McDaniel always pierces me

“Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.”


I want that.


“I used to think love was two people sucking
on the same straw to see whose thirst was stronger,

but then I whiffed the crushed walnuts of your nape,
traced jackals in the snow-covered tombstones of your teeth.

I used to think love was a non-stop saxophone solo
in the lungs, till I hung with you like a pair of sneakers

from a phone line, and you promised to always smell
the rose in my kerosene. I used to think love was terminal

pelvic ballet, till you let me jog beside while you pedaled
all over hell on the menstrual bicycle, your tongue

ripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts.
I used to think love was an old man smashing a mirror

over his knee, till you helped me carry the barbell
of my spirit back up the stairs after my car pirouetted

in the desert. You are my history book. I used to not believe
in fairy tales till I played the dunce in sheep’s clothing

and felt how perfectly your foot fit in the glass slipper
of my ass. But then duty wrapped its phone cord

around my ankle and yanked me across the continent.
And now there are three thousand miles between the u

and s in esophagus. And being without you is like standing
at a cement-filled wall with a roll of Yugoslavian nickels

and making a wish. Some days I miss you so much
I’d jump off the roof of your office building

just to catch a glimpse of you on the way down. I wish
we could trade left eyeballs, so we could always see

what the other sees. But you’re here, I’m there,
and we have only words, a nightly phone call - one chance

to mix feelings into syllables and pour into the receiver,
hope they don’t disassemble in that calculus of wire.

And lately - with this whole war thing - the language machine
supporting it - I feel betrayed by the alphabet, like they’re

injecting strychnine into my vowels, infecting my consonants,
naming attack helicopters after shattered Indian tribes:

Apache, Blackhawk; and West Bank colonizers are settlers,
so Sharon is Davey Crockett, and Arafat: Geronimo,

and it’s the Wild West all over again. And I imagine Picasso
looking in a mirror, decorating his face in war paint,

washing his brushes in venom. And I think of Jenin
in all that rubble, and I feel like a Cyclops with two eyes,

like an anorexic with three mouths, like a scuba diver
in quicksand, like a shark with plastic vampire teeth,

like I’m the executioner’s fingernail trying to reason
with the hand. And I don’t know how to speak love

when the heart is a busted cup filling with spit and paste,
and the only sexual fantasy I have is busting

into the Pentagon with a bazooka-sized pen and blowing
open the minds of generals. And I comfort myself

with the thought that we’ll name our first child Jenin,
and her middle name will be Terezin, and we’ll teach her

how to glow in the dark, and how to swallow firecrackers,
and to never neglect the first straw; because no one

ever talks about the first straw, it’s always the last straw
that gets all the attention, but by then it’s way too late.”


And that.


“Hey you, dragging the halo-
how about a holiday in the islands of grief?

Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.
Your eyes are so blue they leak.

Your legs are longer than a prisoner's
last night on death row.
I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub
and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.

You're a dirty little windshield.

I'm standing behind you on the subway,
hard as calculus. My breath
be sticking to your neck like graffiti.

I'm sitting opposite you in the bar,
waiting for you to uncross your boundaries.

I want to rip off your logic
and make passionate sense to you.

I want to ride in the swing of your hips.

My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks,
blazing your limbs into parts of speech.

But with me for a lover, you won't need
catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place
will ultimately make me resent you.

I'll start telling you lies,
and my lies will sparkle,
become the bad stars you chart your life by.

I'll stare at other women so blatantly
you'll hear my eyes peeling,

because sex with you is like Great Britain:
cold, groggy, and a little uptight.

Your bed is a big, soft calculator
where my problems multiply.

Your brain is a garage
I park my bullshit in, for free.

You're not really my new girlfriend,
just another flop sequel of the first one,
who was based on the true story of my mother.

You're so ugly I forgot how to spell.

I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test,
break your heart just for the sound it makes.

You're the 'this' we need to put an end to.
The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.

So how about it?”
― Jeffrey McDaniel


Yes.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/73204.Jeffrey_McDaniel

Interesting interview

"We’re naturals. It makes sense. We all do this everyday: focus on a series of small and meaningless tasks to pass the time, try to preserve our memories without wallowing in grief, and hope our lives will add up to some kind of tribute. Of course we’re good at scrapbooking. Scraps are all we have."

http://therumpus.net/2013/08/the-rumpus-interview-with-justin-st-germain/

late nights

Because I can't stay so far from not knowing the truth. I'd rather have the loss than the not knowing.
I'm a slave to it.
Fuck.

I want to throw myself at it 
over and over
until I break.

http://inenglishpleaseblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/word-of-the-week-28/

Norman Mailer quotes

"It's a misperception of me that I am a wild man — I wish I still were. I'm 68 years old. The rage now is, oh, so deep it's almost comfortable. It has even approached the point where I can live with it philosophically. The world's not what I want it to be. But then no one ever said I had the right to design the world."

 Time Magazine, Sep. 30, 1991

"We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods."

 Ancient Evenings

"There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be."

 The International Herald Tribune, Jan. 24, 1992

With the taste of fresh kisses still on my mouth,

I walked a few blocks towards home.

As I passed a school,

This sickening feeling came over me,

I grabbed the chain-link fence to brace myself.

It was a part of me breaking. It hurt like venom.

I walked a drunken line around the corner and sat.

I repeated words.

I took in some air, some life.

I let go,

As much as I could.

brief moment

Who was the first one to get inside?

Who made you hide in the safety of your solitude?

Don't be mute.

Contrasts

Contrasts

Between light and dark

Between pleasure and pain

Are blurred.

She is familiar

Like a part I left standing at a far off place

Somewhere in my travels

Who has stopped in again to say,

“I’m here. I’m here again.”

At the edge of that cliff

We parted ways,

And although I did not jump

My soul left something

And she found it

Fed it

And brought it back.

out of my

I'm not a passive person

Allowing life to wash over me

I feel the contrary

I wake

I eat

I drink.

Then I dive into the different manias that propel me in life.

School offers countless interactions with like-minded-drifters and unemployed-poets.

On my rides,

through the city,

Alone

like the wolf I am,

I make the neighborhood mine,

I know the shadows, trees, 

The cracks in the sidewalk,

I smoke in the hidden places.

I know who's home.

I observe.

I may be a stranger to these parts,

But I live among you,

looking passive,

heaving forward.

"It slipped my mind
And for a time
I felt completely free

Oh what a troubled,
Silent, poor boy
A pawn into a queen

I laugh now
But later's not so easy
I've gotta stop,
The will is strong, but the flesh is weak
Guess that's it
I've made my bed, I'm lying in it"

Cut

You’ll never find me there

In all the familiar places

Now I sit

Under the moon

Glistening

Like I never have

Before

With stardust

And clarity

Not under

Your dark clothe

Smothered

By hope

By the thoughts

Of a future

Of what could be.

Farther, further, forward. I cut through.

The Dual Nature of Being

• Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.  – E.L. Doctorow

[B]ut I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; . . . no, it was in my own person that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience. . . .
[However,] this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made discovery. It was a fine . . . day. . . . I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. . . . I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.

-DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Wanton Soup

My horoscope said, “Nothing is gained by overstating your case today.” But how can I let my words not spill out of my mouth,

Held wide open by the universe flooding it with uncertainty and want.

“Endless rambling” like a car with a loose muffler; that’s me.

“Inflating your ego might backfire...” And three, two, one, “POP.”

These manifestations of the mind fulfill the pleasures of the night, but in the brightness of day all those images and moments of heart beats fall back into the cracks and remind us that we are unaware pawns

We are the unaware populous of destitute conditions. Seeking to capture a butterfly that will burst into fire in our closed hand.

We can’t find ourselves unless we stop looking.

We are like vapors touching a void.

We are like newts failing to evolve.

We are like Quasimodo ringing the bell for sanctuary just as the wrecking ball hits the tower.

So there I go,

overstating my case. Just like I do....

Just like they knew

I would.

After all, it is not the words that break us. It is the silence.

            

Summer

Hola companeros,

I am happy to be heading into summer. What it means for me; picnics in the park, long bike rides, camping, good times with good friends.
My vision of summer is skewed by my childhood nostalgia. I rode my bike, as an ambassador of the block. I took inventory of every sidewalk crack. I was the leader of the neighborhood kid-militia. The canal banks were to the south of my house -- that was an extension of our backyard. Our dogs would swim and chase sticks. The water would rush out of the city to the fields, we were a fleeting glance before the water gave life to the crops.
Nothing can come close to the summers of childhood. But we try.

Fire Steel

Today I tried out my new fire steel and made a good little fire in my hobo stove. I had hot chocolate in less than ten minutes.

This is a typical day in Portland, overcast, drizzly . . . but the element of fire and hot beverage made it quite pleasant.
I used Cedar bark I had collected from the neighborhood as my tinder. Fun fun.