Candles (rough)

A circle of cops

Point guns at

A baby.

                                    This room, shadows.
                                    So many
                                    Unlit
                                    Lamps.


Daylight not worth saving.

Always Be Closing (rough)

it was a movie I'd only seen GIFs of, but it's taught me a lot about the world, success, and how
success gets defined in captioned headbursts. I have coffee. I have steakknives.
I have a David Mamet T-shirt and a woody allen haircut and a
Shyamalan twist ending. We welcome these words when
accompanied by celebrity spit takes, because, as
the man constantly points out this is the world
 we live in now, and furthermore, why not? 

We are transcending transcendence.
It's cool, man.
In a TV show I've only heard the drop-lines from, very serious lessons about
being a bad ass. Its important to live life to the fullest, which means lots
of squinting, punching.

Think, think, think, shout. Repeat. 

In the twist ending I am revealed to be nothing more than a
scarecrow that was brought to life by a bolt of lightning
created by aliens who believe in Jesus. 

This will not happen for a while yet, so pay no attention to the straw that I trail behind me, 

the way that it's constantly catching fire. 

Redesigned a million times before.

So between poeming, storying, laptop-not-having, and delaying inevitable "here's what's going on in my life I know I've neglected the blog but trust me you don't really want inside this head right now oh no that sounded way more ominous than I meant it to" post(s?) not much has gone on here in the last few months.

I've got plenty of things I want to write about for the Trains and Tall Buildings series, some of the aforementioned life updates, and a few more drafts of poems to throw at the wall and see if they stick. But the perfect is perpetually the enemy of the good, so here's a couple quickies--

I'm writing music reviews again.

I sent out the proofs to Alice Blue, and will have a new chapbook as part of the Shotgun Wedding Imprint of Alice Blue. It's called The Third Best of Possible Outcomes. I'm also re-drafting one I wrote last year (mainly in post-work whiskey-fueled sessions when my laptop worked) and trying to polish it up.

I'm ZAPPing again.

This all will be easier once I re-laptop, but as is, the gentle scent of metal, stale beer(!) and humanness surrounds me in the Seattle Public Library.

Some productivity jams:



later, but not much.

Treatise/Treaties (rough)

A treatise on spiced
pork shoulder, the correct
way for a sandwich to
fall apart:

in your hands, before biting.
dripping down Denny, spreading
lettuce with my gait, I am in
no hurry to get anywhere:

I am in a hurry to get 
everywhere. 

Half recollected bounce back
of a Ludacris song. Wind chimes
in the city like phone
dings. A future child
mocks the tortured novelty
of ringtones:

Why would you- how could you-
possibly think that was
cool?

Down the hill and up again,
ten dollar street food, plastic
fork. Ten miles between trash
cans.

Clouds and heat disagree,
there is no truce in the weather,
there is no energy in this protein
there is no welcoming handshake
at my destination:

dirge, dirge, dirge.

Seagulls. (rough rough draft)

I couldnt figure out the best way to pick the seagulls up off the wharf. There was really no getting around that it was my job, and after the events of last night, someone would have to sweep up the feathers, the beaks, the whole bits of bird piled, sometimes four deep. But town custodian or no, I was more concerned about the price of hay.
The thatching on my escape raft was nearly finished, and I’d done all necessary sawing, cutting, welding. Even the sail was complete. But given that most cloth materials were in such short supply I figured hay would be the way to go for cushioning. After all, I’d be on the raft a while.

Then last night happened. Without a lot of warning- some warning, but not a lot- the skyfighters returned and just made an absolute mess of the waterfront. Even in the days of heavy industry it’d never looked this bad. Dead seagulls everywhere. Wharf rats crawling through the bodies, carrying away half-eaten bags of chips left by fleeing shoppers. One giant Styrofoam middle finger, the calling card of the skyfighters.

Still, I couldn’t buy hay anywhere, not on town custodian wages. And paid vacation was out of the question.

I woke up with a note stuck to my ceiling saying my services would be required for at least another two weeks to deal with the mess. I am surprised my bosses survived the melee, frankly. The plan had been that I’d get some hay, finish the raft and disappear. It was crucial to do this before the onset of winter, when all the ocean trash freezes into sharp icicles, that launch into the sky due to displacement. Only this stops the skyfighters, their metal bodies crashing into the same sea that they patrol, their “peacekeeper” badges glowing at sunset. This wasn’t a fight I wanted in the middle of. There were only so many layers of irony I wanted to process at once.

But now here I am, staring at a whole wharf full of bird corpses. If I leave now, they’ll just funnel regeneration funds into Employee Retention funds, and not only will they find me and drag me back, the whole of fucking Bayside will still be a trash mound I have to sweep over. Revitalization. Ha. 

The question is where to take the birds, and how. My bags aren’t meant for anything this heavy duty; I’ll probably need to petition the Society of Feral Cats for their services. I hate that. Joan at the desk is always so smug. “You thought we were a bad idea, but now look at you.” She’ll probably call Shirley at the Urban Goat Alliance and have a good laugh. It’s not that I despise the usefulness of animals, it’s just that there are way too many of these beauracracies and if we don’t have money to keep the schools open, how the hell do we keep three Fitness Gorillas? At least Danny Felds is nice. I wouldn’t want him out of a job. I’ll keep that in mind the next time a city employee satisfaction survey gets passed around. Why they have the “check box if ____ should be fired” box is beyond me. Afterall, Joan is still here, and why? But then, I suppose so am I, and after the whole mess on Rockefeller street, I shouldn’t be. Well, hopefully I won’t be for long. If I could just get my vacation time figured; they never search for those who don’t come back, only those who leave. 

Will you look at the sunset over scorched feathers. The society for unusual bar ornamentation would love these. I could use a smoothie.

So I guess I should find my brooms. If this doesn’t take too long, I’ll just use the hay from them on the raft. And maybe these feathers. They have to be good for something.

30/30! New Puffs!

Three kids in cat ears
dart across

Lights start high
end low.
We trail. . .

Minute splinters in the wood.
Stacked always

nearly ready

burnt out joints
on sidewalks

29/30! Thank Goodness You're An Expert at Crisis De-Escalation, Sally!

I miss the days when all my dread was existential.

The way the cable line splits the room in two does
more than any arbitrary corner could do. Lines of electrical
cracking across the entire wall, spitting sheetrock onto
the floor.

knowing nothing                                               but a button
                                                                          a trigger
and you, there, Sally
on the other line, for the talk down.

I miss the days when all my tap outs were
for for waterbreaks. No one sees those           vans on their
                                                                        tail,

Matters of national importance.

capsized
icecream truck
The way the snipers show in windowsills.
The way the phone cuts in and out.
The way your voice and the way you
can twist "wait" into a million little
seconds, you make the russians
trust you

What I'm saying, is, I'm just glad you were
here. Who knows what new craters--

                                                            allow yourself the victory dance.