M's

BOOTY CALL

At one point I found myself going from a trot to a full run.

I felt like a horse running and then flying.

I was a horse dreaming I was a bird.

I was listening to Gogol Bordello.

The music leads me into slow motion running 

on Boulder Creek Path under a bridge 

remembering a dream of slow motion running 

from when I was very young, 6 or 7, 

a dream in which I was trapped in slow motion. 

There was a moment of feeling trapped in the slowness 

and then I just let go into the slow. 

This is the greatest feeling in the world

because I am moving, I am running and 

don't need to go any faster. I am running slow.  

I was listening to Velvet Underground.

I noticed a sign that said "Human Impact" 

It contained information about pollution. 

The sign was re-signed when some punk tagged it

-indecipherably- with black sharpie giving

a new meaning to the words "Human Impact".

This is what I call a re-appropriation.

I did a rad jump off the sign to re-sign it again,

giving my own meaning to the words "Human Impact".

This is what I call a one-up re-appropriation.

I was listening to Art Brut.

Later I saw another sign written in white spray paint 

in the gutter of a street. The sign said "flow" and 

pointed downhill. I followed the sign.

I was listening to The Monsters of Folk.

PODCAST

Kids history

Absurdist radio

Waterfalls and ice cream sundaes

Pohlm

Creator of nature

L

L

Mil lpmau

Upblmmpmp

Patch

X

Jesus spelled his name with backward esses

LpZj olmlpm l m

Pll

Op

Mopping lp

Mpll

Ppl m

La

POEM

One thing stood up tall and proud.

It was the sky. It was allowed.

It was out loud. It was outlaw.

I thought of that.

I thought about

how no is not alot.

The way living goes

is like a rodeo.

It takes a buck.

Donatello's seraphim

could speak truth to everyone

and everyone would see a star

of righteous indentation

MY SCREAM WENT TO HEAVEN

It died first of course. Then, when it had been

horse-whipped to death, it grew a pair. In seven

seconds it was sleeping in a dream hearse

peeling out in the silence of outerspace.

The hearse was very old and only drove

in reverse, so the Scream rode across the sky

like Icarus, but backward. The sun was thus

snuck up on from behind and spun

the car around its orbit thrice

before spitting it out

somewhere near the spout

of the big dipper.

Still a long way from

The Destination

and yet so very far from home.

I DON'T NOT BELIEVE

Cut to the chase: I fell off

the cliff, jumped off 

and landed face down

on the empty concrete, decomposed

as the weeds grew through the cracks

where a creek seeped up, raw garlic

growing out of used rubber donuts. 

Today I did talk to a bird. I tried

my best to match her tone, but

could only barely match the melody.

Every note pierced through me.

And when I sat down in that field

suddenly my blind eye could see

that gods sprang from underfoot.

NIGHT SWEATS

Dreamt last night of hanging out with Cat Power 

in Thurston Moore's basement and I had NOTHING 

to say to her! I want to reach back into the dream and tell her,

"Look how the ripples in the water make wings of light 

as the swimmer flies in slow motion to the other end..."

THERE’S A ROBIN IN THE YARD

There's a robin in the yard.

Her head is bobbing to the beat.

That's how she eats.

She is eating, pulling up a worm,

Snaps the worm in half,

But don't you squirm.

The other half of the worm

Will someday grow into a full length worm.

And he'll crawl through the ground.

He'll come up when it rains.

And we'll pluck him up from the ground,

Use him as bait, cast him out, catch a fish. 

The fish snaps the worm in half

But don't despair!

Because the other piece

Will grow into his own self

On his own behalf.

There's a robin in my bed.

She said something

I did not catch.

Because I was dead.

My ears were no longer receiving any thoughts.

But I heard the robin singing.

(Robin whistle)

UPSCALE POETRY

"Doe, a deer, a female deer"

Look how beautiful she is.

"Ray, a drop of golden sun"

The deer is in the sun.

"Me, a name I call myself"

Now, by juxtaposition, you have yourself.

You have the thing that you call yourself.

This "me" escalates out of the "doe" in the "ray".

You are a female deer outside in the sun.

"Fa, a long long way to run"

You are a deer running in the sun

And you have a long, long way to go.

"Sew, a needle pulling thread"

The needle is you, leaping as you sew.

"La, a note to follow sew"

The notes are like the leaping needle,

leaping up cloth mountains, up the scale.

The deer slows, near the top of the mountain now, tired,

her voice straining to reach the next note.

"Tea, a drink with jam and bread"

Time for a little picnic.

"Which brings us back to doe doe doe doe"

The bread and tea nourishes you, literally becomes you

and you're ready to start again

escalating up the endless scale.

COFFIN DROP

I am compelled to wake up in the middle of the day and write.

Compelled by a conundrum. It is almost, almost, as if this thing, or things,

were born of dreaming. But it was not a dream. As I lay there sleeping,

wide awake, two beings appeared before me. Not appeared, exactly.

They became me. The being on the left was the shape of language

or rather was the stuff language is made from. At times it was even

the shape of feelings. Other times sight. Light presented itself

to the small imp on the left. The right side was silent. It was something

else, still. While the left side spoke an ever-changing and barely discernible

stream of images and words, the right side sat mute, waiting and watching,

a sentinel. The right side then became, for that moment, a shaggy ewe

bleating game. Sticky sweet saliva dripping from the corner

of its mouth, the right corner. The left side, the one who calls itself mammon

for a moment, and then man-moth and now woolly mammoth is prone

to suggestion. The right side encapsulates. The left is an imp bent on

surprise and exposure. This is the mutable undergirding of expression,

the immovable center of the left, and now the right. The right rises up

as an empty space with a palpable nothing; the isness of space.

Something must come of nothing. That something must be self.

There is that smell. There is a headache.The headache came from the left.

The headache is felt on the right. Inside are two monkeys, chained

to a rock. On the left Bruegel bubbles from the lips of John Wieners font.

On the right the monkey chatter hurts my head. The monkeys

are a symbol of themselves. They are plastic in a flash, dime-store

novelties. The left is taken up for watching. The right pops a drawl.

There is no naming of the left. We can say the right is correct.

The right is fooled by shame, desire & nausea. This side is stopped,

keeps stopping. You see your mother now on the right. The head

expands. The hair grows ginger. The ginger is a new spice and takes

commitment to grow. The left is a rolling ball of clay set to animation,

claymation. The dough is stretched in space. To the right is the analogous

dough in mom's kitchen being stretched to make bread. Good bread.

The early smell of manna that takes us back to the womb.

Then the earlier smell of animal and guts of sweet dew and underwater

salt. Those scents, from the womb, that are tantamount to what the tongue

lacks. The tongue made of clay. The shape bouncing off the center

into wordy vibrations. The station plays on, now a deejay with a soft voice

running down a baseball game in 1967. My father passing out to the drone,

the crack of the bat barely interrupting. The crowd hollers, the dreamer watches.

A curtain falls. The monkeys fall endlessly. The falling feels to them a kind

of trick in time. The chatter seems to get lost in the fall. As heard from high

above and at the same time from far below. Echoing chatter that is speeding up

as it falls. The head swirls in sickness and excitement. The fall continues apace,

the two sides in a race, a perpetual tie. Focus in on the vision of the eye

on the right attached to a corpse come back alive. Now inside that eye

become that eye and on the left the surface is gummy. Walk upon the street

made of candy. The candy road spins off the rotating sphere of language.

The feet stick to the road and make loud god smacks with every step.

Stand still and feel the wobble. Push the surface in waves with one foot

and then the other. The waves wake up the baby. The babbling of the baby

becomes the waves, a synaesthesia of becoming. The curvature of sight

and sound undulating. The sensation spinning out from lower back now

as a sharp pain. This is on the right. As well as all of the new physical sensation,

which starts on the left. On the left the station changes to Socrates giving fits

to one of the students. The student is holding his head. He weakly smiles

at Socrates. Socrates bows to the student, with a slight tilt of the head.

The student puzzles over Socrates. What is he doing? The women start to cry.

The men are even crying now. The tears dry up into fantasy. The cries impinge,

originating on the right. The left is only momentarily frightened. The left takes comfort

in two steady hands that hold it tight. Study. The hands become breath, left breath in

the right breath out. The driver turns the wheel one-eighty. It is a neat trick.

In the center of the wheel is another wheel and so forth, further than the eye can see.

Wildwood Holler

Way up in the Wildwood Holler

Face to face with my killer

He raised his voice

He raised his fist

I raised my glass

I said here's to you

Here's to me

Here's to us

Now kick my ass

Way up in the Wildwood Holler

face to face with my killer

He raised his sun

I raised my moon

He raised the knife

I raised the spoon

He raised the gun

I put the flower in

Come on man

Let’s begin 

Lightning bolt

Lightning bolt and thunderclap

I had to laugh

Way up in the wild blue yonder

face to face with my creator

He raised the sky

I raised the balloon

He raised the bar

I raised the saloon

He raised the morning

I raised at noon

He raised the Ante

I raised my gin

Come on woman

Let's begin

Already

Lightning bolt,

Lightning bolt and thunderclap

I had to laugh

Salsa @ D Note

I’m standing behind the bar

Staring in awe at the dancers

Tearing up the dance floor

When a drop of cold water

Hits my ear. I turn to Diandra

And ask why she dripped

water on my ear for?

She said it wasn't her.

I ask, well, who was it?

She answers the sweat

Of the dancers. The heat

Causes sweat to condense

On the ceiling and now the sweat

Of all the dancers in the room

has fallen into my ear. Sweet

I said, the perfect metaphor.

Yuck, she said. Salty, I thought

And left to join the dance floor.

Reggaeton at the D

I’m standing behind the bar

Staring in awe at the dancers

Tearing up the dance floor

When a drop of cold water

Hits my ear. I turn to Diandra

And ask why she dripped

water on my ear for?

She says it wasn't her.

I ask well who was it then?

She answers the sweat

Of the dancers. She said the heat

Causes sweat to condense

On the ceiling and now the sweat

Of all the dancers in the room

has fallen into my ear. Sweet,

I said, the perfect metaphor.

Yuck, she said.  Salty, I thought

And left to join the dance floor.

I looked in the water at the face of another. 

The other stared back in wonder. 

He watched a bird fly in one ear and out the other.

I looked in the water at the face of another. 

The other stared back in awe and wonder. 

He watched a bird fly into one of my ears and out the other.