Random Rules

2012-01-09T19:10:00.001-08:00

Obsolete

There on the swingset

feeding a pigeon, one fucking pigeon...

Remember

How it was morning and bright and sleep was

to physicality and kerosene one gender alone. Both

my, my, my.

An event so rare. You come into town

and liberate the feet of the teens. We

are stranded by snow.

Falling-down-hopeless alcoholics, gag a little -

force it all down, munch our hay. The milk truck had left.

I vouched for that.

It is my birthday. Bring on the razor

make love to it and take me out to dinner. Pickle it.

Arcane brine.

...

- Pigeons! For fuck's sake...

There should be starlings

You chose poison.

2011-11-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

A Letter Kept To Myself

Dear,

It is somewhat what I imagine knowledge to be

dark, salty, clear moving, forever flowing.

Since our knowledge is historical, flown.

A monotonous coastline, endless and sagging

delicately ornamented by the moon still hanging solid.

The poorest postcard of itself.

Bats?

I was waiting for this letter to find you home.

I guess it will reach you on that waiting room,

I am too shy to stop.

Cannot derange or rearrange.

The Islands have not shifted since.

The pale bay still wearing a milky skin,

flaunting exaggerated beauty.

Topography still more delicate than history,

insisting and cautiously creeping.

Worming back.

Like a prayer for the night to last twice as long.

Those nights, not these.

2011-08-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

Threatens to meet

Utters words known.

Tyrant.

City erodes. In time

carves out words on flesh

in shorthand,

pregnant paw.

Hunts alone.

There is the the wish

and how the wish goes

noons and afternoons.

the jackal - notochord,

has only a heart.

Names the light.

Your river, your wars,

propped up against walls

then white, throat, then slits

of different languages

- Here's my dead body

Look at it.

2011-07-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Something sleeping.

Tell me again where to hide.

- It is a secret as well.

Was it spring?

- Along my dubious veins.

Come closer, listen!

- Another fruit I have tasted before.

Is it about me?

- No. It is about war.

Is it about me?

- Yes. Only the part where you're tired.

It has something to do with that song.

- About the divorced father, yes.

Is there honor in this, or a point even?

- Not in me, no.

You do it to get off.

- I beat you to it.

It's because I am weak and you know it.

- ...

Knew.

- Stupid statement.

You hate me.

- Yes.

Then tell me again where to hide.

- Hide inside me.

2011-06-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

Some Endings

Feasible vision under bed linen, you are here and you are here.

strangely enough, that '61 talkie was on tv last night - black, white,

"absolutely not". Your parting words, your queer wrangling

intoxicated, acting sober - Misfit Flat. A beer a year

would say my friend Mitch, whose dad passed not long ago

came summer. There's the sky again, as shallow as creek

God willin'. It will. We both know. Back in my bed again, red

jubilantly delinquent. I have already lost one tooth and it is

not even September. Nothing has happened under this dead

streetlamp. I am not unaware, just being aggressively fictive.

Some practical concerns include my teenage years that were

bent away from their assigned post. I forgot where and am already

starting to cry. Looking up, I make out stars and walking papers -

my very own - burn to white. Some endings never end.

2011-04-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

To a Lighthouse

Then again. Here, the former site

of a nineteenth century shipping dock

now a concrete slab overlooking

the East River. I was younger then

[the shoeprint gives it away], time

was for lovin' the hell out of you.

Jesus preaching for the apostles

Be his light dude, not his judge!

I try to understand what he means

While setting the table for Easter

Promisse me you'll never be sad

on my behalf kid. Remains are silent.

You call and bring forth what's within

you. And that's when the missing starts.

I write you and there's no end unless.

The kid looking amazingly cool at

the back of the Plymouth Voyager.

And I do not know where to drive.

2011-03-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Weird Sisters

once

a treasure taken,

by ghosts

is time told.

the walls bare

the inside of

rooms also

tell things.

twice

the things gone

by chance

a You, an I.

2011-03-24T02:48:00.000-07:00

Reverend.

Cloudy turbulence, berceuse coming

out of this lacquered beast, a roof.

Wanted me happy before the leave,

that bushy bearded sir. It's him.

fled my country at dawn calmly

still peculiar to me.

2011-03-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Poses

Do the words "You are gold" mean anything to you

Let them ring on and let's not talk at all

Let's leave it there and move on. Hey, what's wrong

Do the words "The end" mean anything to you

Inmates of heartache are killing with love

Never succeeding in killing that love

Far aways from hello comes distance

But don't come unless you disappear

These are the things that matter most

Saving love whatever the cost

Just because you don't see it doesn't make it unreal

I am captive unto thee, set us free

Do the words "I know" do anything to you?

[A. R.]

2011-03-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

From To Place

Ice cold water without any ice

there and not wanted, spent January

full glass in hand, sounding like sigh

corridor, door, rows of bed, if any

in Cowfuck, Nowhere.

Clock without hands

tic and not toc, masturbates

the boy scene, translating as youth

verses, one after the other

cum sweetly in bed.

Reticent sailor exciting envy,

impenetrable even to sharp teeth

tiresome like never before, a dialogue

lisped, carved, scrimshaw

in the wrong ivory bone

2011-02-22T19:28:00.000-08:00

Elegy To My Son Or What You Will

Scoot, kid, in any juvenile contraption, please

impart your light to my understanding of the world.

Yours are the funny hours, the funny job and some bad ideas

still young and drunk and to bed not long after ten or eleven.

I am so dumb. Cowboy of old swaying a hat, cornered calf

my world's under mist, loving razors, no dreams of any sort

the handkerchief is a traveling bag, all mouth is the bartender

dramatizing the meanings of nature - the poor fool is hanged

While little bunnies turn guns on themselves. Go play,

and do not leave. sorry to bother you fatherly ghost,

das nachtgespenst! To this day still, I am amazed and hidden.

2011-02-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

Apostle

School door to summer days,

being ridiculously transparent

in the actual tones of speech -

seraphic shit, hero of gist.

Your consciousness and me.

When others are sleeping

believing the lies we rue, tiptoe

for we mean unseen beauty

and rapture in a garden of weed

rivaling our own words.

To this day, on the outskirts

of my body rich with moronic

ideas of two, the longest spoon

floats in tar colored themes and

variations of your piano lessons,

and for a long Nantucket minute

everything is celebrated in secrecy.

2010-12-28T14:54:00.000-08:00

To a city

Gaslit old woman with hair and no sex

looks over a river that thinks is the sea

itself. What pride is there in having teeth

as crooked as your paved streets. You

torture everything with your calm, your

shallow streams, your trust in time.

You are that stinky river, all of its salt,

its brine. And disappearance, you die

by the West with infected pigeons

flying as far as your mournful prow

buried in the pleasures of your chosen fate

celebrating this life's lasting damage

a peninsular incapability to mate.

2010-12-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

2010-10-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

The long year.

New form, started all over again, new play

mastermind english rose or violet at war

head in a silver tray, hair in wash basin

slaughters on mornings, no names no date.

Letters announced in muted horns. These days.

This day, still beautiful when something breaks

My maudlin lexicon you know oh so well, see

starts over again, like a weird and simple pleasure.

Of you, for you, reincarnated cradle tongue

everyday things like cigarettes or the long lost

art of tipping accordingly. things of urgency

all the gold hidden behind cellar doors.

The hour between the time of obstructed sight

and waking up as kittens, that is milk that is

honey. A company of horses, your banner mine

all the books in Latin, a thimble of cinnabar.

Horizontal snow blowing upon acorns sweet

smell of smoke, not so far he proved it, bombs

at least we're still alive. At least we're still alive

and bottles washed against our throats of thunder

These guarded truths for a long time yet

no memory of it either, watching the wind

and fate, what is there to say about the future

exempt, sometimes arrives late other times fair.

2010-09-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

German shepherd

As you led a dying bird

on the back of your

throat,

to a stream of water

and I could not bend

my tongue outwards

to bite how much I

love you, not

bark.

2010-08-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Or a paper cut as shallow

As it smells the last page on a book

as exact as the first one.

Like drawn to it. You moth to flame

tell me is it you or is it we.

Like undone, I dog to bone bitting not

barking at these jagged walls

your collar bones. My jaded bones

your treasured pearls. And words

for you in the afternoon. How slow

your iced tea and your periods

and your sinking in as I disappear.

2010-07-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

Like hair, spit, like hallmarks

Sleep, combining death and tourism

as furniture discloses itself

Undressing now, like an apprentice

matador as distance equals time in flames.

We're both naked. Drinking like a house on fire.

I had never slept in a bed before.

Grasping knowledge from chairscapes

all too new and sudden were sheets.

Now you are naked and I have been here

before. This skin is rust and a phrenological

map of rooms in myself, into the lining of my coat.

The white handkerchief stuck in my throat.

Pirate ship with a broken mast bending space

and forgotten words coming from somewhere

else meaning absolutely everything.

2010-06-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

Shelf Life

Talking about the days eyes

pink, herbaceous, double blooms

and the kingdom of bondmen

or the use of weird [fate] ziplock.

The canny lasses pass us by

leaving faint traces of smile.

We are interesting mannerisms

to the eyes of night, in the mixed

behavior of genetic produce or

lait caillé, MA. Dust settling on

a lightbulb in the supermarket aisle

[dreams of pushing my son around

canned food that does not expire].

Smoldering tobacco trance, the waltz

of fumes and days like old jewels

laying there as if digesting mice.

Expiry dated, unadulterated good,

a chapter of bringing charm to nether

perfected as the summer ends, sibilant

in the dairy section of a ghostly train.

2010-06-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

Obviousness

Things speakable and things

unspeakable, untiring and

un-painful strife, battles and

slaughterings of men. Piercing

[cries?] of horses, mortals [on

the beach?] warms good things

[mixed?] with evil... two to me

both. Gold greatly angered being

burned by blazing fire, having

kindled. Sea-faring the wave

[or the noisy sea?] in war and

might. One after the other and

these things... Gold.

2010-06-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

I never talk to strangers

Era você que cheirava cola a beira-mar e

me oferecia o paraíso numa latinha de Coca-Cola?

If yes, onde estão os meus 100 dólares pela uma

hora de conversa, Sing-Sing?

2010-06-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

Questions of matter

What is it you like, short legs,

keeping my arm from moving

like that, in groins or your head?

Was is it you want, red head,

when you move in closer to

the warm palm of my hand?

What is it you do, upper lip,

when you open up in smile

not telling me the real kick?

What is it you are, John Keats,

always there in my throat

like a lump of meat?

Whatever you are, these things,

questions of flesh, blurred vision of old?

I'll have to find out by another means.

2010-06-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

Breakfast

Here we are - 135 north 5th St.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York,

for your first heap of freshly picked

strawberries from south Jersey

and 2 eggs, any style. maybe Benedict,

and a side of grits. Above Mason-Dixon

caramelized grape-fruit with mint.

Some milk? Dairy or Mimosas? You

do like sparkling things [this month?]. I know,

fig jam and brioche. Few words for breakfast

and something about the light in June. "I'm

not hungry" - I frown as you examine the

plate for any leftover food. I'm hot, I'm

the dad [the silent type]. And you look

lovely today, napkin on your lap, as the

sun flickers over the butter knife.

2010-06-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

You know who I am

You do right? Time and walking lengths

some of the fear of Spain, you have none,

you chose the living, at a very young age.

Who is leading anyway? The dog or thee.

The very understanding of the world, me

the cloud-dump, the cancerous lung the

vent frais of yet another matin inbred.

You know who I am and you like that

and I like that, oh how I like that. You

know it by heart, and the shape of recasts

regurgitate. For me, at me, from to place

is now, peut-être. You know me. Maybe

you do. I have the dead, you eat them,

your move, but I guess I ate them too.

You know who I am, this winter icing

over powderburn [that was confessing]

to the crime I've earned. Guilty to have

led you here, turbulent, induced body,

translator of one language to other than me.

You know who I am, nickel and sweat and

copper. C'era una volta, you know that too.

You know who I am and I like that your seas

are as black and as deep as the ones I can be

in this place where I am and you know who.

2010-05-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

About face

Drizzle would work for Keats, I'm sure.

A beautiful thing made more beautiful

by being reflected and put in a mist.

Drizzle, I shivered. So hard there were two

of me. In lanes came virgins in track suits,

headed towards a rose garden where no bike

would dare enter neither would we.

The thought had crossed my mind

already poisoned by the lead infected

water fountain which I drank from,

where I drowned once, twice and before.

Am I talking about the weather?

Invisibility could be our personal forever

Or am I talking about myself and you?

In your knapsack, a book full of vowels

[that's what you sang about yourself].

That is what I have in my sang, the I's

the O's, the E's and U's. Not an A in sight.

But I can't see Scotland from here, no,

nor do we merely feel it for too short are hours.

"Thy lyre shall never have a slackened string"

Crosses the mind of one running virgin

headed towards that rose garden where

Apollo is said to be resting, not you.

I'm loose myself, my spirit flies before me.

But comes back in your gentle squeeze

in your golden hair, in your golden fire.

Thy lyre shall forever invisibly whisper to me.

Drizzle works for Keats, I'm sure. A kind of mirror

and mist in one without making any distinction.

I could deal with that, I could. This beautiful thing

made more beautiful by being reflected and put in

a mist. I am not a virgin [as pointed out over breakfast].

I maybe a belle dame sans merci. No, not really, no.

See, what I'm trying to say here dear Keats is

something about the weather and that rose garden

something about that bike and something about

you and the invisibility of slackened strings and I.

Am I talking about the weather? Maybe the image

in a ditch turned mirror by water [poisoned with lead]

is really more beautiful in reflection and mist.

Or maybe I love you and that's just what it is.

There, I said it, Keats.

2010-05-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

Torture

is a few days. the waiting

to be in you for a month

set to vibrate, watches

closely as the screen fades.

Is also sick. At least,

struck silent. Prior to crucifixion

[nothing rhymes with month]

if conducted in secret.

Alive and unmarked

victim. What good is it

the damaging position?

Take it.

here's my confession

inflicted.

2010-05-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

The woods

Now that the night begins, there's

Something you're not telling me.

I speak of foolish things

Like lyrical evocations or

the very sense of kitchen at 4 a.m.

Here's my tongue for a word

Skin me. Get rid of the fur.

Watch the juices gush, the body drain

to the center of the flesh eating earth.

Obscure oracles came to me, three.

You know the story by heart, remind me

Double, double, toil and trouble.

Your grey pants too tight and your hip

down in the lake of my favorite question

I am called sleep, hesitation and so on

down your throat as your hands fumble.

Tell me off in your silent speech

a coward covered in hair, whatever

splits or breaks like glass infected pathos

torn between the clock and the bed

between waking and sleep. My clock, your bed.

2010-05-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

I bring bad weather

Yours is paler than grass, twig of willow.

The light wasn't helping either

Nor did that night, equilateral heart.

In lambent silver, a delicate knuckle fight

I'll touch yours, you'll touch mine

paler than grass, kindling willow.

Leave me some of your mother's tongue

And allow me in your binding Eos

So we can always undress in the dark.

Wrap me in limbs, igneous willow

Ignore the weeping in our first name

and the ashen breath of our little death pyre.

You're pale again weeping willow,

no wind now, left to squirm in the mire.

And yes, I forgot to mention the rain.

2010-05-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Weldon,

The ground here is wet and the sun is always set.

So, maybe, words sprout like moss, close together in clumps or mats.

Moss is found in areas of dampness and low light.

Words are found in between whites.

This, dear, is a stone cold fact.

You either do this or you choose to do that.

So I try with all my might to choose words over blight.

This water...

I'm afraid of it for I can't see into it.

When you weight into it

It's like being dismembered.

No fish dwell in it as far as I remember.

For half of it is the sky.

2010-05-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

To a Here and a There

An analysis of space leads us not to a here and a there,

but to an extension such as that which relates here and there.

Or rather crudely - space is not a lot of points close together;

it is a lot of distances interlocked.

These distances, no matter how interlocked they are,

are nonetheless distances. Distance may refer to a physical length,

or an estimation based on other criteria.

In most cases, distance from A to B is interchangeable with

distance between B and A. In most cases.

And there, in the distance, not a promised land, but the in-between,

the waiting that happens in the space between one e-mail and the next,

one trip overseas and the next. Midnight January, February, May...

It can go on for years, the way we move through time and space.

But,

tell me we'll never get used to it.

And when I say this, it should mean laughter, not poison.

2010-04-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

2010-04-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

Ariel haunted

They are drawn naked,

some with penises,

tormented by storms,

tied to trees,

and eviscerated.

2010-04-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

Redacted Stage Directions

[There is a suitcase sleeping beside that mattress I'll call

my bed, there's also a morning standing at about two hours

away from this scene]. Exit stage, wrong:

- Twice today, I had the impression of being home.

Maybe the weather... Dunno. [Walks around. Still alive].

The exit signs blink for a second. As if the building knew.

2010-03-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

From Cowboy Mouth

I mean I can't be the saint people dream of now.

People want a street angel.

They want a saint but with a cowboy mouth.

Somebody to get off on

when they can't get off on themselves.

2010-03-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

The Genius of Kander & Ebb

I don't care much, go or stay, I don't care very much

Either way.

Hearts grow hard on a windy street, lips grow cold

with the rent to meet. So if you kiss me, if we touch,

Warning's fair, I don't care very much.

I don't care much, go or stay, I don't care very much

Either way.

Words sound false when your coat's too thin

feet don't waltz when the roof caves in.

So if you kiss me, if we touch, I don't care very much.

I don't care.

2010-02-22T22:02:00.000-08:00

In a small town

Numbed by reaction

Stripped of the trust

A young heart is broken

Not aware that it is just

A family tradition.

What's right and what's wrong

Is in the back of a hand

While girls turn into women

And a boy to a man

The things start to surface

But he'll never know

Still they do linger

With nowhere to stand

2010-02-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

Um outro verão sueco

Na minha Suécia os nomes da lista
não são de lugares são nomes químicos,
ou de pássaros, nomes delicados como os ossos
do corpo, escritos em letra de forma
a grafia do diabo. Todos os nomes próprios
estão deitados num lugar chamado Náströnd
(o único lugar que parece ter nome)
onde são lentamente envenenados.
O sangue é túrgido e os coágulos, dourados

2010-01-11T12:39:00.000-08:00

Mon Jane B.

swimming with shark

dragging dead dear up

a hill licking off wounds

cracking skulls open on

sidewalk near my house

your car âge entre trente

et trente-un or unknown

unimaginable and chestnut

brown high school days

dull (as window pane with mist)

disparue ce matin a cinq heures

moins vingt you sleep on

the wheel (fast car and slender toy)

and I chez mes parents

2009-12-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

In the end

Allow me to see what it's all coming to

Crumbs on the table and mud on his shoes

Dreading someone I can see where we've been

Drugs on a trail and nails digging in

Some hands will whop you and some hands will dig

Some say they'll stay 'till my last dying day

But if actions can speak and words cannot do

Ten thousand armies can't even fight through

Who's to say it's all for the best in the end?

[c.g.]

2009-11-20T23:07:00.000-08:00

Summer in Sweden

light infuriating the room / distorted guitars and black metal / cold boy with american heart / spat in thousand faces and mine / diavolo and skean dhu / scotching I, and Then / rökning dödar is such sweet serenade / I drown and band did not make it / museet and monotype modern / or handwritten wall text / lumberjacks with axes to grind / masking tape for cracks / a demon in my hand.

2009-11-06T23:47:00.000-08:00

On a neck, on a spit

My messenger in disguise

makes up for short goodbyes

You can't come home again

Each time is different

And the yards around your feet

fall away while you're asleep

Each day, spend it with me now,

All my time, spend it with me, but

each day I spend with you now

all my time I spend with you, but

out here no one can hear me.

[g.b.]

2009-10-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Their routine endlessly repeating

mimicking the impression of familiarity

ultimately he requests only that he should

be allowed to "my arms red as i write this" leave

in modern life finding meaningful escape can be hard

2009-10-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

Dictum

Art and Action are contradictory elements

which can only converge in death

Beauty and Sadness go together

like beard and vest

2009-10-06T14:39:00.001-07:00

Grapefruit

Grapefruit armpit's tart

gain momentum in mouth

over tongue so silent and

whiskers crushed under

cowboy hat in cowboy cot

cuspid bicuspid yellow scimitars

en garde as cold night falls

like the smell of festering leather.

I have slept in hotel rooms before.

2009-10-04T21:49:00.001-07:00

Letter to George Lutz when I'm 28

I know everything about Jan. 14

The day you left the house in mourn

same day I came down as axe in mother's

sex and brother's navel and dad's...

Mishima's birth dreamt of seppuku.

He was Shi o Kaku Shônen like me,

"the boy who wrote poetry" and Tabako

Oh, the elegance and brutality of 28 days/years

Lewis Carroll died that same day

gone was also his love of Alice Liddell

the rowing boat in which it dwelt

and Anais Nin becoming June

George, you have no idea why

I write this letter to you. Me neither

We never met and never will except

for the brief hello we exchanged on television

You left the house the day I entered

mine. Your horror is somehow mine.

Your 28 days in dutch-colonial are

my axe-like life never fully rendered

I have marked the date on my calendar,

we won't forget for different reasons

(a weird coincidence of it being half of 28)

a weird day to be marked as my birthdate.

2009-09-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

Corn

There were these two boys, brothers

known as Gimp and Stripling

One of them was actually crippled

you can guess who and the other

was really not that young and

they lived together in a house

a small house on the corner of Main

and Willow Creek then one night

tired of being mocked by Stripling

Gimp shot him in the head while

Stripling was popping corn so that

the neighbors wouldn't hear a gunshot he thought

the sheriff found Gimp by his brother's body

head blown, pool of blood and all, eating

a big bowl of freshly popped popcorn and

that was that. Not far from their house

lived another boy, went by the name Capote

I'm guessing not because of the writer and

coincidence or not this boy was a sissy and

somewhat retarded, maladjusted, maladroit

died of pneumonia past winter and the town

folks thought weird of the boy's passing

and dumped his body by a corn field

2009-09-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

Sick

A fumaça levanta de cada xícara

em cada mesa, ao mesmo tempo.

Coisas acontecem o tempo todo,

coisas acontecem a todo minuto

coisas que não tem nada a ver conosco

2009-08-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

Laocoon warns his fellow Trojans

Do not trust the Horse,

Trojans, whatever it is I fear

the Greeks even bearing gifts

[ ... ]

At the same time

he stretched forth to tear the knots

with his hands, his fillets soaked

with saliva and black venom,

at the same time.

2009-08-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Morning plea

Bird, I choke on you

violent beak like mother

feeding worm to mouth

Subdued, seduced. My head

on your bare chest rests

my flesh for carrion flower.

Yellowthroat and Trachea

deities of air and breath

try and show me your face

strip off your black mask

What hatred, what halter

how naked and crushed

Cater to me, I'm tethered

my travelling paths unaltered

2009-08-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

Scene

Cup rests over saucer:

"Our nights are dire", then I mute.

"Swans are waltzing over this dark lake"

Cup rests over saucer.

On a field, looking away from stables:

"Heard a gunshot", then it echoes

"Had a broken leg, couldn't run"

On a field, looking away from stables.

Front porch, clinging to bottle:

"And that was that", then it slips

"Watch out for broken glass"

Front porch.

2009-08-03T00:07:00.000-07:00

Se houvesse um livro sobre este corredor

Começaria assim: há uma estrada dentro da casa

com rodapés de pinho nas esquinas

e lâmpadas na parede que conferem ao caminho

uma certa infinitude, a noite

Lembro do dia em que deixei o carteiro esperando no corredor

no meu quarto, desenhei sua "cara de maçã" enquanto esperava

na sombra

Não importa o quão desimportante, é uma cena da história

uma história no livro

Será que os sonhos se passam em corredores porque a perspectiva é estranha?

ou porque são são grandes palcos, sem uso, dentro de casa?

O corredor era o leito seco de um rio, sonhei uma noite

Uma estrada indígena, noutra noite

(e pode mesmo ter sido um dos dois antes da casa estar lá)

E nunca ouvi o carteiro indo embora, mas vi que havia ido

quando saí do quarto para pendurar o desenho na parede

Ventos azedos de lustra-móveis circulam pelo corredor

Antes pinheiros, em lugar das portas

Se Cristo houvesse morrido em um corredor, talvez rezássemos em corredores

Ou usariamos pequenos corredores dourados em volta do pescoço

Como pode continuar tão frio depois de tantas passadas?

Um fora que, de alguma maneira, é dentro.

2009-07-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

Fool's gold

Pirate on fire struck against this flinty skin

flickers, coruscates and then glimmers

just like all the rest and what's left

for good, for laughs, in cavities on

the living room widower's mouth is

a moth waltzing the air and this light

skull shaped thorax for mast lacking

the crossbones in your nightly banner

2009-07-21T14:27:00.001-07:00

Chi é e non é

... someone once told me that explaining is an admission of failure

I'm sure you remember, I was on the phone with you, sweetheart.

Invece da spiegare chi é e non é, non voglio svegliare me e ne pensare a te.

2009-07-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

Poem with your name in it

Dangling dangerously under clouds

Aftermath of bitter somber

Never thought of sleeping over

In this bed of gangly owner

Ears were warned I hear

Leap again in nest so near

Not considering consequences

Over time you'll lose your senses

Great adventure I would say

Under spells of empathy

Earnest talk and mild at play

In conducted entropy

Random thoughts that cross the brain

Ambitions grew and made me vain

Burning under silver suns

Until dark night overcomes

Dimming days that once were clear

Numbing hours, filled with mire

Yours, and never truly minding fire

2009-07-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have no idea on how to be confessional

That's as far as my misunderstanding goes

and it often leads me to corridors

that are not especially large or long

like the ones in a house these corridors

lead to rooms behind doors and that's

where the action in this poem is set

But I will not talk about these rooms

for I have no idea on how to be confessional

2009-07-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

Gauge

2009-07-09T23:01:00.000-07:00

Swung my fiery sword

vent my spleen at the Lord

so abstract, so bored

too much milk

too much honey

and phone calls

corrupting mornings

[thank you, S. M.]

2009-07-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Late afternoon, April 8...

...

Then he turns in to the harbor,

where at once it grows calmer.

Takes off his hat and waves it

like mad - like an old-time cowboy!

Something he won't ever forget.

You betcha.

Me neither.

[R. Carver]

2009-07-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

Axiom of the nightly idiom

Like a truism laid to sleep.

2009-06-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Distant thunder

Two pines against lit background

midsummer light and the grass

my dog dreams of bone

He is also a horse

Worn out shirt or "the dregs"

as I once referred to as

Unable to be donned

retired later to cedar floors

Silverfish devours all Latin

and Greek and [hole]

a cemetery wall now

uneven death in your tongue

So distant a night, a winter

a dull thump of the clouds

my dog, my shirt, your Latin

wallow in wanting still, here

2009-06-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Gush

Calling the bluffs,

talking so tough

Angel of Corpus Christi

You're so misty,

tell me what I wanna hear

I'm looking for a tired face

in case you want to go.

2009-06-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday.

2009-06-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

Subtle fire

Our feelings slip like

subtle fire onto my skin.

2009-06-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

"Nonchalant with Southern Crux suite"

2009-06-10T08:39:00.001-07:00

Vicarious Motherhood

You were born, like comma

in my tongue, hesitant

to my eyes thalidomide

at my age, incomplete

between the clock and the bed.

2009-06-10T08:37:00.001-07:00

My Fruit Fails Me

My fruit fails me

relinquishes

seasons, time.

My fruit, no more than I

bides in dead tree

Unfortunate lady-in-waiting

never fully ripe

2009-06-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

Where have you hidden

yourself, beloved,

leaving me moaning?

Like a stag you fled

after wounding me;

I sailed forth, after you,

calling out, but again

you were gone. My house

being calm now.

2009-05-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

My hair was wet

My breath was blue

I died that night

and so did I

2009-05-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

House on the corner

with its two dorms

for each of two dogs.

Front porch swing

with its two seats

for each of us kids.

Living room window

with its double leaves

for only one to see.

The inside of the house

with its outside

for none to set fire.

2009-05-19T21:59:00.001-07:00

Você se lembra quando dormimos

no chão do banheiro

nem eram bonitos

os azulejos brancos

Frios como o som

da casa de seu pai

Acordar abandonado

e fumar lá fora

Enterrando os ruídos

no porão da casa de seu pai,

calado como um gesto

meu sonho é seguido de nevasca

2009-05-15T02:10:00.001-07:00

Anywhere i lay my head.

startling

starting

staring

string

sting

sing

sin

2009-05-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Film Stills [W.T.]

2009-04-22T03:07:00.000-07:00

Exit Music [go home now, stranger]

To be looped continuously.

Words are Auden's. Sound is mine.

2009-04-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

To West Texas

headlights will fade, deadly houses

whitewash will fade, run down sawmill

lime trees will die, sad gardener

typhus germ just might, snake charmer

2009-04-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

Do you remember

that night at context

making up shit

like we were animals

we made no sense

no sense

we had no sex

Can you see

the moon is so hollow

what's the use

when i can see right through you

[Chan Marshall]

2009-03-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

When all within is violent

You have travelled miles

for the northern light

and I've waited south, mother's eye

closer, never apart

Moving in, more obscure

our solstice was mainly

doubt. And me, I'm a house.

Half of everything.

2009-03-22T01:44:00.000-07:00

In reviewing my notebook, I have travelled for too long, now.

Various small fires and milk

a mound of dust

or rites for bad luck.

embankment of dusk

setting us apart

lieber maler, male mir!

____________________

Alguns pequenos fogos e leite

Um punhado de terra

ou rituais de má sorte.

Diques de anoitecer

nos separando

querido pintor, pinte a mim!

2009-02-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

A poem.

A poem so great

that it actually seems

like torture itself

torture to know

so much sweetness

can be given

and can be taken away.

2009-02-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

Derelict

In snowy, muddy shores

Like a shipwreck of my own invention

Coming of age, a boy

Tosses the letter towards the debris

concocting the life-to-be

of what was once his good intentions

2009-02-23T13:47:00.000-08:00

From "Death under glass"

Going down,

He tore at the long weeds

as one might tear a gown.

2009-02-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

Suffering comes to people as war comes to countries

And issues are clarified. Others are completely lost.

2009-02-12T19:18:00.000-08:00

Let me know

Waiting for time to tell

growing back body hair

These feathers from Denmark

sleeping under your spell

2009-02-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

FUCK

KNIFE

ENTER

SHOT

THAMES

SILVER

GALLOP

PLUM

MASK

KNIT

2009-02-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

Small Prayer

Change, move, dead clock, that this fresh day

May break with dazzling light to these sick eyes.

Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,

That time may find its sound again, and cleanse

What ever it is that a wound remembers

After the healing ends.

[Weldon Kees]

2008-12-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

Subtitling subtleties

Minha vida violenta.

Jolly Roger e Candy Apples.

Morte lenta em Nova Scotia.

Carinho rosa.

Code-switching [don't mind, don't care].

Cavalo baixo [drop crotch].

2008-12-21T20:15:00.001-08:00

Minha frase favorita, minha vida violenta.

...loosen my dress

tie me up just like all the rest...

2008-12-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

The Scene

Thank you for the compliment. I will assume

it is partly sincere. And soon, when I compliment

your work, I will try hard to be sincere.

Thus our relations will be cordial - thus we may be grateful

for the social scene that prompts from us these compliments.

But what I want -

ten or eleven years from now

you stand at a window, early on a winter morning;

it is a week or a month after the death of

someone you knew well; you gaze out upon the chill stiff scene

of trees and stone walls, gray and black and gray...

admire my work then. Love it then.

[Mark Halliday]

2008-12-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

Whispers

'Tis not alone the warbling woods,

The starred abysses of the sky,

The silent hills, the stormy floods,

The green that fills the eye -

These only do not move the breast;

Like some wise artist, Nature gives,

Through all her works, to each that lives

A hint of somewhat unexprest.

Whate'er I see, where'er I move,

These whispers rise, and fall away,

Something of pain - of bliss - of Love,

But what, were hard to say .

I could not tell it: if I could

Yet every form of mind is made

To vary in some light or shade

So were my tale misunderstood.

[A. Tennyson]

2008-11-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

Wood-paneled room omen

Then the rooms called upon us

constantly in the dark [they're cemeteries]

and they'll devour the palaces of Jerusalem

with their parting words of consolation

carousing their way to other dwellings

2008-11-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hobby horse

I've come to learn

how very common it was

for russians to walk into

frozen lakes in winter

they'd walk in

and disappear in winter

only to resurface

and reappear by summer

2008-11-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

Fakebook

There was only her heart

like a rabbit and this terrible hurt

Through the room there was

a quiet murmur of agreement

The words swelled in him

the rain continued gray

and bitter and cold

in rigid silence

2008-09-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

All loosely bound in bundles

Shortly after I died

My sister discovered poems

It sounded as if the streets were running

As sense was breaking through

Decades of arrogance between

A night ago or two

In houses unperceived

Not audible as ours to us

To counteract a knock

we must keep apart, You there, I here

In this brief tragedy of flesh

While sunrise grows so near

2008-09-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

The coffin's lacquer black

But the lining's silk silver

[J'ai deux amours]

On the back of his head

He had another face

Was it a woman's face

or a young girl?

They said to remove it would kill him

So poor Edward was doomed

The face could laugh and cry

It was his devil twin

And at night she spoke to him

of things heard only in hell

They were impossible to separate,

chained together for life.

Finally the bell tolled his doom:

He took a suite of rooms

And hung himself and her

From the balcony irons.

Some still believe he was freed from her...

But I knew her too well.

I'd say she drove him to suicide

and took poor edward to hell.

[T. Waits / K. Brennan]

2008-09-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

Homesick Silhouette

Finally I don't mind

Worthless tries at finding something else

Best not talk too loud

You're not as smart as you require of them

Your body breaks

Your needs consume you forever

and with these lies the need to be here together

Funny thing with blood

You try to stand but neither leg's awake

Just this side of love

Is where you'll find the confidence not to continue

Your body breaks

your needs consume you forever

And with these lies the need to be here together.

[Doug Martsch]

2008-09-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

O "Show dos Ursos" era lindo.

2008-09-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Herzegovino, attorney, escena d'estim, escena de mort.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:

I was so light - almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed ghost

And soon I heard a roaring wind:

It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,

That were so thin and sere.

* [from "The rime of the ancient Mariner]

Though I could've written those words

If only I had taken the time.

Having not written them words

I come here and make Coleridge's mine.

2008-08-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

Random rant

I remember school days were lasting

I remember cocaine having me in a murk

I remember felling like plastic

And being misunderstood for my quirks

I remember seeing gold rings

The night of my second wedding

I remember you standing next

to my deathbed as you whispered

to my ear of your remembrances

And how they were all strangely

related to me

2008-08-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

A tailor-made coffin

Your eyes begin to tire.

Your head sits on this greasy pillow

[Your hair is weeping, little]

Should I have fought?

Room service knocks

[interrupts the tacit thoughts]

There was so much happiness

Behind the doors of that mini-bar

How do things get this far

To a point where to sleep is to lie

And to lay is to die.

Only years will mar

Your weeping hair

And your complexion

[apart from the fact that you're dead]

Never that fair

2008-08-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Mike Mills [fireworks]

when i'm done

i'll cock my gun

and blood will run

like ribbons on my hair...

2008-08-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, if Brecht was Italian...