28/30! There's Nothing Out There We'd Pay to See!

Riding back from from a river bar, the man across from me is covered in rats. They seem to be his pets, he's talking to them, or someone, about rocketpops. Every now and then a rat escapes and runs to the back of the bus, where the girl with two cats has to scramble to stop full on chaos. They both get off at the same stop. Maybe they're in love.

They rip out homes like picking scabs and scratch
their beards about the blood. They sell gas masks
and gas masks at the same stands, one for immediate
one just in case, and the whole town

turns out in zombie makeup.

The unfinished buildings look like bombed out parking lots built up instead of out. The phone-riders
and car-yellers alike are covered in a thin film of egg yolk. I've committed to swimming every where I go for a month, so I keep two fingers in a thermos of seawater. Who's to say if I'm lying or not? Who's to say?

When it rains, I don't have to keep my hands in the water. When I promised
to always be swimming, it was more an exhortation to the weather than
anything else.

They say it's a good view but
we're all washed out. Staring out a
high rise window at lights in the fog
like some kind of protagonist, but what kind?
hero or villain? Who's to say?

They ripped the playground out of the city center,
sent all the games to the dump. Now it's a shrine
to self importance and niche artforms. Look,
when the sun comes out there's a rainbow!

and I am still swimming, or lying.

27/30! Rocks and Swords!

Given the unrest, and the absence of justice, those removed from the situation
had nothing to do but tend to their swan gardens and write songs on their lutes
about the sunshine and pose for daughereotypes with portions of grilled pheasant.

In the common areas, the constables and squires rode through the crowd waving
swords, taking heads off here, heads off there, and filing with the magistrate
when their shiny armor was nicked or dented.

Given the absence of solutions, or willingness of those with swords to listen,
ever, to the unsworded whom they swore to protect, those removed from the
situation danced on tavern tables and bemoaned the lack of civility from
those whose relatives and lovers had been beheaded and land ceased.
'Cannot they desist from such raucous thronging? They're disturbing my
path to the teahouse! It really is such a pity.'

Given the givens, a long stream of blood, rows of gallows, minted indifference
and calls for calm from those in towers, the priests exhortations about heaven
struck as simple and reductive, but hell we could believe in.

25/30! Gunmetal Grey!

of the options, black and grey
like a gun, the sales clerk said
seemed least likely to attract
attention or seem gaudy.

I can gaud it up myself with
stickers or dents. The entire
process, from plan cancellation
through code unlocking to
plan downloading

was three hours. the time
I'd planned to pay my healthcare bill,
see about some reimbursment.

but in an offwhite room
with a steady soundtrack of Stone Temple Pilots
where a ponytailed man compared
phones to weapons and used
"rugged" to describe protective cases
I realized the day I signed
this contract

was the first day of this month
I wouldn't be writing
a poem.

23/30! Time Lapse!

All your e-mails are timestamped 1 a.m. or later
early.

Each sunrise comes and goes without you
hopefully, the post noon ritual
of coffee
shower
sandwich for breakfast.

to catch up with visiting
relatives at 11 a.m. and they
think you a bit rougher
than you are

this is your six a.m.

Every night there comes a turning point
where it starts to feel like evening,
like the dark isn't

just mocking you for being up,
but all the possibilities of
evening.

Rode past in nightowl bus rides
the windows out to anything.

4/22! Sims!

Down second, the sky is a video game. Pixeled buildings and drowning clouds. Odd bright angles. I keep swiping back to my blog post or article. Ducking out of downtown back to a video of a woman in high waisted jeans and a bra talking down to the camera. The camera. Me. The illusion is gone. The towers still lean and gleam, try to fall, try to stand and I'm here. The gorilla climbing the tri-squared blue-black sheen, the dome opens for lasers. I duck and weave past oncoming barrels, find myself in sniper sights from one of the lower housing complexes. I'm in no dodging and rolling condition, I'm in no fight or flight mode, I'm in no space for capitulation either. So the randomly placed swinging blades outside russell investments won't even catch my ear. The rockets firing from the edge of the smith tower miss and miss and miss and miss. My feet go blurry as I chug down tunnels, my arms fuzz in and out of focus when I'm in the light on third. There seems to be some sort of robot army assembling, and all I can do is keep trying to reset, get back to my videos, a pre-recorded one on one or something-- but now that my arms are guns there's not much to do; I never even got an instruction manual.

4/20! In Restructuring! 4/21! Escape From Green Lake!

In Restructuring
In remembering the brand name beer on the bar glass, there is a noticing of the dyed
hair of the woman with the corgi, taking in the grilled onions and burnt brat.
In taking bartenders advice, the whisper about plumbers crack on stools. In the
grains of the wood. In trying to describe an evergreen to a recently blinded
desert transplant who sings an old song not a minute too soon in an ally and a dark
warm minute. In restructuring life to re-include collections, of salts, of blinds, of who to
complain about to your landlord, who to complain about to your uncle. In retiring phrases
from you vocabulary upon return and holding judgement for a later date. In rewriting
a popular account of your failure as an adult. In stoping your self from fastdancing in
a slowdance bar.


Escape From Green Lake
I don't want to hear about your
cleanse.
I don't want to hear about your
new joggable
stroller or
the ways jogging
and yoga pants
work the same in
kegels.

I just want to paddle my way off beaver island, where I've lived
off nuts and berries for the last ten years, occasionally impersonating
an emaciated sasquatch, and find my way to the concrete path
where
I got swept with babysitting
skaters, their clean smiles
and taught
thighs and
screaming eight year olds back into
the fray of failed body surfers
drunk fishermen
and ducks.

I wanted to get free
but like gilligan
there's no getting off
of this island.

19/30! Combustible Vole Statue Don't Work For Free!

I was worried about the inflammation of the vole statue as predicted by the geologists. It's not that difficult to imagine, how under current conditions the statues of certain animals would be more prone to combustion and inflammation than others. There's also the issue of flooding; one can only hope that the two such disasters would follow eachother; the theory is that they'd cancel eachother out, but I know the truth; everything would just be broken and soggy. In my worry I boarded a bus to the far end of the city and broke sticks in a 711 parking lot waiting for inspiration. The sculptures were all guarding inner neighborhoods, if the worst happened, these blocks would simply look better by comparison. That said, inspiration was not forthcoming and I started to wonder if my fascination with a post-apocalyptic structuralist reinterpretation of classic disney tropes had been a waste of my considerable sculpting and metal working skills. Nowadays, it doesn't seem so much like looks of comradery and appreciation on the faces of the City Shadow Council but. . .

they were laughing at me! And here I am riding secondhand waves of glory in third rate architectural magazines. All the columnists, all the council members, all the neighborhood activists can go fuck themself; I've got a hot tip from the meteorologists and this nine story owl statue at the edge of town will show them all.

18/30! That's No Way To Cook Eggs, Sally!

splayed across the kitchen                    counter
egg
yolk
white

we appreciate the whisk twirling dance
an spatula drumbeats                                         but
maybe the                          eggshell mountain was
a bit much and the frying pan through the window?


they could use  bit more salt is what we're saying, and thank you
and let's go quick

this isn't even
our house.

17/30! Fares (Fair?) Fares!

The mariners lost so
every jersey walking swagger
was denied entrance into bars.
the rest contemplating with
their shrines at home.
My grandmother was religious
about the Ms, also
religious. But wouldn't have
countenanced these instances of
"fucks" and "kill yourself dude"
from numbered, stumbling
players. Is that Griffey? I could
have sworn his number said so.

There is ice in my bones and
Rachel needs to piss. The 7/11
man shoes away the guy
who yells a little louder each
time for "just a five, man."
I already gave him three and need
the rest of my depleting ones for
a cab ride. Ludicrous, the four
block
jaunt, but cold, and weary
and what the hell. Arms full
of brown paper bags, feet
blistering.

"You must live here" he says,
pulled up just past a trio
who have not left that corner
for three stop lights. Speculation
leads to judgement, leads to
crow. "this is it," i say, and he's
all "give me whatever you feel
comfortable with" and as I hand
him seven singles I realize
the meters never been turned
on.

16/30! Threshing Through The Timescale In a Mere Ten Minutes!

Buddy, let's be Dinosaurs, on the condition that you stop picking "chicken" or the types that never existed. The price we pay for laser eyes. Fine then, knights in a kingdom, in awesome tin helmets-- steel helmets-- produce carts were made for our knocking over, damsels, damsels everywhere! for saving! Okay fine, I'll see you your knight and raise you a Caveman, who's got the heavier club, who's got a knack for fire. Stop with the cave paintings already-- no one has the time for that. Good. Now we're spacement farrrr into the future and all these robots may know how to fly a space ship, but it'll take real flesh and blood to teach them about --- two minutes as rugged explorers and we're already sick of eating squirrel. cowboys? We can do that. Ropes and ropes and steers and guns and lots and lots of blood in the dirt. Did anyone ever walk into a saloon without a record skipping? Were the barmaids always so world weary and could you get a 9 gallon hat for che-- Jazz listening private eye guys! I love calling chicks dames! There are so many tall buildings, you can be the informant that-- Buddy, what's that disco? All there is to do here is dance, man, not even a dance off. And all these shining lights, getting so close to the things I muscle away from.

Still. I guess I could keep the suit.

14/30! Jokesandsighs! 15/30! Nu Diner Life!

A note from my manager that in the two days
without phone access I've been fired and
replaced by rookies or robots doesn't
surprise me much.

I crossed ts, dotted is, tacked posts
in necessary places and crossreferenced
plans in the hope of a getaway but these
are no match for wind, treachery, or just
bad luck.

This is a joke he's made before, and my
response is quick and jaunty, the parry,
but still, I start compiling a list of spots
to turn in the resume I start updating,
take my leftovers
home.

15/30! Nu Diner Life!

Any new taxidermy must be approved:
first by the manager, then the health board.

Dinner party punk and post-washboard, pre-
beerbelly stomache in brief shirtlifts.

No sweat in the cosmos.
No beard in the food.

A planetary refrain from too-loud laughter,
save the blue corner table rattling all glass.

The waterfall in the center of the room-- unplanned.
What do we do about that?

13/30! Define "hurt" I guess, Or, Not "Those" Sorts of Cops!

and the hashtag starts almost as soon
as the news flips on, the #notallcops

the whatabout, whatabout-- my uncle, twenty years on the force never hurt anybody/your cousin, sweet kind, artistic, just out of training, never hurt anyone/folk's church friend, shines his badge while he volunteers, never hurt anybody/pool-playing neighbor assures on his Christmas card that he's
never hurt anybody/or

everyone so ready
with this list.
fine/so.
every morning I slap
some water on my face and
check for weather, concerts,
Swans scores, and how many fresh
excessive force casualties
always black, often men,
and if maybe this time
the killer gets caught

and I  walk up to every cop and:

Can you PLEASE JUST go through the entire day
without killing someone?
I'll TRY MY BEST TO DO THE SAME.

in my head. the whatabout-- the man just crossing the street, who never hurt anybody/the girl sleeping in her bed who never hurt anybody/ the kid buying a candy bar who never hurt anybody/the community pastor who never hurt anybody/the the
the

way this country will forgive you
quicker/if you're holding a gun
in crisped trousers/than if you
walk away.

every night, passing stoned
I get pulled over and flashlight shined.
but it's always over quick;
I'm always off with a warning.

12/30! On The Nose!

Tips for successful tourism include: not being a tourist
not caring if people know you're one. I'd rather get directions
than wander lonely as a cloud, I'd rather sit in the spot
that everyone drawn here like flocking voles sits because
it's worth it, even if it's not secret, I'll get it.

Like how I tell folks to check out pike place if they haven't.
The things a city owns that belong to the world, and the
things that belong to the neighbors--- I am a local at my
locals, and running numbers everywhere else.

Or I am a local everywhere, but only trust my fellow
locals at the spots I've worn in with elbows.

It is hard to share joy without sounding like namedropping,
it is hard to namedrop without ruining joy. I will glide
across these pavements I've not known before,
I will take all the pictures I need

but I'll try not to be an asshole about it.

11/30! A Scene We'd Usually Avoid!

Neckerchiefs. Cologne. Muscle relaxers-with a scent/how?
The grease in the hair and the grease in the thighs and the
grease the guy in the misfits shirt managed while sliding into
his pants. The one girl/guy couple, hottest in their near shirtlessness
by the window, attribute traffic to that.

We think the doorman suspects.

These lines of traffic-- we've come blocks just to
not get in. We are wobbling hard toward a club with
the right backbeat, we only want a slice and don't
care where we get it from.

The new city stomp, the old city hesitate.
The happy lipstick party inviting only half
of us. The crowd churned down Polk street

flying elbows, jutting knees, too much scent,
too much dirt for any where we'd go if--

but get the cameras right and
all you need is the rest of the
room and all you need is one good
picture, to say I've been here, I've
swung my fists, this is everywhere
I've been adult but so much worse,

better

10/30! Ashbury Heights!

"what's that flaming cathedral in the distance?"

this road winds like yarn. triangles and spirals and
houses clustered like apartments, apartments spread
like ramblers. Ropes around a narrowing hill.

When we talk about the city, we talk about The City.
Everything I know about this place I learned in
documentaries about Jefferson Airplane and
the film Basic Instinct. 

"you went to the mission and you got
tacos?"

a thick film of glass when we get over the
bridge from east bay, and the way that
everyone says "east bay" like a sentence,
after the show that starts awkward and ends
triumphant, the uber driver says "the city"

and the entrance feels like one
like it should, no long suburban
depression trailing into density,
too tired and building weary to
recognize.

This is not a poem about
san francisco,
it's a poem about knowing nothing
about it, but the hill, the
sillhouettes at midnight after
Oakland ends for us. It's about the imprint,
the "in a few years will Seattle seem--"

the new space forever,
frozen pizza thawing, the smell of
burning pepperoni spilling out into
the bay.

9/30! Going Cronenberg! Going Scott!

Give me an Existenz afterlife, so I can plug, unplug eternally.

That squirming, spirting tentacle, all ooze and grit and
eventually just wanting to be put down. Of course we want
masks here, of course.

I saw a TV show where people got their make up done,
piercings shrined and implants to look like cats, or dragons,
or the devil. They called it extreme, I call it trying too hard when

all anyone needs to do for assassination
is program a GPS in question into oncoming traffic
like that episode of The Office

we all laughed at for being
unrealistic.

Give me a car crash orgasm, so I can sync with explosions.

Somewhere between the caveman and the
robot porn, there is
a caveman jerking off to robot porn.

I'm no expert on these things,
vast expanse of flesh,
and plugs, and re-routes.

Laying on my collapsed futon
late night, falling asleep to sirens,
waking up to jackhammers,
reading a friends panicked e-mail about
more
bill boards
more drones

I'm too entrenched in Blade Runner's LA; it was a lot of things,
but never boring.

8/30! Addison Dispatch #4!

That molson ice pile by 306 hasn't moved for two days. The dog in 312 won't shut up

but a markered note offers to shut the bitch up in exclamation points. Seriously on

behalf of us all

shut the bitch

up.                                                    (with wire, with cloroform, with a baseball bat)

Head into the glass walls, Shane remarks that the max income requirements 

(a refreshing change)

would be considered middle class
(I thought we'd disappeared!)

                                                       in another city. In another city, I wouldn't need the requirements. I am no cigar maven, flicking his ash out against a movie about new york. A skyline in highlights that silences family who don't understand; like a movie star swoop from one frame to the next, the smith, columbia, municipal, hey.

The man in the stairwell isn't moving. Isn't smiling. Is yelling. Is swaying. Is dancing. Can of hurricane ice-- must be a different guy. Howling, screaming, dancing, the lady behind me asks if she can tell him to get the fuck out of the way or is that racist. The man behind her shouts "racist nothing," falls dick forward, they both hit two walls before landing. I shrink into walls.

Hammers on the left side. Drills on the right. Sirens every day. Not our fault. Not theirs.
Stacking piles of earplugs. New eyemasks. Prop up the bed with old hymnals. Shut down the door
with strings of tape. 

The walls are thin when you're trying to sleep, thick when you need help--
(is that you,
mark?

I was hoping you were dead, cussing out 

                                                     your mother
one last time in your braindead half-drawl

as they drove you to a 

landfill where scum like you grows 

                                                and

dies)

these heights bring out the best. Nod for a year at the lease-signer before
she remembers your name, 

(you are drunk, screaming down the hall

pulling

the fire alarm--
won't make up for no coats
or morning workouts--)

possibly for the best.

7/30! Warlockerbeef!

Every headline is a kitten or a bombing.
A heartwarming story about a veteran
or a heartbreaking story about a veteran.
Lines
Lines
Lines
to stand in.

Passing the Economist  on the way to the Onion,
the best of a bad situation, the slight hope for
some kind of peace, which ideally--
seems such light
language for
such
such
such. . .

If I had the magic, I would have a time machine,
and if I had a time machine, I would have the influence,
and if I had the influence, I wouldn't need the magic
just what to say to who to when
and

next to the atrocity centerfold
is a coupon for five dollars
off ground beef.

6/30! Jesus Didn't Die for You to be a Beggar!

If you can't get down with redemption-- If you can't get down
with resurrection, if you can't heal with an egg or crack for
children's paint---


then tell me about the way fjords burn under pagan rituals.
tell me about the aurora borealis scattering sky to everyone
in gaping wonder.
Give me a shaking excuse for why your aunt just wants to
point and laugh, why your uncle shouts "praise jesus" every
eight minutes. We don't need church fans out on the street,
we don't need reinterpretation systems for our favorite
music, we don't need a swab down for job interviews,
though it probably won't hurt--

--a day is just when you are off
work and you trust the boss
the pastor
the savior
the entrepeneur
hand greasy with coupons,
opportunities. Parents always nudging.
may recognize
beer/
or shots/
or nothing

and a crammed up road, tell me about the
persons shaking their fist out the side of their
vehicle, blocking my bus

burning my skin,
but the warmth

keeping me from cussing them out
once
again.

5/30! No One Wants to Watch You Fuck a Dog Tonight, Sally!

Seriously
   




         . . . dude. . .


are we





talking about this






again?

4/30! Walk Happy Or Don't Walk At All!

The swagger. The shuffle. The near defeat crawl.
The slump. The skip. The swing out. The stomp.
The startled scare. The game loss drag. The short of a
run. The short of a dance. The short collapse.

The doorman wants your identity, your drink count,
your reason for not smiling. The doorman wants to know
why you are walking this way, will he have to deal with
you later, what (the fuck) is your problem.

The stagger. The swim. The sidewalk stain.
The swerve into traffic. The stereo bounce. The late
blink and you missed it, you're in the road now.

The doorman explains it's just his job, because it is.
Eight hours nine hours, twelve, means nothing
when you feet won't pick up the right way.

Elements of comfort, safe place, dependent
on thirty second explanations. You can let him
know, or you can let him know.

The slog. The trek. The amble. The gambol.

3/30! Tiger Crimes!

Don't call it pacing, don't call it a cage.

After what happened to the tabbies out on fifteenth.

After the disappeared ocelots started turning up
as rugs and lampshades. 

After few feral sentinels keeping columbia city's rats

in check laid bloody in rows by the condominium

penitentiary complex. 

Don't call it purring, don't call it a stage.

After the bobcats left town, tree by tree
and the Lion's roaring came half-hearted,

a show for the kids, but not running the show.

After Ms. Jonesbury's feline hostel 

burnt to the ground and all that was left

were stripes.

The cheetahs can't run any faster,

the jaguars cling to the tree limbs

of the arboretum like they're holding

onto their mothers.

Don't call it pacing, as you watch, 

don't call it burning, it's not as bright

as you think, or someone would've noticed.

Don't Kipling out on some essentialist trip,

this is just how the city goes now,

paws licking slowly, over the whole town.

Here kitty, kitty. 

2/30! The Knives Are So Sharp Because the Stakes Are So Low!

The Knives Are So Sharp Because the Stakes Are So Low

Terra cotta attack dogs/bomb(s in) every library.
the only thing we (have to) say regards legitimacy,
but you're carving down/(c/should
be) punching up.

brutalist watchtower/gatekeeper.
naturalist's flowering rebuttals.

I had a friend once, the novelist said, and we were surprised
enough at that to miss the rest of the anecdote.
I had an enemy once, the poet replied, and we gathered
by the campfire, sharpening up our tongs.

this is integral, the cannon's fire,
the statues raised/toppled/razed.

modernism and feral cats/atomic slushpiles.

This is no laughing matter. This is no simple grudge.
This is (g)war. You hear me?
Literally dozens of mid-level careers have potential
to be nominally effected by what we find in this rubble.

Georgian arches burnt crisp. A flag we wave,
passing (up/in/over) the halls of
crunched paper.