"I have no lover and she hasn't the prettiest eyes."

St. Paul's epistle to the Romans 9:18-24

Therefore God has mercy on whom He wills,
and whom He wills He hardens.
You will say to me then,
"Why does He still find fault?
For who has resisted His will?"

But indeed, O man, who are you
to reply against God?
Will the thing formed say to him who formed it,
"Why have you made me like this?"
Does not the potter have the power over the clay,
from the same lump to make one vessel
for honor and another for dishonor?

What if God, wanting to show His wrath
and to make His power known,
endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
and that He might make known
the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy,
which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
even us
whom He called not only of the Jews,
but also of the Gentiles?

"Who Says Words WIth My Mouth?" by Rumi

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

******

We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
That's fine with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.

They say there's no future for us. They're right.
Which is fine with us.

Too Much Dope

A cell is
the size of
a cell
is the size of
the universe.

"Tear It Down," by Jack Gilbert

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.

1 Corinthians 13

Though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, but have not love,
I have become sounding brass
or a clanging cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy,
and understand all mysteries and knowledge,
and though I have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind;
love does not envy;
love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely,
does not seeks its own,
is not provoked,
thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.
But whether there are prophecies, they will fail;
whether there are tongues, they will cease;
whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect has come,
soon that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child;
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly,
but soon face to face.
Now I know in part, but soon I shall know
just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

Alive again.

"You will accomplish more if you start now."

--fortune cookie

At a Pub in Indianapolis

There is an old man smoking
outside the wood-walled pub
on Main Street.
White hair, thick-rimmed glasses,
a soft pack of Marlboro Reds
in his hand and
cigarette thin legs.

He passes his fanned fingers
from his mouth to a limp hang
above the pavement.
Graceful in motion but
such a sad philosophy.

There is a fine balance
with man and his cigarettes:
one will consume the other
and both will leave
their ashes
on the ground.

Pub Talk

"I only have time for the best," Chaz Oreshkov on books.

Every Morning Hangover

It’s 7:30 in the morning. You bring the digital glow of your cell phone inches from your face and then toss it back to the floor in hazy discomfort. The whitish late autumn sun peering through your bedroom window is nothing short of blinding. You roll over onto your back and slowly become cognizant of your body and the wreck you have made it. The smell of Camel Light’s yellow stain clung onto your moustache hair, the whiskey headed dryness, the paper cup staleness in your throat, the stiffened, beanbag body ache. Only after you have committed yourself to this personal prison do you begin to question your reasons for doing so. Perhaps your darkened psychology has led you to solace in the bottle, you wonder, you wonder why you never think about the hangover when you are at the bar, drinking and talking, laughing as if you will never die, when in fact the next morning you will come pretty damn close. “Wake up!” It’s your mother, she yells a high-bird chirp through the house, “Leaving!” You knew you had your cousin’s 8th birthday party today since last week, but last night rolled around and once you started mixing a shot of boredom with two parts desire, a squirt of risk, and a couple drops of heroism, you find yourself in the morning dragging ass to the bathroom mirror looking at mockery of a human face, a stretched out plastic Halloween mask made poorly in your former image. You don’t change your clothes because you are already late. If you take anymore time, your family will start interrogating the events of your evening that contributed to such tardiness. And you’re a good actor, so just go with the flow of things. And you can’t be late for the birthday party, of course. He’s turning eight, dammit. You don’t want to disappoint him; you’re the big cousin. He’ll hang your absence like a dagger above his head for the rest of his life. So impressionable, that age.

You’re usually the optimist, the self-affirming, well-stabilized gentleman, but today you appear the walking carcass of a bear-attack; the road kill dance partner of some wide-hipped hipster chick dancing to sweaty tunes in a dive bar. You begin to feel time pumping again through your constricted blood vessels, you begin to understand it again, realizing the 5-hour drive to Detroit may, in all reality, be the death of you. Your Dad is already sitting in the car out in the driveway, adjusting all the rear view mirrors and fixing his clip-on shades. Your Mom is running between the kitchen and the garage in shuffle-footed fury, fuming, “Did everybody eat? No food for a long time! Are you hungry? What you want? Want me to make you eggs? I’ll make you eggs. Should I make you eggs? Eat something! We have to go!” Your Sister is yelling upstairs, complaining about how her hair is too curly, it never cooperates with her, how her make-up is fighting all shades of stubbornness today. You throw on your coat and grab a bottle of water out of the plastic package sitting on top of the old box of shoes in the garage. One, two, three, four, five, fix, those gulps pour into your body and cleanse your organs like dirty kitchen bowls washed in the sink. Everyone hustles into the car and you immediately fall asleep in the backseat.

You wake up when the sun is arching its way above the clouds, golden in the crisp, blue highway air. Your eyes open with heavy effort. The shadows of tree limbs scatter across your face and the grey cloth interior of the family jeep in crystalline pattern, something like a spider web over all you see. The hum of the car engine drones across the quick asphalt. Sister is in the backseat too, listening to her iPod and trying to paint her nails in the shaky terrain. Mom is upfront in the passenger’s seat, doing a cross-word and cracking salted pumpkin seed shells across her lips all splintered and messy. Dad still manages an air of humor in his motionlessness. A sunglassed statue who bears a striking resemblance to Saddam Hussein without a moustache, and maybe just a slightly greyer head of hair. Everyone is silent, content in their own worlds, trying to maintain a baseline homeostasis, even if if they don't know what the hell it is.

From the sound of the engine and the smell of the warm manufactured air pouring through the AC vents, you can tell there’s a little over 3 hours to go until you reach the outskirts of the Motor City. The rolling motion lulls you back to a parched and inconsistent snooze. If you sleep it off, you’ll forget how miserable you are right in time for some afternoon cake.

"Sad Steps," by Philip Larkin

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through the clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate--
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

Daydreaming Small Northern Towns

Poem to Self

Who will love you now?
Now, after the night leaves
larger shadows for the rest of the day.
All the good lines have been used on easy women.
Yes, of course
there exists nothing as poetic
as the sway of lovely hips,
vase-like and warm-blooded.
But there is also nothing
as poetic as the empty room
you spend your nights
in longing
and dull yellow lamplight.

In the peace that comes
after shallow weeping,
it is only a poor man
who knows to reuse the music
of seashell beach symphonies
for the language of hollow hearts.
Sell glimpses of the moon
to the drunk and the blind
in a few sullen lines of poetry.
When you speak softly
it will become clear
only the narcotic pleasure of the verse
can awaken those sleepy years more
to the weight of gravity
or bring to clouded eyes
the tooth-colored shine from the stars.

Pilot

Dressed in your uniform,
scarf and goggles,
I hear you sighing
a steady confidence
over the airwaves.
This aluminum cabin
carries the stalest oxygen
and the oddest people:
a walrus-skinned woman,
a cauldron-bellied businessman,
two lovers plucked from
a glamour magazine.
Your voice guides the clouds,
directs the winds,
calms cautious hearts.
Your plane is the only place
I ever drink tomato juice.
This stewardess is older
than her wrinkles and less pleasant
than her perfume suggests.
We all fly in at different speeds,
you know.
Even if we are on the same plane.

Coffeehouse

"Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird," by Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

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

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

A Life of Honey

It was some late September dreary morning, the clouds hung like steel wool and rain freckled the windows. I walked to the corner grocer and bought one jar of honey. There were probably other items I should have gotten, but I had forgotten the reason I went out in the first place. I didn’t even have a kitchen, what could I buy? The place I was renting off of 112th street belonged to some withering old lady, Mrs. Eskin. She was about the height of a gremlin, the weight of a paper bag, and looking every minute of 89 years old. I rented out one of the bedrooms of her Manhattan apartment; two other students were doing the same. We all shared one bathroom. None of us were allowed to use the kitchen. She had her personal toilet in a small little cupboard of a room, opposite side of the stove. It was enough reason to keep me from arguing for permission. My 60-square foot box of a room had a mini fridge and a half-broken microwave. I managed. It was the cheapest rent in the city.

The supermarket off Broadway and 107th was much like a garden party at all hours of the day. It was a deep burrowed store, constantly buzzing with people. All that Manhattan motion was dizzying, surreal in the same way a circus is surreal, or the moment you finally understand the significance of a peach when you rip through it’s juicy flesh over the kitchen sink one drunken summer night. On occasion, when boredom sunk it’s own teeth into me and I was low on cash, I would saunter into that supermarket and hunt for samples of cheese or pickled tomatoes. The pleasures of bachelorhood are simple, borderline survival techniques. If you live in the jungle, you are at all times the prey and the hunter. You make your way and you learn the rules. But whatever you do, make sure you act like you know exactly what you are doing, even if you are shit-town clueless.
Ah yes, back to the honeyjar. I know what you’re thinking. How could one meaningless little jar of honey be enough to set this high voltage-bachelor jonesin’ for a spell of storytime? Boredom, my friends. The answer is simple, unforgiving, and profoundly wanton boredom. I’ll continue.

I wandered through the middle-eastern spice aisle and then through the seafood section with the lobster tanks and the crab dip and alongside the sushi bar until I ended up in the glassy foods section. Apparently there is only one shelf in the jar aisle for honey. I guess Newyorkers don’t really have a tongue for the stuff. They’re more about salty foods, anything that will jack up their blood pressure and keep them pumping through sidewalk traffic. Anyway, the honey jars stood with the other creamy non-paste, non-liquid food products, the cousin of apricot jelly and the mistress of peanut oil.

The honey jar itself was strangely appealing to me. It was about the width of my wrist and the length of my palm, with one neatly plucked cylindrical honeycomb suspended in the center, surrounded by the bright golden glue even the tamest insects fiend after. Natural Honey it spelled in block letters on the label. I hadn’t had natural honey in a grip, and for less than four dollars a jar, it might have been one of the cheapest food items in New York City, so I bought it. Honey sandwiches, honey tea, honey soup, frozen honey drops; I was coming up with some life sustaining culinary ideas with this stuff.

When I got back to my place I was shivering. The hole in my sole was starting to bother me now. I kicked off my shoes and removed my dampened socks, put on another pair and began to boil some water in my plastic hot pot I filled in the bathroom sink. That honey tea was starting to sound like a divine herbal remedy right now. I pulled the jar from the grocery bag and noticed something I had apparently missed in the store. A dead bee. Yes, a real bee. A dead one. It clung weakly to the underside of the rectangular honeycomb by thin black legs.

I stood statuesque for a moment, half perplexed, half considering whether I should return this infested product back to the store. I let out a grunt of dulled excitement and studied the dead creature mummified in his own juices. In all my years of consuming animal by-products and live ingredients, never have I been so intrigued by a creature of such benign influence.

This is the common fate of a honeybee, is it not? I started falling into a heavy existential lull, pondering the life of bees. They know nothing outside of honey and wax. Do they die as workaholics buzzing tirelessly in their sticky obsessions for perfection? I mean, are they like us? Working for the pleasures of effort itself, and not actually tasting the sweet dew of their labor? Or maybe they are more like drug addicts. Buzzing for a buzz, fiends eager for a fix, for that sticky glucose high. It could be either, and I suppose I thought I could tell from the position in which he was embalmed how this bee had lived his life. I figured he had passed during the apex of some hymenopterus artistic revelation. He looked like the type fool around, to daydream, to forget things and just bask. The bee's existence seems more playful; sweeter one might say.

I imagined him buzzing furiously around the honey hive, perfectly geometrical, assembled and constructed by him and sibling bees. I imagined them gorging in the sweetness of that sticky amber, racing to all corners of their bowling ball weighted home, without a single thought, a blank existence that only runs on instinct and impulse. He and his companions hunting out nectar, sucking and fucking that hive all of their 90-day lifespan. What bliss.

I picked up the jar and held it closer. As dead as he was, this bee seemed to have more life than that ladybug of a woman I had for a landlady. My eyelashes almost brushed against the glass. His legs were thick, probably as muscular as insect hind legs come. They each had tiny, beard-like hairs projecting outward. His coat was the color of a high noon summer, and black as Texas leather, striped down his thorax like a bomber. His eyes were small, deep black pits, like pilot goggles, as kaleidoscopic as the honeycomb itself. As if the design of his eyes rendered his entire world in honeycomb configuration. Everything honeycomb: Honeycomb skies, honeycomb flowers, honeycomb bees, honeycomb honeycombs. Everything. He was dead, still. He must have swam in that overdose avalanche for weeks already, an addict basking in the revelry of some beautiful ecstasy just before slipping out.

I finally unscrewed the jartop and spooned a teaspoon sized spoon of honey into the only ceramic cup I had in my possession. I decided to leave the bee inside the jar as a monument to nature. As a fossilized animal with the tool he used to produce the goo I was to consume. And, I confess, as some lively decoration to my otherwise bland and peeling white-walled room.
I stirred the cup slow with my teaspoon, a metal rod of a utensil rusted to a brownish-red, dissolving the honey into the dark liquid, but still the tea lacked the sweetness I had expected. After some contemplation and toe massaging, I unscrewed the jartop again and slipped the spoon back in, all the way to the glass base this time, and fidgeted around with my museum pet. With some effort I ripped the bee from off his honeycomb, one of his microscopic legs still attached to the underside of that golden death plank, scooped him from the bottom and dumped him with another spoon’s worth of honey into my cup.

It was dream-like. His body sank below, dissolving with the sugar in the hot dark herb-suffused water. For a couple minutes I just watched the steam dance off the edge of the cup, wisping wildly into vapor and then into nothing. Then, almost completely by impulse, I picked up the cup and swallowed the whole dark concoction in four or five large gulps. It ran like liquefied magma down my throat, the heat neither scalding nor calming, but perfusing warmly in my gut. Bee and all, all drunk in still, damp September room silence. Over and done. I burped. I cocked my head toward the window and listened to the rain softly beginning to click on the sill. After licking my lips in a daze of abent-mindedness I decided with satisfying breath the fate of this bee was justified by my own fate. And the taste; still bitter.

"Pastoral," by Ron Loewinsohn

Death.
The death of a million
honeydew melons
festering in the fields
east of Tracy.
The scent of death
narcotic in its sweetness
which we mistook for the smell
of fresh-churned butter
until I ran across the road
into the field
& was attacked by flies,
Later
on another road, I smelled myself
the fetor of the living
like locker rooms & loving beds.
& thought about the mutilated melons
which from a distance looked like
a field of wild buttercups.

HomeYears, 10.28.2011, day

What a wild night. It was the last autumn eve of the year where you could go out without a coat and still return home with only rosy cheeks. Steam vapor swirled out from under lifted hats and mingled exhaled breaths and cigarette smoke blown out by pedestrians into the street. I had been at the coffeehouse all day, trying to write letters to the girl I've loved like a childhood secret. It was late afternoon, the sky was a violent pink and burgundy and the ghostly silhouette of the moon forebode something ravenous. It was halloween weekend. I knew I felt some lurking rage seething through my blood. The goons from work were starting to exit their offices and pour into the buses and subways. They were going to dress up like sexy goons now. I headed into an italian eatery off of Augusta and sat by the window, ordered a beer and read some Tom Robbins. The language out of this guy! Like tripping mushrooms in South Dakota. Anyway, I sat there, brooding, getting drunk until David Hoyne and Daniel Huron and Chaz St. James got back from work. We were supposed to go out on the town and get silly. The cheap easy dames were roaming the streets tonight, hunting for kisses. I was willing to sell mine, God knows.

By the time the gang called me I was three pints in, wobbling on the checkered table, dizzying vision over the already slippery words of my book. I paid my check and smiled at the waitress on the way out. Though I'm not one much into small talk, some playful banter would have really swooned that buzz right smooth to a Charlie Parker melody, ya dig? She seemed like the quiet type, no matter.

I split down Augusta, straight west into the drowning bloodied sunset. It was marvelous. A scene right out of Kerouac's psyche. I stumbled into Hoyne's place to find them pulling together the usual friday night pleasantries. Enough dope and whiskey on that table to kill a horse, but hey, there was about five us to do the job of one stallion. It was more like conversation. You put on a record and lit a cigarette in between your hand gestures. It's about finding a groove, and finding a groove is like rowing down a river, the stream will carry you if you feel out the rhythm of the water. There was incense and the windows were open. The sun was huddled under the earth now, darkened and snoozing. Night crawled in like a sax player slowly drinking himself mad at the bar. We laughed like hyenas, clinking glasses together in the dim-lit bohemian room hazy with all kinds of smoke. Eventually, the boys had to split for a concert, some slow dance string music made for lonely single women. They knew what they were doing. St. James and I headed out and they promised to meet up with us after their show. We met St. James' dame Miss Whytecliff and our buddy, Lollipop, on the street corner.

Painting the town red, we were all dolled up. Straight-laced and buxom breasted, I was getting thirsty again. We hit a bar off of the 6-corner strip, and grubbed on pizza. People were flooding the streets. The energy had me all riled up. Legs and heels, tight dresses and long hair, bare shoulders and strutting the sidewalk for attention. As much as I loathed the whole scene, I was howling like a wolf. We hit the dance joint down the street and piled into the sweaty club, made a bee-line for the dance floor and passed my flask of whiskey around as we started swinging.

The costumes were impressive, I must admit. Typical pop-cultural imitations with any attempt to expose skin, as close to naked as social customs will allow. I donned my normal threads, though always a bit of a throwback out of the generation, people act like a shirt-tie-vest combo is the sheep's pudding once you start talking fashion. Anyhow, I was full of whiskey and music, my engines were revving like the derby just came into town. I approached of flock of quiet looking chicks sitting down at a half-circular table near the dance floor. To be honest, I had no idea what we talked about, although I do remember throwing around compliments and mysterious invitations to dance. The first girl I made conversation with was a full-bodied vixen, dressed like Natalie Portman from "Black Swan," damn, did she know how to move those hips. She had me pinned up against the wall, pressing her ballet feathers into me like she was trying to grind her leotards to flames. By that time, the gang lost track of me, I was so deep in the pond, no fishing line could have hooked me out. They texted me their goodbyes and left. I was alright. Drunk off my rocker, but there was no way I could go home with Natalie Portman. She started biting her lip and grabbing me. It started to feel like danger. We necked a bit, but I split after a couple dances. There is never any commitment in these kinds of things longer than it takes to knock down a couple shots. I threw away 12 bucks of drinks on her. That kind of upset me.

I busted out of that joint and headed toward Huron's place. We talked on the phone, sounded like he was bedpan drunk, but he insisted I crash on his couch. It wasn't that late, and I was hungry for a burrito after all that calorie burning jiving. I stumbled down the street among the throng of equally inebriated hipsters slurring their speech and all disheveled. It was comforting to see. On my way to that hole in the wall burrito joint Piquante off Division, in my journey I decided to abandon my quest for food and just head to Huron's for sleep. It was about another 6 blocks or so, but I enjoyed the saunter without any rush. When I got to his apartment door, it was locked. I knocked on the door, on the window, rang the bell, shouted his name through the screen window and called him a few times. Out cold. SHould have expected this. Huron pounds brews like he's on the clock. Weekends he gets quick drunk, stone liquored and lead-headed. I saw the tv lights flicker on the wall through the window. I thought I could even hear him snoring.

New plan in order. I was hungry now. I had a few other buddies sharing a duplex apartment on the other edge of the neighborhood with plenty of crash space for the likes of me. I took a cab to the Hollywood Grill diner next to their place and called all four of them while I ordered a grilled chicken deluxe sandwich. None answered except Roger Zaine, but he wasn't coming home 'til after 4am, an X-rave somewhere on the Northside. I contemplated sleeping in the back of the diner on one of the seats at least until the sun came up and I could catch the earliest train out of there.

God makes these things happen in perfect ways. I was trying to befriend some older chicks next to me at the diner bar when my pal Andy Morgan called me. It was almost 3am and he just got out of the library when he caught the message I left him earlier in the night. Savior. He swung by the diner, right as I stuffed the last fry in mouth, I bolted out there with my jacket in arms. I hopped in the car and we sped to his apartment near the south loop, laughing and detailing the night into slurred language. I fell asleep like a rock on his floor, dead weight and drunk. The night swirled like a toilet flush and I woke up like a rare autumn daisy on a brisk, sunny morning. It was a good night, it was bound to be a solid morning.

"The Wisdom of Life," by Al-Akhtal al-Saghir

Life's wisdom is best found in living drunk;
Pass me then my winecups and my lute.

Strip the world down to its delicious beauty
As you would unveil a virgin bride.

We are all in love with Life and aspire
To reap its unsoiled pleasures.

Grab on to life then, damn you,
And throw away the mask your face has hardened into.

However long you live, you're but a bird,
Tree-bound one moment, soaring high the next.

Ecclesiastes 12

Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
before the difficult days come,
and the years draw near when you say,
"I have no pleasure in them":
while the sun and the light
the moon and the stars
are not darkened,
and the clouds do not return after the rain;
in the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men bow down;
when the grinder cease because they are few,
and those that look through the windows grow dim;
when the doors are shut in the streets,
and the sound of grinding is low;
when one rises up at the sound of a bird,
and all the daughters of music are brought low.
Also they that are afraid of height,
and of terrors in the way;
when the almond tree blossoms,
the grasshopper is a burden,
and desire fails.
For man goes to his eternal home,
and the mourners go about the streets.

Remember your Creator
before the silver cord is loosed,
or the golden bowl is broken,
or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
or the wheel broken at the well.
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

"Vanity of vanities," says the preacher,
"All is vanity."

And moreover, because the preacher was wise
he still taught the people knowledge;
yes, he pondered and sought out
and set in order many proverbs.
The preacher sought to find acceptable words;
and what was written was upright-- words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads,
and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails,
given by one Shepherd.
And further, my son, be admonished by these.
Of making many books there is no end,
and much study is wearisome to the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man's all.
For God will bring every work into judgement,
including every secret thing,
whether good or evil.

Finally

turn on all the lights in the house!
my mother embraces me
and my sister is laughing,
dad removes his glasses in disbelief.
I've been accepted into medical school,
there is a celebration to be had.

Arthur Rimbaud's summary of a poet

A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men: the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed—and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and, if demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!

"Poet," by 'Ali Ja'far al-'Allaq

Who among you has begun his days
seeking out the color of the dew and stones,
searching and searching
for themes that have neither been profaned
no sung to satiety?

Whenever he felt
that the stallions he pursued were too elusive
that the songs he tried to work were too abstruse,
he would cast his vexed eyes
over the flock of his days,
as one filed by behind the other,
every one the same.

This is the dusty song of papers.
Can you smell its blossoms
as it draws him to his room,
to the loved ones he has been neglecting,
and lists for him the number
of his dreams, his deserts, and his books?
He surveys his days and his preoccupations,
gazes on his loved ones,
sincere and cast aside.
He counts his books: one, two , four.

Then he slips away,
restless and morose.
Of him they say he is, as usual, dazed,
as one well might be
who contemplates a stream to touch the taste of dew.
They say he is impervious
to offenses,
they say he is too quick to find offense.
They say he is dismal
elated
absent-minded
as one well might be
who is given to the contemplations of streams and crows.

He remembers his friends
and forgives them their taunts.
He laughs
and releases all his birds into the fog.

Currently Reading:

"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," Tom Robbins

The Willow Lectures

Coptic Protest

From Inside the Protest: Chicago’s Voice


October 18th, 2011 was a dark and drizzling Tuesday night in Chicago. St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Burr Ridge huddled together close to 150 Copts from the Chicago-land churches in the lamplight of its doorway. Church members, young and old, students and professionals, assembled quickly, greeting each other with handshakes and hugs, carrying pillows, hymnbooks, snacks, and bottles of water.
A relatively short notice announcement had informed the Chicago community that transportation to Washington D.C. would be provided for anyone interested in participating in the protest on Wednesday the 19th. The protest was a scheduled demonstration in front of the White House, organized primarily to condemn the recent and ongoing genocide of Egypt’s Christians. Hence, the call for Coptic support, recognition, and voice hailed from all over the nation; and the reason why the Chicago chapter was willing to make the long journey.
We packed our group into three coach buses and embarked on a 13-hour drive through the night from the Windy City to the Nation’s Capital. Though we were sleepless and wired on caffeine, the subtle buzz of adrenaline and hope kept everyone in good spirits and with much to contemplate and pray about.
We arrived in front of the White House before noon, bringing out our signs and carrying wooden crosses. We joined the congregation of almost 1,000 other Copts, already chanting loudly on Pennsylvania Avenue, in an effort move the U.S. government to some fruitful action. We quickly blended with the crowd, even bumping into some old friends and family members. Almost all protestors held some kind of prop. Some held crosses, others held the Egyptian or American flag, but most held signs. There were hundreds of signs, each evoking some sense of tragedy, injustice, outrage, or calls for action. Some were handwritten and detailing personal losses; others were printed and displayed the casualty statistics of post-revolution attacks on Copts; others held verses from the Bible or quotes from social leaders and philanthropists. There were even some pictures, enlarged graphic photos taken from October 9th, Egypt’s ‘Bloody Sunday’, depicting dead bodies covered in blood and open wounds, revealing the horrors of Christians’ present reality in Egypt. Signs were hoisted high, and protesters raised their voices in unison, hoping to elicit some response from a government representative.
The demonstration persisted for several hours; first in front of the White House and eventually moving to a street march, walking slowly toward the Capitol Building. Several members of the gathering held loud speakers in different corners of the crowd, shouting short slogans until their voices went hoarse. Some protesters were emotional, with wet eyes, holding pictures of family members who were victims of the most recent tirade. Others were straight-faced and stern, shouting boldly with voices like steel, unshakeable and with conviction. Chants included, “We Need Justice!”, “Why, Why Must We Die?!” and “Who Can We Trust? The Army Is Against Us!” The scene from inside the crowd was stirring. Copts of all ages banded together. Strangers raised hands and held large signs together. The entire crowd shouted for justice, speaking for their brothers and sisters in Egypt whose voices had been stifled and strangled, whose voices had withered into only faint wisps of prayers for their people left bleeding or weeping in the streets of their homeland.
It was apparent that a threshold has been ruptured. No longer would we wait in silence, passive. We were demanding change, demanding that our leaders take direct and deliberate action, that no tolerance for bloodshed remain without reproach. These were serious demands for equality, demands that should not have to be made, demands that should already exists as basic rights for all citizens. The only pleas that were made were made to God. Several Coptic priests walked together in the procession, walking side by side amidst the nebulous crowd of others, continually crossing themselves and exuding a sense of peace from the interior of the congregation.
The rest of the day the sky was gray with clouds and rainy. Despite the somber weather, the crowd continued to grow larger and showed no signs of fatigue or loss of momentum. There was no exact number, but some estimate close to 5,000 were present at the protest, others claim many more than that. We arrived at Capital Building in the late afternoon, gathered into a large circle, where crowd leaders with speakerphones assembled at the front, urging all members to shout in unison. We continued chanting, our hair and clothes dampened with rain, our eyes bright with hope, and our hearts pounding in rhythm.
Such a demonstration had been encouraging. The sheer number of attendees on such a last minute assembly brought a sense of pride to our people, our history, and our cause. Though the situation in Egypt is far from resolution, with this heightened attention and a country full of peaceful, but strong-willed Copts eager for change, one ray of light is enough to herald the coming of a bright future.
In the 15-hour dénouement of our heavy-rain drive back to Chicago, much reflection and prayer had given us hope and a stronger sense of solidarity. Of course government officials can enforce laws and policies, but true peace comes from God. We pray some fruitful results may come of our action.

Daydreaming Nashville

HomeYears, 10.7.2011, afternoon

Yesterday morning I bolted out of Indianapolis with a cheap fever for a pretty southern drawl while the sun was still low and yolk-yellow before the sizzle. My buddy, Arabian Panda, was cramming textbooks down his throat for his medical school exams. Last time I'd seen him that anally retentive he was selling his sperm in milk jugs at Cambodian lunch buffets. Needless to say, a night was enough to get me jonesin' for a break out of there.

Hopped in the rental black Jag and sped south, cruising the highway like a canoe down the Mississippi. Nothing smoother than the smell of Louisville luring you south. I was burgundy with desire. Stopped in Shepardsville, Kentucky for a quick perusal of town living. It was all lazy summer and fried food. Hospitality was a chubby middle-aged woman with the personality of a sun god, smiles and giggles in every word she spoke. Left me mesmerized in the sunshine of that tiny little town.

I got to Nashville after noon. Rolled through the red hills and the whiskey green grass of the town with a cheshire grin, sticking my head out the window. Music pouring out every door. Cute blonde girls in tight jeans, tee shirts and boots. Cool dudes with beards and tipped pork-pie hats. Passing by the houses with their front porch open doors and walls full of pictures or rooms full of instruments. This city is made out of musicians. The walls of buildings are built with piano keys and upright basses. Every house has a set of strings and nimble hands ready to dance notes like electric muscle.

The fellas brought me in, we got drunk like a summer party, laughing at the bar, swinging to the tunes of mellow guitars and skittering drum skins. Food and whiskey, brothers already and getting ready for the wedding in the smokey mountains. Hope the bears don't claw me to pieces before I fall sweetly to the sound of the heartbeat pulsing melodic through this city.

Currently Reading:

"Portnoy's Complaint," Philip Roth

tired

Where is your job? what color is the fox tail you dreamt of last night?
It finally hit me, she's gone. She's walking around the city
with my spoiled nephew in his billion dollar shoes and she
doesn't give a sugar about the taste of my name in her mouth now.
All dolled-up for the free-lunch seminar, with make-up
and balloon throwers to enthrone the flower-wilting voices
they conjure from icelandic gestures. Give in or get out.
remove your hat and wake your prim-rose cauliflower nose
to the beauty of this deadened-leaf autumn mourning.
the dog walkers are out in full sprint, climbing the streets
like they're about to miss the parade, but it feels more like
running from the apocalypse, just an altogether useless venture.

Oops

I hit the sugar off the table on this one, again.
reaching for the cutlery, but knocked the table
to pieces. terminate the shards into calculated numbers
even the boss couldn't get hit head out of the glass jar.
i missed the exit every single time we spun around
that drunken, dim summer carousel. Itch off a remark
from your lips, from the teeth of devils they pour
across the floor in endless droves. saxophone.
saxophone number two. oh geez

HomeYears, 9.12.2011, afternoon

Last couple days have been a real trip. Alan Angus came down from the snow-tipped bearclaw country friday night. We reminisced over three dollar bottles of wine and cheap dark spanish cigars, waltzing around half-drunk about the train station inside of town. The air tasted liked heavy molasses. Catching up is always about unraveling memory like a roll of tape without any fingernails to stop and pick at. The total unraveling: a cerebral flood of euphoria, nostalgia, and the ridiculous. Anyway, we got home early, finished off the bottles, drinking all the way until the pillow, hungry for sleep.

Next day, the breakfast we had was tremendous. Mother Maggie whipped up a storm of eggs and sausage, roasted hashbrowns and coffee. Once a couple hounds start grubbing, ain't no stopping them. I was fiendish, Alan always grateful and polite in his wildness. After, we dressed up, suit and tie, and headed to the racetracks for a day on the town. Chaz St.James and his lady, Ms. Whytecliff, met us at the tracks, waiting in lovely summer clothes, bright-eyed and smiling like the sun. The day was marvelous, though we lost all our money on the sinewy muscled horses with their toy-sized jockeys. Sweat stained our shirt collars the color of sand. Drove into the city, cigarette-lipped and rolled up sleeves, met Daniel Huron and David Hoyne for some Chicago style hotdogs at the famous dog joint off of Clark Street. I lost my car down some flea-walled broken bottled alley, city lights and pretty girls distracting me. It was also the drugs. Left me totally confused. Once we got back to the apartment, we chilled our throats with some mexican beers, laughed in the dim light of the bohemian room, walled with top hats and tapestry, incense, books, records, rugs and couches; the den of social scholars, of men that will never be seen.
After that we hit the VioletHour, swankiest bar in town. A line over two hours long and we snuck in with hat-tilted smoke signal charisma. Got to the back and swang to real jazz. Classy drinks Sinatra would have guzzled. We laughed like the bubbles of gin The Jefferson's would have danced to. You know what I mean? Sweet Bourbon with a sharp citrus zest in the gums, the finest of arts.

The next day was the same gravy. Slept until the sun woke us through the open windows. We had breakfast and meandered around the city hazy and smiling. What a scene for the sunday-primped pedestrians. Went back to David Hoyne's and took out the bicycles for a long ride to the lake, to show Alan Angus the depth of the city. He was drooling with awe, like a pita chip in front of a tub of hummus. Drooling. We rested at the edge of the lake, near the southern chin of the city, next to the museums, right out there on the grassy hill, gazing at the skyline as the golden sun began to dip behind the metallic silhouette of the skyscrapers.

Drove back home to the Willow residence and slept like narcotics reveling in the middle of a heroin fantasy. Stone still. The next day, a fine-toothed excuse for a day of work. You can't dig the dead man out of his grave. Even if it is just covered in day-old sleep.

"A Blind Man" by Jorge Luis Borges

I do not know what face is looking back
whenever I look at the face in the mirror;
I do not know what old face seeks its image
in silent and already weary anger.
Slow in my blindness, with my hand I feel
the contours of my face. A flash of light
gets through to me. I have made out your hair,
color of ash and at the same time, gold.
I say again that I have lost no more
than the inconsequential skin of things.
These wise words come from Milton, and are noble,
but then I think of letters and of roses.
I think, too, that if I could see my features,
I would know who I am, this precious afternoon.

HomeYears, 9.8.2011. afternoon

Loosened that stiffened neck tie, fought another squeeze with the harrowing balloon. Drove back home and popped a brew, watching the clouds swirl circular and menacing.

After my coffeehouse meeting, I hopped in my old '97 Jeep Grand Cherokee; fully stocked with rattling exhaust, broken stereo, and non-functional car-phone. Vehicular vestiges of the previous automotive era. Timeless. I cruised uptown with the windows down to meet Small Gun at his new apartment. He was late, as usual, so I got out and knocked on the wrong apartment door until I heard his heavy, buffalo-heeled-stomping down the spiral wooden staircase and he opened the door adjacent to the one I embarrassingly berated for the minute. We laughed and slap-hugged each other in the custom of our contemporary flat-headed frat-guzzlers. Hopped back in my car and hit Hollywood Diner near the highway. The food at these places is always as quick as it is greasy, but never disappointing. So we dined for a Hollywood hour. Which in Chicago time is roughly 20 minutes. Catch those facts, Smackie. We just diggin' 'em up, and knockin' em down. You know I got that old Tom Waits tune dancing through my mind, fingers of piano jazz and electric rhetoric. Drove back to his place, and left him snoozin' on the new beige couch. That brother will never get up.

Skipped out on the second interview today. Don't know why. Didn't have the courage, didn't have the interest. I don't think I could see myself becoming the guy I try to avoid on the street. I'm desperate for cash, but there are always other tunnels to the hidden gold.

I'm back home now. Laughin' at the old bloodshot moon in that burgundy sky...

HomeYears, 9.8.2011. morning

Last night, I thought I would get a good night's sleep. Felt like a Persian prince lying on the burgundy black panther suede couch, what a sultry ending to an evening as smooth as espresso. But I was way too toasted. Not sweating, just jonesin'. The windows on either side of the wall were open, I tried closing them, but they wouldn't budge, chips of white paint flaked off as I shoved my body and all its gravity floorward. No use. Make due what you are given, my son. The voice in my head has an arabic accent. Why? I'm not sure exactly. Probably because all the subverted years of parental scolding and hashish grinding have sunken so deep into my pores, they've absorbed into my bones, and leaked into my brain. The guy sounds like a 10 pound moustache. Regal. Absurd. So, it was several hours of tossing, rustling, reassembling the loosened blankets back around my body. I shivered like a leaf the whole night. I'm built like a bear, with enough body hair to donate to the entire neighborhood, but it doesn't keep me warm, I get colder than a sheared sheep the first week in September.

Anyway, I'm at the coffee shop, looking for a job, trying to write my way out of hopelessness. There is nothing so calming as a cup of coffee and the rhythmic tap of the clicking keyboard. They never play good music at the big coffee shops, always something loud and distracting. Give me some ThreeDogNight to clam up my morning brew, eh? Something I can groove too. I got an aching to dance in my seat and catch the eye of the cute girl sitting right next to me. I'll bob my head a little, she might think I'm really sensitive or cool or something like that. HA! Look at me! Doing my dreaming during the day! Wrong equinox, brother!

I've got about ten more minutes to send a letter to my dad in England, study the face of a pretty girl combing her hair outside, and read a few more pages of 'Portnoy's Complaint'. Such a great read. I recommend it. The clouds are closing in, close your car windows, commuters. I smell the impending rain over Chicago coupled with hotdog grease and car exhaust and it is beautiful. Beautifully salubrious.

A Good Day

Everybody has one of those days where they wake up and know everything is going to be infused with some kind of unexplainable magic. Well, yesterday I had one of those.
I woke up tangled up in my sheets, caught like a fish trying to escape my own netting. I fumbled for my glasses and slid them onto my face. The clock read 10:12. Not too bad for a Saturday. When I put my feet on the ground I could feel the dust and lint from the corners of my 60 square foot living space spiraling into my lungs as I inhaled. There was a pounding on the front door of the apartment. “Poosh za door! Poosh za door!” my elderly Polish landlady yelled in a cadence that I repeated to myself in a whisper, Poosh za door. Visitors. She always has guests over but I never see anyone else in the apartment, only hear their voices. Soon the clanging of pots, the rush of the faucet, and conversation saturated the hallway. On my windowsill a shade of golden sun lightened and darkened with the passing of the clouds. Kids were outside on the street, laughing. A semi-truck backed down 112th street, its loud beeping almost directly outside my window. I went into the bathroom to pull myself together for a day of anticipated productive work.
The bathroom is kiddy-corner to my bedroom door, so I have the most convenient access to the toiletries of my two other roommates. But the door doesn’t lock. And we’ve been out of toilet paper for the past three weeks. I’ve been using quilted paper towels that I hide in the cabinet below the sink. There is a skid mark on the inside of the toilet bowl that I am confident cannot be traced back to me. It’s been there for a while too. I laugh each time I look at it. The girl’s hair sits in clumps all over the floor. She leaves her long, brown, curled strands all over the place. It reminds me of my days doing maintenance as a Lifeguard at the local pool, cleaning the gutters. The guy’s shaving remnants are stuck to the insides of the sink bowl. And then there is my medium length hair scattered in between theirs. No use in trying to clean this mess up every time. I showered quickly, hoping that my landlady wouldn’t accidentally open the door during my drying off again.
In my room I played some music as I got dressed, deodorized, and doused myself with cologne. Breakfast was the usual cup of instant coffee and a quick slather of nutella onto a 10 second microwaved bun. I feasted on my delicates while I checked my email and did some scribbling in my notebook. After about an hour I left, wrapped in my long coat, scarf and hat, and escaped quickly out of the musty apartment without seeing a face.
I made my way north on Broadway to Columbia’s School of Journalism building, burying my head in the crook of my jacket. There is a café there that I am quite fond of. I ordered a fatty Italian sub on wheat. They know me here. They nod every time. After a quick sandwich inhalation in front of the silent TV screens in the dining area, I sauntered over to the main library and spent about a quarter of an hour looking for a place to sit. Another cup of coffee, a pile of books next to my computer and I remained unmoved from my seat for three hours. Then, I spent 20-minutes recovering, doing some stretches, some bathroom action, and wandering amidst the shelves and shelves of books. When I returned to my spot, I spent two more hours reading, typing, emailing, writing, and studying the behavior of other students.
After my ass had atrophied to an almost non-functional state, it seemed like a good time for dinner. Upper West Side Market is my choice venue. That night’s selection I went with the chicken parm, roasted potatoes, and Jerusalem salad. This specific meal is crucial to the maintenance of my happiness. I trudged back to my dingy apartment. The lights were all off except for the living room at the end of the hall. I remember the voices and the lights spilling from the television were comforting to come home to. Back in my room, I hunched over my food as I watched an episode of “The Office” on my computer. I laughed out loud the entire time, repeating lines to myself. A friend called, Pete, we talked for about 20 minutes before I jokingly scolded him for wasting my time. But really, I don’t have much time to spare. I changed, jumped in bed, and dived back into a book.
It is only until about an hour or so into reading that I start to realize what’s happening. It’s a small, insignificant passing of a thought, like the ripple a drop of water makes in a large lake. Today was a good day. I made it alive.

Hey Dexter, Feed Me The Empire Through This Glass Pipe

Danced my soul to pieces
In front of the ten foot speakers
At a free outdoor concert.
Never have I felt so alive
As I did unhygienic,
Trapped in between five thousand
Sweaty, insouciant college students.

One Spring

An older woman on the 4-hour bus to Boston,
(we shared a smoke back in Albany)
shrieks softly and scrambles to the bathroom
at the back of the bus, swelling with a damp red blush,
brushes by passengers through the tight aisle squeeze.
Shit and Marlboro as she passes.
Poor woman. Poor bus.

In the meantime...

Chill on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EGJuxe2c0M

ATTENTION FOLLOWERS!

I want to start using this blog more regularly. I am thinking about writing a novel and posting chapter installments on this. Any thoughts? Anybody even out there?! Or I am contemplating just posting some short pop-cultural critiques. Haven't completely decided. But a poetry trilogy debut is soon come out! I will update with details hopefully sooner than you can say 'bob's your uncle!'

Cheers,
cgs

looks like grass from here

the radio plays an oldie, a sweat and firework summer
hydrocodone behind the beer shack, kissing barefoot
leaving tracks like the veins of an addict, wallowed in the grass
i hear only water, feel only ground, dissolve like sand
in the swirling pit of this giant basin, i'm heavy.
I'm heavy like depression, weightless like a lie,
sharp as the corners of a word never removed
from a circular conversation, record-like, jazz
without the sax, swoons without the heat,
an empty note, like a three dollar bottle of wine.
yeah, heavy heavy. loose in arkansas,
down by the crooked crag shoreline.
awful entries, notebook stilettos,
city bimbo lipstick drags all teethmarks and smallpox
left her name on the worn out leather.

Starting the Kiln

soft sliver thread vertical and descending by the window, mother spider sought the storm from a chipped white paint perch, black clouds and swirling purpling wind, a violent violet hush shut up the forest before the rest of the birds could zoom back to whatever hiding place they've been keeping for years, ground is grumbling, earth is shaking, the place is filled with an immense darkness, something serene in the vast hollow, almost like space in the way it is void of life, emptied the whole acre with an exhale from the ice tipped mountains and now the mohican death dance begins with lightning and crashes, kitchen plate shattering romances, everything gone in a whisper, gravelike in the winter. its not spring, don't believe what you heard. it never will be again.

sorry that was awful. nobody reads this anyway, so it doesn't matter. all of it is really just mind slate. vomitus i can't keep cerebral. pain i can't medicate. sound that refuses to remain silent. but the last ladybug of the season keeps clinking against my lightbulb and wonder when she'll die, or burn the fuse, or call her gentle mantis to take her away give her a couple of larvae for purpose. accident. i would have said something more refined, but i cried the last of my intelligence into my sweater. sat sobbing for the blood of people i never knew and still i felt the metal split between my ribs. what they love is farce, what they breed is fear.

outside

in the wake of skeletal snow covered branches and streets slick with the frozen liquid, i've only got so much heat left in me before i wretch it all up out my weightless skull as i dance and fall into death beneath the avalanche of god running endless on wispy beard and brothers' blood, remember when eden was so quiet, the lions were perpetually stuffed and sleeping, we dangled by the river with our fingers in the water, reflections of reflections imbuing one beautiful and self-contained prism, but the sky has frozen into bricks and we pick the air like poisonous grapes, every bite filled with the metallic taste of blood crimson swishing in our mouths, all of it worthless no end something you can't break the letters that don;t speak only the guitar strings in summer than bring you back to the grass matted children patterns, nothing, nothing, the sound an echo now, the words only breath, useless. garbage.