too new for ghosts

Standing up.

2008-03-06T22:16:00.001-05:00

Mexico doesn't seem so long ago. Not at all. It feels like a few months ago.

It was one year ago.

It pains me that a year ago I was buying movies at Blockbuster and then the following day I was hopping 3 planes to glory, but this time around I'm teaching poetry on Tuesday in Syracuse and going to New Jersey for 2 days, then to Scranton.

I mean. It'll be fun. I'll like it. But it's not Mexico.

There's an ad agency in Mexico. I'm gonna apply. If I get it- I'm disappearing. No one will see me again. I'll probably quit the job and just open a store and live.

Adios.

Further expulsions.

2008-02-25T17:45:00.002-05:00

Music has further been ruled out as a sign-post between dream and reality.

My job involves sitting a desk and doing my homework. It is a great way to get things done. I'm locked in for about 3 to 3.5 hours twice a week. However, I spend most of time sifting through remedial tasks relating to my life (basic skimming of books, e-mail checking, hitting the same sites over and over and over), so I get kind of spaced out quickly. The giant window-wall doesn't help.

So today I go for a walk around the building. Through my headphones all I can hear is Jonny Greenwood's (mind-fucking guitarist for Radiohead) soundtrack to There Will Be Blood, specifically the track "Prospectors Quartet".

I'm walking up stairs that take 2 sections to cover one flight. I'm going up only about 4 of these, but the third one hits me. With this music, I suddenly feel like these stairs haven't ended. In my head I look over the rail and see it going down forever and upforever and briefly envision myself sprinting, burning my legs like matches, and never getting any higher.

Then here I am, back between the 2nd and 3rd floor. I believe still in reality. Yet it doesn't seem all bad the idea of a never-ending turning staircase. I'd like to give it a try.

*

In my journal I have scribblings from 2am.

I was a jockey, or at least I and a nameless, shapeless partner were taking bets against our own horse. There is a high probability that we were hustlers.

This whole scene is just proposterous. Who would ever take bets against the people who control the means to the end? It would be similar to making a bet with me about the outcome of a paper I'm writing. Only you're telling me I'll get an A, I say an F and I have yet to begin writing.

Who wins?

Well adjusted.

2008-02-16T08:52:00.002-05:00

As I remain more and more awake, the details become foggy. Oddly- there were 2 dreams. and the second one is completely gone from my head. How? Where? No.

It is still my apartment, but it is my minimalist apartment. Things missing, but the basics are covered. A party seems to be beginning. Or at least, more friends than usual are suddenly showing up. People who have never been here yet. Even my ex-girlfriend is here. My roommate. Also this pudgy, bald actor. Not so much, bald, but definitely shaving his head. He might be from CSI or Law & Order. Not too sure.

The ex is on my bed with this actor, I’m sitting on my dresser, everyone else is scattered throughout my room. My room. Oddly exactly as it is, the same amount of space, only big enough for us all to be comfortable.

There’s also a woman here I haven’t noticed. She decides we need drinks. Drinks and a shot. I don’t know where, but she got champagne and very expensive glasses from somewhere. Only about five of us want the drink. We all move to the dining room.

It’s here I should point out I was reading Ellison’s Invisible Man before I fell asleep.

In the dining room, a man handed me three 100 dollar bills. To pay off my debts, get some new clothes, etc. The dream-self knew, hey, this isn’t suppose to be happening to me. That’s when I realize no one’s said my name.

Back in my room, the ex is there with the bald guy, and she tells me, “He’s wring this brilliant show.” Oh? Explain.

He says, “Every episode is about a new character with a deformity.”

I stare. Not impressed. Just confused. I can’t even feign intrigue since it really does sound like a horrible, weak idea. I’m not jealous, I’m just truly unimpressed.

“Maybe I should elaborate. This one woman, her finger is stuck like this-“ and he has his middle finger bent backward. At this point I realize that hand has 6 fingers, since there are two on either side of the tucked one, as well as a thumb still there.

She is enthralled, he is smug, I am confused as to how this is a show. Even more so because it is evident he wants this deformity to be sexual in some extremely awkward way.

The young woman comes back and hands me the shot glass and the flute glass. The mixture in the flute glass is popping and snapping. I down the shot which refills itself so I do it again. As I raise the flute glass to my face and the popping gets louder, my window blows in with glass, snow and wind. My eyes spin and then here I am.

Picnic, lightning.

2008-02-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

It seemed as if I found a way to differentiate between dreams and reality. The answer was in my ears: music.

Looking back on dreams, I could never say for sure if there was music. Yet in reality- there was always music. From my computer. From my iPod. From speakers in bars and malls and elevators. Passing cars with obnoxious bass. The moments when there is music feel the most real. Right now I can look around my room, I see my books stacked on my subwoofer, a bottle of water over half-empty, a bamboo plant that is struggling, and a glass that recently held a small amount of Pepsi. Oh. And I hear Deerhoof.

Now back to the beginning. The answer was music. That changed last night (or the night before). I had stayed up until 4am determined to finish a jigsaw puzzle I began around 9 or so. Finally giving up on the bushes and sky, sleep overtook me.

I dreamed.

There was some sort of show or performance going on. What was going on, I can't remember (I need to be more determined in writing these as they happen and not listening to the voice that says, "You'll remember, go back to sleep.") Either way, I knew the show was being hosted by myself and a charming brunette. Her name? No idea. For all I know she could be the sister I never had. Only not since I feel like there was an attraction there.

Anyway- at the end of the show we take the stage and decide to play a song. She goes for drums or maybe she was at the guitar. Not sure. I pulled a bass out from behind the curtain. I'm talking true bass. Upright. Giant spike on the bottom. And I played it the way you'd imagine. Hitting the chords with a classic bum-bum-bum-bum-bum as we did our little jazz number. There were words. When she finished the line, "What does the ear say?" I sung the answer in true blues fashion. Only I forgot my line. I kept ad libbing. The ear said a different thing each time my part came.

People began to leave. I awoke feeling very frustrated. I knew my line. Why had I forgotten it?

But there we go. Once I have a concrete tool to distinguish between dreams and reality, the dream world catches on.

Tomorrow will not be too late.

2008-02-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Everything has become too real. My dreams are too real. It is unnerving to wake up at 4 am and have to try to sort out what happened and what did not. What's worse- my drinking has blurred the distinction further. When it was just dreams I could determine what was real and what was unreal. Maybe not easily, but I got it there.

Now the dreams have shifted more and more to the plausible. Roommate arguing about bills. Buying a pair of shoes. Going to Dick's for a bathing suit, seeing you there, cursing you. Monstrous behavior. Calm days. Reading things I've never heard of.

How does drinking factor in? There are glimpses of interactions with people. Places gone to briefly. These things are possible. It is possible I've done these horrible things and am remembering them. It is also possible they are just fragments of dreams.

Right now, I'm sure I'm awake and really typing this. What if right now, the moments I'm sure I'm awake, I am really the dream-self in someone else's dream? Would I have thoughts? It seems like that would be possible. If someone dreamed of me, it would be a representation of me so why wouldn't I be able to connect to that. There are 4 people in this lab. Two brunettes, a guy in a hat, and a black girl in a hat. Could one of them be having a realistic dream about doing work in a lab? Five people. I missed a girl in the corner. Is she having a dream, and in it, I've walked into the room and began typing away on this computer?

If she dreamed I died, would that affect me? I could be someone she's passed before which is why she's brought me back into dreams. Nothing romantic or desirable. I'm just an extra. Extras can die though. At any moment a killer could appear. A beast of some sort. Maybe I'm here to prevent that? If I reached into my pocket...what would I find? If I find my wallet with the pigeon smoking a cigar, my license, an expired registration, about 40-60 bucks, a poem, and a Dunkin Donuts gift card (unused), then it would have to mean that this is reality. There is no way she'd be able to dream the contents of my wallet so exactly.

Unless dreams can get linked. Mine to hers. My dream-selves becoming one so that pieces begin to fit together. She has the physical part of me, the generalities. Someone else might have me placed in a dream and that brings in things like tattoos and my ring, someone who knows me a little better fleshing out details. Then either my own dream-self or my true-self is connecting and supplying the wallet, the contents of my bag, the fact that I knew my blog name and password.

This is beginning to hurt.

Harpsichord?

2008-01-20T20:40:00.000-05:00

Some new shots up at Flickr...if only I knew how to use this camera better.

*

What if the sky wasn't blue? Maybe it's yellow and we just named things all wrong.

*

Soldier Trees

1.

In dreams of recent sleeping
cityscapes with curbs.
And crumpled across these
curbs lay paper soldiers.
Each soldier, helmet lay tilted
to the asphalt and chest
burst outward like flames
protruding from them
are trees that bear
the sweetest apples
any man has bitten.

2.

Why must trees, all, stand
as tall as, as straight
as soldiers?
Is it their height?
Maybe strength?
Is it their rootedness,
unmovable characteristics
like a guard at
Buckingham?

Why can’t trees stand
like men? Men
with a slight hunch?
Or slightly leaning forward?
With far too many arms
that bear too many hands,
each sprouting an
absurd amount of fingers?
All up, all raised, tingling,
magnetically drawn,
all reaching for what
is right there in the sky.

Guns aren't bad, they're just not quiet.

2008-01-15T20:23:00.000-05:00

The possibility of teaching poetry to convicts has me positively electric. Where does one begin? Surely you can't say, "Look, I don't wanna see a lot of rap lyrics about how much you hate the white devil." Nothing to stifle. Let it flow. Let it be raw. Let them say whatever they hadn't been given the chance to say.

Just don't mention parks. Once I'm done here, fellas, I'm gonna go to the park and just stare at a tree for a while.

Cruelty. Cruelty most foul.

*

Classes aren't anything special. Not really looking forward to any thus far. Well, I've been to 'em all so I guess I won't look forward to any of them. Unless I'm prison teaching. Nothing's wrong with them. Just nothing grabbed me. Grabbed me and forced me down. Nada.

*

Three glasses.
One coaster.
Five liquids.

*

excerpt from Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

*

Soldier Trees

1.

In dreams of recent sleeping
cityscapes with curbs.
And crumpled across these
curbs lay paper soldiers.
Each soldier, helmet lay tilted
to the asphalt and chest
burst outward like flames
protruding from them
are trees that bear
the sweetest apples
any man has bitten.

2.

Why must trees, all, stand
as tall as, as straight
as soldiers?
Is it their height?
Maybe strength?
Is it their rootedness,
unmovable characteristics
like a guard at
Buckingham?

Why can’t trees stand
like men? Men
with a slight hunch?
Or slightly leaning forward?
With far too many arms
that bear too many hands,
each sprouting an
absurd amount of fingers?
All up, all raised, tingling,
magnetically drawn,
all reaching for what
is right there in the sky.

Time to move. Time to move.

2008-01-09T17:40:00.001-05:00

Richard’s Brother

In the diner alone:
tea
with lemon and honey.
A plastic bag,
a plastic trash bag rolled shut
clasped in a hand,
laid to rest
next to you
beneath your coat.
What do you keep in that bag?

I’m Richard’s brother.
Tea with lemon and honey.
She forgot my bag.
The tea bag.
What is in the
black bag? Do not forget that.
More hot water please.

Hello to you passing busboys.
Hello to the waitresses not his own.
To those with something recognizble,
I’m Richard’s brother.
Blegian waffle. Strawberries
and whipped cream.
Syrup on the whole thing.
More hot water please.
And another bag.
Another tea bag,
for Richard’s brother.

No car. Just a man and
a crumpled plastic trash bag
on the rain colored pavement.
Side of the road walking.
No shadow. Is the shadow
that bag? Not a time for shadows,
keep it till the time is right.

You see that shadlow-less man?
The one with the black bag and
a stomach full of tea?
That’s Richard’s brother.
But I don’t know any Richard.

Quantum notepad lullabys.

2008-01-03T23:46:00.000-05:00

Through it all,
I can say I've lied,
but never once
have I pretended
to be anything
I'm not
truly.

*

Feelings I have come to miss-

1.) Walking into the dorms freshman year between classes.
2.) Sitting in New York City parks and doing nothing with anything but my eyes.
3.) Laying in an oddly cold room, in a rather chilly bed, eye-level with a window that bared a snow-covered back yard.
4.) Having Bukowski by my bed as something that was still new.
5.) The first month I found the Postal Service and the summer I devoured the Dresden Dolls.
6.) Having it all and not wanting anything more.
7.) Having it all and wanting more.
8.) Entering my apartment last year with snow laying outside. It was safety.
9.) Grass on the back of my head.
10.) Mexico and temporary freedom. Sun and hammocks. Eating nachos everywhere and having them always be good. Walking without a destination and getting there.

*

Question
What feelings do you miss?

The decision to flee came suddenly.

2007-12-30T10:44:00.000-05:00

It is about time. The father has reached that point where no longer can I stand anything about existence. This is not meant to be as cruel as it sounds, but long periods of time with him do not agree and I do feel like a horrible, ungrateful leech of a son. No one appreciates the sacrifices he made as a single father more than I do. I truly doubt it even phases my brother.

Yet, enough is enough. The "where are you running off too? Sit a while, let's talk." Seems caring enough until the talk simply consists, "I got your grandfather some groceries. I still need to get him laundry detergent. I'll get that at Target," he says through cookies adding, "It's cheaper there." The proud moments of only eating half of the food on his plate, but then snacking for the rest of the night. This house is overflowing with candy, cookies, cakes, pies, etc. I tell him it is enough. Weakness. I truly am a kid in a candy store. He returns from stores with more candy, "It was half price."

You know what's cheaper than half price? Not buying it. Leave it on the shelf for the next American.

I went to a bar with people from high school. A kid who I was close with throughout which tapered off once college hit and then numerous kids from high school he is still friends with because, well, they went to the same college. No one has changed. Snide comments around, not meant to be snide, just stupidity. "You look the same" shouldn't sound so negative. Some graduate and have no direction, others graduate soon, with, somehow, less direction. Granted, mine is not great, but I have an inkling as to what I'm going to do.

Work on ads till May. Try to get a job, and research grad schools. Write. Write. Write. Read. I keep buying books and find more to add to my list. Langston Hughes, Thomas Lux, Dean Young, Joe Wenderoth, Joe Brainard. Just a few of the poetry books I want to absorb into my blood. Tear out the pages, place them on a spoon, heat, and plunge. Not to mention my desire to read Dante's Divine Comedy, Roald Dahl and Hemingway stories, and more. I don't think I have the energy to force myself into situations with the people here.

When home, I enter faux-romances. Repeatedly. Pursue something even though my heart is not at all in it. It is the equivalent to me craving zucchini. I don't like zucchini, but if it is available, meh, I'll try it again and again.

One more week. Push through for one more week. Onward. Then back to Syracuse where I can sit in my own place. Read. See people I enjoy. People who are more interesting, have opinions on more than just beer. People with something to say. Read. Enjoy the purity of snow. The fleeting snow. I love it.

My bamboo is dying. Spotty. Spotty and torn.

There is a bright spot in New Jersey. There is a bright spot every where. Through chance years ago. Never pursued till awkwardly from a distance. The distance will get in the way. I don't understand it.

My bamboo looks horrible.

Tilting different ways.

Part of me thinks it is filled with spiders. I've heard stories. Plants filled with spider eggs.

In the end, home is what it is. My goal is to make this the last extended stay. One of the reason I need to work so hard at advertising. Give me an escape in May. My aim is to go anywhere. NYC, Chicago, Philly, Boston, Miami, Richmond, El Segundo, Seattle, Salt Lake City...try me. Do my best where I land and see if writing and grad school is still the answer.

Catch Twenty-Two. Advertising gets in the way of writing and writing gets in the way of advertising, but I can't drop either. I've said it before. Damn you, Joseph Heller. God damn you, sir.

for Dorothea Lange

2007-12-29T22:48:00.001-05:00

for Dorothea Lange

It was not until
the cat
woke me from
a dream
that I realized
my cat was a realist.

No time to waste
under water with
bubble-talking fish
and tea.
No time to waste
trying to pick up

a penny
from the ground
with hands
10x larger than usual.
No time to waste
dining with a king-

or rather under
the employ of a king
because someone
might have poisoned
the roast boar
and it is my sad job

to make sure it is safe.
No time to waste
networking with babboons
in an African field
in the shadow of a mountain
that more-or-less

resembles
my dead grandmother.
No time to waste
sitting in a field
cross-legged while
the opera singer hits a screaming note

only for me as
the moon slowly
encases us both.
No time to waste
walking in the west
arm-in-arm with

a migrant mother,
some Okies and
dusty children follow-
clutching stomachs
that soon burst forth
with moths and profits.

My realist cat now
tips its derby, adjusts it’s waistcoat,
and tells me I have
no time to waste on dreams
before it leaves for a meeting with the prime minister
of some romantic place.

Pick me.

2007-12-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

"You'll know advertising is your destiny if you can't imagine anything you'd rather leap out of bed every morning to plunge into."

That is merely a few pages into a book about breaking into advertising, and already, I think I chose poorly. However, that sentence can apply to anything. More than anything, I'd love to wake up and have sex. Should I pursue a career in pornography? Buy myself a nice robe and grow a mustache? No. God no. That isn't for me. However, waking up in the morning to write or to go teach a class on writing or lit...yes. That sounds lovely.

To get into advertising I should have been working seriously on my portfolio all semester so that at this point I am happy with it and can dedicate most of my time to sending out minibooks and writing cover letters. Yet, I spent the semester juggling an interest in poetry and a need to succeed in advertising so my book is no where near what I want it to be.

Honestly, working harder on my portfolio and getting a job is what I decided I'd begin doing today. After spending a few minutes jotting down ideas for Doritos, I found myself in my car heading to Barnes & Noble where I bought a book of selected poems by Langston Hughes. It wasn't until I was holding the book in my hand that I thought, 'Wait, how'd I get here from that?' Baffling.

Now when I go to pick up a book guilt settles in and I feel like I should be working on the portfolio. Time management is what I need to get into. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Or so I think. Hour for the gym. Hour for advertising. Hour for writing. Plus classes when those hit and then the general happy amazing fun time I need. It seems possible as long as I stop screwing around. Hour on ads is not gonna cut it. Two hours is more like it.

*

Suicide's Note
Langston Hughes

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

*

Question 1
What should I do ads for?
Currently my book contains: Cheer Dye & Perfume-less Detergent : Jolt Caffeine Gum : La-Z-Boy : Harmonicas : Lonely Planet Travel Guides : soon Doritos.
I need more ideas for products.

*

Question 2
How are you doing? What were you doing before you read this?

Hanging in and holding fast.

2007-12-27T16:02:00.000-05:00

No new writing. Just ideas for future writing. Just being home I don't feel like doing much of what I should. No ads either despite how crucial that is. A massive list of places I will apply to is coming together. Even if I think grad school suits me better in the near future.

*

Since I recently purchased an SLR- recently as well I have become a member of Flickr.

I don't know what I'm doing yet, I need to learn.

Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boy-child-thing/

*

Question

What have you learned?

Sex having is like bicycle riding.

2007-12-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

For the first time in months I'm home. For the first time in that same amount of time plus two months New Jersey is shaping up to be an alright place. Even if I've already briefly left it.

*

Something about listening to opera makes me think I should be a) killing someone, b) on my way to kill someone, c) on my way to dispose of the body of a person I have just killed, d) at the least sitting in an immaculate and marble office plotting to kill someone, e) making love to someone Italian.

*

Winter Break Reading (Hopeful)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(Finish) Underworld
(Re-read) Brave New World
(Re-read) Nine Stores
Poetry, poetry, poetry

suggestions?

*

Thinking about a chat with Paola I've come to realize that Bruce Smith was in some way my gateway poet.

*

Recently I spent a good half hour watching a kid trip on acid or LSD or one in the same. Standing in a kitchen not unlike that of most grandmothers with white linoleum-tiled floors. He insisted they were lighting up and he was playing a life-sized version of Simon Says.

*

We should be lovers.

We shouldn't do that.

We should be lovers, and that's a fact.

*

I haven't been writing now that I'm home. Which seems to be the norm with me being home.

It's not that I don't want to do. I just don't. I also don't read much poetry.

Somehow that makes me feel guilty. The not reading. But oh well, I read other things. I can't read poems all the damn time, right?

*

Assignment

Pair a vegetable with an emotion and explain yourself from someone else's view.

Some people fake their death.

2007-12-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

I'm faking life.

*

Tonight's fortune cookie told me, "It could be better, but its good enough."

Essentially, your life is what it is, Dave, deal with it. How much of a downer. I see how it could be positive, but it seems more like settling. Why try, Dave? This is what you deserve. Take it and shut up.

I don't think I'll be ordering Chinese for quite some time.

*

My advertising portfolio is due in a little over a day. Flipping through it, what makes me better than anyone else? Largely, ideas are held back because of an inability to art direct. That's not my job though. My job is ideas. Yet, my book needs to be both. If I get hired, I won't have to art direct ever again. Fucking catch-22. Fucking Joseph Heller.

Each ad I think, Anyone else could have thought of this. True. They did not. But really, couldn't they have? Ha ha- old recliners are forced to prostitute themselves on the street because a La-Z-Boy replaced them. What a gas. Oh, and look, a mildly witty headline pimping perfume & dye free Cheer. Gee.

The problem is, I cannot accept opinions. The only feedback I can accept is negative. Dave, this is pure shit. Why are you in advertising? I would accept that. Instead I get, Hey, keep going with this, I like it. No. No you don't.

Really, the same goes for my writing. No one's ever said something is bad, but I know it is bad. I've heard good things, but I don't buy them. Who will be rude to your face about it? In the end though, at least there are a few (maybe 30 out of 3 years of writing, not a good ratio) that I somewhat like. Maybe I just like the idea though and hate the poem itself. It comes down to- I should have considered immediate grad school.

Truthfully, if advertising doesn't work out sometime this summer, I will apply to grad school. Let's just hope that works out. I do not want to take some shitty local advertising gig doing billboard work for some no name casino in Atlantic City. Someone out there just needs to take a chance on me. Someone needs to look at my book and think, If he wasn't worried about art direction, if he was in a place where he could talk with others, he'd have it.

I truly think that way. Newhouse has it set up so that you are forced to think of ideas on your own. This seems logically, yes, it is my work. But no. This is not how it runs. Most agencies you are at least in a team of two kicking things back and forth and out of that something fucking stellar occurs. Cavemen didn't make fire by rubbing one rock against itself.

What a horrible metaphor.

Before my psyche crumbles...adieu.

*

Rather, I'll leave you with this. I'm writing from dreams now. Dreams and whatever else I see when I close my eyes. This is from last night.

The Bird Was a Jackal

The bird was an elephant.
Size-wise taking
up the room. No.

The bird was a jackal.
Size-wise and in
spirit. Bed side.

The bird was hollow.
It had eyeless sockets-
managing to stare.

Staring into my head.
Until I found
myself standing

inside the socket.
And I became
the bird’s lone pupil.

The bird had one
eye now. I led it
to find the second.

My hands create a frame for the day.

2007-12-07T21:41:00.001-05:00

An interpretation of Jessie and Flowers meeting under different circumstances.

*

And here is a work in progress;

The Mountains

Why shant we?

2007-12-05T22:08:00.000-05:00

The Verbal Seduction couldn't have been more wonderful.

I am giddy. Giddy.

Grad students were so supportive of what we do and how the new issue looks.

Once a month next semester we will have a reading.

With Paola live via web cam.

8 people read, and we'll get even more next time.

Alexis at Second Story Books is also amazingly supportive of us.

She is going to SELL the issue. I told her no, she insisted, so go for it! $3 bucks for VS in it's glory!

We are going to get ETS and Grad Student funding next semester and be glorious.

I don't want to go to bed. I don't want this feeling to end.

Come on, world. Try me.

*

This hit me at 3am as I found myself unable to fall back asleep and wandering a chilly house in search for cranberry juice. If nothing else, if not the people I've met, friends made and lost, papers written, knowledge gained, job I could potentially get after this, how I've changed, if nothing else, I've left behind Verbal Seduction. This issue made me see how far the magazine has come which is going to make it hard to let go of. We've become an actual magazine. It look professional. It has undergrads, grads and faculty between its covers. Yes, we lost a lot of money from SA for the spring, but because of how we've grown and the dedication of some members, the ETS department is willing to get involved in funding. Even if it is on a semesterly basis and not permanent, it is something. We can even go to the graduate association and request money. Glorious. Everything is wonderful.

Everybody is making love or else waiting for rain.

2007-11-26T14:51:00.000-05:00

Originally for Jessie's magazine project.

First and foremost (foremost is good word. For most…) I just discovered this “Missed Connections” setup over at CraigsList.com. Discovered not in the sense that I am the first to know about it, more in the way that Columbus discovered America.

At first it seems sad. Sad in a wow-could-people-be-any-more-lame sad. Then it becomes sad in a they-missed-the-chance-to-meet-the-one-they-need way.

There is beauty in some of the postings. Like this one,

“You were at barnes and nobles today. you were studying. it was about 11:30am. someone brought muffins.”

The addition of muffins makes it something more. Did someone bring her muffins or did someone simply bring muffins? Muffins were brought to whom? To who? Whom or who, either way- muffins WERE brought.

You

at barnes and noble
today (which has
become yesterday,
and soon the day
before yesterday,
and then becoming
a date in time).

studying.
about 11:30am.

someone brought
muffins.

*

Question

Given the choice, do you go for the cupcake or the slice of cake (assuming both are the same flavor/type/etc.)?

*

Finish this line:

It's like...

Getting from here to there.

2007-11-20T11:01:00.000-05:00

A holiday of thoughts.

Sitting in the terminal for my 11:30am flight.
The last time I was in this airport,
she and I were reluctantly returning.

*

anxious depression.
anxiously depressed. no.
the first was right.

*

sediment
fills the bottom
of me.

*

walk, you monkeys,
walk your pointless lives

*

No one who has seen me
naked or shirtless
has ever seen me
not sucking it in.

Second nature.
Breathing. All the time.

*

It has grown to an obsession.
Every few hours checking it.
Need to stop eating.

*

Staring out at the Sunoco sign,
I do not want to do this.

*

Missed out on the
nuclear-family experience.
Missed out on the
mother experience.

*

If I was shot in the leg
what is my reaction?

*

Things are going to change.
Change.

*

Swear to Him,
I would have, that
I gained weight this semester.
In fact- lost. Still
remarkably unsatisfied.

*

People in cars.
People in boats.
People in houses.
People in books.
People in limbo.
People in graves.
People in mind.
People in thoughts.
People in cars.

*

I did not deserve that.
Why was I not worth it?

*

In the dream, the two of us.
The dream was painful,
awkward, angry, difficult
jogging in wet cement
with no feet.
How will the real thing be?

*

There are mermaids everywhere,
and I hate every one of them.

*

Show the world the explosion
it has been waiting its life to see.

*

Well...I'm sorry too, mom.

*

Question

What would be a better color for the sky?

Mr. Williams.

2007-11-19T21:19:00.000-05:00

C.K. Williams
excerpt from The Poet

I always knew him as "Bobby the poet," though whether he was one or not,
someone who lives in words, making a world from their music, might be a question.

In those strange years of hippiedom and "people-power," saying you were an artist
made you one, but at least Bobby acted the way people think poets are suppose to.

He dressed plainly, but with flair, spoke little, yet listened with genuine attention,
and a kind of preoccupied, tremulous seriousness always seemed to absorb him.

Also he was quite good-looking, and mysterious, never saying where he'd come from,
nor how he lived now: I thought he might be on welfare, but you didn't ask that.

A dinosaur walks.

2007-11-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

in the / rain

Who will walk in the rain with me?

Who / will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk / in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain with / me?

Who will / walk in the rain with me?

W / ho will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain with me / ?

Who will walk / in / the rain with me?

Who / will / walk / in the / rain / with / me?

Who will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain / with me?

Who will walk through the rain with me?

Who will walk in the r / a / i / n with me?

Who will / walk / in the rain with me?

/ Who will walk in the rain with me?

Who will walk in the rain with / me / ?

Who will walk in / the rain with me?

*

Question

Am I alone in thinking that the word clay should be a verb?

A twist of the lips.

2007-11-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me just now that in the past week -or 3- I have genuinely smiled for only two reasons.

one - dragging my feet through the fallen leaves that keep the sidewalks hidden
two - when I just caught myself staring at the airplane safety information brochures hanging on my walls

*

My pajama pants are pleasing to me.

*

Two ducks swim awfully close together.
The bear sniffs the tree.
I packed a yellow bag for the trip-
the color of the bag is meaningless.

*

Question

If you could die for five minutes, under any circumstances (drowning, a fall, trampled, etc.) would you take the oppurtunity? You will be revived, but for five minutes, you will most certainly be dead. Pulseless.

A poem: one.

2007-11-11T19:47:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Snow and Charity

There was snow everywhere. Mt. Everest?
Maybe. Could have been a solid mass
of clouds. There was earth between a crack.
I was trying to get to the top of
it, where ever it was. Not so much alone,
but I never saw a second person. There
had to be a second person, I wasn’t alone.
Salvation Army donation bins dotted
a line to the summit. One every 25 feet.
For a moment I have a golf club- ready
to test my drive on these markers. Back
to the summit and those bins. Vaguely
I consider sleeping in them. Shelters
from the savage cold, but, no, I’m sure
they are too dirty inside.
Wolves are a fear.
Snow so deep I’d never be able to run.
And what do I have for defense? My
1-wood is now a snake, and it is leaving
me here. Something erupts from the
bin on the ledge above me. A cat.
Then another cat. Then another cat.
The cats getting smaller as this
scarf-trick continues. They don’t say
a thing. Not even Hello. They just
join the cat progression and head to the
top. There must be a lot of them up there.
Too many for me to make it. I jump
from the cliff and pull my ripchord.
In the morning, my own cat on my feet,
and I wish it was one of the smaller ones.