not quite a poem

Some beautiful objects are made by other human beings on earth
Dreamed up and cut from the air, commanded out of the eather
Spoken, sang, played, drawn into being from nothing
Are so powerfully beautiful, conjure such deep feeling
Are so exact, get to the focused singularity of a sentiment
Impression, state of mind, thing, moment, need, dream, etc..,
Move you so fundamentally, for just a few moments
You are taken entirely, forgetting your place in time, society
Geography etc.., you become an appendage of the work, the part of the work that feels its slef.

They call out of you a deep sentimentality, not necessarily for anything particular
Just a monsoon of feeling, a churning mixture of something visceral
Needful, ancient, primitive but more-less refined and wrapped in the contingent


They likely include arguments, formulas, structures
But that’s not what they are, they don’t make arguments
They are truths somehow, common to our blood
Since we dropped out of the trees, and stood wondering that perhaps
A fearsome and fortunate mistake had occurred,

This terrible god

This terrible God

I would rather say my god is high up
With the highest things
Voice like rolling waves
Universal and all that
Pure and all that
The measure of things
The last standard
And all that

Nope
My god is all dirt
Stink and frenzy
Totem for virile savages
Who look her in the face
And sterile rationalists
Who can’t take his gaze

Freud Lacan Jung
Behind all that ink
Behind all those books
Underneath all that text
Burning red pulsating angry faced


I would like to say that
My god is all justice and love
Washed so clean under bright robes
Lounging among the stars directing
The great machinery

Nope
My god is worse
Than heathen, amorphous
Has all sides demands
Libations of blood and semen, cares nothing of impotent prayers' words
Lives in wild places, the bowels and loins of all things
Insatiably starved, not to be consoled, worse than Dionysus
Worse than Bacchus worse than the Furies who rip flesh
And howl for more meat and bone and blood in the forest crouching over the kill
Black hair a death shroud

My starving restless god
Demanding worship, demanding
Submission, total, inside the wind, inside the river, inside the oak grove
Part animal, male, female, plant, bull-goat, clawed sphinx,
Beautiful Harpie, winged predator, a razor tonged siren
All the time singing, terrible Circe turning men to pigs
Horned bearded Pan the musician, laughing and playing that intoxicating tune
Will I never be free

I would cut him out
I would rip her from my core
I would dry it and bleach it and douse it
With anti-septic, burn them out but cannot

I look forward to old age.

this is not a poem

This is not a poem,

You dry souled little boy
Hung-up, constipated, I should pity you but am not that moral
Maybe I should tell you all your little fears and resentments are
Consuming you, but youd throw a little temper tantrum
your too scared to let things go, or can’t help but to be broken by little things
Too selfish, too spoiled, downward eyes,
Droopy grimace, go hide in your room baby, suck your thum
Read comics, online chat sites, I would say masturbate
But I don’t think you can cum. You’re all taboo, shame, guilt
Self obsessed anxiety, the world has scared you to death
Dry spirit, rotting, go crawl into a hole and cry

Professor bore me to death, are you still talking
Take a breath doctor dusty, I’m not impressed, your words words
Words words words words words….
Ok ok I get it you’re an intellectual, ok, thing is
I don’t care about any of it, if talking is not for the sake
Of action, of pleasure, of light, of life, of movement,
Why are you still here, its obvious that you don’t care if anyone is listening
You like to talk, that’s the point, does it make you feel powerful,
In control, im not going to stand here and listen to you jerk off all day
When I walk away you just keep making your speech, to the air

So big time middle management you should be so very proud
Little office, little desk, little computer, little Alexander, Pompey,
Saladin, MacArthur etc….
So concerned with this tiny, focused, pointless, slow-motion factory of death
Keep the wells running smooth little man, keep oil on the gears, you are a jester
A fool but you cant see it, overweight stuffed shirt man, drink more coffiee so
You can fight traffic on the way home, did a good job today, counted every penny
Made sure the rock was pushed to the top of the hill, tomorrow you can push it up again
Thus your life drips away like the coffee you brew, one little bit at a time
Miserable lap dog for the bosses, they spit and you lick it up for nourishment
Having done nothing, meant nothing, seen nothing

this happened

Portrait.
All arms and legs, talking, talking, playing with hair on the couch next to me
Giggling, looks at me and smiles as I write this, I smile, look away
Suddenly made nervous by a kid, don’t want to be rude,
Don’t know how to respond, plus would rather write about her
We chat, she talks very quickly, plays with her hair, why am I so nervous
Her crew, kids, freshmen, her a kid, why am I nervous,
too much coffee for the middle aged, don’t want
To come off rude, asks me what I’m writing I say:

I’m tryin to capture the tiny sun bleached golden threads on your brown arms
I’m tryin to capture the way your friend with the death metal shirt laughs and shifts his weight
I’m tryin to capture the harsh song of the hatchling mocking bird demanding food and attention, the
One bird rushed, flying franticly in and out of our shrubs, same as every spring, to regurgitate
Into the mouth of her young, another flying form point to point around the yard,
Buzzing the nighbors cat, making a very specific sound that means “get away”
I’m trying to get at the pure distilled logos churning in the center of your guts
I’m trying to shuffle closer to the light and heat that illuminates all this and is
Budding budding budding exploding all around us at this very moment
I’m tryin to blueprint eternity, with illustrations and commentary in the margins
I’m after the password primordial, the golden chant, the exact prayer,
So I watch close,

Nah, I’m lyin’ I didn’t say that, I didn’t much say anything, I said it was for school
Something for school, and put my headphones on

my 2 cents

If art is not elemental
Call it algebra, call it an exercise in
Dead aesthetics, look at me I’m a poet
Writer, musician,
If it is not elemental
Call it philosophy, arguments
Whatever, not poetry, not art

If it is not all god, death, sex, struggle, violence, birth, need, love, fate
A red hot slug blasting your heart through your spine
Hit you like the first wet tong kiss, like the first time you came in
Someone’s mouth, like when you held your baby sister for the first time
Like when you saw a bloated corpse on the beach, crabs eating the flesh
Like when you woke up after a terrible crash, first light, begin picking up the pieces
Like when you think of the great terrible dream red sun breaking over the world
Sound and and fury and justice and retribution and death and hope

I have seen them come and go, come and go, perfumed rooms, talking
Of Yeats, fine. Talking of Whitman. Fine. Talking of Cummings.
But if it don’t stick, like the taste of garlic, or too much ginger
In the back of your throat, no matter reading them

It should smell of loam, bleed, leave track marks, stain white cotton and pink silk
Dirty bed sheets, scrape knees, shake and vibrate, be all wood and
Grass and sweat and the mud on the bottom of the river, the
Clay at the lake that sticks in between your toes, the silent terror
And mystery of swimming too far out past the break
That first break on the bus through cheap head phones,
the exposure to Whitman, lusty, all beard sun burnet sholders
or when you finally understand what the spring is. What death is.
If not that, forget it. It ant art. I don’t know what it is.