the future's future. part 1?

With a light mind but a heavy heart Clarence parked his '94 Toyota Tacoma under the on-again-off-again flashing bulb of the street lamp. Always wanted to go Detroit, he thought, as he locked the door and walked away from the car, but those Japanese know how to make an engine that lasts.  Can't argue with that. Gets the job done, too.

He crossed the mostly vacant lot to Crystal's Palace, on the outskirts of - insert generic American town name here - and entered the heavy door, nodding to the security guard as he walked by.

"Evenin' Clarence, welcome back.", the security guard said.
"Nice to see ya again buddy.", Clarence responded.

There was 3 other people there.  Clarence knew 2 of them.  Crowded for a Tuesday.

To the left of center stage sat Michael, Clarence's friend of old.  Michael and Clarence had gone to all boys Catholic schools together from ages 4 to 18.  They spent college apart, and then found each other again after Clarence moved back home and found a job at a local canning factory, and Michael, after a failed dint in architecture school, was now living off of his decrepit, but wealthy mother, awaiting his inheritance.

A couple of empty chairs down from him sat Alex, the man who'd moved up there from the city a few years back. He and Clarence had taken to each other rather quickly bonding over a fondness for culture, despair and whiskey they wished they could afford.  And the three of them had fallen into a lovingly off-kilter friendship.

Clarence smiled and nodded at all of them as he made his way towards the back of the room, including the stranger, who sat to the immediate right of the stage. Charity was working the bar that night, and by the time Clarence had reached it a drink was already waiting for him. 

He smiled, "Thanks doll cakes," he said, taking a sip through red the stirring straw and then giving the glass a swirl.

Charity smiled back. She and Clarence had an affectionate relationship. Clarence had always thought, or optimistically hoped, that this was more than the affection between dancer and client, and that his steady patronage may have bought him some dances at first, but it was more than that now. After all, they had exchanged texts of well wishes over the holidays. Surely that couldn't have gone to all of her contacts, he thought.

"Who's the newcomer so content in the shadows over yonder?"
"Dunno, some guy just got in from London. First time I seen him here."

Clarence noticed that, despite sitting right next to the stage, inches away from the dancer performing atop of it, that the man had not glanced up from his phone once since Clarence had arrived.

"Thanks for the drink, Char, see ya in a bit." Clarence walked over to sit between his two compatriots, but not before leaving an overly generous tip on the bar.

"Hey ho good buddies!" Clarence greeted Alex and Michael with his typical, unabashed jubilant candor.

"Hey man. How goes it?" Alex said.
"Ooff, Clarence!" Michael exclaimed with the same awkward excitement he had always shown Clarence.

After a bit of banter unworthy of being recorded, let's say about art, philosophy, money and tits, and a few more drinks and dances the man on the other side of the stage raised his eyes up from his phone.
The group of friends noticed this and shared in a moment of anxiety from their over-abundance of senseless babbling and chaotic laughter now suddenly in the presence of this stranger's gaze. The stranger put his phone in his pocket and then slowly, and calmly rose to his feet and walked towards the three friends.

"Sorry, I couldn't help but notice you all, and was wondering if I might join you." He said, in a deadpan voice.
"Of course, of course!" Clarence shouted out (always the first to speak for the group).
"Thank you.", responded the stranger.
"Welcome friend," Clarence said, "You're new around here?"
"Yes. I've just gotten into town, business."
"Char says you came in from London. That so?"
"Yes. Well, I'm from the states originally, but moved to London for school and never came back, except for the occasional visit."
"Well welcome welcome! How'd you end up at ol' Crystal Palace hehehe" Clarence asking, laughing in his maniacal yet innocent manner.
"They recommended it at my inn." The stranger answered.
"Mighty fine. Mighty fine. Place is best in town, and Char over there," Clarence nodded at the bartender, "Well Char's a sweetheart and a damned sassy bitch if I say so myself."
"Say," the stranger said, "I don't believe I caught your names."
"Oh! Where are our manners boys?!" Clarence shouted. "This one here is my old buddy Mike, and that tall drink of water sitting right there is Alex. He's pretty fresh off the boat too."
"I see." said the stranger. "I thought as much."

The stranger then rose from his seat and seemed to loom over the three men before him - boys, children before him. Without a word he turned and walked away. After two steps he stopped, turned, and drew a pistol from his coat pocket.

Canned Apple-Sauce

Red and Delicious
turned to commodified
Paste.

Sealed in a Tin
to prevent corporate
waste.

No skin or Core.
No apple parts
to leave
on the
Floor.

No need to chew,
barely a problem
to swallow.

No need to reflect
on the Stem from
which it Ripened.

From a tree
Branch,
To a Canned
Produce.

Bought and Sold
for the Profit Margins
of Book-Keepers
who don’t Read –

Where the fruit came from, and
who it is for.

Transmute the paste into
medicine,
for the undernourished
around the Globe.

Take the Sold market good
and Share it with those
in need.

Only then can it truly be

Good. 

Wordplay

Do you ever forget everything about yourself? Driving home drunk through the rain, trying to piece together the bits you can remember: listing events that happened, friends' names, influences you surely had, ideas that were once important. Trying to form some human shape from the frays?

Do you shuffle through your damaged cellphone on wet patios, hoping the physical mechanic will make you less terrifying to groups of young women discussing reddit and Mingus? Hoping for a moment another will play initiative, just one time, to juxtapose the backdrop of a hundred tries and dead-ends? I too know the Clown exists.

Do you build word games? And repeat them aloud like a chant to ward through the day? On sunny mornings in dirt fields I made many laughing: Polyp poppin' papas putting pasta in the pot. The clown ground his crown down. I make them still, but they are different: faggot kike dyke nigger ass full of cum, cunt in the morning light, cock when day is done. During the hour drive to/from work I hang out the car window and yell it at people stuck in traffic going the other way, yell it to their faces. It's out of loving hatred, I promise. But for who?

Words are utensils, there to cut the meat.

Are you haunted by fallen friends' specters? Steeled against/through mundane labor, remembering in your bones what it is to do worse, knowing from example what lurks below man's poverty baseline? Do white ghosts chase you down the alleyway? And get high? Do you say never again and hunt every friend/cousin/acquaintance looking for a job, hook them up only to watch them crumble?

Do you feel on rainy drunken nights, left only with a keyboard, that some ancient beast has taken a poisonous shit in your heart? And it festers slow and old and mundane, like the approach of a glacier from a hilltop?

My dental hygienist invited me to help him kill/dress/butcher his cow and hog this fall. I said yes, he writ his address and phone number, but I don't even care. What's wrong with me?

Do you await the borderline where self-hatred finally liberates?

The Pressure Drop

Tucked beneath the rails is a strip club called Hurricane Betty's. Pimps and dealers visit from time to time, but they typically regular the Platinum Club. Old mills cage in the street. The freight trains roll overhead and the rain collects below. Such it is, that I would get that deep tingle-- skip the other clubs, and head to Betty's. On snowy Sundays after midnight, rainy Mondays at 1 am, on Easter and New Years Day at noon I would go through the doors.

My first night, drunk and aching for the touch, I spent all the seven hundred dollars I had in this world. 15 women worked the floor that night, and I paid them each in time for a private booth and a song worth. After that night, I was remembered. The old woman at the bar would pop a beer as I was patted down at the door. Girls I recognized would recognize me, occasionally leave other men and come to talk. I always paid in twenties and always tipped, and always wanted one more dance. I rarely watched the stage, I waited for the floor girls and the private boxes.

Months would pass between each visit, but I came back. And the beer would still be waiting and a familiar face would come to sit on my lap. It was pure chance, on those nights, I was the only paying customer. A stout lesbian couple were regulars and always took their chairs at the stage side. Their polo shirts were neatly tucked and I never saw them holding an empty beer. Occasionally a wrinkled and self/unemployed business man would enter, sit for a beer, tickle a dancer's asshole, laugh and then leave. It's all the same. A heavy set Hispanic man would sometimes sit at a table back from the stage, carefully nursing a bottled water he refilled in the bathroom. The gangsters and thugs would come through, silently pay, receive, watch their phones and leave. Time stands slow in the club.

In those days so many girls were my age. Young. They danced for their rent, car payments, kids and pills. I was just another investor and it suited me fine. Just a broke farmer in every sense. They'd call me their farm boy. Maybe one or two meant it-- I was on the same road to hell. Occasionally, their guard and professional face dropped. We're all only human. I would tell them jokes and bizarre stories, and when they laughed I felt like a man.

The older white gals were exhausted with life and professionally closed. There were no older black gals. The young white girls were all eastern European and they were blank eyed and angry-- maybe I was too insulting or just too broke. The young black girls were as human beings should be. I remember three.

Jasmine was very aloof and disinterested. She went through the routines of conversation and the routines of dancing. But she asked about me and so I told her. One night, she stopped. Naked to her heels she squatted between my legs, resting her elbows on my thighs, she stared into my face. She asked-- is it true everything they say about food? Will the poisons on bad veggies tear you up over the years and leave you to die of cancer? She was serious. I couldn't spout farmer market "white" bullshit about politics, morals and... I sighed and was caught in the lie. Eventually, I must have had something to say-- eat how you want or how you can, or there are more important things than what we just shit out. Whatever I said she took blankly, gathered her clothes and left. Never saw her again.


The next girl's name I cannot remember, and I loved her for better reasons, maybe it was Nadine. There was a thunderstorm that night. And I was truly alone in the club. Most of the girls had left, writing off the night as a loss. But Nadine had nowhere to go. I sat at a table watching an empty stage. She sat down across from me and started mid-sentence--  tonight's my birthday, can you believe this miserable shit? I laughed and we got to talking. Bullshit about weather, became jokes about middle aged shitty men, became commiseration on our mutual poverty. Then we realized we knew each other. She was a forgotten-friend of my book-friend's wife. Being real people changed things. Nadine's parents were florists and owned a shop, but her day pay couldn't cut it. So she danced. Nadine's mother was from Atalanta, but her father was an older generation Syrian immigrant (I'm sure I made that one detail up for romance). Her family was in shit--not from money, they managed-- but her older brother had driven himself insane. He was in his thirties and when the recession hit he lost his job, then slowly and terribly lost his wife and children. The brother was still alive, but nearly an animal, he was broken past fixing. We started talking about all this shit the world becomes sometimes. We agreed that luck was bullshit. We talked about what we though was worth worrying about. As closing came, she decided she should probably dance for me. She was exhausted, but with a redbull could pull herself together. I promised to get her one. Except I had no more cash. I went to the atm with the $10 surcharge-- but I was declined. I went to the bar, and the old woman charged me my last $70 to get 60. Embarrassed as all hell, I bought a red bull and a beer and Nadine looked at the ceiling. I got my dance. Afterward Nadine said I should be smart and not go blowing my money on white girls. I never saw her again.

Bree was closer, out of them all. I came out of a night blizzard in the week before Christmas. It was something different and complicated. I smiled at her. And she left a man and came to sit with me. We talked, but I can't remember what because something different was happening. She was a professional. She laughed deeper than the other girls and she whispered the filthiest shit I'd yet to hear. Is it so simple as pheromones sometimes? Or what it is? She was young and so was I and I had money, that's all . After the third dance, things became complicated when she kissed me. Deep to the lip. My belt was off and her hand snuck down my pants as she peaked to see where the bouncer was sitting. We lost track of the dances, but settled at five. It could have been ten, twenty seemed right too. Kneeling in my lap she took my phone and entered her number. Professional. Rummaging my pockets I had cash for four dances. I promised her the rest. Once again, at the atm I paid $10 for my last 50. By then Bree was hiding at the far end of the bar, in the shadows near the backdoor. Her head was in her hands, the bar tender had left her three shots. I gave Bree all the cash and she ignored it. I asked when she was dancing next. She said wednesday, but it might not be a good idea if you come by. I took a drink and left. And I never saw her again. But on Christmas eve Bree sent me a text saying "Happy xma." I thought she meant eczema.


This recent trip by Betty's will likely be the last. As madness fell on me. It'd been months since my last visit and all the women my age were gone. An angry middle aged white woman danced for me and the madness came down. A private dance was $25. A beer was $5. The VIP room was $170 minimum. Average sex was $300ish in this city. I started rolling over the street price of every high school date, every college girlfriend. Which were $700 nights? Which were $2,000? These thoughts made me sick of myself, I felt like a rotted tree. I drove through the city until morning, going around a rotary ten twenty times before turning home.

PolyEaster

I’m in Rubber soled Sneakers
held together by Glue
Made from Wild Horses.

Put together by fingers
on a Faraway shore
Driven by a master devoid of love and
Understanding.

Toe nails covered by cotton unkind.
Lessons of Love radiate

In my Mind,

The soles of my feet pray for rain
while neurons in my brain
fire this painful refrain.

The Comedian

I think the holocaust made being naked really complicated for everybody. It was like national geographic, as a kid, watching those documentaries in class or late night History Channel or wherever. You’d always see the piles of bodies and, as a child, my eyes would zero in and look at each man’s penis. Breasts and vaginas were there too I guess. But the penises I remember. And they were penises, not cocks really. Cocks started in 1974, I’ve decided after reviewing the footage. It requires a lot more leisure and nutrition than was available in those times to grow a proper girthed and manually practiced cock.

Honestly, I don’t think cocks really exist anywhere except in our heads. What I mean is cocks are the idea and fantasy, but the piles of 3inch flaccid penises are the reality. Looking at those black and white people was kinda like the high school gym showers, but more like the YMCA. The universal penis on display and it fucks everybody up. We can handle cocks, they blend into the scenery much easier. But I certainly ain’t the first to say penises are a bummer.

I grew up around here, outside the city I mean. Right on that line where they forgot to keep building shit. So there used to be trees and rocks and stuff like that. The woods would just take over, man, fellas with chainsaws would be out every summer weekend hacking that shit back to keep their yards from turning into savages’ playpens. Out back as a kid, right past the tree line, kinda swallowed in brush and leaves were these disintegrating tarpaper and twine chicken houses. Big ol’ crummy sheds to keep the little fuckers in, you know? Being a naturally stupid child I broke the rusted-over locks and would sneak inside. Then for whatever reason I’d dig down into the dirt floors—for treasure? Treasure, yes. I finally hit the jackpot one day, broke through that boring dirt barrier and got to the mounds of dog skulls, tuna cans and chicken rib cages. That’s a special day for a young man, to hold his first dog skull—probably some prized whippet from the 1890s county fair. Being a stupid child, who never really thought before doing shit—I remember kissing it on the teeth. Why not! But then I freaked out realizing what I did and just spat and cried and ran and washed my face out with detergent and just kinda shivered like a Mongoloid.

Haha, that’s stupid. So anyway, somebody once said that half of all problems start by ascribing lots of complicated reasons to something in order to avoid the very simple things at the bottom. You know, okay, suits me. Let’s try it. Maybe daddy drinks because of a bad accident he once saw on the highway? Maybe Robbie is such a shit because his grandmother found his 13year old thai murder porn stash and the old dame refused to rat out her own grandson? Maybe General Electric makes cars because Teddy Roosevelt had night terrors unless he was snuggly tucked in the back seat of a Model T with three or four gentlemen companions? Maybe airlines are terrible because cabbalist monks saw forty seven feathers descend from the Giza pyramids one Walpurgisnacht in 1963? Or maybe shit ain’t really that crazy, we just desperately need it to be. Like some hick 12 year old fucking a pig by candlelight, we just need her to be real and daddy not to catch us.

Whatever, it’s all stupid. I like cars, anyone else here like cars? God, I can’t do this. Sorry the car shit is over—I have a really intense memory of shame from being ten years old. It was the magic summer of masturbation, where one month before it was hot wheels and another later it was the hot heels in Spanish music videos. It was right then, the weekend after the first jerk session that actually meant something, that my Aunt decided to take me camping with her boys. I was a pig in rut. I ran to the little outside wooden shit trench, propped the door closed and beat off every twenty minutes. It was something. I remember my cousins banging on the door—Just a minute! I’d have to start from scratch, paranoid and sweaty. Finishing a half hour of tears later, only to desperately pretend all was normal when I got back to the campsite. There was a plastic port-a-potty by the beach and that was my castle. I took a pocket knife and cut a little hole, and just rubbed raw watching the ladies swimming—finally thought to use the hand sanitizer(wink) . That was a magic summer.

G’night Ladies and Gents, you’ve been great. Ricky Thomas is up next! Thank you.

The Pot

Roots from the earth guided by suns wamrth to form weeds.
From the roots, the stem splits from the stalk to form arms bearing buds.
Within the recess, trichomes of profound mystery.
However...
Where may she be grown?
Where can her profundity be shared?
Only Behind deadbolted doors and on a screen of brass.
Or trapped in a Skin made from her sister.
Hidden from sight; exiled to a street corner, lost in a crowd.
Kept secret in containers of glass with an iron roof.
She burns alone and misunderstood.
Bring her from the shadows of the BlackMarket
and radiate her golden Strength to all the
Wounded, Sickly, and Dieing.
Allow her grace to bless!
instead of confuse, blind and Strengthen the Wicked.

Different Guides

Guide Number Four
(1) Walk with INTENT
(2) Ask Everyone you encounter their proper "Christian" name
(3) Treat all individuals as soft furry animals sleeping in the grass
(4) Speak with Honesty, even if it puts a Colt '45 to your temple with a hollow point in the chamber
(5) Maintain appropriate eye contact
(6) Remember where you parked the car
(7) Remember to forget

Guide Number Six
- Respect the landlord
- Don't share your problems
- Don't show your weakness
- Don't tip the cabbie
- Only fill up the tank in NJ
- Supply, stock and shelve Boxed Red Wine
- AVOID ALL EYE contact
- Shoot the messenger (2 in the chest, 1 in the head)
- Only compliment yourself
- Only use "otis" elevators
- Wear wooden shoes up escalators
- Obey all stoplight signals

Guide Number Nine
- Replace all Church hymn lyrics with the word Watermelon (you will leave feeling better)
- Write Russian literature on company post-it notes
- Learn Spanish Cursive
- Lock your car doors three times
- Enjoy your HARD earned 3 day weekend
- Always be full of pride, even if it kills your friends and family while Strengthening your enemies
- Subscribe to Readers Digest
- Be the applause, NEVER receive it

The Red Head: There and Back Again, a Bachelor Party's Tale of New Orleans - Part 2

The storms of the day prior continued the morning Bilcole began his journey.  The sun had not yet risen in the East when he lifted his weary head from the soft comfort of his pillow and threw back the warmth of his blankets.  

Bilcole had hardly slept that night. The stress of the journey ahead had started a day early and plagued him until his eyes could no longer stay open. The storm had made travel impossible. Winds, sleet, snow and rain plagued the northeastern borders of Middle Earth that Bilcole called home.  No one who wanted to could leave, and most did not venture out from their homes. The land had been locked down, and the steel eagles Bilcole depended on to take him to New Orleans had been too timid to take off for fear of getting lost or damaged in the snow filled clouds. The unfortunate consequence of this was that Bilcole's comradeship was forced to disband.  In order to have any hope of reaching their journey's end, the Fellowship of the Bachelor was forced to go their separate ways and to try and converge again at their final destination.  This meant many things for the adventurers.  The Bachelor himself was forced to travel by ground with his brethern on an exceedingly long and trying over night journey. Others journeyed to the nearby city of Philadelphia, known for the great companionship and love with which it shows it brothers – they hoped to benefit from such open-ended comradery . Gan-Kwon the Asian was attempting to fly out on a different steel eagle with another companion, leaving Bilcole to fend for himself. A year of planning had gone by and in a single act of nature it was all thrown to the wind. However, the trepidation Bilcole had experienced when the adventure had first arrived on his doorstep had turned into excitement and expectation - expectation that he would not let down. After many frustrating hours of waiting and holding and dealing with the witches of the Delta, who held the passes to the eagles, Bilcole was able to secure a position aboard a bird hoping to take flight before the storms were at their worst.  

So that morning, when Bilcole awoke, he was filled with nerves. After all, the Delta witches had assured him two times prior he was to leave for New Orleans in the morn, yet twice he had been let down.  And with the others already on their way, this was his last chance.

--

In the twilight of the morning sky Bilcole left his adorned home and took the first steps of his adventure.  He went beneath the Earth itself to ride the iron centipedes that would take him to the land where he would meet the steel eagles, a grand palace filled with commuters, rangers, adventurers and all matter of beasts from far off lands, known only as JFK.  

Much to his delight, Bilcole arrived at JFK without a hitch.  When we came back to the Earth's surface however, he saw that the storm had already started and his gut was instantly filled with dread.

"I have come this far already." Bilcole said to himself.  "There is no turning back now."

Despite the storm his eagle was scheduled to depart as planned.  He boarded and nestled under the wing of the great beast, next to a sleeping dark skinned man.  Bilcole himself was exhausted from the lack of sleep and the stress brought on from embarking the adventure of a lifetime, and so he himself quickly nodded off as well.  

He awoke two hours later to find the eagle was still sitting on the ground, and had hardly moved since he had sat down.  The elves that tended to the animal claimed there was a "mechanical issue" and that this bird would not be leaving for some time.

This was grave news.  Bilcole had to meet another bird in the distant metal city of Detroit, and from there yet another eagle would take him to the southron town of Memphis where yet another bird’s flight would finally have him arrive in New Orleans.  All this insanity, of course was courtesy of the wicked storm brewing in the skies and those even more wicked witches at Delta.

“This place is more likely run by orcs then not.  Sauron himself must have cursed this trip for it to have fallen on such ill fate.” Bilcole thought to himself.

But he had no choice, and so Bilcole climbed down from the eagle and began to speak franticly with one of the elves of JFK.  The elf was nice, as elves are, and tried his best to help but his hands were bound. There was but one eagle to fly out of this part of Middle Earth, and it was going to the distant desert land of Dallas, home to the infamous cowboys.

“There is no turning back now.” Bilcole had no choice but to acquiesce.

--

Now, what happened next was a journey within a journey.  The factors are boring mostly and so the readers of this tale shall be spared them in detail.  But needless to say, Bilcole’s first, initially simple task of merely arriving in the city of New Orleans was made not so simple.  The birds took him to Dallas where he heard news from a fox and ate chicken from a man with popped eyes.  He was then flown to another southron city: Atlanta.  Bilcole’s time there was short as the next eagle was set to fly out just moments after his arrival.  And so, with hardly any time to catch his breath Bilcole ran through the palace that housed the birds in Atlanta and hopped onto to his next flight grabbing on by the talons as the beast beat its wings and ascended into the air.

Finally, after many arduous days (17 hours by the time of humans) of flying, running, and trudging through snow and sleet, Bilcole arrived in the great and legendary city of New Orleans. It was time to reconvene with the fellowship, and for the festivus of Mardigras to begin.

Genesis

Nothing is black and white
However, with the two we can define a point in space.
From one point (in any direction) a line can be made
Another point gives definition, but does not end a trajectory
With intersections (perpendicular, obtuse, acute)
a plane is made. (or is it a web?)
Can we even begin to stand?
How long until a place is made,
Better a home.
Can we define our existence in this time and space?

===========

Definitions.
The guardians of rationality.
The first line of defense against,
the chaos of mental disintegration.
Everyone-of-us; Lost in Translation.
Ideas are birds in cages of words.
Cleanse the doors out of which our perception gazes,
Not to be consumed by the infinite, but rather explain it.
Dispel this bewitched intellect; reclaim mental integrity.
Define The Void, within the void.
To begin with nothing is to begin with something.

With Socratic Atoms falling from our mouths,
may our Dialogue be warmed by the Dry Light of friendship
and stand firm on Definitions and mutual admonition.

Rotating the word dial on the safe of philosophical truth;
The right words in the right order,
 and the door swings open wide
with child like ease.

With agreed definitions, concepts are presupposed.
Should we start by agreeing or disagreeing?

Our words collide and bounce down corridors in our minds.
Have we begun? If so, when?
This discourse started long before you or me,
and will continue long after...

Can the inward Truth within me be shared with you?
or is it mine alone?

===========

Let me know.
Let me know, that all death and pain are but shadows of the moment.
Let me know, that the evil forces that pass between your truth and me are but clouds before the sunrise.
Let me know, that my Truth is mine forever and greater than any pride or strength that dares to mock my manhood.
Let me know, that I can put..
Can put all the shadows back into their boxes.

================

Armed with natural and instrumental power;
mind, strength, wit and spirit fused with faculties, friends and reputation.
May we conquer our differences
And rise above our lack of precise philosophical knowledge.
Let us not be consumed by our endless negotiations
between Power and Fear.
And Share one Truth which shares The Mark
Within me and Within you.

The Red Head: There and Back Again, a Bachelor Party's Tale of New Orleans - Part 1

Lo thy 20 souls gathered for their departure to hell.
Masks asunder, handles purchased, and plans of debauchery and merriment planned years in advance.
Yay, the men of old friendship forged in the fires of  Mount High School some 10 or 11 years ago (more for some) would soon gather to send their first off to the slaughter.

--

Bilcole was a tall individual - gangly some may say. With a burst of fire atop his head, and wisps of flame around his chin, he was all in all a merry sort of fellow.  He had settled into his life in Brookiton rather nicely and had grown to enjoy all of the fine customs that came along with it like craft beer and artisanal pizza. The bohemian life offered such splendid comforts as 2nd breakfast and 1st dinner. And he often tended to his abode with great care, making sure the mugs were separate from the water glasses, and the water glasses from the beer steins.

Yet one day, about 100 years ago (or 10 months by the human calendar), he was invited to an event he had oft heard elders tell stories of, and seen depicted by motion picture in such epic fables as "The Hangover" and "The Hangover 2": a bachelor party.  It seemed an old friend had chosen a mate and the mandatory celebration of of drinking followed by misogyny, followed by blacking out followed by vomiting (repeat) was to commence.

This was no ordinary bachelor party either. No, in order to attend this party, Bilcole must needs go on an adventure. An adventure far over the ridges, hills, mountains, and plains of Middle Earth (known commonly as America) to the great city of New Orleans for the festivus Martigras.

Bilcole had never been to New Orleans, but had heard it was an odd place and that many strange creatures dwelled there: elves, gnomes, masked marauders, trolls and the worst and most terrifying - the drunk college girl, who kept such evil company as the feared and hated frat boy. The city streets, it was said, were filled with hoards as far as the eye could see, its gates strewn in black gold with the sounds of jazz filling the air like the sound of a dying nazgul.

"No I quite like it here. I don't know what business you have to just knock on my e-door with this message demanding I go on some adventure." Bilcole thought. "I might never return. And if I do, it'll be dead, broke, and beaten."

But the fellowship of the bachelor party was strong and persuasive and would not take no for an answer. And so it was that 100 years ago Bilcole took his first hesitant step of his quest and booked a flight on the infamous Delta Airlines.

--

Many moons passed and Bilcole continued his little red headed life as usual. Going there and about, tending to his home and office, when the day arrived, as it inevitably would.  The sky was gray and the air cold, and a fresh snow blanketed the ground when a small, stout wizard by the name of Gan-Kwon the Asian, a figure from Bilcole's past who had oft symbolized a bizarre combination of silliness and foreboding, came arap-rap-rapping on his door.

"It is time Bilcole, for your adventure to begin."

On the Way

Boys, I send my love. At the moment I'm too awash for wrapping life in fictive lies. So let's lay the state. A fair friend of the Senate, named Alex, once assured me... that we must make things. No matter what, no matter how quickly they pass or how not. Be in the business of making. Make things that didn't exist and that's enough.

Hail to that. Let me share a tale of misunderstanding. An old home boy has proved me wrong. He married a good woman in a rapid shuffle and then sailed out to the orient. All in a breeze far quicker than I could absorb. The boy slaved under the singularly consuming Japanese work ethic. In order to salvage the working soul that beat within, he wrote a novel for children. I read much of it and judged him like the armchair aesthete I'd become.

As time passed me by, I languished in my private hell parallel to this author. We met again, by chance, on a snowy weekday in the town library. We discussed his book, and maybe it was his appeal to me-- he readily admitted he'd never read an English "adult"novel. Under this auspice,we traded book recommendations. I gave old bismark battleships and he graced me contemporary young adult transgender literature. Now we revel in our meetings and trade stories like old hens. Hell, I'm going to his hole tomorrow.

Yet I am the thin reed and he the stout oak. He's presented his novel to a triple dozen literary agents and only rejections return-- his tome is 190,000 words long and the profitable ideal lies at 100,000-120,000 words. Literature is like an actuary service, where every profitability margin is percentage based. Hedging risk against word counts and verb/noun ratios. This old fellow has commenced the planning of his second novel. Hail to he. It's a discipline and he's crafting himself. We expect a fully formed human end product, and baulk at the sausage making process. The old boy will needs be an author or death to him. I love him for that-- Sweat and bleed baby.

Recently, I just built songs. I drink and cobble songs. Shitty affairs tied to immediacy and pretensions. I play them around a dark industrial-failed city. Tomorrow I hold a whole court alone, one that I am not ready to preside. Peddle away shoe-man. I tentatively sent my first song effort to our Nero. And I love him for his response-- "hey, did you have a break up recently?" Hehehe. Street corner saint. When I find something worth pride I'll send it here. Sweat until then. Beer soaked rail workers love anything new, especially.

When I told one weathered man that I wrote the song I played him, he nearly threw a stroke. He slapped the table, stood up and hollered. As though the fact that anybody could make anything in this shithole was reason worth waking another day. I thought he might cry. Truly, he stammered.

Tonight I sang jazz standards at a club full of weekday alcoholics. The band leader woman may have gone to elementary school with me-- we traded whiskey shots for a liver's time. I was a step off tune tonight, but instead of noticing, people just cheered. The woman looked like she's shrugging a meth addiction, her 55 year old night-daddy sat in the corner and nodded to approve me taking his girl. We danced and her green dyed hair spun. Her words dripped of sputtering-mental disease, but I loved her. For a few free hours we'd be each others' heaven. But sauced on whiskey, I slipped out the kitchen door to swerve-drive my brother-friend back to his old-lady.

Love's a flash-pan, but friends an investment. So it goes.

On Small

Off memory, as I remember it. Sources are mud.

Lyndon Johnson's father was a being. Texas isn't so clear a past as the present would dictate. Paraphrases of another's lifework, be damned-- liquor takes me. Texas as the histories play, was a place to flee when opportunity ran dry. Endless northern plains, of thick grass and cattle speculation. Where mortal money could raise herds that, when driven north to Chicago or rail-line way stations, purchased fortunes from the market.

But grass and cattle are seasonal breeds, mens' ambitions have slight more longevity. One year's profit became the next year's beginning, most bet the past onto the promise of an equally prosperous future. Unluckily, inches of Texas topsoil lay atop bare limestone. Overgrazing cut the vegetable grass and the plain winds blew the rich loam dirt into air. Through mere years, grazing became bedrock and desperate-fortunes of cow starved over it.

More of Texas and Johnsons. History's tendency is to make the present seem inevitable. But Texas as today was not the same yesterday. A strong arm of its yesterday was made of the unfortunate poor hands left owning only limestone farms. Years of grazed profit evaporated and these gambling souls turned unto one another for support and formed-- as I liquoredly remember it-- the Farmer's Alliance.

In this mutual, though often contentious, bond they shared machinery and profit and hardship, for survival's sake. A liberality of the most necessary circumstances, but a liberality as deeply pure as granite hard. It was at this time juncture that Lyndon Johnson's father, then a younger man, entered into Texas state politic. He, a freshly made cattle rancher as his brothers, represented poor stone towns left impoverished by their bets against tomorrow.

This man, young father of a growing family, entered at that crucial early 20th century juncture. After World War 1 petered out, this man represented veteran farmers of the meagerest sort-- denied their war benefits, and starved through nature by their land. This Older Johnson, for all his faults, believed in prayers higher than interested-profit. He stood strong before two critical cross-battles-- defending the doomed Farmer's Alliance against the wheel mechanics of bare starvation capitalist, and then defending and winning the Texas World War veterans' their promised dollar.

It is only one America, we cynically promise ourselves. And elsewhere is no different than here, one time is only a variation upon today. We promise ourselves. Lyndon Johnson had an estranged relationship with his Older Johnson (especially as he turned more heavily drunkard), but kissed the old man on the lips when leaving for his junior year as beginning statesman. Kissed his father's lips, for the last time, whilst boarding his power-bound train.

Older Johnson's health failed. But he presented one wish--

 To live where his neighbors knew his name, and to die where his neighbors gave a damn.

And that he did. Decades after his long stint as statesman were passed, Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr's funeral procession was lined by the veterans whose survival he battled for, lined by those farmers whose banner he waved in loyal and principled defeat. Coarse and hoary people, independent and disinclined to show affection-- these citizens gathered in their only honest tribute to a man.

No one is sinless, but Senate, sometimes men are dutifully remembered for a few good deeds by a few good people.

Rendezvous

Meeting in the street
when Our chances collide and
We gaze- But are unconcerned
with the holy-moment.

We nod and even smile as we fake knowing each other.
We parade around the sun children filled with wonder that only gets lost with age.
and so we are only left to howl at the moon.

This big brother state.
I am silently laying in the grass,
hearing laughter of lunatics.
Gaze fixed on a star filled dome that screams;
Our cosmos couldn't exist, if the world wasn't designed.

Many with more and more with far less,
unfathomable violence;
Messy Bloody Human Waste.

Human beings; migrating the isles
fail to recognize they're black eyed angels--sharing one existence.
Black eyed angels drifting around the sun,
while
an old mother dies.

The Road To Be Followed Together

Man strays, but the companionship of fellows sets him aright. He is reminded of what he is not, and what he may be. Purposeful isolation might facilitate fruitful thought, but without communion what good comes of man?

I sinned deeply fellows, in manners against my nature. Only the shelter

Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

Space. . . Outer-space.
Void beyond comprehension - Absolute nothingness.
Existential vacuum, if you will indulge me.

Controls set for core of the Sun.

Binary Pulsars. Rapidly rotating and collapsed stars.

Obit in vicious relentless unimaginable vortex.

Random and without order; they refuse to hold a pattern - encircling each other.

The orbit of binary stars is eccentric.
unexpected for such close Stars have tidal forces-
they ought to have circularized their orbit.
-forever ago. 

Possibly the presence of a massive planet or brown dwarf
effects and maintains the eccentricity of the binary.

Ancient Wise Profound Mystery

Stellar Remnant

The gravitational collapse of a Binary Massive stars system is not a small matter.

It makes physicists test general relativity. (b/c of their strong gravity)

Binary Star Systems are usually white dwarf and neutron stars, respectively.

White dwarfs (Thing 1) 
 - true stellar artifacts - 
are very dense with electron-degenerate matter
Thought to be the final evolution of a star, lacking mass for its partner 
(The material within a white dwarf no longer undergoes fusion reactions)
The star has no source of energy; 
while it's Mass is comparable to the SUN and its volume is comparable to the EARTH
The true Stellar Remnant.

Neutron stars (Thing 2) - and I tip my hat to Theo Geisel.

Interstellar leftovers- result from the collapse of a massive star during a Supernova.

Now made up of nothing but neutrons (i.e no electrical charge) but more mass than a proton.

They live on from the supernova; 

as is with of all things.

The (HMXB) 

High-Mass X-Ray Binary Stars- 

(JARGON WORDS AN ABYSS!) 

are still massive after collapse.

as is with all things.

And what follows is a gobbledygook of pseudo science that might smell earnest to some while putrid to others.

  (HMXB) - 'WHAT HIGH AND MIGHTY ACRONYMS WE SCIENTISTS HAVE RISEN TOO' 

-High-mass X-ray binary stars- are thought about in lengthy scientifically encumbered language text

within corridors within dusty books and multiple volumes, and are considered something of an - anomaly.
HMXB are orders of magnitude in their luminosity in comparison to our sun. While holding this amazing attribute, High Gravity X-Rays are also produced by that the binary system (an effect that tests quantum physics).

-In more plain speech (my preferred form of discourse) They obit mind-bending-ly fast and expel X-rays at such a staggering rate, we are able to measure their radius not by sight but by the amount of X-ray they give off as (HMXB). High-Massed X-Ray Binary Stars.

They are so filled with mystery in modern science that,

They are considered the most basic unit in the universe -since the inception of astronomy.

The Standard Candle - 

an astronomical object that has a known luminosity.

Sound beyond hearing.

Light beyond sight.

Space beyond touch.

Human life

distant from the violent dead ancient pair. 

far away--- physically measured in light years and generations.

far away--- emotionally measured in our vanity.

           Narcissistic space endeavors without honest enthusiasms of great understanding e.g. Carl Sagan.

However, humankind is not without hope.

These simple human observations of mere images, pictures that can't even begin to communicate their very subject matter, is enough. These tiny glimpses of the distant outward reaches of the cosmos are

beyond profound. 

by touching the industrious human soul that 

that alone, ensures the very first step out of Solar neighborhood..

Sweeping blankets of the mother helium nebula,

Deep, Lost and Without Anything, she holds -

~  purpose with silence and timeless stillness.

.Beautiful chaos in perpetual flux.

The change of the universe can be compared to that of a AC vent in any central air unit.

Over time, clusters of dust form, God knows from where.

and their collection over time turns into a mixture of matter.

The deepest corners of our infinite space function the same way;

Timeless flux - Universal central air keeps the elements from being stagnant.

While also creating space (and time and gravity) for new clusters of matter.

Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams,

Words!

Lost in trying to lay groundwork (words as masters)

I shall now employ them as servants!

Our human observations,

However infantile, naive and without purpose their nature is perceived,

no matter how ignored in country, culture, and family.

Earthlings-Unite. 

Bring Humans Under one Sky.

Not Blue 

but 

Black. 

The Black that stares back.

We are not allowed to observe daylight relics of a glowing past ancient wisdom

(so lost in the world today)

Garden replaced by 'Media Dome'

with infinite imagination and wonder.

We must remain Human.

Inertia and gravity of our most basic and honest self. 

It keeps us on our way slowly, but not without tedium;

with the petrified eyes of infinite patients.

We, however, are able to bear witness to ancient and scholarly stars dancing not alone,

 but in dead pairs.

Found easily with the right images and basic scientific understanding, these artifacts can be understood

and help to make one see 

true.

Planetary-Angels (dead and ancient) waltzing at the twilight of their years,

listen to the song made of memories in their prime.

Man (lost and young) meander in medicated silence down halls in the sanitarium.

Echoing poems, broken and shattered to no-one but a lost soul.

Madmen singing in tortured silence compose an atlas of life.

that make the ennui of daily life

Honorable. And the truth of truths speak-able.

Make Flesh and Bone Real.

Howl into the blackest night sky.

What can be said at all can be said clearly;

and what we cannot speak of

we must make communicable.

On Poetry

Hail and farewell, as forever, my dear brothers.

The night rolls on thick and after a singular dilemma-- off to the strip club or back to solemn keys(?)-- my answer grew self evident. Word are my mistress tonight.

It is long overdue, it is long wet and ripe from the peach vine, but late and loud triumph above every instance of early silence. Truly-- I admit-- dollar wine and my nightly allowance of one(two)-tobacco coarse these veins mine. But onto matters.

Brother Nero has commenced a bold endeavor into poetry. And I wish to speak on that subject with full honesty. Forward, as best this corpse may attempt.

I categorically despised poetry.
A few choice verses occasionally permeated my dutiful walls-- things of Donne, Catullus, yes lines of Frost dripped in, Shakespeare sonnets and lines of Blake snuck past my checkpoint fully armed. Spencer and Dante, every example safely dead, would be deigned canonically prudent for room within my brain space. Secure heritage in a museum mind, extinct examples of rare horticulture in their properly proportioned thoughtscape. Painfully duty-free.


I am on the porch now, sipping a hard lemonade, and nursing a 79c cigar-- heavy winds are toppling winter trees. The foot of a  kill-sized branch is caught against my steps. I am tight bound by product addictions/dependencies and yet under siege by fantastic winds. Elements which remain outside of my control or choice. (I'm throwing out words half-thoughtlessly, but edited surfaces are not the thing of Senate.) These are significant somehow.


It's an inherited cultural distaste. Poetry is a vanity made lyrical, pawned off quick-cheaply and overly-earnest. A thing immediately suspect. It's motivations assuredly puerile. It is the written apparition of everything we hold suspect and superfluous of our mind. A poet yearns for significance, at the cheapest price and mildest exertion. I assure myself. We do.

But nearly every strong emotion, particularly those unexamined, should be held suspect. Casual hatred is the most difficultly shrugged, and most embarrassing. Full honesty and disclosure. Poetry was a club I felt always unprepared to attempt-- how do you learn the tools of an "honesty" criticism? How does one judge the essentially subjective?

I remember being very fortunate. As a much younger man, my high school hosted a yearly writers conference-- the only serious offering in the region. I was fortunately cursed to have regional semi-non-celebrities encourage me there toward fiction at a young age-- encouragement is gasoline to young formative vanity. But these authorities would talk of an alcoholically tragic poet who wrote of hawks in a numbing beauty. A poet whose name I could never resurrect and unduly forgot. Somewhere lurking behind a page was the good, true poet.

Sincere moments are swiftly forgotten through the course of sex, addictions and narcissism of adulthood's birth. But poet, as a formal definition, was out there.

Liquor drives me to waste words. And I crave my product withdrawn nic-fix.

Roberto Bolano phrased it first and hardest, "Poetry is the one thing that isn’t contaminated . . . . Only poetry isn’t shit." To paraphrase a life-- Bolano was an expatriated Chilean poet who aspired to an exulted European height that living's price prevented-- children need food and poems don't pay. He compromised out his ass a few good novels and secured himself a legacy, but he internalized a guttural lesson: prose are for profit.

To talk at any length about "commercial" encroachment is tragically banal. Sad and obnoxiously late. What rebel argument remains-- do we re-fight each battle of Antietam? Dollar dictates what you see and what we may choose. It's results are generationalized and form the arteries of every cultural/pragmatic product we encounter. Every J.K. Rowling adds to a Rushmore of billion dollar proportion-- and who can assume to care otherwise, the product always sell. It is unnecessary to examine the corruption of each sacred aspect/expression in our experience-- only to emphasize the want for purity.

But despite the marketing campaigns,  the re-branding attempts and empty book signing-- poetry does not sell. It is something wrong in this present. What it is, does not transfer efficiently into profit. There may be unimpressive exceptions-- as few undergraduate bookshelves lack a census copy of e.e.cummings work, Robert Frost or Allen Ginsberg.  But Poetry isn't profit-- only the hyphenated biography of the poet can cram their work down even the most receptive throat. We buy the poet at their cultural personality price, but hesitate long before any one poem.

Poetry is a dinosaur construct that can't find a modern home. It is an eloquence birthed foremost from the dark. Is it just a mirror of it's creator.

Consider this wide attempt a buckshot worth-- I am lost to my liquor weave, once more of the wheat-- one last blessed bud can, one old remaining sacred cigar to see me through the cravings. O' lord the wind she blows.

Only Poetry isn't shit. Brothers. And it is a rotten racket we inherit. Allow me to present my definition: Poetry is the attempt to utter something true in the most direct and enlightening manner possible. Language is a tide pool whore, driven and inconsistent by a moon of another gravity. Truth is sand through a familiar man's fingertips. It's a peculiarly distilled swill, there is no constant or exclusive truth-- but without the belief, it cannot be good. And there is much bad and dishonest/ignorant in Poetry. Their dynamics flatly monotone, they become cursed with ironic webs tangled so thick that only a paid lifestyle coach could pretend to care. 

I believe we thirst for good poetry, yet the the cost of the bad cuts too dear. The nerve lies too close to things important. All my words are spent generally toward one specific-- but poetry is nothing absolute, the particular facet I am praising is merely one aspect of many.

Poetry is something unjustly neglected and discharged. Dangerous, but any attempt toward purity is a celebration. And so I praise the beginning of something new. Let it be done and met with self-possession, with a dutiful wit and a flexible spirit. May verse flow.

New things are coming fast.

of benevolent yearning: a post modern northeastern liberal elitist point of view

the ceaseless commute covers distances both outwardly and within as we move to and fro from inner space to outer, physically, yet stay within ourselves mentally.

day in and day out we board trains surrounded by thousands and yet completely isolated. "with bandstands in the mind" blasting symphonies (and worse) through white cords constricting our bodies from our pockets. we hide in nooks and stare blankly around, avoiding eye contact like the destitute homeless man who reeks of urine sleeping in the corner of the last train car.

then we embark up the steps to the wide open world, heads down and fingers busy, attempting to use our peripheral vision to narrowly avoid bumping into each other but failing most of the time.

make phone calls. write emails. inauthentic communication for the most part. hardly but a few strains of subjective truth squeaking through as we all yell for community while climbing and raking over each other to reach the top.

to what ends do these streets lead? which road do we choose to walk down and why?  if understanding requires quiet, don't expect to find it here - at least out in the open.

but there may be something to learn from the noise of it all.

is a single object made up of many moving parts, put together unknowingly, and connected by subjective indifference still something that moves forward with confidence and determination?

that is the understanding we all secretly hope to achieve.

Benevolent Yearning

Understanding requires quiet,
within.
Closed eyes
and movement
Within and Between us.

Can this movement sustain us,
While the world falls apart?

Strangers passing
glances meet.
we don't speak.
we don't even try.

With bandstands in the mind,
We have put an end to the quiet,
an end to our understanding.

Souls lovesick for it all.
Close your eyes
and travel
within.
to the quiet
in the back
of my mind.

untouchable.
infinite
profound
peace.