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if there’s a time you can stop by and pick me up carry me across the fenced-in bridge that takes you over the tracks and head down morganford sandals slapping your hair all wavy at the ends the wristband with the crystal this kind of carnival starts in dark heartbeats out of a thick thing to the past where liquid takes up the grooves of a central pillar tall pillar evil pillar the barker was a wide flat rock watermade screaming on time’s axis into a circulatory system pumping dust like fleas through determined routines determined by mood determined by gravity and tidal forces i think you’ll clap to that i think the crystal wristband will keep catching the light each clap blinking blink blink blink morse code dots unaltering adding up maybe to some uncountable number like binary 1s the more claps the greater infinity gets the genius is the genius of appreciation you my friend know how to appreciate and that’s the real show the grateful dot dot dot now the lone acrobat thin and extremely coordinated turns head to you and imperceptibly nods the lone acrobat dedicates this next trick to you holding feet with hands tumbling across what looks to me from where i am like a series of power lines trailing into the distance the lone acrobat gets smaller and smaller we never found out if the trick had an end to it
—
—
years ago i watched somebody shoot a gun into a glass windowpane the glass shattered outward the noise seemed to reflect across the glass before it shattered redoubling the noise our ears almost bursting the loudest peak of gunshot fuzzing into something sounding like dragging a heavy carpet the earth was smaller then as an effectively infinite amount of tiny meteors had yet to collide with it each forming an incredibly small impact crater that disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared falling victim to wind or water or the general shifting of little dirts as the zero-energy hum of the world that sets particles buzzing faded the craters away one by one by one until now in the present day that gun sound might still be bouncing around somewhere trapped in a hole or really high in the sky that gun might still be around in the hands of that same you or traded off in a paper doll string of hands one to one to one the gun makes its way probably not too far through the midwest it always knows the soil as heavy in clay and can smell a field nearby maybe it feels bad for what it did to the glass or maybe it has done much worse rope is made specifically and frays back into chaos unspecifically but glass like in windows and the long necked bottle breaks just about as clean as how you make it
--
--
grits teeth, spits
didn't even get to be worn
they'll throw a shoe in these days
just for being baby
shadow figure
behind the one way cylinder mirror
shadow shoe with shoe eyes on us all
and that's the trick
you never really know if you're for sale or not
--
--
something’s different the clear night fits over a dark spot bowling pin with wings silent flaps take the owl low the stillness the warmth of this night brings people out to stoop rattling metal making work making music out their doors the owl hears music the owl gets the jist of music but only half understands the owl’s friends send the owl playlists still the owl only half understands the owl thinks is music a way to talk about the killing of mice without killing mice or is music a way to escape the resounding pounding notion that mice must be killed 1 mouse equals 1 meal 1 like equals 1 wingbeat 1 share equals the silence in the beating of that wing because in winter the owl’s wings beat silent and the world was silent and in spring the owl’s wings beat silent and the world moves so much loves so much step sounds people coo their people noises the owl wearing clear night’s jacket the owl’s beat up toyota camry hugging closed mountain course the owl’s disdain for rotting finch the owl’s pea brain clicking away in the owl’s head the owl’s fate the owl’s death in two years to some owl disease none of us have ever heard of the owl’s funeral a service full of ants flies maggots a mouse ripping hunks of not understanding poetic justice meat from the formless glob of the owl’s not understanding poetic justice body the owl had seven epiphanies in the owl’s life six of them were normal people thoughts thoughts normal people have billions of every day but the seventh epiphany is a thought no animal has ever had and no animal will ever have again it changed the owl’s life forever and the owl knew that it had
—
—
our sidewalk wears boots like us
goes on dates like us
stares into the mirror like us
stay in one city long enough
and the stars will move on without you
slow-turning light-curving sons of secrets
spitting image after image burning in circles
that’s what walls are for, friend
rough concrete and heaping piles of gravel
nighttime vacant backhoe unblinking
our sidewalk city
moves from room to room like us
tastes blood like us
feels and feels
facing itself every day
and deciding
to be there
—
the big sky ball beats
heat heat heat
on lil squirrel me
rather large and rough tree
large rough rectangular tree
with windows
skitter skitter
taller than i am most days
but mom said tall for the best nuts
skitter skitter
ope
ope
careful careful climb mm yep
if you have to jump you have to
yep
k
here we go
the sky is windy from the bottom
it all streaks
this is probably a new emotion
called wonder i think
you really can see it all
from the fall
then:
here i am on the ground again
—
—
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
gotta get that mouse
--
listen up kids
you don't believe in hell?
i got a little story for ya
about a website
that'll tell ya otherwise
so get wise
i used to be like you
nothin' to do
but stew
fuckin' around with my friends
a bunch of dead ends
lazin
grazin on grass like sheep
asleep
we used to do it all
drugs
sex
clownin around shootin up pills
and takin spills
rainbow parties
poppin uppers and downers like smarties
jumpin off balconies for funsies
thinkin we could never die
the ultimate lie
spin the bottle but with sex
we would do that
passin around every std in the tri-county area
like malaria
orgies past midnight
bodies in motion and copious amounts of lotion
with drugs involved as well
"there aint no such thing as hell"
is what we said
what we would say
losin control
poppin pills like tootsie rolls
livin' like the livin' dead
poppin pills like airheads
eatin weed like sixlets
smoking it too
and doing cocaine
feelin' no pain
pumpin punk music and heavy metal
like butterfingers and skittles
rockin out to satan's very own words
candy
and doin' cocaine
bumpin lines
yes
and having sex all the time
then i found it
the one dot com
that dropped the bomb
on this country bumpkin
this freakjoy cowboy well let me tell you
hell is a fact
jack
and a simple visit to the web
will stick you in place
regret is real
like hell
ya feel?
--
she said it takes two to laugh
i said two?
two is just a number
one more ball in the bingo tumbler
one more word on the lips of saints
done up on the wall with green paints
my green, /pants/
are ripping
finger slipping
finger on the trigger of the gun
(pause) ...just for fun
they say two is the number of laughter
well
what comes after?
i'll tell ya (repositions hands)
after laughter radio static
silence emphatic
three is the number of FM fuzz
the whole world is soap scuzz
the whole world is (loud) FUCKED UP
so suck it up
soap truck
and come with me to the land beyond
where politicians and magicians sleep in the pond
the land unreal
where it takes two to feel
(quiet) so let's feel
(slightly too loud) NO MORE GUFFAWS
(louder) NO MORE WAGGING JAWS
just emotion
devotion
cuz when you fuck the fucked up world
the world gives birth
to worth
and that's what i'm trying to say
thank you
--
--
kitchen window
sunlight smack
light is so hard so heavy
scouring out tile white and blue white and blue
this old self-righteousness
cult laughter you drown it out
glasses pushed up into your hair you squint
out into the little yard
you regular old lighthouse
i can feel you hovering an inch off the ground
even if i can't see it
later on roger street
flash back to a ray a beam
maybe the same beam
your beam out of a bird's mouth
a bird with your eye
an eye with a way to look i can't look
maybe you can explain it to me
--
there’s a waist high brick wall in town
i’ve been known to stand behind
do me a favor and let me lift you over it
i was born glassy eyed
with the moon hung round my neck
i was born on ice
i was born third eye held open with cleverly constructed surgical implants
you punched me so hard i wasn’t
you look like you on a hike
there’s starling, there’s junco, wren
wow, holds hand up for shade
and there’s their nest
—
my truck has a trailer
my peggy boots have steel toes
my face is fucked up
pretty sure it was you that fucked it up
im going to culvers
to psychically communicate with my dead grandma
hey grams, sorry it had to be culvers
so, this fella i need you to hex
yea, uh huh
yea
folks, (readers of the poem,)
all my grandmother said to me
was that you’ve got to be real careful about sharks
she said
i recently watched a documentary
you've got to pay attention
any potential shark situation i would be watching out for fins and teeth i’d
scan the horizon
but this guy fucked up my face grams
was it around water?
no it was behind hilton hotel and suites
near the lake?
no on the other side of the highway
then nothing to worry about rowen,
i cant see why youre so gosh darn upset!
love,
granny
anyway, thats why i had to go back there and kick this guy in the mouth!
—
—
https://soundcloud.com/holy-r/green-eye-rain
--
everyone’s buying my stocks
it’s making me bloat up
i have acne for the first time in ten years
i ran away through the graveyard and sat on a playground
she and i ate and didn’t talk to each other
well, what they call a “bubble” is bursting
but into something good
retching stretches, touches
the bitterness of oh i dont know
love barfed up into the yowling howling jaws of ted’s cave
jesus christ never felt as powerful as i do now
that was his choice, he totally could have
but the difference between us is everybody’s buying my stocks and making my hair curl
over the toilet bowl
you in the other room take on form and form again
a mirror on rotating time space axis
you were sneering and laughing and smiling and crying and feeling so much in love with me and feeling oh so much else
me,
i was puking
--
https://soundcloud.com/holy-r/look-see
--
light spills flash over
long straight ruddy throughway the beam
screaming out birds and bats the walls
of the underneath crash with grrn grrn the sound
concrete brittle cracks crumbles heat smooths the edges
one little moment of silence and it peaks again
higher this time through the bright hot light see it
grumbling thrashing teeth spinning into the mud flaking
flashfire and everything red whistling up up the tracks
it's grrn grrn grrn it is grrn grrn grrn
rrg uh grr rrg uh grr hoo hoo hoo hoo
whoosing steam heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeish
pitch shifting rending into pitch unhearable circling
low now thumping knn knn knn knn twin sounds chasing
metal on metal on metal ee ee screech
in a flame watching
in steam watching the eye of machine god watching
pole flip passing now passing passing passing
fading furnace big red sun taking with it
fire, fire, fire
--
are you coming to community supper?
tonight the earth comes up easy, palmfuls
burying ourselves in mountains like sand dunes
there's them and them and you
like a golden tooth
if i laugh like barking
if the river cool breeze knocks
hair out from behind your ear
my skin, dry, cracks, booms,
rain then thunder
going to sit on a log
under a branch, crashing, crashing
wind whip the world is barrels bursting
okay, so hold on by a finger, rain and sweat
hundred mile an hour dam bursting
crash crack boom
the door shuts behind us.
there is a rectangle of yellow light.
--
all trees look like that now
but they didn't used to
this is a big clear day
with a lot of walking space
by horse
i highly suspect
that was you that night
navigating brittleman's hollow
deftly and with confidence
back then, the leafless trees
tended to crowd
and a featurless moon
unmoving in the sky
hung
a group of frogs now gathers
in a shady spot by a drying-up puddle
hello frogs, and a good life
from me, who made the face
on the moon
--
--
his fan theory
is that all The Companies
died actually on Y2K,
the rest of our lifes is a
dream of Time Warner Industries
in the moment before death
well, i'm not doctor,
but i actually got sent
to the hospital for drinking
too much
the steth - o - scope:
it got stuck in my chest, oh the hubbub!
they gave me a gift card
i searched every hallway i did not
see Time Warner Industries anywhere
in any of the rooms
and that's another myth BUSTED
--
did you hear alice cooper is going on tour?
yeah, they're playing a show in kc and one in como
--
she has she a very good girl dog
wag wag she can do a cool trick called bang! bang!
dog goes to lie down on the ground
she and i go to sit on a stump
this must be
the world's newest stump
i can still smell
the rest of the tree
it's the dog she's back!
no more being dead
here is a treat for the very good dog
--
they took the wall higher
with a series of extended
arches of stone.
just heard
the last song on my list.
i was at the dentist getting
a tooth yanked. the song
came over the radio. i jumped
a little in my chair. "you
okay?" said the dental
assistant. with my mouth
full of fingers, i declined
to explain. i will have to
cross it off the list when
i get home.
when i am with
someone i know well, i also
know this city well. alone
on a rainy night walking my
dog, i know myself. this is
me: a large oak tree with
some exposed root. the
branches are looking a little
too high to easily climb.
there will have to be some
shimmying.
what are you going
to do? blue hand winter is
over, that is only part of
it. me, i have done a lot of
stretching. i am going to go
on a run.
--
--
i am so so sorry oh my god
are you hurt? are you hurt?
i feel real bad about this one
all those fish squeezed up and made stew
and this stupid *whispering* absolute /dummy!/ *points at me myself*
"where's the flavor?" uh huh uh huh
straight up fish in broth, that's what me what i me brought to your table oh for sure
but no see the apology is to those fish
who i wrote about two years ago
standing with my dog by the lake outside A.T. Still University
who became psychic entangled with this dang dummy (myself):
friend, i'm telling you,
every time one of them dies out there
i get sad for a week!
--
come in talk to me
the winter trees are curling in
try on my coat
for a taste of evil
the dusk
has made my houseguests restless
kneeling waiting
(the dialogue
in a littlemade home on fairview avenue...)
you're right that yesterday
this heavy knife
down my nose and out
would be a death thing
but fortune telling
figures in, (it always figures in)
so:
a catalogue:
of this galley ship:
washed up on the shore of our lovely mississippi:
impossibly tall and just as wide:
miles and miles and miles:
blotting out the sun in the early hours:
sitting stoop on morganford
i overheard an argument
the quiet upstairs exploding into scream
shattering an antique
and oh,
you notice my scar
its recent appearance
if that's so
and we have met before
i'll ask boggs to light a candle
for our reunion
--
every one of my friends
is so funny
it is shocking to me still
they are comedy experts
they have so many jokes
god their minds have to be working
just about a thousand miles a minute
yeah they were probably
very funny kids
growing up and learning the ins and outs
of cadence and delivery
now these "grown ass adults"
they can really knock your socks off
every hour you remember and you laugh again
i mean frankly
it's amazing
and it keeps happening
and they'll keep doing it
they're gonna be old and funny
they're gonna have one of those cheery funerals
where everyone chuckles and wipes up a tear
and every eulogy starts with a joke
and i wear my heavy coat
in a room full of revelers
sweating and laughing
--
--
there you go
it keeps tearing--
see? there!
well lewis, your ring got
fucked up in my dryer
plus it's,
still about two hundred degrees it wont cool down and it burnt like my whole arm
"oh, you don't even--
lewis is going to be PISSED
i think lewis got that ring from
somebody who went on and DIED
lewis is:
(big drama pause)
well,
lewis is going to kick a dent in your fricking effing
dryer!"
--
i have or i'll say we all know
i have had so many teeth removed,
at this point,
everbody in this room has more teeth than me
you think your mouth is small?
mine is actually constricting--
constricting constantly smaller and smaller yeah they,
they... they have to remove about
two or three a year and let me tell you,
it has been a lot of years.
and to you in the porta potty:
you think restricting yourself saves you,
that removing yourself
to the smallest room society knows
gives you the smallest amount of teeth?
the world is my room.
i piss in the sky
i have so little teeth
my mouth is going real small
and i piss and shit in the sky