the next big thing

... And You'll Be Shocked By The Surprise Twist Ending!

sometimes i feel like my eyes are sewn closed but i am unaware of it. everything that i see i project onto the back of my eyelids. what i see is what i make of what i hear around me. this morning, during daily calisthenics, this headline:

Blind Man, Having Acquired Heightened Senses, Becomes Bodybuilder

the sun, particularly distinct this morning and early afternoon, has already capitulated to the horizon's yawn. i get very tired around four or five.

one of the first things i'm noticing is the sharp crack & shiver of icicles melting, the grumble of snow, shifting. the temperature maps slowly acquiring the midrange colors: greens, yellows. the need for less layers.

once again, i have a telephone. i can be reached. i am no longer so incorporeal. and things start to warm up, as the sun is brighter & the windows less closed, the mess the winter made is becoming painfully visible. i know i'm jumping the gun a bit, but i can hear the ice breaking. stupid groundhog-seers.

another thought on the bus:

Robber Jone Is Actually Robert Jones - Or Was, Once

Headlines Nowadays Too Pun-chy, Says Times

tiny microphones in the trees

the nightmare is over: i wake up with heartburn. i open my mouth and a large red flower blooms out of it, demure, but shuddering with fire. in the nightmare, i shot him in the head. it looked like he died, but as soon as i turned my back, there he was again, bloody & lurching. the frame: awful stalker flick whose final "he's-not-really-dead!" twist never stops twisting. the dream, like a gas which expands to fill its container, ran away from the gory invader. the gun went off again and again, each report as loud as the next, sharp, sure sounds that ricocheted off the walls of sleep.

spring is going to be here one of these nights, just show up and sniff around. in an old backpack i've carried around for years, i found my old arrowhead necklace. thought i'd lost it on block island with that starfish & my copy of anne mccaffrey's "dragonsinger." then the summer, with blackflies and the hard gaze of the atlantic hidden under the beatific spangles of sun. i want to crush the summer as it dies in a mortar made just for it, crush the summer into ashy orange dust & rail it in the dead of winter. february's almost over. gray clouds flee toward the curve of the horizon, become swallowed by the vanishing point.

your life's going to change, yeah yeah. your phone's gonna ring or you're gonna need that pack of cigarettes. can't stay in the house forever. can't sit in the kitchen listening to old coltrane & drink wine until you're sloppy. can't replace the human need to communicate with talking to the cats. or maybe i'm just not trying hard enough. can do anything if i put my mind to it.

nothin' else to say.

i'll whistle you out.

things i have caught myself thinking about.

1) "it is very cold in this room."

2) "man, i don't really actually do anything."

3) "my job basically consists of taking something from one place and moving it to another. a porter of sorts."

4) "mmm. whiskey."

5) "eventually, all these people that i work with will be 'these people that i worked with once' to other people. how can i prevent them from becoming caricatures?"

6) "i made out with a girl and then gave her a copy of Henry & June. isn't that considered erotic fiction?"

7) "god, what's she gonna think when she sobers up?"

messiahs

so i'm worried about this barack obama fever. i like the guy. i don't like his rhetoric. he promises all this change, well, obliquely, promises us that we have within us the power to change, but he really only has about 100 real days in the oval office before the crushing wave of the legislative schedule catches up with him & his administration. how will he end a war in 100 days? how will he reduce carbon emissions and work toward a greener america while ending a war concurrently? how will he rejuvenate the economy while doing this?

i feel kind of like america just wants someone so badly that they're willing to settle, convince themselves. it's stockholm syndrome. the guy's still a politician. he's going to be making empty promises. but the stronger a promise is, the angrier the other will be when it's broken. if barack obama is elected the next president of the united states, he had better live up to those promises, or there could be some real backlash from the country he governs.

another thing: this celebrification of the election? it's gotten to the point where i don't want to use or even remotely like the word "obama." it's kind of like when you say a word over & over until it loses meaning. it's a gap-word to me now, having appeared in so many functions - as phonetic pun, as racial slur, as the one-word 'buddha-esque' messiah nominative ... i admit to enjoying the logo for his campaign - the O rising majestically over the flag (made to look like rows of corn) - but the font, i think, maybe that's what bothers me. anyhow. superficialities. let's hear about the democrats jabbing each other with tiny pricks of subtle meanness once more, can we please? let's follow that right up with a breaking news - what's going on with Britney? can we really compare the two? just for drama's sake. just for that hook. that catch.

last thing: i'm tired of puns in headlines. everything's gotta be a pun. the hook. that catch.

just a question -

is it dark in there
between your cells?
is it bleak & blind
and filled with the
hum of machinery? these are,
after all,
your gears, which churn
and bite and whistle
while they work -

as you whistle
while you work -

(snip)

'i like the cold,' he said. 'it reminds me that i'm out of the womb.'