So, The World Ended

Today, The World Ended

Pink Lady Pink

Poodle Pink

Gazelle

Moving swiftly

Your off-white curves

Carrying you

Elegant dashes of black 

And red reflections whisper

Notice me

Chained to a fence.

Zombie Babies

From My Blog: Surviving In Italy

Me: Honestly I’m not sure I want kids because what if one night I wake up and one of them is standing in the doorway all backlit and I have to wonder if it’s a zombie or not. Because in movies that’s what always happens, then the baby eats the mom.
F: Wait, what the fuck?
Me: I mean, seriously, like Rosemary’s baby? Or that zombie movie that starts with the kid attacking the parents? Hello?
F: [stares blankly]

Me: Or, even worse, what if I just assume the baby was possessed and I threw the ax at it? (I keep a gold ax next to the bed to kill rapists) And it wasn’t. That sounds like some weird psychological thriller too.
F: You. Are. Insane.
Me: Oh come on! Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of how bad it would suck if your baby turned into a zombie and you had to kill it.
F: No. Never….
Me. Really? Well fucking great, now you think I’m insane and I’m going to accidentally kill our babies.
F: [blank stare]
Me. You know what? This is what happens when you make me do all the talking.

Language Is a Virus (from Outer space)

Writer's block? Stuck? Click here for a random next line generator.

trying to make sense of my present

The plastic mattress sighs, 

these pinstripes not nearly as loud as the others'

with midriffs out, a contour of abdomen or "fitting in." 

The thin walls offer me bass, but I am reluctant; 

more honored by the piss-beer I've opened 

bought with poor earnings of the delightful,

the sugar-coated, a servant for the rich.

My days are tired, so I lounge reclusively,

bored with words and pixels 

or empty readings; mostly of myself. 

The exquisite self that I refuse to believe

claws in and out of warmth, my dreams. 

If night stays black, where are my thoughts?

Neither here, nor there.

I have counted coins to throw in 

a well or a pot; both a gamble. 

The addict seises to quit.

Culture overwhelms me.  

I place myself at the nexus of youth and absurdity

uninterested in either or maybe just ignorant. 

a week's worth

october 12th

cold wet hands fall from

 storms winds, slapping night with our

first brisk evening

october 13th

a bird's song, nature's

gentle melody, whistles

warmth at starlight

october 14th

west of ocean winds

calm seas and hot sands hide from

changing seasons

october 15th

golden autumn sun

sneaks though oaks, pines, recalling

outdoor nostalgia

october 16th

sunken old shorelines --

fall's low, low tides reveal

their hidden treasures

october 17th

wrinkly, worn-out soles

embrace the barefoot comfort

of grassy backyards

october 18th

desert dryness sweeps

the already dead landscape

blowing heat offshore

We lost a good friend this weekend...

You brought flavor and spunk to so many lives. In their time of need, you were able to help those on the brink of sleep deprivation or those with an extreme lack of sobriety. When I held you in my hands, my fingers wrapped around your handle for the last time, I felt your intentions so pure and simple...that's when you fell, committing suicide on Jimmy's floor - sacrificing a fresh cup of venetian dark roast so as to 'go out with a bang.' As I looked down at my feet, your broken body scattered between caffeinated splatter with part of your handle still clenched between white knuckles, all I could think was 'we had a good run...a good run, indeed.' Farewell Gourmet Ground...rest in peace.



mid-week moments

october 9th

three elderly oaks

rise amongst hills, youthfully

playing in the wind

october 10th

weary storms crawl 'cross

oceans, wetting appetites

in thirsty autumn

october 11th

uninvited guest --

clouds break apart , replacing

lightning with sun beams

weekend catchup

october 5th

waves charge towards shore

enveloping obstacles

with a cool embrace

october 6th

brush stroke clouds relax

behind crisscrossed vapor trails

on humid mornings

october 7th

sweat pours from foreheads

to cactus-lined trails on sun-

day uphill battles

october 8th

the moon strikes a path

between shadows of tangled

vines and spider webs

october 4th

lazy sea gulls squak

at the frothy last steps of

dying ocean swells

october 3rd

soft, foggy blankets

caress backyard roses with

moist, dew-drop kisses

october 2nd

eucalyptus leaves

crunch under waking footsteps

breaking dawn's silence

october 1st

shimmering mountains

melt the horizon on late-

summer afternoons

Icebreaker for the first class

Florence, September 12th, 2012

Initial Thoughts

Standing naked in my room

Today is a silk boxer kind of day.

Sliding open the drawer

"Naughty", "Big Dipper", "Shamrocks", No.

Today is a silk boxer kind of day.

There is a sizable rip at the bottom of the crotch

The faces of the two previous owners run through my mind.

I have never been so far, yet so close, to my two best friends.

Today is a silk boxer kind of day.

Contest

Writer's Digest Science Fiction contest. $2,500 first prize for 4,000 words or less.

Swampmessiah -- "ART"

Interesting performance of a "mythologized autobiography" of one who likes to draw. Art by swampmessiah

Emily XYZ -- "Cash"

Pomo Literati hosted by Frank Andrick

Cool San Francisco Spoken word radio show--check it out.

Poem a Day

A Poem a day here.

 

HOMO QUISQUILIAE  (JUNKMAN)

Jest another cranky cobalt crook, a tethered brat’s one-trick pony trapped in a propped-up crack, cobras break her fall into all this paradise, and we are content to seek the one step before beyond—hands that held the head that cried human tears. There was a prize for cropping hair and drinking beer. A knight, a rook to queen’s pawn one, to rack and ruin, a young man’s only honest hearth and home. Such crumbs rumble like thunder in our hearts. Once in a lifetime he runs over her thumb and fumbles with the locks—hairdressers, window dressers, undressing becomes us, our only honest crabwalk towards that opening, love.

(No! I will never thumb my nose again!)

We run instead, comrades, screeching cables and brakes, labor over levers, throated throttles to ‘at toboggan’s banking ‘round some curves woven by breezes blown through sometime summers. We vote for the hive of love and arrive at this; we’re done, have been left out in the rain, timeless bicycles, unnamed dolls, our itchy scalps above shock-rimmed eyes rolling open and shut, open and shut, our Humpty-Dumpty grins a sin to each and every one of the king’s men.

A heap! A heap! My kingdom from a heap of trash!

Love is still the most revolutionary debt we could ever call in. Without usury, a first step towards the use of life and the evolution of value. No slogan, but the only surviving form of the word “interest” draws me in—fragment of a whole, the only alliance worth re-realizing, the mote that the eye knew as the measure of its sight, the parameters of entropic erotic enterprise.

Life! The timer ticks and we make hay—if we’re luckily disposed to do so—by breaking wheat up into flour, fruit-flowering ourselves inside-out for each other; we turn suitors without suits and ask for 31 favors, tear ourselves asunder, rending our dues, aping our axes, suing our lawyers for lax black graft in heaps out back, and we sit favorably influenced by another female-named hurricane called, appropriately, L-O-V-E-Y.

As the wise man was once wont to sing, “Love, it’s a broken thing.”

It mirrors all of my cracks.

12/2011

Florence

Since the class helped me out with this one in the workshop, I thought you might like to read the re-write and hear the performace that I cooked up for it. Thanks, folks!  --Lee

My Life

Video I did last semester, Fall 2011. Thanks Lee! 

By

Alexander

just friends

we ride bikes home

(west winds blow sand

across cracked pavement)

and you ask,

"can we just be friends?"

i hesitate--

then answer,

"i don't know"

our ride continues in silence

(soft skies bleed gold

over stormy seas)

and another sunset goes unnoticed

Relentless, satisfying; I had to turn away but couldn't turn it off until after the end.

Quantifying the Rock

I spoke with a friend of mine, a Phd student of economics at American University about our mutual lack of desire for a romantic relationship, yet our equal interest in those of others. I explained to him that a friend of mine was upset because her boyfriend had never had sex before her. She was annoyed that she was his only experience.

"Is the sex bad?" I asked her.

"It's amazing".

Isn't that strange? I asked my friend on the phone. Strange that the relationship is perfect and the sex is great yet somehow she's bothered that he's "without experience".

"Exchange theory" I said, "we value difficulty. Rare things are valuable like diamonds for example. Sure they have warehouses full of the things but the market is controlled to make them seem less common and for because of that they're desirable and expensive".

My friend was quiet for a moment and thought about it, "but if he's never had sex before her wouldn't that make him more valuable, rare, and more important?" He asked. I thought about it.

"No. No, because men cannot have sex whenever they want. They are like rocks. Women can have sex whenever they want and in the world of sex they are diamonds. So, for a man to have 'tried and failed' that is not 'rare or desirable'. In fact it's sad. If we wanted to quantify love the only way to do it is by partners. Men who have had many partners are more successful, more unique, it quantifies their characters strengths, and because men don't come by sex nearly as easy as women potentially could their value goes up. However, women can have sex any moment of their life with most people they would like and therefore the desired number is lower, which shows they are difficult. All difficult things are desired."

"Did you compare men to rocks"

"Yes, it's a decent comparison. I use it frequently".

"Dick".

"in fact...that's why you value our friendship".

"Difficulty?"

"Yes. Rocks are always pursuing the diamonds. Way of the world".