august 31st, 2009

an older poem...

poetry reading

There are prisoners swallowing their own eyeballs out of pure insanity and all I can think about is how nervous I am at the thought of reading a poem in front of a crowd of retired, wealthy survivors of life who finally have the time and courage to fill a legal pad with stories of momentary perfection; fifteen minutes of personal immortality.  Ah, I shouldn’t judge so quickly.  For all I know this room could be filled with long-time word junkies, fingers pleading for a cigarette break, souls born to grip a pen like me.  I could be surrounded by dictionary fiends and highly influential sentence sculptors.  This book shop could be growing future literary geniuses inside of flower pots hidden behind the wall of the Fiction section.  Or they are just as I made them out to be: lovers of the printed word, fans of organized poetry readings, and recreational note takers taking a stab at the whole poetry thing.  For them the addiction is absent.  The obsession chose not to settle inside of them… and I continue to ponder whether they are the lucky ones or if they missed out on the good life. 

august 25th, 2009

Here's an older poem. I just realized it should be quintet, I can't believe I never caught that. Well, the title stays, the quartet can be in reference to my band.

the rupert pupkin quartet

My band consists of:
apathy on drums
self destruction on guitar
love on bass
and refusal on keys.
I am lead vocals
and sometimes I sing out of key.
Thanks for coming to the show
we had one hell of a time
playing for you.

august 23rd, 2009

nod off

it's all been said long ago.

with beauty

and without.

with truth

and without.

with conviction

and without.

you are a recycling bin

with a solid heart

and a statistical mind.

you will search

through the night

and fall asleep

clasping a phantom presence.

only in moments

such as now

do you realize

the answer will always be

inches out of reach.

nod off young man,

Saturdays are infinite.

august 22nd, 2009

vacuum

I think you’ve mistaken my desire to sit here alone. I am not troubled, I am not waiting on a friend, I am not scanning my surrounding out of boredom. This rooftop is beautiful and I just want to be alone, I want to sip my whisky and coke without the hassle of cordial, meaningless small talk. But now that you are here let us engage in just that. I do not despise people, in truth I love them, but I enjoy keeping to myself. I do not dread our short exchange to be, I am genuinely interested, which is precisely the problem. I can’t be a friend to everyone who needs one. A good, loyal friend is a full-time job, and I already have one of those. A true friend is by your side as oil paints the sky. But a true friend must also be there when the house of cards falls apart, when everything lies on red and the pellet settles uncertainly upon black. I’m already too old to be your acquaintance, so show me you’re worth fighting for… or get the fuck out of my way. I don’t have time for nonsense. I don’t want to waste your time, and I’m running out myself.

august 18th, 2009

some nights I just want to be a stranger 

I’m sorry I’m smoking.  I’m sorry I’m smoking.  I’m from Australia and we all smoke in Australia.  Where are you from?  I’m sorry I’m smoking said a short, red-faced drunk woman inside the gas station convenience store.  The man she was questioning ignored her every word as I paid for my toilet paper and collected my change.  I can’t go to the gas station across the street because I know and like the cashier.  I can’t go to the Rite-Aid down the block because the bus stop I pass is black and depressing.  Some nights I just want to be a stranger.  Some nights I just want to avoid loud, drunk Australian women.    

august 17th, 2009

It's a couple months away, but I have a spot for a couple hours at the West Hollywood Book Fair on October 4th.  I'll be selling copies of my book for $10 and I'll be handing out postcards and bookmarks and what not.  I have never been so I have no expectations or promises.  You can get more information here: http://www.westhollywoodbookfair.org/

Here are two new cut-ups written by the lovely Erin Dillon and myself, as well as a new poem. We wrote these late into the night and I believe we used Henry Miller, Franz Kafka, Bret Easton Ellis, John Fante, Jorge Luis Borges, Victor Pelevin, Charles Bukowski, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  I apologize to any other dead author I failed to mention.

down the hall

You can remember it like a horse on fire.  A flight of narrow wooden stairs painted delicate crayon strokes on the eastern wall of the town synagogue.  Doctors of Dissonance dropped from the ceiling and through the woolen carpet onto dead crabs’ claws.  Starfish baby cries smell the fruit and flatter the drunken sailors holding vigil.  Same-sized brown plastic bottles make a shadow in a handful of hard, dense soil; then a nostril.  He conducted with a woven baton, emptying the audience’s stomachs and eclipsing their imagination.  Turtles hardly crawled over the horizon lurking with slimy piccolos when googly horns disintegrated the chariot.  Falcon eyes hounded my merryoldsoul deep into the native night.  Alkaline batteries include our address for the future.

sufficient gruff

The hotel left a greasy taste of milk in my beaten shoulders.  Circular ruins prompt me to fill the mother of truth with a merry bonfire.  His habitually placid expression lingered around the water cooler, taunting delicate ankles and mingling with pimply telegraph boys.  Hermit was rummaging, trembling through his apologies that brought the first smells of summer out of a sledgehammer delirium.  Tenacious wallpaper peacocks waltz on unpleasant evenings such as this.  Everything previous to this was mutilated in a field at the Cinerama Dome, encasing a bolt of clarity into a pigeon.  At one point Jayne muttered Should we die in a quake, donate my bangs to the Siamese foreigners in apartment 3F.  A tremendous pale light paced like a subway imitating marble.  And although I cannot be positive, checkerboard insects spring from six-button double-breasted ulcers.

the midnight amnesiac

You’re a reasonable man so get off my case, get off my case before I unleash a side you will regret coaxing into existence.  I have hid patiently for decades beneath the crust, laughing occasionally for air.  I have driven my car into the dumpster and the dumpster fought back, slinging broken Cuisinarts and ratty bookshelves at my windshield.  Society is in its decline and you know it.  You can only use your bowling coupons for so long.  You’ll come crawling back any day now, knocking on my door in the dead of night gripping a bottle of turpentine and sobbing those gasoline tears of yours.  The bug powder took you by the collar and I can’t watch you tumble down the knoll once more, I just can’t do it.  We’re all packt like sardines in a crushd tin box and I sit here once again in front of the typewriter dropping the needle and sipping away with droopy eyelids and sweaty armpits.  I can’t complain though, I have fourteen cigarettes left and there are flaming lips awaiting my presence next sunset.  

I awoke to a man lighting a pair of underwear on fire in my backyard and all I could do was blink heavily and close the curtains with sluggish aggravation.   

august 13th, 2009

look for me in adbusters again

Adbusters magazine will be publishing another poem of mine, the painter, in their next issue. Yes yes, good stuff. Should be out in a little over a month.

physiognomy in letters in print and for sale

You can download a free PDF of Physiognomy in Letters here: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=4387351, and/or buy a copy for $12 after shipping and handling. They published three of my poems in their biannual magazine; spectacles, squandering the deficit, and joseph.

august 11th, 2009

here's an older poem...

solitude




              

 

                                      ...and again I am left alone with the yellow face of the beast of solitude.  He is hideous, but sits with unflappable arrogance.  He knows my weakness as I know his.  He is a creature of immense power and delicious craft, but lacks the belief that vulnerability can be a beautiful thing.  It is for this reason he is able to generate such focus, such evil.  But I see his vulnerability; it is small and ferocious and it is caged deep in his stomach.  Because of this he does not intimidate me, but of course, he believes my vision to be outlandish.



So we sit                                         and we stare, each afraid of such tender things.


august 7th, 2009

pocket knife

I try to get as high as I can

before I fall asleep

before I wake up and put on my mask

I try and milk each night

squeeze out every last drop

before I collapse onto my pillow

and wake up drooling

confused and bitter

it may not be noble

but it is what I need

and it is what I want

I live for the groan

and despise it as the same time

I guess I enjoy the clash

the repetitive inconsistency 

no, better said, I accept it

to attain freedom

I must work for it

to live a life void of responsibility

I must prove my responsibility

I don't want to be handed success

I want to earn it

I want to accept my rewards

with a brisk step

and open hands

I want to feel I deserved it

not surprised my name was called

I want to be old

with her

drunk on the balcony

still inspired

wine cellar deep below our feet

happy to be alive

and angry to witness such suffering

all and all

I just want my own dog.

 

august 6th, 2009

This started as a short story written by a friend of mine named Brian Mollot.  The result is merely a cut-up.  None of the words are mine.

a glimpse of grey

We had no money for breakfast so we ate our cereal in the shower, dying along with the heat.  Jazz poured out of the faucet as the whiskers on my suitcase bickered in Italian.  It had been nine months of hell.  My youthful lust for adventure no longer shimmered and I only felt young amongst the wooden breeze.  17 miles of stairs sung to me out of key as I drove past my future memories.  We discussed human bodies and let the rain fall into the open necks of our stolen bottles of wine.  August was a shit show.

august 5th, 2009

enough said

For four or five days I walked around and lingered by the train, drinking wine and squeezing ointment out of orangutan thighs.  Snowballs whizzed past my face in the Pacific Islands as Brahm’s Second parked in the space reserved for the manager.  She wore purple lipstick in jail and blended in with the contour of the wall.  Five bucks worth of jizz bet on the eight horse while I bargained with my favorite executioner.  Jacob turned to me and said Overalls burn my scalp, let’s get out of here.  The old man’s antics offended no one, especially the factory men threading needles and complaining of false chalk wounds.  Perfect legs opened the gate and threw me down the tunnel.  A dark blue elbow boiled an egg by the window, frowning with pulpy sadness.  Take me anywhere, anywhere, I don’t care.  

august 3rd, 2009

winding down

when the mind is not cluttered
and thinking simply
a specific someone emerges

when the mind is not cluttered
and the first morning light pours in through the shades
thoughts of the end begin to tap you on the shoulder;
a harsh and nagging reminder
of the inevitable troughs

when the mind is not cluttered
and the fun has to stop
I muster up half a smile
thinking of how this moment will feel a month from now
as the fog rolls in