january 18th, 2010

The first poem is another cut-up written in collaboration with Erin Dillon. We used Crazy Cock and The Tropic of Cancer (my favorite book to use) by Henry Miller, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. I usually choose about six books, but we wrote this in a booth at Greenblatt's so space was limited. Lots of wine and meaningful discussions all around; great fucking night.

The second is loosely based on a conversation I overheard a few booths over that same night in Greenblatt's. The man was about 55 and looked like a fatter version of Orson Welles wearing all black. He had a lengthy discussion with a younger man in his thirties that was fascinating to listen in on. Like many previous poems, this one just fell in my lap.

my gnawing companion

I spent six to eight hours choking my complexion while Henry Miller questioned his moist envelope of flesh.

With the aid of timid informers right angle cheekbones jabber dangerously.

Everyone knows the shortest way to the Nabob whorehouse is singing the Zarathustra in unison.

Dingy chandeliers hang above obedient cyclists, decaying silently and mistakenly quoting wallet prices to splendid shoppers.

border of your place

I was only 10 years old when I held my mother and watched my father die. He had been sick for a while, but passing away at 51 is not something people around you can prepare for. He would always say Expectations are blueprints for disappointment and even at 10, on that day in that tiny hospital room, I felt a visceral truth about it deep in my bones. Neither of us cried, not until we left his cold side and pushed the down button for the elevator in the hallway. For whatever reason, as those metal doors creaked open we both knew he was gone forever, and then we balled all the way home.