The Bluebook (part 3)
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Collection of poetry by Steven Adkins (2002-2003). It is also known as Half-Told Tales.
Part 1 | The Bluebook (part 2)Part 2 | Part 3
The Frenzied Rush, in apathy
A SUNDAY which leaves no question about itself
Silent and gray, oddly enough
like Monsieur M mawked over the ocean
like a hawked wind
sold
coughed-up
loogied
somewhat deranged
(But there is no sun
haven’t seen it for daze
hallucin’d smoke
a glaze of sombre
news
worries
“real-world” responsibilities)
and ever expansive this innerdrome
of echoes, steadily amplifying against
each other, as if the interior of the
skull were the shell of the brain
(s)
reflective stainless steel which sends
careening ballistics of thought into
the Babel of consciousness
some call it “monkey mind”
some escape through “the mouth”
a tourettic telegraph
others get twitched out thru various
means via the “fingers”
This is usually automatic
and relieving
like a good solid shit
breaking clean off in a vanilla
swirl tip
Oscilloscope dangling
like the image of a clock
twisting against a stark white wall
shadows sharp
& electric
“One should be motivated –
subtly—
to think of
a well-known
transnational
conglomerate”
trans-glamoral
skyscraper round and gleaming
chromium-steel head
giving them the appearance of
enormous dildoes
Oil derricks lifting well-seasoned
buckets from honeypot black
in the deep soil
there is no bath
no deranged puppet upon
the infant infantry
dogging-tired upoN the
knee-flight of the soil
friggin’ fortuna night-fucked in
indigo
│in we go
│injun joe
Draped, up if the pointed
end didn’t really matter
bang slap of artifact
coldly reminisced upon the
steel-toed organization
in a squeAl-toed fate
locked into,
one must add
musty attic
rusty adverbly
aardvarkian numbness
kevorkian clumsiness
wouldn’t you be guaranteed to die?
shoes, as filters
gamming up the lockstep
shopworn
imagination eating up tarheels
shorn
and not the North Carolina variety,
either:
shrouded and squealing
jaw-makered and dillabout
She comes
comes all about
shenackering the globe
the oily globe
the sun-smoked robe
Bleach spots upon blood-red
yolk-storms of globular light
shoot excreta upon
dying sardine sideways upon
pan
over fine-lined aube....
Jovial, then
when not dangling
(which is rare
like French meat
is rare)
And can a sentence start with
and can a sentence?
Where did we begin to forget?
gonna hand that saxon too ya....
film has become too precious a contract
to merit
one gets “out of it”
while remaining in,
if only broadly;
historicized,
if only slightly
<super-sized>
RIDING vermin the size of
cattle
should we explain the darkening sense of departure
the strangling beauty that
develops out of the strange
sense of adventure
in the rain
in the stark
falling rain
heavy shadows
upon the desert
under the new mexico sky
we must wait
for these things to become myth
and we know they are on the way,
when we begin to dream of them
the lag-time of démenagement
in the chalice of the earth
of be-mountained horizons
always a kind of spectator in this
world
a perhaps all-too-willing
follower –
dangerous
but no hint of leadership
much less charisma
Some make up Roman exploits
some wallow in self-pity,
alcohol, brain numbness
But all of them, at least, have hobbies
You degenerate spawn....
unfit to share the name
Nothing will take the world by storm
....ever again
(not really)
To be honest, I’m surprised they
lived, much less │so untouched
│flourished
│without a scratch
all too willin’
spectral villain
people gettin’ fucked up all over and
all over nuthin’
he grins round at the
barber-shop
VERY FUCKIN’ METAL
Keepin’ it up with the cheap-shot
beckoning to the clim-roast
of junked-up hoodoo conundrum,
staring fixedly at reverberant sun
in the Russian winter
without sun
circa 1930
It’s time to start living
ha! leaving
it’s :13 passed the hour
but ye olde dark hole
knows well
you don’t need another
escape
but a confrontation
when you pitted acid
against conventionality
and thought you were
actually doing what you
said you were doing—
CONFRONTING
and like that egyptian snail-shell
that fiery cloud of eternal rêve....
it was a scorpion
stinging itself upon the back
that symbol of self-destruction
and suicide
slow as suicide
choklit covered
cuvvered and bivouac’d
encamped upon the vanilla slope
slowly melting underfoot
wrinkling nights
as if they was
(slow prophets)
pert noses
a country adrift
a cowboy be-spliffed
drunken cow toss in
the dead of night
the dead ringer
[unclear] around spoke
doppel ganger
they meet,
and explode
Life goes very
fast
in a vast slowness
Life goes very
slow
in a minute fastness
hold fast
fasten....fast!
IN a degenerate lockpick
IT arrives
aliens among the ruins
the square stones unpocked
but nonetheless ruins
this nimble shadow that ate my comrades
while we ran slowly with bloody fingernails
Shot out from the mouth of
a trumpet
I got those coronet blues
A darkling duck flies across the
navy sky
wings outstretched and vivid
like a fleet of righteous bombers
in a WW2 propaganda poster
Floating nearby, Kubrick style
a baby made of cirrus
wispy –
smoke by candlelight
in a darkened chamber
Four Fragments
1.
I saw the dead rats of my generation
swimming backwards into life
On floating boards they scampered
back into the murky bilge
as the water seeped back into the sea....
2.
FIRE ON THE MOON
either an announcement of an
airless conflagration
or an injunction to let loose the
cannon upon the bearded
pockets of desert in the sky
3.
Freud! Freud!
He’s our man,
If he can’t do it,
Jacques Lacan!
4.
I’m just a gigolo
And everywhere I go
People always die
around me
I’m spreadin’ my disease
While restin’ on my knees
....
Lights go off
around me
It seems
as if
I have nothing more to say
at least for now
Just obliged to fill the cahier,
Kerouac-style: allowing form to
follow the limitations imposed upon
it by the shape and size of the
papyrus
Not “Claire Fontaine” but
“Calligraphe”
-- Not something we will
be inclined to romance
Riot! 100% pure New York in Toulouse
shrouded in the unintelligible
it jumps boots and delegates
furiously
spuriously relegated to a back room
curiously inflated by pride,
nonetheless....
none the wiser
more the merrier
we shook hands and mumbled
stark contrast to the punk rock shouts
1 hr 10 minutes of feedback underlay
songs like “Don’t Kill Me” and “Urban Shock”
until the cops showed up
--classic--
gotta shut down the tunes by half 10
as though we were back in the village
What village?
any village that isn’t the
fourth largest city of half a million
<and Barcelona was not the egg it
was cracked up to be>
and my wife--my wife!—still
harbors our egg until July
It is developing normally and
she has gained 7 kilos
I don’t know if this is a lot
or not
but she still looks fine
drinking mate with her middle finger
up to her lips
(is she flicking me off?)
muttering over the dictionary
and the ubiquitous forms
curiously reflected
in this....refusal....to
grapple....
scenarios laid out....
....an Opera of Figs
(her legs smooth
and well-formed)
....c’est la fille
<interlude>
Jowls quivering
the Beast moves in trails of slaver
leaving oil rigs upturned and burning
pouring smoke upwards into the sky
49 Euros
lying on the table
“Somebody blew up America” in a manila
envelope
stuffed away
and to think I
only half-kidding
called for the
nuclear annihilation
of the desert
<it lies under
the television>
At 31 I should
have already known
better
And I’m only 32
Once bitten,
twice shy
Fool me once
shame on you
Fool me twice
shame on me
I hope it is not
true
That you cannot
teach an old dog
new tricks
But can you
search an old dog
for new ticks?
Or break an old log
into new sticks?
Or plunge an old frog
into new cricks?
Powdered
doo-doo
Just add saliva
Powdered wigs
dripping the lard
that holds the errant
hairs in place
August, 1786
We are burning hemp-rope upon the hematite
blood-rocks pouring from wounds in earth
giant smiley-head scream
with the bullet wound as 3rd eye
The arrondissement reeks of uncollected
garbage
And she takes me for more naïve than I am
because she never asked “Did you ever?”
And I never corrected her assumption
that I didn’t
Thus, after another moment uncorrected, or
clarified
I feel pangs of guilt
having lied by omission
And yet
these aren’t the things you casually
bring up out of the blue and
expect her to laugh along with
We are burning
And the super
fine chick with the
dick-hardening shape
turns to meat
sliding off bone
putrid puddle
of green and red
fly shit advancing
into coagulated vomit
finely-furred mould
spores....
You’ve fallen in lust
on a bed of spores
(Old Buddhist monk trick
to combat lust)
But why not let the pecker rise?
Why this track, now
here?
leave off with a slopatine
slumber
sliding backwards off slick
backboard in the sea?
A grand summation of all these
Books = the Red and the Black
the Blue
....will never come
....sounds too much like a
pulverized face lying broken-teeth
downwards among the excrement
of a society with too much
too spare
Spartan reality forgotten
like a cigarette butt
with yet a few more
tokes
No matter
if it’s before 10
there’s a Tabac right
around the corner
Buy blackened lungs for use
as handbags
puckered nuts as castanets
throw de-brained heads to use
as sandbags
And tangled hair a seamen’s nets
semen’s nest – tight and curlies
that go “meow! meow! meow!”
Walking....
at a pt. of discovery
cars clashing
a heavy wind falling
about the heels
letting windsocks drop:
at inopportune moments:
runners....
Jumping....
across railway runners
guardrails
are sermons....
What interesting conundrums
by the canal....
cop cars
and brazen sluts....
crouching sounds....
and rushing
Russia jumps!
(at bedposts)
cold wall....
....in brick
<calm>
sudden!
and awake
a bus
passes....
....squealing
humming
an outrage factored in
motorcycle engines....
seasoned heart
a pain
in silhouette laid
across the twilight fallow....
(she double-crosses
at midnight)
burning, squealing,
a squeaking main....
gone....
like wind is gone....
....with refugees
(and her motorcycle
is a casino Theresa!)
<adhesives and robes....>
sacra familia!
cross with bells ringing
wind rushes past delicate
ears
corn
thrushes
rushes
eaves
....twilight
(tin can rutting like
pig along livid glass....)
and how much do they
cost
these flowers
(flowers)
a hurling light
sideward
seeing
along obstinate paths....
and flowers surrounding
her perturbed head
she is not angry
bemused
irritated
disturbed to core
but never angry
the jumping crevecision
the
darkening incision
she loves musicians
and performances
blues lick jump
with kinetic hang
a gramma w/ an electric poke
It was a jumping night
Chris calling his wife an idiot-jerk
a whore
a slut
attempting to pry
a privvied
conversation
between his wife
and his friend....
....threatening to make this
visit his last....
....as if it would matter....
this electric jerk
a bad plug
....there are daughters
in the house
that Jean Cocteau
and André Gide
cannot touch
an explosive television
explodes truth by rendering
the capitalist emission
impossible to watch
<it is the wind –
and she is lovely>
anger
my lines render it null
an obscure tomato
a twilight patch of lilac
an oasis
dark and shimmering
a translucent illusion
in silhouette
across a darkening sky
pink-robed in crimson,
-- violently nullified!!--
it is violet
in noir (black) and purple!
and the hunter vomits
and the flannel cries
and the pilot hunkers
the navigator lies
Jumping....
he has white space
to hold up ‘gainst
her spleen
her victory
a cough and heavy breath
with a greek-sounding soundtrack
in FRENCH!
and with manacles
rattling
The TV Jumps
the wind howls out the window
an her snozz marches
I am a window with
phalanges climbing....
MOUNTAINS....
Fascist sympathisers claw Spain....
a trail of liberty which
we may ride
Poetry our refuge
slinking anger @ lateness
excused by a plume which
marches....in the exquisite
rattle of seagulls (machine-gun)
<yet the tractor may
call it after all>
A snood
A sleeping hat
A shadow
A tractor....
these are the refractory
billabones of a high-fractured
learnin’
high-falutin’....
yet
strangely
naïve....
Yes, and trumpets -- fall
-- call
ROUND bean with hoe-guard
deliverance
she sits
calling gum-lords to sleep....
hoping to extract a vicious
conundrum....
never knowing she has
snared a giant by the
crochet-hook of a minor vice....
She is a delicate horny toad
leaping along the lanes of
Armenia Avenue, hog-tied
and broken
by LSD encounters
upon the Howards
north of Kennedy
“He is sideways”
calls the child in Holocaust
tiled room,
cafeteria
of dead-end deathcamp
inane dull
finiando....
She jumps Catalan hills
with berets asunder breathing
heavy in righteous anger the
dry spore vomit of puff-puff
and indigo –
it spawns the spores
of argent upon wrist hosting
turquoise brave gem of flaming
exquisite power....
banished now upon dark wing
of impoverished embarrassment
1) it comes, regardless
2) you have nothing to do with
it
3) she is lovely
4) and capricious
delicious riptide of dream
it happens at the long end of
town
where there is a hill
a shopping mall
and a bay
Should it bear no mind to
viking penumbrance of jackal-
hide hindrance?
I think not!
SPOT
delicious jumping
upon brain-stem
--she watches movie--
I record destinies in minutiae
Americans do not like the betrayal
implicit in communicating in a way
beyond them
There is publicity in small heads
replicated
an electronic stutter
ON the television, a weird
PUB addressing the problems
of a youth who must learn
French without parents who
speak the language properly
SUCH as we
the delicate green bean
among the smart flowers
of darkness, decay,
teeth rotten and slowness
in learning
Mash potatoes are a sign of
<unclear>
She can’t
she can
“sans papiers”
they’re not important
it’s all place....
SO,
in closing
there is an attempt
to give a kid a language
in which to learn
the best comes from here
or is translated....
....and....
despite the mal miked
rubber ball dropping on
the slim-slide
it is very hollow
echoes are our desire
our indication....
groans come from
wind upon metal
sheets
like
sails
grunts from unappreciative
kids who know, nonetheless,
more about living than I do....
chofe ....
running....
dipping....
And when sheep solid on habo·ma·jeem
cream wetland upon froglegs of
indigo....<repeated>
....we skip the wicked drawing
and hope the last page is
enough
she rocks in flat boats
launching into languid space....
with panic
Her eyes have tears
And yet, thru the jumping,
there is laughter
gaiety
we cannot stand his tears because
we are happy and
also
habituated....
A snake tail....
hanging
She marks solid details
and waits
grows bored,
fatigued
WAITS!
can you stand a hot wind?
Part 1 | The Bluebook (part 2)Part 2 | Part 3
