttural sounds i made
as i was actively worshipping your beauty
are confined to that lost moment,
but all those awkward silences
on the phone i can still re-live.
the expressions of love that we forget
to express make the most vivid memories,
resonating with the inexpressible
truth of our infinite being. infinity of self.
what we can actually see are dim polaroids,
a symbolic notation representing
something that can never truly be grasped.
we have never shared a long, long, silent
immobility, staring at each other's naked self,
with the intent of allowing this truth
to saturate our selves. we have never
slept holding each other for very long.
we've never orgasmed simultaneously. we have
never completely assimilated into
one another. i have never written you
a quiet love-song.
---
the violence of yr beauty
the words fall off yr lips
like wet petals. i'm mute
beside yr gestures, yr fingers
pacifying a fold in your dress.
yr nails penetrate
my skin the way teeth
enter an apple, rosebuds
blossoming off my back
i watch the violence
of yr beauty, helpless
like a child, the way
i'd sob in my bed
as my parents fought
and broke the dinner set
and you, demanding silence
as you embrace the toilet
with yr hair neatly falling
off the sides. and the bowl
becoming a flowerpot
you a convulsing growth
limping at each recess
until finally sleep
smoothes yr long body,
hanging like a phone cord
on the bathroom floor
used and spent by all
the dirt and gossip
of the world. hush,
hush. i malinger beside
you, making sure you sleep
---
picture of grandfather after the war
masks of shoes
and teeth
in long
procession.
god covers
his mouth
with the sky.
the laughing-
gagging children
dance about
the fires
his lips gush
streamlets of abraham.
an immense weight
speeds them to sea
---
bird
the human in me,
weight-thirsty
lithe speaker
of coitus blues
"neato benito,"
stutters shade
meaning like
desert starfields
at night --
"neato benito,"
amerika expelled
me from its bombtight
stomach, vomited
me north, yawned
its urine on me.
israel would keep
me a loving son a
loving bleeding gun,
smile on the wall
in the desert
there we forget
the sands there
drink yr history,
strip you of your
love of the boot.
now canada
is home
footsoles learn to grip
new densities of water
israel sometimes crawls
up the fingernails
knowing the oldest
childhood backdoors
but now canada
is home
world capital
of emigre poetry
long, long forests
long, dark trains
think of the schwartzwald
think of the beach in tel aviv
it's ok, ok to hold
my hand and laugh and cry
----
FEATURED POET: Jeff Filipski
Jeff Filipski lives on a florida beach. he is a frequent contributor, of both art & poems, to http://www.the-hold.com. he is a former buffalo, ny, native. he has been active in the underground lit world since the '80's.
----
twenty-one yrs ago
i met a guy named mike
who wrote shit like no other i've seen before
or ever since.
he exists
today
for all to see
or hear
as if and forever
he will always be
He told me
of a guy named kurt
and still
i have a package
meant for his perusal
since first hearing of
planet detroit
he introduced me
to a guy named ron
some blue collar poet
from erie
who wrote shit
like glass
on icy concrete
which tore
the human ear
from its fragile foundation
and wiggled it
with thumb and forefinger
before its possessor
like a childrens toy
or a hapless bass bait
I was in my mid-twenties.
All full of testosterone.
liquor
acid
invincibility
allthat shit
which
has since worn away
knowing
i would be
the next
picasso
the next
pollock
the next some motherfucker
whos soul
was lost
through serious
dissillusion
thinking
the world
was
as he thought
he saw it
while having testicles
the size of cassaba melons
with the dry immanent wit
of the drool bucket brigade
known as intelligentsia
i met these guys
with all the others ive yet to meet
in the blue haze of time
we all inhale
unconsciously
beating our drums
pounding our
and cunts
like our heads
on cold rubbled streets
waiting for an open door
to take us in
and today
i
unfortunately
still live
to tell about it
and strangely
i am glad...
----
muffles in sod
dachau motherfuckers
waste a race
in the wake of day
vermin child
in mohammads robe
raised hands
to black smoke filled sky
where is your veiled mother, Islam?
in the back room without a douche
and a book she can't read
tending to the balls of re-hashed belief
slobbering over allahs cries
glad her clit was removed
most certainly
where is YOUR mother,white man
her hand on her heart
her heart on her man
staring at maudlin baubles
measuring belief with wealth
penis size lexus rise
while martha bakes cookies
or beats her mother for her mistakes
where is YOUR mother humanity?
walking like scarlet harlot
in shivvering lycra
packed flesh and anthrax glove
worrying about husbands mistress
and dresses she stole mink stole
upon supple shoulders in miami dusk
where is THE mother of creation
waiting for deaths toll to rise
on angelic horns
watching wisdom stagger down cobbled streets
fearing vague wispers of midnight loveless
pissing from biscuit clouds in shameful grief
motherfuckers of dachau dreams
staring aimless at eternal recurrence
prodding anger with smoldering torches
lost child of the holy coven
yellow feotus screaming at diamondback allah
and buddhas laugh
an edifice
in metal flake syrums
and neon meat
the chorus rise in bleeting harmonies
hallowed be thy blame
or the last contraction...
----
daughter b-day
My daughter turns ten today
hard to believe 11 yrs ago
i was dead set against reproduction
hard to believe
i was so heavily
into masturbation before that.
hard to believe
i have this glowing little female human
full of hope, dreams,
and unconditional love for the world
and her mother and I
Hard to believe
We must nurture this potential
to the highest possible form
so as not to have her dependant
on the needs or values
of some dwarfed male of the species
I can see it now
some halfling
accompanied by tattoos and piercings
telling me he is a poet or an artist
and that he loves her
for anything other than
valid love or companionship
if in fact validity exists
in either form
I pray she will not need him
I believe in validation
there is little else
Hard to believe
this little male
will soon sniff at my door
with hopes to imprint her mind
with not so innocent depictions
fill her head with lies
place his hands on her body
make promises he will never keep
hard to believe
hard to believe
tonite there are ten ten year olds
in my living room
shouting shrieking singing
laughing
the purest of innocence
it is madness
but it is a beautiful thing as well
purity
innocence
beauty
perfect
I have pitched a tent in the yard
The cable just barely reaches inside
their innocence is very noisy
a cooler full of rolling rock
and a stick of dank
and privacy
soon the noise will be distant
wonderful
the journals of albion moonlight in my grip
My daughter is ten
i near fifty
I stand in in the darkness
in total disbelief
----
humid and oily
the streets
are lined
with scarecrows
in rocking chairs
knitting
woolen booties
for
the dead
paper faces
enflamed
with grins
howling
of pathetic beast
in tarry pools
consuming
sultry women
seduce themselves
in mirrors
milky clouds
veil
scavenging birds
silver light
free thought
vectors
a saint
of soliloquies
in lines of seven
routing
word grains
kisses
the soft pussy
of life with
blue bleeding lips
its eyes
like lost planets
stare blankly
into space
like
two shits stains
on rotting rice
wondering....
----
poem?no...tequila! yes...
I dont write anymore
i have my reasons
this will prove why
reason walks the realm of the lame
I walk the realm
we all walk the realm
one time or another
reason is arbitrary
depending on perception
perceptions differ
from minute to minute
depends on who is sucking the dick
those who do not percieve this
are clearly...
my neighbors
it simply doesnt matter
logic can lick my ass
along with
truth
justice
and the
amerikan fucking way
what the fuck is that , anyway
the check is still in the mail
I'm waiting...
we are surrounded
by the lame
lame philosophies
lame politics
lame economies
lame Gods
lame fantasies
Jesus is a bookmark
people lose bookmarks
I pray that they do
we are human
this keeps us
tragically
within the loop
within the species
living the species
gross fecund
non-progressions
there are no progressions
we are eternally circular
spinning like a top
up
down
round
and round
and round
and round
tomorrow
is as yesterday
fucking horror story
a very bad one
nothing changed
but the day..
depression
Nike
God
urban decay
fuck the Joneses
i never liked those
prick fucks
or keeping up with
their foggy white porclain asses
I do this
for my baby
I live this
for my baby
nothing more....
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