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.