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.