The Day After Christmas

the bus driver swerved
tailgated a truck with political
stickers all the way
from Everett

to somewhere called Newberry Court,
a small city nearly lease ready

while a Russian woman laughed
loudly at the girl who asked if she was German.
"Oh, svweethhchaart, I vish."

Postcard View Dailies (draft)

This is what I read last night at Da'Daedal X in Everett. This is an initial stage, a bunch will change. Feel free to pop off with suggestions, love, or haterade.
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to work. To walk. To work. To walk to work.
Seventeen if I saunter, five if I run.
on the way, deconstructions:
neighborhood, city, country,

as if my pen would floatme above, ride a crane into new calamitous conclusions,
let me become the judgement I sit in, the crash I swing toward..

But better writers have tried to strike out against the gentrification that their
own romanticizing kicked into gear; spur, stronger activists, more upstanding pastors, etcetera.

I take streets that get me there quickest
and undetected, unreconstructed, unspied,
so I can grab the shakers slap my face into public form.

Kris tells me I have more Face than any other bartender he knows personally. The thick mask of unflappability. The workface.  Is this is a fakeness?  If I were a hunter, I’d become the bear. If I were a fisherman, I’d become the plankton. If I were an excorcist, I’d become the little girl.  If I walk too much, or not enough, my legs become
spokes. Shaking drinks and staring buildings and marking time, I become the salt on the rim,
the laugh at the jokes. My face sags and limbs crawl to a warning spot. Kris tells me that I didn’t recognize him when he showed up, that I and all my returns came back in manila envelopes, unmarked.

To past work. To memorial.
The postcards take three weeks,
two days on express,

Over the oceans where I became the Shark. Through the tubes where I became the
cracks, not recognizing the water leaking, the water, the water,
the darling struck soaked like standing by puddles meeting bikewheels.

To home, from work. To home. To back,
lets say we can’t call it a home, lets say
it’s a place where I sleep and cook eggs
and masturbate with the door closed
and window open because it doesn’t face anything.

Takes longer, to get there, get home
after work, after the face, after betraying
endless friends with professional nods,
 through the collapsing buildings and the deep built
pits, where the dog care was.

Now all the dogs are filthy and barking up park trees.
Now I no longer cut through the park,
Now I no longer think about meanings
Of signs with cartoon bycicles.

Every  3 a.m. couchflop a victory and surrender.

On leaving, Greg decided it was important we eat hilarious chips, almost blow ourselves up, hear some old Nick Cave songs. It was important. We talked about buildings in cities we will never live again and the holding belief people have that their friends will all one day live on the same block as them.,, and we didn’t dwell on leaving at all, as he walked back through a neighborhood, the same one, but through different eyes, when was the last time I made it to boston, street-statue performers and all, and I gravitate myself away from thinking too hard about the number of things that are ending in a promise of postcards.

Two weeks, three, a pit of faces. I become the mailman’s papercuts.

"This reminds me of bellingham.""this reminds me of ellensburg."

In everett last night I read the following poems in the following order: doot doot de doot(summer)/pink laces and kierkegaard/fear of drowning/genus, species and flavour/bellevue/most important meal/body party/rugby '08/swansea-cardiff (b'ham ed)/story problem
For the record. The open mic was mainly guitar players but there were a couple interesting folks who got up and simply read. The crowd was supportive and I succeeded in feeling okay about the whole thing. Sold some broadsides, but the quagga remain.

It is still weird doing a reading with your folks in the front row.

The drive to and from Everett, what with stopping to get/drop off people/acquire necessary goods was around 3 hours of driving.
I don't hold to the popular-with-some belief that all suburbs are terrible, soul-crushing places, but Lynnwood, Wa., which is pretty much designed to be driven, still saps a whole lot of time getting from one place to the next. Yeesh.

tonight, rachel and i will hope her car doesn't break down when we drive to georgetown with the intention of drinking beer, being in fun places and getting the fuck away from cap hill for a night.

content soon?
content, soon?
maybe.

appropos to Music: I think the Dum Dum Girls are aptly named. I got their doing the Youtube-hop game from Male Bonding, who I think are pretty good.

"it was a good reading. i don't care what everyone else says."-- jake

tonight I did a feature at zippy's java lounge in everett. felt good about it, though the crowd was appreciatively unresponsive. . . unresponsively appreciative? I think it is not a room that lends itself to raucous sorts of participation i.e. Poetry Night or The Crunch, but has a bit "bigger" feel than a lot of coffee shops, so spacing it out can be difficult.

Setlist:
Neo Takes the Blue Pill
Little Red Corvette
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Cafe Across . . .
Beneath the Cathedral
Get Smart!
Rucksacks
Ambition is Critical
Paintings of Famous Satanists

I realised afters that just because I close with my two favourites in the book doesn't mean they'll be crowd pleasers.
But. It was great to see loads of friends and family there (from camp and abroad, new and old) and getting to hang out with Chris/Ryan/Jake always serves both as fun and grounding. Reading at Chris' house in December, too which I'm excited for.

on the way home I listened to Pack Up the Cats for the first time in about 3 years. My copy still skips.