young quanta

Take a chance and listen to the album Young Quanta by Club of the Sons.  It came out on July 7th and it is fantastic and completely original.  I have have listened to it three times straight through today.  You can give it one free listen on lala.com and you can buy it on a number of stores including iTunes and Amazon.  Just don't buy me a wolf anymore.

And here is an older poem...

hands (original)



It was the knuckles, ya gotta believe me!  The air outside is so cold and brittle-- it turned the fuckers purple.  I looked down and saw these once beige glaciers of skin and bone turn a bloody purple mess.  Veins reared their bulbous heads as they swam like salmon up to each purple mountain top.  Wrinkles emerged like creases in a pair of cheap slacks as the knuckles went airborne and tore through glass.  All I could do was laugh as goo ran from the cut which sliced my palm with perfect symmetry.

   

get innocuous

The lovely Erin Dillon just started a blog called Get Innocuous and I encourage you to do just that.  Thanks LCD Soundsystem, and thank you Misses Bojangles.  Goodnight.

www.mrsbojangles10.blogspot.com  

july 29th, 2009

quattro mani reprise

A man with a pierced ear smoked a cigarette and said I’ve been clean 17 months to a seemingly uninterested bum holding a sign made from the cardboard in a 12 pack. I immediately scribbled the moment down on the back of a receipt after I crossed La Cienega. It was summer and the sun was still setting. I enjoy Hollywood sunsets. They’re nothing compared to the ones in San Diego, but those nights meant so little to me. I’m sipping on Quattro Mani again because funds are low and I don’t feel so alone with the red label at my feet. I was asked if I was content tonight and answered as if prompted about the discussion, not my life. The one time someone throws that question my way I fumble the ball and watch it hit the ground. Too bad. He finally came over and took pictures last week and I ended up using what he felt was the “boring” shot. It was everything I wanted. I’m just recovering from Saturday night when Ziggy Stardust danced around the room with us as we laughed and played. Nothing compares to those moments with my leggy beauty of the night.

version two

carry me to bed Freescha

carry me gracefully

because last night I fell

and woke up bleeding

wondering where I was

and why I chose to do the things I did

I was scared

but here I am

and I'm no longer scared

I'm just lonely

the narcissist

the narcissist flips through his book before bed

worrying about typos

and what could have been

the narcissist sips saved white wine

and scowls

the narcissist gives up because

the clock advises so

because he has applied chapstick

for the fifth time

the narcissist has a lot to learn

and so do I

but I look forward to the groan

look for this duct-taped to a street light

july 20th, 2009

nothing but a throbbing pouch

The crumpled paper fortunes make it hard to stick my license in the wallet pocket, but I don’t mind.  I usually keep the good ones; the ones I feel are true and the ones that will keep me going.  It’s hard when the night is closing in and all I want to do is stay up and get higher and higher and higher.  It’s hard when she’s not here and I know I will have to wake up sweating alone.  It’s hard to accept these solitary nights, even though I know I need them and secretly love them.  I can’t write any other way, and writing is what kicks me when I’m down then helps me up and treats me to drinks.  Writing vengefully convinces me to stay up all night only to hand me two ibuprofen and a cold glass of water in the morning.  Have a good day at work honey, I love you. 

I just don’t know what I would do without these words.  Less and less I fear them leaving, which is nice.  I used to think once happiness moved in she would throw this habit right out the door; clothes on the lawn, spray painted messages of hatred on the car, the whole shebang.  What I’ve realized is even happiness is not ever-present.  I can still be a happy man in a rut.  I can still be a happy man who despises the beeping cue to go to work each morning.  The idea of constant happiness is a ghost and I don’t want any part of it. 

prolonging

Some woman is singing the same words over and over outside my window and although it is nearly one thirty in the morning and I know I have to be responsible tomorrow it just doesn’t feel like a Sunday night, it feels like another beautiful chance to spit out my masterpiece-- but then again, I’ve had quite a few drinks and when I get some wine in me I feel invincible, unstoppable, casually capable of total literary domination-- which is laughable and preposterous but so much fun to mull over because without the feeling that you can create perfection you are settling, and settling is a repulsive creature of the night who howls alone and sleeps alone in filth. 

 

physiognomy in letters

An online magazine called Physiognomy in Letters is releasing their second issue today, July 16th, and they are going to publish a few of my poems.  Here is the site:

http://www.physiognomyinletters.com/

The stuff I read from the first issue was good, so you should check it out, I have high hopes for issue number two.

july 3rd, 2009

nothing like a friday off from work... and thanks Bowie...

brief bliss

Again he found himself approaching her, almost pestering her to share a drink over conversation.  Tonight she agreed casually, turning her gaze away with pretentious indifference.  He ordered two whisky sours and tipped the bartender with a goofy grin, so eager to eat his cherry in her presence.  He handed her the drink and she thanked him but spoke away from his ear, avoiding eye contact.  Her lack of interest never ceased to intrigue him.  I haven’t seen you in a while.  You look good he said above the crowd.  She nodded, continuing to acknowledge him as little as possible.  He took another sip and tried desperately to think of the right thing to say, the right question to ask, the compliment she’d always been waiting to hear.  Nothing came to mind.  The familiar feeling of helplessness rattled his weak frame.  He knew he was losing her… but tonight he had lady luck on his side.  A disheveled man stumbled out of the bathroom behind them causing her to step back and make room for the momentarily classless individual.  As the drunkard toppled forward she faced the once hopeless man of the hour and shot him a reactionary glance, out of instinct.  Their eyes locked and as much as she had previously resisted, she found herself unable to now look away.  His stomach boiled and his hands shook and for a short while she shared his infatuation.  He didn’t want an explanation, he simply wanted the moment to continue… but it had to end.

five years

A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest while we drank milk shakes cold and long.  All the fat, skinny people, and all the tall, short people pushed through the market square smiling and waving… I think I saw you in an ice cream parlor, you looked beautiful. 

Five years is all we got, five years and my brains hurt a lot.  The earth is dying we were told.  We wept as mothers wept and fathers wept and soon enough all of our faces were wet.  I never thought I’d see so many melodies with no room to spare. 

I only felt like an actor when it rained.

july 1st, 2009

a familiar duel

My desk is cluttered, word documents dominate the left side of my screen, a hollowed bottle of wine sits to my right and a bottle of water to my left; this is the kind of weekday solitude I chase. Tonight the soothing knuckles of Bibio dig into my shoulders as I lean forward in my chair. It is the familiar clash of the titans this evening: Loneliness versus Independence in a fight to the death. The marquee is lit up like an addict stumbling upon a fifty dollar bill. I’ve made my bets, have you?

lounging in limbo

Friday night in the kingdom of doom we sit watching the jets fly by, leaving that beautiful trace of green across the mellow orange sky. Just when we thought we had it all figured out, he drops into our lives and shakes it up. What we didn’t predict was a change for the better, a spontaneous kick in the ass leaving us puckering our lips for more. You're twenty thousand feet above the Atlantic right now and I am blowing my nose into a hanky, cursing my responsibilities. I flip through the words of Miller begging for a word-- half a sentence, anything to spice up the stale bedroom air of a Tuesday night in July… Yes, the characters go around with microphones in their trousers. Perfectly irrelevant for my current mood. The wine is just about finished and I am pleased; a tasty Cabernet I have never laid my lips on. The grapes will carry me through the night and I will lay on my stomach dreaming of nonsense. I will wake up scowling at my alarm, frantically sculpting an absurd reason to call in sick. But I will rise from sleep, stagger into the shower, and greet my friend on the porch with a muffled good morning, crusty eyes and all.