I wrote this poem a while ago and forgot about it. I think it needs a title and maybe lacks a couple touches of something. Open to all criticism. Thanks.  

Concreteness

A sweet sleep on Monday morning factory floor.

On dozing slabs and slants and little jagged edges,

Crumbling concrete earthen bed,

But such a peaceful sleep.

Safe and secluded, hidden within the ageless achievement of man.

Safe because it slumbers now,

Secluded because the Bacchites care not for concreteness.

So it’s all mine for ten lifetimes.

 

In my dreams I hear the dead foreman’s hollering

Over break-room jesters and machine-gun blasts.

As I wake and run about,

Lungs filled with their grey musty ashes,

I spread arms wide and touch what they touched,

And for a while the dull metal shines.

 

Later, when I turn to go,

They weep from the heavenly gaping roof,

Splintered wood flavoring water like wine,

Filling the bitter imprints of fresh footsteps

And callow searching shoots

Of worthless golden grapevines.

As I turn to sleep again, my poet friends prance about

In distant flowery fields, calling out,

“You can’t make poems from old lead levers.”

I take two breaths and wonder.

If only wine could build bridges. 

...

I've been working on something new for the beginning 'For the Dying Sun'. I don't entirely know how this is working and I know there are some parts that need clarity and the flow is a bit off..I see the direction changing some, and the story gaining some length, dialogue, character interaction..I am in all of it right now, but the beginning seems to be important here..so, here it is.

They often birth on quiet, magical pools of the Orient Sea, a giant bulge of low barometric pressure bursting with a mad and furious freshness of life, then jet easterly on the torrent of a swift atmospheric stream, meeting the far-away frontier-land full of mystery, before moving over the the young and mystic Rocky Mountains, dipping South through farms and prairies and big wood barns, finding a basin of nourishment in the gorgeous and blue Gulf of Mexico, then climb the dangerous banks of Carolina, forming heavy freights of snow, barrelling across the busy sounds of the East, finally arriving for morning in the midst of our seasonal war of survival in New England. In this town, the winters are long and indecent. You don't mind the cold, you say? Maybe even find joy in the snow and holiday and all that happy stuff? Not here. Here, the cold is king.

On Falling from Daedalus

I have added some things to this, which I believe Ian and Will have seen before. Other than that I'm gonna let it ride since I'm not satisfied with it just yet.

Stilettos tap out a siren's song over concrete seas
Sailing by moonlight this Autumn's eve. Taut
Sails dress the vessels bound for the Isle of Hedons, and
In their wake dances the wax of shattered wings.

[There is no indent to use on blogs I guess?]

_____A tribute must be paid to Circe:
_____She who loved men such that
_____There was but one who eluded
_____Her charm. It musn't happen again.

The intoxicating embrace proved too much for Icarus. There was no comfort to be found in his prison high in the cliffs. As he fell from the sky to the thunderous applause of breakers crashing against his former home, he couldn't help but smile. It was not his fathers instructions he recalled, but rather the warning Odysseus issued upon his return:

Drink not the wine, for it masks the
Scent of molted feathers and swine
Sacrificed for the thrill.

Drink not the wine, for it is laced
With Styx and Lethe and its
Taste cannot be distilled.

Drink not the wine, for it is pressed
from the flesh of youth and
fresh hearts they have killed.

The foul sea air that reeks of spilled blood and congealed fat left to rot in stone beds will not be easy to forget for those unfortunate enough to wake.

Next 2000 words or so...

Continued from where it left off:

"And do you remember what I said to you then?"

The door was open when he awoke. Even without his glasses or contacts, the runs in the varnish on the pine door glistened in the morning sun. You could barely see ten feet on sunny winter mornings when you first walked out of the room. Today was exceptionally hard for the boy given his confoundment.

He wafted through the house in reverse order from the night before. Contacts and a shower first. He was numb to the water, only sure of its heat from the steam. He sat down in his father’s seat to eat the English muffin his mother had toasted and buttered. The was no fire in the wood stove that morning to warm him as he slowly watched the lipids in the butter slosh around the craters of his meal.

He could hear his brother rousing from his slumber, helped on by their mother’s incessant calling of his name. The tan dog came excitedly up to him with the blue handle of leash in her mouth, the chain dragging noisily behind collecting the shards of wood she had peeled from a piece of ash wood he brought in the prior evening. He smiled, and extended his free hand to scratch her left ear while she sat contentedly wagging her tail. She turned toward his mother who had made her way to the back door from their room.

“You shouldn’t be sitting out here in just a towel with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold” she said as she wrapped a blue and purple knit scarf around her face. From the muffled noise he made out “I’m going to go walk Jaime” but there was something else that was drowned out by the sound of his brothers heavy foot fall as he drudged to take his allotted time in the only bathroom. There was no response from the boy as he sat and gazed upon the steel piles which stuck up through the snow that had accumulated on the frozen water of the canal. They and the barren trees were the only contrast amidst the undisturbed snow. He glanced over his left shoulder at the clock on the microwave. He was ahead of schedule. He went back through the kitchen, taking his plate and what had been orange juice with him as he rose, placing them in the sink as he passed to dress himself for school.

His brother opened the door as he pulled the second sock up to his ankle. They didn’t speak; he was numb and his brother understood the gravity of the situation. He pulled the door shut quietly as he left the room to gather his things. Per usual, one of his shoes had gone missing from where he took them off. Jaime had a habit of picking one up to carry around when anyone came into the house, typical behavior for the retriever she was. Sticking out from under the “L” shaped couch in the living room he noticed the lace of the missing shoe. He returned to where the shoe was expected to be in the back room to tie them up. Again he lost himself in the light coming in off the snow only to be pulled back by his brother’s voice.

“Lets go, we’ll be late. . .”

He obeyed. Donning his coat he felt for the keys to the Jeep. The marble keychain was cold to the touch, the grain tangible as he passed his fingers over it. They walked out together, leaving the door unlocked for there was no reason to lock it. Neither of the boys even had a key to the house. Cautiously they planted each step in the existing pock marks. Snow came often enough that it tended to defeat the purpose of shovelling.

The clutch seemed heavier this morning, he leg shaking as he pushed through the long throw. Four high would be sufficient to get through the barricade the town plows left at the end of the driveway. The straight six lunged backwards as he eased his foot from the clutch, confident the torque would get them rolling without the assistance of the accelerator.

As he made the final left onto the road their school was on, he could see a news van up ahead a ways. He glanced to his right as they passed the Channel 7 news van, and he could see the glow of candles in the shadow of the van. They surrounded a crude wooden cross that held up an evergreen wreath that surrounded a picture of her, and a few cards that had been tacked to it. In passing he didn’t slow down, but watched it fade into the distance in the rear view mirror as they continued past the elementary and middle school wings.

Classes continued as they normally would for most of the school. There was an announcement that morning expressing the administration’s grief over the loss. They barely knew who she was, much less he or any of the other students who had recently found out that they would be graduating in the top ten of their class. Grief counselors were available in the library for the rest of the week. No one went.

The seniors took free reign to wander the halls from class to class. Some teachers decided they would go on with their lessons, most just tried to help the young adults cope recanting stories of similar hardships from their own youth. He barely spoke at all that day, his childhood in the poorer sections of Buffalo had conditioned him to adjust and get by on his own. But this was new and confusing. His reply when asked if he was doing alright was “I don’t know. . .” in combination with the narrow gaze of introspection.

There was a section of one of the hallways that some teachers had covered with a large roll of paper. Long tracts and missives in colored marker spread out over the sheet like wildflowers, reminiscing about the events they had or hadn’t shared. During the middle of the day he pulled the black pen from his pocket and scrawled:

I will miss you.
-Michael

He didn’t have the frame of mind to rationalize much else, but what he wrote he meant. He paced backwards to the opposing wall and slunk down to the floor in order to pour over the musings of his peers, lamenting that their friendship had only begun to grow this year. And now, she was gone. It was Thursday, the wake would be on Saturday, a private funeral on Sunday.

The day ended shortly after it had started, those prolonged moments of thought were lost to some other place he would never be able to get back to again. You can’t ever get back to those places in your head, but you never forget you were there either.

The two of them had arrived later than usual that day, and had to park in the rear of the lot. He walked his way past the older model Saturns and Pontiacs by himself. His brother would catch the bus later as only Varsity practices were cancelled today. His breath was thick amidst the cold air in the Jeep. The radio stayed off. Occasionally he had to rub some warmth back into his knuckles, the leather on the steering wheel was frigid.

He was approaching 50 when the crucifix came into view. The candles had gone out, but he could see the bouquets of flowers now that the news van had left. The undulating scars in the snow to the side of the road also became visible, as well as bits of debris that stood up further back. Again, he didn’t slow down as he passed, but now his mind was ablaze subconsciously processing the events of the past twenty-four hours. He was doing 90 when he remembered he had to turn, and muscled the brake while quickly descending through the gears to help him slow down. Still, he wasn’t thinking. But now he was awake and keenly aware of the seconds being lost to the white noise of the soft top billowing in the wind.

The snow at the end of the driveway was heavy and crunched loudly as the tires cut their way to a resting place. He didn’t bother with the footprints he followed earlier; his feet were growing heavy. Snow was making its way up his jeans as he trode toward the back door dragging his feet, he was unphased by the cold as he crossed the murderous crystals.

His bag and books stayed in the back seat, it would be some time before he would return to them. The broken concrete steps at the back of the house were an arduous ascent, as was opening the door for water had been running down the frame throughout the day and now froze the way in shut.

He took his keys from his pocket and began to chip away at the barrier, knowing he only needed a small crack in the facade to free the door. He was careful not to let the door swing open wildly; the spring was broken and it would smash into the adjacent window if it opened completely.

The air in the house was thick with smoke. To his left in the wood stove were the remnants of a failed attempt at starting a fire. The metal screen still lay face down, the fourteen inch knife with the black and green resin handle his father had paid $600 for was lodged in a piece of wood that the now cold kindling had been cut from.

Now, the weight of death crushed him as his mind caught up to the present. He collapsed under its weight to his hands and knees and stared at the pool of salt water collecting between his thumbs. The resulting clamour drew the dog from the couch across the room and she inquisitively sniffed as the sobbing mass before her, only to top and glance through the hall at the bedroom door opening.

“What the fuck you crying for boy?”
“A friend of mine is dead. . . “
“So?! That’s no excuse to cry like a little pussy! I had plenty of friends die when I was your age. . .”

He looked up. His eyes were hot, and bloodshot more so than the man whose eyes he bored in to. He hoisted his body up, pushed his shoulders back and asked calmly

“And how many of your friends deserved it?”

“Yes” he replied tersely, “I remember.”

“Well. . . I would like to apologize for what I said that day, and I hope that you can forgive me.”

He had been looking out over his father’s shoulder at the Pacific. Just above the deep purple scar on his father’s left shoulder, you could see the reflection of the sun start to appear between the paisley curtains. Shifting only his gaze, he met his father’s eyes and halfheartedly said:

“Yea.” and walked out of the room.

Proof has arrived!

So, the proof I ordered arrived yesterday, it just got lost among a bunch of other things. Basically it's like a Time or a Newsweek binding with a staple down the middle, though the paper and print quality is much nicer. I've got a couple adjustments to make since they don't exactly print/crop everything all aligned. Kind of annoying, but that's life. the layout looks pretty good [if I do say so myself (cough cough)]. If you want me to email you a PDF of what I had laid out just leave a comment.

Start thinking about what you want to run in this first issue. I've been talking with a few friends who are photographers about getting some pictures in here. My goal for getting this thing to print is the end of August, so a September 1 release.

Yea.

Ssssshhhhhhh!

Everyone stop talking shit about Ian now that he's here. Good thing I deleted all those posts last night...

Oh, hey Ian.

The Blue Bell Booth

The blue Bell calling booth at Gately Square, was not the most popular location in Boston. But things happened there.The intersection where it lay was a unique one: in one direction heralded the rushing artery that with a circadian rhythm, pumped the extremities of Boston inward, to be coddled by the city's buzzum. In the other the entropy and energy of a people, crossing bridges and bars and boulevards. This clash of egos beat of stop- go to a heart of brick and cobblestone. This is not to say, that Huntington and Mass Ave were enemies, but more like competitors in a game of brinksmanship. Thus things happened at Gately Square: whether it was art students going to the supply store for easel and oil, or Symphony sounding harmonious yawps from every side. On one sidewalk of Huntington, before the clash; bums and vagabonds begged for coins, scowling at the many who couldn't see them and the few who did. They would travel up and down different nooks depending on the day, hoping to catch you when you least expected it. They had names like Jarvis and Jones, or Tony and Jim; with problems that couldn't even come close to the conciseness of their titles. Like frightened dogs they cowered at end one of the street, and elusively, never the other. They seemed to be able to sense the cataclysm of cacophony that all were invisibly choking on. Yet today was just like everyday, come fog, rain, sun or snow. And the people were private and populous; sons and daughters of the commonwealth.


Made some new edits, still not sure if I like the middle or not. Please tell me if the few edits were an improvement!

A Man-If-Est Notes from our bar meeting

You have to exist, to exist.

Inaction is action, as much as action is action.

Things just exist. I.e. Homeostasis.

Amplitude + Frequency to infinity -> we can only understand they exist, because they must.


My own thoughts:

Philip Glass often embodies this feelings in his work.

Sigur ros: emotion is music.

Is. Est. Etre.

We are not life using technology, we are the technology, playing with life/ourselves cyclically.

Energy creates matter, recreates energy.

Ad Infinatum, et Magnus.

People are balls of fury and motion.


To me the most important aspect of the synthesis movement is that inaction is still an action. Responsibility for your own opinions and thoughts and continued existence is equally crucial to understanding the vast invisible world around us that science can illuminate. Things just are. And we have to except them as just being, taking ownership of the decision and going further. With understanding how complex the world is through science, we are able to see how one thing is no longer just one thing, but truly a multiplicity represented by any one of many facades. There is still much more to be discovered, but that will always be the case regardless of man's knowledge. When someone asks why I exist, I reply that I simply do. The reason is irrelevant, the fact that I am here is pertinent, and the reasons are always many and ambiguous. Also crucial is how synthesis is different from postmodernism, because in some lights I feel the two heavily overlapping when really postmodernism is saying that this thing can only be comprehended by a foreign comparison to another very different thing; while with synthesis we are saying that this thing simply exists. It is in the here and now constantly, and what else matters, for everything exists and that is enough to keep the world running day after day on its own reasons. I also feel its important to mention how we talked about previous literature periods acting in cycles, where one becomes more technical and formal, and then the next becomes more loose and creative and interpretive. Over and over again this repeats with different names and hues, but in reality its clear that the romantic movement was just like the beat movement, and the Victorian style is almost as formal as some modernist writings, though its interesting to note how modernism prose is very concise and powerful, and modernist poetry in my opinion is much more interpretive and practically creative with its meanings. Its like a two for one deal in modernism.

Anyways, I'll write more about synthesis as the thoughts come to mind.

synthesis

With the death of our ruptured consciousness, it's arrival, well, conception, came not unlike Spring. At first, it was all of stranger things: the soft buzz of bees, the bashful, bushy-tailed tops of trees, the waft of warm cherry dawn, the dew, and the grass. Then, from far-off, blew in the storm...(more) It is the composition of an anecdotal existence, the removal of a self, strung by the wire of folly, and a movement toward the recognition of all things. Of all things, which belong to us.

Of all things of all things.

poem/prose mish-mash

I'll try to get on the synthesis thing this week Mike. 

Beatification

 

The earthy scratching of coarse denim

stirs me from ethereal visions.

Mind descending from heavenly sylvan bliss,

Eyes follow natural course down.

Down to mankind and his omnipresent sprawling iniquity.

Just an angry little beehive from up here, but

a few thousand paces all that separates my mad mountaintop

from the furious clamoring, clawing, thieving hands, spewing mouths of millions.

Only the belief that there is a divide to protect me/us/them

from the dangerous blind searching arms of unknowing.

But a quick cherub laugh and I’m off like a thundering diesel train

Crashing through oak and shrub and soil

—   down, down, in rolling, flailing spiral to meet the ground

To soft-spoken broads in corporate coffee-shops who’ll give it up

for a beady-eyed lobster and a bottle of wine.

To old Jim losing his tired mind sorting mail

in dingy backrooms. Or Peter up on a city roof

sifting cocaine with his permanent glowering scowl.

Too much, but I want/need/have to swallow it all up, so it’s deep in my big bull belly, and mine 

to sort and scour and breathe out and back in again. One or two senses not enough, It’s not in 

me, and I’ve got to have it in me.

I’ve got to taste the steely hollow needle and smell jagged bursting pine.

A final seizing crash and I’m out of the serene,

pristine mountain air,           

and home again. 

A Manifest

So, James and Will should recognize the title of this post, and if not, shame on you both. As you all know this is also about getting a magazine to print, and in order to do that I need content. There is plenty of it posted up here already, but there is something else I would like to include in the initial issue.

I have my own ideas about authorship and how irrelevant it is given the collaborative nature of everything, and I'll give credit to Will for saying the word synthesis enough that it finally stuck. But, what I would like to get into the first couple pages is maybe 500 words about your take on what Synthesis [the action of what we're doing, and why its important rather than just waxing about collaboration] is. I'm thinking these should be anonymous outside of this blog, but I would imagine that most would be able to peg that long equation I got in my inbox to James should he decide to go that route.

And the title, for Shane and Anthony since you weren't at Bukowski's that day...

A Manifest: a man if est; A Man, if. . . Is.

Our conversation stemmed from the irrelevance of the "-isms". There is no style, there are no paradigms, no pedagogues; everything just is. It exists because it can be acknowledged, and we exist to be acknowledged; the taxonomy of it all is meaningless as the work of all "things" is the end result of action wrought on matter. So the work we set to is a drive, a manifest; conscious, subconscious, hyper-conscious, whatever, to inscribe ourselves to durations of time through physical objects so that we may cement our existence in space as well.

So, perhaps that is what this issue is, the realization of our collective Manifest.

Now go get some beers or whiskey and get to writing!

Oh, Stranger!

Lost, the air is still
without direction.

A shimmer of purple, silk
sails from sacred temple,
stretching its mythology
across soft and mossy hill.

(There is a secret below the snow.)

A boulder, she grows and grows and
smashes through buried skeletal stone.

A stone, she moans and moans and
blasts through mounds of shanty homes.

A home, she groans and groans and
tossing trails of found steel in the still air.

Kiss the Lotus Eater?
Drink the ivory from Lethe?

Contemplating Soma.



(I don't entirely know what I am doing with this. I have fallen captive to revision and it all just doesn't feel right.)

On The Avenue

In the brick park at Hanlon Square,
the rusted, old Spanish bum sits on
brown oak bench in the bomb of golden dawn,

pouring imaginary vapor
from frayed denim pocket
full of plastic vodka.

And all the while,
without spilling,
whistles for a cigarette,
like the wingless dove,
stomping on crimson
blocks of concrete land.


The alchemist arrives
in green streetcar
and spins the gray
silk mountain into
dusty grain of stone.

He waves with the
wingless dove and
white noon in the
cool June blue air.

And there,
in the busy swing of afternoon,
the rotary telescope moves to the icy coast

past the orange
shimmer of mesquite bridge blowing,
through giant rays of raw sun brushing
steel figures with gentle stroke of light,

and on to where
the black bear crows,

and us sailing the velvet
wind West on riverboat.

Next thousand words or so

It had been an hour since he arrived home. The temperature barely rose above the low 20s, the recent bout of warm weather excluded. As such, the boy would need to bring in the firewood they split the previous summer. His father always asked that he and his brother fill the 2 walls adjacent to the old wood stove they inherited with the house, but the two of them would negotiate days where each would do the work solo as one of them would inevitably have to stay at the school for practice until 6.

His younger brother took the bus home when normal hours let out, there was a National Honor Society meeting that demanded his presence after classes. As he washed his hands in the steel kitchen sink, he negotiated an exchange with his brother to use the only computer in the house, lest he be left out of the after-school chatter.

The first few attempts at his password quickly failed, not for forgetfulness, but because his wrists and forearms had begun to cramp from carrying the night’s warmth inside. No sooner than the correct keystrokes had been depressed did he receive and assault of information. They were fervent and incomprehensible, but all the same. He replied to the most trusted of them with a lone question mark. The reply was short enough to not read, but simply stare at:

-She’s dead.

The details quickly followed, messy with typos from the furious keystrokes, all irrelevant. His scepticism got the better of him, and he replied: This isn’t funny. His informant quickly laced in “I’m not joking!!” and continued with the stream of details of who found out, what they thought happened. He only glanced at the passing lines of text. His confusion wouldn’t allow for both reading and processing at the moment. Again he typed: This isnt funny...

She responded: Let me call you. He depressed the code slowly making sure to get the sequence correct in spite of his confusion. He pressed return and the phone rang within the second. His hello was met with a cacophony of sobs and bits of sentences distorted by the frequency of sniffles coming from the girl on the other end.

So it was, and time stood idly by as what was left of his rational thought was reduced to the incomprehensible bits of sound he subconsciously responded to in the receiver. Gradually, the mental fallout dissipated and he was slowly brought back to the present by the recording announcing there was no one at the other end of the line.

While he had been at the computer his mother had been preparing the family’s staple dinner: Breaded pork chops, a baked potato, and either boiled carrots or steamed broccoli was the only variable. Over time from coming home at all hours of the night from hockey games he had discovered methods to make his mother’s cooking tolerable. After cooking the meat for the instructed duration, they were wrapped in tin foil with a teaspoon of water and left to bake with the potatoes for an hour. They were supposed to be placed with all the seams face down so no steam could escape, but even this his mother would sometimes forget. Granted, it was still better than the dehydrated cardboard they had grown to love.

His mother chimed in from the dryer which was conveniently placed next to the oven for lack of a better place within their small house.
“Are you O.K.?” she asked without looking.

“I think so. . . I don’t really know? I had just seen her a few hours ago, but. . . she’s. . . gone?”

She wasn’t listening. She replied “Sit down and eat something before it gets cold or your father gets to it.”

“Yea. I guess. Sure. . . I’m not sure I’m hungry.”

The receiver was still in his hand, and had switched from the courteous recording of the operator to blaring out a two tone signal announcing it’s impatience. He placed it down slowly and floated to the other side of the table where his food had begun to cool from the arctic breeze that wove its way through the ancient, rotting window frames. With the flatware in his right hand, and his meal in his left he gravitated back into the kitchen, dropping the knife and fork into the kitchen sink on his way to the drawer with the aluminum foil.

He set the weightless plate down on the section of counter-top that protruded over the trash bin and pulled a square of foil from the roll, wrapped the meal neatly and reached back with his left foot to pull the refrigerator door open from the base. He spun and placed the package inside without looking; there was never enough food inside to warrant rearranging.

The only bathroom in the house was accessed off the kitchen between the trash and the dryer. As he entered he paused to examine the shoulder height hole in the door that briefly reminded him of the hole in the basement door with the cork board he could never see into when he was younger. Neither the cold water he ground into his weary eyes, not the Listerine could return him to a state of consciousness. The dog sat in the hall and watched intently as he faded past into the room he shared with his brother. The door gently swung closed, coerced by the boys left hand which had memorized the the requisite force to draw a confession from the latch.

The edge of his bed, a twin extra long on a metal frame, laid adjacent to the door and received the weight his muscles could no longer sustain. Consciousness and time eluded him still; his corpse gazed upon the small, monotonous flashing bulb of the smoke detector which for the evening would serve as his pulse. The shadows of the fan blade grew progressively larger until his vision became engrossed in them.

“Yes. . .” the young man replied tersely, amazed his rage remained at bay.

“And do you remember what I said to you that day?”

My first scifi short story!

Its not finished, but I've just gotten lazy about closing it off. That said the majority of the story is there, so tell me what you think!





“It's all- just a matter- of force-” he said to himself as he kicked in the rusty air grate that had been occupying the space where his foot currently was. Life in space wasn't all gravity pool and pretty moons; the amount of work required to keep even the smallest bucket of bolts running without a single leak took a legion of trained Engineers just keep it to keep it in one piece, and Kan happened to be the fortunate one assigned with to this sector of air ducts and plasma lines. It was a shame, he thought, that the prestigage of being an endoargostic engineer didn't match the quality of food aboard the USS Finite.

Throwing the rusty old grate aside, and leaning its placement against the wall, Kan began the slow crawl through the miles of ducts to the suspected location of the current leak. Of all the terribly long and _____ things that often needed fixing, crawling through ducts was actually his favorite. Once inside, the only sound made was the gentle sliding of air past him headed toward unknown quarters or the recycling unit. Everything was recycled on a spaceship, he mused, from air to piss to people. The only thing that even came close to constant was the ship itself, but even that would probably have most of its part replaced by the end of its service. Using electromagnets built into the palms of his gloves and the tips of his boot, he climbed his way forward. The computer HUD that hung over of his eyes gave him a full map of the ducts and helped keep him moving in the right direction. “Why;” he muttered aloud, “why did I have to pick this job. I could have a astrophysicist, in a nice warm room, writing holo-equations about fusion and fucking beautiful cynical woman on a soft mattress.” Instead he chose to be here, fixing things with his hand, applying knowledge instead of making knowledge.

The corner up ahead was particularly tight, and even though he wasn't a large person, he wasn't entirely a thin one either, and after a few minutes of wiggling, he managed to squeeze by it. The HUD said he was fifteen meters away from the section reporting small amounts of air loss, but the quantum computers of today never really seemed to be sure of anything despite how much they improved. Instead, Kan became quiet space, listening only to the sound of the air. He would move a meter or two, and listen. Regardless of how long he held his breath, he still couldn't hear a damn thing, despite going over the area where the leak was supposed to be three times. “Figures”, he said to the ducting, after all, when did air not sound like air, but Kan wasn't defeated so easily. In frustration he turned over on his back to think. Minutes went by, and Kan thought of his family back on earth. They were nice people, yet as far he believed there was very little that was interesting about them. His mind wandered from home he left (which he didn't miss much), to the friends he left, to the last girl he had been with. Real beauty as far he cared, with brains too, but the relationship had drifted slowly into nothing, so rather than try to draw it out by asking her to wait till he got back, he figured it was just easier to end it there. On this, he mused a while until it hit him right in the face: drifting. Of course! Since he can't see the leak, or hear the leak, why not let something drift to it for him, and he had just the item.

Bending his arm in a way he hoped not to repeat for a while, he managed to reveal a metallic tube a couple of inches long and only an inch wide. He had been saving this one for a bad day, but he couldn't think of a better solution to his thoughts and the problem. Most cigars and cigarettes for that matter were now smokeless and smell less (and in his opinion tasteless) because of all the health regulations, but Kan always managed to find someone who trade him a couple of a real cigars, and Kan not exactly being a rich man, would cut them in half and make two midget cigars for the price of one. They were hell for the air filters but he couldn't think of a better excuse to smoke one. Using his micro welder he lit one up, took a slow

More Poems!

So much relies
on your feet being cold
so I can warm them again.

So much relies
on your eyes being closed
so I may kiss them back to life.

So much relies
on your smile being full
so I may smile too.

So much relies
on your being earnest
and for so long, I was.




As Of Late Or A Plea To My Fathers:


As of late,
I've been seeing the world,
at angles.

A subdued hand twists the corner,
the morals are down,
and slantism, is on the rise.

The lights are tainted with hope,
while the murk works,
on the eyes and ears,
of a generation, apart.

As of late,
I've been seeing the world,
at angles.

Fantastic, riffs roar,
while I walk further,
than I ever did moving.

Ottoman seated banquets
pour satisfied thoughts
down the crooked nooks
of a deserted mind.

As of late,
I've been seeing the world,
at angles.

And on the fulcrum of temptation,
I stand leaning, heavy,
toward a person I'm not entirely am.

Straighten me father of rhetorical refuse!
Teach how to Ginsberg the gates
of my limitations,
remembering to whit my lips.

Knowing a center cannot hold,
show me how to make it hold,
till my own words may rise, and rise, and rise.



(On goings & comings):

Oh ancient father
of drugged ampersandic inspiration!
How I miss thee;

You didn't bother
with old tantamount conglomerations,
(they cried 'Mercy!').



What thoughts I have of you tonight, Dylan Thomas:


What thoughts I have of you tonight, Dylan Thomas.
I follow you to the neon lit place,
of the charmingly drowned,
and watch you make a character,
of yourself.

How much did you know after waking,
chilled by guilt
for the thirty first time,
only to go back again,
and make it your thirty-second?

How much did you know of the bottle?
Enough to understand that
death shall have no dominion,
and every time you apologized,
may man be your metaphor?

I follow you tonight, Dylan Thomas,
through the bars of woman,
hoping to find the answer,
and the question,

to why am I only alive in arms,
and what the drink has yet,
to teach me about metaphors,
and men.


How a Man Courts a Toliet:

I beseech your worships name,
so we may be better acquaintances
Good sire;
for it appears your former masters fame
has left you blackened as a fire.

I know your patience well, for so many
a lackadaisical wander hath visited a gentlemen
of your house;
so let us sit and talk for a plenty
for quite the dream I do espouse.



Speaking, Archaically:

I am your Columbus,
and to me forever,
shall bit of you belong,
despite what future generations
call you home.

For I tested your earth,
and called it good,
plowed your fields,
and proved it willing.

Although you've had enough of me,
to me forever will a bit you belong.




To Susie Asado:

Sweet tea. Sweet sweet sweet tea.
Spring is everything inside me
that dreams for death to die
and wishes to follow flying fribees
fathoms further.





To a Dylan Thomas Paper I Should Have Failed:

How do I turn a great man,
into a little paper?

How do I do I let you go,
when I never want to let you go?

How do I dress properly,
when it's 27 degrees at dawn,
and 48 degrees at lunch?

How do I die with grace,
not wishing for all the things,
I wasn't able to achieve?

Straus Poem Infusion

Past Us:

Past the art museums

past the electric sharks

Somewhere at the beginning

but not at the start

We wander like vagabonds

over red, orange, green maps

We wander through legends

till our paths are etched back.

Poe Tries:

When did Poe try

to make us smile?

Contemporary lines,

walk a mile.

To Yeats, Briefly:

Teach me of gyre's father!

Teach me how to be a man..

I feel you know so much about life and love,

more than I can ever understand.

White Elephants: (soooo corny!)

Pouring words through a typewriter,

like a drowned man, in a terse room,

I wonder; a fathom of ways,

how to see my old love exhumed.

I could bring her flowers, and yet,

what pedal ever matched her smile?

I could write her poems, and still yet,

what poem could ever stay a while?

I could sing her songs, odes, ballards,

might a fuge mimick us in bed?

I could paint her (though not very well),

but who on hues is ever fed?

Oh what to make of a sad end,

and how to let one go although,

you may never see them again.

I have learned much of cant's, wont's,

enough to make me a little wise,

that goodbye is not good, nor bye.

Train Thoughts 1:

It's good to see the trees blossoming

makes me feel like someone

knows what they're doing,

since I sure don't.

We Are Going to Paris:

We are going to Paris

because I want to.

We are going to Paris

because of the small of your back.

We are going to Paris

so I can see the eiffle towre.

We are going to Paris

so I can walk next to the louvre.

We are going to Paris

because I wish to see a sunset.

We are going to Paris

because we are going nowhere.

Part of a Chapter is what I guess this is.

The Pacific slowly bellowed the boys anticipation, drawing the paisley laced curtain in and out through the balcony door frame. Mid day whispered in the sounds of lifeguards, children and the occasional impatient gull; just loud enough to mask the conversation of his elders. The piping on the arm chair has begun to fray, quickly catching up in age to the settled upholstery and muted seafoam green and coral fabric that have supported countless visitors. Slowly turning a plastic bottle, he forced the condensate to drop to the bottom to the mindless rhythm of his heaving fingers sounding out his sentence.

William, or Bill as he was affectionately known, was the first in. He voiced his typical West coast greeting and goodbye, extending a hand knowing they would meet again later. Next came Matthew. He always wore his anxiety on his brow, though the attitude he exhumed was never anything but cavalier. Similarly, they exchanged a brief slew of words, then Matthew passed out of sight joining Bill, who in the door frame knew his wife would be growing impatient.
Slowly, a familiar haze began to creep into the boys mind, carried in the wake left by his uncles, he began to understand the situation. Rumor had it that he had gone nearly three weeks without his typical indulgences, a first as far back as he could remember. No matter, he thought to himself, the temptation proved too great. At least this conversation would occur under familiar circumstances: his mind sharp, his fathers sedated.

The firm, weathered right hand he knew well breached the curtains,
brushing aside their delicacy to make way for the newest theatre to commence. The rolled zip lock bag that rose out of the breast pocket of his unbuttoned denim shirt was proof enough, as was the agglomeration of pipe cradled in his left hand, the center piece stamped A106. The suite was empty now; the only witness who would be privy to this engagement would be a reprint of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. It hung there on the wall lopsided like the boys left brow expressing his impatience.

The stench of purple haze assaulted him from the center of the room where his father now stood. Silently, the elder gazed down at his toes, malformed by years of torture on concrete slabs, imprisoned behind steel domes. He tried to spread them, but their awkward movement only drew a wince of frustration on his leathered face. His eyes rose to meet his eldest son’s: it began.
He started slowly: “I believe your mother may have mentioned some of this to you when you first got here, but there is something that has been eating at me.”

She had. Several weeks ago the day after it had happened. Very little that transpired in the house on the canal escaped his knowledge. He had been sobbing for nearly two days uncontrollably because of his actions, and it was the emotion rather than the result which he couldn’t believe. Remorse? Regret? Guilt? These were all in the realm of “nonexistent” when it came to his father’s personality, but then again, the only thing predictable about his father was his unpredictability.

Gradually his mother filled in the backstory. There were 5 guys in the weld shop his father worked at. The subject in question was the one his father found most tolerable, so he would almost be considered a friend. Tim had two sons, both slightly younger than his younger brother. They rarely kept out of trouble. This event proved to be par for the course.

The elder of the two boys was out on their ATV with some friends. They were drinking, he was showboating, and in his stupor and arrogance he managed to throw himself from the vehicle, have it land on him and snap his neck. He died en route to the hospital. But why would any of this send his father in an inconsolable state of regret?

“Tim, at work...” he broke in, refocusing his son’s thoughts, “you know how he has two boys? I think I’ve mentioned them before.”

A single nod was returned in reply

“Well, a couple weeks ago, I was relentless in giving him shit, and I mostly do it because he’s the only one there who will put up with me. But anyways, that day I didn’t let up, all his welds, how he held his tools, how he went about setting up the parts, everything and then some. And then the next day he didn’t show up to work, and the foreman tells us that his don died that day and the cops were waiting for him at his house to tell him, after he had to put up with my derision all day...”

He never spoke in such a roundabout way. It was always concise. Laconic to the point that he would force everyone else to tell him anything and everything in one sentence or less.

He continued. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I cried. I cried a lot. I didn’t even know his son, never met the boy, but I couldn’t stop crying and it got me thinking. . .” He paused, as the executioner does before delivering the blade, “do you remember the day your friend died?”

Years had passed since then, but the memories were still as fresh as that deadly snowfall. It was March. The trees had begun to bud from the recent bout of warm weather. There was ice and snow everywhere. The corrugated valleys in the snow were almost a foot deep from the local’s vehicles. They were all surprised more so by the warm weather than by the quantity of snow.

There were no windows in the long hallway that led from the auditorium entrance past the music rooms to the library. It was always so bright, like most hallways in the building it was severely over lit. Just another criticism of how sterile and antiseptic the new addition to the highschool was. They were the only two in the long stretch of linoleum and beige wall tile. Her boots squealed out her pace, he tread silently on dry soles and in passing they exchanged glowing smiles, a wave, and a goodbye. Baseball practice had been canceled on account of the snow. He continued to the auditorium entrance and trudged through the unplowed parking lot to the blue Jeep he was so proud of because he was paying for it on his own. The drive home involved two turns, eight miles and about nine minutes if you caught the only light. The snow covered corn fields were pristine canvasses against which the descending sun painted its warmth.

~More to follow shortly.

Something I wrote when drunk

Charon’s River

 

Pining toes brush tips of pointed grass spears,

Just under lies a great sleeping river that has existed always,

But goes unnoticed by we raving youth,

Our mouths busy spouting pubescent drivel.

Its water is colder than the loveless faces

Of our mothers who have forsaken us,

They are tired from their crazed birth-pains,

They are tired for their own mothers,

Who toiled for drunken fathers that have also left us

Twisted and sniveling on the damp ground—

The ground that has always been damp,

But seems dampest to he who has most recently

Lain upon it.

 

When summer comes it runs underground,

Deep as a man is tall.

The Grackle will guide you to it, if you would just let

The dry musty air go from your nubile lungs.

If only our mothers could prepare us

For the weight of soil on our chests,

Dull flowers reluctantly springing forth,

From our long tendril fingers.

-shane