emulate

so i thought i was sal paradise that summer and i was looking for a dean moriarty. problem was, they never existed in the first place, so i guess i was just filling a void. other problem was, i found a dean moriarty. he had those little pieces of white and orange (sometimes blue, sometimes flesh), colors of the devil's own rainbow.

a summer later, a new novel, and a new friend: i wasn't looking for anyone in particular but i guess a japhy ryder happened into my life. we tripped, got high, got ludicrously drunk. dropped acid in december, the first snowfall. smoked salvia divinorum and flew around the world inside of my head. skyscrapers and all. then we broke on each other and flew apart, as if discovering all that time we'd been lodestones of the same polarity. as if all that time we'd held to one another, vibrating furiously.

winter was always the breaking point. the late gray of january and the mess of february. by march and my birthday, everything: different, in a violent way.


i take myself way too seriously.

fear of abandonment

dream:

my front tooth falls out, and draws out from beneath the gum a strange formation of ice, which melts in my hands to reveal a slim quartz crystal.

we're (all of "us") sitting in a movie theater and the movie is sold out. there's chairs in the aisle, though the aisle itself is so deeply slanted that sitting on the chairs induces a sense of vertigo. the theater is dark and the movie hasn't started yet. i don't know what it is.

i've only been asleep for ten minutes.

memorial day with sun, then clouds

there's always a space between me & the thing. a safety zone. i am, right now, at risk of further mythologizing that space.

for once, i will have noticed it & not picked it to threads with analysis.

yesterday: big out-door gathering. had nothing to do but sit, drink beer, and smoke butts. clouds antagonized those wearing sunglasses around four in the afternoon. i don't know; i took my watch off when i realized i didn't want to be aware of the time. the sun drowned in their gray swaddling, and sank futilely into the horizon without our being aware of it. the hours culminated in a drunken bike-ride home.

new bar, located on the fringe of the old port, nestled into a strange little culvert. iron bars on the windows. an eleven-page beer list, spanning the globe when it came to their country of origin. had a calvados from the UK. some dry, spicy sopressata and gorgonzola. some olives, both moroccan dry-cured (not my favourite) & provencal. some exceptionally sour cornichon pickles. excellent music, not too loud. i'm keeping it a secret. it's my new plan. less of the downtown lounge, and more of having a beer or three at ______. seems i can get drunk in a variety of interesting ways with a variety of interesting drinks. next up: the Cantillon "cuvee de champion," which is a lambic. it will be nice to learn about new things.

in the between-time, there are many things i need to do.

also: there is a mourning-dove outside my window, tucked somewhere in the eaves. there is no word to describe the weird ululations that come out of them, nor the pulsating rhythm to which they perform.

grief

she's treading
in a sea
toward a blue horizon.
the water,
the sky,
the same thing -
one face
mirroring the other.

in one hand,
a bottle of wine.
it tints her eyes,
flushes them
with dark,

he isn't gone,
she tells me,
& her,
attacking my collar.
he wouldn't leave me
she says.

she is as drunk
on desperation
as she is
on the wine.
this, i feel,
is a glass
we can share,

a glass which fills
a lot faster
than it is
emptied.

three-thirty in the morning: stoned.

lately i keep tripping over myself. in the worst ways possible. choking on myself. about to say something, then it refuses, changes its mind, dives back down into my throat & burrows miserably inside of my chest.

can't sleep, tonight. killed time by watching various episodes of stupid television on the stupid internet. no attention span for a movie, or a book. even a short story. so i get high & blur out to comfortable idiocy. the saccharine moments, enough to bring tears to my eyes. maybe that's the weed. it reminds me of vomiting, the way my mouth fills up with saliva & these needle-like jabs of pain.

then, it all kind of stops. even this, right now, at the time of. present moment, though i am describing it in the past tense. this has been the refrain of my brain's song, lately: extended flights of emotional frenzy, punctuated by

"wow, this is stupid and dramatic. i am stupid and dramatic. over-emotional. i am damaged. this is self-pity." sometimes, brief chords of "i'm a closet egotist whose veneer of insecurity and humility is wearing thin." or "i actually think very highly of myself and suffer from delusions of grandeur."

then it goes away, swallowed up by the miasma again.

and my phone is ringing now. well. vibrating. there's a text message. an incoming call i have to let ring itself out so that they don't know i'm ignoring them. this happens so often lately that i wish i wanted to smash it. "i want to see you again" only it's not "you," it's "u" and that awful silence in the car the next morning. it's not just that - it's everyone i ignore. i am becoming something different suddenly. this is a very strange time, and keeping my face straight is suddenly an incredibly taxing exercise. i want to talk about it, i want to feel totally comfortable and just - say. i want to be able to say how i feel when i feel it. it's funny, because the more i find myself needing to speak, the less i do, and the pain of unsaid words just sinks into the lining of my stomach and fizzes acidly. i want to say everything, but there isn't an everything. there's no end to it. and it's worse when the silence happens. you know that. it's not that there's an end, it's either that you felt bad for as talking as long as you did or you felt that it was time for someone else to have a chance to open their mouth.

i am a mumbler, and people don't hear what i say sometimes. i am frequently interrupted, though maybe it's because i interrupt frequently - although i can't be sure of that. to be honest, there's very little i feel i can be sure about. what's nice is that T. is coming home this weekend. although i find myself lately trying to lower my expectations so that i don't find myself disappointed. don't think i can really handle that on top of whatever else.

so then work becomes an issue. maintaining my false - whatever it is - to the door, to the patrons, to my co-workers. feeling ashamed of the lie. but how do you ...? you "leave that emotional shit at the door." dr. f. has told me that i am too extreme, that i gravitate to extremes like an out-of-control see-saw. my words, not hers. it hurts when she tells me things like that. they stick in my brain. partly, this is a good thing. i am made aware of it. i can try to avoid that kind of behavior. unfortunately, most of the time it isn't apparent until hindsight kicks in. there's the challenge: discovering what elements trigger the recognition of the pattern, and applying them to foresight. attack the problem at incipience. kill it at the root. but being made aware of other things isn't what i need. i am already far too aware, though i feel i look without actually seeing a lot of the time. i talk without considering what words will fill the space, and with the motive that i know i should talk because i'm being talked to. without much regard for what it is i could possibly have to say, my diction becomes fumbled & my consonants a boggy glop of drymouth noise.

some days i don't use my voice until the sun sets. i didn't notice that until the other day when someone said "hi" to me on the street, and when i tried to say it back, nothing came out. like those old nightmares you have as a child, when the monster's getting you, carrying you agonizingly slowly past your parents' dark bedroom (you can see the red LED light of their clock, on the nightstand) and you scream with no sound, and they can't hear you, and you're doomed.

i would like to be approved of. i would like to be validated. i would like to approve of myself, and validate myself. i would like to believe it when someone likes me. i would like to be able to trust myself to like someone.

there is no way in hell i am ever going to get anything done with this yoke around my neck. maybe i should salinger off to the woods. but is isolation...?

what it boils down to:

the phone won't stop ringing. well. vibrating. and i haven't listened to the voicemails yet. i haven't been eating regularly and i have been consuming an incredible amount of alcohol on a nightly basis. it's not any one thing. it's everything.

and as we all know, there's no end to everything.

darklings

electric moon
dangling over the city -
a white taunt

draws the ghosts out
fickle little darlings
to dance in the streets

they flash their knives
& their teeth,
whirling, blurring -

our shadows
between our legs,
we run home
to tell Mom all about it

but her lips tighten
& her knuckles crack
in her pockets.

later,
we hear the sound
of her footsteps
followed by the
snap
of windows, locking -

paradigm

everything:
reflection,
every moment lagging
just slightly
behind itself.
this stutter of time,
inspiring brief,
violent nauseas.

the heart behind its bony bars:
more a tumor,
meant to be removed,
more an unwelcome squatter
in a dilapidated house.

the intrusion of a stranger's fingers
infects an icy chill on the skin:
small arctic patches
that no sunlight can melt -

even the pass of eyes
is the swing of a scythe:
i am beheaded,
& the next three seconds
last forever -

the dog-catcher (continued)

4. (son-of-a-gun)

the phone rings,
and its dull echo
hangs in the air
like a sardonic grin.

a roll of grudging thunder
shoulders through the window.
it's echoed in his head
by a streak of
dangerous thoughts

the gun he knows
he won't use,
smothered under pillows,
whining at him
like a baby from a nursery,
but tinny, & metallic.

the phone, jangling.
quiet, suggestive murmurs
from the room next-door -

he lifts it
from its cradle
& drops it again
as though burned
but without a flick of pain
on his face.

a lick of lightning's hot tongue
across the ashy cheek of the sky.

he stares into a mirror.
pulls at his eyes.
squints.
bares his neck
then his teeth.
his mouth is dry.
fear lies on his teeth
like dust,
but rabid rage squats
in his eyes.

the click of his tongue
against his palate:
hollow,
severe.

Warrenville (#9)

Warrenville by night,
huddled hills,
thick-spread dark.
the wind reveals the trees
by turning the leaves
belly-up.

summer storm rattles windows
with the bloat of thunder,
the startled shriek
of lightning.
stray cats leap from the shadows
& quiver under porches,
eyes mad
in their tiny skulls.

inside, covers scrunched to chins
children eye their closets
for any sign of movement
within -

the churchbell.
the hiss & chug of the train
messily bisecting the town.

a gun goes off, but
it is camouflaged by the storm.
the aura of powder hangs
like an incrimination,
mutely accusatory.

have faith, cries the preacher
every Sunday.
they murmur & clasp hands
against all their respective ghosts,
go home & strangle their wives
with silence

Magellan

out here
the threatening curve
of the horizon,
bending
where it shouldn't.

it drove Magellan mad,
&, whitely furious with the sea,
he tiredly drove the
prow of his ship aground,
teeth jolting in his jaw
with the force of impact

inside of her, later,
he felt isolated
& fixated instead on
the rumpled, dirty sheets.
all her coy murmurs
turned to the susurrus
of waves,
lapping
at the shell of his ear

he spoke to her of the water,
of dry climes & of frozen,
sadly told stories of dead sailors
sinking into new depths -

she pretended to astonishment
but was empty for a good fuck.
under the sheets, she toyed idly
with her sex, imagining
another man

Magellan's white fingers
navigating her body.
he is imagining another
new ocean,
feels fear
quivering
in his bones.

the window is open.
from without:
the sound of rain -
the sound of bells -

bar blues (gesture drawing)

the whining wind outside,
caught like yarn
in the wet trees.

then, his roar,
quickly muted
even as his ruddy eyes
flick from her to her.
alcohol rasps
down his throat.
the beat to an unnamed song
turns his hand to
a telegraph,
tapping cryptically on the bar -
his other hand,
buttressing his sinking chin.

in the dim mirror of the bathroom,
he sees his face,
half-eclipsed.

outside: the asphalt,
pretending to be ice.
turning red
with the stoplight's glare
as though something
deep beneath
is shuddering to life

the dog-catcher (unfinished)

1. (prelude: ghost, son & shadow)

the ghost is always with me.
it turns its non-eyes on me
from the chair in the corner.
i have kept the lamplight low
so that no-one sees it
but me:

i see it as a brief flicker,
a vague ripple of motion
like a cloud of gas
issuing from some unseen fissure.
late at night, it hisses
like an angry cat

i am the Son
waiting for the Father
to open the door.
it has been twenty years
since he closed it on me.

the ghost is always with me.
i have never named it.
my shadow is afraid of it
& runs like a puppy behind me,
shrinking between my legs,
cowering.

the clock: just evening.
humid summer seethes outside
like an invisible jungle.
jaguars in the parking lot,
purring - then growling.
the clouds stack up
& collapse, blackening
with the effort.

rain threatens, as i step out
onto the balcony.
i can feel it on my skin.

the horizon wriggles
with the heat.


2: (Father, dog-catcher)

the van is idling.
its fangs are sheathed.

in the driver's seat,
a living shadow,
hand on the keys
at rest in the ignition.

in the back,
a stray dog barks, howls
& whines

his hand turns the key
& it all quiets down.

brief thunder -
sewing up the sky,
crawling along its ragged edge.

derision in the dark house

the children stick
to the corners.
their eyes glitter
like cats

in the den,
the psychotic television
spits out static.
splashes the walls
with electric blue

wrens bash into the windows,
blinded

& nothing
is creeping up the stairs
from the basement
slowly
stealthily -

chrysalis

my father's wet,
pink heart,
harvested from him
preserved in a pile
of stuffed animals
at the foot of my bed.
it had outgrown him,
peeled away his flaky shell
& now pulses weakly
among the blank-eyed inanimates.

its arrhythmia
keeps me awake nights,
stuttering a stychomythic score
to the cinema of my dreams,
snapping me to consciousness
to see the furtive black hands
of the clock grasping feebly
at two,
three - sometimes,
four -

it seems sometimes to wheeze,
curling like a mewling newborn
shucked too soon
of its protective shell
just beyond the soles
of my feet.

almost instinctively,
i begin to moan in tandem,
as if trying to provide solace
to its distress,
but we sing in different tongues
& both of us
remain lonely,
even made more uncomfortable
with the very presence
of the other

one night,
it stopped
& began to rot,
melting,
staining the sheets
with a ruddy lake
of blood & water.

the morning after was
claustrophobic -
unfriendly.
the gauzy, flocculent sunlight
battered at my face & chest
like a violent horde of moths
trying to get in.

i sought refuge in the
dim cloisters of libraries &
bookstores,
stealing one page at a time,
and,
when night again
wrapped itself around our house,
i, with saliva &
shuddering fingers,
knit a wet chrysalis
for myself

once inside,
asleep,
the turgid, febrile pulse
of my heartbeat
filled my ears,
stoppering up
any other sound.
i held my breath
& waited

& still,
i wait