The Greenbook
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- | '''Part 1 | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 2]] | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 3]] | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 4]]''' | + | '''Part 1 | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 2]] | [[The Greenbook (part 2)|Part 3]] | [[The Greenbook (part 4)|Part 4]]''' |
== See Also == | == See Also == |
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About
Collection of poetry by Steven Adkins (2003-2004).
Written between March 8, 2003 and July 25, 2004. Written over a much longer period than previous tomes, The Greenbook was begun at Jean Suau and completed at the apartment located at 7, rue Belle Paule, where Adkins and his wife had moved in May, 2003 to make room for their baby.
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Text
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
IT begins again roving, like a dead lock in space mighty fur burning mighty chip? who the hell is that? And that is a small manifesto its details found in cracks mighty temples mere conglomerates of dust I am 90 years old but my hair is only 5 I am 642 years old but even though I am dead my hair still grows my address book still contains the phone numbers of emperors my wife, still pregnant…. so this, then, is the Greenbook? washcloth wind tunnel weird viper wrangling with cowboys: There will be a war soon AND I have forgotten my orange jumpsuit AND now I will mention it by name…. (long pause, accompanied by sounds of scuffling, the POET reappears w/black eye) er, uh, belay that, I will not be mentioning it by name there is not, in fact, anything to mention you see, I, uh, mis-spoke (and that has nothing to do with “of the field”) of the field = du champ = thus, the bicycle wheel = miss spoke my blood is cool cuz my hands is cool “tu cherche?” Well, not at the moment…. you see, she is sleeping (my wife, the one I told you about) We make adequate love We are very stressed by the details of living and the new life coming ha! Greenbook verdant redolent of myth symbols of plants – growth! jungles of the stuff like vegetal mind criss-crossed with roots and unruly fauna [some time later:] my wife is a stranger strange union of invisible tongues striking knobs upon hob-kneeled gongs in hob-kneeled temples, or should these temples, be vicious? squid likely upon the next tide the horncastled horizon and the dark wafer of the sea the delicate emissions guarded like highways are guarded after snipers, dog-balloons, expected beginnings fervent hopes whores block light the international day of the lemon its bitter citrus betraying poems, or omens showmen blunder take a fall children wonder learn to call sings permitting we will go it’s all a show I could go on forever like this it’s neither hard to sling a rhyme or structure plosives into rhythms teeth and tongue into feet Do you have anything? Is there anything between us? “L’amour” almost derisively The irony not lost on this day when women paint on translucent screens “LOVE is so….” What? Heads explode into voluminous trees and this hasn’t turned out to be the perfect spot as I see the frontwards on the other side of the reverse “one” might call it the obverse of one were a smartypants toffs doff caps a malicious vibrado scooping on canes down chorus lines in schoolboy outfits it respires as one and turns into Nazis in concentration camps pacifist posturing the formations of groups the left hand of the same sad golem droll and drawling slipping and dribbling shits and giggles are words from memory to describe “just for kicks” bone-crusher wind sailor it crawls upon a darkening cloud and my Hawaii has a vaguely horizontal edge with its fair share of greytones sprinkled among the colors minefields blowing off countless feet and thus coming across cannibals destroying dozens of suns George jacking upon Jefferson and George Washington wooden teeth cherry tree golden unhapply that new kind of apple the gendarmes arrive and bust open hesitant skulls – and that is an understatement you are more than undertakers you are idols she laughs without you and with almost everyone else we will never communicate no real affection walls like translucent cadavers burnings jelly that trinity must say something watch it from the other side this is not a class of painting but a spectacle one half of a pair whose isolation renders it useless it moves and burns but rarely makes the light-bulb glow it harms itself and seeks exits but cannot submit to simply expiring a slow rundown until the rhythm is tuckered [the rigmarole, redundant] and it that you have an omelette some dust three white men and a magic circle of light from a lamp incredible contrast to the palmetto blue South Carolina 1975 your moon is humongous and your sky a violet bowl of desire and there in a pattern of yellow conspiracies stand up to wonder and formulate ways to plunder 1. The gallows humor of the uninitiated awaiting the ceremony the grim smile part of the mask called “the brave face” and on sale @ the Lodge store there is talk of savage beatings with wire brushes harangues by mock priests in strapons backpacks strewn with jellied condoms faint swaths of pink and brown evoking certain smells…. there is nothing passively received positively bereaved however having been left bereft what else could they be? 2. your pleasure gluttonous and festive pure flavor the keys of equilibrium votre plaisir gourmand et festif pure saveur les clés de l’équilibre signing in some gestural tongue mute across vacuous winds that is to say across the bubbles of vacuums floating across a Chirico landscape Jacques Chirac staring out from under glass draped with a dusty tricolour Marseillaise of hollow tin tinkling down dull over assorted grandpa objects WHAT is it that motivates me in this endeavour? one hopes for an extended evaluation of the self and its values but gets evasions and lazy descriptions of what should happen (but never seems to materialize) john-jumping on out-of-date scenarios outmatched and overdone overcooked overall über alles sternsnüppa falling l’etoile Volant of and idea glimmerflick then disappearing when you’ve only just realized it was there a permanent shade of “wasness” images as plan and sustained creativity fading faster than a tiny splice | a splice in film The inheritor of death: he who is always waiting hanging around monuments to real things looking up the busy street the materials of construction jarring a harmony which was never there except in its half-planned conglomeration: The avenue is busy old men with nothing to do pregnant women pushing strollers purposeful mopeds insect automobiles The sounds of some kind of drill the motor and horns and above it all one persistent bird regular and then my name: “Steven!” The lost ring the news of suicide he jumped thru a 9th storey window the lost ring seems less traumatic even though to my wife steeped in Lacan it is highly symbolic shit and waiting for instructions how to find a job to feed the woman and the coming young’un I can’t stop thinking about milkshakes c'est a dire sucking it up through a straw fine vapour curling over aluminum and this interview, this formation is becoming more of a weight 1st thing you learn is you always gotta wait always whether it’s a man a woman or a monkey Music percolates upwards in thin sheets sheet – that it is no. big, no license no strange dichotomies upon the frozen helices of time milky wisps curling against the pin pricks of stars punctuated by glorious grillage rolling down for the evening this is just the external sound and does not account for the trilingual chatter in my brain how can I care, yet flee on a free day for a place to smoke and nod? To spend hours in gone-over ground with bitter enunciations amid the finality while @ home my pregnant wife waits patiently before heading off to the pool? I can put it aside Still feel its weight yet nonetheless continue my perambulations Dropping socks while clocks stopped by Glocks sit shattered and splattered limp cocks battered by violence dumb science obedient silence then shock stress reduces, more than less and thumping distress pushed juiced thru sluices while blood gushes and splooshes downtown all around not ham-hockin’ or body rockin’ but trombonin’ corn-ponin’ in thick smocks set loose upon produce pigs lamb calves and the ubiquitous ridiculous chicken The INcredible he recants edible seeds and recounts egg chromosomes Is not credible as he bleeds…. as a vegetable all the while The slim mammalian strumming a guitar does not sprout on plants Cold crooner in Père Lachaise Father, the chair He is very useful quiet and functional We clamber, grow, play, learn His paint peels and his straw grows thin Dramatize twisting guitar like a pathetic nebula The mouse that roared An elephant pansy vile green liquid leaking slowly from rusty pipe hidden away in forgotten sub-basement blocked off in concrete and cinder crèveforms 3 meters thick close the last known lair of the Bête Tolosan it burbles up anyway blobs of flesh like mercury wriggling like a cutup worm searching for itself blindly yet persistent Four parolees in the wilderness the open desert Memories of prison in the form of vultures the sound of key a squawk or a slither Quo Vadis? other emblems priapic and shimmering haunt visions of self conquering and unconventional but conforming rigidly to the conventional expectations They milk cacti pricked fingers dripping pulque for blood Closely guarded secret The old dogs playing poker What do they do? Hold things close to the chest And wear faces made of stone Let’s go to war against the men in Phrygian caps Worshippers of Attis Whose castrated member delivers milk to the ground Nourishing a tree whose fruit bleeds A new life from balls made of dust, blood and semen Hymmed over and touched by wands Flames applied under song And when it is all over, into the clouds strung from high mountain pastures Above the heat from where these seeds have been taken Something begins to wriggle and emerge A hand tearing open a flap in the sky Any set of figures could signify anything an entire topography described by numbers lives reduced – as they can be – to a maddeningly accurate binary routes taken, the road not doors opened, peered thru, stepped thru doors locked and keys lost A metaphysical set of what-ifs snaking off…. (unfinished) SHE’S GOT these little dolls from Ecuador When you’ve got worries and woe yer s’posed to place them under the pillows when you sleep The day I woke up to find her toothbrush gone hand darting out in post-narcotic hangover I moved her pillow: She’d put the whole lot of them down little scattered figures willy-nilly like Voodoo bones And she whom I had pegged as an unrepentant intellectual Our child growing in the belly fruit of the womb is making her catholic: When she realized I had inked an upside-down cross on her hand she went “you” and looked like I’d shit on it I jokingly suggested she finish cleaning it off w/some of the water we’d snickeringly brought from Lourdes in a little plastic Madonna She half-jokingly complied …. (unfinished) IF APRIL is the cruelest month then MAY is the scrotum of an elephant April is a pain in the ass just like any other month just like an elephant’s scrotum is wrinkled like my own just like the sun is a great big ball of gas with spots just like Mike What would Jesus do? He would bomb Donald Rumsfield and call it a glorious victory Having lived in France now for 15 and one-half months I am still searching for that place where these “naked ladies” allegedly “dance” there is said to be a hole in the wall where the men can see it all but, clad only in their underpants they don’t care Would they care otherwise? And why does having stripped down to one’s knickers render one so lackadaisical? Having gone thru the effort, one would think they were expecting something, eager even To me that shows that not only do they care but they care very much But….maybe….they are not watching Just because they can see doesn’t mean they are watching Maybe being clad in undies is only a prelude to their own nakedness Where they begin to do a little dance of their own Will the ladies then continue dancing? Or will they slip on their bras and panties and watch the men, or simply wait around indifferently? And would this seesaw of getting undressed and dancing, then getting back into underwear and standing around either watching or waiting, go on for? And more importantly, why? Why do it on other sides of a wall, especially when there is a hole in it? What is the meaning of this ritual? What is its origin? Where exactly in France can I find this place? Please send any info on this matter to stevenmadkins@hotmail.com The Films of Nick Zedd PROVINCIAL the denizens of the cosmo } POLE metro (shaft stick baton You have NY wand) and the rest (greasy and with humid musk) is an enormous fetid wilderness fœtal indeterminable ALWAYS down for a savage beating the law of love is that of a jungle We gotta blow up the moon! SAID by sad-eyed thick goggles Chechnya burning over the skies of FRANCE a monument erected by George FORD Daddy of the American Boys All six of them in granite with four eagle heads an argument taking shape in Things LOGGING IN OVER LONDON burning towers drowning vomit my tears flow thru my hair…. The Moon! What a fat eyesore glowing selfishly like some kind of fish belly-up in the tide (they went down in the ditch with her and they watched each other pee) (He grits his teeth and cries) HOLIDAYS ON MARS taken like break-dancers flingin’ bullets off tips of body rock fingers slung low in a gung-ho sweet chariot eclipsing the sun as it rides across the sky burning bullets in trephination trepanned nation brains leaking out onto floor just a tittering tease in a slithering sleaze we got cards in files just waiting to be picked up cuz we don’t deliver never know needle horse black and white linguistic pride black knight white knight white light and dark fright long night of long knives homosexual soldiers sent into the valley of the shadow our hymn is played on a piece of paper and a comb outta sight lil’ mites burrowing like viri (platypi) (octopi) pi8 a symphony played on bones jones homes james browns fat clowns on crack jumpin’ jillyboats ON Roglats songs silent wired mired tired sayyy, you got any more of them crackers? them dog-shaped crackers? sailing silently under the stars clouds doing an accelerated sad yet gentle We will let people speak of mucous and vomit, homeless shenans under Irish igans shileaghlies and cops bursting with jowls and red whiskers, billy-club barons overtly trade inadvertently and secretly racist, even indifferent: the effect is the same headaches thems the breaks j’emmerde le France et j’encule ta mère Who cares and what gives? TAKE TWO ended with a bang but not a whimper the banging descended into a snake-like nest of viruses PONTIUS FLY-BY a fly-by shooting A FORTUNATE LACK of preoccupation with making sense a notebook inviolate hot taken with bullets slung low in a sweet chariot arcing over the sky Apollonian fruit under gilded wing “Don’t call me Daedalus” Dido, didgeridoo or Agamemnon Medea, Aeschylus, Aphrodite, Fred We play “snocker” and knock balls about with sugarplanes sugartits biplanes Caught on the crest of a wave licking tongues burred like a cat’s sheaf-clad spears of the driveway fence held up twanging in the hands of pallid ones cascade of clear drops pouring over like facet-less diamonds giants with feet on the floors of the seas R ‘n’ B over on the lemming parade a landless shore terminating in bluffs “Vous avez eu ce type du sauce! Hou-ses of Par-la-men t !” (Parle laments) Geoffrey pointed @ the bottle accusatory a cued satori “action!” and like movie villain of British arrogance his face is twisted into an ugly, almost drooling this repressed vitube, a robotic flesh-model made to order to deliver “a sour time” We are broken upon wheels spun around on delicious axes flung to the ground on vicious ashes She brings about a biting a mother crocodile overlooks two rambunctious children – baby crocs fissure in clay issuing beans the would never understand no notebook inviolate no not book in vial ate (eaten) hydrochloric stomach gurgles foam pink and full of soft maroon stringy bits marooned in yolk of phlegm waiting the isolated birth We are all born into spheres “The Look” parading about on the streets of Lisbon small white tiles occasional blue sigils of mariners and tritons deities (and demigods) small elf-beers sliding across metacyclical bartops she has teeth like fangs and a good outfit passes for a knockout but has soul-ugliness betrayed in a million unsubtle lies notice the violence…. the BOOM! BOOM! I’M not scared of dying TERRIFIED is more like it the little elf (a farfadet) slinging hash along ash-lines rough ashlars smoothed by endless ebb and flow twice every 24 hours it takes a thousand years junket on the joyride smack packets in humdrum dynamism and if the dead can dance then the bears can mete out vicious beatings with dumpers (as in taking one) (which is an elliptical way of saying) (turd) cutesy footwalk under clandestine tables the spirit of the apartment is a dead little boy who lives in the closet and moans he scrabbles his nails against the door which hasn’t been locked since…. [these motherfuckers with their million dogs] [and these other dogs with their drunken hostility] ….interrupt me; they don’t smile but if they do it’s like a slice from a very, thin knife Hipsters in Armageddon Are still capitalists boning roses in graveyard brain-pans slinking off to shadowy places highly encumbered with S & M gear the vagabond fish and the crazy cat climb Mt. Fuji in a tank to go to the casino pure hair ground in a windmill by a pederast I can see all of these things from my table; can you tell me why? gnat retching calamitous under thunderclouds funk music the specious redemption saved from rain only to be eviscerated by drought and the sun still sizzles my spit(e) on the sidewalk get down! get down! get ready for the New Rome all the Razzle-Dazzle of a Vegas show without the hangover those have all been exported to brown people you party someone else suffers for it in the morning! Dee-liteful & ‘lish, all 4 yoo! I’m spreading my disease knowingly and “inculpable” countdown 4 minutes to…. you know what time it is, boyeeeeez! roundup for the (summer) camps sweet Norwegian blowjobs pinup wet dreamers under unabated master racers And it’s all 4 yoo all for you all for you ◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦ The police are singing signing keening like a knife on silk cut through the tissucloth air He is dead but no one but they are sorry Yeah, and there were these mexicains, from Chiapas here to gain support and build bridges They had cardboard machetes covered in tinfoil Another man walked by in a khaffiyeh with a long chain padlocked around his neck BLIPS and beeps thundering static moved like drums “Bon travail!” their shouts come across rather thin (but of course they carry cardboard machetes) Il Reste du MIAM-MIAM de la soirée d’Hier en BAS A HALF MOON @ dawn in the pale blue pale yellow, pink, violet then more blue – that is the sea That is the sea I hear breaking below the cliffs swooning and some kind of slow-moving trawler and there are the lights of other boats I do not hear and some big white presence out there towards the curve of the earth last night we saw three satellites and no shooting stars we heard the wind the surf the unbroken lounge singer with his Elvis-like delivery an unbroken medley Peggy Sue, Proud Mary, La Bamba Tipperary, Glory Glory Hallelujah, Day-O he must have known a million songs or fragments thereof and plagued by mosquitoes and ants in the food a gull sails over its underside a-blaze from the pink of the rising sun (illuminated by the sun from below) and that small moment before falling back into indifference is something, at least isn’t it? What independence? I’m not happy about having to hunt a job but that doesn’t mean I’m happy getting rejection letters (put on your game face hang ‘em up with pride) Perfect cap to a crap day Thorazine and broken glass bad security in the open country BODY. Jumps at the throat of the passing Minister of Interior Affairs Mr. Korea has no painful insights other than “we’re all fucked now” Scene is any given American metropolis in the not-too-distant future Rolling blackouts are the norm The denizens of urban interiors splutter along fumes chuggering in gazola generators n some kind of vegetable oil concoction n we can call it vegetable combustion Supplements -- meagre-like -- glimly flickering bulbs above sordid apartments candles provide the illumination candles rendered from dead animals found in alleys, sewer-sorties rats, tomcats the occasional dog Noily – dripping in slime sonic and that excreted by smoke Generators reserved for the claptrap -- if effective -- computers any kid can slap together these days in these parts (D.Y.I.) Scene is of any given American metropolis the suburbs have dissolved into cardboard puddles There is disease and famine, periodically now means once a year crops up in evil summer months population thinned enough so that everyone paradoxically – has a little space to run around in there are still sectors of rubble to be avoided orange biohazard tape fluttering makeshift crosses at gruesome angles in the sinking mud with a thick, patient stench Winter a brief respite not so long anymore nor cool but still a relief from the Killing Days Mr. Korea continues his business selling anything, everything making not a profit in speculation but availability he has warehouses full of devoted workers who can also be counted as “followers” A minor empire upon the dungheap Yet he still takes pleasure in conducting certain deals personally An old-school Johnson He runs more drugs than the police Yet never touches child slavery or organ jacking He likes to think of himself as having “Old School values” “....whales, flies and glue fly into my mouth.” -- Dream message, 9/27/03 IN A game sorted not into winners and losers but 5 stars and “everyone else” 1. The 1st Star is called Gogol, or Godom 2. The 2nd Star is called Firemouth 3. The 3rd , James Brown’s dead sister 4. The 4th , Samba of Jack 5. The 5th, endlessness Somehow, the dead brother-in-law found open-eyed in his chair became the key to interpreting the clouds The 28th The tradition in front of a fire just having made exquisite animal love A record Old 80’s and other rocks the body socks of European vibration there is freedom in the not so free IN The Mir Space Station Rudolph the Red is shagging an abortion It falls apart in his hands He had loved this foetus since it had first beamed up at him shining radiantly through a transparent womb The manner in which he acquired the foetus is complex He was warned of the impending murder by a mole planted in the abortionist’s office Using his secret powers he made himself appear to everyone that he was Dr. Klieg After murdering the real Dr. the night before The preservation of life, after all, sometimes calls for a good garroting Anyway, he performed the abortion, knowing that he could resurrect the foetus After rocketing off from his secret Appalachian rocket base, He headed straight for the Mir After a quick gunbattle he claimed it Now Rudolph is chagrined, humbled Skull-fucking abortions won’ resurrect them Covered in blood, foetal tissue like tiny torn flags floating in the breeze He weeps NO guns causing no knives describing no knuckles making swift arks in the damp trash of sky We do it with vaseline sunbeams streaking towards a cardboard representation of Jesus He wants us for something more droll than that A steady sinking a constant outward pressure against a soul-crushing mélange of spiritual vacuity, anger self-doubt and fear ! ! ! ! 4 soldiers on guard against the encroaching broom of night crawling on shadow-bellies in weeds deeds unspoken after the summary execution against some dumb friggin’ wall stupid AND mute there is not glaring searchlight of eager historians there is just the suicide of memory the vicious heart-removal called forgetting A slip-slide in autoerotic oblivion An Asphyxiated yet splendidly-hydrated hyena Dark mollusk on sea bed of mollusk A fortunate whisper upon a 1. lamb-cop of dawn 2. daring fodder 3. a gloating corona around a belching mouth I sing sheets of pool young billiard some in the x + y there is the equation of geometry, talent and luck mathematics can describe the arc of chance which is the mathematically predictable journey coupled with the anomaly and the factors which may merely be Chinese butterflies And for my son, I will break the unlawful pattern established with a pilot in a sea of ink My dark sombre a heavier nib upon a less absorbent paper Plied by disgusting egg-pens on spindles called the hypothetical rendition of the propeller of enormous sea-boats hiding in a low-hued innuendo smacking of late 1960’s Florida That crazy point where one can rent pedaloes and challenge freighters in the sea-lanes There is no “crazy” sea-legs Daddy-o No Port of Arthur to hop in john-hoped under demegerol skies When out of often crops Africa upon heavy legs and frightened in the frost, qiz’mc’ly, you have a thesaurus under powerful hooves being mashed out in a rough-truss of blame The Great literatures jump hog- sacked and frog-cuffed from under the baleful eyes of a chimp called shrubbery – something innocent yet vindictive – to be unleashed on gramma toot sweet pSalms called Salem under smocks and saline solution of snails, soulless and so(u)luble psulpherous psychotic Slow-burning (upon tarheels of night) What grim key to suck slut under with whirlagig white·a·mow whoa! What weirdness writes wolly·gog on wall·wood work·rider and scampers off to mucate in chamber, alley of TOMAHAWK of seven-spiked desire There’s a lot of square paper dropped egg-like under the fiery thunder of non-recognition of sitting under movement a spitting out casual darkness like the speed of distaste and greed A kind of sour fruit invented by sick farmers under watermelon- moon skies and with slo-mo helicopters coozing silently thru the mud-slit skies which is the smoke of the ant-frost smudge-pot The real-meaning of Halloween as the earth shrivels into the disguise of.... (there are unhealthy candlelights and garish glows thundering out from under the hoof-heel of the dangling sky.... Far skies over far cries distance [in this case] = emptiness within which to murder.... 2X.P frog-smock on delinquent trouser the hour has turned into a new day and I am weary Allegralto under symphonic blunderbuss the musical artillery of ear-thumping in dull drummed confusion CON (un-drum)! While U still can!!!! No more ?’s don’t like the implications of the myth soldiers companion/counterpoint hollow point outta joint atta boy ‘ smoke one! Thesis Antithesis Sin – thesis (sin-thetic) (parathEtic) normal, vedic norma, medic! pa-thetic papa monkey’s caw lion’ paw: withered craw The moorish window of filigreed stone lifted in delicate vaults like crystal chandelier would try to and never be.... Dog-strings upon harp, flaccid bikinis gone straight in the wind Comme je t’aime under a cloudless cuticle called the moon deep as milk when yellow in the cheese Thundering heels across a mythical plain spoken of in purple language the new empire is young and is assuming its name as if I may implode under the weight of my own incompetence clear crystal in deep-milk formation or milk in profound crystal cavern cum palace.... Queen Victoria 1880 malfeasance.... What I have destroyed in myself May yet prove far greater than What I have left to create The sun, casting a shadow behind My hand, on the paper, is indifferent The cars going by, the people in them: indifferent The entirety of the park And all the components thereof: indifferent Why should I be different Why should I not be indifferent? Is indifference a source of happiness Or a flimsy trap-door into despair Can the state of despair be a state of indifference?
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
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