#29: Merman

There is no use for tenacles on a community college campus. The muscles for walking and muscles for swimming are unique to their elements and suction only goes too far. The day I sprouted four had also been the day I donned my three piece suit for an interview with the dean about possible improvements to the enrollment structure. I couldn't walk anywhere, just flail at passing students, three of whom thought they were doing a favor when they tossed me in the campus fountain, just starting to fill for spring.
But my lungs hadn't gone fishy, my skin wasn't scales, my thirst remained untouched. Obviously, I missed the meeting and my suit was ruined. There'd be no promotion in my future, no raise, no commendations or plaques. Some people started crumbling up crackers and dropping them on my face as the suit tore and night fell and it inevitably started to rain. That was so stupid. Crackers are for goldfish, get it right, I yelled, shocked at the pride I had in my new traits. I tried to dial my phone, but it was ruined, tried to beat people away, but even with flailing I wasn't too good. These were brand new and I didn't know how to use them yet.

#27 & 28: Problematic Ally/Problematic/Problems.

Because I can only sustain the anger indefinitely
after a few whiskies, and
that's such a cowboy thing to drink,
and the anger gets indiscriminatory,
criticisms unconstructive,
the swears start flowing ripe
and even sober
I'll always think 99 problems
is a pretty good song.

* * *
I did not want to get gin-shitty
at the family restaurant
on a sunday afternoon
and flirt then apologize
then flirt
with the bartender

but there are no proper bars near
this train station, I have seen all the movies
and I'm terrified what would happen
if I went home and got online.

* * *
Tamales. Across the street.
I want one, but am so full.

The Special Session is in special session,
a little more time to fix the state's problems,
and I will not watch The Wire, despite
my second of two housemates' insistence
because who has the time

when the other stuff I want is mainly
to be twenty pounds lighter,
a couple grand richer
and trains
to anywhere in the city.

#24 is in the back of a notebook, at the bottom of a bag. #25 didn't happen. #26: There Is No Right To Privacy in this System

each click,
dash,
space,
full stop.

each name, number, initial, monetary amount.
shot
through
open
sourced.

now we are being completely honest. now we are being truly vulnerable.
now we are returned to sender. now we are pinging back. now we
are the thought in the lobe, traveling to the other side of the mind
via brain rail. no we are a flat bed truck carrying fruits and jewelry
open to the wind and pickpocketing monkeys. now we are the swimming
pool for everyone to dive into.

each angry tap,
each key,
each address change,
each medical condition,
real or imagined,
scattered,
dis-s
seminated
and you just clicked okay.

#23: A Clean, Well Lit Place

After the takeover I felt far less hostile,
arranged my goldfish by seniority
along the edges of the windowsill,
sprung for the gourmet fish flakes.

Put on a soothing Whale Songs ep,
and cracked every single one of
my toes. To win, I'll begin my memoir--
tomorrow-- requires a certain clenching

of one's balls. Tough, when one has
Balls of Steel, but that brings me to my
Second Magnificent Feature: ingenuity.
These words came to me in the bath

the day before the Swordfish Scandal
and the leverage it provided the company,
I'd always been a company man. It is
a cold swing in a dark golf course what happened next

--let's just say there weren't many stops for
tea and it took all eight of my magnificent features
not to cave at the inquiry, not to drown in Drug River
and not to show mercy when The Office At the End

became the Hall of Swords. In retrospect,
maybe the Purge of Fire wasn't entirely necessary
and the tension in my elbows seems to be permanent.
This room is quiet, but I need my music to drown

the sort of bubbling gasps I keep on hearing.
Still, now, I have plenty of time to write
and even the mistresses are terrified to enter
so I hope someone buys this book.

#22: A Stenographer Describes A Witness Using Only The Margins of Her Freshman Composition Notebook

Hammered out of sleep or lack
Hammered out of tire gravel
Hammered out of sprained ribs
Hammered out of new cartoons

Struck from the record for insolence
Struck from the record for rambling
Struck from the record for irrelevance
Struck from the record for pomposity

Worn and drawn from smokey oak
Worn and drawn from his father's cloth
Worn and drawn from coughed jokes
Worn and drawn from catastrophe waffles

Recorded for posterity
Recorded for tweny bucks an hour
Recorded for an archivist's morning
Recorded for fun

Sliding out of the stand like a snake toward an apple
Sliding out of the stand like brick upon oiled brick
Sliding out of the stand for lack of coordination
Sliding out of the stand like dissipating clouds
puffed through all this woodwork, dissappearing up
his own words, freefalling, freefalalalalaing, this
won't be the last he sees a courtroom door.

#20: No Room For Interpretive Dance

Room For: THE END OF THE GOAT
Co ORGANIZERS COCK
COCK
COCK
COCK
A SLINKY LITTLE DRESS
A FAMILIAR COUNCIL, TIRED BUT AMAZING IN THEIR WONDERWOMAN COSTUMES TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT BUDGET SHORTFALLS OVER DONUTS. STRAWBERY ONES.

(a man on a train, filling a crossword)

POETS REGRETTING IT ALREADY
THE BEAST__ RIDE IT___ IT'S ONLY A YAK. DON'T BE SAD. EVERYONE LOVES YAKS.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR DEGREE!!!!
DOCTOR NOISE HAS COLLAPSED IN YOUR ROOM AND DOESN'T WANT YOU TO WAKE HIM UP UNTIL THERE ARE HOT NOISE BAND CHICKS IN HIS ROOM WEARING ONLY ELECTRICAL TAPE.

(there are no such things as hot noise band chicks.)

(they prefer to be known as burlesque dancers)

FUCK FUCK FUCK

THE SHOWER HAS BROKEN. THE MEXICAN FOOD PLACES ARE SILL PEN WE MUST GO WHEN DRUNK THIS IS CHICAGO AND WE LOVE BEANS. DEAMONSEED. WHAT?

A MAN COMPLIMENTS THE HORN SECTION WHILE WE PRETEND
THAT THIS IS SEATTLE AND NO OLD PEOPLE ARE SAD OR GET DRUNK.

FEET FEET FEET> FUCKING> TEN PEOPLE IN AN ELEVATOR---

#19: New Danger Activities

When I wake up four hours later,
two hours earlier,
they've caught the bomber,
shot another, and east coasters are once again
let outside.

In Texas, they aren't sure who's fault
it is, "complicated" gets slapped around
like a hockey puck.

in the four hours without
wiring, I stared at the pulled
shades of an airplane
as sudden altitude drops
sent fingers to armrests,
flight attendant's spread-on smiles
clicked into place.

I swear the lights went out at
least once, but maybe I was dreaming.

Three days ago, eating a style-of-pizza
in it's city of origin, I was more worried
about waking up in a shooting gallery,
oversleeping a stop, losing my girlfriend
in the snakes and ladders of looped buildings
or being frozen in place by sudden blasts of snow.

At Least They Got The Guy, the new headline,
makes sense, I'll take it, what else can I?
put my life's temporary
break in a nostalgia file for later,
get back on the checks that need writing, the grins.

At some point in all of this
I failed conciousness duties by relying soley
on print media,

five days ago, getting packed, wondering what the trip would do to me.
how the bits and pieces alter, the imprints of place grow new chunks
of muscle. the where to goes.
running was the least of my concerns.

I've been writing throughout my trip to Chicago, but it's all handwritten and will take a few to get posted up here. 

#14: Mean Grill. #15: Pilsen Day One

meangrill fried-- monster breath intakes-- train squeals-- sobs-- red curtains green-- candles-- old hugs-- loud joke-- glasses-- tired hotdog-- kale jokes now-- wise beards bristle-- pinot shakes-- bartender metal-- we-- return-- don't laugh-- green-- last-- mill-- poem-- we remember-- wide mirrors-- divided by street-- we arrive-- use as segue-- we started-- nothing-- put-- in a trap-- dumb song loud-- trap set what?-- the the the-- new old new-- stools stacked jazz-- a trinity-- we-- fried bits of liquor-- who? -- wordswordswordswordswords

Pilsen Day One The three mannequins forming an alternate
internal skyline.
the one with blue hair, no pants,
one with
rainbow tits, no head,
one with a
monkey head, offsetting serious architecture.
Speakers. Bookshelves. Gloved marimba.

A German Shepherd bounds
down outdoor stairs.
We talk and talk and talk
and get tacos. That fall
all over our clothes.

After the library, a line at the triangle light.
Harrison Ford is filming a chase scene.
No one can cross.

Crooked crooked sidewalk cracks.

#13: Morning You Leave Drinking Game

Mind Spiders. Trotskyism in the third degree, as experienced by those still learning to read. Cold coffee.

Anticipating illness like crazy, like being crazy, like not knowing whether you'll need headphones. We must always be entertained.

A history of labor to bear up on shoulders you fly with. Wings. Which books should I take? That one requires shots.

The way that doing dishes suddenly becomes very important in the face of unpacked pants.
The way that replying to an e-mail from weeks ago is now a priority.

Perhaps this is the week of the friend cull. A history you have a week to experience.
A week to make history.

Perhaps just a few sips of beer for that. And for every time you wonder aloud just how much reading you'll do on this trip, you hate the thought of going somewhere unbooked, but how much do you do at home? Aren't you leaving because it's supposed to be more interesting?

Security check passport rigamarole.

#10 Didn't happen, ironically, because I was reading poetry to people. #11: Sleep Becomes an Entity

Like trying to get a cat into a travel kennel.

Like a two year old running after a remote controlled car.

Like a basketball rolling off the court.

There are drugs, there are songs, there are movies

that are supposed to help, like watching the ceiling drip

down onto a molding pillowcase.

Like mouthing the words to a speech.

Like grounding a paper airplane.

Like unpopping popcorn.

You want to wrap it in bubble wrap and push it
out a window. You want to rock it gently

in a giant recliner. You want to smother it

with a metal teddy bear. 

There are folk remedies, mantras, prayers

that are supposed to help. But really,

you are chasing it down the hall, breathing heavy,
as it ducks and dodges and shrieks away from you,

and you, dead eyed, singular, keep charging, 

brandishing your knife.

#9: Zoned For Concrete

Swing low, sweet crane
in spirit and truth, sci-fi named.

Bring the machines, the last two years
they've pushed so much dirt.

Hollow out the city,
fill it with rubble,
pound that into paste.

I'll recall days under the bridge, watching out
keeping my hood tight to my hair, soaked
through to my socks. I'll recall the
eyesores replaced with eyesores.

I will not try to stop you,
growth or death, growth or death

but will tell the stories to my sons
of the growth and death of corners.

#7 was posted and then redacted for personal reasons. #8: Let Us Mourn the Passing

(I utilize a Liars song title in this repetition)
A strip mall
                            the dumb in the rain
ten minutes in soggy
                                                   run quicker than
shoes don't care
                                                                            several scared cheetahs.
who you are.


A skinned cat
                                                      more than one way.
A shelled turtle.      
                                                      to rock.
A principled stand in the age of compromise.
                                                      to rise headily like

a
balloon                               made of cheetah pelts.
a
dictator                               made of poor man corpses.
a
nation                                 mourns its symbolics.

Ten minutes soggy
                                            the dumb in the rain
cheeks in the crowd
                                            a recovery! a recovery.
turn toward home
                                            a line at the crosswalk.

A large swaggering man, knowing the value of
turtle shells                    a well placed phrase                    balloons.
hot air
a strip mall to the poor man's corpse.

leave it to crumble
                                                       the dumb in the rain
or it will always be with us
                                                       in their tattering shoes
boots, these boots are leather, they
know who you are.

#6 Gershwin. I said Gershwin, Dammit.

Goddamn you, Train Nap, all the waking up I did or didn't,
or tried to do, what. It's been easy and uneasy all day
and the pianos I'm dragging behind me have started playing
Aaron Copland melodies like I'm supposed to want to fuck
a field and give birth to a farm, fed only on Mrs. McCready's
afterchurch biscuits.

Goddamn you, Train Nap, like a penny on the tracks,
like a spit in the eye of a deaf librarian. Like a falling balloon,
like a speedboat. No one knows how to steer speedboats,
there are only the lucky ones and the unlucky ones,
it doesn't matter, your license. I am sent now, waving up
on the beaches and children, careening into worker's housing
while the giant soar of americana tries to raise
it's prohibition toast to normalcy and goodness, without
ever defining the terms. There's something lurking behind
the mayor, but I can't see it; I just keep rubbing my eyes.

#5 A Tool Breaks Its Promise

You tricked me, leafblower, out amongst
the lawns, admiring my own arms for

their usefulness, peeled bark, owned houses,
guidelines toward mulch. I wanted you

to be the wind, harnessed, finally, I wanted
you to make me God. But like the firehose

or blender or hangglider before you, this is a
clumsy toy, a dignity steal for men in buttoned

shirts even on their day off. Listen: my home
is my castle and the lawn is my moat and the

leaves, they are alligators, even in the fall.
You've punchlined me, set me to the neighborhood

council in apology rags, contrition tie, shame loafers.
I drive back, my savnat malfunctioning, Joe,

over there, on his riding mower, grinning,
near asleep in his beer.

#4 Parks and

After a year and change in Rainier Beach, I'd still not gone to Kubota Gardens,
three and a half plus in the South End and not seen some crowning jewels.
So I told myself I wouldn't miss out, living right on the Cheasty Greenspace,
take my feet up and sit on logs above moss looking like it was designed
for Kermit, establishing shots of the idyllic. The drip of dew and scampering
of squirrels.
In Hitts Hill, things are too secret for the idyllic, a park
I'd not known about until a lunch break trot with Greg,
a park where Jason, mason jars full of rum, led
an orchestra of shouts until our lighters burnt out. So green,
so similar, but the ease of daytime walks
depends so much on context.

#3 Take Care, Sincerely, All the Best.

Take care when crossing the street not
to be run over by the stampeding hippos
let out by the fired zookeeper in one last
act of vengeance against the shrinking animal budget,
no time for larger cages, only endless
lemur apartments, meerkat holes,
while the elephants and grizzlies
were set afire for a host of incoming
green space.

Take care when dodging the eagles
swooping down, they haven't had fish
for days and you live in Seattle, you'll
always smell a bit like cod, you only
wish it were Salmon, get over yourself.
The real take at city hall was that too
many laughing children offset prime-view
prices, so they beheaded several ostritches
and sold their fried bodies on hoagies
from repossessed trailers.

Take care of your knees and elbows this
summer, as reports have ten orangutans
swinging directly toward you,
rumors are they're infected. Probably just
a cold, you know, the rain, hahaha,
but seriously, save your tarzanning for
the gondola ride, get out the smelling salts
and remember banana-based diversions
only work on chimps.

Take this elbow grease. Keep your most wrinkly
parts smoothed and savvy. Take this muscle relaxant
and helmet for your skate down the hill. Take
a minute to think of your family, and what would
have happened if they'd agreed to meet you
for brunch in the path of charging rhinos. Circumstance
is a speeding warning when you expected
the baton. Take your jelly legs to a bench,
and take the next bus out of here. This place
has become a real shithole since the Zoo burned
down and all the families were eaten
by tigers.

#2: Serenity Wow

In the psychic healer's waiting room
an ashtray full of colored rocks,
glowing for the alien landing,
as I chew the gum with the biggest bubbles,
big enough to float me away through
sawdust clouds, but don't blow yet
as there is no wind.

a half wall of motivational posters,
some parody, all cat-themed.
as I wait for someone to take my brain
and work it into a fine paste for
a model stucco city of rubbermaid models
the rocks shake and chatter and
I swallow my gum.

it was only the vacuumer, listening to
Metallica on headphones larger than hubcaps
inspiration peeling off the walls,
trailing weakened tape. Fumbling
for more, I watch the trailer walls
fall out into the rented yard of barking dogs.
Will they see me? This is taking forever.

April 1st, 2013 (Napowriyolo#1) Pogopogopogopogo

The fiends! Normally I wouldn't go out in a rainstorm without my foil helmet but drastic times, measures. They were running down the block with my giant plastic santa claus-- the one I got for the halloween party-- and I had no choice but to mount my pogostick and hop after them. There were lightning crashes. There were thunder strikes. There were traffic jams. There were wage hikes. The bastards! How did they know my pogo would run out of spring so soon? I was stuck in a growing puddle as cars whizzed around me sporting Star Wars Political Slogans. Nothing mattered any more, though it might later, I reminded myself, catching the first ghost train to another planet and ripping out my spleen. It'd not done much for me anyway, since the deventing operation.