all things return to the all things return to the poememe.

Lately in my new scratches, I find myself returning to the "all things return to the. . ." titling system that made up the second half of "Filthy Jerry's Guide to Parking Lots."  This is partly because it's a funny way to title pieces, and also because it's an effective way to title pieces. It might seem like a cheap hack to re-use a literary device ad-nausea but tell that to Marvin Bell or Shakespeare. Plus, if it gets me writing.

So, this is a draft of a newbie that may end up completely different, set somewhere else, but for now it's called All Things Return to the Chinatown Library Ten Minutes Before Close on a Weekday.

all the coughing in this library.

all the threadbare gloves.

every sniffle. as the sky goes purple
over the firs, the lights in here feel so bright.

a globe in the children's area.

a lego map of returning.

computers and computers and
"thank you for respecting others"

also means "please no obvious porn."

a woman with a face like a free paper
bag in a pikachu hat. cartoon merch
from a free bin.

all the standing, waiting for computers,

pretending to browse CDs, magazines,

hoping to check e-mail before 8pm.

after 8, there is no where to be for
free, no room connected, nowhere

to go where it's your public right to cough.

I don't know these things or need these

things for nothing, not as much, maybe, as
the man with the giant backpack full of knives

or something. I hesitate to guess what,

knowing I might be right, knowing I 

may know this room too well already.

Dinosaur knows your time is up.

Monday was the last day of Works In Progress at the Richard Hugo House. Monday was the last day of official excuses for two slices and 1-3 cans of discount Hamms at Big Mario's in a contained time frame before heading over to the RHH. It was time to let Robert P Kaye make like Jesus, and take the wheel. Kris and Bryan and Arlo and a bunch of folks who'd not been in a while mobbed down and I had the trusty Dinosaur Protector to watch hungrily as the night went on. Afterward we all (including Rachel's younger bro and his gf) went to the Cha Cha, Kris got enthused about Lords of the New Church and I got enthused about Mudhoney, respectively, as they drowned out conversation.

Dinosaur watches Steve Shue read from his laptop.

Previously, Sunday night, I hopped a bus to Capitol Hill (ALWAYS WITH THE CAPITOL HILL) and shared a laptop (and some Roses Bourbon) with Chelsea K, who hosts The Casserole, an online reading series (which I explained just one post ago.) I read to the forced silence of Ethan and Rachel E, while Emily Wittenhagen beamed in from Roslyn. I read some new poems, some reworked old poems and a handful of less-frequently read poems from FJGTPL. After she reads, we talk about Aliens, and Owls, and some vague things about forms of writing. Watch it below.



Tonight I am going to work, in about an hour and a half, after a day of largely editing/advising on other people's poetry. This is work I usually get paid for, but sometimes doing it completely for free feels more liberating. . .? That was a dumb sentence I just typed, but I'm leaving it there, because I meant it.

I'll leave you with the following: a list of bars poets can, or should, drink at, in case you'd not seen that before, and this post from Leigh Bell, who writes on artistic self-care in way that neither makes me want to puke, nor makes me suspect she's selling something. She's able to overcome the initial eye-roll I have at "The Artist's Way," to address issues that tend to be either pushed aside or can be overcome if you come to this new writer's retreat and conference and send away for a series of tapes. . . .
It's a relatively quick read for a fairly in-depth thought process, which is something she's pretty good at, as you'll see if you take on her prior posts.

Soft Limits

“Okay, what the HELL?”
He jumped backwards, knocked the knife out of her hand. “I gotta go. Call you later.”
Crunching through leaves to his apartment, he held his bloodied arm, kneaded his
windpipe, reflecting that the smartest thing he’d learned those months in Corvallis was
that there comes a time where it is neither fun, nor sexy, and knowing when to say so.

It was a tepid autumn and his ears itched and scratched up shoulders chafed against
his sweater and he decided to call her back; he was a romantic at heart and all the renewed
tensions between the U.S. and Russia had him cataloguing the best spots to lie naked, bruised,
to watch ash hit the clouds with force.

____________________________________________________________________

This is a riff on a couple of pieces I wrote in high school (!) that for whatever reason, sauntered into my head today. The original piece was a bait and switch (I wrote a lot of those for a while) and the "what the HELL" signaled the switch. there's a oblique reference  to "Time to Destroy" in the last lines, but I fear it'll never be as awesome without lines like "I know that you like it when my troops are deployed. . . "

2012, the prosing.

In a few days, or weeks, or a month, there'll be some sort of bloglike retrospective of 2012. For now, enjoy this preview of a comp on which 2012, the poem, recorded at Da'daedal in November at Vermillion.

Raging gracefully

I have, upon much consideration, changed the title of this blog to one that didn't involve a pun about corpse-fucking. I'm not sold on "thats no way to make friends" as a blog title, but I like it as the title of SOMETHING, so here it is for now.

The new Nacho Picasso record is even better than the last two, and it all moves a little bit tighter. If you see me wandering around hillman, lake city muttering kicking down windows, high on cocaine! you can blame Seattle's burgeoning prominence on the national hip hop scene, and remember that singing it is probably better than doing it.

Feeling angry? Unsatisfied with the current level of critical discourse? Witness the usual mix of incisive verbosity and lowbrow brutality in Andrew Falkous' evisceration of a music reviewer. Granted, Falco is (as usual) a little bit tough on the lad-- it's a thankless job, I know-- but by and large he had it coming.

Napowrimo continues as I split time. . .

. . . between new stuff and edits. Witness.

Sitting at Goth Night with Punk John

In a tin can with blacked-off windows, raccoon-eyed girls dance,
backs of hands-to foreheads. the music distorts with volume.
boys from the role-player's club lead each other around
on leashes. The next track, from an '80s movie about
Doomed Teenage Love, gets spliced under with a steady industrial thud.

We share an eye-roll.
Where some trot out the old
"they think they're soooo different . . .”
and less patient friends threaten to chuck a chair
into the crowded dancefloor, we just grin.
In this-- like nightslugging 12-ers of John Smiths up the hill,
Replacements-soundtracked chili-feeds-- there is comraderie.

"You know, if you're a math whiz from the valleys
this might be the most punk rock thing you can do."

Eventually, and against most bets, we dance.
Maybe a cut we both know. Maybe a girlfriend-pacifying measure.
Maybe
maybe a whole-table migration, a sudden swirl of energy, or
perhhaps simply non-involvement fatigue.
In this-- like the room itself--
there is community.

_______________________________

A Brief Thanks For The Diners that Understand

The world today is an old fisherman's cringing face.
This entire district is so hungover they can feel it
in their shoulders and knees are a challenge.

On the kinsey scale of practical worthlessness
I am at least a 7.

It is with this in mind that the lights are low,
even over breakfast burritos. The waiter also has
deep grey bags under his eyes but moves with calm
precision, is reassuringly rugged but not threateningly
handsome and everyone manages a wan smile.

Let the fog take downtown and emergencies crack
the last ditch efforts of men in important buildings.

I will take this corner booth
for as long as it will have me
in another little victory.

Catcher

God wants you to read Catcher in the Rye out loud.
He's thinking of a rehabilitation program; maybe Satan is just a Holden Caulfield-type who never got the attention he deserved during his career as the Morningstar.
You ask if He's read it before and He has in that Omniscent-omnipresent way, but frankly, at any given time he's moving on people to avoid genocides in Siberia, South Asia and Your Backyard.

God wants you to read Catcher in the Rye, out loud, in heaven, to an audience of saints and angels; let the sinless vaccuum breathe a little bit, maybe you're going to convince him of a couple things.

If it goes well he’ll start a book club and policy board; next up is The Satanic Verses.

This thought mats your hair down with sweat, beads up your eyes and gulps your throat and you suddenly wish you were Catholic and had some sort of tradition to deal with all of this. You're not sure why God asked or why he needs you to read it aloud, when he knows you have a fear of public speaking.

Jesus shoos away some orphans he's playing with-- he's always fucking playing with orphans-- and takes you aside. “Could you do this for him? I mean, I'm not sure exactly what he's thinking with this one; if not for him, for me.”
Your eyebrows and jawdrop do the talking. What would your pastor think? Like he could hear you, Jesus shakes his head, fingers his wrists with what almost looks like a sneer.
“You know how well I get on with Pastors. No, no, you're right, I mean, sure, after all, what did I ever do for you?”

good to know he still has the sharp tongue that got him strung up there in the first place.

All this talk of leaving when it still feels so far away.

Today is a heavy internet day for me. So be it.

For Lent this year I'm going with the old standby of giving up booze. There've been the odd occasions in the past when (for lent or other reasons) I've given up booze where the fact that I really didn't want to meant I needed to; this time the fact that I'm not bothered about it means it's all just as well.


I mailed off my visa app yesterday. The weight off my shoulders is tremendous. I probably have about 2 -4 more months in Swansea now and I've got shit to do. Among the things I've got planned:

--> Help Theresa move forward with her plans; she sent off an application to Grad School in Cardiff yesterday and will be looking to move soon. I like our parallell trajectories in some ways; we're helping each other along. Also, do more fun stuff with her now that I'm not in perma-whinge mode.

--> Global Poetry System. On March 27th there's a workshop in London I go to (this may be one of the few notable Lent Exceptions I allow myself as long as its determined ahead of time) and we'll get some events nailed down. The idea being to schedule a series of events related to poetry found in unconventional places and presented in new and unusual ways. It's a UK-wide deal and I'm Swansea's guy for it.

--> Pare down my collection of books, clothes and CDs; when I do move I want to minimise shipping costs. Maybe get the odd new item to supplement; I can throw out five old T-shirts I never wear a lot easier if I have one new one I think is rad.

--> The Crunch. Get that shit official; talk to Academi and get funding so we can pay features from out of town. Find someone to host in my eventual absence. Keep the momentum we have.

--> I still owe a few people Letters from Wales. It's way more exciting (when you're in Seattlingporthamland) to receive Letters from Wales than from Stanwood.

--> Tunes with John. Demos at least. Something to remember the Unnamed Trio by.

--> I'm thinking of making an extended version of Swansea Morning Coming Down with 15-20 poems in it; mainly ones written since coming to Swansea. Maybe a few old standbys. It'd be a cool thing to have as a record of a specific time and place; plus I could schedule a few readings and sell them. I'm broke.

--> See more of Wales. Preferably the parts that weren't bombed to shit by the Luftwaffe and subsequently paved over.

--> Get a few more pictures of this town, country and my friends that aren't taken inside Mozart's Wine Bar or The Office. This will possibly be the most difficult.

Everyone Has Something

There’s a pterodactyl outside your bedroom window
claws like diamond cutters, eyes red slits.

You outran the sabertooth, left the tyrannosaurus in the
tarpit with a quick dash-and-roll, killed the raptor with your
bare hands but you haven’t been able to shake this one and
now it watches you sleep, head ducked between leather wings.

Close the curtains and hear it breathing, waiting.
The pizza places stopped delivering,
the neighbourhood pets have all disappeared.
Sometimes it leaves the heads of cats on
your doorstep, reminders that someday, it’ll be you.

For now, you bury your face.

In South Dakota a man carries bundles of firewood
through the snow, he’s got holes in his boots and his
wife no longer loves him. She stays because he’s the
only thing between her and the wolverine on the roof.

He’s not afraid of wolverines; he’s got an axe for that,
but he never leaves his bed ‘til sunrise; otherwise the wood
will splinter away, leave him pitching through an
endless stretch of dark.

You are certain of your floors and ceilings,
none of your doorknobs have ever come off in your hand.
You know you’re safe in alleys, don’t
worry about taxes, trolls or terrorists.

But the fear always hits you in the
back of the knees when you get home and
that’s how you know you’re home.
Because It’s out there,
raising black wings, eyes of red,

waiting.
________________________________________________________________________

this is an old one I found when I was ruffling through my papers. Jake might remember it but I only read it once anyway. Gave it a few edits. I like when I write this sort of thing and it feels like it actually is something. Probably bring it out at a couple of upcoming features. May consider it for the chapbook submission.