I have been writing poetry again…In other news I saw Beck for free at the Launchpad, and extremley small venue. I was about 8 feet from him. He is a slight man, but still knows how to put on a good show. It was like watching him front a funk cover band. Very enjoyable. Here are some poems (Keep in Mind they are NEVER finished):

The Church

Mouths are too happy to receive a drink
From bar to hand, to bottle to air,
To cup to mouth, for a familiar warm sting
Of alcohol; consumed for shelter
From what rational thought will do at tables
Full of cautious bodies slamming

Drinks in themselves and from the floor an audible slam
On a drum kit as the musicians ask for drinks.
The patrons look up from their crude tables,
Their mouths gape open for air
From under the door to the establishment/shelter
As it protects them from the wind-sting.

Some kind of anxious yearning sting
Forces patrons to this place as they slam
The door behind them and into the shelter.
Patrons are congregated to drink.
Not the blood of Christ but a similar heir
Of a different crown written on a tablet

Made of the establishment’s tables,
Etched into the wood as a stinging
Reminder of why they come to air
Their woes, or promises, or sins of nights seemingly slammed
Past them, and their lips, to drinks
As they mutter for some words of shelter.

The liquid promises shelter
As tired slumped shapes lean on tables.
Now they have had too much to drink;
Patrons’ once empty, now liquid filled stinging
Stomachs, clutching the alt(b)ar as slamming
Thoughts lurch through patrons’ air-space.

Those being that there is not shelter from stinging comments slung
From the smeared mouths of other patrons’ tables, hurdling, slamming, and crashing
Against the drink glasses toppling every bit of honesty out into the air to remain evaporating.

Arena

Mouths are locked with eachother
Saliva forms a crude adhesive
Around the edges of their smiles
That have become tangled with eachother
They seem to be fighting a battle
That’s hard to deter(under)mine;
To be free or stay locked
In this grotesque embrace of human
Affection
Effection
Infection

Directions to the bar
There are only two streets
We don’t dare venture to the
The the routes parallel or perpendicular
To stray is to be unfaithful
(Be)coming unfaithful is sacrilege
We could not accept another
Church or congregation into our
Small and Selfish human
Cask
Mask
(A)Lax

Flask is peeking with its
Shining metal cap out from
About the back pocket of
Sweat drenched jeans covering the
Shelf of that girls ass
It’s too late, she saw you
Perhaps she will fight
With your mouth later during
A session of false
Intimacy
Delicacy
Tenacity

(In) mass we
Go
Congregate
And eventually fade
Into the smokey arena

Grey Matter

I
i saw the
remains of a baby
bird grey
and splayed on
the frying side
walk
its head and wing
still partially in
tact the rest
of its bones
on display for
walkers and i
am sure that
some greedy house
cat killed it
and left it
for his master to
see only misplacing
it for me
and any one else
that happens
to look at the ground
while on a walk
maybe it fell

like the rain
did today
like some kind
of eastern blown
philadelphian storm clouds
that i got caught
in on a different walk
but i still
had that image in
my mind
yet now
the skeletal remains
would be washed
away from concrete
small bones
dry guts
re hydrated and
washed away
like so many
memories of spies

in this town
the walls have
eyes and ears
and limbs
that stretch to
reach with maimed
and incomplete
parts to steal
your breath like

the cat that
left the bird
who fell from its
nest into the
rain of a years
worth of a sky
holding its
bladder

II
put on a persona
exaggerated or retracted
made in the negative
or obscenely in the black
red
b(l)ackwards and forwards
pacing with feet on
unfinished wood flooring
long ago lost its sheen
dull
mean faces made and lost
in shadows of brows
overhead lighting fixtures
transfiguring gross
partial
Morose fornication with
some kind of ego
flirtation device
the organics long lost
found
costly art of conversation
some kind of cocktail
salon including miniature
meatballs slathered in
out
of a rounded doorway
into torrential
philadelphian rain
just to seek you
me
through this farce
of a city gorging
with spies repelling
from spanish tiles down
up
from the hard roach
city sewers come
reptilian urges and
broken exoskeletal remains

Some interesting night Pictures:

I went to a ghost town, smeared some mud on my face and took some pictures:


enjoy the whole set here: Ghost Town

Last night I could feel the cold air sweep across my arms. The top was down in a white 13 year old Lebaron with burgundy and white vinyl interior. Even though the car was built in 1993 it still felt like I had been transported back to 1986. I was feeling old. Certainly too old to be a part of whatever scene I have suddenly found myself in. Popularity is an annoying novelty to me. I find it to be strenuous and tedious. The monotony of going out the nights to the certain places that those people expect you to be just because that’s where they congregate. The bar has become a church. We go in mass hoping to find salvation from ourselves and the other vultures on the dance floor. But it’s just that, a meat market masquerading as a bar with tacky things hung on the walls. Things that are supposed to give you some kind of mariner feel but just come off as Red Lobster. I found myself staring at one particular curio through the smoke. It was a piece of art, if you could call it that. I believe that it was painted or I am sure it could also be made out of velvet. It was of an old weathered seaman done up in shadows with a pipe and a yellow hat. I suppose it was raining in his world. But he just stood there nonchalantly on the wall looking out at the chaos. His pipe hanging out of his mouth like an after thought. He certainly wasn’t thinking about how a girls’ boyfriend spilt beer all over her exposed feet. He wasn’t thinking about the kids being violent on the dance floor, pushing each other around to the bands set they had all seen and completely memorized. I wanted to be transposed into the painting with him. On the stormy sea and trying to avoid sea monsters, but then I realized that was what I was trying to do anyway. The waves of people crowding looking for their drinks and someone to bring home or somewhere to go afterwards. Some of them are lurking in the shadows of cigarette smoke, bodies, and booths. It’s hard to pick them out, but they are there. They could look like anything, their real intentions buried under skins of polo shirts, mini skirts, black uniforms, tight jeans, hats, and bad hair cuts. So seeing all of this I felt an itch underneath my own skin. To leave or become violent. I chose the later. Beating random people up on the dance floor and even feeling too old to do that. We did leave though. The quartet that I had arrived with decided to amble back to the Lebaron. I didn’t have a chance to put my sweatshirt on so my arms and chest were exposed the night desert air. She put the top down and I suddenly felt it. The old crept up on me like that air. It swiftly wrapped my body within its wisps of oxygen. I could make out some stars when I laid my head back. Some of them I am sure are dead. I have read that. We still see their light and that’s what I want for this sheaf of work that I have laid out. Dead, old, mortal, but still visible.

This is a Sestina

Pilgrims

A city stranded in the middle
Of a vast carnivorous desert;
Not an oasis, rather a lazy
Mirage of the wild west
Sprawling out to the mountains
And populated by dirty faced pilgrims.

They seek others that have made the pilgrimage
Like themselves now trapped in the middle
Of the city and the mountains,
Of them and the desert,
For someone(thing) had whispered the west
Has promises for you: the lazy.

An oasis for the reluctant(ly) lazy
Calls as manifest destiny for so many pilgrims
Who have come for a western
Lie that got buried in the middle
Of their true hearts much like the city in the desert,
Dead volcanoes, cacti, indian paintbrushes, stone, and mountains.

Perhaps before arrival ideals were mountainous.
Now heat has blistered their mouths into a lazy
Wordless speech and silent like the desert
Still calling beguilingly out to the pilgrims
And all the others who drift with them in the middle
Of the muddy Rio grande and beyond, westward…

The vast and barren American western
Dream(lie) contains expanse grasping at the mountains.
They are trapped in the middle
Of becoming fruitful or lazy.
As if it’s really a choice for those poor pilgrims
Who have traversed the arid desert

Only to find something harsh in that desert
Left behind by the desperadoes of the west;
Their ghosts haunt the pilgrims
Who only wanted to see the mountains
And never really meant to become lazy
Versions of themselves or someone else in the middle.

They have come to the desert in flight (of fancy) to land before the mountains
To populate an otherwise barren west with lazy
Skeletons and corpses of pilgrims trapped in the middle of the heat.

I haven’t watched the show in years but this is a fun way to take up about 20 mintues.

Click here to build your own Custom South Park

The other day at Jess K’s birthday party there was a pinata involved. I won a garden gnome and a little composition book. As a result I have been carrying the book everywhere. I would like to share something that I wrote in it:

we stand as observers on the fringe–occasionally entwining ourselves in the dance of humanity only to quickly retreat again and again into our minds; when this happens we are accused of not listening or not being “here”, but we are–painfully so–we just wish we could extract ourselves–perhaps the best trick would be the power to become invisible at will–appearing–reappearing when necessary for human contact. I wish for this–heartily pray for it day after day. But I am not superhuman–just subhuman or whatever is below that or below that–doing a dance to look like i am here or there.

I am not a very political person. More and more I hear about our country’s men and women coming back from Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The NY Times magazine devoted and article to it and I just saw this on Post Secret:

I pray for those men and women everyday now. I never want to feel the level of fear that this person is describing.

Belle and Sebastian have released a new album called The Life Pursuit. It is pretty much back to basics for this band. It seems that after Dear Catastrophe Waitress (what I consider one of their best) they have decided to give fans what they want, but not exactly what I would have wanted from them. The Life Pursuit sounds a lot like previous albums such as The Boy With the Arab Strap, Tigermilk, and If You’re Feeling Sinister. They are doing what they do best here which is to be a 60’s pop band. All of the tracks are fairly short and there are harmonies and chorus parts aplenty.

I enjoy The Life Pursuit though I don’t think it’s very brave for them. Dear Catastrophe Waitress wasn’t very well received by hardcore B and SB (as my old acquaintance Choggy would refer to them) fans. They weren’t used to something so well produced and put together. Some gems off of this album are White Collar Boy in which there are some excellent vocals laid down (especially the end), The Blues are Still Blue is also really interesting as far as vocals are concerned, and Sukie in the Graveyard. We Are the Sleepyheads is a pretty daring track as far as this album is concerned. What they have done here is what they do best; combine somewhat depressing lyrics with a really happy sounding song, unfourtantly I don’t really feel that way about the rest of the songs on the album. I really enjoy this track for its weirdness and fast pace. Dress Up in You and The Act of the Apostle II are really powerful at evoking emotion.

I think that anyone who has enjoyed this band as long as I have will like The Life Pursuit. It’s a well put together pop album and is what anyone who is familiar with them would expect. Compared with the rest of their work it’s definitely not their strongest as far as lyrics and music are concerned but it’s a nice little listen.

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Belle and Sebastian
The Life Pursuit
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