Safety is the Cootie Wootie

Why Richard Brautigan Shot Himself in the Head

“Over and over again—”

I interrupt myself and raise a finger to the sky as he looks up and time appears to dilate, the arm he is using to slowly cycle groceries from one belt to the other and from then on into the mouths and asses of the dopey persons now slowly rising to distraction from the minutia lagging as it moves the air from the air upwardly like gas rising from a swamp, I say, “And this is Henry Miller, one of the greatest writers of all time,”  I say this with stress in my chords and I resume, taking my last breath,

“—I have said that there is no way out of this present impassé.  If we were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horros which surround us…we would drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws, and so on.  Could the man or woman who—”

The woman facing him cuts me off with a loudness in her voice:

“Excuse me,” she says and her tone’s firmness and finality and solipsism makes mine evaporate into the swamp gas.  He and I exchange a glance while she stares into his forehead with indignance.  She says,

“I have a coupon.”

And this is why I think Richard Brautigan shot himself in the head.

Three New Poyms

I.

I woke myself up;
THIS IS DAY ONE
since I’ve learned
(sines I’ve earned)
and as well how
to dissect different
and particular and
peculiar
aspects of an oss-
cillation and how
to meditate on the
drawn out moments
within, each shining
mathematical hues
like just a spark
in an eye water-
ing with Fynndlit.

II.

After I finish my book
I’ll take the time
to get to know a
dissecting table and
the sewing machine.
I wilkl think of you
taping dead moths to
the garage floor and
subtly eroding,
rubbing yer jacket
until the shelves
stacked with busted
synthesizers and Star Wars
Monopoly rot and degrade
like shoots of bamboo and
the paint on yer
face
and my
face
EVENTUALLY,
ALL FADES AND
IS REPLACED

III.

THE WORLD’S TALLEST
TOTEM POLE USED
TO STAND IN VICTORIA,
B.C. THEN AERO-
PLANES BEGAN THEIR
COMPLAINTS AND
THEY CUT IT IN
HALF. NOW THE WORLD’S
TALLEST TOTEM POLE
IS IN AUSTRALIA.

“Grok”

I.

What is the soul?
The soul is to hijack
a train so as to
shake the police.
And things unfathomable,
in both possible senses;
the Yin and the Yang
and the tango of
objects as instruments
of torture and rapture,
and those unfathomable things
in-between.
It is to turn around and see you,
right there,
right in front of you.
It is to write of
the cicadas in the dew
and somewhere having
the same written about you.
We are, Lord, nothing
but God, nothing
but God in the way
of itself.
Amen.

II.

In the long ago
I have had my times
(time and time
again)
like the dulling nub of a pencil,
colour green.
What matters to me
is the Now
and not what happened at
the peak of a mountain
over Idyllwild
more than a year ago.
I always add someone else’s
words to my poems.
Call it my contribution
to society.
I call it
“There Ain’t No End
to the Desert I’ll
Cross.”

III.

Certain things have been
told to me
in regard to
“so as to”
and
“for to”
and
“listen to sounds
more subtle”
or
“the light that
shines on our
fortress”
and the place
where he lay his head
on her neck
And I went to
Bel Air
and then I forget.

IV.

(with L. Renz Hubbard)

There’s a certain code
in the way the sun
radiates
Melt on this chair,
heartbroke and
inchoate
Echos of higher dimensions
form around us when
it’s
getting late
The highway is like a
time line
You follow the roads
for to wait
In the end,
in the long ago,
seamless ends
of the interstate
Drive in the way of the sun
o’clock: half past eight
On both sides of us
the light of this runs
and only the soul will
celebrate
Drink, but never thirst
so only the soul itself inflates
Objects so as to resound
and instruments that determine fate

V.

(with L. Renz Hubbard)

Feeling high on
High Avenue
Driving by,
doing
“what [we] gotta do.”
Come back here soon
we really miss
yer mistakes
You must live in “Spoon”
and you cook out the
stars
and you light up the sky
and you drink the remains
Dodging traffic
points collected
for the Alien race
so as to be respected
And you come face to face
with that darkness and
desolation
we ARE for to be retraced
And to remember God
and that soul inflation
“There Ain’t No End
to the Desert
I’ll Cross”
is ecstasy of the
rebuilt mountain.
Climb to the top or
build it yourself,
there’s no end to the grok
or the valleys in
the cracks in-between
Do not look down.
Become upward not
Northward and
curiously grip onto
perhaps unstable cracks.
Give me music for musician
with infinite arms.
Then listen for falling stones
against other stones.
Hear the echo when they melt
into one.
and then breathe in
the thin air.
Your nose will bleed and
then you might have to do it again.

VI.

What am I trying
to say?
I’m trying to say that
I’ll never be happier then
I am right now in
this moment of secretion
or excretion or
physical manifestation
of catharsis, in
this perfect moment
that stretches
parallel to
the Long Ago.

VII.

I’ve valued succinctness
over the ecstasy
of Flower Consciousness
bloom.
“And when it hurts,
then baby I become you.”
Thus spoken in whispers,
black murmurs of truth,
bitter truths about women
and glimpses of the Moon
I’ve dialed
and tuned
into things
that are untrue
and then I became a man
that will never be confused

VIII.

And now I see
glimpses
of vermouth
and Vermeer

IX.

Keep it real,
motherfucker.
The moon vibrates,
and I love her.
We are nothing
but one another
and the Sun
and the Mother
of all things seen
and discovered
when we look between
and look under
the stars
and in cupboards
filled with salt
and with hummous
and with things
that gaze upward
and within
the veil’s cover.
When the veil drops
around me,
melts away like fresh
butter
I pluck at those stars
like the heartstrings
of lovers.

X.

(by L. Renz Hubbard)

Bones and the bones and the
dust and the dust that suffocates the
memory of what we must and
still always “gotta do.”  Yet
us and us may asphyxiate
our selves or self, the “how”
asks how “us” mediates.
So as soon as we ask, we
answer the “how” and the “must”
through the dust and the dust
so as to become the bones and
the bones, which is still always
what “we” gotta do.

Sincerely,
L.R.H. Balapagos

XI.

A defining of “grok”…
for that, there is no need:
for if you have experienced,
then by God,
you have seen
the soul in its Fullness
and its mysteries
and its poisons and prisons
and its ecstasies

XII.

(by L. Renz Hubbard)

“Grok” is the “souls,”
that which happens,
as these are its
continuously looping roles.

best regards,
L.R.H. Ballpeen

XIII.

“Stolen and Contaminated
but Returned to Entropic
Form of Unity”

You may not be able to tell,
just by looking at me, but
I don’t care who you are,
motherfucker, or
what you think I did.
And, yes,
“and I [did] lover her”
but
you are me
and she is me
and we did this to each other.
Amen.

XIV.

“Hello,
I’ve always known
that I’d be talking
to you,”
she said to me
as she decoded
me with her eyes.
She’d met me before
when I was playing
the game of being
her nephew
her son
her, singularly, for all I know.
I said,
“I just got out of prison
and I need a job.”
and she stared at me
thru the holes in her heart.
And in the Perfection of Instance
I was reminded of rules and
that images govern
the past
of the Ang Ngayon game.

XV.

we must admit
that there are
ghosts on these grounds
and two chairs beside a
window:
in which will you
sit down?

XVI:

Consider it done.
That’s what I think of my life,
of value,
succinctness,
and inviolate light.
When purple turns to blue
and the violet dries
on the faces of bruised
and succinct archetypes
and two chairs in a room:
pick the one on the right.
And we live in the future
and in violent times.

XVII.

AND ONLY THE SOUL
BY ITSELF CAN ASSUAGE
THE TIP OF THE TONGUE
AND THE END OF THE PAGE

XVIII.

5:00 AM Long Dark Blues
over my shoulder and
all alveoli before the sun
rises and the mist
and 140 dollars.
Keep yer eyes open,
cross the road, Molina,
and the godawful lawlessness
and I write a poym to
pass the time and a half
these words ain’t even mine
and the sun it will rise
and know someday I’ll die
and scratch that,
countless times,
and the histamine.
Grok that.
And the blood from the nose
and usually just a t-shirt.

XIX.

I awaken this morning and
fall asleep yesterday, and
this time it’s REAL.

XX.

09/17: Falling asleep for the last time.  Keep
           yer eyes on the road, Molina.
           Keep ‘em open.

XXI:

I see you there but
I don’t say anything,
so as to keep promises
regarding the flesh of
the organs of animals and
anamnesis and the plea
of temporary insanity, still
pending as “I see you, right
there, right in front of
you,” quoth Metsoulth, and
you look downward and
I never look up.
Crisis averted.
Amen.

XXII:

My charm
only extends as far as
the minds of high-school
girls and middle-aged
women.  There it ends.
There is is caramelized and
there I live, coated in
sugar and the warmth
of synaptic activity
Keep it real, Metsoulth,
this is only day three.
You should really draw
something later or play
yer guitar or die daily
or let the petals in yer
cerebrum move from each
other for to reach golden
ratio.

XXIII:

09/19 blues.

XXIV:

I speak to you
only for you
to look at me
I speak to you
only for to
FEEL YOU
looking
RIGHT THRU.
Los espejos de azul
returning me to the womb
and you push me up
against a wall and
feed me thru a tube
And then you turn away
And then everything
falls back into place.
And then I chase dragons
and similar shades
of blue.

XXV.

All I hear are my thoughts
and I can see only color
and I have an obsession
for to be seen, these days,
its seems or rather
to be
SEEN THRU
if you know what I mean
and it’s these
beguiling looks,
NEVER GLANCES,
never anything but
constant grok
when our eyes lock
and I look away
and I’m at a loss
for words.

XXVI.

It always feels better
when it’s unofficial
but when
making it REAL
is such a goddamn
“grok block”
it doesn’t feel at all.

XXVII.

It’s hard to describe confusion,
to state what is heir apparent to the
obvious.  And there is always the question,
“What will I think of this tomorrow?”
What about the short answer, which
is 48 hours?  At least I’m writing
something, providing food and shelter
for retrospect.  Just do it, Metsoulth.
“I’m the doer!” you say.  I am
doing it.  Don’t you feel the love
of contact; with the club
to the ball, with the pen to the page,
with yer hand to her hair?  It’s
never as soft as it looks.

XXVIII.

And then the grok cycles
again,
“grok block” illusion
dispelled.
And Ang Ngayon is, it is so,
it is said, is
reborn from the ashes
and       odds and       ends.
       the                the
Amen.

XXIX.

I was running ahead of them.
And I’ve realized that
some battles are unspoken
and sometimes all that is
needed are flashes of light
and the sound of the town.
Soon we will be together once
again:
You and I and the two colors
in my head and off in the
distance the sound of organ and
drum machines.
Flashes of light and you
look up at the stars
                         and
everything in its right place.

XXX.

Goddamn it, Sisyphus,
you’re being such a grok
block today.  Can’t you
see that I am busy
trying to die daily?
Can’t you see that there is
no place I have not visited
before, in the In-Between, and
“I have been to these places and
I shall go there once again”
and there are two people here
and everyone?
I can not tell you again.
You must dissolve
for to pass into Everything
and homogenize it
a little more.
Then we will be buried side
by side in the dirt of Us and
we shall be reborn as
“the sound of the
cicadas in the dew”

XXXI.

“I can not draw anything more from
this unless things are written much
more quickly,” is the lie you were told,
Ang Ngayon.

XXXII.

And you light up the sky
and you keep it alight.
The cold fire that dissipates
from the sun
and pits the face of
the moon that changes
Everything thru the shadows
of its phases.
And puts things into sync;
in certain times and certain places.
AND EVERYTHING’S
BEEN IN ITS RIGHT
PLACE NOW FOR AGES.

XXXIII.

The snorted heroin glow
if impermanence in the
things I create.  La
formule pour le grok
est fausse.  Vous devez
improviser, Metsoulth.
Toutes choses dans
leur propre place.
La grammaire française
et l’éxtase de tout comprendre
en mots anglais.
Me frotter les yeux
and open sores under
my eyelids and
certain words that
defy language or the
prison of ink that trickles
into the plains, spotted with
animals and trees sprouting
in clusters on the inside of
the back of your skull.
All books are written in tandem
and in my sleep I hear the
sound of pens scratching and
the shriek of fingernails tapping
on typewriter keys and
“the sound of the town”
and the way certain things
are arranged.

XXXIV.

Nothing, though thru
a substitute,
“La Fe en
el Olvido,”
or usually just the ceasement
of certain sounds
with “the books written
in tandem”
or falling asleep
in the hay in the
barn with the perfect
manifestation of the real
goddamn thing;
who am I beneath the
flannel of Metsoulth?
Bring out the fleeing animal from
inside, Metsoulth.
FORGET BOTH LANGUAGES YOU KNOW,
METSOULTH and
then you will be able to die daily.
Weakness is just a state of mind,
Metsoulth: this is just a reminder
                  to die daily.

XXXV.

What will be thought of this
in the short answer?
The fractions will then be simplified
and only two choices
will remain for you
to decide: WHO ARE YOU?
                            and
                 WHO AND WHY?
And who will choose who lives and dies?
The answer’s in the number two
repeated to you countless times
and
communication thru the eyes.
Do what thou wilt
if it is right.

XXXVI.

Your affliction:
NARROWNESS OF GROK
and throw away the
language and yer name.
You are no longer
Ang Ngayon.  You are no
longer grok.  Thou art
no longer God.
You are now the look in
the eyes and
the innumerable rooms
in yer own own domicile.
I am right about everything.

XXXVII.

I will write the words
for never to be read
and at the start, the
page is full and I
will slowly erase the
language and the odds
and the ends until
there is only ONE WORD
or there are TWO WORDS
and then I will start again.

XXXVIII.

The repetition of sounds
comes as naturally as
the split on the tip
of a pen.

XXXIX.

LISTEN:
 You must get out of
 this place.  You will
 catch a sickness and
 it will kill you
 Do not be fooled by
 brighter shades and
 KEEP ALL COLOR
 GREEN AND
 EVERYTHING AT
 THE TIP OF
 YOUR FINGERS
 I understand: you are
 feeling “under the weather”
 and  such a thing can
 be a toxin to concentration
 and prayer or to
 certain other things that
 govern the ability to die
 daily.

XL.

A virus of Blue Light
over and under certain
layers of the mycelium,
FUNGI COMMINGLING
in “the dirt of us” among
the tunnels dug by worms
or the sons of God
or the membranes and
mucous textures that
whorl in spirals
in the atmosphere.
And you have bad days.
And you have fainting spells.
You find the light from inside
that surpasses bioluminescense
And then you die
and start it all over again.

XLI.

I try to remain buoyant and airy
so as to float in sentient
“Erleichda!” memories from which
I am separate, from which
I solidify and shed certain skins
of Blue Light and “under
the weather” travels thru
time to the conception of
A Metsoulth Prototype, scaled
down for to quicker dissolve back
into White Light when testing
is complete.
My craft is the mnemonic repetition
of “What We Have Known” revised
to ebonic languages of the 23rd
century and shamanistic practice
of Gnostic concepts such as
“Keep it Real” and
“We Gotta Watch Our Own Backs”;
essentially I re-arrange “What We
Have Known” into garbled gibberish,
into Cosmic Gobbledegook.
I scramble and smear until
pages reach inertia (or entropy,
from my perspective) and
the grok is taken away from me
by You.

XLII.

Days spent in the tunnelling
aisles for to find the right ink.
And then you punch me straight
in the nose as I begin to stand up and
I shift my grip on the neck of the
bottle and decide against
swinging at your head and
dancing around as little cubes of
glass (MICROCOSMIC HYPER-
          CUBES OF SOME FORMER
          AND FUTURE REALITIES)
tickle my bare feet or
the ashes from which I
am born daily.
I decide against swinging
at your head because then
I will wake up, will stand up
after days of wandering the
aisles, with a headache.
I don’t want to go to work
with a headache.

XLIII.

I keep the “mack” alive,
for it provides
solace and repose to
the organs implied in
“The Greater Distance” which,
I would reckon, reached 1.5
times farther thru
El Olvido than
“The Greatest Distance”
and tonite I shall drink
molten fire of the sun so
as to reach a stasis
inside the optimum levels
of Vitamin D (allowing it
to commingle with the iron
in my Type O)
and I will write a song
about that distance of
distances, “always on the
edges” or something or other
about deserts, says Borges.

XLIV.

“Infinite but Not Upward
Applied to the Prism of
the Longest Distance”

XLV.

And I’ve reached another tier
with still fewer things to say.
I still wait to be shown
things from In-Between, to be
drawn by the nape,
Infinite but not Upward,
away from the whorl of worlds
and things to be touched or seen
or just to take the Fried Eagle
Mind trout fishing
in lake or stream
or two blue lights or
underneath
the sphere of sky above
you and me.

XLVI.

I now have the correct set
of tools
for to
(into)
and with a few ideas of
Sometimes and
Tongue-Tied and
Wrong-Right
and maybe a Reply to Desire.

XLVII.

How am I supposed to fill
this page again?
Listen: I am always willing
to clean yer room or be
reborn from the dust on the
carpet beneath all my clothes
and how ever more difficult
can this get?
I have bigger fish to fry,
like DYING FIRST
and TRUE DESIRE
and ENDLESS THIRST and
who am I to
say these words and
time’s a line and not a curve.
All actions are indelible but
travel thru time or
maybe lying could
erase the magnetic imminence
or everything toward entropy.

XLVIII.

Today, I found something
that I wrote
that I really liked.
It was called,
“Two Girls Kissing”
and it is about
everything
I’ve been trying to
communicate w/ this book.
I don’t remember writing
a single word.
I must travel the other
way thru time
so as to set the motion of
the keys in muscle memory
like a broken bone like
Hunter S. transcribing
Fitzgerald in a room filled w/
monkeys, in a room filled w/
perpetuity or perhaps I
only have to fast one day a
week and see Scout play
next Tuesday.

XLIX.

I live for to feel things
and all motions
arrange themselves into the
certain weight, into a kind
of living entropy; for to experience
EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE
withing dragons I chase or moments
I wish to live eternally like
the junkie’s IV or a pair of
HOT WHITE LIGHT-colored sunglasses
that shield my histamine-doped digestive
eyes from “the bug-filled darkness”
and all words can be revised, if you
can provide the right tools (time machine,
third eye) or else everything is
just Wrong-Right or Desire.

L.

Now:

How far do I go with my
Reply to Desire?
Asceticism does not become
you, Metsoulth, and it
does not become me, either.
Be sure to talk to Ian
again before you leave lest
you are unable to find that Room
again and be sure to bring
along a kitchen knife as
you roam the halls and
search.

Aumngnmen.

LI.

(with L. Renz Hubbard)

“And now that  the cycle repeats,
though this time infected with
living information,
what am I supposed to write about?”

“ONLY WRITE ABOUT WHAT
YOU KNOW, METSOULTH.”

“Okay, I’ll put my pen away, then.”

“But do you see, METSOULTH?
That you ‘know’ exactly what
you are supposed to.  That what
you know is what you create?”

“The greatest leap is from 0 to 1,
not from the head to the heart.
There is nothing and there is
FULLNESS.  Knowledge is nothing
and wisdom is fullness.  Aumngnmen.”

LII.

I have passed thru the
room once again.
I must return, but
the hallways taken
in the past are
NOW NOT ENOUGH,
they
“[do] not suffice”
for I have left
the room again
(passed thru
left thru
become thru)
because of certain
mysteries and
must now hack thru
the tendrils of
Hot White Light and
A Daily Fight
that dangle from the ceiling
and brush the periphery of my
short hair like a woman
testing the waters
for to open doors
and lock and
unlock
until I find the room again.

LIII.

This is a routine realization:
there is no room.
It vanishes and disappears
the moment it is created.
And I have created it
and you have created it
and I ignore your tendency
to disagree.
I am home but there are
still things unseen.
And I shall soon return
with teeth sharpened
             by dreams

LIV.

(by James Lake)

E, F, No… Nevermind.  Bulge of
flow, heave.  Spin, twist.  Squigg
Squigg.  Black. EEEEYYAAAAH. Squigg
Black.  flush, flush, Black.  Life.  Click.
Breathe.  Exhale.

LV.

AND THIS IS HOW
I DAI-LY DAILY,
DAILY DIE

LVI.

Strip down layers vibrant
Strip me ‘till I’m naked
Yeah you can coerce, baby, you can tempt
but Lucifer’s my best friend

LVII.

Things progress.
Everything aches.
(I will light up yer eyes
in you promise to
love my mistakes.)
Echoes form at the
base of my  head,
sounds like
“out of the tamed
and sterile West”
and they swirl
and they spiral
and they commingle and
“you dabbed the hem
of yer dress in yer own
blood and excrement”
It’s been a while since I’ve
written, since I’ve seen the
page
I can see, but not learn
because you’re underage.

LVIII.

(Incomplete)

They say wine gets better with age.
I disagree, for drunkness is delusion
born of hermetic fermentation,
begotten of things unbegotten,
of unborn children,
things forgotten;
conjures sadness, lust and rage.
Thru breathing exercises I
uncork myself and become vinegar
and am regarded with distaste.
Our minds bloom when grapes are
rotten,
sink into cribs, labelled and bottled
and some may say that I taste
awful
but I at least surprise
the sommelier.
And like everyone, I’ll be
forgotten
in a cellar, tucked away,
but goddamn I BREATHE
and hear the song
of the wind guiding my decay
AND while the fingerprints of god
resound and sing and make
vibrate
and moan and yearn and long
on the rim of my glass of chardonnay

wounds (vinegar)
moon
rays
complain

TBC

LIX.

(Incomplete)

When you look at me, there’s
swelling in my bones
like my-y-driasis
of the marrow
The will to power,
the will to control
is just the mind
…making itself known
and my eyelids are
painted black as coal
on the inside
on the outside
and my eyelids are
painted bright as gold
so as to see
and feel and hear and know

LX.

certain things
(illuminated)
and frustrations
(satiated)
i can now
sleep in the cold
(refrigerated)
and write in
the dark
(on glowing pages)

LXI.

Fragmented
chronicling
because I yearn
to REMEMBER
rather
than
   EXPERIENCE
and to be  TWO
instead of ONE
and DESIRE in-
stead of NEED
and HOMME
instead of OM

Two Girls Kissing

Presently, my red blood cells are petrified in the centrifuge of the universe. Frozen in Energic-Memory-Eternal ecstasy and pulled in thru lateral earth pressure, the plasma milked from every star in the cosmos nourishes the blood. The sound of cat-gut heart-strings glass cylinders and drones emanating from the empty page clashes with the size of my eyelids as everything is spun into cotton candy order, analyzed by machines fed thru a bass guitar. I grant entry to the entheogen. Minuscule particles of What Can Be and You’ve Finally Done Something Properly as I lie to the government about an encounter with a prostitute and cheat on my taxes. I change the hue of the line. I put on another song by Diane Cluck. I begin to write. Everything falls exactly into place, eventually, when guided by field recordings of radiation on the moon. Aggot B. Otto is dew on your shoes in the middle of the night. When transferred from analog tape to the physical routine of communicating celestial bodies, it is necessary that they be fed into a paper cup connected eternally to the imminent receiver thru unwavering rod of linear time manipulated by crystal fingers soaked in honey, gentle stroking to the pulse of interacting quarks.

“Hello, quark how are you? I’m fine thanks I’ve just been falling exactly into place.”

Unfaltering beam of finite perpetuity glowing softly in an airless cube. Picture this painted on the surfaced or, rather, floating above every surfaced with which you interacted yesterday. Read the line that hovers in constant over a pool of chicken blood. I’ve slaughtered one today and I’ve slaughtered one tomorrow. Prescience, as it was understood by your unborn children, is only achievable through a certain amount of bloodshed and senseless acts of beauty. Draw graphic notation for every decision you will ever made and do it forty years in advance. Retrace your steps and start yesterday, if at all possible, if the tones are set and your iron levels are strong. Constantly stretch your neck for to maximize blood flow into the heart and for to shock the entire system into subliminal guidance from the sound of rain in Nanaimo. I’ve walked through halls with ceilings mossy and overgrown with the skeletons of birds and with carpets made from the hide of dead moths and those who died in the maze of jigsaw puzzles and busted electronic equipment from the set of Finally You’ve Done Something Properly. There is always a door open at the other end of the empty hall. The door is a golden rectangle. Walk on the walls if you wish, and melt into every nuance of the complete silence as the direction of time is but a phosphene imprint scraped into your eyelids or, rather, scraped into the dead air roughly a centimetre from the surface. Feed the powdered plasma into your Revised Omegum Flegum Device and mix in two quarts of a path that has a heart. Realize that direction is ALL-ENCOMPASSING and simultaneously everpresent in latitudes and longitudes unfathomable to puny Hu-Mons. Aggot B. Otto is a whisper in your ear. Aggot B. Otto is didn’t it rain.

Loose cheesecloth made of carbon and vibrating membrane of collagen and infected follicles is easy to pass thru when tuned by perfect pitch of rustling leaves in the illuminated canyon. I bring my guitar and lower my pitch until it is inaudible to all but telepathically receiving local flora and play the notes for to induce growth exponential and loosen the fibers of the stems to allow easier digestion. Stick leaves in your ears and get a close friend to blow on them. Death rattle of serpent fat on mouse blood and poison sumac and the hole that violently shakes or a noisemaker in a sea of potential silence. Coil the sound on my ring fingers and have She and She marry me, star players in the cinema of my closed eyes. The ceremony will take place in a car in Cambridge and rows of pews will materialize as organ notes begin to spill from inside the trunk; to the tune of What Can Be. Surrogates for my seed they will immediately disappear at the sound of the flickering pipes and wire two hundred dollars into my bank account almost instantaneously. They will periodically manifest themselves as trickling water in the back of the room. They will play catch with the son and the son will have a daughter and the daughter will give birth to me in the beginnings of certain past centuries over and over spiralling into a certain red dot in the centre of time. Long flowing red and blue and black hair are decisions along the circumference.

Blood only begins to make a difference when it hits something white. I have learned this today and will learn it again when it becomes necessary for thoughts such as this one to be born. I can not fall asleep for fear of staining something beautiful and can not leave for fear of barking at the Moon. He sleeps and I anticipate cascades of indelible thought and possibly some laundry as well. I need to cut my hair tonight, further, and to bury the locks and remember why I am hiding them from you. Come to the ceremony and we’ll kiss and the thoughts will flood and scintillate and refract a strong and strange mood. I must, therefore, shave my head in order to locate the keyhole on the back of my skull, hovering inches from the stars and shut the fuck up Alex and look upward. Your nose will then stop bleeding. Strands of black and green hair trickle down my throat. A noseful of Cream of Wheat, breakfast of champions, as I stare at myself in the mirror, ubiquity slowly oozing out of every hole in my face. I think there are specialized doctors for this sort of thing and the government of Canada will pay for the surgery or at least reimburse me with a bag of breadcrumbs and a spoon.

I experience vivid memories of Trak Mesa. I remember them crouched on the curb with cigarettes in their mouths and their fingertips miles up North hammering the keys of endless forgotten pianos as my mind picks up the encore and uses it to set the sun. When the black virus had finally overtaken the circle, I found myself standing in a crowded room where a white handkerchief was being slowly thrown in my direction.

SOLAMENTE LOS ESPEJOS

600 years in San Diefggh
selling vinyl siding
to cranky, spoiled housewives
in the suburbs
in the tundra,
always yelling, “El olvido!
El olvido!”
with blank
Hamburger Helper eyes
staring into the Abyss.
I throw my surfboard
into the river Styx.
Waves lick my ankles, a
Galápagos island
for each foot.
A part of my Brain
given as a gift to the
Mother I married, taken
out thru the nose.  Concentrate
to be mixed with waters
of the sea.  Drink
it all up, smoke it
to
the
STUB.
And what remains?
I say,
“Solamente los espejos.”

08/25 SOULPOYMS

Numero Uno

This can be appreciated
(in proper reflections)
as being a moment
for to provide and
shape with negative
reinforcement.
Negative and positive are
the same.  “Sadness is
a radical quantity,” says
Elliott, this yelled
at the stars
from the bow of a fishing
boat by
the man who knew
of the leg-high grass
universally, where I knew
it in microcosm.
I will speak of mirrors and
oblivion in Spanish.
Or women.  Or someone
from a dream.
(luminous and cloaked
in dead moth)
repeated in Sisyphus
mnemonics.




Numero Dos

Give me pain.
Give me fruit
give me CONtent
give me INtent
Give me COLTRANE.
Sou of growling
trumpet from Outer-Space
(VIBRATING INSIDE
MY CRYSTALLINE AORTA WALLS)
and sound of joy
and praise to God from
underwater.
Migraine below the mind
blown to scintillating bits
by grace of Jehovah.
Horizon above sheets;
palace of dust mites
wherefore LIES
the corpse of SONIC METSOULTH.
(Amen.)

Willing to Take the Blame: 00:00 to 28:56 (Alena Had it All Translation)

The circumference of the Sun. It sets on burnt-ochre moss. Rising again, knocking on my window. It’s a continuous loop, see, the Energy. Repeating, but degrading. Entropy. Decay of light. Each revolution bringing new territory. The Sun improvises blue notes as the sky bruises yellow and pink. Light refracts inside shattered sky. Entropy. Things get darker. The tide rises, pulled by the ascending moon. Red turns to black. Out of the pink and blue and into the black. Charred sea swells. Stars appear repeated forever in discontinued heavens. Return to manufacturer. A wave sweeps all clouds away. A lull in activity as the stars begin to sing to each other. They sing sad Mensa refrain as a wave once more sweeps their voices into whispers. Crackling of static. Call-and-response. Walk, believer, walk. Stars intone Daniel refrain to the trees and the owls nested within. For a moment, for an eternity. The trees awaken from their slumber. They talk back. Inquisitive. Stars begin the weaving of intricate dances. Vocalize in dark matter. Explode. Tapes played in reverse. Continuous loop of Eternity. Cacophony in the sky. Trees are overwhelmed, wishing they had stayed in energic slumber. Staying in sap, stayed in wisdom. Twinkling supernovas calm. Beg understanding. Soothe with echoing predictability. Queer and reassuring. Monologue changes hands. Symmetry. Ocean begins to storm. Balance. Floods sky with crackling static of foam. Adds terrestrial accent to celestial discourse. I`ve picked up a few celestial ways of communication myself. Microphone with biologic tape playing backwards and harmonica in wooden body of two-stringed instrument. Finally rays of light from above tangle in the broken crystal ball of the atmosphere. Heron flies by in purple light. Refracted rainbow grows to sonic harmony. Light transforms to sound. Enlightenment of trees lulled back to sleep by rainbow symphony and scratchy twang of the moon. Sound of twilight crickets before time is slowed to a crawl. Les sons de la lune. The passing of subsequence in moon molasses. Dreaming with the trees, red and bleeding sap out of a knot at snail’s pace. Then moon screeches. Everything is now awake. Sleep paralysis filled with beauty. Explosions in the mist. Great engines backfiring in the sky. Smoke fills leaves as everything is once again hypnotized. Greasy black engines make way from Trans-Universal express. Whistle blows alongside crackle of barnacles dying. Trees listen to rocks. Rocks listen to sky. The trees learn wisdom of the elements. Quartz transmogrified to moonstone. The advent of technology. A phone that rings until the end of time. Steam engine begets magnetic locomotion to the place in between the In-Between. Bursts into flames on impact. Towering inferno of modern man. Ape with a violin. Use bow to crack nuts. Give all excess wood to the termites. Or put it on a car behind the Trans-Universal Express. Man passes torch to the sky. A vast an unwavering light over the wastelands. Apathetic elegy for those one the train. Tinged with melancholy. Tipped with the chorus of the flora. It gets dark. Then it gets light. Creation begins once again. Ground is sawed to pieces. Flowing blisters emerge. Beautiful massacre of dead land. In tandem, creation from the stars. And then light beyond perceptible frequency. So pure and violent it shines to ignorant planet. Chaos unknown. Subversive light of the One that Transcends Opinion. Then it shocks thru rumbling bass frequency even lower than groans of branches intelligence into mongoloid reptiles below. Gila monsters from beyond the grave. They write Beethoven’s 4th. Gila monsters from beyond Opinion. They listen to the beguiling pedantics of star rhythms.

Another e-mail to my mother.

You misunderstand.  That’s acceptable.  Try to see outside your perception of reality.  I’m not trying to condescend by saying that; I am as guilty as most in that respect.  But you are perceiving my words in ways that corroborate the illusion that I am somehow angry or resentful toward you, or ignoring you.  As with everyone, including myself, I see your view of the world and universe and reality and everything as narrow and myopic.  Even my view of your view is likely to be narrow and self-serving!  Still, I can see how despite all of this, my last e-mails could have easily been misunderstood.  They were (at least the last one) equally vicious and revelatory, equally scathing and honest.  It may not be pretty, it may have been at times vulgar, but it is the truth, at least as I see it.  Catharsis is beautiful, but never pretty.  I know I’ve hurt you, somehow, but what do you expect from me?  I’ve always had difficulty focusing on anything but the distant past and the immediate of the present.  Do you think I speak to my father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, much more than I speak to you?  I am trying to work out some things in my life…and it is extremely difficult, especially for the weak-willed.  Slow progress is better than no progress, is it not?
 
My interpretation of your letter is that it is filled with bitterness.  This is a sentiment that runs in dePassillé blood, it seems, though I’ve rarely seen you partake before, unlike your mother and sisters.  I will not, though, pretend that this is at all the case, that you feel bitter toward me, because you’ve said nothing about it directly.  I may be misunderstanding your feelings as well.  I do not think you are a bad mother, but I still have unresolved issues when it comes to you and my past that I do no feel ready to face at this point.  I am focusing on other things, though I know I will reach a point at which I must find resolution and peace with you.
 
I’m glad you enjoyed that song, Ms. Newsom is magnificent.  I went to Vancouver to see her in concert last Thursday.  Very emotional experience, watering eyes and the death of ego and absolution and all that jazz.  I can send some more if you’d like.  Her second album, Ys, is to me the most important musical recording of the 21st century so far.  It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.
 
Anyway, write back.  My computer battery is dying.
 
I love you, Alex.

An Inconsolable Sadness

There, I found the world
when I touched that tree in the
courtyard of St. Ann’s,
You can break them in,
where he sat in the rain,
staring at the ground.
I called it, “a Vast Sadness”,
but I was wrong
as I look down,
and you point your gun
there
as I climbed the bow of the ship
made of concrete
Surrounded by sea,
surrounded by trees.
I wrapped my arms around the trunk
and I almost cried.
I always almost
cry.
Always, almost,
albeit…

“…and live thru
space’s loneliness”
he told me as I was helpless,
elbows slightly bent at
hills in my mind,
mes bras qui
continuaient
loin, loin,
dans l’estomac de l’éternité
Language is meaningless,
Space is Loneliness,
says Elliott.

There is no work left here,
only jobs
in the middle of the courtyard.
Dishwasher with experience.
Trak Mesa sprawl
Low rolling hills in
my mind.
VALIS,
valor,
candid splendor.
God atop
infinite circumference,
stop
drop
and roll,
look at the Spaceship
belly near the crest of the
sky, look
up at how it fragments,
burnt-orange,
look at the moss on the rocks,
regarde mes yeux,
regarde mes ailes invisibles,
Touch the soles
of my shoes.
Would you like
to work with children?
Polish the image that you
have of me.
Look up at the cracked horizon
of the Sno-Globe.
Helicopter
multiplied.

Look at the tree
over which my soul extends,
over which my almost-tears
slowly almost-fall and
hold the position of mast
erect in the rain and mist
rest on leaves.
Watch it
(regarde les cicatrices
en dessous de mes pieds)
seep red
(burnt-orange)
and I tell myself,
“A better name for this would be
‘An Inconsolable Sadness’”

Sadness is a radical
quantity,
says Elliott
Booze fuels.
Sadness is beautiful.
Sibylle spoke to me
in my Dream Journal,
younger, American,
in some kind of nature preserve
We went against the grain
under that bridge
in the Restricted Area
where I cut her up and
made her into something
I wanted her to be.
Dead moth
beauty on the floor of
the garage,
this has been said before,
rhythms pounded onto sand
and log
with found slippers.
Flame under the light bulb
(and the moon is a mirror)
plastic stalk beginning to grow
in the smoke,
the “humito” of genius
that never sleeps.
Sibylle inhales,
I stay up all night
to avoid her.

I fucked you at the
Event Horizon
of the Universe.
Always judge a whore
by its cover.
“Ne change jamais un poème,
révision no. 6”
will be the name on the cover,
which I judge,
rightly.

I will forever
live inside the
Stomach of My
Own Construct
of Misogyny and
Self-Deprecation
until I fuck my
mother and
show my father
the appreciation he
deserves.
Until I give him
something Phallic,
like a cigar or
an unwavering rod
of light.
Concrete mast
in the middle of
the courtyard.