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.