Archive for December, 2011
2012 – Before the End of the World
1. Every day – question why nicotine gum is a required part of my life. Tie it to how I quit alcohol. Quit Nicorette.
2. Every day – reflect on willingness to sit alone in quiet for 10 minutes. Something similar to meditation.
3. Every day – Remember that exercise may be the most important thing to do in life today.
4. Every day – Consciously forbid self criticism. I try hard enough. It’s okay to fall short. I’m OK.
5. Every day – Understand everybody is doing his best so when I am around everybody, be happy that they are all doing their best.
6. My meetings, all meetings – be fully present and contribute consciously.
7. Every day – reflect on my willingness to remove mess from my life.
8. E very day – When I am most fresh, be willing to write my ideas down. Be willing to look up and forget modern society.
9. Every day – Actively do things that are not part of wasting the precious moments of life.
Willingness – Part I
Jellybeans, jellybeans,
they jump and bounce,
hacking checkers on my skull,
yellow being the most annoying.
Do I know what it’s like
to live Bruce’s life?
Do I know he doesn’t
care, or am I wicked?
There are tiny moments
when my medicine works.
Tolerance doesn’t cover it.
Bruce needs to be welcomed,
just as I do,
but he rots my nerves.
My defects pile in
like a spinach car crash
in the fog while I cut
my nails and whistle
about purpose, which is lost
in the shed out back.
Ooh, Carl, don’t fight
the shitstorm, for you brung it,
all yellow and tarred,
gassing the mower.
Swim in it and drown.
Medicine eeks;
Life wasted.
Don’t sleep in the cold.
There must be a place for you.
Love yourself by not beating
your self.
Not one beating.
Today.
The Staircase Calls Me Names
The staircase seems nondescript.
It tells me who I am.
Tuesday it was all ammonia.
Metal with bubbles,
clean, damp but not fresh.
By Thursday, it was all barf
with a touch of cigarette,
not the newly-lit cigarette
but the one soaking in water,
making you sick, making you wilt.
Every day, it tells me I’m no good.
Park my car, hit the staircase,
walk the sidewalk,
ride the escalator,
beep with my badge
and I’m back in prison.
Prison’s okay,
but the staircase:
It tells me I’m not fit to live.
It makes loud clanky sounds,
tells me to lay down and die.
On Saturday, I Bought Some Coffee
She spoke about the hammer,
the battering ram.
I have this battering ram.
It comes from the back of the mind,
but I wanted to correct her –
It is from the bottom of the mind,
trapped under seaweed, imperceptible.
This is where it comes from, the sickness,
the deep maroon plague and
long tree trunk attached and
it sneaks up on me and
hammers and hammers.
Boom, Boom.
My forehead expands.
It has giant bubbles growing larger and
my face is red like I have been drinking
a fifth of McCormick’s every night
for 50 years, and
the birds seem to fly in circles,
but they are simply ensuring that they don’t fly
anywhere near me.
Big birds with grey wings
like the patio of a building
where the executives go, the 7th floor,
the top floor, and since their company is so fabulous,
they are always on the balcony, and
they are always full of booze.
Big booze, in decanters tied around their necks, and
when the sun is setting,
it does not set on our executives.
it sets on the big bubbles coming out of my forehead,
but I sneak in the grocery store and
fill a bag with too many coffee beans , but
I’m able to close the top and twist the tie,
and the checker, as usual, doesn’t know
what number to punch
into her computer.
She looks at me as if
she might kill me,
as the intensity
grows.
Her fingers are quivering.
I think she might smoke a joint.
$8.99 per pound I tell her,
but she needs the fucking code and
doesn’t know that coffee is under C
in the product list,
but finally she punches it and
says “Yay,” and
she looks at me and
she asks, “Is that right?”
and I tell her,
“Why yes it is,
it’s $8.99
per pound, just as I thought.
For The Moon, It Is His Ant Farm
The headlamps stream up to the moon,
and they say, “How do you do?”
The moon stares down, mouth askance,
“My,” he puffs, “you all are so efficient.”
For the moon, it is his ant farm.
All of the ants, rushing to and fro
in silly looking lines, appearing organized
like armies. But I want crazy.
The moon wants arms to use
to play with his ants.
I want off course.
Tell my headlamps
to stuff it.
Technologies Baking the Pathologies
I recollect the magic
of spell check in 1981,
shaking now, in 2011,
a disc for a slot in my car,
and Grumiaux
may as well be ensconced
in the passenger seat,
and (despite the pathologies
of my porkish-green spirits)
lulling me to a pacified mood
built upon Bach’s perfection.
But technology doesn’t fix me;
it spoils my love.
I Can’t Fall Up
This man says
all in the forest fall up.
I want to fall up,
but how to get there?
A terrible yellow ceiling of sky
dampens all my fuses.
If I can’t fall up,
can I tell you how down is?
Pride drives me.
She uses trinkets of activities
that show I am clever,
but she defiles my soul,
draws me in every time.
Maybe this time it’s okay
to feel magic in my steps,
but I’m tainted by yellow.
I have nowhere to fall.
Imploring, Please Take the Edge Off
Take me out of the game?
I had a dream; the sun was too bright.
I was assigned to write a poem extolling it.
I don’t know why. Am I ever obligated?
With art?
Please take the edge off.
My poem will warn you
not to look up too boldly.
Be careful until Noon
when you can look around
with impunity.
I’m required to write a poem
about how beautiful the outsides are
today without demonstrating
wretched insides.
Please take the edge off.
Allow ounces of lovingkindness
being dragged from insides
to parade around
with the hipster sun bulls.
Squashing My Art With Shame
The caretaker wraps gentle fingers
around my woeful hatred,
the most severe compression of purposelessness,
the vacuum of nothingness.
Shelter and food wrap laces around my fragile ego.
I’m dancing around the chimneys and proclaiming gratitude,
my guts streaming from dead trees made of soft wood,
Rapid decision-making,
which should be praiseworthy,
but no praise,
just money,
stretch, stretch,
but it’s not for money.
It’s for recognition,
for want of purpose.
A scale crawls incrementally, slogging with fever
for more camaraderie from those who detest friends,
and the art part gets smaller and smaller, disappearing.
Ah, let me open the top and squash the mind in a
spreadsheet cell, cramming it in so things pop out,
all of the stale bananas,
rotten worms
who should be white,
but are tan and wilting
and drying out,
along with all of the squash
left from all of the nights drearily dreaming of art.
And I say, come look at my spreadsheet cell!
Celebrate with me as my mind destroys my art.
Know that once, I was far grander than my cell,
but now, I know my place, my place in the square of society.
The Lifeguard Is Watching
Watcher is careful.
Lifeguard, oxymoron.
Chair is empty and all small people
are drowning.
Watcher is proud.
Watcher encourages motions against death.
Are you not proud of yourself?
You’ve delivered on obligations –
with diligence and aplomb.
Watcher is careful.
Would you rest in a bed of pride?
Don’t break all of your wings.
Watcher is proud.
I am dying.
The lifeguard is watching
the lovely ladies playing volleyball.
stillfugue 