you are going to a movie
i am working on a physics problem
why do poets not write of natural truth
it is indeed, not yet a scientific age
until singers and poets
make known
imagine the superbowl
and then the universe
now have beyonce sing about it

i wake up,
do my necessaries,
walk out of the house
i look up!
ten-million-year-old-light
hits my eyes
drink it in
then forget it all!

seven years of hustling, chinese boy
five years ago? like
     19?
they start the mahjong game
my knight has been
pregame out here
the guy who leapt over the counter
was he average sized or was he large
he was average
sized, freights in command no chicken hands alotta
chicken hands are live
        put out
yr flowers first
four quyens
quyen why are you typing mid game
my turns done, go
cest      sigh aside west tile throw
          one out two  chains two four six eight ten
                      eleven twelve
              slaps ho you like that shorty?
man typing like shit right now
cadillac music
she says sip yr cup
fuck you up
lulin west songs of the 90's
get back over here!
strolling round highschools yknow

this place was a blast 
from the past. the flavor 
of the food 
is delicious, 
the service 
quick and courteous 
and the best part is i 
dont have to get out of my car.

foot long dogs with the snap 
when you bite into them.....yummy! 
car hop service 
or picnic tables under 
cover...just look 
for the big orange

it bear much more than smiths
put on a...u m...
look on yotube
lemme do a googgle search to die
       by yr side

such a good song
mu mbling girl through it
in yr car
never wanting tongo home
because i have a duck warm
in all alone
take him out tomorrow its mine
cuz i want to see seeliver siner s ng  iver
oh puhlease
working till 4

I tremble,   in the weaving of the night
woma  inn  the morning, we will did
cousins are like, um
babes are like awash, sitting around
i sit with a copy of a xmas carol
                 such a funny thing to remember in the
          omorning
chrles dickens
y is like a dash
it's weird, instead of a two-letter
woman
start with 'we'
endnwit h
feminine sense
the e is already under
tea
maybe like,
she could make more sense

no, no
im a alive in golden
besides a and and
seems weird? dontit?
maybe

maybe still
in love

maybe two jacks a flat boy
lining the bottom of that heart sickening stomach
shes all valves
come by tonight
this isn't right
blonde and brunette
we yearn to something
with an 'e' at the end of it
we're gonna ea me alive
couggh cough drop sun
jungle tempo! ea  me a ive
sometimes it all works out
having a ride alava lable?
it al worked out well
tomorrow is thursday
xmas soon...

i like a poem that says
'my friend'
is inviting, pal
keep that shit up

how ya doing

man alive is talking
about a foot in a couch
is a man in the wind flat.
which is where we stood.
i wouldn't have laughed but i had.
loved it, in fact.
loved where to start
less than a foot
from the space heater
i throw a blanket on it
designate its gender
and pet it, cheek
against fleece against steel
this is better than a dog
tells her

i hope all is well

what these celebs have
in common with us
is a smokey basement

tan and lighter browns
lights pass hands
fingers touch fuck

when you've got a little
give it a match strike
circle round the enviro-log

now i awaaake!
she two rises
in the yard the snow

of ash peppered
us and our jasmine tea
enviro-log disintegrated

it was the blurst of times
said squishy poet

11/3/13

over and over again
seasons think
I do come again
burst into the shower
mumble and drink
like a baby,
     I walk to the part of
the room
where two windows
and a door meet
a blanket of sun
on my bare ass
feels fantastic
my warm ass

I sit outside
down on the blue
since my baby said
     goodbye
hit me when the
lows are low
Takahashi could cry
look at me, a
song, a
child of 25
moving up there?
Blue at any point in time,
and sigh,
only trying travel
an exhilarating
expense of the
mind & breath
give
       give
              give
take in trees
never in

---

Sunset Strip
a languishing future
meet you on
the escalator
the stream long hairs
too -- obsessive compulsive
w books and
flies -- pretty shy -- I,
can't think of why,

can be skin-to-skin
can be sopping wet
and dry --
faces strange
faces, passions drain
in the may
made in it rain
today, humid pains
burning sprains --
more
morain --
a term geology.

Stranger
don't look
away, there
exists a pair
of eyes for
you here!

even if for
a passing breeze
a drop of a leaf
isn't that
something more
than cars smog
and random
chatter that
means shit to
you

like this look these faces
perhaps you're
too encumbered
by the weight
of yr own
steps and posture
to be bothered,
w/such trifles
life is one big
trifle to me.

I've got in it
got out too
thinking of
gramps there
don't look back --
bad luck they say,
family superstition.

lower eyes like
casket
throw a rose onto
lashes
mood = indigo

song --
Jacks, squares
aligned
cards for colleagues
not really colleagues.
where to go from here
until September?

(no title)

Steps!
on and all
steps down
ride swivel
slide,
on each curb
a ramp an orange
a man steps out
skips around comes
to work
at night? no.
have fun fucking each
other now
don't say shit
don't quiz me on any-
     -thing
Don't smile & whistle
don't cock
yr head and
grasp anything
it is for the
better
says old tzu
he tasted that vinegar,
boy, man,
heaven sweats
a sickle marks away on
the forehead
many bumps --
that is such
an agreeable road to take
o! god the
frustration
to not complete the lines
what resources do
you have, what
meaning outside
besides empty fiction
men renew and hoard
the lazing pages, a
mindless filter
I'll dictate to you
what to do and how
to do it, impress upon
you what makes women
and men
what keeps them apart,
brings them together
-- girl, you've got
an option now
but you toss it as if
they came easily to
most -- that's
privilege
that's a sign
that you should

(music continues)

She twirled toward me once
in a piano scale of
lights, sat w/
straight back
of all the times
against a back --
               drop --
of fountain lights
we took a pic --
no, she took one
of me, I wish I could
see it now, was I
in love? would such a
 thing show on my face?
I loved her
sitting w/ a completely
satisfied face
endorphins flowing
over a bag
tongue sliding side to side
o,
  o,
    o,
      o,    me?
call   o,
           o, me?
call
    don't dare
     to,

don't dare to ask
and wonder --
all I have left of
those times, shit
the fuck do I do
w/ these memories
besides write poems?
this poem
is memory
in active flow
in active flow
flow/here
flows/water
in between the jets
in the fountain
watching the city from
a window,
looking at myself on the ground,
looking up --
w/ a feeling that I
might want to
leave, always that
feeling to abruptly sense
the right and
no's of the situation
man, fuck that.
should've left
should've left
forever, and cut it off
like a snake bite --
nothing here left but the
nub that is a
poem --

Shivering stunned
and confused! @_@
senselessly beautiful
no twirls
no hips in the embrace
the eyes in the hug
no sensing anything
anymore
but a poem that
sings and
I hum along
w/ empty stomach and
heart, until
later, I
hungry for her
write my fill
burp, piss, shit,
come,
          away, stayed.

PGW over the
income limits
full w/ a big belli
I, having the
obsessed notion
of an acrylic table
a bigger yard
than expected

a stanza distorted
by a cigarette
line a puff
sucking in of
bread acme
w/ Dan, not a great
or in his own words,
a fun shopping
companion.

What do I do I
just write write
write?
What am I doing
I just
lay down and
resolve not to
fight at all,
I just

lay flat on my back
and scream incessantly
and hear the
things that come
through --
       a foreign
        language.

Don't listen to me
Don't speak to me
Don't hold my hand
my shoulders sore
and weak
stretches and breaks

I gotta make calls
I gotta answer the
texts
I gotta take calls
I feel like a
wreck
I feel like a text
in a wreck
so many 'important'
things to do
I do it all I
grocery shop
walk home
just flop

Don't use someone else's
benefits Don't excuse
me 'got enough there'
nod head rapidly
fun times wax
I know all yr
friends I miss
a few times last night

Fran came w/ Madison
she was a cute girl
she looks like that girl
that needed rescuing
when she started
drinking again.

She pulls up, I wave her
in I say howya doing
she gives a cute smile
she has short hair
which I find cute
I place the AC in the
trunk and they drive off

I wear beb's blue slippers
outside/they took
a long time
I was nearing the end of
a cigarette
and thought man one
cigarette and still not
here/I try to finish
the depressing death of
Ivan Ilyich

the poor bastard can I
relate to him then
when he screams
he screams for three
days straight.

jasmine

in my own time,
could've managed them all
playwrights and pitfalls
this is mine

       a cold morning breeze
       on my toes
   
       Garfield and ash
        ash bits in tea
         Jasmine

If I would apply myself
scolding trees against
     my back
      turns I leave
a new one up to the coarse clouds

wino speeches whips in
             the wind
"Oh man, a narrow bed!"

Can't hardly stop shivering in the
faces of friends   and
new persons

what was last year's birthday?

how about powerade?
yeh, sure, fine.
Blue or red?                     always blue
Blue                                 she giggled on
Blue                                 the sofa.
Blue                                  it takes care
                                          of her.


                   

Don't stop to write
feels like autumn
      no more
even regular breaths
      drop like
      ketchup from
      packets.

John can I have one
nice beer?
ooh -- wet hopped
      ale? huh?

gimme the powerade.

Subaru Forrester --
the official car of
Mt. Airy.

therapeutic beulah
spoon licking turns ssssooo
ssslooow as sombre reptiles
dense butt on the floor
white-eyed i glaze                               goin

                                                              goin home

hurdles
the boredom,                                  jump.
                                                                jump.

youxia

you xia er
boyhood knight
runs errands gifted
trapezoidal legs
crooned to theme
of the Dagger Society

a small knife
brought him here
had him a me day
free - rain - & sun
hook drills
and sitting after
in his wooden chair
tried to force inspiration
upon himself
fist in cheek twiddling
his pen-flute

large grasshopper
outside the theater

acid tablet

    no game as game
there they have courtship
 y'knowwe go on dates here
     it's a little
        tree in the past
dates awkward to an
    extent,
        everyone tryna be cool
make ann impression
   this, how i imagine
     attraction
e nough, exciting show downs
                                          now

   pistol-blocked
pressing this person
          stressful
you wanna say the right thing
talkin' bout bullshit
   families, trade
        everything that constituted
                          yr identity
          my parents do
        Distinguishing girls looking
for media generated ideas
        coca-cola boyfriend
        see, what's cool?
See--

Frank Sherlock
at Tasker Morris
   I'm sweating
   wool sweater

smiles sean with a cig 10/2/13

couldn't afford to look thru
the window, i says to him hope that
hey ah pal oh my love, ohmy

perhzps shop her out of there
neil stared, the sun squinted

girl at work lives in wsq
and i said what? a little loudly
at the desk
       but in green park
       a red backpack
          I tried picking him up

playing soccer
at the end of the
pile of photos
sean smiles with a cig

this is candy

she's having candy 

for dinner

white puff

down the hole

disappears
9 million year old
has candy for dinner
1 25
year old
having a hot
subway
ride home

30 second mountain climbers
shower bleach it hangs a towel

            smells
shirtless espresso underwear smoke
window rainy outdoor stoop boxer
pantless setups ridiculous paid time off
hereafter known as labor day
the sky falls in pieces
into my coffee mug
sip sip! lightly sauteed tomatoes
bacon grease dressing
garlic garlic never enough garlic
and so what about it
i'll meet for a coffee if you say so
and if you believe the rain isn't
an obstacle

bon apple credit
dig in dig in, to a halfway
filled ashtray
aloe plant and mountain cactus
solar powered daisy toy
waves good morning
in the dark of an office
100 computers rot
blinking at each other

sd
semi interesting project
she has bestowed upon me
until i hear  o more
expressway has a warm floor
ever felt it with yr cheek?
  or the ceiling
of the comcast center
i rub my toes against
the underside of my wooden desk
and feel a bump
as i exhale

beb is chubby and she doesn't like being chubby
i say she is not chubby
pinching and kneading her lovable chub
and nuzzling that chub
and then i get up to check
on the jambalaya

Songs L,M,N,O,P

I'd never write to you again
rolling backward, frost

a flame of my labor
wings swung, and the lamest
grey eyes crowding, in them lost
many men taught me, many beggars
penny penny lost, oh, god
jokingly i would just say
like, go to, um that fridge
get me a good humor bar, walk
it over, so muted by the kitchen
a good humor bar, and scratches the back of my head
              like you would a dog that you
                raised, trained, all that
i'm being treated, churring! smiling!

still, like a pitiful dumb beast i love you
all, if you will, dried up and done
and the bar sits at the desk
and melts like a tongue
on tongue

---

send me spinning over the big ol moon
ho ho man, so bright.
five things i could change
baby you're like a big ol moon
and i'm a spaceship orbiting your orbit, yo

i'm the entire alphabet of love
i'm at the back of the party
without contact**neither hanging
clut  ching
some lucky night, my memories
will dissolve

sun, even, goes

---

men content with the idea
oh bim bom zow
cymbals

the long sweetness of times stretch like taffy
sweet taffy
salt ocean
rock poem
fried chicken
yummy poem

good for all of the senses
look at it
smell, it
taste it
hear, and even fear it
spring of 19 joys and secrets
achhoooo!
and god bless you

but me being afraid as a child always

winter full of the blows
hush, dude,
and take slow
  achievement at the height of my power
when i speak real content
shit forget it

---

dead january sole geometry
sold it with a brush and cane
frailty, missingno, mystery mail thief,
  adjoining there in the wood corner lane
killing mockingbirds and hear
the all too common locust

and greek as in the noise
powerhouse of flesh and of fiber
take a piss anywhere you want
but having to walk the same paths

moving nearer it is the opposite of dark
and i'm a bit drunk
think of you
and hack away into the night
     caaaaaaackle

---

i'm with you
all
night
l  ong
and even
the window
drowns

i pass
a cherry
evening now
from cross
the street
now how
many times
have i
told you
what are
you gonna
  have to eat?
on the bright
she sits legs
crossed
smokes and cries
of flames hissing
strong stoves

jumps out too
in that hairdo

-----

what for?
what good is a rotten case
good here?
guess i do loook
kind of funny
curt?
she marries
yea   i married you
eat yr supper become
sizzling ( sizzling noises )
  clatter of a restaurant full of men
you can stay and a high pitched voice
gold beans, hey
marshall, the man
i'm looking for,
he comes from behind the bar
reading up territorial law
being feinting ill, next time
he sets foot in this town
officer, arrest who?
you mean,
Liverty Valance?

take it e -z baybee
poor red fingers
torn knuckle 2 knuckle
splish splash
sound of dishes being washed
the sound of a typewriter makes
being typed on
a cap! starred, four to be
           exact,
gear grinding, sat
the poet, yukking it up
in Spanish

w/ a box full of chickens and turkeys
outside to my BMW

 'I would really like
to be a part of the people
that cracks down on these frauds'

speing subsides
spring, i meant to type
spring subsides

what the hell was
        that noise?
what if a giant bug
beb, just came out of the ceiling
one night and just pulled me up
beb?
when was the last
time i wrote of spring
probably last spring
reader don't mind

zebra condensation on glass orange coaster flecks of wood table
that sentence let me tap the glass
with the carriage!
sound sound it sounded
like, ding!

lake of the fall
I'm that know-it-all
of the true straight street
there on that window peak
hurts too
hurts to do

mr grovernor wheelden
settled with his opinion
trees try gaps that far
breezing in sedan car

used to be asleep
finding it all over me
likely, I was so young
brought lives in and sung

O, go west the tv said
I do what the television says
it says blame fools
it says deep pool

on monday night I laid awake
thinking of a double take
apple cider crew
bud that was to you

lovingly I stay awake
clutching cigs and all her shakes
goddamn fools
goddamn deep pools

justify that unchained dog
yelping after a log
I stay put
I watch that mutt

used to hallucinate fanfare
shower drain I dig out hair
hard white walls
long black halls

settling into sun rays
secrets of it on nova played
police storms
I pass safe and warm

good poem, good poem

what kid of writing a loud mout
h trouble scaped i
n the grudges of a mammal we said
we coudldn't eat
it was carnivorous

trouble thing with mouths
sis that is that exact
put these smokes in my lips
bite on the butt
bite butts
big and sk
butts (shit also
trouble with months)

(shit
   tired

when the light gets dark

that first line the first line
of a Dan Yorty song

he came over w/ a six
pack of pabst
to my apt
and fixed
my spot lights,
being
so adept
at lighting

last rolling
rock
to make it
down
the hill I
see her, man,
and hide
always hiding
I think

I love
her or everything else
left to say
amounts to hey
remember this
a sticky photo
I pull

from a box from the dust
of my parent's home
I don't like to throw my letters
away I say No! Keep those

(O, if I had the mind
              and love to
spare)

I wouldn't be
sitting

besides mosquitoes
I wouldn't be
in

delayed hurt
got to submit
a food stamp
I've got to tag
all these responders

and non-responders
read fast and go past closing time
write rhymes occasionally
still I dream of Songs

I can't write to anything else

He brought records and the first
one he put on
didn't sound
quite right
the needle
must be bust
ed
I grow
bigger

the train ride
the hot train ride
the dirty insulated vines

O, O
I sing

of a pale forehead
and
my one sin

poem for no one but myself

four white lives robbed

off marking an iphone

in my long pants

pocket

things need mending

regardless how invincible

I feel riding the

trenton

gotta get off

gotta get off on

see the broken walls

everywhere --

I smell plastic

anywhere I go

I'm sensitive to

my thoughts of

smells of her

or her

affinity w/ smells

I sicken myself

laying at the

wheel the

morning she

decided to get out

and go -- 

-- the middle

America gained

150 lbs or so and

greater musicality

months months

go by the same

bass line repeating

the same walgreens

at the top of the

marble steps

same womanly giggles

same hat

same floral

platform same?

I am some

terrifying that

distortion resonates.

mens room lines --

there a phone

sits -- I wait

and cannot

comprehend the

sensitivities of

the district and all

involved parties.

I see a man

carrying his home

in a fucking bag

I tweak my

leather laces.

I see him arrive in

a fenced off

crook full of barbs

man

no rain protection

no zazen

food. selfish me.

poem for bee

be august it'll be over --
by then, the tickle
settles in my throat.
I'm so ' appreciative
of the water
and of bellies.

I get bit. I get
frustrated w/ my work
work being an extension
of life, shit.
it is powerful/painful to
admit, even none w/
being dishonest in
writing.

Save yrself, bee.
By the lake. there
sits houses. empty,
Am I outside, there
a muggy summer night!
I see a light on.
I see movements.
I smell the earth
and the flight
paths of insects
around me.
I step forward and
get pricked.

But of course I don't
remain standing in the
middle of the
wood, w/ nothing to
drink and eat.
I want to go inside.
Turn off
the light.

poem for this date 7/12

poem while
crescendos of
exodus from
underground
commences --
hollow steps and
speed lines
riff riff riff
line line train
new employ trenton
over roof of cars
out of neo-
torresdale
if it may ever exist
it isn't a taiko
nor is it loud enough
to disturb
the ride of someone
else on the
trenton train
be straightforward
and furrow and
be bright
be out for final
inspection please
                   no pls
hold a trailpass
in yr teeth
and continue writing
being looked at
by pretty girl
on the other side
of the aisle --
perhaps
as requiem kills
poem last occasion,
is all falsehoods
building, wreaking
havoc
like clown hungry

is the left leg shorter
that would be a shame
or just find myself
never quite on balance
(and the same)
when I sit
shine assessment
not a rookie I
couldn't care to assure
too carefree
around the spikes.
I singe hearing in the
home and streets
I'm home
there is no harm in rain
no love either in
up stares
no june there in the
giggle behind you.

The Letter is false.
I seethed inwardly.
or rear again
how I am to face my brothers
or to keel over, as an anxious mountain
has ended
too late

often I sat
on the bench and waited
much for nothing,
as she has not contacted me in
many months I wonder
how much in love
she is

brother, I can write to her
saying that you died,
so that she may come quickly

because he's dark the following
morning
and if Heaven is kind
will return some day
looking around,
transfixing the future
begging for alms for food

the woman ladled out a measure of the best wine
and until the end I try not to forget
smile, sometimes, even then
with a drop hanging on my chin
tickles me

I remember then
I had not been wrong
in my choices

I'll muster my lanterns tonight
in the middle of the fifth lunar
month, drink it down
the illness over

7613 i guess

aw man aw MAN

didn't catch it before but, gee (so her)

that's who she reminded me of

bent over

a drum

i think it is that little fist of a nose

with wrist bent ready to bop

the brilliant teeth out of that smile

                                                     or

maybe it's the short hair

a dear beagle to someone died

and so on their fb they've become that beagle

birthday poem also for ryan eckes (in regards to sean taras's birthday poem for ryan eckes)

got 90 day review. on advanced track says they. got raise. 25 more cents than normal raise says they. bought lots of clothes. bought many pitchers last night for people. didn't give shit. met kate flannery. called her "ma'am". kate flannery says to me 'don't call me ma'am!" in light-hearted manner. put arm around kate flannery. took pic with kate flannery. got drunk w/ other poets/girls/girl poets. also was ryan eckes post-bday celebration. sang first lyric of some song over and over, "if you feel like lovin' me, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo". ian left, despite my protests. jess, drunk, tired of waiting for ryan, left. frank, in beautiful emerald shirt, works hard. i point out to ryan several times, "frank works so hard". "it's his job", ryan says, drunk. outside with julia smoking. she sort of looked like my julia. told her this while making fun of my julia, no longer my julia. could not compare the two julias. several men walk by pointing to st. francis on wall saying "that's roosevelt!". made ryan finish all beers, even beb's beer. brandon invites me to read something sometime. other brandon tells me mike taras took up boxing, to which we both agreed suited him in ways. round 12th and mifflin. his company uses timecycle. but brother brandon left way earlier. got order of events mixed. outside, see alina on brandon, exchange numbers in hopes to get pokemans. everyone mumbles. i mumble something and leave with beb, singing, "if you feel like lovin' me, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. . ."

+ Trenton + car + car

+ Eclectic Factory +
minus some letters
+ Yumegiwa Last Boy +
a memory of Juliette +
her at her laptop
clacking + a cigarette
in her hand --does she
smoke even? Likely no,
likely not in the
house, her sister's?
+ all the deadlines
I've missed + the
promises + Ryan Eckes (
what is he doing?)
+ beb + mall santa dance,
that she never does
anymore + everything I do
is ten times cuter
+ car + car + car

plus the snarling look
of disgust on Chloe's face
+ I Love Ugly clothing +
lack of eye contact on
12th st + flea market
+ status pattern +
prada + prada + gucci +
his dark ass lips +
a match + a cigarette
+ a ride to work
w/ whatever business
casual I could muster,
the manuscript?
for Otis? For Rae?
"manic insouciance"
that was what was said,
didn't much care for it
all after that + night
email from Matt Kremer,
telling me to make my
mind my redeemer +
he could've been drunk
+ you never know can
you? the last
twenty centuries +
Flirting Scholars +
Rogue Scholars +
Father's Day +
car + car + car

Bourbon Station
here I come!
+ new pen + Florsheim
+ obscure Norwegian
polo + british khaki
+ green vintage
blazer from upstate
NY, not Newburgh +
everyone in upstate
NY shits on Newburgh,
says beb during car ride
through to Cornwall +
it is low income they
all say + I looked at
it when I drove through --
it looked like
5th St in North Philly
a bit, cept no
viet businesses +
it was a quick drive thru
+ we had somewhere
to be. like outlaws.
+ car +
car +
car

+ drum machine +
no matter how hard
one tries

+ James Gandolfini died.
At least he died in
Italy, Nicky says,
but I just think, one
night in bed, that
his family would just
have to pay extra to
move his body back to
Jersey. That is, if
they wanted him
buried there. And
why not?
+ it seems right,
right?

in quiet mode
in my under wear
in front of the
mini fan

wingyi forgets deadline, dreads not graduating

you missed a deadline
everyone has
pat pat
glad everything's okay

what was the reason
you missed it?
just plum
forgot?

we can remind ourselves
by different means
but you can't fix forgetting
by that I mean the act of forgetting

of course you will
keep on chuggin' youse
in the meantime
will write poem about this

otis 1

my unemployment benefits cease(d)
i used to claim them online, like, every sunday
that was life, more or less,
i dragged my computer around like an ape.

then someone came
out of the light they stood.
as to what brought 'em there i did not know
naturally, i asked, what brought you here?

I came for your sake, which is enough.
and now I am leaving,
with or without.

Juror 17

feet
where are my feet
squaw squaw
a flutter in the street
leaving me aching,
undelivered and all,

Juror 17 was a real treat
I puff away at one
in the bathroom of
city hall.
"Well, I can be
very empathetic."

and all the
attorneys simultaneously
jot,
     black waves
then back to yr smile
        energetic

"17!"
I cried
out.

A Neil Poem

by Neil Schaaf

Don't overcome
don't find peace
don't find paradise
not on the mountain
but in the city
live with the derelict
at home with the filth
you are here to suffer
don't escape your suffering
Eat the shit, taste the shittiness

whole thread

was I like an office
that and meds
I'll take it from there
my then position

the pond frog cannot contemplate the oceans
how can I understand the universe?
or Juliette's poems?
or a vat of vinegar?

can we mirror heaven
only through strict ritual
I bethought
"do not foll."

I'ma go have a smoke and think it over.

"fwd-operating-base:  this striving for tone of "manic insouciance" -- I can see/hear the striving. Certain lack of discipline in terms of stringent writing that is somewhat interesting, but then not.  I wanted to like these poems, but in the end couldn't."

shut

no head
for theory      ing
just poetry

up

no, baby

ideas fell down beside you
major flowers not knowing
what they are

invading me with their perfumes
I am blue from inside out
drawn til dawn

all things organic accumulate
in strange breaking skies
grumbling my name

Wednesday in those arms myself
Spring tiger germinates
open straying abandon

the wood-road resembles you
long local women drag boulders
and weep and still cannot compare

how!
all that shit in the world
gathered together w/o (r/l/d)
respite (heehee)

I was love swung
at breakfast zapped
waiting at the water
for company

it sd nothing about
flipping thru stouts
which bittered my tongue throughout

in the middle of it all
my uncle calls
to interrupt

father time

"Henri aeon volcanic sleep

when he shot he

swept the stratosphere"

that being so dozing

I almost interrupted myself

w/ a snort

after seven, the blanket 

remains time 

to turn on my father's light

and resume, lovingly and appreciatively,

my "studies"

come home and shuffle R
van over curb and swing

screen door to 

hear mother, 

sing

double fan

chorus exhaust,

pouring cooking over yard

and jar of preserved lemons

that fast spawn bacterial colonies

I pour that orange-green Eden

disc down the alley drain

hums my father the night

provides cover but isn't good,

says sister

moon faces us always, this 

I attribute to him

154

in brief moment, I
have wrote, before thsi now
eh, leaving errors to their
errors, and having my calloused
middle first knuckle shining
impressive and impressing
many a lackey around the cubes
though th is, howeverit may play
raises cheek edges, go without
lasting praise, and by the next day
all has been lifted unto a new page
O and I would give that god-given
skill to a passing mutt
if not for the sheer size I am
a full man less of Maximus
and without the shins to proof
I do my walking now daily
to space 154, sometimes none of it
and round the crystal buildings
every day I notice how much of adulthood
is dressing in black and brown
and cracking appropriate smiles
I move, instanter, to a new mouth
and stew in my musicks deep
underground, shuffle to a waltz
behind fifty old ladies
and settle for the least fat
man or woman to accompany
saddle saddle
they give the new trains to
those in the main line
usually, otherwise one must spend
a whopping hour or so
to enjoy automated doors
and televised Temple and Villanova ads
blechk

Address

after a winter's hiatus, the fingers run light
and soft touches crackle out like teal
and seagreen buds
I bring myself back to my de luxe
and tap away, O where writing much
carries a smell of the oil
on the carriage
I leave Schenectady playing

finding myself employed gainfully
(p) and full and smokefilled,
leaves me languid and bedridden
'cept the times I claw up the mountain
with purplish horizonal hair
and look out across a barn's beam

I step heavily across a swampy
shortcut laden with infant spiders
and though the infants are indistinguishable
from the adults we got the hell out of there
all the same

being a self-identified poet I must write a new
The K to celebrate such a decision,
though whether that is career-wise, I am unable
to confidently say one or another way
somewhere will exist such a timeline
and hopefully it won




                                        5132 el rio ave
                                        los angeles, ca
                                        90041

The OK

will try once more a time
and again I will try again once more and a time
holy yolks this giving him the energy-food
which wrests from the ground a slithering word
and chomps and grinds and cuts with incisors
the great jaw of

the massacred worm, this one Spring
I find all of them, w & w alike, dry out of grass
and soil! choke up every inch of the living scape
and find themselves into the fire
that is oxygenated asphalt and truckings here &
there

solves a matter so simply a girl young and dark
outside the steps of the grand school, where I was once
a filly kid, she stoops, grabs one and throws the word
back onto the kempt green   others found it
repulsive
but a life!

but which comes this way another word,
and the logic that forces syntax open
aw haw, how gullible I have been
all these two days perhaps more
that I may suffice to write

five lines at the end of the day have
I the energy left?
if breath wasn't so scarce
it happens and happens to
the line, where I trace my heart
resists the temptation to peer up

and act as a metronome to my very being,
that which is a man and a scholar and a boy and a weasel
and a worker and standing, N there,
A the edge of the cliffs
back when no two pennyloafers, or three, or more
would do, this

would do, this is P, huddled against the mass
of an oak nearby girls floundered
and like words, gasps

haven't written!
in this flea-bitten place
my mind, baugh
flooded with

truly is there a man in a tide,
jung heart, jung sum,
keeps me engaged in otherwise
fleeting endeavors
smiles me

she's not talking heart
she's talking gold
and taking

just spilled tea on my
keyboard fuggg

seaweed hair

can't stop eating
my seaweed hair
comes in wasabi
and sesame too
coo coo coo
let it melt betwee-
-n the roof of
my mouf and ton-
        gue

trenton poems [cont. 2]

home being
anterior picks
up the numbness
the imagination
guesses
at the heat
which
makes up moving
the skin
which is felt
which is higher
a complete light
and lock
of standing
imagination
time, money,
love even,
a feast of goodnights
to swallow
engulfs home

home, the
artist has
his sympathies

she is my every
eye
from which I
find the origin of
this love,
where we are

where we sing,
a gifted catalogue
of people of
all kinds.

a vacation from
the love of
animals --
til death
til it is more
than the mass of
blank release

we go hey!

in the night

when at home

thrusts of feet

dark socks weep

fastens the soul
of waves
of electricity

---

where is this
eternity coming
from and thru
1, 2, 3,
on a spool of stars
a swirling digital
vibration
that finds us
living in another
transparent
car

a beautiful
lover, where
you find days

lets days go
by, into the
overtopping coral
where is my cutting
this is the
moral of growing
underground,
sounds like blue
and sounds like
the same
untamed

across a lot
elsewhere, maybe,
or even,
some fair to
touch, to brush
back,
dissolves at the bottom
with sleep and
lamplight

into the soundscape
it

---

under the stare
the peace is
unnerving, at
the same life-
-time --
a beautiful
house

a long dark road,
a paycheck at
the end of
it -- where the
water goes --
goes green
bald dreams
culminating
into rocks and
ferns, like
dinosaurs of
ancient --

---

to what is the same,
man, keep
moving on,
it is the same
here as
is there
every moment we sit
and die
death! isn't after
us --
I used to drown
and still haven't
learned to tread
water --
I am supple
this way
skin and joints
and flowery
head
it crashes!!

---

house, darkness, house
light, trail, rail,
comes in a spade
is efflorescent

here we go w/ the
smallest sacrifice,
it doesn't
worry much
about control --

volcanic feelings
take us for a ride,
and is
untranslatable
for the most

closeness through
my heart
no men is like
or right--

w/ nothing better
and it will --
oh yes --
the machines come
full circle
w/ senses that
"frees" over --

I cannot hear the
startling looks,
why? what do
I need?
what do I take?
that isn't the
stuff of
life?
because I try
I try to be
"like" life
as WCW

---

he hoards, almost,
the soil,
the girlfriends,
as we
grow waiting old
and
"stop making
sense"

nothing is better
than trying
upon exp.

a work of art
which I draw from
I draw from a do-zen
times and cannot
die--

cannot be crazy
and loose,
man, gimme
the hook

succumbing to the
products of
America--
That's when
Tacony
arrives.

---

I was so young I
distinctly
remember
the effect of
a nude woman
dressed in ink.

I was so pure effect
and for reason I
succumbed to poetry,
it was not a
difficult condition,
nor choice,

nor a mass of
lecture data,
a shape of a
casual animal

I was so distinctly
young I came
back to
write my experience

I was so upset, then,
the imagination
was the pure force
in fact, lost,
and

grow, itself a comet.

There is a [undecipherable]
in life that
is so sharp,

a knife, almost!
that outs as
tragedy, a hole
in us,
mind it,
a pleasant
stance

trenton poems [cont.]

Temple --
where opportunities
are made. I
saw the photo,
somewhat opaque,
of him in some
study

---

Boy or girl they
couldn't say
michael or mikayla
but thought that's okay,

and named her so
now she sits
w/ a gaggle of ladies
talking daughters and snow.

there are no new jobs,
so where does he go?
a sitter, he needs
school, structure, and glow.

My in-laws got off by the
little one.
She's used to sleeping in,
spent two weeks being
    sick
throwing up into the bin.

They did such a sloppy
job, she started
w/ a coff.
Cleared sky, no
bruising -- she chops,
she chances, soft.

---

old man snaps back
on his Navy hat
walks w/ cane
down lit up lane.

---

Trenton train quacks
twice where the
step is at.

---

Winter weather tip
Please don't slip.

--

Fucking cold
but I've got a cig
and work is pushed
off.--
"Q!" shouted out.
        I go
"Hay girls! Hay!
Howya doin'?!"
and laugh

---

new page!
aw I write in
you. Be it like
some brief
romance, then
I'm off to #2

---

Blue boots!
aw how I
walk in youse.
Be it like
a commitment
one step into two.

---

did I see
four birds on the wire
or three?

---

Spikes clustered
on iron beams
yellow with buttons
and rust it seems

---

Lately the phones
on the hook, there
being no physical arm
after each smoking
break
I am back to hear
harm
done--to the five kids
this woman went on
and her mate (who
had time for working)
is somewhere of
little use.

---

w/ freshly written poems,
my left palm does
double that--
a carbon copy
w/ no trouble I sat
again on the exp.
toward Trenton
some vague shape
of a man sits
at the edge -- and if
he looks ugly enough
we'll both keep
our luxurious seats.

---

clicka-clicka-clicka
is the hole puncher's
only sound in the car
and --shh!--
none of that in the
front of the train.
"tickets please!"
says conductor --
can I call him
that?
I've got my own and
other's systems down
pat. Some
like to place their
pass in the slit of
the chair
and some like to
leave it tucked
somewhere
like the gap between
the rubber siding
and the window or
hold it up in one
hand -- head down
reading or being
on their smart devices.
Me? I have my own
vices,
I do my crosswords
and sometimes, I
read poems.
I've got Creeley
and recently,
Niedecker in my
bag.
There's fun
there's fun to be had!

---

Seldom I look out
over grey philadelphia
and smile
the overgrowth,
rowhouses, graffiti
stretches
            miles and miles.

---

I'm wearing a lot of
tan today, yes.
When I go to work,
I try and look my
    best.

---

At one point
(exp) Trenton
runs under the El
and thankfully
I'm not on
that hell.

---

The railway is speckled
grey and scarred.
Outside
Bridesburg sits
only half a car.

---

Slim chance to none
for a meet and greet,
as the line of black coats
march out toward
Tacony St.

---

after a few stops
have been called
I thought "hey!" this
ain't an express at all!

---

Holmesburg Junction
looks like shit.

trenton poems

--Kidding - the train
waits for no one,
yet stops for everyone.

---

There stood old
Pyramid Electric
in the snow
grounded.

---

Some branches hold
on, some hold much,
some wiggle, some
stop just,
some jut and
some joust

---

Every time -- I
think the train is
alive, because it
blinks
with me inside.

It cries too!

---

Most women
look incredible
in the reflection
of a black
window.

---

I sit with the
excuse, waiting
for my gut
to arrive.

---

When the train
turns, I want
to bite its
tail. now
visible

---

When it arrives
(not at my stop)
they scramble
like ants to
the donut station.

---

it kan be dizzying
to figure out how all these
rails connect.
a purple system massive
of heart ways
and cells

---

even though I had
my bag at my feet
now I'm pretty
sure no one
will sit next to me.

---

o! arrival! suburban!
city hall! comcast!
work! to
coffee to coff
to stifle yrself
to walk out on
a train a poem

native is

his head is human masculine power
concerning that this bowl of a man be a door
to something else back of,
war as main subject,
Spring as subterranean,
titan as character,

When I read Inri, I gasped
and picked a date in my head
to relieve her of it

being over there at Ryan Eckes's that night
made me forget about breaks
really though, take a look at the fat books
and see that they are simply a limitation
of the haphazardness of my hand
and the size of the so-called fat book

Philadelphia is far from unspoiled
and so cannot become my center and circumference
it is, however, my place and so I work that place

"I hate those who take away
and do not have as good to
offer. I hate them. I hate the carelessness."

good luck

click clack click clack
ping pong ping pong
ka-chak-ka-chack
dup dup dupdupdupdupdup
                 (good short serves)
as one deserves another
right in the path of
the monstrous gas heater
now never really
having to show up here
again.

I've been looking for a
new job ever since
my hours were cut.
Ah, yes, well,
what to expect
from a human being
who has to eat
--dust. 14k still in the
holy mole.

Now the grind comes
halting, in early
morning which is it
clouds filtered through
buses and electric
dust that builds
city clouds.

I pick this route --
and load up on musicks
and steady myself
for what comes

that monsoon where a
courier for timecycle
sat out in the blackened
granite alcove to
work on his
crossword.

"samurai soft art"
seven letters.
chuckling and making
sure I wasn't imposing
I squat next to
him and attempt
some of the clues.

Didn't get a word.
checked the time  --
asked for it, actually,
slanted my tie,
accepted his parting
gift of luck
and drove it back
w/ me to the NE

the entire time an
18-wheeler white
washing me.

Charles Olson reads 'Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld]' (Mar 1966)

"I was so stung my
first memory is of a
spent casing to fill
mobsters."

3/9/13

fire the sine qua non
of coming out here.
now in dry morning
having to go to the can
observing and picking
up the charred pieces
of wood from last
night

dressed down
trees dress
splayed mesh of wood
and carbon
Skyla, the sheepdog,
sits and ponders
I watch her
be a dog.

My Personal Build

much later, hasn't
happened yet!
but I can surmise
that it very well might.
                  buds
Missing my         up there,
and over there, and
down there.
Everyone is somewhere,
judging numbers
in some ways, mistakenly

this is happiness, in whatever
even naivety
has some pro

I miss him though
distances are crippling
at times

& at times productive and
conducive to my art.

Clutter is what it is in
its spiritual double
sits and steams. . .

silent fathers.
One a father of a so-so
table tennis prodigy looks
at me in the most
alienating manner while
moving his car elsewhere
in the lot.

Comes in and waves out
of habit.

---

it is not so bothersome
that I cannot even
read my own writing
-- handwriting,
it is just so pleasurable
to use up a pen
on an empty notebook
'specially the little fat ones.

---

She said let's be friends
in her usually sarcasti-
-cute manner
and by those photos I
see of her I
assume she is having
no more of those
doubts of Kansas
she once had --
when she did
we talked on the
phone somewhat often.
Not any longer --
physical friends
musical laughs
are better replacements
than any one
memory but the
given time
O how life
rushes! how these
strings slowly
unravel in the
winds of miles
of snow and
rocky hills --
flatland - endland
beast out even
the electric beating
of my heart and
brows.
and as these once
reserved pages run
down to their last few
lines -- I think
of her still
sometimes, not
my personal build, but,
a -- ?

I sobbed into flowers
into bushes shaped
ornately and through
low snow I ponder
what came of
that gift I sent
that was stolen, yet,
still arrived as
an empty envelope to
her in the
mail
      one morning.

Song J (for all)

Here is the incoming disorder,

brace discriminate, those who lived
and left when various fathers moved on --
those (the various one or two)
that culled the best cricks
and trees (w/ undergrowth,
that is, further east of Wissahickon,
be they a class of their own
such where I slunk
from my rough stoop
there, where mother cried
her eyes out for the whole
neighborhood to see from
behind dirty blinds

now ask me what keeps me here
I was so young my first memory
was of fingering
a crack of white sand
in the corner of a garage door
few blocks down where S,
now a doctoral student of sorts,
lived, in both his houses, one
his grandmother's,
where aloe grew

now ask me what keeps him here
I was so young my first
memory was of K
running through shaded Ellis
to the rec and tripped and split
open his knee on a pothole
(later his new bike stolen)

from Ba Le, I caught him with the ring
already on the finger of a forgettable
girl who was too busy on her phone
to properly greet, well, then,
I thought, I've better
places to be in the spring

Polis, once again,
is bliss which is base
I bubble violently when dropped
in and ceased when I came
to realize, (mid-scrub) O
how that territorial flag
you've stabbed into yrself,
looks goddamned silly

uptempo

"molt" she played
fever my home
you gotta be
smart --

open this
cell phone back
plate for me.

-- that one's a double.
reaching across a
mother and her child
at Bean Xchange
who were figuring
out homework
and the two old
men at their crossword

Bebop? Speedup?

Visionary Magicks

trust no day a bunch
birds systematize a
branch and their wings
ordered such as,
"till ten",
'firm and moving",
"forever one home",

9th and Brains Bridge

Hooks left on the

ceiling look like stars,

a neglected constellation

water mold crumbling

galaxy

tasteful mobile as

planetary systems -- 

I was at the back

telling her that

I had come back

to the states for only

two days

didn't believe me or

didn't care

Read poetry today

until I became sick

of poetry

7:09 Saturday loud

crunch of toast

February 23rd

Excuse me lady

behind pull up a

chair

chair squawk

crunch politeness

stomp mannerisms

rock white man

shut cash register

sing harmonies

stank butter

stick strings in

after shore door

horn tap to play

screams steam

muster gusto --

not now broken

any plane crunches again

northeastern wild

sun, cloud petal

devoured by chopper

near Tiffany's diner

cigarette parking lot

meant for both

cars and cigarettes,

for pie, homemade,

crunch rust, flying

newspaper sounds

Damn -- he's fast!

coffee house

throw me some tomatoes
for the salad you want
me to write -- right
now these are just
vegetables.

In the coffee house,
drink coffee.
Overhear professor --
scholarly men
talk about . . .

responsible things.
Wash yr face w/
dry soap/ stay in bed,
stay parked
in a blot of ink

blacked university
promises.
more rain outside
more reflections of rain
I sit here, purple and
puffy -- unafraid
and jittery, very

clean now -- not oily.
scratch an ear
the last part of a
scuffling laugh that's

wet. Door closes w/
sound. Crash of
a symbol - screeching
        geetar.
Ruffle of bags of
man leaving -

--Bristly chin, also?
--Who gets the bill?

blow on the pages
randomly - again
the ink being chased
by police.
                   what kind of
carnival
smacks -- Yes! --
into a ch(??)en?

that kept running
through the hall,
out of someone's
gourd -- till the cops
arrive.
       Hits an island,
forces up tryn the
passenger compartment
back door survival
front-yard wrestling

This poem is an
intro song
     I strut and gaze

w/ arms outstretched
roaring like a rocket
ready to collect
        DATA!

-Know when to end a
poem.
-Here's to learning how to
begin.

2.

A monsoon of intelligent
white men write
walk confidently into
coffee house
tip waitress/cashier
a buck reminding me
of Club Risque
last night
              w/ the boys.
More or less a mountain
ridges of Philadelphian
newness, find
frank friends
             what kind of
wear surprise canadian
geese wapwaping
being big blunt in
the country blind

come and go as he says
watery(?) Sean Taras
writing his articles
good eye - note - for
parking - wetness -
city mulch of
dependents us
all - drinking coffee
until it hurts -
there is no culture
to a drink to an act
felonies three or four
blocks -- how people
school themselves
a book bangs against
the wind --
trees are keeping me
awake in the
distance making
noise of cows.
craving my steamy
week to feel the
breeze on my skin.
Wet steel not
suppose to be.

Caramel laughter
in soft lighting.

mural cows not
stepping, art art
bad next to bath-
     -room

-------------

Walking back to my
spear, there is a red
and large one

------------

I am a cow afraid
of its reflection in
a coffee house window
that I've created.

------------

I am young and
the world is not.

------------

I'll be gone when
the world goes.

Ritz Theatres

1.

Film Seen: Song M
Date & Time: 4 the movies
Comments:
           Bloated!
            w/ pop
               corn
and one helluva spicy
one, too
Suggestions w/ a
   tiger,
          beb clutching
black tea and now as
the crowds spill over
we wait , behinds
black rope
w/ a suggestion


2.

Film Seen:
Date & Time:
Comments:

because I'm writing
these, I'm keeping up,
not in the slit of the
theatre, by the river,
by my identity --
     well no one knows


3.

Film Seen:
Date & Time:
Comments:

yeh! heeheehee,
poems as suggestion,
as my solo
brushy indigestion,
ugh, oh, smoking
in on a map
w/ Pine St upside
down, atop it Spruce
by a black tree
by a curious
tourist


4.

I'm by my side, I'm by my side
no lie, no lie,
feeling like a bad kid,
sitting in the back w/ my feet
up. Sure to stir it up.
Life of Pi, Life of Pi
fat cat, drunk, high
w/ a black cup.
Writing on a seat banister
beige light intrudes me
slick millipede street car
perched on a ghostly bridge
I've walked to the bridge
w/ her


5.

as a flash
gddamn I'm
dreading its
lick
dry mouth from
black tea
not seeing a
scratch of a
word

potential blurbs/titles for book(s), also task list

"You're gonna have a fuckin' ball reading this."

Jerkin' Off to Camfrog

My Dick and My Dad

8 1/2 Pounds of Urine

"Only reason it didn't rupture was because his abs were so strong."

Yr Boyfriend is a Tool

"Julia, I don't find this funny at all."

Get Ryan a kettle.

First Loves That Destroyed Me

"Better than Chicago & Dave Attell combined."

The Band? The City?

"I want you to meet some friends of mine tonight."
"Yeh, I don't know. I've really got to get home.
Gotta buy a pretzel and ride a train and then a bus."

"I forgot you smoke."

$200 Couch My Ex-Wife and I Bought

Jack Krick's Sweatshirt

Jack Krick's Snoring

"Do you mind if I lay here with you?"

"If I were to go back in time and fuck any poet..."

Fartin' And Hung Over

New York: City Full of Dicks

Song I [for myself]

I'd like you to step in and smile
partially alive this morning, I thought
laying on my good side, that I miss myself

then springing out, I play Ready for the World
and attempt judo push ups
back during that sweaty weekend

gently rubbing the tight flesh of my shoulder
running my fingers along the length of its
stretch marks, never finding bone

or my remaining youth, really
I strike away on the side of a box of matches
watch breath and smoke commingling

as a helicopter approaches
I sip my half hazelnut half regular coffee
pull my jacket tighter round my neck

Song H [for carelessness]

it was a bell whistle that started
appropriate on yr side
or maybe yr eyes?

settle down w/ the bones of a fish
everything I describe I can put in a napkin
and everything I write I can throw away

Song G [for good birthday]

lotta dishes in the sink from last night
times for lady fingers much afterward w/ tea
mac n' onions and blessed relief
one of those contemplative days I read
make up by ryan eckes and pick out
the lines that relate to me,    like,
I don't eat cheesesteaks anymore but I do drive,     and,
he truly doesn't care about the rain
holding his umbrella as though
he's always got a friend by his side

surprised not to see anything about the smokeeter
we both prefer smoketeer
steven, the bartender, is constantly taking off his sweatshirt
and putting it back on, because he gets too hot in it.
see, the problem is, he's wearing a sleeveless shirt underneath

he needs a shirt with sleeves, lauren says
I flush and a ghost of a man falls and doesn't seem to stop

What was the row about, they asked
he grasped his sword
and advanced --

I with my yielding nature,
at twenty-five years of age,
cannot find a stable foothold in society.

With silver in his pocket,
he waits for midnight.

as we talked like we always have
(this poor kid with the cute scarf
says zack (calls himself gene
but doesn't want me to call him that

that name is for bill collectors

one day he's at the market and meets
a polish woman who pronounces his
name correctly for the first time in a
very long while

he almost forgot how to say it himself

this conversation we had
it was put down and just left there

------

i will always remember lyosha as
an upstanding person           (a defender

sasha as a friend

and misha as a solitary man

I woke and walked

briskly down the old hallway through

the cold to the source

a toilet laid a cough

swelling on the edge, in tears

me on my side with the cold Deed

for address 225 East

Louden Street

father makes a two-sec call

and hangs up after I assure him that

I'm reading the damned thing

ALL THAT CERTAIN

lot or piece of ground

with the buildings and improvements

(early next electric Sunday)

thereon erected

THENCE

extending Northwardly along a line parallel

with the said "A" street

distance of one hundred twelve feet, six inches

SITUATE on the Northerly side of Louden street at the distance

of two hundred and twenty feet, ten and five-eighths inches eastward

from the east side of "A" street in

the Forty Second Ward of the City of Philadelphia

to have and to hold this cough

a hack all too singular the buildings

improvements, ways, streets, alleys, 

driveways, passages, waters,

water-courses, rights, liberties, 

privileges, hereditaments, and appurtenances

COFF!!! coff coff coff coff coff!!