deAdbeat wah wah no year |open communication |party off |blud lust |book of death

>>NO YEARS REVOLUTION 2010 A SERIES OF WORDS.

\\INDEPENDENCE DAY//

Today is the fourth of January. It is the first day of the new year, the new decade, and it is also Independence day. Yesterday we left the bay area in the midmorning. After crossing the San Leandro bridge we came upon a large factory speckled with golden lanterns and steam and smoke blowing out of its holes. It was surrounded in gray and suddenly so were we - the road and the hills and the cars were enveloped in a gray fog, all coming from the gray factory sitting on the bend of the road. We continued driving through the ground cloud onto a bridge suspended in mid air, detached from everything. I fell asleep. When I woke up again the skies were blue and we were driving past green fields and purple mountains. I went back to sleep.

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//ELECTRIC OWLS\\

This morning I woke up in Seattle. It is gray again. Our new house is on a hill at the very edge of Wallingford facing a river of traffic, the Interstate 5 flowing down below dividing us from the U District. The current is strong at 10am and again at 4pm - waves of cars swooshing their tires on wet pavement and big trucks groaning loudly. A burst of sirens startled those of us sitting cozily on the couch. Out the window on the otherside of the Interstate river 5 in the U a house goes up in flames. For a second I think it could be Bettina's but I realize her's sits directly behind this burning wreck (tomorrow she'll tell me she and Jeremy climbed up to their roof and watched it all burn down from the other side). Firetrucks and ambulances are parked on the street, their blinking red lights flashing from behind trees. The gray smoke from the fire flutters from the house as it is extinguished and joins the gray of the sky. The sirens stop wailing but the blinking red lights are still flashing like electric owls signaling one another perched in the branches.

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\\BANANA BREAD PUDDING//

Slips through my lips
and squirms down my throat
cold and gooey
sliding around in my belly
leaving a slime trail
all throughout my gut

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//TRANSCENDENTAL ELEMENTAL BEACH COMBING (IN STORMY WEATHER)\\

Run naked down the beach with your best friends and complete strangers through a storm. Scream so loud no one can hear it, laugh afterward. Take a photograph.

Toss it to the wind.

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\\SLICK SIDEWALKS SPLIT KNEES//

It's almost 9 o'clock on a sunday evening.
All the liquor shops are closed in Washington.

It's going to be another beer night.

For the past two weeks straight we've been shopping in the cheap section of the beer freezer. I pay for two six-packs of Hamms tall boys at Lucky 7 and the cashier doesn't say a word to me.

I get back into Pat's Jetta and there is Jack-in-the-Box trash in the front seat; he's been on a big jalapeno popper kick and it smells like a mix of day-old fast food and crayola crayons. We park around the corner from the Northern and check out the show. Arrington's working the door and I hand him a 10 dollar bill and tell him its for both me and Pat. Punk rock dolls Margy Pepper pump out a short set and then Pat and I are out in the back alley way trying to find a good spot to down our beers before the next band. We make our way around ankle deep puddles and can hear the drunks at Jake's hollerin and hootin. We walk past a couple of scraggly bearded bar hoppers smoking pot and a drunk guy trying to piss in a corner.

"Hey!" Pat says to this guy with his dick out. We keep walking.

We get to the end of the alley way and a bum sitting in the shadows yells at us for a cigarette. Next alley.

As we start walking across main street I get a bright idea. "Hey, why don't we get some paper cups and just pour our beers in them?" "All right," says Pat. We walk into Old School Pizza, the curly haired girl behind the counter is all tied up on the phone. Pat asks to take some of the soda cups and points towards the stacks next to her register and she nods at us and keeps on yackin' away. We go around back to the parking lot to see if they've left their old slices in a box on the door step; we find the day-old slices in a box next to the dumpster, a bunch of soggy slices sitting in a sad box. We move on into the alleyway and pour our beers in these blue paper Pepsi cups. Sippin through the froth, we give out some satisfied ahhs, and start walking back toward Northern with our beer in cups. It's like being back in Berlin.

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\\Today my dad called and asked, "son, what are you doing with your life?" He said, "you know, you're well-educated. Just make sure you do the right thing. God Bless."

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Some days, there is nothing to write about.

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\\Last night the storm kicked up. Cries of thunder rolled over this town and gray skies flickered into sight behind flashes of lightning. The wind was so loud in the leaves, the trees sounded like ocean waves breaking against a barricade of jagged beach rocks whose faces were wrinkled, weathered, and kranky.

Inside the house, we were getting drunk.

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//SOMETIMES WHEN I WAKE UP\\

This morning
my head was
a broken bowl.

It's contents
spilled across
the pillow

Next to the bed
memories from last night
flop wide-eyed like
dying goldfish
on the dusty floor

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\\GROGGY//

Standing over the toilet
taking one of those

forever pisses

I'm still asleep.
Outside, moss grows
on the window sill.

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//THE STORM CLEARED, THE GRAY SUN IS SHINING\\

Walking down town
with the sun on my face
squinting, and smiling
at all the strangers passing me by.

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//this old dog of a man, he's been all over the country, his face is weathered, weary, the rings under his eyes run deep, his cheeks droop sullenly. he's asked to come in and rest on the couch, it seems like he's been walking for days. he strikes up a conversation about America with the guy sitting behind the counter. The guy behind the counter reminds me of this journalist named Tonie I stayed with in Amsterdam - gauntly thin face, the tired but wide eyes of a guy who can't sleep at night and drinks far too much coffee during the day, dark wavy hair tucked behind his ears, charming lookin in a grim sort of way. This Tonie-ish guy looks up from his computer and over to the old dog, "Yeah, I was born in Boulder back in '81. It's a hip little town, not very liberal, but a lot of cool things going on."

Through his wiry, dirty white beard, the old dog gruffs out a tired bark of a response, lips smacking after each word. "Yeah, a lot of bars they've got over there. Like this town. This town used to be a circus back when I lived here. All sorts of artist-types. This old town relies on its bars. Bars and churches. But you can find some good people in the bars."

Counter-Tonie laughs, "yeah, some good people in the churches too."

"They're a little different in the churches, they're hypnotized."
"Hypnotized or wasting their time!"
"Both, I think."

The same could be said about the people in the bars though, they're all the same if you think about it, everyone looking to be saved in one way or another. I think this to myself and sink back into my armchair and drop my gaze down to the book in my face.

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\\HE KNOWS WHERE TO DUMP IT//

There's still bike grease on my left hand, and all the blood from the scrapes on my right hand have dried up into bubbled-over black-tar mounds. The swelling of my right forefinger has gone down but my knuckles still twinge with pain when I curl my fingers inward. The sun was actually out yesterday, the sky was blue and there were puffy white clouds sitting up there, lounging and watching miniature people toss a frisbee across the grass at Gas Works Park. I didn't get out of bed until around noon yesterday, Bettina called me after she had finished her training in the office (today is her official first day of work as a telemarketer, she says she's okay with it because she only has to ask businesses to renew work-related magazine subscriptions and it's tough finding money anywhere these days). "I'm grabbing some food at TJs and then I'm going down to Gas Works to have my lunch down by the water. After that I'm going to go for a bike ride all the way around Lake Union. If you can find a bike you should meet me at Gas Works, but I'm not going to wait for you." I jumped out of bed, stopped into the kitchen, cut some pieces of a giant chocolate chip cookie bar Bettina had baked last night, slipped them into a zip-locked bag, and started walking across the bridge over the I-5 to Pet Seminary to find a bike and make a sandwich. After throwing together a PB & Honey sandwich wrapped in several napkins, I found the most in-shape bike in the garage and called Zach to ask to borrow it. "I think one of the gear or brake wires got shredded off after Erin and Carson borrowed it last week." "I don't mind, seems ridable. How about I take it out for a spin and let you know if it's really broken?" "Sure," he says. Zach's a swell guy.

The beauty of a broken bike (as long as it's wheels are intact) is that you can ride it down any hill. I cut across the traffic-heavy 45th st. with just a few honks of the horn and tumbled down residential hills toward the water. Gas Works was pristine. I found Bee writing poetry sitting on a stone bench, a plastic case of a TJ's eggplant wrap empty beside her. I ate my sandwich as she told me about her new job, about how all she had to do was let the computer dial up the clients and she would follow the script, how her co-workers looked really interesting like the girl with her hair dyed pink knitting while making her sales and this black-metal guy who came in asking for his job back after a short stint living in Portland. The sun was warm on my face and across Lake Union we could see all of downtown and the not-so-impressive-in-real-life space needle. We tossed our trash, hopped on our bikes and followed the path around to the west side of the lake, crossing the Fremont Bridge to West Lake Ave. There wasn't any sidewalk on the right hand side of the 4-lane-wide ave, so we stuck to the left, riding through a parking lot next to lake-side businesses. Zipping through parked cars, I led the way down with Bee just behind me. "Trash!" she yelled as we saw a mammoth dump truck in the middle of the lot. I made up my mind to squeeze through the opening on the left-hand side and as I nearly got past the back end of the dump-truck I saw the massive metal blue side of a dumpster being pushed in my direction. "HEYYY!!!"I screamed squeezing Zach's faulty front brakes to no avail. I felt a wall of pain ram into my right side and my legs angled out as I was flung onto the hood of a parked truck. My right shoe flew off my foot and I bounced right back up off the truck, eyes wide, not noticing I was trembling. The trash guy, retracting the dumpster now, asked, "woah! man, are you all right?" Apparently in shock I said, "yeah! I'm fine, these brakes are just pretty shitty." I grabbed my right shoe off the ground slipping it back on my foot and Bettina had to turn away because she was howling with laughter. I saw the handle bars of Zach's bike were crooked and I started limping away from the site but Bee steered me toward a log and told me to sit down for a minute. We both couldn't believe what happened and couldn't help but laugh it all off. The trash guy approached me, half-smiling, and handed me a cell phone telling me his boss wanted to talk to me. "Hey there Brian, my guy just told me what happened (chuckle), are you doin' all right?" This boss's face is probably wrinkly with a coffee-stained mustache and with tiny eyes behind rectangular-framed glasses. "Yeah, I'm doing fine." He says it's just procedure to ask for my full name so he can make record of the incident, I give it to him. In a cheery tone he says sorry about the accident and tells me to have a good day. Yep. I guess this is where I am in life right now, I'm just trying to keep some momentum going and life is heaving full-on dumpsters at me. I don't know what's going on.

Bee didn't want to waste the only beautiful day of the week, so I toughened up after she re-aligned my handle bars and we biked all the way downtown and up to Capitol Hill. We stole some beers from the QFC and then asked a pizza place down the street for paper cups and sipped our beers out of straws walking around the city. We checked out Value Village and Bee bought a black Johnny Thunder shirt and the lady at the register saw my cuts and asked if I wanted a band-aide. I declined and let my hand bleed the rest of the day.

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//HER SWEAT HOLDS IT ALL TOGETHER\\

can you feel that in the air? its heat!
she was so sweaty, her shirt clung to her
and if
that sweat were to evaporate
that shirt
would've fallen right off

(and my universe would've fallen apart)

her body was loose and limp and
flailed in my arms
the music stopped and she swayed between
falling back and forth
grinning glitter

i would've kissed her cheek
but i would've only gotten a mouth full of face paint.

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\\PASSED OUT DRUNK IN ARCATA//

afloat on a blue jean sea
gray dolphins swimming next to me

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//LOST AND FOUND ON CRYING ROCKS\\
(for brian tritch)

                 /\/\/\/\/\/\
hey there fellow mountain man,

how thick is your beard these days? are you seeking refuge on hill sides or libraries? shrouded in early morning mist or hidden in castles erected book by book? tell me how the leaves sing when the wind laments across the trees, how the sea feels when the sky cracks and cackles and falls. tell me who further along this trodden path is drinking from this very same creek, our lips dripping of the same water, to fall and join the current and reach other strange and foreign mouths. after all everything flows and nothing stands still.

("you could not step twice
into the same river;
for other waters
are ever flowing
onto you"
- heraclitus)

good advice i got from gary snyder: don't be a mountaineer be a mountain, and shrug off a few with avalanches

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//WHAT DO I HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT AT 1:25AM\\

is this the burn? the itch?
maybe we're all neurotics
or just tics.

MIND CONTROL, i hope you don't mind [control]
i don't understand language.
i send you these words and you take them in
through teddy bear brown windows
or iceberg blue ponds
black ink or tiny pixelated fonts
one is perfect, one is not
(magnify x infinity, see how
the straight line waivers?)

and out of this nothing
you construct meaning

all i have to do
is say some words
and i can get the
whole world
thinking the same thing.

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IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN IS A MAN WITH A MOP, TRYING TO CLEAN UP THIS WHOLE MESS

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\\COFFEE HOUSE FURNITURE//

sitting against
the back wall
of the caffe

watching all the
pretty girls
order bitter lattes

one by one
they walk past me
to the ladies room
and they don't
even know
i exist

but through the wall
i can hear all the
pretty girls
take an ugly piss

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//GIVE THE BUM A COUPLE OF COINS\\

and the hobo retakes
his empire
as the fool
upon the barstool
throne

somebody get this king a drink.

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\\shopping at the mall is like a bad acid trip: dirty looks, unbearable noises everywhere, and my god a twisted circus of neon lights!

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//AVOCADO POCKET\\

Laying on the couch next to a weiner dog that smells like hamburgers I realize I've made a grave mistake. Remembering stupid things you did while you were drunk is the worst when there is a physical manifestation of it the next morning. Besides the somatic substantiation of a sprained ankle signifying a night full of poorly placed footings (and some fancy footwork on the dance floor in new thriftstore shoes a hep kat once prouded himself on) I remembered after breakfast that I stole an avocado from Shawn's house after taking shots of whiskey. At the time I was feeling hungry and I appeased my appetite with a spoonful of peanut butter but the avocado in the fruit bowl on the kitchen table looked too good to not steal. I figured I could have a nice topping on toast in the morning and stealing fruit from a millionaire's house is a joke. But to my dismay, while watching an episode of The Mighty Boosh, I open my left front pocket on my leather jacket to see the poor fruit mashed and smeared all over the netherlands-map pocket lining. Green, creamy innards of a ripe avocado all over Hertogenbosch. I had passed out in my jacket and undoubtedly had a night of fitful, rolling, sleep. Avocado pocket, leather stained forever black by its oil, what a shame.

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\\underground trains cut through the dark meat of the city like veins under the flesh of an unsleeping beast with a heart that never misses a beat.

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//DEATH DO US\\

today's gray day funeral procession
prompts a dozen of yesterday's
black-veiled, closed-mouthed confessions

fresh flowers adorn wet graves
names inscribed on stones
laying beside strangers
they'll never know

a child's thorn-pricked
finger drips cherry wine
blood sucked between
rose petal lips and
daisy white teeth

secrets nailed shut
under closed caskets
two cold bodies warm
beneath dirt blankets
sleeping eternally
together apart
forever never
touching
again

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\\THE ROARING 20s//

I'm beat. like really beat. dead beat.

woke up this morning, gray sunshine stretching its slender fingers over my yellow-circled blanket to peel back a deadbeatbananabriansplitingheadache. my hangover was dressed in a blue-collared shirt, a tight-fitting gray blazer, and a long silver-tie that had wrapped itself around my neck. like a noose.

i hate parties. hey let's get together and self-destruct! i can't tell if we're all gathering around and toasting wine glasses just to mourn our deadend lives under fake smiles. fuck it all.

can utopia be achieved with hedonism and decadence? its inhabitants will have to be DGAFing to the extreme.

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//HEY DAD, GO DIE \\

have you ever stared into the face of God and asked, "what about me?" and God looks right through you and bounces your question straight back at you, "what about you?" the madness and the chaos and the absurd; you might as well have stuck a knife right in him, the father who never gave a damn.

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\\SMASHING GLASS ON THE SOUND//

went to church this morning, had a religious experience. then went home and downloaded teenage jesus and the jerks and had a different kind of religious experience.

i want to spiral downward violently into chaos with each and every person i know. they'll stand on cobbled stone in the center of a vast sienan piazza at the very edge of the mouth of a bottomless pit. the sun will be eclipsed by the moon and that individual will see the shadow of the giant clock tower behind me disappear into blackness as i stare into their eyes and tell them they are beautiful. then i'll hurl myself at them, stumbling onto them, fingers fumbling on loose clothing, limbs flailing and locking into one another, a single silent scream exhaled from both mouths and becoming one as it speeds toward a faint circle of light above.

frustration. i want to be of cosmic proportions so i can hurl planets into black holes.

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//LONE STAR\\

the interstate 10 is 1200 straight east-to-west miles of mesmerizing monotonic melody, a slow drone of ancient mesa landscape, the low hum of a tired car engine, a paved road revealing itself one short stretch at a time, forever and ever. nothing but sky and land. this is the middle america void - nothingness, a slow wind blowing, dirt rising from the earth and twisting in the sky, orange diamonds on the side of the road expressing existential warnings: DUST STORMS MAY EXIST/ ZERO VISIBILITY POSSIBLE. the only thing keeping you somewhat sane behind the wheel at 3am is the quick approaching upon red-tail-lighted sloth trucks, sad and lonely lugging their own fat metal carcass across the country. one split second and those red tail lights in your windshield are nothing but faint white headlights in your rear view mirror, a simple memory, fleeting into blackness...

(thunder)

the sound of the sky ripping and a sea of marbles pouring down onto the top of the car. i'm startled awake. the rain is so loud i'm paranoid the car roof will cave in. outside the foggy back window the sky lights up after another flash. a car drives off, its red taillights illuminating traces of my breath on the windows. i wrap my sleeping bag tighter around my body, i feel the cold of the storm seeping in through the door cracks. i close my eyes and worry about dante and daniel in the tent a few yards away from me. i'm safe, in my metal shell. i worry about the white fang boys camping at the ranch. i'm asleep. i wake up and dante is snoring in the front seat. its early and i'm hungover. i kick open the car door and step out into a puddle. the beautiful blue austin sky is gone, the gray presses ever closer. i open the front door of the house, people sleeping on the floor, their faces look discomforted. pissing in the bathroom i notice the trashcan is full of empty toilet rolls. and the weather reports say its going to be gray the rest of the weekend.

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\\there is a chamber in my chest and it's filled with smoke. it steeps inside me, slowly twisting and folding into itself, sticking to the cobbled walls of my lungs, sliding up through my esophagus, pushing lightly against pearly white gates to get out. get out to etc. etc. etc. what even is out there? it wonders.
i open my mouth and breathe out a cloud.

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//WHITE DOG HUNCH\\

"Man," he said, "you're a beautiful old cat. I can't get over you." "Lay off, kid, cats are out of style, dogs are in now."

sitting at the breakfast table with bukowski and bangs. one a tired old dog sipping silently on a morning brew and the other dominating the conversation, spazzed out behind cool hep cat glasses puffing on a cigarette in between sentences.

oh what it's like to have an opinion.

i'm just staring out past the sliding glass doors into gray skies, wondering if this is how quiet it is in the brains of bukowski and other tired men who have seen enough.

and at my feet is poor sawyer. the shaggy, ginger-haired pup is getting fat, cooped up in this tiny townhouse staring at the rain all day. what's he to do? he's already chewed holes in all of dad's socks. i read him poetry and play him songs on the guitar but i'm getting the feeling that he just doesn't appreciate it. like him, i'm waiting for that big backyard lush with grass to chase all the birds out of the bushes and just to roll around in the earth and stare up at infinite blue. i'd pee myself too if a strange new hand comes and pats me on my hairy head, just when I was sure everything in this place was rotten.

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\\GLEN PARK//

well look
who it is
i don't remember yr name
but come over and have some beer
at our place
okay is it all right
if we bring over a pizza?
yeah
and we bake it in your oven?
ha, yeah, thats fine
right above the jasmine tea house
okay
hey, its me again, where's the place?
it's right above the jasmine tea house
i'm standing in front of the knockout, is it toward valencia?
yr real close, its right across the street from the bank of america
oh, we found it
yeah, i'm parking the van right now, i'll call someone to run downstairs and let you in
see ya soon

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//A CONVERSATION\\

"everyone is either a neurotic or a schizophrenic."
"i am a level man"
"i am a frame of reference."
"the ultimate balanced man?"
...
"america is too fucking strange."
"it has a hokey-ness to it."

"An FMoS - funcitonal member of society"
"Fuck that, I'm a functional member of an underground society."

why work for this country when this country doesn't work for me?

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"its not writers block, it's fear."

paleontoligists writing about chimpanzee cognizance.
35 miles, feet never touching the ground. a caduceus in hand.
the edges of life. pushing reality. right there where you can feel death under your flesh. blurring your vision. thinning your blood.

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\\DATA ENTRY//
pt. I

to write you in the morning, to write you at night. to write you at night when the sleep has wore the bones, they fall in lumps carried in sacks of flesh. in denim slings. a hot needle and ink. eyes that are no longer looking. an object to be seen, an image, an icon. a sock and shoe fallen out of a tree. a patch of sun showers.

to remember why you choose to forget.

the stories we live and we lie. the myths we were always already are.

skin like tree bark, hair of pine needles. elsewhere winters and falls nude, in the north west too stubborn to shed.

fingers slowly grazing keys when you can't physicalize a novel conception.
stop. motion. stop. motion. stop. motion. stop.

the bump of bass in a passing car on the street. the washing of old tires on sad pavement, burned my a hundred tossed cigarette butts, its edges pissed on by drunks.

what languages do you speak.

can you wake up? touching the tips of two metal wires together.

a finger
painting
shredded
and taped
into a scrap book

what can you hear right now?
(      )
no nothing

ripped denim. the ass of a pair of pants disintegrating. tell me you

don't care

a downtown with nothing but alleyways.

a picture of an asshole. or a star shining in the night sky.

the inversions of light in the void. white on the void.

a man from cleveland who does not ever repeat himself. he knows he is a prick.

a watercolor painting of a desert scape. dated 1944.

pencil shavings falling out of a white rabbit's stomach.

can you can you can you

a crushed beer can.

burnt toast. what we do in this world. burn toast.

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//CINCO DE MAKEOUT \\

the taste
of tequila
and 8 different tongues
in your mouth

still

the morning after.

i'm wearing sunglasses all day today.

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\\A BITE OF THE FEELING//

its everything and nothing. all the time. forever and never. its how it was and always will and wont be. trying and trying. giving up. beauty. tragedy. not caring. living life. being and not knowing. people who get IT. what IT is. so it goes.

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//magmagmagmagmagmamgmamgmamgmamgmamgmamgmagma\\

smashing sea shells with stones into dust.

sitting on the sound, in silence
sighing.

something about egg shells.

the tough meat
of an heirloom
tomato.

tastes like whiskey, feels like wet grass

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\\SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS//

how we fall
like trees blown down
behind closed eyes
by freckled lips
and a birthday wish

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//I CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING\\

2:30am drunk. this is the kind of drunk you have when yr ears are screeching silently after a night in front of the stage speaker at the show, the kind of drunk you have when yr feeling too social for the party hosts and hostesses to go to bed.

your teeth are stained by three different kinds of beer, slurps of whiskey, and last year's merlot. the party you were at tonight, it's the same party that happens in this town every weekend, and everyone knows you. the only difference is: it's been a whole year since you were in this town and people slap this huge fucking grin on their face because they had no clue you were back and did not expect you at this mexican themed birthday party. we don't care about each other enough for conversations to get past a hug and a faked "how are you?"

during a midnight diner trip a few hours ago, i spent a good chunk of my time trying to recall the events of the past week. i feel like it's been a friday night of spring break for 7 months. i can only remember snapshots of scattered nights, living the life as a content drunk writer, spending his days biking along the beach under the california sun and his nights intoxicated under red lights, smoking cigarettes on porches in the cool night air.

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\\GET IT OUT OF YR SYSTEM//

wake up
on strange couches
that smell
like last night's
cigarettes

early morning
sex upstairs
you can hear
the light
bumping
the vague
groaning
and moaning

you get up
without yr glasses
and take a shit
and then
go back
to bed

//p. II

there's glass
all over
the sidewalk
and barefeet
walking
around

you
are really good
at breaking things,
she said.

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\\RETURN TO THE DESERT//

back to open air
that travels straight
into nothingness

blowing purple and orange
across a ceaseless
stretch of sky

true silence.

blink and an hour
passes
and nothing
changes

blink and a dozen
decades didn't happen

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//G O L D E N H O U R \\

speeding up the coast in the van with the windows down, the pacific ocean gleaming pristine blue and crinkled in time like shriveled plastic wrap. i can't hear anything over the wind and with our shades on we're looking at the fly by scenery with midas eyes - everything frozen in gold, timeless and radiating, under an orange sun.

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\\CALIFORNIA TRANSCENDENTAL SUNSHINE AND THE ETERNAL PACIFIC INFINITE BLUE//

something about suntan lotion
and the buzzing of electric lines
and how waves sound underwater

I AM DEEP SEA JELLYFISH ALIEN GLOW

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//SUNSHINE BISCUITS AND GOLDEN GRAVY\\

i'm traveling backwards. trees, hills, houses, cars, people, graffitied warehouses, whole cities are all sliding away from me as some huge metallic force is sucking me by my shirt tail down black holes into sunbleached cities. everything really is rolling golden and holy and sacred. but there's something about the summer that makes me want to leave.

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\\POOL PARTY//

pale white phantom limbs flailing around my head
flabs of flesh flapping on meaty thighs
and you and i
speaking in bubbles

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where do all our lost stories go when we forget them?

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//THIS IS NOT A POEM\\

cut cut
snip chop
these words
could be
poetry

if arranged
properly.

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\\EXPLOSIONS IN THE DISTANCE//

straw hats
and mint lavender lemonade
and cut offs
and converses
and summer
heat exhaustion
and libraries
and shade

the heat
makes people do
crazy things
and
tonight
this citys
on fire

BZZZZZ

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†††††††

motorcycle accidents.

inbetween
the cemetary and the church
buried in the thicket
is a tree upside down
planted by a satanist
a hundred years ago
its roots are reaching
for the sky
and its branches
lost in dirt
and
on the way out
a rabbit runs
across old graves
on its hind legs
only
falling into
an empty grave.

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-66-

i don't really know what's going on except that i've been strutting around in tattered, acid-washed daisy dukes and wide and deep cut tank tops and i've come to pay for it in summer nights when the suckers come to drain the blood from my flesh and leave me with nothing but swells and tears on my skin in the morning.

this indian summer has been something i can't quite say yet. things happen and we are thinking nothing of it: some kind of trance-inducing blasts of sound from a face-painted freakshow of a reggaeton-party band in the middle of the woods at a trailer park, everybody is shaking and shouting along. late night hikes through a muddy forest to the beach during a new moon and now we're running into everyone we know out here in the dark and we're all running straight into the sound with only our shoes on and everything in the water is really glowing (what is this magic?) with tiny dead creatures as a boombox is bumping fuzzy rap tapes on the shore and onlookers are shining flashlights to the sky touching space. or outside of town a sweaty pack of kids get off their bikes and jump a chain-link fence into a secret lake and we're putting flowers in our pubic hairs before we start flinging mud at each other's naked bodies. later in the night a new years eve party 2010.5 in a castle overlooking the water and everyone's dancing in front of a tv wall 5 screens tall and 3 screens wide reflecting shakes and noise of psyched out video feedback while we're manning the bar until 11:45 and we're all out of tom collins' for the night. and of course those long nights that can't end when the keg hasn't run out and there are still people drunk in the kiddie pool they made in the bed of his truck parked in the driveway and to get away from the madness we're climbing out windows to rooftops and we can see all the crazies getting in fights down below on main street. after the show and our ears are still ringing and the red lights have been knocked over and most of the beer bottles have broken and everyone is where they should be - drunk in the bath tub, drunk on the floor, smoking the last of someone else's pack on the stoop, locked away with a stranger in someone else's bedroom, or just laying there on their backs on old rooftop shingles with the window open and you can hear an old brazillian rock record blasting as those guys inside pass around a joint, but all you need is a clear view of the night sky, rolling empty glass bottles to a crash off the edge. this is it.

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//SMMR PERCH\\

lazy beach city daze
and the steam is rising
up from the grates
into the haze

the sidewalks are dirty
as a bunch of strangers
are walking up and down
my streets

the boardwalk is belching
moaning and groaning
as the kiddies scream
in delight

we've got the best view
in this town
and our tomatoes
are rolling off
this roof

splat.

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\\AT 4AM THE SKY YAWNS AND EVERYONE WAKES UP//

two dollar merlot
and
incense lit in a dish
and
seven candles
and
future nostalgia.

i'm 30 years away from being the perfect lover.

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//WHAT THE FUCK\\

1am and the birds are singing

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\\BLCK SMMR//

dripping blood from my lower lip
the taste of saltwater still in my mouth

splat

a splotch in the bathroom sink

splat splat

a puddle on the tiled floor

splat splat splat

a trail of red out to the tanning deck

splat

onto my bare chest
drying black
under the sun

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

//THE END OF TWO MOVIES\\

and they're both sad.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

glimpse:

in a wood-paneled room that they don't know what to do with are two empty blue chairs facing one another. in between them is a chess set with the white king and queen knocked down. the kitchen sink is dripping and out the cracked window across the street it's recess time and all the 3rd and 4th graders are waging war in the sandbox and the jungle gym. then the school bell rings their freedom over. outside the rain drops jewel-line the spiderwebs hanging from the front porch -sparkling silk nets. i keep flying back into this northwest web.

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\\SOME ADVICE//

whatever it is
forget it.

you're here
now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

//THE END\\

two decades lost
chasing after the wind

all to find it
just
blowing out
of some
enormous
asshole

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\\THE MORNING YOU WAKE UP AND DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES//

in a brain behind closed eye lids
in a bed beneath raised blinds
in an open window behind a hedge
in early morning light

the sound of newly-hatched and hungry birds is the sound you hear before you die.

 

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