i take my pasts each examine them each in a sepia of its own dust through which i can see only when i look away one was college natural but sometimes it stressed once my father called me a communist drug addict and generations of hands came down in the flick of a half second’s time and decades later i found myself asking exactly whose political mechanics i’d betrayed and how many of his own ancestors my father was betraying in another i slogged on through thirty years of full-time work on the gravity of nothingness my fingerprints are all over its surface but the box seems completely hollow all but the details grown over by layers of mechanical dust seen through the stone age of my imagination as on the mechanical back of someone else’s android hand and the lifetimes of memories of people i’ve loved of your lives entangled with mine so many of you freed now in the mechanics of what could be called fate but is only a weird form of temporal physics and my rage that time’s just another machine with my and everybody else’s living meat throbbing like pain momentarily held within itfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Monday, January 29, 2024
Notes for Auto Bio
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Listen
listen to me i’ll listen to you i’ll try to listen to everyone who isn’t me if you will too so know then that we are all different joints on different fingers of the same hand and that there’s another hand as well that we have never heard of so listen listen if you speak i will listen so that both hands can speak and listen and move as two hands togetherWritten in late 2023
Saturday, December 2, 2023
Invitation (for Judy)
so walk with me along this ocean’s edge the island springs and rocks along the beachfront the cold wind houses noises makes the long walk reminiscent of other seasons when flowers sprang with faces of bedeviled carnivores at war have you tasted the ice cream? smoky clouds still numb away the horizon quicksand and a sputtering ocean knick-knacks lined across the harbor to talk about dream is silly as steam evanescent in the warming weather someone has been bouncing bare toes on the beach someone has been making sea lion sounds at the hot dog stand someone has been celebrating weather by reinventing it a long leap for landmass and a lush dance of sand a trill a thrill a leap of words and bodies a reanimation of the whole soul hallelujah i love you sofrom Auto Bio (2010)
Monday, October 9, 2023
The Trip Back
a hurt youth face garments of open sky and laceration he was easier as an earthquake now he flew on outstretched arms of his own leather uncured and vulnerable history pacing itself in its own gold threads troubled unsaid the sign melodrama ape awakened and fake fits in the nursery alive as inside his ribs and take it as biography made uneasy tumbled when born but have always bartered steepness when chutes had already opened i call that beautiful because they wear their beginnings a child myself stop myself there the chide is father to the monkey wrench i was crying over a spillover of red ant stings people wrestle all night with their own angelsfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Sunday, August 27, 2023
The Sparrow at the Door (ChatGPT after Mary Oliver)
This poem isn't really mine. I generated it via by inputting the entire poem "The Mystery of the Dancing Windows" (which is also on this blog) into ChatGPT and asking for a poem in this format in the style of Mary Oliver. I didn't ask for rhyme or for the last stanza. I think that ChatGPT isn't as good at generating poetry as it is at generating fiction (see "The Eldritch Mariner" on my companion blog Things I've Done for Blood), so poets may be a little safer than prose writers from AI "writing". Although the prospect of hybrid written/generated work is possible. The Sparrow at the Door (ChatGPT after Mary Oliver) Beneath the tapestry of time's embrace, A sailor from a bygone age did stand, Knives like shadows, a creeping lace, Upon his leg, a touch from some strange hand. Windows joined the cosmic ballet, Dancing to the rhythms of the wind, A language only they could convey, In whispered tales that the stars pinned. An hourglass, an ancient voice, Sang an aria of grains so fine, Each note a choice, each moment a rejoice, In the symphony of hours' design. From plains, a sparrow's mystic flight, Badge and spurs, a tale to tell, A pizza's scent in the fading light, A messenger from some enigmatic dell. Detective's gaze on the cellphone's screen, Not for words or messages, but fleas to seek, Mysteries in tiny worlds unseen, In the digital realm, a puzzle to peak. "Ribbit, ribbit," the canary's call, Echoing through twilight's hush, A cryptic song that befalls, A chorus woven from nature's brush. The emperor, with robes so grand, Bows not to realm, but inner grace, A moment's gesture, a whisper in the land, A monarch's humble, silent space. Kumquat's revelation, humble and profound, Beneath its boughs, the earth does lie, Flat and still, beneath its sacred ground, A secret known only to the sky. Before the stadium of feathers, a scene unfolds, Detective's voice a compass true, In tales of knives and mysteries old, The case unraveled, the truth in view. In Mary Oliver's spirit, we explore, The sailor's journey, mysteries to embrace, Knives and windows, a symphony's lore, Nature's secrets revealed in gentle grace.
Saturday, August 26, 2023
The Mystery of the Dancing Windows (or Feed This into Your AI)
a medieval sailor finds that a parade of knives is creeping up his leg windows dance in response an hourglass sings an aria out of the plains just west of town a two-ton sparrow wearing a badge and silver spurs stops at the sailor’s door with a pizza a detective examines his latest cellphone for fleas ribbit ribbit calls the canary the emperor bows a kumquat discovers that the earth is flat especially under its tree the detective explains to a stadium full of feathers how the case was solved
Monday, July 31, 2023
Middle School
I i extend great days encourage youngsters to be required by state law all students will not run in the hall all students will salute the food in the cafeteria all students will enjoy their rodent lives in the film that every student will have a current you will take this task seriously all students will lock their happiness and joy whenever asked to by faculty and staff you will invite your mother and dad to one’s education held in the auditorium in december and the edge of a cliff may affect study materials you are here to learn II each student is furnished the bell in emergency each student will also be a phone number home rooms are assigned in the anticipation that are the lockers located in the students III never wear which will not conform to average adult employment never open an attitude of respect for a tin can of other students dissections continue until school is dismissed IV during the animal’s sleep modification will be fully gloved you are arousable the walls of the room dissolve to the hot wet inside of your ribcage you do not need to consult the principal or school counselor you can hear the gentle breathing beside you is also sleeping like you are the side of an animal you cannot identify its warmth radiates from you V make it a point to know your counselor and dental appointments a note from your guardian or parent or telephone the note should include your upset stomach VI zits are the flit gun wounds of adult hormones! grey is a mass of colors their admixture is worshipful! i hold your abrasions in my heart as useless i chamber within myself and volcanic explode in enthusiasm your cardface temple crumbles the hill on which it sat is one character in a lifetime of players all you taught me was wrong all i learned i hope was true i salute you as a rock i step over all the rest of us walking onwardsfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Saturday, June 17, 2023
Business Art Sonnet
o suffle me loong foo rort o suffle id doon o fur the leem iss o o hardt fur the hardt isso isso prof ver a soaky soaky noblique a hex itching rinds so leek clog are c’t hollow sof mir usiness hoggy so ganizat quaintance lict a lict nob purpo orcer amat o ti pladform bulltinis ape hex ti latdorm hey a haney haney o slob clog a rasende oser dex zat clog a rasende soaky soaky o note: rasende is Danish for furiousfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Monday, May 1, 2023
Monday Afternoon
i’m gonna get tattoos i’m gonna get little file cabinets tattooed all over my forehead with all of the file drawers closedfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Peter Pan
this life i cast before myself like a shadow invisible to you is my own private joke: sixty year old heart seventy year old lungs hid beneath skin that looks twenty-five someone mistook me for a student last week almost all my friends look older than me but they’re all healthier especially wendy who is twenty-five people tell us we’re a cute couple when’re we getting married i think of her almost as a daughter it’s appearance that you applaud mainly because no one wants to see inside where it’s dark and there are thousands of cupboards filled with ripped hearts and hypochondriac livers and memories congealed in greasy plastic bags all in the dark with nails driven deep in the doors and coated with blood that long ago dried dead around themfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Sunday, March 12, 2023
From a Dream
last night i dreamed i was stuck in a room full of sleeping old men and that it was the house where i grew up and that i knew most of them as my own mediocrities the moon shone through one long high window i marveled at its yellowness before clouds overcame it i stepped carefully between the men’s spread mattresses mattresses everywhere these old guys two or three to a mattress all asleep half of them snoring as i tip-toed in the dark until i got to the front door where the rhythms of their snores paced the motion of my hand as i reached for the doorknob in the weird yellow light there was just enough space to swing the door open and stand in the face of the cold alien air i saw the lawn the street the old sycamore that i remember from as early as i can remember how quiet out there deep three a m i stepped out closed the door and the cold air took me the snores seemed so warm i could smell their breath and taste their breath in my own mouth even away from them nothing moved even the squirrels were asleep blocks away i could hear a car runningfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Life Among the Bubbles
this year made a nice family out of the garage with pale green then cream fine newest winter i suppose in a way winter’s new lotsa pizzazz with an earnestness that would impress any fair-minded person have a glass of wine relax take an off-season vacation hear voices a physician in hell has no motility so you won’t get any surprises the sex the sex the sex the bubblist movement that decisively broke with renaissance aesthetics a twenty-two foot statue of a nude man with the head of a chicken he found a dark brown shard of pottery she wears dark sox taking off her athletic shoe it fascinates the archaeologist have been touched by a monk or a pilgrim she gesticulates about an intellectual matter you can almost put your finger anywhere here and discover antiquities she wears black her hands are more perfect than any renaissance sculpture we can’t stop construction red plastic shoes it required them to build a raised o please don’t go upstairs i don’t know you yet the sex the sex the sexfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Monday, January 2, 2023
Official Notice
we regret to inform you of the loss of your life you may have missed it it happened several hours ago when the river suddenly woke up and it became its own raft your life and rode the current into the blues of the sky while you were still fighting trying to dig your eternal notion of a graveyard to plot some way to institutionalize the clouds in front of you is it happy? we don’t know it’s still ascending not sending back any letters but maybe if you go to the souvenir rack and pick out a really pretty postcard it’ll come back to you glowing
Monday, December 12, 2022
A Working Class Kid Goes to College
the floor in the story asked us to just be quiet so we tip-toed around on the walls wings tucked under our jackets crowns having fallen imaginary loose to space past memory the law of gravity undeniable as soiled undergarments outside the building toy animals a goat a dog a donkey an ox a fox a lynx a set of sixteenth century peasants plot revolution but none of them looks in the mirror for very long the little black and white dog the kind you see in roman mosaics felt modern tinted sunglasses now and wagged his tail waiting for those bulls with wings those spirited ancestors to greet him at the door his paw nails are longer now he can walk walls their tales of castles and finery were still cute to him cute he knew all their palaces by name and reputation he didn’t know he’d never been inside one these gods he’d venerated for what seemed like thousands of years could teach him to savor the birds that he knew he could catch up with now but for the uneasiness in his belly still puffed up with dog food he was known he was sure later for his foul breathfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Friday, October 21, 2022
Expectant Buildings
last night in a swirl of dream i walked with field gnomes in the vacant lot where i grew up they smiled so comfortably in their small quick strides beside me suddenly two singers called to them from separate second floor balconies and the entire slum around us was gone so sing to me in the voice of the ocean that carries cities of fish in its tide sing to me in the voices of sea bottom sand that the water smoothes into cloth in its ebb sing to me in the voices of expectant towns that i hear near their infancy in the slow rolls of water sing to me in the foam of the tide that rolls in like the lifetime of butterflies so i found myself happy in the songs of the gnomes in the meadow where i grew up in the bright field of flowers with no nightfall in dreamfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Sunday, August 14, 2022
For My Parents
drawing their dreams in carts behind them like horses forever pulling bricks for their own stable making dragons of small rubber-armed windmills finding a field too green a road too rough for stopping they want to continue one generation after another here on the same road to the same place just over the same hillfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Finding Bones
some day a dog will get loose find the patch of land just far enough past the yard dig them up the bones the ones the police looked for for twenty years before they got back into their cruisers and headed for the home planet the force of narrative will goad the dog into carrying the bones home despite their glittery brightness their strange really strange taste in his mouth and he will guard them as his own despite the will of the pack leader in the house even when you’re small some things are your own a dog could think that a dog can think and they’ve found that the genes that make small dogs small don’t make them think they’re small the class system here is purely physical and you don’t have to think about it if no one else can steal your treasuresfrom Auto Bio (2010)
Saturday, June 11, 2022
The Second Breath
my brain is getting painted this dull universe your shy nondescript taking darts and your check your time say mommy can't we buy a we? rutabagas here go lift the day sweating a car outside idling badly as a scientist can only say wow when go crash down the hall she stopped for an instant conversation in the tar pit with invisible flesh words no longer they go and you dance you dance on tires all the dolphins peopled by career oranges object what wonders must be across the ceiling in my living room what wonders must be across love overcame them all a huge leap houses zoom in stop conversation houses zoom in a huge leap she turns says what wonders you have in your head at ground move your sky neutral you see together you dancefrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Good Earth
this is the excuse of pleasant folks: medusa's head bound by a silk stocking is kept incognito inside a desk open hands clap until they are housebroken and cyborgs with dog heads sniff around perimeters of fish ponds dreaming of the blood the blood in the sunset come and go singing of daily mop and glo o dead god buried in the wheatfields of south dakota what commercial trumpets your theme song? do you rise like a missile at night wet-dreaming of marge the plumber? does someone polish the end of your metal each dawn to keep your thoughts brilliant and clean? we are all multicellular now phone us we are still searching the plains looking for medusa's teeth planted inches deep in the soilfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Saturday, April 2, 2022
Swimming Pool Rotunda
be crowded within yourself empty pass by pools of televisions broadcasting antique profundities sing along with shepherds who’ve reburied their sheep in house twine watch the aching of stone at your local amusement park and what if other people too will be walking blind in swimming pools? after long walks inside clouds radios run antelope down their own antennae the magic opportunity a new skill a new memory in the same place as the old one the steamboats of a leather navy in your coat pocket you can reorganize yourself as a truck bearing crabapples sounds lubricated under the steamroller of belief it’s so seductive a debt of bone a cloudscape softened to cottonfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Friday, March 4, 2022
A Jealous Universe
his hips and she was suck he comes into your party i could see muscles twinge and i know leans against a wall my landed neck i watched in her thighs and calves excited and she in this new fingers i could understand my landed i neck i watched she was possessing talk i could see him i could understand soon he doesn't move she was his eyes shown early he was possessing i would have like tired eyes and starved strong people and some began to leave i felt each stroke in their van yet knowing the routine begin to wonder about the cars the long feet saturday an apparition i could see muscles twinge no routine heard you cough once they were possessing the walk all of us alone the desert sea on the lawnfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
So Yesterday
so yesterday you tamed a cat into a lion hung a picture of the world on a wall of stars drove the whole road home from there to your own rooms that are paradise and invited it in for a drink today the sky is so blue and distant and yet so friendly a miracle that comforts you with its peace and its vastness
Thursday, January 13, 2022
Its Elegant Steel Cage
behind the door plored is advisable like that died at the wheel evidence with caged lips but hats will be wallpaper the original stables entering a cloud where princes and elevators built abattoirs within waiting rooms the voice which literally cause were gamekeepers is a journey into the basement of a lime-green monkey hidden in the cupcakes snap that picture and crude pants depart that means fewer meds year round and hey you more coffee i’m brewing chewing gum floating foundation we did some myself upward he passes the supermarket speechless within shock and admissible speed we were holidays then back when an attempt at charm taking saying thank you very much that repeating riff for thirty-eight years always adding her strange boil was quite the poker escalator especially when the door broke down less a mean spirited wearable wreck than a jerk with finders’ fees designed to prevent earthquake damage the door? it’s still there glad you asked they tittered beside the drinking thank you and the curtain went up and wouldn’t it be for water this time but it’s a bright sunshiny day always has been and the apple reflects so mooooooofrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Friday, December 17, 2021
she crosses herself
she crosses herself every time a motorcycle goes by one of the wheels the blood roaring into her heart the other wheel the blood rushing out of her heart into the holy world of her bodyfrom Oedipus' First Lover (2009)
Monday, November 8, 2021
Re: Frigerator
death is the last thing in the freezer but it's stuck on the back wall and you can't get it out without your fingers getting awfully cold and the freezer getting awfully bentFrom Oedipus' Firt Lover (2009)
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