The Redbook

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Revision as of 16:37, 19 Feb 2005

The Redbook from T.Wilson's Mansucript Portraits, 2004.

Collection of poetry by Steven Adkins (2002-2003)

[Part 1]

What’s the Great American Story? Not wanting to be where you’re at

Born on the cusp of the analog age’s Swift demise Or at least into a world of endings (this play) drops like slow turds and each one a mortifying echo a little less savage, perhaps? plod on in a merciless refrain compelled to tell little daffodil stories and crocodile pete poems written in wikid collab (orations) suffering from the disease of the Blind King the bubonic bungalow (which is a bunghole) (which is a firecastle) green, sanctified plate tectonics of mechanized color ….it drifts….

a needle stick in the Age of Aquarius swift tournaments of demise you see, it’s set up like this flagrant and fragrant wisps of willow….

My apartment is two equal-sized rooms at one end of one is the kitchenette at one end of the other, the bathroom the roof leaks and in the summer it roasts the carpet is a travesty, the ceiling tiles marked with brown stains the drippings of rain through rusted struts tar pebbles and pigeon shit mixed in for good measure

My rear windows look onto the backside of a rehab center it was erected there soon after I got out of mine and began smoking pot again

I lasted three months But I am still dry I’ve done coke and xtacy once But I am still dry I am on smack as I write But I am still dry

That rehab center is just waiting there, tapping its’ foot and glaring across folded arms

the little dog she and I have had as a companion for over 5 years paces nervously about….

mike, my houseguest also moves hither and yon

“Are you all right?” he asks “Yeah” “Oh….you look all stressed out and worried” “Nah, I’m just….writing”

Reaching back in time thru a thirty-year apocalypse whisperers in the ship every city speaking somehow in carbuncular tongues

dying, comatose brains shouldn’t be aware the tv glares monotonous o’er the top or behind the perambulant in layers all stressed out even though the plodding turd bucket has rolled over into a bassoon of flowers

some kind of golden urn sexless sitting astraddle the sky waiting in a round ball tummy without walls an infant forms it is the world soft and misshapen like a baby’s head ….or an egg yolk Where is the golden paradrop? The hominid strut How long before that came along?

ANGY HYMN TO MY 10,000 DEMONS

Poet’s first preenings

this perfect onanism (this onanistic fervor)

at eighteen or twenty I visited a graveyard and sat on a dark tomb red-eyed from weariness lit candles and wrote poem fragments with Pete Carver

This forced conclave The hushed expectancy Anticipation was its’ own reward

but I never produced no poems from these summits I don’t work in flares (yet I do)

   “bearded tress”
   Pete grabbed the line
   and added a cuticle moon

I resented those bearded trees cuz I had not yet heard the call just half-assed opaque moons, vaguely purple over Orlando

That perfect planetarium my sweet terrarium a humidor for life painted stars on the dome offers the illusion of heaven and the promise of hope

it has a leaky roof, now ceiling tiles mottled brown and grey and that graveyard tombstone shit was years ago

Gay Encounters

One time in Guatemala I went to see a prostitute I had money in my pocket and valium in my blood at a nickel a piece, wouldn’t you?

needless to say I was drunk

I am not a pro, I splay what I have on the scratchy blanket and she takes it all

She hikes her skirt but not until she’s pulled me out and slipped on a nightcap I hadn’t brought one

I got hard enough at first but it didn’t have the vigor

she got up and left me there the picture of dejection but she came back

I will never forget the sight of her Her silhouette in the door A trio of young cohorts laughing at my impotence

Their gawking at least mercifully short: I needed to pee

I started in one corner and worked my way to the bed to show I wasn’t such a bad sport left it dry

I met this drunk Guatemalan on the street and chatted him up came on hard inquired if cock was his thing grabbed his crotch

if it were only the fear that the sight of my penis might shake him out of his drunken stupor I would have taken him back to my room but I am a coward and that sore on his lip was disgusting

coda

I did get my willy sucked on this trip a French-Canadian Zen gardener Invited him to plant it in my ass but alas, he was impotent gave great head, though wanted to turn on the light to watch me cum fine I said but he blanched the light did it I suppose I had to whack it out myself

I had by this time sucked and been sucked by two other men Twice each, even

With Edward we were alone he dropped to his knees for a tease while my mistress changed out of her coat

another time he fed me wine and we got to talking we exchanged blows without fruition I asked him if he wanted to plow me…. did I want him too? question, alas, unanswered

a flash of naked white ass as the roommate brings in the telephone

Even before this there was my dark uncle a Dr. Sax of sorts, but with a guitar In the context of a threesome we exchanged a few sucks But we were more intent on Brenda She was good for it Come to think of it, she was our third both times When Jason came in he saw us two smoking on the couch Went in for a try himself at a beckoning sound

My escapades with women are more of the same I’ve had a few threesomes but this other frontier…. is it the sex I crave or the yearning itself?

this probably doesn’t get yer rox off it may not be much in the way of unbridled confession but it’s poetry

   absolutely dreadful poetry

but poetry

just renewed my membership in the anti-hominid league and just as aliens are angels angels are aliens woman combustication a wombat buddha a fat splat choklit a choking combat demeanour thing thug glug jug of clear spirit ‘gainst snow let it blow let it blow let it blow

a fauve tumbling of fact the convenient theory wild gnashing teeth the acute edge of a turnip just riding my spine an electric arcsaw across the sky it is a gate to the West

The bow in the mirror is an eyetooth w/which width witch (she getting a rolla) ditch witch slumpen drunken strumpet slut she reeks of Ripple tiny ripples in mud puddle face down momma been a longa humpucker I protest you come back you didn’t come back

Blowback in the cracked mirror

 Der Golem reflected a million limbs

shooting the moon stolen from that fat green fuck that spectre of limburger a face so cold and green it glows

I get spam it clogs my arteries processed e-meat for fat bankers ploys the evil desperate evil because they are annoying win lose indifferent the bankers bank the coppers cop the pyramid prevails

and so I fry spam in the crenulations of my jigsaw

____ 9.10.01 appx. 10 pm

Hiccups – the giveaway for the nonevent allinall a tiring experience trite the body trite the functions

  which mean everything associated
     from the shit to gold
        the alembic journey

the rarification of the worm

     he bleeds in tiny wombs

that lick like felt-tipped tongues incongruous in the mist the ravens the moonbeam the unicorn the gold toad a-glitter in the glare of the glam globe it is a slowly melting earth under a brown chemical haze oily the humid sky deposits cancer dust storms scorpions the size of leopards the horizon is a wall of flame small phalli stand silhouette eiffel-like girders crossed and barking sliblets of mournful oil clumped and lippling sliding in upon itself a woomp suck the earth clean the atmosphere has vanished a spit-take a fast bobble the egg cracks and out pops a turtle the egg is the world and the turtle is dead ____

The side of the world exploded Debris is falling like leaflets I hear ambulances The northern tower seems to be on fire

the tops of the towers were obscured by the smoke

the creeping horror no lovecraftian slithering but tangible stomach flailing falling bodies flames and for every time I’ve written gleefully of the apocalypse is a time I recoiled from the expected reality “fuck the hovercrafts, this is the future”

Muhammad Atta 25 grand to fly a missile Slim Whitman style with infinite (smallness)

we work on the Napoleonic Code, now

Vengeance, a lust for blood a grimy fist clenching a sword

we need no shields they are immaterial and fly thru hot steel chomping just as hot steel flies: a slowly moving mote across a field of curiously suspended particles a steady straight line

Everyone struggles with the immensity of this horror grappling within the lymph, the follicle the gland, the mitochondria Inside the skin

It’s hard not to take that personally Visceral skin rinse blasted from pores like tears vomit forth from eyes Cleansing tears pushing away coke cans and jingo

 turkey bones

The result a clarity at times A limpid reflection at others quivering and uncertain hateful and vengeful mindless of what it is you really want Which is Peace Sweet like a honeydew melon is sweet perfect

An excuse for a fascist insertion My heart ached so much I didn’t notice my ass was bleeding

King and queen of the rubble yard soft children rising naked and balloon-like the sun a dwindling orb a besmirched yolk dropped onto the frying sky What terrible infidels are we to deserve the nerve gas? anthrax?

“Hope we can continue just a little while longer.” J. Morrison

Me too, Jimbo!

The new Rome the post-hermeneutic Sodom flags ripping the wind into a hawk’s shriek stone pillars, lead, sulphur frankincense, crushed dinosaur bone Ahh these values are less real than jihad and holy vengeance Even the Church of Satan is calling for blood!

Inspect, operate, dissect <vermin, dogmeat, pus> nonsense, jingo the lot of it

On this day it was revealed to me that Osama bin Laden is God and a woman both at the same time

(leading a carcass into the tissue digester)

There is a past but there is no future

this scorched earth where our hearts – two drunken warlords parade each other’s soldiers thru the filth in the streets

and the inside of my mouth tastes like chemicals applied to metal

It hasn’t stopped raining for days and finally, my ceiling has collapsed

I can look into the corner and see the sky

Slowly I creep back into addiction Soft balls of light dancing in nauseating unison

And everywhere talk of war and fear New era of disease and discomfort and no dissent

Just jingo and the lockstep The groupthink terror and the drummers beat as one

The war drummers the sick cavalcade who will promote but never enlist

Guarding the skies of Texas is as close as these warriors will ever get to the wars they promote

Open-ended and ill-defined, angry images to become objects of hatred and icons of vengeance

All around us are causes like so many cast away dollar store dishrags

We poke out our eyes and wonder where it all comes from These discombobulate mutterings of mullahs and malcontents, murderers, martyrs….

Of course it troubles me

My tears now, docile, entrenched the lines of many frowns the scrabbling holes of soldiers

And we, two warlords Our feud quiet amidst the roar of greater wars Of dying empires of ideas bloated

All unfair all material witnesses gone….

Mike will go to jail because of a liar and a judge that will refuse to believe a man accused may be innocent

I will only be saved by love in the midst of it all

But that love is gone baby A tigress has eaten all the ferns and puked up the stalks

A husk like a heart that has been peeled

Boiled potatoes, rheumatism, ice cream and sperm, dog-eared copies of Das Kapital used as kindling….

Where am I going with this one? I can’t bring it all back

We, too, are beveled and charred No commerce will again take place between us

Redolent around him half-remembered dreams They hang in the air heavy like cinnamon or musk

Sweet tears fall into dust Magnified from the infinite small exploding into ancient smells of a wealth recovered forever tainted with the grease of thieves

How could he have lost it? What tragic distraction Distracted the watchmen?

His paper heart dipped in vinegar yet still stinks of vomit and undisclosed betrayals

Redolent around him the musty loss he carried it for years in a wet paper bag and was surprised when the bottom fell thru somewhere near the tracks

A gift left for bums Who will mock it and throw it on the fire he didn’t deserve it anyway, they’d say And they’d be right

gonna go meditate in an upstate kuti

gonna go shoot my sks 500 times

“Falling thru cracks Falling thru sky Sunbeams in the form of opaque yellow triangles Shards of glass exploding up the concrete each splinter a drop of blood seeping into the earth A giant sump of benzene And potato chips Underneath the asphalt The perilous foundations of treasured buildings

A gift of pancakes Inscribed w/a prophetic vision of doom What would you do if they showed you the door?”

Apuleius you comical fuck! Thanks for showing me the Way…. Isis. Who would have thought it?

My problem…. one of them anyway is that my religious impulses fluxuate wildly between idolatry and mysticism and more problematic why have them at all? my cross may be rosy but it’s a cross after all

that these dusky stalwarts have taken my beloved Queen’s crescent and turned it into a scythe….it angers me

may you open your eyes to our sufferings however deserved our memory is dim in Mary but at least we have her unveiled we don’t beat your image and imprison ourselves in reckless denial may our devotions tonight be a small voice like a gentle breeze among the reeds a plaintive whisper for peace

we parade each other’s wounds thru the street our hearts two drunken warlords

you look at me across the dustcloud my mouth like chemicals applied to metal

I miss you so much, but calmly I am tired

Servants of Dionysus

I set up the targets. Warm up at 85 yards

When I get to the target I’ve just shot at I haven’t hit once

Then I realize I’ve set my sight for 850 yards Not 85

So I get back and realign Decide to plink the bucket on the desk (from my place of work coincidentally) I score perfect – well, all my bullets have pierced it – Then from the desk to the target then back to 85 yards I fire off about 90 rounds in an hour and a half

John is my supervisor at work I am on his farm My relationship is that of friend and somewhat bedeviled underling But that is John. Dr. Marmora Fulbright scholar Masseuse Shoemaker Farmer. Vineyards that after lunch we tend. Layering. We take the vines of healthy plants and bury them in a small trench 8” deep 1’ foot long as wide as the pick Then the end tied to the wire and ribboned

Later I retire to a cabin in the woods An Amish shed really, but decorated with items as adorable as they are practical

I tend a fire and think about Isis and Dionysus. When I was on that tractor I was his servant I made the work holy

In the cabin I jerk off into my sleeping bag and listen to the sounds of night….the wind, strangle cracklings, a dog barks Once in a while the dim hum of a jet A strange throbbing pattern which may be a bassline The Redneck, I’d assumed

Now it’s me in the cabin. After a baffling loss of a pack of matches which I hunted for high and low for over an hour. Gone baffling. Wood spirits I thought

The wind, Lyle Lovett gospel on Sunday, gunshots in the distance This is my church Nature, Music, Struggle

I am not the wounded party A stag, stylized ink on glass Curving like a crescent moon Its bottom tip producing Tiny bulbs of blood

WHAT mystery there-IN? this golden trunklet

BANAL and lowing the COW of the night stuck on the moon

and darkness lowered, let’s sleep

We partake of each other cake portions squared-off and hunkering hungering

the distant samurai golden

what? rainbows trout speckles of light speckled trout

thumping and sirens my aural hygiene clogged vassals these ears in need of a good candling

One candle ate the other candel and the bull is the father of the serpent and the serpent is the father of the bull

the nuclear suitcase

a delicate state of paranoia sharp as knives as gilded as a lily in perfect unison with the Sea Accord of ‘47 a harmony veiled upon the sound of clinking salt rocks distilled from air poured into the wounds this salt nuclear Fear, anxious lonely random accident, please not

the mass death or the epidemic give me the benefit of a long prosperous

so it comes down to that anonymous please votive devotion a fair exchange gimme shelter, soteria, shekels n’solace I’ll be humble tonsure myself

golden trinkets of doom and remembrance note to self: destroy this notebook

a basket of snakes in a fortress of sieves softly sifting sulphurous stones gold from within balls of mud

self-destruction high 12 with a backup dancer or a security guard caught by chance in a collapsing tower

a secluded stormcloud a tempest in a teapot the glass globe of his combat helmet fish swim by his eyes the water a perfect fit

lay down with this imperfect beast draw blood no draw breath then collapse in a shambles of heavy guitar riffs and thund’rous drums god, it is only a rock sock it covers the foot parked in the tunnel of his throat

grey listless day last workday before the freedom’s ring

and she called me today soon after noon to cause me to wonder a pre-emptive strike? to see if my friend had filed a report on some painful thing? and feeling it out, finding nothing, she is mute

SUNday is not she has not been in for hours methinks some lie afoot

VURT lying on the floor a soft thermodynamic an exchange none too gentle stepping through the doorz that are opened smashed, interrogated, blissful

We cannot win this war Within ourselves This hysterical barking

 of polystyrene heads
 polystyrene molded like wooden
 shrunken heads

A radio peeps out from the past there is no hyperkinetic changeup

the kids don’t dance they circle like sharks their cheekbones cleave thru the cigarette smoke

a waft, here and there, of vapor rub

there is more menace than abandon but nonetheless, the event must be reckoned a success

the slime on the walls the plywood disaster waiting to happen the swift coagulant

she is angry, always and I am desperate like a thief is desperate

and the moment now and again when the sun sees fit to poke out from beyond the clouds and illumine my room Autumnal wan but noble a hard edge to the patterns of fingerprint and dirt on my window

this slim reminder of life outside keeping the plants alive – dismal dismal fodder what I leave in my wake; ANTI-MIDAS I turn GOLD into SHIT! dripping like specialty shop gold candles thru my blood-stained digits onto the tarmac of my brain cooled by wind and speckles of high mountain rain a camera panning away in the Andes, quickly then, from a TURD!! gargantuan twins kining on the globe a 3D rendering, in ink manifest slowly the elongation of desire it forms a tusk a sleeper image of a captain circumnavigates the globe the salt will never forget heart-rendered absolved somehow the shadows in the wall form the shape of a priest – no – with the mitre he must be a bishop! they are handing out slips of forgetfulness

relapse….relapse….relapse it calls across the mud hollow all narcoleptic thick sweaty air warmth, them

ah, the wishful thinking! the snow thumps into earth soon the air cold woodsmoke, even, upon occasion Never never never I do not get a visit

I have put all my eggs in one basket I gave it all up for love but love gave up on me our allies hung on the frontlines dying in prison slow hurtling swift myrtle If I know Tampa, I’ll be back Cigar City w/trilingual fortitude cobbled streets that useta ring with the clang of horseshoes caught steel of trolley track Smells of wood and yella rice murmurs votive thru incendiary cracks ashen light on the solitude of 7th quiet humid haloes of 7th this was when, ’87? It was an entirely different world then Most of the shops were empty Those that weren’t were….gritty Punks & hippies Squats abounded This was when the El Goya was the only club around the flood was yet to come

the 90’s came swept away the Emerald Ybor Pizza and Subs Grotty places with dark unused corners Mildewy smells graffiti…. Before new tile and neon….

Sweet Charity – ah there was a joint Not one but 2 Santeria shops the one on the west end survived a while is it still there?

That nebulous zone north of Ybor that oozes unexpectedly back into Tampa it seems to exist independently Poor wooden homes about mysterious groves which seem deep but where could the deepness come from; on a map there’s only a grid

Tampa is a shifting tectonic definition is hazy vast and lazy and sparsely governed it is a very oneiric place I can hardly wait

My memories of you, Florida are bathed in warmth and scented vaguely with oleander, citrus, cut grass…. there is a cigarette-filled beer bottle or two, yes, but mainly I think of swaying trees silhouetted against a deep blue sky or, westerly, an impossible profuseness of clouds – but there they were: One could see clear to Hawaii reflections of gold upon the clouds sunlight beamed back up from a smiling Pacific

Pacific. Peaceful. And in Deland, I lived on Sans Souci drive Too bad I got the notion, that futile, naked gesture…. Frozen into a lifelong pose A dapper nose A change of clothes A cold imp following a Gemini shackle Cold tackler melting in action under the illumined wing of the sun stuffed but incontinent Jealous of yet in contempt Can it yet be tempted to behead this glamorous oxymoron (which is a bad way of saying that beards, mandatory, win out over no beards, mandatory)

A mountainous terrain the khyber pass more than an excuse to mime a monocle and adopt a phony Edwardian tongue this is no imperial joke

somehow, decadent lobbing from afar the delicious platitudes of the overfed

we send them bombs of choklit piñatas that plunk down all delicate crak wide reveal treats

sweet tooths.

[section omitted]

We know there is no paradise for murderers Absolution under the veil that is a cascade a veil so to speak over a rocky abutment which is the brow of her perfect beauty vaguely “of the east”

 but only at this angle

She speaks gracefully and drops healing

 Water from her hand;

there is a slice of melon of honey the darkness the crescent glistens in the dew this reign of tears the collision of fruit held in the hand and water over the face causes futile explosions fluttering limpid in idle waves upon the floor

love that mysterious crocodile a floodlit balloon upon a pterodactyl stage rampaging and serious gamboling and heffalumping flying off motorcycles

 in a desperate grab
 for the wrong side of the edge

ONTO the floor! gwa- ….gridle wha Pumpkin pie in a diner full of tiles and each one a tiny guard placed at the holes to the core of her heart

spiny forested leprous Louisiana stinking of crocagators

and I made those holes sloshing thru the swamp

 knee-deep

falling thru the decay reaching for a cuticle moon cleft finger slipping grasp a fork in the treeline

 bearded trees looking on

as I fall

I don’t need her in the same way but I can’t take the cold indifference shut out and then the “oh really” upon complaint the exaggerated artifice the surprise gestures that say “you expect too much”

it’s as if the lone ranger looking toward tonto under the hail of flaming arrows says: “We gotta get outta here!” and tonto, placid, says: (he has known this all along) “Whaddaya mean we, white man?”

The film stops on her hand as she leaves the counter the sound of wind and ships rigging a distant emptiness of sky dissolves into green fields Badalametti-type score There in the grass A chipped wooden statue here a burn, there a split garlands, candles halves of oranges, incensed cones A cup of water A seed or two That wooden statue is me in the position the film caught me in when you left unsurprised, grim, relieved, desolate je sui desolé – I’m sorry and I am not motivated by guitar weeping nor Frail memory tears don’t come I tell ya I’ve got no more right

I have abandoned my chips No more time outs or explanations I can't hold it in my hands and examine it She moves The tube that connected our heads is severed at her end She is free of it it leads from me to…. nowhere An appendage waggling in space that is a glum reminder A thousand frogs may fall from the sky the intelligent bald man may utter truth but don't let those regularities stifle the drunken meander or the gee, golly whiz-bang you are off to see your family anyhoo sister, crazy Negro woman ex-husband a Baptist Preacher boyfriend a loving thug crackers all and salted earth

Mum what to make of her sad life childhood full of war and Victorian discipline The child out of wedlock and flight into Empire Husband in Vietnam a 22-year commitment to country -- then death Two drug-addled kids and the man in her life…. You may call it Oedipal if you need to I can't avoid that pointing Finger As much as the finger is a wag non-malicious but wrong I simply do not like the fellow

Have no more time for drunken agape Fat lettering, dying modernist architecture, global war. This is my world, So be it. I can see why she left me!

POST SCRIPT

It is the pen that rules the hand the flow of its' ink the crucial tongue Merciful, I've stumbled into Fortune

When doppelgangers meet

magic pen floweth like the River of Forgetfulness incessant necessary in tha bizniss tha long stork winding become forgetful of prophecy throw of the yoke of self-consciousness throw in a scrap of tin for the war effort false girlies wax chimpin’ dining on the sideways smear of light hard-edged and uninspired

there are no little explosions – a bad thing in this case those little explosions moments of joy or creative bliss to punctuate the dull drone As if we are still sloughing off a Decade 10 full years of anxiety and abuse she a foreign thing so….

   gone

there is pain so I indulge myself in the wicked pleasures of pimpery and

  drug peddlin’

ha. please take that meta 4 ickly

   nothing but a coffee
   who must be stopped
   look @ the carnage

the thin smoke

   semi-opaque and tan
   eyes like molded plastic
   moving on a slow wheel
   in front of a pediform scrim
   A sky-blue box and the
   rays of hope

Amen Ra – it is a candle in a tincup

   I deserve a lashing for my poor
   behavior @ the puppetbox
     Surly and discontent
     spread malicious vibes of solitude
     for a manual that has become
     a meaningless haven
     but still a haven

A man imagines himself one way Is seen entirely different by another In most men in most cases This is the plainest of Truths One thinks of Kansas Fields of Wheat Honest pursuits traded with leathery hands A scarf blown in the wind Sideways & ethereal Knock-kneed (The Poet has a tendency to catalog)

What are my characteristic misspellings

the nuclear suture to the can of worms

let’s hope that couplet’s wings are clipped the heavenward march of bugbears Wanton, in the wind appointments made, appointments broken

eh, whaddufuck? he shrugs his ragged shoulders his Abe Lincoln coat

Hell-Fire 2000 the Arabs are right We are decadent and depraved A pal, Young Lord, offered to Pimp his ole lady for 100 bucks

A golden Hottie, she Aside from Brutality all is game Ass Shaved beauty Mouth

This was all brought on By my simple “I need to get laid, desperately.” He doesn’t need the money— we hang out on his sailboat— it’s about the power She gets off fucking an unknown— blindfolded as she’ll be I get laid He gets to tell her ex post facto He’s pimped her

So much for honest pursuits….

We are hungry ghosts of time Amblers of space turning ceaseless orbits around one another the orbit gone wide I Pluto-like a vast distance cold black oblongs smeared in the rainbow of bending starlight space rubble illumined like plankton on fire the undersides of the sphere heavy and damp today

It never, ever drifts back close dismal satellite blinking set course for nowhere

Adam 12 and Pogo strips a penis and a brown lump of moldable clay (don’t bother looking)

Then, there, at the edge of things We realize we’re really in the thick of things Skulls and heads mostly

Pretty then, in demeanour wickedness implies girth wine and a seat in Parliament!

On a machine in Hal’s Deli: CROWLEY’S MILK

Rocked in gorgeous heffalump We are eating spinach from tins Disaster food

One became the uneasy friend of another that larger, southern state lush and fundamental

this continent is sewn with blood Its’ furrows a brow in grief the war was everything, but civil!

she was staring at me a jaw as square as cinderblock a patina of grease on her maw she tossed a chicken bone across her shoulder and giggled the sun broke thru the clouds, coincidentally

27 minutes later we were engaged in connubial bliss

I played the Sun She played the Moon A delightful curvature of numbers, fish and interlocking fingers

If I now enter the River of Lethe then let me hold on to this inscription of memory and laughter forever

Hats?! I got hats Participles Flashes of Insight Shard-like triangles of thought Pushing forward like fast mountains

And that little turdling smelling peachy rubetine and mellow

Somehow any minute now seems like forever and the cold banal plate of my existence is a dishrag soiled and grey

the air is cool and damp it is 3 o’clock the air is grey it is really 1:11 and the air is bright I imagine it otherwise, nonetheless

No dox in hand Trip to Gotham an impenetrable wound I would like to see comrades Bust out in jigs upon concrete but the deep hollow cough and the rickets inhibit me anthrax spores thick in the air like balls of snow

let’s hope not the image of carslik roads glisnin’ a chord struck a casual hum an inflection brings him to the point of dissolution

I’ve tried been patient Waited for the stumbling fragile word to come it didn’t

So now, when I raise myself up like a digital falcon sharp as 12 knives to cut you out of me

What selfishness I will exhibit as always petty to the end after all what are 8 years?

and when these bleeding rednecks pick themselves up after the blast there ain’t gonna be no he’ll to pay there’s just gonna be hell

She doesn’t want anything that’s just it (except maybe for me to go away) all the experience accumulated burn it all

that curious personal weather we each have our own Michelle (that is a her-a-cane bearing down on Cuba)

in common cartoon panels black clouds overhead indicate dark moods a connection ‘twixt the body and barometer

a big wide view of the earth as if from a plane or an animator’s pen bright hues and sharp edges

It is a memory a lovely old hymn and a strange variety of cat

a subcutaneous roar: an insistent train making its way thru town a few blocks away the news is always bad

The Redbook (part 2)

The Redbook

From Plastic Tub

Revision as of 16:37, 19 Feb 2005

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 [[Category:Extant Works]][[Image:ManuscriptPortrait.jpg|thumb|right| The Redbook from [[Tim Wilson|T.Wilson's]] [[Mansucript Portraits]], 2004.]]
-Collection of poetry by [[Steven Adkins]].
+Collection of poetry by [[Steven Adkins]] (2002-2003)
+'''[Part 1]'''
+''What’s the Great American Story?
+Not wanting to be where you’re at''
+Born on the cusp of the analog age’s
+	Swift demise
+Or at least into a world of endings
+	(this play)
+	drops like slow turds
+	and each one a mortifying
+	echo
+	a little less savage, perhaps?
+	plod on in a merciless
+	refrain compelled
+	to tell little daffodil stories
+	and crocodile pete poems
+	written in wikid collab
+	(orations)
+	suffering from the disease of
+	the Blind King
+	the bubonic bungalow
+	(which is a bunghole)
+	(which is a firecastle)
+	green, sanctified plate tectonics
+	of mechanized color
+		….it drifts….
+a needle stick in the Age of Aquarius
+	swift tournaments of demise
+	you see,
+it’s set up like this
+flagrant and fragrant
+wisps of willow….
+My apartment is two equal-sized
+rooms
+at one end of one is the kitchenette
+at one end of the other, the bathroom
+the roof leaks and in the summer
+it roasts
+the carpet is a travesty, the ceiling
+tiles marked with brown stains
+the drippings of rain through rusted
+struts
+tar pebbles and pigeon shit mixed
+in for good measure
+My rear windows look onto the backside
+of a rehab center
+it was erected there soon after I got
+out of mine
+and began smoking pot again
+I lasted three months
+But I am still dry
+I’ve done coke and xtacy once
+But I am still dry
+I am on smack as I write
+But I am still dry
+That rehab center is just waiting
+there, tapping its’ foot and glaring
+across folded arms
+the little dog she and I have had
+as a companion for over 5 years
+paces nervously about….
+mike, my houseguest also moves
+hither and yon
+“Are you all right?” he asks
+“Yeah”
+“Oh….you look all stressed out and worried”
+“Nah, I’m just….writing”
+Reaching back in time thru
+			a thirty-year apocalypse
+		whisperers in the ship
+			every city speaking somehow
+		in carbuncular tongues
+dying, comatose brains
+shouldn’t be aware
+the tv glares monotonous
+o’er the top
+or behind
+		the perambulant in layers
+all stressed out
+even though the plodding
+	turd bucket has rolled
+over into a bassoon of flowers
+some kind of golden urn sexless
+sitting astraddle the sky
+	waiting in a round ball
+	tummy without walls
+	an infant forms
+		it is the world
+	soft and misshapen like a baby’s
+		head
+		    ….or an egg yolk
+Where is the golden paradrop?
+	The hominid strut
+	How long before that came along?
+ANGY HYMN TO MY 10,000 DEMONS
+Poet’s first preenings
+this perfect onanism
+(this onanistic fervor)
+at eighteen or twenty
+I visited a graveyard and
+sat on a dark tomb
+red-eyed from weariness
+lit candles
+and wrote poem fragments
+with Pete Carver
+This forced conclave
+The hushed expectancy
+Anticipation was its’ own reward
+but I never produced no
+poems from these
+summits
+	I don’t work in
+flares
+	(yet I do)
+    “bearded tress”
+    Pete grabbed the line
+    and added a cuticle moon
+I resented those
+bearded trees
+cuz I had not yet
+heard the call
+just half-assed
+opaque moons,
+vaguely purple
+over Orlando
+That perfect planetarium
+my sweet terrarium
+a humidor for life
+painted stars on the dome
+offers the illusion of heaven
+and the promise of hope
+it has a leaky roof, now
+ceiling tiles mottled brown and grey
+and that graveyard tombstone
+shit was years ago
+Gay Encounters
+One time in Guatemala I
+went to see a prostitute
+I had money in my pocket
+and valium in my blood
+at a nickel a piece,
+wouldn’t you?
+needless to say I was drunk
+I am not a pro, I splay
+what I have on the scratchy blanket
+and she takes it all
+She hikes her skirt
+but not until she’s pulled
+me out and slipped on a nightcap
+I hadn’t brought one
+I got hard enough at first
+but it didn’t have the vigor
+she got up and left me there
+the picture of dejection
+but she came back
+I will never forget the sight of her
+Her silhouette in the door
+A trio of young cohorts laughing at my
+impotence
+Their gawking at least
+mercifully short:
+I needed to pee
+I started in one corner and worked
+my way to the bed
+to show I wasn’t such a
+bad sport left it dry
+I met this drunk Guatemalan
+on the street and chatted him
+up came on hard inquired
+if cock was his thing
+grabbed his crotch
+if it were only the fear that
+the sight of my penis might
+shake him out of his drunken stupor
+I would have taken him back to my room
+but I am a coward
+and that sore on his lip was disgusting
+coda
+I did get my willy sucked on this trip
+a French-Canadian Zen
+gardener
+Invited him to plant it in my ass
+but alas, he was impotent
+gave great head, though
+wanted to turn on the light
+to watch me cum
+fine I said
+but he blanched
+the light did it I suppose
+I had to whack it out
+myself
+I had by this time sucked
+and been sucked by two other
+men
+Twice each, even
+With Edward we were alone
+he dropped to his knees for
+a tease while my mistress
+changed out of her coat
+another time he fed me wine
+and we got to talking
+we exchanged blows
+without fruition
+I asked him if he
+wanted to plow me….
+did I want him too?
+question, alas, unanswered
+a flash of naked white ass
+as the roommate brings in
+the telephone
+Even before this
+there was my dark uncle
+a Dr. Sax of sorts, but with
+a guitar
+In the context of a threesome
+we exchanged a few sucks
+But we were more intent on
+Brenda
+She was good for it
+Come to think of it, she was
+our third both times
+When Jason came in he saw
+us two smoking on the
+couch
+Went in for a try himself
+at a beckoning
+sound
+My escapades with women are
+more of the same
+I’ve had a few threesomes
+but this other frontier….
+is it the sex I crave
+or the yearning itself?
+this probably doesn’t get yer rox off
+it may not be much in the way
+of unbridled confession
+but it’s poetry
+    absolutely dreadful poetry
+but poetry
+just renewed my membership in
+the anti-hominid league
+and just as aliens are angels
+angels are aliens
+woman combustication a wombat
+buddha a fat splat choklit
+a choking combat demeanour
+thing thug glug jug of clear spirit
+‘gainst snow
+	let it blow let it blow let it blow
+a fauve tumbling of fact	the
+convenient theory
+		wild gnashing teeth
+		the acute edge of a turnip
+just riding my spine
+an electric arcsaw across the sky
+it is a gate to the West
+The bow in the mirror
+	is an eyetooth
+w/which 	width	witch	(she getting a rolla)
+	ditch witch	slumpen drunken
+strumpet slut
+		she reeks of Ripple tiny ripples
+in mud puddle face down momma
+been a longa humpucker
+	I protest
+	you come back
+	you didn’t come back
+Blowback in the cracked mirror
+  Der Golem reflected a million limbs
+	shooting the moon
+stolen from that fat green fuck
+	that spectre of limburger
+a face so cold and green it glows
+I get spam
+	it clogs my arteries
+processed e-meat
+	for fat bankers ploys
+the evil desperate
+	evil because they are
+annoying
+win lose indifferent
+	the bankers bank
+	the coppers cop
+	the pyramid prevails
+and so I fry spam
+in the crenulations of my jigsaw
+____
+.10.01 appx. 10 pm
+Hiccups – the giveaway for the
+	nonevent
+allinall
+	     a
+	       tiring
+	experience
+trite the body trite the functions
+   which mean everything associated
+      from the shit to gold
+         the alembic journey
+the rarification of the worm
+      he bleeds in tiny wombs
+that lick like felt-tipped tongues
+	incongruous in the mist
+	the ravens
+	the moonbeam
+	the unicorn
+	the gold toad a-glitter in the
+	glare of the glam globe
+it is a slowly melting earth
+under a brown chemical haze
+	oily the humid sky deposits
+	cancer dust storms
+	scorpions the size of leopards
+the horizon is a wall of flame
+small phalli stand silhouette
+	eiffel-like girders
+	crossed and barking
+	sliblets of mournful oil
+	clumped and lippling
+	sliding in upon itself
+a woomp suck the earth clean
+the atmosphere has vanished
+a spit-take
+	a fast bobble
+the egg cracks
+	and out pops a turtle
+the egg is the world
+	and the turtle is dead
+____
+The side of the world exploded
+Debris is falling like leaflets
+I hear ambulances
+The northern tower seems to be on fire
+the tops of the towers
+were obscured by the smoke
+the creeping horror
+no lovecraftian slithering
+but tangible stomach
+	flailing falling bodies
+	flames
+and for every time I’ve written gleefully of the
+apocalypse
+	is a time I recoiled from the expected
+reality
+“fuck the hovercrafts, this is the future”
+Muhammad Atta
+grand to fly a missile
+Slim Whitman style with infinite
+(smallness)
+we work on the Napoleonic Code,
+now
+Vengeance, a lust for blood
+a grimy fist clenching a sword
+we need no shields
+they are immaterial and
+fly thru hot steel chomping
+just as hot steel flies:
+a slowly moving mote
+across a field of curiously
+suspended particles
+	a steady
+	  straight
+	    line
+Everyone struggles with the immensity of
+this horror
+grappling within the lymph, the follicle
+the gland, the mitochondria
+Inside the skin
+It’s hard not to take that personally
+Visceral skin rinse blasted from pores
+like tears vomit forth from eyes
+Cleansing tears pushing away coke cans
+and jingo
+  turkey bones
+The result a clarity at times
+A limpid reflection at others
+quivering and uncertain
+	hateful and vengeful
+	mindless of what it is you really
+	want
+	Which is Peace
+	Sweet like a honeydew
+	melon is sweet
+	perfect
+An excuse for a fascist insertion
+My heart ached so much I didn’t notice my
+ass was bleeding
+King and queen of the rubble yard
+	soft children rising
+	naked and balloon-like
+	the sun a dwindling orb
+	a besmirched yolk
+	dropped onto the frying sky
+What terrible infidels are we to
+	deserve the nerve gas?
+	anthrax?
+	“Hope we can continue just a little
+	while longer.”  J. Morrison
+	Me too, Jimbo!
+The new Rome the post-hermeneutic Sodom
+	flags ripping the wind
+	into a hawk’s shriek
+	stone pillars, lead, sulphur
+	frankincense, crushed dinosaur bone
+Ahh these values are less real than
+	jihad and holy vengeance
+Even the Church of Satan is calling
+	for blood!
+Inspect, operate, dissect
+	<vermin, dogmeat, pus>
+nonsense, jingo the lot of it
+On this day it was revealed to me
+that Osama bin Laden is God
+and a woman
+both at the same time
+	(leading a carcass into the tissue
+digester)
+There is a past
+but there is no future
+this scorched earth
+where our hearts –
+two drunken warlords
+parade each other’s soldiers
+thru the filth in the streets
+and the inside of my mouth tastes
+like chemicals applied to metal
+It hasn’t stopped raining for days
+and finally, my ceiling has collapsed
+I can look into the corner and see
+the sky
+Slowly I creep back into addiction
+Soft balls of light dancing in
+nauseating unison
+And everywhere talk of war and fear
+New era of disease and discomfort
+and no dissent
+Just jingo and the lockstep
+The groupthink terror and the drummers
+beat as one
+The war drummers the sick
+cavalcade who will promote but
+never enlist
+Guarding the skies of Texas is
+as close as these warriors will ever
+get to the wars they promote
+Open-ended and ill-defined, angry
+images to become objects of
+hatred and icons of vengeance
+All around us are causes
+like so many cast away dollar store
+dishrags
+We poke out our eyes and wonder
+where it all comes from
+These discombobulate mutterings of
+mullahs and malcontents,
+murderers, martyrs….
+Of course it troubles me
+My tears now, docile, entrenched
+the lines of many frowns the
+scrabbling holes of soldiers
+And we, two warlords
+Our feud quiet amidst the roar of
+greater wars
+Of dying empires of ideas bloated
+All unfair all material witnesses
+gone….
+Mike will go to jail because of
+a liar and a judge that will
+refuse to believe a man accused
+may be innocent
+I will only be saved by
+love in the midst of it all
+But that love is gone baby
+A tigress has eaten all the ferns
+and puked up the stalks
+A husk like a heart that has
+been peeled
+Boiled potatoes, rheumatism, ice
+cream and sperm, dog-eared copies
+of Das Kapital used as kindling….
+Where am I going with this one?
+I can’t bring it all back
+We, too, are beveled and charred
+No commerce will again take place
+between us
+Redolent around him half-remembered dreams
+They hang in the air heavy
+like cinnamon or musk
+Sweet tears fall into dust
+Magnified from the infinite small
+exploding into ancient smells of a wealth recovered
+forever tainted  with the grease of thieves
+How could he have lost it?
+What tragic distraction
+Distracted the watchmen?
+His paper heart dipped in vinegar
+yet still stinks of vomit and undisclosed betrayals
+Redolent around him the musty loss
+he carried it for years in a wet paper bag
+and was surprised when the bottom fell thru
+somewhere near the tracks
+A gift left for bums
+Who will mock it and throw it on the fire
+he didn’t deserve it anyway, they’d say
+And they’d be right
+gonna go meditate
+in an upstate kuti
+gonna go shoot my sks
+times
+“Falling thru cracks
+Falling thru sky
+Sunbeams in the form
+of opaque yellow triangles
+Shards of glass exploding up the concrete
+each splinter a drop of blood
+seeping into the earth
+A giant sump of benzene
+And potato chips
+Underneath the asphalt
+The perilous foundations
+of treasured buildings
+A gift of pancakes
+Inscribed w/a prophetic
+vision of doom
+What would you do if
+they showed you the door?”
+Apuleius you comical fuck!
+Thanks for showing me the Way….
+Isis.
+Who would have thought it?
+My problem….
+one of them anyway
+is that my religious impulses
+fluxuate wildly between idolatry
+and mysticism
+and more problematic why have
+them at all?
+my cross may be rosy
+but it’s a cross after all
+that these dusky stalwarts
+have taken my beloved Queen’s
+crescent and turned it into
+a scythe….it angers me
+may you open your eyes to
+our sufferings
+however deserved
+our memory is dim in Mary
+but at least we have her unveiled
+we don’t beat your image
+and imprison ourselves
+in reckless denial
+may our devotions tonight
+be a small voice
+like a gentle breeze among the reeds
+a plaintive whisper
+for peace
+we parade each other’s wounds
+thru the street
+our hearts two drunken warlords
+you look at me across the dustcloud
+my mouth like chemicals
+applied to metal
+<our soldiers gaze at one another
+they have hunger in their lanky arms akimbo
+and their time-stretched shadows>
+I miss you so much, but calmly
+I am tired
+Servants of Dionysus
+I set up the targets.  Warm up
+at 85 yards
+When I get to the target I’ve just
+shot at
+I haven’t hit once
+Then I realize I’ve set my sight for 850
+yards
+Not 85
+So I get back and realign
+Decide to plink the bucket on the
+desk
+(from my place of work coincidentally)
+I score perfect – well, all my bullets
+have pierced it –
+Then from the desk to the target
+then back to 85 yards
+I fire off about 90 rounds in an
+hour and a half
+John is my supervisor at work
+I am on his farm
+My relationship is that of friend
+and somewhat bedeviled underling
+But that is John.  Dr. Marmora
+Fulbright scholar
+Masseuse
+Shoemaker
+Farmer.  Vineyards that after lunch
+we tend.
+Layering.  We take the vines of
+healthy plants and bury them
+in a small trench 8” deep
+’ foot long as wide as the pick
+Then the end tied to the wire and
+ribboned
+Later
+I retire to a cabin in the woods
+An Amish shed really, but decorated
+with items as adorable as they are
+practical
+I tend a fire and think about
+Isis and Dionysus.  When I was on
+that tractor I was his servant
+I made the work holy
+In the cabin I jerk off into my
+sleeping bag and listen to the
+sounds of night….the wind,
+strangle cracklings, a dog barks
+Once in a while the dim hum of a jet
+A strange throbbing pattern which may
+be a bassline
+The Redneck, I’d assumed
+Now it’s me in the cabin.  After
+a baffling loss of a pack of matches
+which I hunted for high and low for
+over an hour.  Gone
+baffling.  Wood spirits I thought
+The wind, Lyle Lovett gospel on
+Sunday, gunshots in the distance
+This is my church
+Nature, Music, Struggle
+I am not the wounded party
+	A stag, stylized ink on glass
+Curving like a crescent moon
+	Its bottom tip producing
+Tiny bulbs of blood
+	WHAT mystery
+		there-IN?
+		this golden trunklet
+	BANAL and lowing
+	the COW of the night
+	stuck on the moon
+	and darkness lowered,
+	let’s sleep
+We partake of each other
+cake portions squared-off and
+hunkering
+hungering
+the distant samurai
+golden
+what?
+rainbows
+trout
+speckles of light
+speckled trout
+thumping
+and sirens
+my aural hygiene
+clogged vassals these ears
+in need of a good candling
+One candle ate the other candel
+and the bull is the father of the serpent
+and the serpent is the father of the bull
+the nuclear suitcase
+a delicate state of paranoia
+sharp as knives
+as gilded as a lily
+in perfect unison
+with the Sea Accord of ‘47
+a harmony
+veiled upon the sound of
+clinking salt rocks distilled
+from air
+poured into the wounds this salt
+nuclear Fear, anxious lonely
+random accident, please not
+the mass death
+or the epidemic
+give me the benefit
+of a long prosperous
+so it comes down to that
+anonymous please
+votive devotion
+a fair exchange
+gimme shelter,
+soteria, shekels
+n’solace
+I’ll be humble
+tonsure myself
+golden trinkets of doom and remembrance
+note to self:  destroy this notebook
+a basket of snakes
+in a fortress of sieves
+softly sifting sulphurous stones
+gold from within balls of mud
+self-destruction high 12
+with a backup dancer
+or a security guard
+caught by chance
+in a collapsing tower
+a secluded stormcloud
+a tempest in a teapot
+the glass globe of his combat helmet
+fish swim by his eyes
+the water a perfect fit
+lay down with this imperfect beast
+draw blood no
+draw breath then collapse in a shambles
+of heavy guitar riffs
+and thund’rous drums
+god, it is only a rock sock
+it covers the foot parked
+in the tunnel of his throat
+grey listless day
+last workday before the freedom’s ring
+and she called me today
+soon after noon
+to cause me to wonder
+a pre-emptive strike?
+to see if my friend had
+filed a report on some
+painful thing?
+and feeling it out,
+finding nothing,
+she is mute
+SUNday is not
+she has not been in for hours
+methinks some lie afoot
+VURT lying on the floor
+a soft thermodynamic
+an exchange
+none too gentle
+stepping through the
+doorz that are opened
+smashed,
+interrogated,
+blissful
+We cannot win this war
+Within ourselves
+This hysterical barking
+  of polystyrene heads
+  polystyrene molded like wooden
+  shrunken heads
+A radio peeps out from the past
+there is no hyperkinetic changeup
+the kids don’t dance
+they circle like sharks
+their cheekbones cleave thru the
+cigarette smoke
+a waft, here and there, of vapor rub
+there is more menace than abandon
+but nonetheless, the event must be
+reckoned a success
+the slime on the walls
+the plywood disaster waiting to happen
+the swift coagulant
+she is angry, always
+and I am desperate
+like a thief is desperate
+and the moment
+now and again
+when the sun sees fit
+to poke out from beyond the clouds
+and illumine my room Autumnal
+wan but noble
+a hard edge to the patterns of fingerprint and
+dirt on my window
+this slim reminder of life outside
+keeping the plants alive –
+		dismal dismal
+			fodder
+		what I leave in my wake; ANTI-MIDAS
+I turn GOLD into SHIT!
+	dripping like specialty shop gold candles
+		thru my blood-stained digits
+onto the tarmac of my brain
+	cooled by wind and speckles of high mountain rain
+	  a camera panning away in the Andes, quickly then, from a
+								TURD!!
+gargantuan twins
+kining on the globe
+a 3D rendering, in ink
+manifest slowly the
+elongation of desire
+it forms a tusk
+a sleeper image of a captain
+circumnavigates the globe
+the salt will never forget
+	heart-rendered
+	absolved	somehow
+the shadows in the wall form the shape
+of a priest – no – with the
+mitre he must be a bishop!
+they are handing out slips
+	of forgetfulness
+relapse….relapse….relapse
+it calls across the mud hollow all
+narcoleptic thick sweaty air
+warmth, them
+ah, the wishful thinking!
+the snow thumps into earth soon
+the air cold
+woodsmoke, even, upon occasion
+Never never never
+I do not get a visit
+I have put all my eggs in one basket
+I gave it all up for love but love
+gave up on me
+our allies
+	hung on the frontlines
+		dying in prison
+		slow hurtling
+		swift myrtle
+If I know Tampa, I’ll be back
+Cigar City w/trilingual fortitude
+	cobbled streets that useta ring
+with the clang of horseshoes
+caught steel of trolley track
+Smells of wood and yella rice
+murmurs votive thru incendiary cracks
+ashen light on the solitude of 7th
+quiet humid haloes of 7th
+this was when, ’87?
+It was an entirely different world then
+Most of the shops were empty
+Those that weren’t were….gritty
+Punks & hippies
+Squats abounded
+This was when the El Goya was the only club around
+the flood was yet to come
+the 90’s came
+swept away the Emerald
+Ybor Pizza and Subs
+Grotty places with dark unused corners
+Mildewy smells
+graffiti….
+Before new tile and neon….
+Sweet Charity –
+	ah there was a joint
+Not one but 2 Santeria shops
+	the one on the west end survived a while
+	is it still there?
+That nebulous zone north of Ybor
+that oozes unexpectedly back into Tampa
+it seems to exist independently
+Poor wooden homes about mysterious
+groves which seem deep but
+where could the deepness come from;
+on a map there’s only a grid
+Tampa is a shifting tectonic
+definition is hazy
+vast and lazy and sparsely governed
+it is a very oneiric place
+I can hardly wait
+My memories of you, Florida
+are bathed in warmth
+and scented vaguely with
+oleander, citrus, cut grass….
+there is a cigarette-filled
+beer bottle or two, yes,
+but mainly I think of swaying trees
+silhouetted against a deep blue sky
+or, westerly, an impossible profuseness
+of clouds – but there they were:
+	One could see clear to Hawaii
+	reflections of gold upon the clouds
+	sunlight beamed back up from a smiling Pacific
+Pacific.  Peaceful.
+	And in Deland, I lived on Sans Souci
+	drive
+Too bad I got the notion, that
+futile, naked gesture….
+Frozen into a lifelong pose
+A dapper nose
+A change of clothes
+A cold imp following a Gemini shackle
+Cold tackler melting in action under
+the illumined wing of the sun
+stuffed but incontinent
+Jealous of yet in contempt
+Can it yet be tempted to behead
+this glamorous oxymoron
+(which is a bad way of saying
+that beards, mandatory, win out over
+no beards, mandatory)
+A mountainous terrain
+the khyber pass
+more than an excuse to mime a monocle
+and adopt a phony Edwardian tongue
+this is no imperial joke
+somehow, decadent
+lobbing from afar the delicious platitudes
+of the overfed
+we send them bombs of choklit
+piñatas that plunk down all delicate
+crak wide
+reveal treats
+sweet tooths.
+[section omitted]
+We know there is no paradise for murderers
+Absolution under the veil that is a cascade
+a veil so to speak
+over a rocky abutment which is the brow
+	of her perfect beauty
+	vaguely “of the east”
+  but only at this angle
+She speaks gracefully and drops healing
+  Water from her hand;
+there is a slice of melon
+of honey	the darkness
+the crescent glistens in
+the dew
+this reign of tears
+the collision of fruit held in the hand
+and water over the face
+causes futile explosions
+	fluttering limpid in idle waves
+	upon the floor
+love that mysterious crocodile
+a floodlit balloon
+upon a pterodactyl stage
+rampaging and serious
+gamboling and heffalumping
+flying off motorcycles
+  in a desperate grab
+  for the wrong side of the edge
+ONTO the floor!
+	gwa-
+….gridle
+	    wha
+Pumpkin pie in a diner full of tiles
+and each one a tiny guard
+placed at the holes to the core of her heart
+spiny forested leprous
+Louisiana stinking of crocagators
+and I made those holes
+sloshing thru the swamp
+  knee-deep
+falling thru the decay
+reaching for a cuticle moon
+cleft finger slipping grasp
+a fork in the treeline
+  bearded trees looking on
+as I fall
+I don’t need her in the same way
+but I can’t take the cold indifference
+shut out and then the “oh really”
+upon complaint
+the exaggerated artifice
+the surprise gestures that
+say “you expect too much”
+it’s as if the lone ranger
+looking toward tonto
+under the hail of flaming arrows
+says: “We gotta get outta here!”
+and tonto, placid, says:
+(he has known this all along)
+“Whaddaya mean we, white man?”
+The film stops on her hand as
+she leaves the counter
+the sound of wind and ships rigging
+a distant emptiness of sky
+dissolves into green fields
+Badalametti-type score
+There in the grass
+A chipped wooden statue
+here a burn, there a split
+garlands, candles
+halves of oranges, incensed cones
+A cup of water
+A seed or two
+That wooden statue is me in the position
+the film caught me in when you left
+unsurprised, grim, relieved, desolate
+je sui desolé – I’m sorry
+and I am not motivated by
+guitar weeping nor Frail memory
+tears don’t come I tell ya
+I’ve got no more right
+I have abandoned my chips
+No more time outs or explanations
+I can't hold it in my hands and examine it
+She moves
+The tube that connected our heads is severed
+at her end
+She is free of it
+it leads from me to….
+nowhere
+An appendage waggling in space that is a glum
+						reminder
+A thousand frogs may fall from the sky
+the intelligent bald man may utter truth
+but don't let those regularities stifle
+the drunken meander
+or the gee, golly whiz-bang
+you are off to see your family anyhoo
+sister, crazy Negro woman
+ex-husband a Baptist Preacher
+boyfriend a loving thug
+crackers all and salted earth
+Mum what to make of her sad life
+childhood full of war and Victorian discipline
+The child out of wedlock and flight into Empire
+Husband in Vietnam a 22-year commitment to country
+-- then death
+Two drug-addled kids and the man in her life….
+You may call it Oedipal if you need to
+I can't avoid that pointing Finger
+As much as the finger is a wag
+non-malicious but wrong
+I simply do not like the fellow
+Have no more time for drunken agape
+Fat lettering, dying modernist architecture,
+global war.  This is my world,
+So be it.  I can see why she
+left me!
+POST SCRIPT
+It is the pen that rules the hand
+the flow of its' ink the crucial tongue
+Merciful, I've stumbled into Fortune
+	When doppelgangers meet
+	magic pen floweth like the
+	River of  Forgetfulness
+	    incessant
+	    necessary
+in tha bizniss
+	tha long stork
+	winding
+	become forgetful of prophecy
+	throw of the yoke of self-consciousness
+	throw in a scrap of tin for the
+	    war effort
+	false girlies
+	    wax chimpin’
+	dining on the sideways smear of light
+	hard-edged and uninspired
+there are no little explosions –
+a bad thing in this case
+those little explosions moments of joy
+or creative bliss to punctuate the
+dull drone
+As if we are still sloughing off a Decade
+full years of anxiety and abuse
+she a foreign thing
+so….
+    gone
+there is pain so I indulge
+myself in the wicked pleasures of pimpery and
+   drug peddlin’
+ha.  please take that meta 4 ickly
+    nothing but a coffee
+    who must be stopped
+    look @ the carnage
+	    the thin smoke
+    semi-opaque and tan
+    eyes like molded plastic
+    moving on a slow wheel
+    in front of a pediform scrim
+    A sky-blue box and the
+    rays of hope
+	Amen Ra – it is a candle
+	in a tincup
+    I deserve a lashing for my poor
+    behavior @ the puppetbox
+      Surly and discontent
+      spread malicious vibes of solitude
+      for a manual that has become
+      a meaningless haven
+      but still a haven
+A man imagines himself one way
+Is seen entirely different by another
+In most men in most cases
+This is the plainest of Truths
+One thinks of Kansas
+Fields of Wheat
+Honest pursuits traded with
+leathery hands
+A scarf blown in the wind
+Sideways & ethereal
+Knock-kneed
+(The Poet has a tendency to catalog)
+What are my characteristic misspellings
+the nuclear suture
+to the can of worms
+let’s hope that couplet’s wings are
+clipped
+the heavenward march of bugbears
+Wanton, in the wind
+appointments made, appointments broken
+eh, whaddufuck?
+he shrugs his ragged shoulders his
+Abe Lincoln coat
+Hell-Fire 2000 the Arabs are right
+We are decadent and depraved
+A pal, Young Lord, offered to Pimp
+his ole lady for 100 bucks
+A golden Hottie, she
+Aside from Brutality all is game
+Ass
+Shaved beauty
+Mouth
+This was all brought on
+By my simple “I need to
+get laid, desperately.”
+He doesn’t need the money—
+we hang out on his sailboat—
+it’s about the power
+She gets off fucking an unknown—
+blindfolded as she’ll be
+I get laid
+He gets to tell her ex post facto
+He’s pimped her
+So much for honest pursuits….
+We are hungry ghosts of time
+Amblers of space
+turning ceaseless orbits
+	around one another
+the orbit gone wide
+	I Pluto-like
+a vast distance
+	cold black oblongs
+	smeared in the rainbow of bending starlight
+	space rubble
+	illumined like plankton on fire
+the undersides of the sphere heavy
+	and damp today
+	It never, ever drifts
+		back
+			close
+	dismal satellite blinking
+	set course for nowhere
+	Adam 12 and Pogo strips
+	a penis
+	and a brown lump of moldable clay
+	(don’t bother looking)
+	Then, there, at the
+	edge of things
+	We realize we’re really in the
+	thick of things
+	Skulls and heads mostly
+	Pretty then, in demeanour
+	wickedness implies girth
+	wine
+	and a seat in Parliament!
+On a machine in Hal’s Deli:  CROWLEY’S MILK
+Rocked in gorgeous heffalump
+We are eating spinach from tins
+Disaster food
+One became the uneasy friend of another
+that larger, southern state
+lush and fundamental
+this continent is sewn with blood
+Its’ furrows a brow in grief
+the war was everything, but civil!
+she was staring at me
+a jaw as square as cinderblock
+a patina of grease on her maw
+she tossed a chicken bone across
+her shoulder and giggled
+the sun broke thru the clouds,
+	coincidentally
+minutes later we were engaged
+in connubial bliss
+I played the Sun
+She played the Moon
+A delightful curvature of numbers,
+fish and interlocking fingers
+If I now enter the River of Lethe
+then let me hold on to this inscription
+of memory and laughter
+forever
+Hats?!
+I got hats
+Participles
+Flashes of Insight
+Shard-like triangles of thought
+Pushing forward like fast mountains
+And that little turdling
+smelling peachy
+rubetine and mellow
+Somehow any minute now
+seems like forever
+and the cold banal plate
+of my existence is a dishrag
+soiled and grey
+the air is cool and damp
+it is 3 o’clock the air is grey
+it is really 1:11 and the air is
+bright
+I imagine it otherwise, nonetheless
+No dox in hand
+Trip to Gotham an impenetrable wound
+I would like to see comrades
+Bust out in jigs upon concrete
+but the deep hollow cough
+and the rickets inhibit me
+anthrax spores thick in the air like balls of snow
+let’s hope not
+the image of carslik roads glisnin’
+a chord struck
+a casual hum
+an inflection brings him to the point of dissolution
+I’ve tried
+been patient
+Waited for the stumbling fragile word to come
+it didn’t
+So now, when I raise myself up
+like a digital falcon
+sharp as 12 knives to cut you out of me
+What selfishness I will exhibit
+as always
+petty to the end
+after all what are 8 years?
+and when these bleeding rednecks
+pick themselves up after the blast
+there ain’t gonna be no he’ll to pay
+there’s just gonna be hell
+She doesn’t want anything
+that’s just it
+(except maybe for me to go away)
+all the experience accumulated
+burn it all
+that curious personal weather
+we each have our own Michelle
+(that is a her-a-cane
+	bearing down on Cuba)
+in common cartoon panels
+black clouds overhead indicate dark moods
+a connection ‘twixt the body and barometer
+a big wide view of the earth
+as if from a plane
+or an animator’s pen
+bright hues and sharp edges
+It is a memory
+a lovely old hymn
+and a strange variety of cat
+a subcutaneous roar:
+an insistent train making its way thru town
+a few blocks away
+the news is always bad
+[[The Redbook (part 2)]]
 == See Also ==