filthy jerry and the inefficacy of communication in light of rent hikes (27/30)

filthy jerry doesn't want to read your deep personal stories. he is too busy washing, trying to get clean from his own. there was a time when every wall he touched was pasted with pages from zines, church bulletins, bar napkins, weekly personals, photos of the sun. it was hardly sanitary, but he got his nickname for other reasons. the walls changed, collections grew and dropped and now there is nothing but paint. children run past him and try to put marbles in his hands. dogs try to lick his face. men without teeth put their hand on his shoulder so he can't walk away politely. filthy jerry is only polite half of the time, sometimes running between park trees, between closing bodegas and opening juice bars. he has heard it all and he has stopped listening, the visions of voices peeled off his walls everyday through his mind and the packed boxes; numbers remain the same but contents diminish. the men at the goodwill await his visit, every six, nine, twenty months. more mementos, the great idea he was trying to capture peeled, pieces of it in different states, or in his house, but far too heavy, soggy now. running from a chatty busdriver, he runs into someone with a cardboard sign. "free hugs." no thanks man, but I'll take the sign when you're done.

Keep That In the Laundromat, We Don't Need it Here (21/30)

you are safe here, in the donut shop after late breakfast in renton, lake washington blue, a solid seven hour sleep, after a thirteen hour day, seventeen if you count getting there and back. but you knew this would come, after tilting the filthy-but-comfortable couch over the wobbling railing, nearly knocking your landlord’s precious porchlight into the street, this huge, blackberry jelly donut, extra coffee with nowhere to be, and behind racks of maple bars is Jimmy yelling at a laughing woman to go get those punks who were talking shit, just line them up here, because you don’t talk shit in a donut shop, not to Jimmy.

Words Coult Not Suffice/Monsters Are Coming and You Want Tea/Good Vibes All Around (15/30)

1. That was a huge pterodactyl. Don’t worry about it. It was flying low like crashing airplanes, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. The National Guard is being mobilized. So let’s talk about something else. The weather—it is finally starting to feel like spring. The flowers are coming out, isn’t that nice? Thought I couldn’t see the sun today, beneath those wings. It was nice to get some shade, let’s think about that. Be positive. Good vibes. I think it’s headed for the daycare down on 42nd.
2. Please buy at the pharmacy:
Creams,
Ointments,
Pills,
Comb,
Dog treats (if they have them),
Energy drinks,
Shaving cream (not to be confused with other creams),
Garbage bags (I think?),
Nail file,
Mustache trimmer,
More ointments (you know),
Bottle opener,
Pills (the other type.)
Thanks! See you next week,__________

3. Tell me using only hand motions. Tell me using only eyelid battings. Tell me using only frankincense and myrrh. Tell me using the medium of dance. Tell me using only painstakingly prepared food, like a woman in an award-winning film. Too bad about my limited palette. Tell me using only the simple honesty of rock and roll, like a boy from a small town with an underappreciated music scene. What’s with the goofy clothes, though? Tell me using only tanned leather. Tell me using only instagram. Tell me using only polaroid. That fence could be anywhere. Why the hell is there a kfc cup on the ground? Why are all these pictures so blurry, and of cracked walls? Your urban decay is meaningless to me without a witty caption.
4. After all is said and done, it must be acknowledged that we could have done more to stop this, but no one wanted to be an asshole.

6/30 and 9/30

6/30: It Was Safer With Dialog Boxes
we make ceilings to hold the balloons in. the dialog balloons, thought bubbles, the Hmmms, and yeah rights, and we’ll sees, just hovering above our heads. walking our thoughts on a leash, hiding them in air vents, equal parts ownership and denial. We keep suggestion boxes by the office doors to store these bubbles, every meeting requires new balloons. but all the thought bubbles came untethered, floating at first around our heads, nudging the soft borders into dialog bubbles. afterwards, always a slack-jawed moment, a “I didn’t mean to say—“ “oh, I’ll bet you didn’t—“
was that a thought or a talk? we invented glue for these things, and propriety, and physical violence. with all these phrases floating around the building, freed from their people, so many things ended. marriages of convenience, friendships of duty, plans to open a novelty toothpick store. a few things started as well, mainly improv troupes.
At the end of the work day, when the glass doors open, they are smeared with confessions, fantasy draft picks, and complaints about architecture. The workers spill into the afternoon with nothing to say, thoughts all sucked into jet engines. The custodians at the building spend hours cleaning stray thoughts off the wall, receive pre-emptive sexual harrassment settlements.

9/30: Pained Architecture
he wanted everything to fit the shape of the diagrams he drew on a napkin in Subway at sandwich-closing time. he got the shapes from a dream he’d had after a six inch pepperoni-salami-bacon-combo, extra peppercinis, half-gallon of cola and a white-chocolate chip cookie.

there were falling cages, trap doors, and randomly placed swinging blades, but it was the doors he most intended on recreating; pencil-prisms of light and space; each room a new dimmension, galaxy, universe. light years away in your own house. every window a whirling vortex. each step an ‘80s dj scratch, a slide, a collapse-and-rebuild-and-takeoff. the corners, each would hold a world around it, the house both a maze and a meadow.

that, is impossible. we will build you a blue box, like the ones up the hill there, it will have solar power, and if you want, we’ll narrow the doors an inch on either side. the walls are thin so get earplugs for sleeping.

there were also winding staircases, a statue of a giant otter, and multi-colored walls. but he'd known better than to even ask.

Filthy Jerry and the Terrifying Truth About Love and Breakfast (5/30)

271 miles to Spokane, Washington, from Seattle. Filthy Jerry didn’t mind the distance, or the way that the sun curled it’s flaming fingers around his ears and face halfway there and started talking dirty in a huge, loud voice. What he minded was the unsanitary methods of the lone diner he stopped at in Quincy, Washington, whose primary export is despair. As the sun spread his dirty fire over cement and scrub-brush alike, it wasn’t inside that eggs were cooked. It was the pavement. No butter, even. Right there, parking spaces 4-7. You could only get the eggs scrambled, and bacon burnt. Grown farmers wept openly at the sight of chicken progeny, charred and crusty on their plate.
Filthy Jerry had known hopelessness-- in days and nights and hostel rooms wherein he got his nickname—but never had cement felt so much like glue, had the existence of sky seemed to mock everyone. There is no horizon to ride to when it is all horizon. His love was waiting somewhere inland, at a diner with stoves and people who would never dream of shedding tears. She would either propose to him there, he thought as miles of sameness rode towards him, or he’d find her there with a man who’d never been to Quincy.

all things return to the jack in the box parking lot (4/4/30)

benadryl and dayquil and on a good day, oxycontin
cheese and patty and on a good day, bacon

sky over the lake smeared with clouds
sign over dentist office’s barred windows swinging loose

crime watch posters above crumpled, unfilled DSHS forms
church barbeque posters above crumpled, unfinished portraits

here, where nothing can ever taste sharper, cheesier, fuller
here, where grease and meat clog and choke

wrappers down the street like tumbleweeds

The theory of april:

a poem a day? so behind already.

watch this space for updates.