dream of a dead bank robber

a dead bank robber is dying on the fourth floor of a hospital where good men go to say goodbye. he is delirious and hugging me, and it is difficult to understand what he's saying because the teeth are rotting out of his mouth. i start telling him over and over again:

"it's all okay, it's all okay..."

he calms some and becomes lucid. i leave him in the waiting room and begin to cry as i walk to a steel metal door on the back side of the building . i turn the handle and walk out onto the balcony. there is no railing, only a slab of concrete jutting out over the parking lot below. the door closes behind me, and only then do i realize that i do not have a key to get back inside.

the wise skunk saw...

the wise skunk saw young lovers sitting naked in the hot tub, looking up at the stars unending and silent, swimming in an ocean of fireflies. they spoke of collaboration and future collaborations, and each word traced an arc across the sky before disappearing back into the void... even with his glasses off, the wise skunk could see the Big Dipper overflowing in the sky above.

under the influence of Lloyd Dobler

i'm leaving for New England in a few hours, and unlike the last time, no juggling is involved. instead i'm preparing with a healthy dose of Bob Dylan, a mild helping of separation anxiety, and a pile of chapbooks i plan to pepper from Cambridge to Woodstock.

but this is beside the point.

the point is i plan to run an experiment while i'm away, deviating from my obsessive journaling routine, and embracing a more stream-of-conscious approach. i imagine it will be reminiscent of the method i employed on the subways and buses nearly a decade ago, squeezing in as much as i could between 181st Street and Columbus Circle.

i was looking through those journals this time last year, and they gave me a new appreciation for how forcefully my surroundings impact the thoughts i call my own. among the unfinished starts and random tangents, i found cryptic rants about consumerism, the final grapple with my own racism, and absurdist treatises on polyamory. all were written under the influence of Lloyd Dobler, and my youthful romanticism made me blind to the importance of time and timing, of place and placement.

the coming two weeks are an attempt to traverse these worlds and bridge the gap between lyricism and minutia... as ever.

tempting fate

it's been overcast all day, and i embarked upon a somewhat tedious project in an attempt to battle the ennui, scanning photographs of an art project i completed while moderately deranged one rainy Manhattan day in September 1999. there are no overhead lights in my living room, Elliott Smith was playing on the stereo, and i couldn't help but feel the moping teenage thrill of indiscretion and melancholia.

among the photos was a (self-)portrait of the artist as a young man, aged 22 years and covered in red paint, focusing a hand-me-down Canon into a reflection that refused to look back. this young man in the picture was one of the li(v)es, that day was one of the deaths, although i did not recognize or embrace it then.

the survival of the document is impressive, that of the artist likewise, but most astounding of all is the unflinching courage of mirrors as they bear witness, watching us stumble through the lives we leave behind.

(day after) Father's Day

[rabbit hole]

i peered inside myself, looking to recount the previous day, and saw instead the mouth of the void opening wide, half yawn, half laugh, all devouring, all beautiful, the death of self in a thousand sideways glances cast about in coffee shops on a Monday afternoon, day after Father's Day.

[genealogy]

i wonder about my father's father, drunken and dying and 53 years old in a hospital bed on the side of a mountain somewhere in North Carolina. i was two years old, and the only memory i can claim as my own was that of him feeding me chocolate cookies while i sat diapered on the arm of a cigar store Indian... a childhood spent listening to whispers in empty kitchens, constructing a romance of a man i never knew.

i wonder about my father, sober and broken hearted and 56 years old, watching his eldest son die in the passenger seat, driving up the side of that same mountain in North Carolina. he watched a stopped clock feign hypnagogia for 6 ½ years, biding his time, not knowing what to do, and crying to himself at night... two decades spent wishing he had it to do all over again.

[coda]

the wheel of karma spins neither quickly nor slowly, but it is relentless, one score and seven years. there are more lives than this one, and every life has more deaths than we can imagine. may we embrace them all.

MANicure

yesterday afternoon my yin took me for a manicure, and i was greeted by a nail technician named Cassandra. although she speaks no Spanish, she is prone to psychic translations of expletive utterances made to her co-workers. upon hearing this, i spoke (vaguely) of Trojan prophecy and the Apollonian curse of lovers scorned, but my own Cassandra was more interested in comparing our own mythologies.

i soon learned about her service in the first Gulf War, where she dug Kuwaiti sand pits and filled them with kerosene and human feces, a small stinky pyre polluting the arid desert winds. but this is beside the point.

the point is that she asked me if i had ever had a manicure before, to which i responded no. she looked me deep in the eyes and smiled.

"don't be scared. it's called a MANicure."

Gonzo, part deux

[re/cap]

i finished reading a biography of Hunter Thompson yesterday, about the sad final days of a man who crumbled under the weight of his legend. he spent thirty years spent trying to be the man he invented.

[re/flect]

do we not live sufficient fictions already? are we not born into a world of label and definition, of endless shifting forms on the cusp of the void? of staring into mirrors at night and grasping blades of grass in the morning when sun fractures the horizon? what is this compulsion to layer one deceit on top of another until it becomes impossible to remember who we truly are?

[re/turn]

last year ago, Saylor, Tarah, and i watched a documentary on Dr. Thompson, and i remember the melancholy i felt on the ride home. my Augusts seem to serve as requiem, and this book brought me to that place, the screaming nostalgia of hospital parking lot infidelity, the desperate rage of answering machines, and the asphyxiating love of the saddest girl in the world.

accidentally, i said,

i was asked today about this particular venue - the address, the name, the meaning of these letters placed next to one another and thrown into the void. accidentally, i said,

"it's an experiment, a laboratory, a workshop.

an endless attempt to answer the question,

a desperate endeavor to sever the enigma:

how do i construct these lies called life?"

recycling Cambridge

Jache called me yesterday from Allen Ginsberg's grave and left me a message, reading me the epitaph and wishing me a pleasant day. but this is beside the point.

the point is that this time last year, i was still oblivious to the imminent perils of border crossing bus stops, and:

(this redundancy,
repetition,
recyling
of life

into form
into life
into art
into life
into form

brings
closer my
understanding
the beauty of karma)

by the time my Mass Ave reunion arrived two days later it was gone, and so...

Cambridge is like... sparring with sparrows over scones as the girls from Radcliffe walk by, thinking about the ones that could have been the one and meeting comrades last seen eight years ago, day after Christmas, talking about miscarriage and apologies, the sea sickness of conference rooms missing horizontal reference.

Cambridge is like... fighting robots, designing computer chips in the key of E flat, and his sister still living at home, spaying cats eighty hours a week between bouts of drunkenness.

Cambridge is like... pink-haired sex ads perused by lesbians on trains, and midget junkies stranded by boyfriends, asking for a dollar.

Cambridge is like... the nostalgia of Harvard Square in December and the wistful wisdom of intuition, knowing it was too soon to say, too late to stay, the futility and frustration watching friends fall apart and post-parade confessions of wall-eyed strangers.

recycling Vermont

this time last year i was in New Hampshire, en route to Vermont, still oblivious to the imminent perils of border crossing bus stops. but this is beside the point.

the point is:

Vermont is like... fornicating Buddhas outside Woodstock and the drift of hot air balloons over the Quichee Gorge, gorging on pumpkin seeds in White River Junction.

Vermont is like... picking up hitchhikers holding park service hats for deposit in Burlington and angry bus station declarations by employees of Vermont Transit, downtown cafes with sad women, legs white from the long winter, the slow spring and cut glass eyes, blue as the ones I left behind.

Vermont is like... the sunset over Lake Champlain after a long day of writing and meditating, trips to the Hog Island market seeking hot chocolate and finding topsoil, six bags for ten dollars.

Vermont is like... sleeping windows open with 90 year old nightgowns under my pillow and dreams so crisp as Plattsburgh breezes across the water, learning about karma and the trembling Fear on the long ride back to Boston, still shaking, trying to breathe, sitting next to a middle age woman from Montreal with lust in my heart.

recycling Boston

this time last year i was in Boston, en route to Vermont, oblivious to the imminent perils of border crossing bus stops. the days that followed taught me many things, among them the tastiness of pumpkin seeds, and the importance of cutting broccoli lengthwise to prevent the onset of flatulence. but this is beside the point.

the point is:

Boston is like... waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the train to stop, transfers from green to orange and ice cream parlor experiments.

Boston is like... flirting in art galleries, trying to impress Stephanie Schneider with out of print paperbacks and vegetarian meals in Chinatown.

Boston is like... cannoli and cappuccino with a handful of Hanover holdovers sandwiched between the sandwich shops, guided through the North End by the social security Irish of Arch Street, and whispering confessions to St. Anthony about where the bodies are buried.

Boston is like... thronging south on Newbury Street in chic boutiques and sliding velvet walls, falling in love with girls on sofas, long talks with Mardou in the park, dodging weddings, and avoiding the marbled gaze in the courtyard shade of the library, longing for my pen.

last night was rife with displays of:

bulimia and masturbation
and poets typing under
wooded barrio streets.

i heard a vision: "two dollars a poem, two dollars a poem..."

and answered: "goggles, feet, and indeterminacy."

and the reply: "come back in ten minutes."

i spent twenty minutes walking from the clean well-lit world of the galleries into the Tom Waits rattle of tin cans on bars of the cell. i saw the Madness in the rouge, i felt the Fear in the baby carriage, i penned my own drunken verse with one eye closed and returned to the vision to barter:

he said: "your poem is done."

[insert poem by N___ V______]

and answered: "yours too."

glass bottom goggles

i saw

the feat of romance

in

the terminacy of marriage.

a(n late) afternoon at the beach

the most beautiful woman
lain naked
has places more lovely
than i shall ever see.

reflections on first four hours of waking

last night i dreamed in dots and nostalgias, friendships forgotten and severed, obliterated upon the trauma of waking. i drank water, i ate strawberries, i tried to chase away the taste of malaise with stevia and caffeine. i walked for the paper, i spoke to my father, i stared at the screen and typed away at a fiction of the woman i live with.

i called an autonomen (and left a message),
i sent an email to my sister (and Mardou),
i did all these things (parenthetically).

i played with form becasue i had nothing to say. i used words in lieu of the truth, and watched the letters appear from the void.

just because i could.

Woody Allen in reverse

three nights ago i was lying in bed, talking to my yin, elaborating on the importance of installing updates to her computer. mid-sentence i came to the startling realization that if you played a Woody Allen film in reverse, you would have us, the neurotic bespeckled Gentile blabbering about minutia while the beautiful Jew listens patiently, combing her fingers through her long blond hair, waiting for him to take off his glasses and shut off the light. but this is beside the point.

the point is that the chapbook is nearly finished, and Saylor is hard at work on the final illustration. Jache comes over tomorrow for one final edit, and i taped together a couple of gallery copies yesterday morning in the floor. this project has nearly come to fruition, and yesterday afternoon Saylor and i brainstormed through the timeframe for the volumes to follow. details to follow, as ever.

odontophobia

i just made a dentist's appointment for next Tuesday, and there is nothing remarkable about this expect that i have not been to the dentist since Clinton was in office. the first term. thankfully, the intervening years have been without dental incident - no toothaches, no (known) cavities, no impacted wisdom teeth.

i credit a childhood obsession with milk for being able to go this long, but i suspect that some of the wisdom promised by those final four teeth is finally making its way into my head. i don't know what to expect, but the nice woman with the British accent promised there would be x-rays and hundreds of dollars involved. but this is beside the point.

the point is that two years ago i was stuck in limbo, somewhere in the Appalachians. i was waiting on a very important phone call from a woman i did not know, acting under the instruction of a man (perhaps even The Man) i knew even less. i paced around my father's home and rode the backroads, hoping to find some respite from the wondering in my wandering. i drank good cups of coffee in the morning, and bad cups of coffee in the afternoon, and by the time all the coffee drinking was done the phone call finally arrived.

i booked the next flight home.

the waiting room

i woke at 5:30am from a dream of a waiting room that was not the waiting room for what i once waited for. in the waiting room was: one long brown table, no windows, and a single wooden chair. on top of the table was my wallet, and although i did not remember losing it, i was grateful to find it. the cash was still there, the quote from Martha Graham was taped inside, and i left the room out into the pouring rain, knowing that the waiting was over. but this waiting room was not that waiting room, and herein lies the point:

i once waited for that waiting room at 6am on cold December mornings with a full bladder and a broken leather jacket with the seams falling apart. i once waited for that waiting room wearing a toboggan (see definition #3) and driving a half ton dump truck, impatiently waiting for the heater to kick in. i once waited for that waiting room with a woman i met on a cold night in north Florida, when i tried to escape my dharma.

quiche v. inertia

sometimes it's hard to know if i don't feel like writing, or if i don't know what i want to say. i have thoughts of St Pete (one year ago), New England (in three weeks), and David Lynch (momentarily). it seems something wants to be said, and yet i find myself empty-mouthed and limp-fingered. the smell of quiche is in the air, and although i'm certain it will be delicious, the idea of egg pie still repulses me. but this is beside the point.

the point is that we have brunch guests arriving in thirteen minutes, and there is a table that needs setting...

(me+technology)/manicure

i just bought a new computer monitor, and i am presently learning the joys of dual displays. my faith in technology has been somewhat restored after yesterday afternoon's fiasco, when i tried to convince Adobe that i wasn't as dumb as it thought i was.

apparently i was wrong, however, and today i found some measure of satisfaction when my new gizmo worked as soon as i plugged it in -
no drivers, no installation, no futzing, no tutorials, no nothing.
(as opposed to the Know Nothings).
but this is beside the point.

the point is that my yin is in the bedroom, and she just called out that we have a manicure appointment in less than two weeks. i'm really not certain what a manicure entails, but i suppose this development is ultimately of my own making, attributable to my decision to stop biting my nails several months ago.

after devoting more than two decades of my life to the vile habit, i had long since given up hope of ever keeping my filthy fingers out of my mouth. then, one day on the way to eat Indian food with a meditating rabbinical psychotherapist, a friend of mine asked,
"can your fingers look like mine in two months?"

i looked at his hands, unbitten and chaste.
"what, you mean stop biting my nails?"

"no, don't stop doing anything. just make them look like mine."

six weeks later, the nail biting was over.
five months after that, the manicures began.

Facebook, the morning after

i woke
hungover
from dancing
the slit wrist limbo
the night before.

{dis}

i have friends now,
i am networked,
i am himsa,
i am pukingsick
looking at computer screens,
grumpy and undercaffeinated,
different from the year before.

{jointed}

nothing has changed,
nothing remains the same.

you did what?

my resolve crumbled today under the weight of transcontinental badgering, and i now have a social networking account. in spite of all outward appearances, i do not believe in such media, but the incontrovertibility of the facts aligned against me supersedes all previous proclamations, protestations, and pronouncements. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i have written only one letter

"To Whom It May Concern"

today, and this time the concerned party is the court system of Florida. a friend's inattentiveness to a minor traffic matter has resulted in a warrant being issued for his arrest, and i just handed him a (well-crafted) letter that i hope will assist him in his efforts to avoid a minor case of incarceration.

i'm feeling a little bit like Perry Mason, and it has left me rambling about, mingling jurisprudence with ignorance, cursing my sluggish internet connection, and trying to ignore the incessant drilling noise from the upstairs apartment.

"chuck me in to shallow water before i get too deep."

an unexpected (much appreciated) check arrived in the mail today, and i had cause to consider the nature of karma earlier this evening. two ideas, both stained by a childhood babysitter's media habits, came to mind:

1st
a vision of karma as the vertical wheel on The Price is Right, with each contestant attempting to muscle it around... "come on big wheel, come on big wheel..." spinning harder and harder, trying to land on that elusive dollar sandwiched between those measly green five and fifteen cent squares.

2nd
The Wheel of Fortune, that immaculate horizontal karmic wheel, spinning so delicate, each white peg slowly cutting into the momentum... but even in the colored whirl of expectation, you can always feel the black wedge of "bankrupt" looming. in its empty reflection you can see the fading beauty of Vanna, the impending mortality of Sajak.

i do not know what these totems mean, but that unexpected (much appreciated) check meant more to me than yesterday's Chapter 11, and it is a privilege to live in the age of a dying empire.

words not to use (re: last night)

a year ago (today) i met with Saylor about creating a chapbook. after he explained to me what it was, we set about brainstorming ideas for a series of poems i had written about an American girl with a Czech surname (who got away) and a Russian girl who's never been in love (except with an older woman).

many conversations followed, and the single, bizarre layout i initially envisioned morphed into a double volume of poem cycles. over the course of that time the American girl moved across the country (and grew closer). the Russian girl moved two towns closer (and grew further away). but all this is beside the point.

the point is that tomorrow i meet with Jache to administer the coup de grâce, and by summer's end the project will be in print.