Walking Black Hole (a meticulous mess of a collective)

[The Local Bat]

I've never actually started a collective or anything, but this is the manuscript I wrote last semester for something of a senior project. I plan on adding more material as it surfaces, but I feel this is pretty much finished structurally, as something of an "edition zero."

Apologies if anyone's read some of these before--many of them have been posted on these forums in the past, though most of those have been revised at least a little bit (though a few are probably, word for word, the same).

If anyone actually reads this, and has any criticisms or comments on any particular poems, or the work as a whole, that would, of course, be really fly. smile Peace/Love.

Anyway,

Walking Black Hole

by Andy Jones

PROLOGUE: TWO APOLOGIES

Metapoetics

Your poem says mine is a fool,
but my poem don’t give a damn—
too busy shootin’ pool. Jazz and funk
and hip and hop and beats and bop
go and drop up top the loading dock,
into my poem’s block.

Your poem says mine takes too long,
Your poem says mine takes too long,superfluity.
(and learn to ******** lineate!) but my poem enjoys
taking its time—a slow , scenic , drivex,xx,xx,
observin’ as every line becomes a landmark—
O, sea of words! , O, tree of text! , artificial architecture—
my poem likes to absorb it all, then be cut open and spill.

Your poem says my poem is fat, excessive, overwrought,
Your poem says my poem is fat, excessive, ovsuperfluity.
but my poem watches your skinny, scrawny,
anorexic poem’s bones shake and fracture
under the weight of expectation. My poem weeps
for yours, but also sometimes chuckles at its undeveloped
form—it's cut the strings that hold it up—and the way it denies
itself,
itself,xxx“O I have no form,
itself,xxxO I have no rhyme, no
itself,xxxI am not formal
itself,xxxI am not a poem.”

(My poem thinks your poem has identity issues,
and needs to accept the fact that it is, indeed, a poem.)

My poem’s not so bound as yours to what the world will say—
it’s seen many a lonely critic’s eye wander from it—
instead looking for that lean, easily comprehensible,
easily digestible diet of thoroughly compacted
verbal worms in party dress and mascara—
before being forgotten, and, the next day,
ground into mulch. My poem would prefer to be
a simple pulse in the present than being a shock
wave then and a grave in the past. My poem will
be a ghost in life, then linger on past death.
My poem will last.

Your poem’s arranged in a neat row—
your pobut-mine don't [/******** with no rows,
Your poem's arra don’t


and I mean that in the figurative and the literal
sense, or as literal as you can be about
the series of abstractions that words are, for they are
abstractions—every last one of them—but your
poem is too busy with its face smacked down
in the concrete—blood coming out of the title line,
each stanza soaked in that s**t like red ******** wine
on clean white carpeting, so it can’t really deal with that,
and likes instead to think that it knows, and by the way,
remember—don’t tell, but show.


(don’t tell but showxxxdon’t tell butremember—don’t tell, but s(.x)x (.x)xMY POEM: Hmm….
showxxxdon’t tell but showmember—don’t tell, but show.andifitbecomesnow, when will that become
don’t tell but showxxxdon’t tell butabitchtoformatwellohwelllearntodealwit“overused to the point
showxxxdon’t tell but showmember—don’t tell, but show.andifitbecomesof losing [its] meaning?”
don’t tell but showxxxdon’t tell but
showxxxdon’t tell but show
don’t tell but showxxxdon’t tell but
show)

Now don’t get me wrong—my poem
ain’t tyrin’ t’ dis or none of that s**t.
It all just has to do with atmosphere,
and rhythm, and establishing something
cerebral, and yes, formal (maybe my poem
just like to dress fancy—is all I’m sayin’),
but not formal in the way you think that
my poem is absorbed in institutions, but
it likes to recognize said institutions, said
establishments, and un-drill its nuts and bolts,
then build a playground. But your poem
comes ‘round, and like some douche bag
singer with a diva complex who goes to karaoke
every week, but, of course, is too good to sing it,
your poems stands right outside the playground
and is all, like, dissin’ and s**t and all of that, pointing at
mine and sayin’ its fat, so if my poem
retaliates a bit, that’s just what it is, man,
I mean I’m just sayin’, man, I’m just
sayin’

just sayin’ that my poem is a bit sick and tired of taking
itself in, to the gym to get a little bit fit, then being
told it shouldn’t exist, but maybe if we cut off a few limbs—
its feet and its arms and its fists—and remove certain elements
of its cerebral cavity which cause it to lead itself to confusion,
then maybe we can market its mutilated body—maybe
then that condensed version will make it into a magazine,
or an anthology with a cheesy intro claiming that poetic meter is “boring,”
and poetry is poignancy, and seek to mean, and oh, speaking of that,
no, we can’t just see your poem with a pair of kicks on
and just like its pair of kicks—we need to see the intention,
and the purpose, and the literal meaning of these kicks,
and don’t go quoting modernists in defense of this, because
they may have played with language, but everything they wrote
has at least some kind of meaning that can be traced, and your cerebral,
indulgent, wordy s**t just goes in circles for the sake of rhythm,
goes in circles for the sake of sound, and not much else.

(circles for rhythmxxxcircles forthe sake of sound, and not mu(.x)x(.x)xMY POEM: (dot dot dot)
soundxxxcircles for rhythmor the sake of sound, and not much else.ccwell, s**t, maybe
circles for soundxxxcircles forthe sake of sound, and not much else.cxthey are right about the
rhythmxxxcircles for soundor the sake of sound, and not much else.ccmodernists. In that case
circles for rhythmxxxcircles forthe sake of sound, and not much else.cI’m stuck on a word in
soundxxxcircles for rhythmor the sake of sound, and not much else.cca Cummings poem—
circles for soundxxxcircles forthe sake of sound, and not much else.cc“omiepsicron1onO—“
rhythmxxxcircles for soundor the sake of sound, and not much else.ccyeah, can anyone tell me
circles for rhythmxxxcirclesthe sake of sound, and not much else.cxxxwhat that word means?
for soundxxxcircles for rhythm
circles forxxxsound)

To Write Upon a Vampire

What thoughts arise in me to write upon a vampire?
To dabble in a bold, old archetype—
to set the ink, like gasoline, to fire?

When I can’t find a single bit to inspire,
and I stray upon the verge of form and type,
what thinking makes me write about a vampire?

Well, ‘tis simple—a ghoulish beast by implication creates dire
circumstance. He conjures up a kind of tripe,
reverses wills, then sets the ink, like gasoline, to fire

and then he sits and stares, bares his teeth, his lips as thin and sharp as wire—
he muddies thought and cloaks the situation, molar’s marrow makes its bite,
and thoughts stir up to write upon a vampire.

A vampire, with foolish fangs and pompous slang—his whole, entire image is to tire;
he constantly repeats the same old ******** thing, through lack of sight
and then sets out to set the page’s ink to flame and make the paper burn and fade with fire.

My pen and him are but one line away—synonyms, like sweat to perspire,
but I know they’ll never save this night’s last dying type.
Still thoughts arise in me to write upon a vampire
who’d sell his soul to set this poem on fire.

[The Local Bat]

BODY

Firecracker

I remember one particular day with you, we were out driving.
You were wearing a gray hoodie—I was wearing something black.
Your face is vague to me, at best, but I remember the sound
of your voice—rough, urban, but with a small bit of country twang
that shouldn’t be there.

We did a lot of driving, I remember. Driving and pushing
boundaries (that shouldn’t be there). We knew these things
would catch up to us eventually, but the risk of not getting a license
pales in comparison to wasting blood cells. To this day,
I more remember the feeling than I do a single aspect of you.
The punch in my gut lifting up through my chest—
pride mixed with feelings of foolish sin, and then adrenaline.
The feeling was always there, whether we were driving around town
throwing firecrackers out of the window, or in stealth mode
at Wal-Mart—spies with their pockets filled with de-cased CD’s,
deodorant with the label torn off—basically anything without
a barcode. The feeling followed us everywhere, from yards littered
with toilet paper to street sides covered in egg shell.
From the soil of the earth to the shine of the moon,

but on that particular day, we were just driving.
“Who’s this b***h following us? Show him, Andy.”

A strike of a match and my hand felt like a bright
blue flame. The car was filled with gun shots, at close range,
and my ears felt crushed in—impaled and imploded.
But over the noise, I can still hear your voice:

“ANDY, YOU f*****t!”

Strung

There was a certain type of flare
when the lights dimmed xxxtwo soul swim
up and down the same pint of gin,
the same kind of endxxxto a day
that'd gone on far too long, by then

I

was walking across the dog fur floor
of my basement, watching you sleep
in the corner of the room, the lights off
except for the broken lamp with the stain-glass
frame and the corner of a place we came
to when watching what I thought would
blossom into something new

as something slipped through
the beast blew, the sun drew
up, but very slowly from the window's view,

but then I was a statue, plastic figurine
encased in cardboard, and more plastic,
sitting on a metal rack with plastic
paint inside a plastic store with plastic
sign outside the door.

I get cold when you leave.

I used to watch television
with the lights out, but now I feel I need
the light, either because I'm growing up
or because I can't stand not to see,
or both.

I get cold when you leave,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I know you wanted
just to spend the night lying on my body,
leaving my throat numb,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxbreathing common
cold breath into my lips, apologizing for being
sick, then capture that, engrave it on a plaque,
and keep it stowed away in a dusty box

but I should have told you
I wanted to sink into your marrow
and swim on the sweat of your skin,
slide up and down on your follicles,
and dig into your nervous system. Be a puppet on your
string I get cold when you leave,

I wanted to be strung around your neck,
and listen to you breathe. 

[The Local Bat]

So What?

you want a dude’s a real bad ********
with a good sense of balance—he’ll treat you
real right a bit of the time, a bit wrong most of the time
(real wrong a bit of the time),

so what? you want a guy who’ll cross
a dirt mountain in a dusty bike,
jump a firepit, lean on the sides of the sun?
play Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun?

so

what? rip ya soul by the seams, rip ya clothes, too.
rip the stars and the moon down,
put them back in a different place
and arrangement; enter a pale, cold
space with a mind of derision,
sip ether at the bar through a straw,
drink the gin raw

bite through glass—

i’m trying to think what this would actually be like
were it to happen—not some literary cop-out,
but a real sense of it in all its intricacies,

like

(one) what it would sound like—
the silicon snap as the brittle body broke;

(two) what it would look like—
blood sifting through the teeth, lip ripped, gum torn;

(three)what it would feel like—
teeth-line sting as the blood flow;

(four) what it would taste like—
edges of enamel flaking onto coppery
blood-spit, calcium salt sanding off;

and (five) what it would smell like with
this metallic scent drifting up
from the gums to the nose.

yes, I’m trying to figure out what this would be like,
before I go on any further. but I guess I can't,

so what? you know what you want.
I’ll tell what you don’t—

don’t want a man who is nice, don’t want one
smart, either. don’t want one who is fleshed out—
too solid for you to twist into a yarn-ball
and roll across the floor;

likewise, you don’t wish to focus on one’s interest,
or passions, beliefs, occupation—you might
care for a minute, but not long after the focus starts
to slip from the string on your finger. then
you want a mess of a man—one who has problems
and who isn’t okay all of the time, with a sense of
self-induced psychosis, but only for a minute,
then ditch him, because you can’t spend too
much time digging, drifting, losing your hold
on the concrete, so he’s just too abstract, he’s a nut,
too much of a thinker to feel,

when the truth is that you don’t want to dip
into thinking long enough to know what real feeling is—
to you, feeling is a commodity, to you it’s a bought-and-sold
piece of media, to you it is instantaneous or worthless,
to you it’s a guitar note that hit the right vibration,
and a lack of understanding as to how to create that vibration,
yes yes, to you feeling is artificial, restrained intensity coupled

with ignorance.

xxxxxxxxye-ahh,

and I’m try to think about what it would mean
if such feeling actually existed, if you could close
your eyes and hum and make the whole sky vibrate,
if you could whistle in the dark and make the moon melt,
drink its dust. I’m trying to think of what it would mean
if I could snap in time and make sweat from the sky
saturate my skin, and rain on the top of my skull as I walk.
if I could just close my eyes, and will it, I’d feel what I want to,
and I’d be what you want, too,

and I would. but I know you’re looking for a real blast of man,
built like brick, never falls apart, even in the face of his own
constructed chaos. I know you want explosive motion,
heat-sheet ignition, a day turned to night, then right back to day.

xxxxxxxxye-ahh,

and I’m trying to think what that would be like,
were it to actually happen.

Aero Plane

I must confess—
I’m starting to feel as I once, no often—always did,
where I felt gravity acutely and nothingness in a crowded room;
where I, the gluttonous artist, would sink deeper and deeper
into the lack of rhythm, the lack of tone, the lack of structure —
insisting that it was expressive, if only it expressed
some bit of the anxiety it created; where I’d live each day shaking,
and twitching—but walking, carrying my pen with me,
wherever I go—drawing and scrawling tiny words on giant
canvas, tiny words on enormous canvas, tiny words on
canyons and rivers and valleys of canvas, which could never be
contained in the simplicity (or even, if you prefer, the intricacy)
of line or verse. I’m starting to feel quite average, I suppose,
xxxxxxxyes, what everybody else must feel.

The other weekend,
I took a train—ride the Amtrak from Carbondale to Chicago,
then a short train to Gary, and a drive to Valparaiso. I sat and
spoke to friends I’d not seen in some while, then, hugs and kisses
discarded, re-boarded the same trains and cars and trains and sat
back. On one stop a middle-aged woman heading toward Champaign
with ruby polyester hair stepped into the car and asked if she could
sit beside me. She had a bit of hair on her upper lip, but I thought
she was pretty anyway. We didn’t speak much, but when we did,
it was oddly specific, and warm. I spoke—

xxxxxxx“Excuse me, can you tell who this is?”
xxxxxxx“Is it John Lennon?”
xxxxxxx“Yes! I’m glad you could tell just by looking.”
xxxxxxx“Well, I saw you reading a book about him,
xxxxxxxxxxbut…
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxit’s very nice… you’re
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxvery talented…”

Later, she got out a phone and dialed a number. It was at that time that
I felt something inside me sigh for sleep. She spoke to a friend,
about a man she’d met on an “aero plane,” how they couldn’t stop
talking the entire flight, and oh, it must be true love, how it must be (true love).
I remember thinking it sweet and it lifted my eye lids up a bit.

xxxxxxxThe train slowly careened to a stop.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx(“Champaign! Champaign!”)

xxxxxxxShe started to get up and leave, but then--

xx“This is,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxmy stop, won’t you
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxjoin me?”
xxxxxxxI-
xxxxxxxxxxI’d love to.

xxxxxxxCheap sheets and soft linen, and I’m
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx in them, ruby polyester in my face and her
xxxxxxxfirm thigh in my hand, with its aged, tough skin (nice for gripping), sweat on my face
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxand my eye lids straight—
xxxxxxxxxxxx UP, love, love love, heart heart, love
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx(true love,) better than the man on the
xxxxxxxxxxaero plane, I hope.

(“Champaign! Champaign!”)

No, no, not Champaign, not champagne. Carbondale.
Carbondale,
my eyes slink
open, and I’m on the train, the lights bright,
and no sweat in my face, or my eyes,
or on my chest, and no one sitting or laying
or crouching beside me. No…no,
just me, the books that I own,
and sitting al—

[The Local Bat]

I wishxxxxI were cooked
like a fishxxxxand served
on a dish,

so,

all the suckasxxxxout there
would feel callousxxxxand bare
when they see mexxxgasp for air,

sucking in their dining chair.

[The Local Bat]

The one and only point of poetry is to say only what is necessary in as few amount of words as could be possibly written; this definition serving to service the serotonin of those who gave up on Eliot and Ashbery, or performed a kind of Orwellian trick to block the unintelligibility and wordiness of this poetry out of their minds; this definition being antithetical to the idea of poetry as sonic achievement, or poetry as visual art, or poetry as reflective on the “inner,” or poetry as anything other than arrhythmic, sentimental condensation—thus, without further delay I present to you, only the words which necessarily must be textually uttered:


(dot dot dot)

[The Local Bat]

Light's Witch

Lonely is as lonely does, a wise man told me, so squawk in squalor, and soon you’ll find, that if you stare long enough at a lamp shade, a pattern will make itself apparent. You will see a perfectly conveyed, construed particle of an image dance before you like a cat in rain or socks on a kitchen’s floor—slipping, rushing, sliding losing—control is optional in such matters, and always something of a myth. Anyway, the image won’t show you what you wish or need to be complete, but it will provide you with a series of tranquil lies. This, in your case, having sought the company of mental insects, isn’t such a stretch as to prove the process pointless. So, try it when you next feel your energy’s weeping, when you’ve spiked and numbed your lips with gin, or you’ve formed your fingers calloused typing, and head heavy reading; with a simple sigh you’d wish was wired to the wall, instead of heaving up through the chest, sit and gaze upon the cloth covering of the light. At first you’ll see nothing, and, sure enough you’ll think yourself a fool, but continue, and you’ll start to see little greenish-bluish spots with squiggly white centers—then those will fade and the entire image will grow blurry, and you’ll feel dizzy, and then you’ll finally see a witch in white, with course gray hair, moss-worn skin and fingernails, with tattooed eyebrows over her bald forehead. She’ll watch you, and, with a sneer and a snicker, she’ll snap her fingers and you’ll fall like dust to the carpet. She’ll sit and stare you over a few times, from different angles, then snap again and you’ll reshape. She’ll say, “I think I know just what your trouble is,” and she’ll speak with you a while, snap once more and she’ll be gone. She’ll teach you what you thought could never be learned, and suddenly the darkness of the page won’t burn so bright. She’ll teach you to talk heavy, write deeply—to make verse without knowledge of meter and shape content without experience. She’ll teach you how to draw blood from an onion—the greatest trick you’ll ever learn.

[The Local Bat]

Warped Wood

I want sexuality to forever retain
a certain mystery, wherein, upon thought,
it immediately sticks and soaks to the senses.
Romance is for another kind—a different organism,
one that keeps the lights on while ******** and looks
directly in the eyes of its partner— the two halves
to the cell—which reproduce this magical moment
again, and again, and again.

That line of thought is not for me—
no, mine is not the kind for repetition, but rather of
an atom splitting, suddenly, and shifting around
everything that’s in its path. Mine would be the type of love
to make mountains to move, statues to crumble,
soil to sink in the earth, and then, as quickly as it came,
to be gone—ninjitsu dust in a crowd of floating hearts.
Mine’s a kind of love to sink in like stealth, to snake
around my body, sting, and leave me numb from head
to foot to deep into my waist. What I want in love is
not consistency but the novelty of sparsity—to be such an event
that it would linger—make me wander, as if lost in a glade,
though I know this type of love to be, like lightning
in a bottle, overplayed,

but such sense has kept me warm, for the most part.
I am ill-kept at best, but I knew a woman once—
a barfly in scrubs and a ring that drew me in her wings
and sucked the blood from my brain. I still remember
the exact moment when, between face-consuming kisses,
her body awkwardly placed on my lap in the front seat of her car,
she reached for me, hiding underneath burnt and stretched
denim. She then said:

denim.“It’s impossible to do anything up here.
denim.Do you want to get in the back?”
denim.“…yes…
denim.…yes, I do…”

xxx(I split long before
xxx(I split long beforenightxthe night was through.)

Long before the act was through, and the car became its
headlights, then dirt and gravel hanging in the air.
The bar’s flashing neon sign became an eye, that slammed
shut shortly after, to yield to an outpour of laughter,
and couples carrying emptied pitchers and cigarette stains,
and I was left in the shadow of that eye’s lid, in that familiar
state—the abstracted haze of bourbon, the tinge of broken bottle
bliss when thoughts would float amidst smoky breath,

and all I have is this—this hunt of sorts for the mind to have its feast,
and when the seeking seems at a close, there’s not any
point in that, so I quickly change course. Then I,
like tattered cloth cover up what I can of the night,
and it vanishes—a whistle in a tunnel—gone like
wisps of smoke,

again to rise,
denim.when eyes would fleet about, when arrows would wane,
denim.missing the mark
again to rise,
denim.a peel-out cloud, rocks rising into exhaust smoke,
denim.taxing the air—breathe in, breathe out,
again to rise,
denim.a flood of polluted water, laying siege
denim.to the land, and all else—sheets stained
denim.through to the mattress,
again to rise,
denim.lotion from a watery eye,
denim.flame from a high moon,
again to rise,
denim.a slit pipe, geyser from its falls,
denim.bloodxxxburntxxxmoon.

…(again to rise, again to rise, again to rise)…
It’s over now. Blood burnt, Moon.
Most of what I’ve done has been
done in imagining, and I think that’s all I can do.

For I am but dreaming, wood warped in a cerebral
flood, but such construction, such effect can
always be sustained and re-created if
only it stays within my mind.

…(within my mind, again to rise, within in my mind)

(dot dot dot)
never break free

[The Local Bat]

For my one true love. No, for nothing—
blood in the snow.

I’m in love with a wolf—

she leans forward every time we meet;
her shadow blankets me like sitting
by the sun, and hearing orbital drums
that keep the earth in time.

I’m in love with a wolf—

her rifle eyes pattern my head
with red beams; she shreds
my tongue and lips, consuming them,
and returning them in her kiss,
a wolf’s bite on my lip.

I’m in love with a wolf—

down to the bone and the flesh
and the fur, up from the way
her claws dig in the earth,
the smell of her skin, and hair.
The thought of the weight of her body
frame pinning me to the ground—the dirt
or her bed—and the call for her cry
to end in a roar has me satisfied.

Satisfied at the mere drop of myself
to the floor, to the sheets of her bed,
to the bottom of my under clothes, to the pit
of callousness and pain—a rough love—
to the cracks in the wooden floor and the spaces
in the carpeting. To her wet lips on
the corner of my mouth. To blackness.

At the mere drop of myself to the floor,
I melt, and condensate, and she laps me up
like water from a mountain spring.
I’m in love with a wolf.

[The Local Bat]

heart-beat

Alright, alright, alright alright ******** this. You—
you don’t—you couldn’t—
R-rrr! Know a god-damned thing about mo-
rality, so don’t go speaking
like a ******** preacher.

Because

you couldn’t imitate a preacher if one came to this
cheap-a** messy cluttered disgusting apartment
and threw a Father's suit on you, complete with the collar,
and taught you how to talk like one, no no, ******** that—
if he ripped out your god-damned vocal chords
and sewed his own ugly throat on yours, you still
couldn’t talk like one, and even if you talked walked
liked one and convinced every one of your stoner jobless
worthless friends that you whole-heartedly believed everything
that a preacher believes, you still couldn’t fool me because
I know you, and I’ve lived with you, and I’ve seen the way
you roll your eyes, and I’ve heard the way you talk to people,
and I know the way you couldn’t apologize to somebody if
God himself screamed bloody, bloody, bloody Mary in your
tone-deaf, illiterate ears and told you to. And it wouldn’t
matter if you did, because it wouldn’t mean a ******** thing
because it would be as fake as snow in a glass on an iced

lake, in the middle of a summer’s day, and like I said,
I know the way you are and you can’t talk about
pride while standing on a strand of hair, snake-skeleton.
And I hate the way you go on, (but you take things
too far,) yes I know that, but you know I can’t help it
and you (I just have to work a lot, it’s not like we’re dating,)
and I know that, too, but it’s still (I mean I’m not
gay, man) and I ******** KNOW that, but that’s not the
point, but you’re not listening, but all of that aside, I can
deal with it, in fact, if you’ll talk to me, I can deal with
a lot of things, but you won’t, but you don’t, but it’s
all just nothing to you—nothing dancing microscopically
in the carpeting, nothing molding in the sink, nothing sleeping
on this stupid ******** mattress in the middle of this stupid
******** floor in the living room of this stupid ******** one bedroom
apartment—and it’s THAT nothing which is exactly why your nothing
can’t comment, and can’t say (It isn’t fair that your father pays
your way through school) (!!!), because this nothing could’ve lived
ANYWHERE in this goddamn town and he chose to stay with you!
So, how is it that your twisted little egotistical butterfly mind
could ******** think to say that sort of thing, when it’s clear the
level of intricacy at which the matter contains, and, by the way, love
can exist on multiple levels, and you owe me at least a bit of that for
sleeping on your unvacuumed floor for the sake of being the singer in
your ******** band! And really, the thing is, you’ve got no business trying
to talk to me about my father, because I appreciate him just fine, and
be-sides, it’s noneof your goddamned business any-way. The other
night I was all set up to write, to write a perfect poem, or a beautiful
folk song, or a short story, or a film or a play or a novel—

and you came home, slammed the door, traipsed across the living room to your bedroom (the bedroom), grabbed your guitar, and headed out the door—not one word to me—treated me like a ghost, or a statue, or a grim reaper sculpture—something ugly and gross and dark for you to assume will always be there, even when you don’t bother to speak. But it wouldn’t matter anyway, because your mannerisms are all fake—you act like a sheep, grazing in the fields, and traipsing through wheat, and you eat eat eat, any grass or twig or leaf you can fit in your god damned teeth! But it’s all healthy, and, organic, (and healthy and organic!), so it’s all ******** good. Chill-ax, bro. You’re true gold. How lucky it must be to be

you—
what am I doing tonight? What else will I do? I have five dollars left,
and you owe me a few, but bloody Mary knows it doesn’t matter now.
I’m going to go get a nice big bag of chips and those rolls I like and get fat as a ******** pig.
And I don’t give a damn what you think of that, or how healthy it is,
because a heartbeat in a tone cluster of heart-beats is no heartbeat at all—
it’s just an ugly, arrhythmic, sloppy, stupid slur!

Mask

There was once another person
with my name—another me that shot himself.
I didn't know him, but when I was
a freshman in high school, they thought
that he was me, and called home to say
I’d been skipping class.

When he died, my family received phone calls:
“Why, yes, he’s alright—of course, he’s just fine;
he’s away at school, he’ll send you a line as soon
as he returns.” But the daily word churns
much quicker than the truth, and the rumor
spread.

When it died, as rumors always do, I faced
a cloud of sentiment, and knew some taste
of what I’d fantasized in youth—a society in
shock, creating lies to soften the blow
on its own scalded soul. How strange it felt
to think of such coincidence—not only in name,
but in motive—in conceivable action,
almost so striking, that I thought him
a mask, another me—this other me would
play the bold, and I would die ugly and old.

Before I knew this other me to exist, his mask
I often wore, and many thoughts I formed on
what people would say of it, with its sunken,
shriveled little eyes, pale skin and bulging cheeks,
blood brittled to bone. But no one really discussed
the mask or its motives. Instead, they acted as if it
weren’t there, and I could never know for sure how
people would react were I to wear it permanently.

In a college class, a teacher said he’d had a student once,
whom was, “to all known and loved, but no one could
know just how troubled he was.” When he went—
closed his eyes, bit, and swallowed for the last time,
everyone was affected, and felt to blame. But mine
could not be the same—he was obviously vibrant
and alive (or at least he appeared to be when they
knew him), and me? I am more a speck of chipped
paint on the wall, that one only notices right before
the brush covers it up, and not long after. But could it be?
That, for the sake of memory, they’d nail a plaque above me,
and there it’d hang and choke and bleed—my mask
displayed so prominently.

One time, I went to the house of the other me—
found out the address through a friend and sat
at the window of what used to be his bedroom.
Looking in, I saw no still-prepared, romantic room—
his bed still made and picture on the night-stand, but
instead, I saw what appeared to be a den,
or a guest room, and I wondered if, somewhere on
the wall, there was a small speck of chipped paint
that had been covered up.

[The Local Bat]

Barrel (A Piece of Indiscernible Fractal Verse)

Andy hid a barrel in the attic.

I think, sadly, I've come
to a point where I can no longer
appreciate mocking.

I can't enjoy the simple skills at work,
or feel the smiles apparent to most.
Instead, what do I feel? Left, with cold, cool
roaming blood waves.

You stepped out in sweet lingerie,
in a dream I had. No money, no more,
and no out-traded imagination. Your kiss
was wet and lasted several seconds, but
was only lip (inher and outher) and wasn't
sexy, but was very sweet. You stood up,
afterwards, and crossed the room, and my
knees bent, and I woke.

then it bled.

bled bled bled. Let it bleed. let it be,
I've got nothing to say, nothing to say,
noting to say, and she don't love me,
she loves you, (yeah?) yeah, she does. hmm
me? well, I can change the key from C, lift
it up a step and then its... D? Oh well, no matter,
it’s nothing—it's of no great significance to me.

Flip the radio,

off, out, late in the evening, going to the bars,
standing in the street, walking in the blue,
most of the time. See, ‘cause there were two, too
flamboyant for me to compete. Because these two would leap
up on the stage, swallow a karaoke mic,
pseudoxxxsatiricallyxxxsexualize themselves,
dance on a beam-made-pole in the middle
of a lonely bar, do anything for a taste of
hand-me-down approval from old moisture.

Me, on the other hand, I’m a freckle in
the sun’s eye, a hair baked in the pie,
a ray of light in a crow-feathered sky,
and my pen-hand’s shaking.

With each key’s depression,
with each botched line, with each forced rhyme,
with each accidentally symmetrical instance
of boredom, with each strained syllable,
with each moment spent in a smoky log
building amongst all these ******** idiots
and their damn out-of-key recitation of
“Bohemian Rhapsody!”

******** them ALL—
my pen-heart’s breaking

Andy hid a barrel in the attic.
Andy hid a barrell in the attick.
Andy hid a bare El in the at it.

Andy hi'tblew.

Stoned

I was standing by the sink when the pain came.
It felt, to be sure, like a cramp, but much worse,
and I ran to the bathroom, vomited, and thought to myself,
“I must have the flu, or a stomach bug, or a plague, (or polio)—
I’ve not vomited in years.” Then I ran, half in tears to the boss,
and said I had to go—I was sick of a sudden bout that
I could not understand.

I rushed out to the car and sat by the steering wheel,
wondering if I could make it home, to lie in bed and
wretch and cry (and possibly die), when I thought,
I can’t be passive about this—it could
be the case of Jim Henson, or the ironic doctor
too prideful to receive treatment from his
colleagues. And I called my stepmother,
wondering if it was appendicitis, which she
had had before.

“Kathy, Kathy, please help, my side
is a sword or a knife—a gun turret’s
bullet or an axe or a pike—my body is in
throbbing, aching, stabbing, shooting,
bleeding vomiting MURDERING pain
(and I feel it has taken all that it can contain)!”

“Calm calm, my dear, I’ll be shortly on my way.”
I waited with my tongue in silence and my back
in screams for several minutes, before realizing
I’d not specified I was at work. I called back and told
her this, then stepped out of my car to vomit and
hunch on its sides. After a while, the boss came
out and told me to vomit on the other side, as
not to disgust the restaurant’s customers.

Eventually, I was sitting on clean sheets,
with Kathy by my side, rambling on about
Disney movies and Kingdom Hearts, embarrassed
for loving Sleeping Beauty and fearful that someone
eavesdropping might misconstrue my discussion of
Disney’s racism as my own. Despite this, Kathy listened
with attention, even saying that the concept for
Kingdom Hearts sounded interesting. What a beautiful lie.

The doctor said two tears the size of
pebbles had been released from my
kidney’s eyes, depressed that its Master
would not give it rain, and dreading the drought
to come (in other words, you have a kidney stone—
drink more water and you’ll be fine).

The pain was gone, and I rode with Kathy
back to my car, still parked at work, thinking,
A ******** kidney stone. God damn it, am I really
that old?

Later, at home, I lay in bed looking at the ceiling.
The stone wasn’t gone yet, and Doctor said
the pain would persist until it passed.
I watched a spider trap a fly and suck its blood dry—
extract its guts like a vacuum, then don a charming
tenor voice and chant songs at me to entertain.
Then the images vanished and the pain returned,
and I was again left wretching—wondering
and wishing for water cure. At least this
form of torture would supply me with the romance
of cruelty, and would cure me of my current ailment.

[The Local Bat]

Hand

A hand could achieve, for me,
what a lover does for most.
A hand could comb my bangs aside,
could soothe the skin beneath. Could stroke
its fingers across my eyes, and knuckles on
my forehead. Then, work its way down
to my lips—my chest, and then my hips—
dancing all across my organs, with taps
and trills—loving me by means of creation.
A hand could sway my caustic conscience to tranquility.

A hand is really all I’d need—the tongue
can tie itself into a rope and yank me
to my knees in pleasure, but it can also lick
itself through the temple to the brain. Smooth hair
can knock me out with the smell of lilac, or cottonseed,
or gin or strawberry, but it can also make me see an angel
where a devil may lie—or a rabbit where ten snakes
hiss and hang.

A stomach can knock me nerveless; a** cheeks can
gobble me up, and then what breasts can do, and vag—
the look the taste, the smell of vag—the dripping burning
consuming texture and aesthetic fabric of vag—that could
render me completely servile—hopeless, helpless, hypnotized;
stunned stammering, staggering; drained, drowsy—useless.
Yes, that it could, and it would be beautiful, but, considering
the state I’m in, it’s too far removed even to consider.

No, I want only a hand. That, and the base functions
which follow—a palm, a few fingers, a thumb—
knuckles, nails, and a movement—
skin, bone, sweat—hard work and dedication—
a long period of bliss culminating in pleasant memories—
good sex, good conversation, a compatible sense of irony—
a voice and a whisper.

Circles

In every bar, there’s always a figure—
cloaked in black with a fake face,
who feels a secret pain at the screaming,
hollering, coughing whooping
sounds of the bar, that grind like iron
and splinter like steel dust,
that he cannot avoid, because he’s placed himself
in the midst of it, like a masochist,
or a soldier seeking discipline.

On every street, there’s always a house
which looks pleasing from the outside,
but inside, the owner has left three or four plates
on the floor around the living room sofa.
There is backed up laundry, sticky stains
on the wooden floor, and an assortment
of half-drunk aluminum cans of many colors
littering the place, like a sun-burnt rainbow.
The owner, maybe she also has a pitcher out,
or two, empty except for a clump of moldy tea bags
stuffed in the bottom.

In every literary academic community,
there’s always somebody who is disinterested
in writing, unless he can make a perfect structure
assemble itself on the spot. Writing is an immensely
painful procedure for him; as he stares at raw thoughts,
he feels naked, exposed, his initial thoughts appear
like shriveled testicles he never meant to show.
Like the fat on his flesh in the mirror, it is the result
and product of too many nights spent justifying
laziness—not reading, not writing, not finishing
dusty novels and anthologies in the corner of his room.
This writer never produces much of anything,
but he ostensibly thinks very highly of himself,
in a complex sort of way.

In every circle, social samsara, there’s always a friend—
a computer, a head who can’t compute those facts of existence
that came basic to everyone else. Like a drifter,
she sifts in and out of social situations when she finds
it most convenient. There are many that would gladly give
her company, time, or speech if she called to them,
but she only sees them through the mirrors in her eyes…
only monsters… eat their goblin hearts.

At every bar—every little nook and karaoke bar,
there is a fat, black ball of negative energy
which the group seeks to avoid, but they will look
to it every so often in secret and smile,
because it isn’t them and they can say, “There’s always one.”
And that cloaked figured looks back at them
and all the pretty women, or men—his head swimming
through vodka, cola, and thoughts of breast and vag,
a** and d**k—basically of flesh and something solid
beside him as he sleeps—and after he’s had his gaze,
he’ll return his eyes to a book in the corner,
because his teachers lied to him, and told him poetry
would teach him how to live life.

[The Local Bat]

Penned

Her face is like a perfect moon,
with eyes that redistribute light.
Her hair dark as a black monsoon,
with rain that pours throughout the night.
The rain drops fall, and make me swoon,
like a metronome keeps perfect time;

I bit my teeth into an ink pen,
sitting by the fire's side.
The ink dripped slowly from my lips,
and like the rain drops, fell in time.
They fall on paper; then they drift—
create their world and universe.
They conjure up an act, rehearse,
and leave me sinking with a curse,
my teeth bit in an ink pen.

Her face is like a pretty, perfect moon.
But me, I bit the moon too soon.

[The Local Bat]

O, gentle page

I want the blood on my fist, walrus-tusk gleam,
the bone peeled ivory, the tissue to steam.

I should be at home, in a pile of pulp,
stained in wrinkles, margins and hair lines.
Above me, the bulb’s fuse would be a star’s twinkle,
and the page, lit with dust, a sort of sign.

Instead, in my mouth is a gulp,
and a hung-over throat, and my eyes, well,
they sting from the smoke.
My thoughts sit with me on a bar’s
wooden stool, clinging to me tightly,
as not to fall off. Like French New Wave,
they are continuous but eventless—
they are lit, shot, sent to develop,
soaked, burnt, sent back, cut, and pasted,
but ultimately incomprehensible,

and that’s the point. Well, in my case, it’s not really,
but somewhere in between the long conversations in the therapist’s cell,
the trips to the doctor and an assortment of powder
in shells, I think it became the point. But, unfortunately,
I’m not really mad, good king—nay, alack, Zounds!
(O fie!), I was not bestowed such luxury as to create excuse,
and I exist butte in confusione. I mean to say, though I may
not understand them, my thoughts are relatively normal.

But then again, there are times when I think I am a
monster—a creature of the mind—a cerebral kind of
sponge soaking up spilt ink in the shadow created
by paper and desk. There are also times I think myself a statue
that stands still, unsure when it should speak or sit, or piss or s**t,
or dispenses its own spit.

Speaking of bodily functions, there are yet other
times when I think myself a fetishized machine—

in my mind I leap from bed to bed, force
a landing, then, oils spilt, my clothing
stained, I retreat to a large mirror in the
laundry room of my house and examine my
soiled and broken-down body, wary from
curves and dark, heated places, and stare as the wires
spark and glow. The metal frame synthesizes,
grows into skin, then pretty soon I’m in
a different mode of thinking, and my organs shrivel,
to be cut off like hands in the cookie jar, only I keep them around,
so they can easily be re-attached when the electricity
becomes too much to bear. Indeed, my sexuality
has been stripped and reapplied more times
than Queen Hermione, and I alone
act the part of the lion and his entire court.

But I’m at neither pole at the moment,
I’m somewhere in between, so I sit in a bar
guzzling urine-colored liquid by the pitcher.
I’m stone, silent, waiting my turn
for karaoke and scrawling in a red notebook.
A girl I once knew (or should I say, tried to
know me) is here as well, and she sits across
from me.

And there it is, presented, once again, on paper,
the elusive she—the slippery siren, the hormonal heroine.
The artificial construction of the male gaze.
The one whose eyes are like the moon.
The one who makes the streets lay down
like a dog, who drips like honey, with sky-blue
eyes and a nostalgic smile, who I don’t want the whole
world to see me with, because they just wouldn’t
get it, anyway.

The one who deserves better than to be
sepulcher and voiceless ghost of an ink blot.
But how else to go forward? My pen and conscience
are too frail for specificity, and without her there
would be no motion. So she must be.

But what to say about she that be,
yes, what can I say about ‘she?’
First, she gets a name—Madeline or Marjory.
Then hair is brown and eyes are green,
and you can fill what’s in between (she laughed and
kissed me on the floor). I found Madeline to be
a willowed ghost, an anomaly, for seeking me (but she
bit my lip and kissed me on the floor), so my tongue’s
numb as I sit, and a male friend, (Thomas? or Tobias…)
Tyler isn’t making things any easier.

“Ask your lady to dance.”

My lady?!

M’lord, m’lady doth protest too much,
and I myself am naught for dancing.

“But aren’t the two of you an item?”

Yes, little blocks, Scrabble pieces, figurines,
cubes of ice, dice, whatever you like.

Still, I remember when she kissed
me right below the jaw bone,
then proceeded through my lips to my teeth.

But that was in another act, and I am again
becoming Queen Hermione, wet with paint,
and likely to stain. And this is the easier,
more reasonable route for a machine like me—
think of it: an the bourn I’ve beared hath been
but in my brain, but still too much, an these
numbers I would be considerably more ill at in
actuality. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned living
in this state, it’s that people like me are capable of being
interesting—very much so, but not truly appealing,
and sooner or later this fact comes leaking out
like ink from a broken pen. And I am quite the spider—
my idea of good sexual intercourse is curling up with Eddie Hazel’s
maggoty brain and a copy of Portnoy’s Complaint,
swimming in stained lips.

I know you’re lost, so I’ll let you know now that
all this time I’ve just been sitting. Marjory and Tyler
are dancing, and even though I know the code of male
friendship means misogyny , and I let her go anyway
(now they’re drunk and she’s sitting on his lap)
I want to see the tissue surrounding his jaw bone burn,

but now I’m drunk, and leaking gin from my eyes
in his Jeep, and he takes his hand off his lever every
so often to pat my shoulder. The sky outside is (dot dot
dot) black, and we’re pulling into the hook shaped
curve of gravel that is my drive-way. I get out of the car.

“Get some sleep, man, just get some sleep, you got
class tomorrow. There are plenty of other girls out there.”

“But only one Margaret.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Tyler says. “She is Madagascar.”

He gets back into the car and drives away. I don’t
want his tissue to steam anymore. I love him. So I just go
inside and back to the laundry room and look at myself
in that half-broken mirror, with oils and ink spilling from the eyes,
wires and veins corroded and rusty.

But, soft ye now, O gentle page! Cover my body with gelatin sugar,
for I am not alone! When my sexuality returns tonight,
I will sleep tight, that will I say, with Alex Portnoy, and a Japanese sex toy,
a blow-up doll named Annie May.

[The Local Bat]

(“O, but the fiction!/O, but the fiction!”)

(O the fiction!/O the fiction!)

Fiction is as fiction dictates,
fiction is what it does.

(O but the fiction!/O but the fiction!)

O! But the skies! O! But the trees!
O, earthworm, wood, chelicerata,
dirt in my shoes, grime in my nails,
dried spit on my chin, hair on my pillow,
back bone ache, early morning climb,
soap in my hair, sun in my eyes,
late morning drive, deep grass, dew,
walk-through, arrive,

(“O, but the fiction!/O, but the fiction!”)

spewing forth froth from a lukewarm coffee cup,
battling with a crowd for an elevator spot, or
a place in the stairs. A deep morning scare and
pen cap gnaw, bite, chew, swine flu, sneeze cough
spit snot, goo,

(“O, but the fiction!/O, but the fiction!”)

a radio announcement, David Foster Wallace’s suicide, a rain,
check, late-night coffee at a Denny’s, working at a
haunted house, for the city, homophobia, people
believing in nothing, fool who fastened vampire fangs
to his bare teeth with superglue; another burned
a Superman S on his flesh, on his arm; still a third I recall
stood up too fast, hit his head on a metal electric outlet
on the side of a building; his head started to bleed and his
glasses fell, broke in the corner (I saw him a few weeks later,
he still had that pair),

and these are the people of the streets and the nation,
and these are the reason we breathe, and these are the
moments, the lists, inoculations, yes, these are the times
we can live,

for this is the page and the passion, and this is the art
of condensation, though I’m not always aiming for brevity,

yes, my aim is to keep you tied up against all odds,
for if poesy were religion, I’d be a trickster god,

and this poem has made its agenda, and this poem has cartelized thought,
and the poem has seldom to rhyme, but this poem has plenty of rhythm,

and this is an artificial constructi(o)n, a structure of kinds, sandpaper, saw dust,
rever(b), acoustic h(u)m, yes this is an artificial construction, gin, tin, alloy, diploid cells,
yes this is an artificial cons(t)ruction, yes (th)is cannot b(e) but an arti(fic)ial construc(tion),
yes, this is but an artifice.

[The Local Bat]

(blank page after the book # one)