For Richard (2006)

(with last line by Clark Coolidge)


We are the liquid poem

_____the blood lit with beautiful hazards

_____a loose tooth through turbulence

_____our raw / our overcooked eyes

(everyone rise)

cashed (2006)

was cashed up dangling fifties hundreds over the bar lights shallow red amber faces chronic firelike my good friend Greg conjuring joints sparking up / smoked up loose inspired selecting fancy cocktails from fancy menu talking up at ease with tongue letting it flick & lash bringing the punchline in to land timing it tight being real sophists drawing attention dwarfing our usual shrunken selves spying work of art women thinking they’re spies like us / my good friend Greg on the phone hooked up to the apparatus trying to hook us trying for 350 for cut 400 for pure pure-ish wallet prepped in position are we good we’re good to go yeah Johnny will be here in 20 what a guy


A previous version of this poem was published in hutt 2.5.

You can hear a performance of this poem towards the end of this radio interview (which is available for download as an mp3).

Advice (2002)

do not fear
what lies ahead,
do not sweat
the small numbers
which advertise the truth.
do not visit
the dealer; he is
a misfit, buying
a way out of time
no faster, no slower.
do not consume
just one more coffee
before the descent;
just drop life down
like a wind abating.
do not enter those
burning rooms again
until you have slept,
your runner has fallen,
your mirror has wept.


As published in Clockwise Cat, July 2009.

Numbers (2006)

Don't like knowing
your numbers,

don’t like you knowing
mine

because these are
symptoms of paranoia,

are what remain
after the gloves come off,

salary packages brandished
like talons / guitar riffs,

brawling plastered in pokie joints
with our catch-all misconception,

our woozy pride
hiding behind America.

Let's makebelieve we're mystics
of the unconquered zero,

knowing what we know:
the market won't

fellate us all, because
what is here is here in

heads (heads ragged
with voices),

cooked entropy /
six-figure figurines:

check our numbers
trading futures on the screen.

Below: Andreas Gursky, Chicago Board of Trade II

(source: http://www.artnet.com/artwork/51398/andreas-gursky-chicago-board-of-trade-ii.html)

I go through days quiet (2006)

I go through days quiet

question everything

esp. food & language

(what is food anyway?)

type more words than I speak

despise all ringtones

try to arbitrate disputes amongst mad friends

(by appealing to possibilities of egolessness)

hunt down missing shreds of laughter

//

my favourite poems tend to house collectible jokes

like O'Hara letting himself go

with the wind, out of traffic

"Lana Turner we love you get up"

I like to let go

like this or like

Daredevil swinging blind on the nightsky

- anything to dodge being a passenger -

letting go the easiest, the hardest thing

(helps if you don't question every single shift of sky)

"try not to run away from yourself" she said

but I run til I feel elevated

I run til I am rain

I go through days quiet

Charisma (2006)

When was the last time you faked charisma?

Were you wasted?

Profiling your interests for a dating site?

(“wild parties, latin dancing, balloon sculpture”)

Sometimes making a fake is a waste, like breaking a lake or trying to pick up in a pickup.

Sometimes language is a loser and dejected hacks are behind everything...

*

The way we are a couple of days after getting loved up on pills is the opposite of charisma:

our faces deserted, all but the most animal entertainment fails;

all is lost (until found again).

‘Suicide Tuesday’: my manager wears charisma like headdress feathers of an Indian Chief that I see reflected on my monitor while he peers, arms folded, behind me.

(If I was born again as an officeworker I’d hope to be blind; who needs the protesting eyes, carcinogens, under-appreciation, murderous décor?)

Figure that only some freak emergency can save me; daydream that somewhere, in another corner of hyperspace (hmm... why not in a gym?), disaster has dropped: trampling hordes / malfunctioning alarms / charisma leaking everywhere


As published in bambikino 9, November 2008.