Mashup

Mash-Up

Crash and smash and dash-up

Slash and Rash and Mash-up

Speeds of sounds floating flotsam and jetsam around the room

darting like poltergeists from some other time

some other place

some other room, what are they doing HERE the people ask?

I'm just trying to get some honest to god sleep, I just want to get some work done in the morning and I really need my sleep!

The singer's voice was never meant to sing on that drumbeat

But the properties of beauty and the properties of man make it so

he can sing as angelically anywhere he wishes

upon the mountaintop

within your computer

and on the drumbeat that was written years ago, thought forgotten

CRASH

Something falls in the corner of the room, it must be those poltergeists again! Oh so now there's two? Thats what I said to begin with! Why are we fighting with each other there's these things that we don't understand, why aren't we attempting to destroy THOSE?

Because we can't understand

everything

crash slash dash-up

mash gash cheer-up

Excerpt from Truth or Dare

"Aborted Jazz"

Jazz was out of style in 2009. Jack knew it but he went to listen to it anyway. Jazz was beautiful. It still is beautiful. Jack knew this. He climbed the stairs to the rooftop of American Apparel and listened to the sweet sax blowin away to the accompaniment of two drummers, one alternate percussion as well but really he was one of the original two drummers aforementioned. Jack looked overheard and was surprised to see a gray sky forewarning of a thunderstorm, but everybody knew an overcast was the perfect accompaniment for depressed jazz.

And so on top of the roof he went, sitting with his rounded sunglasses pulled right in front of his eyes and his hat pulled down low smoking a cigarette and putting one leg for his chin to rest on with short cropped blondish hair covering just above his eyes like an angel’s kiss. Note after note Jack sat and just listened, free from the Hyrda of language guarded by Rich’s bet and the standards of human sociability. He thought about human communication and how the notes were almost like whalesong in their purity and constantly changing spontaneity. Their tonalities pumping with the spark of life given to them by their creator which flowed like blood from a wound with too much to say, too much to bleed, and yet through this holy union Jack found beauty in the verbal silence, preferring to let the outdated yet welcomed shouts by the drummers of “Go!” and “HAHA YEAH!” do the talking while he simply let his body move to the beat, to the spasms of notes that followed in between the samba, almost Latin beats. “Granted talking is useful sometimes, but must I always use it in lieu of just feeling life?” A perennial thinker, Jack found himself now like he did often, stuck in thoughts and bogged down by the multitude of ideas he had to ponder about, yet with this thought about “feeling life” he did not feel dragged down by the syllabic metering Richard had fed him with, he’d hardly ever THOUGHT about syllabic content before this day but he knew he’d never forget. He also knew that he could stay where we was forever, eternally smoking a Natural Sherman stick with his right hand while his left hand darted and bobbed around on the cold, metal table he laid his arms upon, his alien hand to the left indulging in crazy, tribal swoops to the melody’s solo on the alto sax, wondering why this kind of thing never failed to cheer him up. “Well, it doesn’t cheer me up,” he thought, quickly adding out-loud with the careful planning of a precocious child wanting to seem smart in front of his parents or at least himself, “But it does make me think about if there’s something past all the slick bullshit.” Jack knew that the music wouldn’t cure his troubled head, and he knew that he’d go on worrying about the thoughts of leaving and the thoughts of dying that were ever-present in his speech and writing these days, but the primal motion exhibited by the soaring jazz took him higher than he’d ever been on weed or coke, sailing him straight into the sky towards the sun where he dreamed of Icarus Wings to take him towards the sun, just so he could feel its warm touch once before he died. Was it cold? Was the sun too hot to be anything but a freezing burn? It didn’t matter now, because Jack had things to do, people to talk to, and syllabic phrases to count.

Listening to the brass, cool and regal to his ears as if played by some royal band for the coming of their King, Jack began to listen to what the sax was saying, “Hey beat notes oh! I’m feeling good love happiness its all major key’s got” carefully counting out 19 notes almost intuitively in his head, preparing to partake in the dialogue that had been initiated to him. He let the words form at the tip of his tongue salivating them out, allowing for his verbalized chains to spill out slowly at first, but steadily listened to himself speak quicker and more sporadic as if improvisation from a horn. “Yeah yeah I get what you mean, sax, you really get me, its so beautiful.” Jack began to wonder if he was crazy. His absolute refusal to relent to the bet was more a matter of principle, as an exploration of the English language he’d learned to take for granted with no care for what emitted from his mouth, de la boca...He wished right now he could just conjure up a fury of sounds, fiercely piercing the night sky like a saxophone. Yet he loved the English language. Maybe he could go without speaking it, but he certainly could not go without writing it, creating it, manipulating it in order to believe in it. “This was all a test” he thought to himself, “ a labor of Herakles, a temptation of Jesus” realizing he could never give up his faith in the language he grew up on, he would not believe that writing failed as an art form, a form of communication. To spin words on a page was to turn notes in a sax, precise but wildly independent as well. Jack slapped a five dollar bill on the table the percussionist had been keeping his ashtray and slipped into the night, still reluctant to speak out loud but with a reaffirmation of faith for his craft, a reaffirmation that he knew would translucently escape everyone he told, his test of faith a mere ghost to the times he lived in. It was something he casually accepted as he walked towards the bus headed home.

The Entertainer

The Entertainer

The Entertainer is the ever-present host, controlling every situation with his boorish laugh that shakes his guests to their soul in fear, giving them the indication that he's in charge and nothing they might do will change that. The Entertainer has an Entertainer Wife, content to gather the women of the party and rule the kitchen along with the 1950s sexism that so many fought to destroy, yet the Entertainer Wife feels like its only right what with a husband like the Entertainer. The Entertainer and his Wife have an Entertainer Son, running around the party collecting dollar tips for fetching people drinks, at the age of 12 not realizing that a buck a drink isn't really much at all but nonetheless touting himself to all the guests he knows, exclaiming "I've been making drinks all night! I think i'm high off Cigar smoke!" both of which are lies he learned from his dear father The Entertainer to make people laugh and want to be merry with him. The Entertainer does not have friends, only guests, but through his Entertaining Ways fails to see such a fact, soaking himself in the cold, wet party guests already drunk with The Entertainer's contribution of free wine and vodka. Only when one abstains from The Entertainer's alcohol does he see where he is, an unremarkable house that has a remarkable television, a remarkable swimming pool, and a vast supply of alcohol, from which the guest turns away from and becomes a Human Being again, leaving The Entertainer's for a world of feeling and impulsive, uncalculated reality.

Dentist's Office

Brrrrrr the soft lull of the Dentist Machinery in the back

Playing Kirby Dreamland

just another level, mom! I've made it to level 3!

The excitement on my mind, in my heart, sleeping on my soul

taking a nap on my senses

as the machines in the back kept on their drone

like an industrial raga made up of piercing sitar notes and a

hum of bees rattling in the sitar gourd

waiting to sing

The Dentist Machinery is ready for you

Kirby will still be flying into mischief when you get back

Come quick! He's burning to see you.

It's burning you now!

Choices

"Choices"

Oh how I do not feel like writing when I am told to

when I told to use punctuation and to make sure my sentences don't spill over with the wine of words that I drink like the blood of Christ

Oh how I do not feel like being told that I run on

and on and on! Ah how I feel captive in my own art!

Should I perform a lobotomy on your class

and teach it myself?

I do not wish to! That is your muse, that is what speaks to you!

So leave me mine, leave my own

for to lose the fruitful grapes of my words-my multitude of words-

means I will surely starve at your hands

and I do not think either of us truly wishes that

professor

Stone Envy

Stone Envy

The coyote looked around at the stupidity

and cried to the moon

because of your self-obsession

because of your cheeky fascist attitude

because of your flaunted and mistakable beauty

because of your glory story and battling the abusing tyranny in your head

and the flowery duel to the death with your decaying soul

because of the love you throw away in your limitations you exert on me and yerself

because of the death of your grandpa you still haven't gotten over

because of the smiling face behind your own cloudy mug I wish would explode with the

rapture though don't take offense, I'm probably going to hell too

because of the poems I love reading that reassure me in my howling

because of your unwillingness to look in the mirror

because a coyote's cry is something to be scared of

when he laughs in your direction and makes vivid, gut wrenching eye contact

with your morality and I realise

I'm not alone in summertime.

I Remember

"I remember"

I remember the time that we fought for freedom in the halls of the classroom and fought fire with water and smoked the place out. We were on the news, remember? And as we watched newreels of the hippies and Civil Rightsers beaten in the streets of Chicago we'd never felt more at home, do you remember that darling? The day we found the picture of your father with his silly long hair, braided in the back with the beads of the local Native American tribe and we made fun of it but also knew how right he was in what he tried to accomplish. And so we walked down Ventura Blvd and Sunset and Felt the ghost town set in and chill our blood with the suits and giant posters of P. Diddy screaming "I am KING!" at us and all we knew how to do was squeeze each other a little tighter in fearful acceptance of our corporation run intellects. You with your bag from Claire's and the other from American Eagle, both of which caught my right bloodshot eye and me squeeze your hand just a bit tighter in repressed agony, I'll admit it, darling, you scared me that day when I asked you "Why?" and you laughed and cooed "Because, Alex. Because its 2009" and my heart shot through my throat and my mind collapsed within its own fucking static confusion where it remained with NOACCESSGRANTED until you broke it off last summer. I remember that, and thats all there is to it, my love. I hate that memory and I guarantee I changed some facts but since when have you worked for the United States government anyhow?

Warning

"Warning"

Warning: This piece of my soul contains harsh language not suitable for censorship. Listener Discretion is advised.

I want to scream fuck on a mountaintop and let the water stream down.

I want to cry.

I want to defy lists and categories I turn away blind from.

Fuckholy!holy!holy!fuck Calm.It.Down.

But the madness doesn't stop and the tears don't start. So I'm hit by a train moving at the speed of love and feel no pain, not a broken bone!

O Stranger I'm so ashamed, cracked into 13 pieces by a light burning a bit too bright inside the acorn of truth, the holy grail of the intellectual.

Gender roles surround the sky like a sexist atmosphere, making kids (little boys) insecure about their high voices like

-Hello?

-Yes hello m'am, may I speak to your father?

-I'm a boy...

-Oh! Heh Heh sorry about that, tiger!

But all thats said and done and burned to the ground when I torched my tomb where my body from the ages of 6 to 14 lay

bright against the night, naked except for the rich and putrid scent of my sarcophagus aflame.

So kill me softly and kill me true

and please let me cry in front of you.

Discussion: Was our generation born disillusioned?

This is directed towards members of my "generation" approximately my age. This was inspired by my reading Gilbert Millstein's original review of Jack Kerouac's On the Road written in 1957 for the New York Times, in which he writes of the Beat Generation as described in Kerouac's novel, "It is markedly distinct from the protest of the 'Lost Generation' or the political protest of the 'Depression Generation'. The 'Beat Generation' was born disillusioned; it takes for granted the imminence of war, the barrenness of politics and the hostility of the rest of society."

Was our generation born disillusioned?

Are we Lost, disillusioned like the writers where were mutated by tha' atom bomb?'

Are we beat, worn out, born disillusioned?

Are we apathetic? Are we pathetic?

Are we the Dead Generation, doomed before we start with the apocalyptic bookends of September 11th, 2001 and December 21st, 2012, Americans butchered and the end of the world? Certainly apocalyptic within each context, trying to build our Icarus wings to fly away only to know we'll reach the sun soon enough, a dead generation, a doomed generation...The smart ones know yeh've still got to try, though. Yeh've got to-If we are the Dead Generation it is only because we have not yet decided to be reborn, we have not blossomed into the Phoenix Generation. If we are the Doomed Generation then call me yellow for seeing the time left instead of the time running out. Yella maybe, I might be yella-naive to our generation's non-unification, yet I think we got a title, we got a name, we got a song, we got a purpose, I got a purpose.

If one is to assume that the "Beat Generation" was born disillusioned, then did America's youth ever really come back? Re-illusionment is frankly all relative, and its quite possible that our generation was born without disillusionment. However, the great event of our lives more than 8 years ago in NYC cemented a disillusionment not seen the United States before, meaning of course the attack on the core of the Big Apple, and everyone knows once the core's rotten the rest of the apple is prone ta go sour pretty fast. The previous major attack on American soil before the one on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, resulted in an unprecedented spike in military recruitment rates the day following the tragedy, rates which far overshadowed the recruitment rates following September 11th, 2001. Now granted, we live in a very different time now than it was on December 8th, 1941, and I cannot say I support the military in their wars and nonsense in my own mind, yet one must admit that the severe decline in military recruitment following a national disaster is telling of America's youth and disillusionment with the world in general.

My idea of re-illusionment is not one of solving the world's problems or discovering why we are all here, two things I feel to be impossible no matter who is doing the research. It is the idea that I want to know that I am part of a generation that is at least attempting to figure out what there is to care about if anything and contributing the importance and values of life as generationally relevant to the ultimate quest of human society. Every generation has a piece of the puzzle to give, though not every one does, and certainly some contribute more longevity than others. Perhaps apathy really is it, and there is nothing to care about. Perhaps there is everything to care about. Whatever it may be as according to tha generation we find ourselves in, I think we've at least got to give it a shot. The Dead generation, Generation Y, the Generation of September 11th 2001, whatever label our time should accrue, has in my eyes the potential to be whatever it so chooses although I refuse to allow it become the Generation that Failed.

Human Blues

“Human Blues”

“Thanks a lot, I just wanted to know what it felt like” said the young punk as he stuck his knife in the breast of his victim, wiggling it about like a fish gasping for air

and he meant what he said

“Thanks a lot, I just wanted to know what it felt like” said the man as he pulled his fist away from his girl’s jaw, admiring with a strict sense of newfound humanity at the damage he had caused, knowing that however sick he might be found to be by society he had affirmed that he was in fact part of a society of advanced mammals, a bona-fide human in the broadest, most virgin sense

and he meant what he said

“Thanks a lot, I just wanted to know what it felt like” said the Lord as he lowered his magical hand to his side to grasp a better view of his mangled and mutinous Apostle that lay dead on the ground before him

“He could have sold me out to death!” the Lord exclaimed, happy with his work

Printed Word-The Death of Poetry!

And as such I read an essay by hero Lawrence Ferlinghetti who explained how he felt that in the 1950s the advent of the printed word has in fact contributed to the subtle suppression of poetry in its purest form, and that the Beats hoped to achieve a new kind of "street poetry" which was much more verbal-and I wonder why the two cannot be equalized into one? The printed word has just as much power as the spoken word, in terms of organization, capitalization, punctuation ect., I feel that has certainly been exemplified expertly on many occasions, particularly in the work of ee cummings, Jack Kerouac's spontaneous prose method, and one of my favorite writings of all time, the second section (Quentin Section) of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Particularly the last example as it is the most specific of the examples I have provided, I am able to clearly see that the character of Quentin's progression towards suicide and breakdown of logical train of thought giving way to the emotional conquer of depression is evident in Faulkner's abandonment of punctuation and paragraphical construction. I have written many an essay on this, in fact, which I do not care to share here, but I felt the need to write on this subject. The spoken word is indeed powerful, and I am not certain yet in my life if there is anything more powerful than the human voice, be it Adolf Hitler's famous speeches of the Reich or the howling of Jim Morrison's proclamation that we, in fact, "Want the world and we want it NOW". However, the printed word and command of any language is in no way inferior, and in the way I have chosen to take Lawrence's comment, I must respectfully disagree, o mentor.

Sonnet 8

Sonnet 8

Past and Present become one as the final day of escape

is eclipsed in the heat of reality. This is running out,

running in, reality is making a juxtaposition against

the phantasy world I have created where you and I can once

again be natural and real and in love, even though our

paths don’t have to be the same. I wonder if you think

about this kind of stuff. Im in love with the happiness

we had, and I’m in love with the time in my life before

my self-destruction, which now cannot be reversed. Adonis and

Aphrodite have “happiness”, but we had love. I pray to any

God there is I can feel as safe and happy and free as I did

and still do you with you.

I’m a thinker, baby, so why don’t you shoot me?

Grad Party, 5/20

5/20 Grad Party

Sesh

Sesh time

remix of the songs in the key of life

Hookups breakups both occur simalfuckingtaneously

6 and oh, bitches

This isn’t ok. People laughing at sick selfdestruction

we’re all too drunk

on hilarity and gossip

Beer PONG

THE TIME OF OUR LIVES

Here comes Peter Cottontail hippity hoppity

my surroundings, man

everything is lent to snow

its dumped.

We is stoned out of this contemporary

world of fashion and flashin and

party crashin!

blue cactus

Polaroids flashing in my fucking eyes

I’m too gone to maintain my sanity

They’re so beautiful like you, my darling.

What is Sacred?

“Sacred is all relative, kid” said the wizard

and as I thought about it

what was sacred to me? Passion and passion and

The wizard replied to my non-verbalism and asked me “what are you passionate about?”

and I replied “expression”

and walked away to write a poem about how i’d met God that day

and walked away from him to write a poem

because as much as I’d love to stay and talk with the creator of the universe

he just doesn’t understand what I mean by “expression” having never learned

how to write what with his reliance on angelic stenographers

all the time.

Rising Action or Modest Ecstasy

“Modest Ecstasy” or “Rising Action”

I groaned in modest ecstasy as I ejaculated into her cunt, taking in all that sex has to offer. She leaned in and whispered “I can feel it”, apparently in an attempt at being seductive but instead coming off as amateurish. I finished and lurched off of her, laying next to her naked, vulnerable-oh my god!-it was our first time. Not mine, but hers, as well as our first time together. She was panting heavily, not used to the positions and required stamina of fucking. I looked at the clock. 10:52 p.m. It was December 20th, 2009, and in an hour and eight minutes we might die. We probably would. I wanted to waste no time at all for my last 68 minutes-FUCK 67!-but I was as sore and exhausted as I should have been after sex as good as that. She reached for her shirt and I watched her cast a glance my way and smile sweetly as she slipped the t-shirt over her beautiful upper body. The shirt was handmade, she’d silk printed it, and had a picture of Jim Morrison wearing aviator sunglasses with the worlds “But the end is always near” emblazoned beneath. I regretted not getting those tattoos I wanted in high school. I had it all planned out: on the left arm in “typewriter” font it would read “the future’s uncertain” and on the right, “but the end is always near” from Roadhouse Blues. The actual lyric is of course “and the end..” ect. but I added “but”-fuck, it doesn’t even matter now im dying in 63 minutes id been thinking silently a long time, I never thought i’d fear death but I am, I just laid this beautiful girl and now I’d die with her except-shh, i can hear her speaking!

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

We’d been going four months without sex, she wasn’t ready “Ok, I respect that”) and we’d crossed the love barrier long ago but christ, I thought of the shirt that now draped across her otherwise naked body (except the small peace sign around her neck and the tattoo of a slice of cake on her left ankle she’d had since I met her that was practically part of her body but a decoration nonetheless). She’d made the shirt after I Told her of the tattoo and I’ve never seen a fucking better shirt in my life to this day. I softly stroked the tender skin inside her upper thigh, working my hand up her shirt and across her small firm breasts and back down. She let out a pleased moan, and reached for her glasses. I saw the red numbers of the clock reflecting partially in the glasses, their haunting glow the only light in the room except for the pink and blue lava lamps shoved in the corner. I could make out the first three numbers as 11:0 but the last was blurred from a small scratch on the lower right corner of the lens from a soccer game we had organized among the patients on the main stretch of grass. How could I express to her how scared I felt looking into her shining eyes knowing it could be 11:01 OR 11:09, a difference of 8 minutes in the last hour of the life? No matter. I watched as she got down from the top bunk and went to the sink washing her hands as she often liked to do.

“You know not all of them have these. I love that you have a sink!”

I could see her ass bouncing slightly as she soaped between her fingers whistling “Frank Sinatra” by her favorite band and I laid back into bed to ponder my inevitable destruction. I didn’t want to call anyone, not my parents, not my best friend Rob in Arizona who for all I knew might have been having oblivious doomsday sex with his own girlfriend Ivy, not even realizing the death he would experience, I didnt want to call my roommate to see when he might be getting home, perhaps tonight but hoped not but SHIT I CANT SEE THE CLOCK and I whipped around and saw 11:11. I wasn’t immature enough to consider making a wish on that. Shit, what was the missing digit before? It didn't matter. This hour is going by too fast no matter what the clock reads. When you're going to die, time always goes too fucking fast. Now she was climbing back up the ladder, shirt now gone again and smirked at me mischievously as she peeled back the sheets covering my torso and began kissing my legs then scrotum then shaft, fitting her lips around the tip. I ran my hand through her hair and cooed “no, love, we both deserve some pleasure” and felt her giggle and heave across my body, crawling up my skin until i could feel her bush against my groin and once again entered her, this time upwards. I started slowly. I wanted to make it last. Then the red glow of the clock flickered out and the lava lamps in the corner shut down and I cursed the Mayan expert decoders who had miscalculated the day by a half hour and pressed into her hard almost too hard and frantically gyrated my hips and she began to moan and wheeze but happily and i tried to yell “I love you!” but only managed “you” and felt the ground shake and the bed convulse in a downward spiral and heard her scream “Ohhhh” and I let my jissom erupt into her and knew the timing was beautiful and wondered if I’d ever be able to write about the end of the world in Hell and knew I would regardless of if the pens in Hell had ink or not.

Notes: This is a work of fiction. This is not a story of logic. It is a story of passion in the face of fear. Not a terribly well written one, but one nonetheless. The insane narrator doesn’t know how else to cope with the madness of facing his own death except for by imagining how he might write it as a book. There is no life after death. He is not writing this in Heaven, or in Hell. He is writing this in his mind only, unable to process the reality of his situation otherwise.

Visions of Diamonds

Visions of Diamonds

I

Tonight I have seen the soul of the city and it is dead.

For as I left my near uninhabitable dormitory for a date with a Nat Sherman, the most overpriced brand of cheap suicides,

I noticed in the sky four lights beaming like a cheshire grin in the night sky,

four horseman of the dawn waiting to show me the way,

who called out to me with a soft “Alex...Alex...”

as I heeded the call vehemently,

charging after those voluminous brights with a speed I thought only my intellect runs at

knowing that I’d find what I needed

to keep me in this city I’d lost nearly all fondness for in the last six months.

As I ran the Sherman hitched a ride behind my ear,

staying in place only because of the traveling cap I wore

to remind me of Jack Kerouac from the cover of Scattered Poems

and went along for the ride as I coasted the night breeze, a scattered poem myself,

and overtook cars going 20 mile an hour filled with college students looking for the next big party to defy their parents at,

finding the strength to persevere, knowing that what I would find at the end of my rainbow would greatly outweigh any obstacles I might encounter

and I passed the liquor stores

and I passed the drug stores

and I passed a Father/Son Blacksmith shop (which particularly intrigued me)

and I passed an unkept furniture shop which made me think of where i might find a typewriter as i was in dire need of one tonight

and I passed the streetlights, jaywalking any time I could but being wary of the lights in the sky, seemingly getting consistently farther away as I moved towards them

still taunting me with their alternating individuality of moving away from each other and unifying for 2.2 seconds before breaking up again

and I passed great fences and terrible looking streets that I felt I’d like to explore some other day

and my father on the phone with me said “Its probably some kind of premiere, son”

and my wide-eyed optimism disagreed completely, giving me the notion that the soul of city lay just beyond the next street until i came upon the next street to find that the soul of the city in fact lay beyond the alley after that

and I passed out in my mind, running solely on obsessive compulsive steam heat powered by my plagued mind

and as I reached Fort Lowell, 5 or 6 miles from my starting point, I realized that the lights were not any closer and that the ground was glass beneath me, providing an outlet for the soul of the city

which was hidden beneath the laundromats and catastrophic skyscrapers

to peek through, but never re-enter the human world.

I knew the soul of the city to be dead, destroyed, gone, and i was in fact the only to have seen this apparition, which hardly surprised me having just read an essay on the multitudes of visions writers such as Burroughs and Ginsberg had

yet disturbed me all the same, for the epiphany came that the city in which I had immersed myself, in which I had spent my formative last 8 years, had no soul, no soul at all, and I absolutely refuse to live out my days alone in a city without a soul and the truth that the lights in the sky consoled me no more for the loss of this city’s spirit than a Ground Zero memorial in the Big Apple would make up for the haunting distress of 911

they’re just lights all of them just lights

and the thought is there but they’re just lights

don’t you get it? Can’t you see? The lights won’t bring them back

the lights won’t make the spirit arise or relive this city’s glory days in the public eye when John Dillinger sought refuge here or Everett Ruess traveled on horseback and was slain in the Apache desert

and the lights are just getting in my eyes now as I look East across the Hudson Bay from here-I swear I can see it!-and I see a kinship in the disillusioned New Yorkers but at the same time I feel they’ve got a soul who carries a rusty torch

but this void of a town in which I make my way is no more than a vast emptiness that fools a million people but not me

and I’m going to leave

not tonight

not tomorrow

but soon enough in the grand scheme of things

and to all of my dissenters who ask what makes me think I’ll be happier somewhere else

I’ll smile and have them read this

and save myself the intoxicating satisfaction of knowing I’m the only Tucsonian who saw the light, the dead light

and that light, my love, is no metaphor.

II

When I hear my voice on the phone’s recorder

I realize that its probably more accurate that I give it credit for

but I wish it wasn’t

although thats not what concerns me right now, its these visions!

Ah! Visions! Ah! Visions of Alex! Visions of Everything! Visions of Nothing because I have never SEEN anything persay in these visions but they come, they come like fire in my ears and in my nose and I can feel them flow through my body like my metallic blood that I’ve drawn from the scab I can’t stop picking at these days

Ah! Visions!

Like in San Francisco a city I’m genuinely convinced is magic, a center for it

much like Ireland or Atlantis or Fincayra

a hub if you will

Ah! Visions though, I must return from my tangent!

In San Francisco the city of magic I laid in my hostel bed in the third floor of the Pacific Tradewinds Backpacking hostel high on good West Coast weed the employee at the front desk Mary had smoked me out with

and I laid in the dark, my mind flowing with thoughts of my Beatific heroes and Rimbaud, who I’d been reading that day

when the sound of the lord of the universe came to my ears and I began to fear for my life and I saw the light in the darkness this time not a cynical death of a light

and I heard it I heard the vision Ah!

And I knew that if I kept my eyes closed a second longer I’d see Him whoever this creator was and maybe it would be just me or maybe it would be God but either way I’d see him

but I opened them because I wasn’t sure what was happening

and as soon as I opened them the sound disappeared and I was lying in my bed alone in the dark and I regretted what I had done because I could have seen the universe!! But I was not meant to at the time.

That was the first of my visions.

Now I hear sounds on my roommate’s prescription adderall which I probably should not have taken although I did at the beginning of this poem, this piece mind you

PROSE POEM PERHAPS

and I hear the sounds of drilling

yet they have now left too

and with this realization, this vision of the death of Tucson I have seen tonight

I realize I am meant for something

I have questioned it greatly as of late, wondering if I am like Lennon who knew at a young age he would be all he became

and now I know I am not wrong

I have important things to do

I do not seek fame

I seek fulfillment of my highest potential

with my influence from the Beat and the Music of the World

and I wish to create my movement and affect lives

and I shall! I know I shall! Ah! Vision!

Ah!

AH! VISIONS OF DIAMONDS AND KEYBOARDS AND TYPEWRITERS AND LIVES TO BE CHANGED AND FAME ALTHOUGH I DO NOT SEEK IT ALTHOUGH I KNOW IT WILL COME TO ME AS I AM COMING TO ME RIGHT NOW WITH THIS REVELATION OF THE TIMES!

ah! Fulfillment!

III

I’m leaving now

Goodbye

Au Revoir

For another day

We shall interact on a deeper consciousness

In another dimension

and with harmoniums singing our song

we will embrace in love and the ocean will crash around us

but we won’t get wet

at all

Hepcats on campus

Hey I ain’t gonna cry no more

Hey I ain’t gonna cry no more

My sweet babe left and my life is a bore

but I swear to you lord I ain’t gonna cry no more

Words is substitution for yer funny kind of tears

And yer cryin onstage in front of yer peers

but that ain’t where I’m at, son,

I’d rather write about it and spin a wordy tale

thats more truth than fiction of course

but regardless

its how I’m gonna roll

And the hep jazzy bros around campus with their boards

and their backwards hats

march two by two like ants, no like mice,

right by the hep artsy fellers who stand around and smoke cigs

lookin cool, straight out of 1994

and they’re so caught up in themselves that they ain’t got the time

to notice the hep older folk trying to wade the river

of youth and hepness that doesn’t even seem appreciative

of all that them older folks gave ‘em

damn kids don’t know shit about hep

Hey! Hep folks! Cross yer river

with a stick! Hey! Hep! Hep! Hooray!

Its all a phony photograph

but that ain’t a scene, baby, that ain’t a problem

because life is but a dream

and life is but a dream

and i know it and you know it that we’re in some fishbowl

thats big and blue and it makes sense! Our planet is big and blue!

Life is a dream, baby, so be hep while you still can!

Ruminations and Return!

Ah! The return to blogspot! I have journals and writings on my computer hard drive and thoughts in my head but I shall post in this format for a day or two until I find it 'useless like I often find recording on the internet. I feel like typing up some recent quotes and readings that I've found beautiful.

From "Rant" by Diane Di Prima

"There is no way out of the spiritual battle

the war is the war against the imagination

you can't sign up as a conscientious objector"

From "Punching a hole in the big lie" by Ann Douglas, on William Burroughs and the Beats

"the Beat movement continues even today, a half century after its inception, sustaining its veterans and attracting new members-those for whom the respectable is synonymous with boredom and terror, if not crime, who regard the ongoing social order as suffocating, unjust, and unreal, who believe that honesty can still be reinvented in a world of lies and that the answers if there are any, lie not in the political realm but in the question for new forms of self expression and creative collaboration across all traditional class, race, and ethnic boundaries"

Rest in peace Jack, Allen, Neal, Bill, Gregory, Herbert, and keep on living the dream Gary, Lawrence, Carolyn i spose and all y'all. Ah, you have made this movement, this movement that inspires the old dying of cancer from a couple more cigarettes than they should have smoked, the old dying of time and age, unable to find the right strain of yage (ive read the yage letters, bill, i know you tried!) or the fountain of youth (de soto you tragic bastard) to achieve the agelessness that humans physically desire, but the movement inspires the immortality of literature, of music, of thought, and thats all we've got be it the end of the world in 4 years or not. The movement, the movement, the movement of the beat, the movement of the rhythm, the movement of the people to the beat of the world, to the beat of life, i see where "beat" comes in now! It ain't about being tired, naw, its about the beat of life, the heartbeat, the pulse of life. The movement inspires the young dying of boredom and insecurity through lack of social change, the movement inspires the young dying of sensory overload, of sensory underload, neither of which is particularly healthy-the beat of the earth and the visions of serenity through chaotic thought is the inspiration i take from it, from chaos is only chaos yet that chaos is beautiful, calm, a contradictory concept that only reflects the oxymoronic chaos the beat of the world IS. The beats the beats im beating im beating! I'm beating so i don't die prematurely of cancer, of sadness, who knows how i'm gonna go but im gonna go when its time to go and that wont be til i beat all up and down this earth, baby, cmon now love, lets beat to the sounds of the war, to the sounds of the forest, to the sounds of peace, its all there waiting! Waiting for beat! Ah!

This is a Seperate Story (3/27/09)

I'm in a different place today, I felt it was appropriate. Its very dark, I cannot see the letters and placement of what I am writing . But I bought an Allen Ginsberg poetry anthology today, and I finished On the ROad, and I want to read Visions of Cody, and I want to conquer the world, and shatter the lines that proceed our perceptions and speculate our speculations in the terms of the new generation. Ruby writes. She could be Keroauc. What if she was i'm writing very hard right now. I've got to go to school in 8 hours. I do not mind the smell. Its sensory and feels alright. I'm going to change the music. Hang on I want to go inside actually.

One is good for now. I'll put the other away for later. Why is it so cold?

So i'm inside now but I can't read still because I put the lights out and the Pixies on and my story piece of journal away. I'm a packrat. I keep anyhting that might have some significance to me. and then I cast it away and denounce it. Why. Because?

I messed up the punctuation right there yep yep yep i sent in the line version?

Its fine i'm going to burn that journal paper and let it into the wind hang on.

Ok, done. I almost caught my roof on fire with all the brush on it. Plus its fucking windy out there. But it felt good. To come so close to disaster but get away free. I set it on fire to "Debaser" and it burned to "Gouge Away". Sweet. I should listen to that CD Ruby gave me. So sweet. She probably just wanted to do it for fun. It meant a lot to me. She'll probably never know. Lovely.

On the Plan to Chicago (4/13/09)

I'm on the plane, hand's a bit shaky. Someday I'll type this all up and sell it for a quarter. My ears are damaged. Just watched Donnie Darko. Great movie. Plane engines falling apart left and right. Quite sad. I love the girl who plays Gretchen. My favorite part of the movie has just been entombed on the back of the Force Journal. Gretchen is upset and DOnnie tries to comfort her while listening to "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and she turns to him and softly says, "I guess some people are just born with tragedy in their blood." That line. Sums up my life. Who is born with tragic blood is not important. The fact that people are sometimes born with tragedy in their blood while some are not is chaos. Tragic chaos. I love that line.

That song is incredible as well. The drums are like my heartbeat while Ian croons a song of lost love. Connections mounting and biting in their rhythms of soft echo. I can't believe i can hear this song. Beauty. Lust. Love. Love will tear us apart. Again. I need a new journal. Muffled agony is barely visible in the masses of droning wasps that hum their firm yet soothing artist's cry.

Anonymous Hands

Anonohand

The artist's cry is going line. Thump thump thump thump GO

The glory of strangers that gaze upon this,

my book of all failures, with a sense

of ultimate innocence, not a tear

to spare from their anonymously busy lives.

Untitled (4/12/09)

I haven't written any songs lately. I'm not sure why. Although real musicians, professionals, put an album out every couple years so I bet its normal. I think it is.

Haha so I ran away from a party this morning. My friend Benny Arnold told me about the party. I had an enlightening experience with the true king of Tucson (west, man) not FofG as some may claim. And Ruby Tuesday was there. I'm saying that from now on. Benny put the moves on Ruby and I was right there and it was fucking ridiculous, man. They're Polar Opposites. Anyway, I walked 4 miles at 5 in the morning listening to "Ruby Tuesday" on repeat. Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday. It felt great but i'm still hung up on her. Oh well. I'm going to take the Force Journal with me to fucking Chicago. It's happening. I've decided. I need a new pen though.

If the plan explodes, so do I and so does the Force journal, its the way it goes. But the plane won't explode. All my pens are dried up. Shit.

Goodnight. As my friend's left arm might say: "So It Goes"

Wake Up, Tom Stoppard (Poem; Undated)

Wake Up, Tom Stoppard, show me who's a man

I'm tomorrow, baby, so give me your hand

Things are getting closer and quickly out of focus

Years are running by the longer you know us

I walk up with a pistol and a shoe

Carrying more skeletons than you ever knew

You love me, kiss me, show me your things

You move a bit closer i'll buy you some rings

Writing alone and not getting drunk

Hip-hoppin beats are a ship that suck

The writers reconvene at a table of ivory

Moonlight Sonata sent my existence dying

Hook up, look up, my lonely face

Girls don't want me, I don't even ask for space

Wrap me up in cushions of lace

Drag me nowhere, discover this place

Wake Up, Tom Stoppard, thumbs up man,

The groovy sea houses the groovy van

I'm traveling on the go go , don't know when i'll start,

Ink up my body, warm up my heart.

My first post.

I'm no stranger to the Blogspot format, as I've been co-keeper of the infamous University High encyclopedia-parody "Whelanpedia" for almost two years now, but I've decided to publish things i've written, big and small, black and white. I've written a lot this year, and I'm going to do my best to publish it all to an extent, and then when i'm done with that things will start taking form and i can start doing new stuff. Peace.