With Presler

Lederhosen, a German themed bar, owned and operated by real German people, in the West Village.

Two men sit at a table. They drink beers. They eat sausage. They talk. It is clear that there is an affection between the two. They are not brothers by blood but in ways they are brothers. One has an issue in his life. They both have an issue in their lives. Their problems are different and similar. Opposite and the same. They struggle against forces. They decide these forces are largely within themselves. They anticipate epiphanies they hope will soon come. They hope that life's changes are clear and distinct, but silently they acknowledge that it is not so. Quietly they sip and consider life's passing as incremental and subtle and just too slow to detect until the change has long since happened and they are left pondering something that is already gone. They know this is true as much as they know that they do not fully know truth, as no man can, though they fully embody it. Wrapped in their problems, internal and external, they are the act of truth finding itself. 

They discuss further. They disdain that which most reminds them of their worst. On this they agree. As lost brothers they long for group acceptance, and equally disdain this longing. They long for fathers they thought they knew. Neither of them in this moment realizes that they are the fathers they are longing for.

One of them has a thought so instant and clear while relieving himself in the bathroom that, upon returning to the table to share, the thought which could have meant everything, fades and is merely an etching of it's former self on the cave of lost dreams. One of them expresses this and the other assures him that it will return. They both know that it will not. It never does.

They finish up their meal and challenge themselves to end the night there. They both know it will not. They both hate endings and a night like this, one which feels so close to something that matters, is hard to let go. They resolve to tighten their grip on the night with "just one last drink." With this they pour into themselves the first glass of poison that night. The drink too far. The point at which inspiration turns rotten, and madness takes hold. This change is subtle and hardly noticeable until hours later. This drink is their event horizon. There is a return to sanity after, but not without leaving something behind that cannot  be gotten back. A piece of themselves. 

In searching, they lose what they are looking for. In losing, they find themselves.

11.15.12

Fun in a funnel fun drum fun in the sun. Seventeen years and fourty seven blunt ones and fun chums. We've met them here thirteen times before on the seventh of the seventh month. This hour the twelve of eights. Fourty seven moments in the barrel of the drum, fourty six, fourty five, fourty four. We, the sons of a sun bum of someone else's someone son. We hum the anchor loose over star board stump. His hers crossing lump in fourty three thumps, fourty two, fourty one. Thump on the drum and thump on the thump when the winning son's won. Hump and thump and wriggle and slump. Down dead porch step bump step slump. Down dead humming a hum as runts hum.

just air.

these words not music notes.

 just air.

not jumping or bouncing lightly.

just air and empty nothing.
balloon of lifting nothing.
helium happy nothing.

not wanting to disturb

but

feeling somewhat helium.
no, but yes helium.

floating on empty air.

floating up and blowing

away. not

music notes.

 just air

blowing.

Bluely, the panelling.

Here I sit, like Marten Luther's Here I Stand.
Tid bits and fans of the bland
wood and wood stained everything
truly.

Bluely rhymes but means little to bridge the gap
betwixt the thought and the image in mind.
What do I do and what to decide
staring at an object to destruct
in mind and in time.

Objects are boring next to a person
a love, a friend, a fucker, a mother fucker.
All stories need enemies.

Lacking an enemy protagonists brawl.
I stall
in picking up on the rhyme,
the rhythm,
the deftly disguised signs and bums typing and wiping
wine and tears.

Memories as compressed years
like air in a vessel
to be shot at
in the teeth of the great shark.
Smile you son of a
and I withdraw shaking head at purchased 70's movie reference.

Blond polish girls, sips ahoy, and (Seinfeld)
what is the deal with
all this wood stained paneling?

And the good poems the love poems are too personal.

So this is what you get.

The American Through And Through

Link Below:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=13n3UgdS9yrNzUIg-aq1y-XBmn0hkPSmcVAFAAqI_LO79QqnCU4P78Knk0zy9

12/16/11

I ran because the others ran
and the others ran because the woman ran.
We all ran and when we got to the top of the stairs the woman said

No train.

A cracked smile owning the moment.
We chuckled out loud despite the disappointment.
Children all of us.

Empty stations echo.
The man in a bright red baseball cap
leans on the railing; fingers stroking his lips and his chin
in that kind of absent...ness.

The slow receding clicks.
A girl in high heels. Black and pretty.
She's leaning against the trash, her hood shrouding her gaze.
Exhausted, over-worked.

You expected it to be something but it sure wasn't this.

Small devices, pouring minds in to distract the boredom.
Avoiding that moment when reality bites and snaps clear like a feral beast
in a trance.

It didn't quite turn out as expected. Not quite.
We chuckle out loud despite the disappointment.

I...I...I

I am brand! I am plastic man!

I have polyethylene asshole and financing plan!

My teeth white!

My shirt clean!

I get drunk and dance on "scene!"

I am brand!

My dad own land!

I toothpick in fist, I floss where sit!

I shit where stand!

I brand what are!

I are what see!

I sit tree, I pee, I sing opera in sea!

I make dad sing song!

I wrong, I run road too long!

I strong, I gong!

I gong with throng in stand!

I am brand!

I am plastic man!

pieces.

Rose, petal, flower, stem. Pieces of a whole. Peace is whole. Everything is in a person and everything is not. A human being dreaming. Dreaming of life and past and lives past and dreams past and dreamily dreaming of past dreams and of all in life once dreamt. Days, some slept through, some stepped through and stepped through and stepped through quickly. Some days forgotten. Some days never could forget. Some days you'll remember but you haven't yet. Days as apart of the whole, of life as whole, days as pieces, as mortar and stones. Pieces dropped, pieces saved.

A person remembers, a person forgets. Some memories are empty nets. A human dreaming. A person dreaming in pieces. A person is pieces. A human vast, a person whole, a wholeness as trillions of pieces. A mosaic, in pieces. A person dreams, of daughters and sons and nephews and nieces, dreaming of atoms, of cells, of bones, of organs, of the mind, of the heart, of bare feet in cool grass and of hot sun, of salty sea air and the song of a distant gull, of that first time your child, so small, is held, your heart is held, your soul forever in pieces, of family opening presents and of tears your tears running down cheeks now full of creases, of a sun rising when you thought again it never would, of a son smiling when you thought again he never could, of the smell of spring the rapture of life, of strife, of a husband and a wife, of pain that is not your own, of a child crying, of a child comforted, of pain that is your own, the pain of loss, the pain of life, the joy of life, the promise of living, of giving, of youth and all of its loss, of these parts that make a person, a human in parts. A person in pieces.

A person in body, a person must end they, must end, day must end, night then light and back to day again. But the light does not end. And thoughts will not end, memory will not end, the heart will not end, love will not end. We are pieces, and some pieces live on in other people in other places in other parts of the planet, on and on as birds in flight, as grass of the field and as trees. Of dust, to dust, but so much more than dust. And dust is only a part, a part that does not include the deepness of the heart. The endless heart. The dust is only a part. We've met at this moment, together in the breeze. Cool, and at peace in the fresh green leaves. Together we have met, in the place where there can be, no darkness, because we are the light of stars, and we are the thoughts of our children, and we are their tears. And we have met at this moment, and we will meet again, and again, forever.

A person in pieces, peace is whole. A person as peace. A person is pieces.

Chug-Chug-Dance

All forms. All shapes.
Forms and shapes; the eager
Philistine.

The living of his life clean and pristine. Not clean,
but full of steam
chug chug.

Work is good, work is great, work is all that makes me ache.

The eager ones on the cracks of time
time and time
praying for a quake and a rhyme.
Time! And rhymes of time, and rhymes of rhymes
and nickels dream of flipping dimes.

And dimes there are too few to number
while every living creature lumbers
and slumbers and lumbers and slumbers and lumbers again.
Like a winding road with no clear end or fence to mend
the end to mend to mend the end the end.

A life to defend an adult must be
concerned with giving
giving his life when he
is half done living.

But living is all that there is left
with the step step rhyme of the

chug-chug-death.
chug-chug-death.
chug-chug-death.

miss-step-death
chug-chug tried
miss step tried
miss step step
miss step tried
miss step slide
chug-chug slide.

A dance to end the chug-chug-lie and
A dance to make the chug-chug-cry and
A dance to make a born man free and
A dance is a chance is a chance is

A dance. A chance. To be,
Alive.

Pedal Back, Oranges Lost

The sun is in a right spot. When the sun is in a right spot. I'll be in a right spot. I'll see you when I'm right.

I've come to see you taken, taken over a ripe mountain. Taken under dragged down under, through and given up.

My leg a twitching blunder rippling tickling ticking thunder.

I've come to see you under. I've come to see you up.

We are in a right spot. We're never in a right spot. I'll see you when I see you leaning forward in your flip flop.

I'll break you when I see you. I'll break you when I see.

I'll be pleased you see my crystal breath before I see.

Ocean Terrace beach view loft. I'll see you when I see you. I'll see the sunlight and the breeze.

I'll break you when I see.

Your oranges often get lost, in the bag they often get.

I'll see that you won't get lost with your oranges in the sea.

My bike gears are the miles between the ocean you and me.

I'll see you when I get lost, I'll see you when I see.

My pedals lost like orange peels in your deeply salty sea.

I'll break before you get to live the way you've lived with me.

Your oranges often get lost. I'll find them when they get lost.

I'll find you when you get lost when you pedal back to me.

I'll find you pedaling backwards with the orange you brought to me.

allez.

she strolls down the alleyway

of my thoughts.

she picks up speed

then slows

then stops.

she whispers my name, she whispers

again.

she whispers without beginning or end.

the breeze in her hair, the air in her lung,

she never left my name

unsung.

she never left the words undone.

she takes a breath deep,

she opens her eyes;

she thinks not of truth and neither of lies.

she knows it was all and all for naught.

she strolls down the alleyway

of my thoughts.

#005

I am a man on fire.
My vision is gas
around me, flooded and shattered like glass.

I am iron, I am satire, I am fire
tiptoeing in the parking lot. I am paper,
I'm convinced it's paper, frozen and hot.

And ink written from the tips of fingers. I am exhaust fumes coughing
when it lingers.
I am the grease in the gutter

mixing with the yellow.
I am the whiskers of the man,
I am his cello.

I am the sound leaking from a broken gun,
I am entropy. I am the sun.
I am the knuckles cracking

from an old forgotten song,
hard to remember and
frightfully long.

I am a tricorne hat. I am beaded and jeweled,
I am slender and I am fat. I am the man under the sink
with his head against the wall.

I am a white painted hall. I am Harry Caul and I am not.
I am living of a broken heart but from a blood clot. I am
dark and I am pale.

I am the coffin and I am the nail.
I am gone, I am a liar.
I am a man on fire.

ODE TO THE MAN IN THE SUBWAY WHO'S SO USED TO SLEEPING THERE HE'S LOST ALL FIBROUS QUALITIES IN HIS NECK SO THAT HIS HEAD KIND OF RESTS IN HIS LAP

It seems as though you've been here for a long time. A curious thing; noticing you. I couldn't help but wonder how your heart beats, how your lungs expand. There is a touch of incivility in my brief gaze. What happened to put you here? Here, not so much meaning here socio-economic life perspective-wise, but more, here as in in this oddly contorted position. Your only reasonably weathered Yankees cap doesn't suggest complete rock-bottom brokeness. Is this an unavoidable medical condition, or is it a result of years of mental and physical decline? I don't mean to probe you with these silent questions, you sleep so peacefully among all this noise, but your particular contortion is, without doubt, absolutely spectacular. Perhaps there are brighter days ahead yet for you sir. An internationally known performance contortionist, or a secret no-ventilation-shaft-to-small kind of secret spy. Perhaps better careers suit you still and possibly this is all just old news; a performance spy, journeying to perform your next act of televised performance disguised international espionage. Only you can know for sure; a gentleman of many dark secrets and romances and secret dark romances no doubt. At any rate, I salute you sir, as I pass, I salute you.

The Curious Case Of The Dog Who Violently Fucked His Owner And Then Another Dog In The Ass

He never wanted to be called Pip, or Pippy as the master oft mentioned him to friends, eyes glazed over from the puff puff drinky drink habits he never quite understood the purpose of. What is in a name?, he tried to rationalize. They are the ones with names; but somehow, lost in this carpeted desert of something of 1000 feet squared, he felt compelled to care. To care about his name, about his purpose, about his meaning in their lives. He wanted so much more of them, he wanted to give himself to them. He desired full, unanimous integration emotionally. He was not an object, but a true member of this space, of their lives. They assumed he was blank inside. Raw feeling, joy sadness hunger in heat in pain. He knew he was so much more and more of them is what he expected. To them he gives himself, to them he gives loyalty.

The master's suit and tie. His remarks mocking as the wise one watches on. Pippy is peering into your soul. He sees your reflection in the mirror as you see it and more. He sees your weakness. He sees your shame. What animal hides behind fabrics and smiles? To feel joy is to feel joy, to feel anger is to feel anger. Why hide behind ties, and suits, and shiny smelly shoes oh so good to taste. Pippy wears his loyalty, his love as a badge, as plain and true as his doghood hangs freely. Thoughts roam fiercely: What is man, this master? Why does he possess dominion over me? Why does he possess me at all? I am not an object. I am fire cast into flesh I am truth I do not lie I do not hide I do not conceal. I am not your possession sir, and you are not my captor. But lo, you are my possession. The animal which makes himself an object is an object indeed and though he may lie to himself, to the world he cannot lie, his truth is as true as mine. I am living animal, you are living object; possessed by possessions. Roaming thoughts, these thoughts so constant.

On these walks he takes me. In front of him I march, drawing him as a horse draws a carriage empty. He will know soon my truth. I shall impose it upon him, imprint it on his soul. He will know fire and flesh and birth and rebirth. He will know his origins, the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. I will awake him before I end him. He will live before he dies. This rope around my neck will be the rope from which he hangs. BANG BANG goes the drum of justice! BANG BANG goes my heart! Beast will reign as nature without his thoughts and without his words. I will purge his heart and his mind and freed and shackle-less I will direct this ship of life to infinity. Come come, let us be free!

Grrr, bark, whoof.

#003

To be read while listening to the following...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByRkggPFiMM&feature=related

This man in an ash grey suit
with brown blood stained boots
shows me the ash grey gun
pedagogical, smile none.
Too soon to shoot
at the fading sun.

Through the window cast to the wall
like a fire sweeping the hall
the burning blaze of a dying day,
evidently nothing golden stays.
Wood paneled like bathroom stall
I'm frozen no breath no words to say.

His face is like a broken clock.
His eyes bequeath a sunken dock.
His teeth are white but painted black.
He knows you know he won't look back.
The time, his face, it roams and stocks,
it's running out and off the track.

A sickness swirling in my core
no nightmare night has known before.
His eyes tick seconds none
when he tosses me the ash grey gun.
The time has passed and is no more,
the sky ash grey with a sunken sun.

#001

An attempt at something new...click below.
(I suggest making it full screen.)

#001

The American, through and through.

He is the American, branded in his own image, starved and sickened, panting for more, a soldier of his own means, stranded in a land distant, that belongs to the distant to the decadent to the depraved, he being native, he being naive, he being born in his disadvantage, born for the dollar, born for the soul, born again, and above all born for the acquisition of the world and all that rests therein, a stranger to himself, the people's son, the prodigal.

He is the American, left gazing at distant horizons, left leering on empty docks in wakes of sailing ships, left trembling wrapped in his stars and in his stripes, left weighted with thoughts, dumb-bell-heavy, and memories, oh memories distant, like fleeting horizon bound ships fleeting to god knows what, left embracing a memory that never was and a dream that never will be and a hope that goes skin deep, left as a refugee in a life-long boot camp boat race trudging circular and endless.

He is the American, never confusing the path for the way, always feeding upon himself, never seeing blindly without seeing blindly, always dancing two hands not one footstep back beat rhythms upon rhythms, always working harder but never enough, filling empty ditches with the ashes of home, shouting loudly at strangers in bars, challenging strong men with hands crossed boldly behind back, gazing perilously into a future too strange and unknown to be his own.

He is the American, who huddles his tears in dark so dark his hiding places, who collects his close ones his friends too close his enemies closer still, who wields his body and chisels his soul to heroics his body politic his body seductive his body enraged his body transcendent his body destroyed, whose father's lost and ancient gods transparent he imitates, whose mannerisms imitate the gods he's never known the gods he'll never know, whose iron skin so pervious as to suffer through and through.

He is the American unending He is the American despised He is the American bought He is the American wise He is the American lie He is the American naught.

And truly through and through.

(a selection from an unwrtten whole) pt. 3

Nighttime in Union Square park. The cool cement walkways are awash in the movement of commuters, busy bodies, and the occasional drunkard. The mysterious honking and outburst of not only the passing cabs, but also a contingent of souls in the southwest corner tuning up and preparing their all brass New Orleans style jazz instruments for the playing. As with the crack of a whip, or the firing of a gun, they begin.

DUB-A-WEEEE-BWABWAHHH, CHEKA CHEKA CHEKA, SISSSSSS BWAAAAH, DUB WEEEEEEE YAAAAAAH

The sound sliding about, wet and impossible to pin down. The trombones, at least six of them, the tuba, and an enigmatic woman who handles a tambourine with a rhythm and movement so distant as if from the deepest jungles of the human libido. Shakes moves and sways, all of them. So frantic and natural. A religious uproar lacking a deity, lacking a structure. An uprising of the soul, this the sound blasting unapologetically into the otherwise benign New York night.

CHEKA-SKWEEEEEBEEE-DIP DIP DIP, BWAwaWAwaWA, YEEEEEOWWWWHOOPPPP

People begin to gather. Some start tapping their feet, dancing ensues. Light swaying at first, with a polite gentrified tapping of the foot, a thoughtless sway, a clap of the hands, more hips, more movement increasing, lustfully. A drug-like anesthesia consuming the airwaves focusing in and destroying the panic, the vacuum, the sense of self. The people become one, everyone dancing. Compelled by charity and gratitude a few move rhythmically to the band and religiously give dollars of appreciation, rigorous in their honesty, dollars of love, dollars of hope, being as dollars never were. A trickle at first, increasing and suddenly rivers of cash flow to the performers. Excitement makes itself present in the perspiration of all gathered within this new organic temple of sound. The deepest of pockets prove insufficient. People, mad and hysterical, run to bank machines to gather more cash, it being thrown at the performers, offered as to gods. Business men calling their bankers, demanding investments sold, "we must go liquid!" they yell shedding ties and blazers and button-ups. Briefcases left like crying children on sidewalks abandoned. The passion the gratitude the madness. Everyone caught, a constant motion blur, to and from money machines and lost in Zen dance state, wild flailing motions.

BAH BAH BAH, WEEEE WEEEE, BAH BAH BAH BAH WEEEEEOOOPPP, DIP DIP BA DOOPAP BA DIP

The pile of money, estimated in millions and growing at the pace of fear dissipating, a tower before the performers. The gratitude implacable, the people thirsty and drunk with the desire to repay and take part in this orgiastic moment of sound, this musical baptism. The money is worthless next to such beauty, life distilled to sound. A member of the crowd, brilliant and armed with matches sets the money to a bright, hot blaze. Finally proper recognition! The body of people, their bodies, beautiful and willing slaves to the sound, a new and invisible dimension.

BA DEE DEEP, BA DEE DEEP, BA DEEEEEE BAHWAHHWAAAHP

The flames are not enough, "more more more!" ,one shouts. Their gratitude still not fully expressed; the people rip down the neon corporate signs of business franchises surrounding the park, first goes HSBC, then the Skechers, Best Buy and Au Bon Pain are soon to follow. In minutes, all of the former signs of corporate strength, effigies to material lust, are heaved onto the fire. Ashes on mammalian hands, a few naked wild participants gesticulate wild and abstract images on barren spaces above so many glass sliding doors and entrances to newly christened nowheres. The garments and coverings that stifle and conceal, emblems to their former selves, are thrown piously to growing flames, flames that dance human-like, and humans that dance like ghosts. The trees, the leaves of the park are aglow, the branches shaking, the people dancing, the band playing.

A supernova in the endless night.

(a selection from an unwrtten whole) pt. 2

This is the road that is dark and gray. It stretches forward pushing upward. It is resistance beneath our feet. Women with strollers roll it and workers with boots bash it. This is the road, our response to the earth. These are the fists which pump near the road, front and back front and back. These are the feet that connect with the road. These are the lungs machine-like. He, the runner, long and short. Fists pumping, forward back, feet connecting ground, lungs machine-like. Conquering the road, pushing it backward, disposing of it parcel by parcel. The runner runs and defeats the ground beneath his feet. The runner runs for utility. The runner runs from danger. The runner runs from strife. The road serves equally the runner and the chaser. The chaser, the angry the underprivileged chaser. Wanting to take the day away he wants to take the day. The ground stretches from chaser to runner, drawing a line that refuses a line that resists. Lungs, machine-like, fists, pumping, feet, connecting. Chaser, runner, linked by the gray immovable mass serving dutifully beneath their feet.

Lungs machine-like and fading. Side walk slabs, open spaces with segregating horizontal lines, runner falling past them with step, praying for a finish line. Runner runs, chaser chases, demons between the two fill the void with fire and fear. Crack whip of the head, the runner looks back and back again, the chaser shrinking, fleeting, being enveloped in the road, in the world, in the night, in the gray. The finish line at last and runner ducks around a corner, the darkest silence on the street.

A dark and silent hiding space filled with fear, a pounding heart, and two conspicuous fiery lungs. Closed eyes, head back, back of head cool on cement building blockade. Think of times past, think of brighter days past. On this road, time spent playing boyish games and running and playing in the youthful sun. Laughter and anticipation of warm meals and stories and days shared, friends like brothers, and families too young for tragedy. Fear is fading. Gasps, are fading. The decrescendo, of the percussive heart and the calamity of the body, return to pianissimo. At one with the dark, with the silence. Safety, anonymous, protected by shadow, supported by ground. A return to the road, endless finish lines, and concrete slabs, and buildings with empty rooms or maybe just sleeping souls. A return to the harmonies and rhythms and silences of the city at night, the danger fading like a memory from an empty day, a memory dark and gray.

Precinct Number 9

the perilous Precinct Number 9
which finds existence out of time.
where priceless deviants collect
and penniless officers defect.
the present being worth a dime
the past preemptive with neglect.

this precinct's crumbling stone facade
by all aesthetic sense is flawed.
the mortar cracks, and falls at will,
a cryptic meaning from a faded seal.
the message as handed down by god,
but time erased it's ancient zeal.

as anyone knows they must confess,
the inside's even more a mess.
stacks of documents old and new,
a vending machine that's busted through.
the bathroom stall's a roaches nest
and every doorknob's caked in goo.

streams of ghosts and empty men
that line the walls of every pen.
blue faced fathers float on high
and stone cold mothers ponder why
he fell face first in life again,
sank down deep and prepped to die.

the perilous Precinct Number 9
it steals itself outside of time.
an obelisk of redemptive shame
a worship place with an empty name.
in military step and cult-like rhyme
is ancient Precinct Number 9.