In Response to the God(s) of Ecumenical Politics

Breathe me, the power:

twos bend over the back of hard labor

nines slit their wrists over the kitchen counter

Threes are serial injectors, stealing catharsis as trophies

Fives claw, lungs scoured clean

Fours scream black and bloody against the electric sizzle of

bare cattleprods

Ones smoke cigarettes calmly, on the curb,

waiting

and sixes provide cannon fodder,

ashing the cache of science

Kaikeiyi (Draft IV)

The king of Ayodhya, Dashranata, wants to crown one of his son’s Rama as king of Ayodhya. However one of his wives, Kaikeyi, has her mind “poisoned” against Rama and his mother Kausalya and seeks to displace them in favor of her and her son. Many years prior to this she had saved the life of the king and been granted two boons- she claims them now to have Rama disinherited and her son Bharat installed as king.

Mother may I?

Son you shall.

*

patrimony is always an uncertain proposition,

lineage only identifiable in

the folds of a silk sari and the smooth slide of golden bangles

Counterpoint to the swath of sweat clinging to your distended sides

Chanting furiously through the

Wet pains of contractions

A portion of divinity wrung out in every gasping breath

*

A mother’s love for her child is idolatry,

(Not the crimson spotted handkerchief called martyrdom)

Fear not for the curves of meat

Bathe the boy in the milk

Of your regard

There is no mother’s love that is

Yielding, that does not cut both ways

Viciously.

His limpid boyhood will be eclipsed by the

transcendent fury of his ascension

*

For love of sons we make

Enemies of men

Motherhood is a strange armor

And we wear it, ceaseless

Strapped to the legs to

Keep us sinking.

Mothers and martyrs

The love that lets itself be

Wounded must be terrifying

Tyrannical, despotic in

Standing and striding through a hail of arrows

Risking the perfumed cascade of

Twilight hours to secure my

Progeny, is another word for sacrifice

That contains all the elements of injury:

Scar, fire

Timely is the Garden

Flowering in insurrection
What blooms under glass never expands

Let us be defiant
Scatter the matted ashes
and begin again in the fullness of our time

(Tehran, Tehran, Tehran- a shadowed dream of sunshine and beaten rugs hanging exposed. Tehran Tehran Tehran- exsisting only in my father's language and inattention to detail.)

Let us be defiant
Tear down the scattered paintings
shroud ourselves in shrapnel
if martyrdom is the cause to which we will degrade ourselves
then these flesh-ridden bulleted skeletons march

When I grow up- (in lieu of my nativity which is approaching perniciously)

When I grow up my father will buy me a pony
so that later, in the street, I will not starve

When I grow up I will be an astronaut
hermetically sealed in a miasma of my own excretion

When I grow up I want to be in movies
freezing myself forward through the design of my intent

When I grow up I will plant a flower for every love
so that I may walk forever in my garden

When I grow up I will find Area 51
and beg them to send me home

Imperative (Not a Pejorative (not necessarily))

Be a good boy drink all your fruits and vegetables and process the plastics and toxins that you need

For instance: Eat the HoHo and the wrapper to avoid pollution and to bring your nutritional absorption slightly out of the red

Don't worry, by the time you are big enough my baby boy they will be making organic whole wheat Ho-Hos with fresh cream and a triumphant man will address you from the box and claim that finally we are making progress

Saving the planet is something I plan to do before I am fifty. And die. But by then we will have cut you into roughly the shape we want you to be and I am sure you will be totally capable of filing down the detail

Scribble Two:

The essence of this life is the jaw cracking in agony, a slow festering that imobilizes the mouth and cuts down the clavicle.

All I am is hunger, a yawning black maw that cries futility for that which is intolerable to it. A yearning for breadth, for depth. Cut back the flesh and peel the bulbous veins from it's surface- Cmon doc I want to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Startin' something

so hey I am an artist sort of

so word poems from here on out I guess, until I can think of something better. this is the refuse, the post-it note throwaway poem/prose space. So I can wad these ideas up and toss them out

Believe indoctrination
the senseless violence that calls itself victory
and threes are serial injectors, stealing catharsis as trophies

I will not be a king or a martyr or a lunatic or a fool
I live endless, swirled
mired in the paint and slashed in syllables
cut from the cloth that
is the only gift a man will buy you

I write happy poems when
I safely despise every inch of you
when I shine incandescent from within my bulbous veins
not ever sugar makes me manic
spikes the core of me solid

Firenze

It was pouring on election day and my phone died and I was STARVING and frustrated by the minuscule size of italian sidewalks.

then heather found me huddling under san pietro, in the shadow of brunelleschi's dome and opposite Ghiberti's dome. she took me home and wined me (cheap Chianti--better then water!) and then took me out to election night party where i saw a professor and a live country band and ate free food all night.


then dancing and wine and secret bakeries studded in the winding avenues of firenze

Venezia

Oh my Venezia.

well first Milano Centrale-- 14 hours spent in the station sleeping on wooden bench and freezing to death and starving and being generally miserable. it was also a night of superb bladder control. 12pm to 6am though i only lasted till 3am before doing something highly illegal. and to all the sketchy men of Milano Centrale--va funculo! I piss on all of you. such depravation though i tell you.

so of course, first thing in venezia I devoured a gigantic pizza the size of my face--and got into a friendly conversation about Obama. christ it was a delicious day.

then the piazza de san marco and il rialto and the palazzo il doge and wandering wandering wandering, footloose and fancy free and BED under pink sheets in a pink room with a purple plastic rhinestone chandelier. pain di something or other smothered in nutella and six bowls of cornflakes in the morning. gorgeous gorgeous sleep and a beautiful puppy

Milano

So Italy. Mio Dia. Bella

Milano is an ugly little town, exquisitely fuctional shall we say. Covered in graffitti and populated with cheap food joints--with of course the requisite fashion stores. I stood in the shadow of gorgio armani and I can't say I felt inspired.

Heather and I in La Scalla, Il Duomo and other unsavory places--plus the best snack foods in all italy. gram parvesi--if only i could eat you without feeling ill at the end of it. and the delicious delicious cookies. what a repast!

Halloween was a sad affair, i dressed up my voice and we the scots and the aussie lass sat supping in the neighborhood bar with the local kiddies

A Beach in Britain??!

Yea though I have walked along the pebbled shores of pain, my feet remain curiously untroubled.

First though was the literary festival. I kind of enjoy the atmosphere of literary festivals--its so rare to see so many people arrogantly posturing at the same time though I have never been to a political convention either. I'm a registered nonregister if you know what I mean.



Anne Enright is forthright and fabulous. A short haired Irish mother who wields fuck as an adjective, noun and adverb (I have my views on profanity in writing which is as long as you can read it without blushing you're alright)--and a superb voice weaver. She wrote the most wonderful story of a mother and jilted wife that made me want to sigh. Go. Get her short stories. DEVOUR them. shes fantastic

Lionel Shriver (who is in fact a woman) read Richard Yates, the forgotten American short story man of the Sixties. Highlights included watching a trailer for Revolutionary Road which has never been seen before ever, listening to her read the story and then just listening to her, gloomy as all get out and fantastic. A cynic with a sense of humor. Her best advice is that compassion is the writers best tool which I think we forget in this age of our sense of grandeur and our adherence to our petty personal pity parades. Also there was a woman there who had lived in the Village in the Sixties and actually knew Richard Yates--an morose soggy alcoholic apparently--which is more proof to me that anything good or entertaining in this world happened in NYC first

But I ventured into the English countryside--dung patties, cows and huge unexpected red birds flying from out of corn rows and all

Next post- Brighton

Deep Scottish Love (not ever an illegal substance)

having been and returned and slept I think i have more perspective then I did before.

The Highlands are the impeachable majesty of Scotland, the most endurable legacy to their fierce pride that chafes in the memory of generations of Scots. One day- not today or tomorrow- but someday they will walk away from the UK. Its so different in Scotland- none of the polyethnic hybridization that cartwheels through Britain. I dont think I've ever been so concious of absence and it was unnerving.

Having said that I would cheerfully walk forever through the heathered hills. I love sing a longs, even in tiny hostel bars as much as i love wee scottish discotechques full of balding men in pageboy caps that close at 1 am. I want to go down face first in a faerie brook and come out bubbling the other side. if i ever go again, im going hiking in the summer and im swimming in the loch ness.

Don't think I'd ever do a group tour like that again, but thats more my fault then their's. i can get excited by white horses but ill never care (yes that was code). But i know i can do it on my own now, which is more important to me then anything else. as long as i have one friend in this world I can go it alone

Also Edinburgh is the most tiny toy like urban center I have ever seen. Also Sticky Toffee Pudding is worth every ounce of fat that drips down the sides. Shortbread and Oatcakes to see you on your way.

NEXT STOP IRELAND!

Time Traveler

Bad mornings begin when fatigue drags down the body and aches in the spaces of bones. Today was a bad morning.

but I sallied forth--into a crypt and an amazing display of light art glowing and pulsing in the pungent bowels of the earth.

then off to the Wellcome Museum where I discovered that someone somewhere thought a penis with a hat was a fertility aid. Also I toured the bodies buried under Tube stops and McDonalds all over London.

Finally the British Museum and the elegance of invaders. Sometimes I can't help but think of it as an elegy to empire, and marvel at the shamelessness of plunder. and then I leave

(Also I wonder what we will display when we talk about Iraq, Cuba, Africa, Afghanistan. When we write our history in placards and crafted exhibits. And then I leave)

But what ho! Scotland on the horizon?!! EGads am I doing something with my time?! Watson this is BRILLIANT

Did I mention--

Thursday saw Ordinary Differentials off to a start as well as

Marylebourne, Bakers Street, Regents Park and the floating houseboat chinoisere, bits of Camden that is just like home, and my infatuation with all grocery stores that are not Tesco

Behold the beauty of vegetable cutlets!

and then the Big CHill House to wind the evening down right

Cheers From Britain

This is the first time I feel cheerfully inclined towards the place; possibly because my sun returned to me. She even revolved endlessly in the brilliant blue sky

Oxford Street is icky (scientifically exact terminology) in its wealth.
Hyde Park is huge
and the National Royal Theater is BRILLiANT

you gotta love a play about lesbian suffragettes who slit their wrists on stage. You HAVE to

and then fireworks and works of fire. crazy people setting themselves on fire which would be immolation except they were being paid.

its no New York but its good enough for now

ENTER NEW YEAR stage center

strange times backwards and forwards i'd say in general

much too little time in sum (and way too much knowledge is trying to cram its way into this tiny brain)

more talk and less sleep!

No Rest for the wicked

so is there a word for life coming together slowly?

a mass of pieces slowly melting into a tangible solid? (no not an acid trip...really)

I got told today by someone much older and friendlier and better that I seem like someone with a goal, mature even (which is a deeply disturbing idea). It's like being told you're beautiful/handsome--you wont ever believe them but the thought is wonderful.

Vacation has begun and although i do not expect sleep to embrace me in her chafting fishnet embrace, I hope to see the Sandman at at least some point...

I am not a good college student. I dont enjoy sleeping very much.

Hi World

so You and I...we've had some rough times lately.

You took my laptop to the tune of two weeks and many hundreds of dollars.

but I forgive you.

If I live through finals we should have a party.

a sleep party.

Edge

Today is the day that I am going to die.

I watched a woman struggle with herself, laugh, cry, have a psychotic breakdown, commit suicide and rise from the dead over and over endlessly like Lazarus only she left pieces of herself behind every time.

and then it was intermission. Edge is the story of Sylvia Plath and her "suicide" and the poet-laureate Ted Hughes, adulterer, black magic warlock, and the center of his universe.

There aren't a lot of words that I can use to sum up that expeirence. Intense, pure, exhilirating. I actually talked with the lady actress and she shook my hand and I am never washing it again. it literally tingled with the electricity of her prescene.

and I met Henry Chang the man behind the steamy noir haze of Chinatown Beat. i liked him and his yo's and dudes and subtle philosophy. I think i want to be him when I grow up. Comfortable in my skin and my passion.

Pull my Daisy

I love this city.

This week alone I have been to Lincoln Center and heard the ultimate cosmic goodness that is Michael Palin read and talk about his life in the circus of Monty Python. The trek was ardous and strewn with the incomprehensible color coding of the NYC subways but I made it and back and was delirously happy. I hadn't believed the man actually exsisted until i saw him in person.

I just, heard, saw, and was the amazing David Amram who spoke about his expierences with Jack Kerouac at the Bowery Poetry Center in the Village. One slighty schizoid BBC talk show host in tight black pants made the evening hilarious, but this man, a Soprano's actor made the evening golden. His readings from Kerouac made me happy, made me think, made me feel...the man damn near made me cry when he read the farewell passage between Kerouac and Cassidy which is all the more poignant because its one sided and deep. The improv between the musicians (6-7 depending on the mood of the sax) and the poets forced you to groove.

Charlie Parker, Pull my Daisy, Life on the ROad, Mrs. Keurac, hip my angel, girls in white underpants, Egyptian flutes, Native Indian drums, the man of a thousand instruements, being in Colorado under the endless night in the roof of the world, the eastern wilderness

And it's 3,2,1...

It's amazing the kind of junk you can accumulate in your brief lifespan. It's equal parts cathartic and horrifying to sort through the rubbish that shores up on the fringe of daily life. Why didn't anyone stop me?

sigh

We're officially counting down now. Three days.

Home, boys, Home

well the good news (broadly speaking) is I made it back. Nothing exploded, no luggage was lost and I was not forced to kill any airline personnel although I was sorely tempted. No matter how many times you look at the little screen a set of charcoal pencils will never be dynamite. Never.

There's this sort of ecstatic high that comes from being back in your own stomping grounds, no matter how great the trip was. The sense of your place in the universe asserts itself and for a moment you can appreciate the harmony of the pattern which you were so determined to break from.

Alert the press! I'm back.