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