On the Other Side

[Hey guys, I know this is a late post and I have some commenting to do myself, but I figured I'd submit this anyways, and, if anything, if no one has time to comment on it, that's cool...maybe take a look at it next time around? I'd appreciate the criticism. Let me know. Thanks.]



My head was the charge of protons and electrons it takes for clouds to make a lightning storm. Fuck, that’s good. I should remember that.

No kidding. That’s what pot does to me. Fuckin’ thinking up lightning storms. Not only that, I feel like I’m stuck in a cloud. I’d call it Cloud 9, but that’d be lame. It’s been used. And story telling takes originality. That’s where the pot comes in.

So, I’m sitting in my friend’s apartment, on an old couch. Comfortable, though. Fuckin’ freezing, though. He doesn’t have heat, and I haven’t felt a winter as cold as this one as far as I could remember. The rivers froze over. All three of ‘em. Oh, we’re in Oakland—edge of Pittsburgh. Well, a chunk of the ‘Greater Pittsburgh Area’ I guess you’d call it.

So, I’m sitting here, fuckin’ freezing, comfortable though, and I’m with six of my close friends. Four on a futon, one on a La-Z-Boy, and one on the couch next to me. I could tell you who was sitting where, but that’s not necessary. This was good pot. Colombian shit. Fuckin’ lightning storms.

Anyway, that’s not the point. I was sitting there, and we had already taken like five or six bong hits to the head. We were actin’ all loopy and shit. Gigglin’ and carryin’ on about stupid shit.

But, there were a few good fuckin’ conversations. Worth mentioning! I made sure that I remembered them. After I had enough for a story, I left their world and just kept replaying shit in my head. Quotes, situations, and whatnot, from the past couple hours. I was sure there was a story somewhere in it all.

I’ll start with what was originally going on in my head—after the first couple hits. I was trying to remember something from my childhood. I had strayed away from the normal, friendly chit-chat and was losing myself in thought. Someone mentioned something about having no money, and fuckin’ sparks in my head just shook up memories I forgot I had about money.

Oh yeah, I have Lacunar Amnesia. I probably should have mentioned that before. I block shit out from my past. It’s pissed me off knowing that I can’t remember significant times in my life, but I deal with it. Sometimes, when I’m lucky though, shit will come back and I’ll be like “Wow, how’d I forget that?”

Fuck it—whatever.

I guess this was one of those lucky nights, ‘cause I remembered something that disturbed me. I made someone get their ass kicked, because I said ‘Yes’ to something that I really wasn’t sure of.

I was like fifteen, and I kept my money wadded up in the corner of the top drawer of my dresser. I always saved my money. For no concrete reason really; I would occasionally just count it and then put it back in the drawer.

Well, I was gone one night, sleeping over a friend’s house while my brothers had a huge fuckin’ party with kegs, coke, and cannabis—things that weren’t for me. Yet. And the next day, I came home and decided to count my money, finding that thirty bucks was missing. Or that’s the thing, I think thirty bucks was missin’. I couldn’t remember if I spent it on something stupid like Dairy Queen down the street, or if it was actually missing.

To make a long story short, I told my mom, who interrogated my brother, who beat the living hell out of the kid who had slept in my room the night before.
I felt like shit for a while after that, but I had tried hard and eventually convinced myself that the money was definitely stolen and I didn’t just forget.

So that was memory #1 about money that came to me from this Columbian high and the mention of money.

Number Two was that I lent six hundred bucks to my mom at some point in time. And I was just trying to recall if she ever paid me back. It never came to me.

I just kept sitting there, piecing together my past, when I was passed the bong again and started listening to the conversation going on in the room. I really couldn’t tell you how the conversation started. But I think it would be good to include in the story.

“No, seriously, Darwin knew what the fuck he was talking about.” My friend, Greg, was lounging back with his head resting at a slant on the built-in pillow of the La-Z-Boy. “Get this. On each side of the Grand Canyon, there is a separate species of Squirrel that was once one species. They were separated during the split and adapted to each side. Isn’t that fuckin’ crazy?” His eyes lit up as I lit up the bowl piece with my lighter.

I then remembered something that I had read from the cover of TIME magazine while I choked down some smoke. I held my finger up, so they would know I had something to say, but I took too big of a hit. I started hacking up a lung and couldn’t stop coughing for like five minutes straight. At first they just stared at me. Then, they started laughing.

When my lungs relaxed, I spoke. “I believe it, man! I read something that said monkeys have like 99.99 percent the same structure of genes as humans do. No shit.”
I passed the bong. The room’s size caught me off guard, and I almost dropped the damn thing before my friend Amber on the futon could grab it. But I snatched it before it had the chance to slide to the floor and shatter. Johnny, he’s the one sittin’ next to me—the one who lives here and the one who owns the bong—he would have been pissed. He probably would have kicked my ass right out into the cold to find my own way home. But I started laughing and so did they.

“I would’ve fuckin’ killed you,” Johnny made a point to say.

Fuckin’ laugh riot. We all just enjoyed the comment. Nothin’ serious. We were all pretty stoned.

My buddy Bill, sitting on the futon with Amber and, uh, Jake and Mary, hadn’t said much of anything the entire night.

I could tell he was just dreamin’ with his eyes open.

He must’ve found something we said pretty interesting, ‘cause he just started gigglin’ to himself. And his eyes started shiftin’. It mixed with my high and fuckin’ creeped me out.

He sniffled and said, “monkeys are just on the other side of the canyon.”
The room fell silent, and Mary let out an obnoxious “Pffffftttt” noise from her squeezed tight lips. Little specks of spit flyin’ through the frozen mist of her breath.

Bill was up, and he took a hit. And that was that—end of conversation.

I thought about what Bill said for a second. It seemed almost profound. Like you’d read that in some philosopher’s textbook or some shit. I ended up not being able to get that phrase out of my head for the rest of the night. It just stuck there. Bill must’ve been workin’ on that idea since I talked to Greg. His haze must’ve just finally filtered it through I guess.

We ended up running out of pot—about six hits later like I said before. Between dazing out and letting my eyes slide halfway shut, I would occasionally think of that wording, monkeys, are just on the other side, of the canyon, as the night developed into a dark, silent stillness outside the window.

Just as I was sittin’ there ready to nod off all relaxed and shit, wouldn’t y’know it, a loud fuckin’ bang on the door snapped me fuckin’ straight.

“It’s the cops. Open up!”

Yeah, as I’m sure you could tell, that absolutely killed my high. Right back dead to reality. No bullshit. So we stowed the bong in a duffle bag under the couch.
Everyone’s eyes were bulgin’. Beat red and nearly comin’ out of their sockets. I, being closest to the door, was nudged and poked at by Johnny until I gave in and got up to open it.

“Just a sec.” I said after clearing my throat.

The rest of us just immediately tried to act cool and make their faces tangled up in false expressions of normality.

They looked like dumb, fuckin’ primates.

I got up and brushed off from my dingy shirt any imaginary suspicion or guilt still left from the pot. I’m sure there was still a lot of it. As I reached for the doorknob, Johnny bolted out of his seat and ran around wildly, spraying Febreze into the air. I coughed from its hold on my nostrils, and he sat down as quickly as he got up.

Now, we looked like a cult of mannequins in a chemically scented Normal Factory.
I opened the door, and my heart fuckin’ sank. It was Nick with Veronica trailing in the hallway, bent over crackin’ her ribs from laughing. Nick was holdin’ a six-pack and slid right by me reeking of stale beer. I just stood there still having a goofy ass, jaw-dropped expression on my face.

I know this, ‘cause Veronica later said to me, “You should have seen that goofy ass look on your face!”

Regardless, when Veronica stepped into the room, she immediately began talking loudly, fuckin’ swearing, laughing, and carrying on while she chewed gum and rubbed her palms against her thighs.

“Shit, Johnny, I didn’t know you live in Kyle’s old apartment! That’s fucked up. I’ve been here a few times before.”

“Oh yeah.” Johnny rubbed his eyes and shook his head, obviously still not happy about the previous false alarm with his buzz bein’ dooped and all.

“Yeah, seriously.” Veronica wandered around all jittery-like, and she ended up in the hallway looking at a poster print of Raphael’s School of Athens.

Johnny goes to Pittsburgh’s Art Institute in the heart of The Burgh.

“This apartment brings back memories. I once stole a doorknob, some yogurt, and a crowbar from here.”

See, though, this is where my story ends. I can’t remember much after that. But I know I kept thinkin’ there was something in that night that was worth telling you about. I’m not quite sure what that is. But it was a funny night anyway—interesting. Fuckin’ cold as balls though. But comfortable. Just some of us college students smokin’ a bong.

Damn, I was high. Some of us were stoned stupid.

And then there was that phrase: Monkeys are just on the other side of the canyon.

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Expandable summaries/cuts

Let's say you're posting something long and you want to use a cut. You go to "create post" and then go to "edit html." there you should see (inside of the pointy brackets) the words "span class="fullpost" " and then the word "span" inside of the brackets and backslash that mean the end of an instruction in html. Whatever you want to show up as the excerpt on the main blog page goes in front of this extra stuff, and then the rest of the piece goes in between the first part and the /span tag - basically inbetween where the brackets go "><". If you write everything in "compose" there will be nothing in the cut. Also I've noticed some problems if you directly cut and paste from microsoft word because you'll see when you paste that there is a whole lot of extra stuff in there besides text. Sometimes blogger tells me there are unsupported commands. If this gives you a hard time when you're using a cut you can paste it into wordpad or somewhere first and then cut from there and paste into the blog; that gets rid of all the unsavory extras.

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art fer yous guys.
comments?

question 1: what's the deal with 'sketchbook snapshots'? are we still doing that? if so, i can take away the photos and add more drawings.

question 2: how does i 'cut text', so i'm not takin' up so much space?

a quick suggestion - only 4-5 contributions per person per issue. I worry that part of our workshopping/editing problem is the sheer volume of work we have now. if we stick to 5 per person, it's automatic quality control (people will choose their best stuff/what they like the best), and we'll be able to move on to putting the thing together faster.

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We cannot have public power without a public press – where by “press” I mean a source of public media.

We want and deserve public power. In order to have this, we must also have a way to communicate with and engage one another, a way to distribute information and ideas and a way to come together as a single united group – the “public.”

Anyone can produce a work of quality. The community’s goal should be to help each person create to the best of their ability. We talk about democracy, about a free press and free education, yet it is clear that many are still powerless, voiceless and unable to reach their potential. As inspired as we may be by people put in leadership roles, only the public is able to determine what it wants or needs; as frustrated as we may be by the incompetence of people in leadership roles, we cannot be victorious either through apathy or the use of violence, even in the cases where it might be justifiable. These things only further divide the communities which are the only source of our power.

Culture is the sacrament of our humanity. It is how we recognize and understand different groups of people, if we want to understand them at all. When we ignore language, history and culture, we dehumanize ourselves and others; that is how many heinous crimes have been justified and carried out. Instead of forgetting our past, the songs and words and stories of our ancestors, we should be remixing and sampling these things in our daily lives. We should be doing this across families, neighborhoods and cultures; we should be doing this to prove our intelligence, coherence and competence; we should do this to overcome the virus of suffering and violence that governments only revitalize with laws and propaganda, that only the public acting autonomously can control. We can educate. We can enlighten. We can inspire. We are artists, philosophers, engineers. Every person has something to offer that the community can use.

By valuing each other, we empower each other.

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1.

The old priests used to say that around here even the cows are Catholic. Bars are the only thing we have more of than churches, and in general the same people attend both religiously. St. Pat’s was the first church and the biggest, which I guess makes sense. The Irish were sorta runnin everything, tellin their crude jokes about the “dumb Pollocks” and relegating the Italians (who unlike the Poles didn’t have their own church) to two cramped rows in the back where it was all drafty. Course we all know pride comes before fall: that old church burned down twice in sixty years, though never completely. But maybe the lemma was wrong after all, since the only fatality in either fire was a seven-year-old boy who fell from the choir loft. His name became a rallying cry for money and labor to rebuild St. Pat’s, and the ones who uttered it with the most authority conveniently neglected the truth that the little Italian had snuck up to the loft in the first place because the back pews were all full, he wasn’t allowed up front and his lame leg wouldn’t support him standin all through Mass. History was written to permanently paint over the truth. Culture and tradition, which keep copying each other, are all that preserves it. And so the old people created a story to remind us that something about history was crooked; the legends survive to this day about the boy ghost of the bell tower even as ethnic animosity melts away. How you hear limping footsteps in the loft, hands and feet banging on the organ, bells ringing at 8:12 (the time the fire started) and see his toy ball tumble down the steps or drop from the loft itself. Older siblings threaten to lock little ones in the belltower with the ghost; grandparents talk about people who knew him claiming to hear him praying with them at Mass. We remember the truth.

2.

There were a lot more family farms around here 90 years ago. The families struggled to hang onto them. The one family, I remember they made sure to have enough kids so that even after the dad died young there were plenty of people left to work it for years and years. But the kids didn’t want to stay in that same place and be farmers; their ancestors had spent their lives seducing an amorous yield from the land, and though the land was willing and fertile after hundreds of years of monogamy their hands had lost the lust for it. So one sister became a hatter, another a seamstress, one brother fell for a Carolina woman, one moved out West and disappeared because he had secretly wed a former slave and wanted to avoid scandal, one learned carpentry and worked on the railroad most of his life, and so on. After a few years away from home, the railroad man met a hardworking factory girl and announced to his friends that same day that he was going to marry her. “She’s already got a boyfriend,” they said. “What’s that got to do with me?” he replied. He was stubborn, tough and full of bravado; so was she. They argued most of the time, but the constant challenge kept them sharp and passionate. So they did get married. Now, the railroad man had come from a Catholic home and his new wife was Methodist. They barely argued about religion though, because honestly he couldn’t care less. He was only Catholic in his mother’s house, and he had moved on to a new woman who gave him the excuse he wanted to not be religious at all. He was still moral and upright, as good to his family as society expected him to be, and his wife raised their rapidly growing family as devout, Scripture learning Protestants. But the time came when his good Catholic mother ran out of kids and was too old and arthritic to run the farm herself. How she made the decision he would never know, but he received a letter saying she was going to sell the farm and would be moving into his house within two weeks. She noted at the end that she looked forward to meeting his pastor and attending Mass with her grandchildren. He knew that she knew his wife was Methodist, and so he recognized the command implicit in the letter. He cursed and fumed to himself, but although the religious rites hadn’t taken root in him, the commandments had. “Honor thy father and thy mother,” he muttered, but there was no commandment to honor thy wife or thy children. So after a day or so he had calmed down enough to do the necessary lying through his teeth, and he went to his wife and said, “I had a revelation and now I believe in God.” “With all that cursing I thought sure you was passing a stone.” “I swear to God if you don’t shut-“ “Oh it’s a miracle, I can hear Jesus in you already.” “Look, you an the kids are going to get baptized-“ “Right except me and the kids are already baptized and go to church every week. I though you were the one who jus converted-“ “Yeah but I already been baptized and you ain’t.” “Guess that depends on what you mean by baptized huh?” Then a big argument began in which the man sounded like an idiot because he didn’t know anything about religion, but it didn’t really matter because all his wife could threaten to do was leave him and she couldn’t leave the kids or take care of them on her own. I wish I could tell you they compromised but at this point in time husbands and wives didn’t compromise in matters that mattered, husbands made decisions and wives got used to the decisions. So after they calmed down a little the husband shrugged and said “I think we’ve come to an agreement. Oh and also, my mother is moving in next week,” and then the argument began all over again because of course the wife saw that this was the reason for his whole conversion lie. Finally she got a little bit of a compromise out of him: the children would have to be Catholic but she could stay Methodist. This was almost a worse bargain because she had to watch her little ones innocently and fully convert to a religion her husband didn’t even believe, and she had to deal with her mother-in-law constantly commenting that it was lucky she wasn’t insisting on dragging the kids to hell with her. In the end it didn’t matter. Her mother-in-law died, and the children as grown ups became Methodist, Catholic or agnostic just like their parents. And they were all upright and moral, so whether any went to hell remains to be seen. All I know for sure is none of them became farmers.

3.

Some people see God all the time. On their toast, for example. In the outline of a cigarette burn. When they hit their head. As the toilet inherits their breakfast due to the flu, pregnancy, six Iron Citys. I know for a fact you can buy an angel at the dollar store and get a t-shirt with Jesus’ face on it. Let’s cut out the middleman, get the look for less. But what is the value of expense? Cost isn’t always the same thing as money. The preacher’s sermon is an infomercial and his epiphany is a pyramid scheme. I will protect myself from swindlers by never having enough money to buy in.

4.

Some kids are raised religious and some aren’t. If they stay one way or the other when they’re grown up they must have gotten some value from it. Some of them evolve. They start out all “Jesus loves me because I can’t read and don’t know shit,” move on to “I sing in the choir, like Sundays because dinner is good and we don’t have chores, and Christmas is my favorite holiday,” which becomes “If you say anything bad about Jesus I’ll punch you, I don’t necessarily talk about it a lot (although I might, depending on who my friends are) but I seriously believe everything my religion, whichever one it is, says,” and some people stay in this phase while others move into “religion is bullshit and I only ever say anything good about it in front of my mom.” There is a later evolutionary stage however –not a final one, because evolution never stops- that can be rare in the young. This one happens when you haven’t really been going to church and it isn’t really a big deal, but then your mom dies. You and your brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and kids are going through her things, looking at old pictures, scribbled notes in her notorious handwriting, those damn recipes that are never for the food she actually made because the good ones were all in her head, when you stumble across something. Something really simple, like her little cross necklace, her personal Bible with unclear notes and pictures and prayer cards stuck in it randomly, a plate she used all the time that says “Give us this day our daily bread,” a picture of her with friends at church. Anything like that is enough to do it, to launch this late-stage fervor. It doesn’t work for everyone. But for some it is a way of saying “this is how I honor my (mom, grandpa, dead daughter).” It is small, private and comforting. It doesn’t always last, but it is a way to remember.

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Topics for dinner conversation
(from Fibonacci 1202 by Mario Merz)


1: the man is not there thinking

can I paint myself with numbers
create if not perfect determinism at least

a probability distribution that in trying
to replicate our humanity we have

2: the woman waiting for her father

created clockwork and computation
struggle for order in a system

working to maximize entropy
always we try to justify

3: the man appears, but the woman has gone missing

this mistake by describing
it to the last decimal

place where the exponential growth of dinner
conversation is no accident, it was foretold as

5: she returns, but he turns his head

by Feynman and Fibonacci after
every hour a silence occurs
despite the forceful hospitality

8: her friend appears, an order

of imported Italian wine

13: a man sits by the first man

21: they do not interest each other

34: no one sits alone anymore

55: the room is full and so are the people

89: Neon

I have always liked addition better
than subtraction
aren’t letters just variable numbers
aren’t people just variable letters


ATCG QED

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Skin Market

I was feeling false. I was feeling manufactured
is my skin authentic or a knock-off?
I can’t find the receipt
the mark of scissors on my thigh
makes me suspicious

Birthmark or trademark?
My mother left her mark on me
but was she a uterus
or a Van Neumann machine?
Scan my barcode.

We are simulacra; I remember
the chain of paper dolls
we were rolled out in sheets
sliced down to size, feet and hands
severed – fingers and toes, surgical scars

Scars record on our bodies
a history of connection
but is it art or artifice?
If our fingers meet again
will they reknit or reunite?

Now that it’s beyond repair
it’s time to let the market decide

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Etiquette

The last time I crapped my pants I was at this party

We built a bonfire out back All real messed up dancing

like amputees til we got our sea legs People saying

Man you smell like shit Me not giving a shit The house

censoring a hill’s privates while I tried to undress

the city with my eyes I saw a diaper rash of

taillights chapping the bridge Nightlit downtown red and sore

Both brought down by old age alcohol and capital

we chose incontinence as social fertilizer

because if you campaign on your flaws your virtues are

just icing on the sausage Love is the silverware

that civilizes lust’s appetite I forgot mine

With your nose clothespinned we hungrily spooned knifed and forked

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An Urgent Message for the Scientist

art is made from naked bodies

you sometimes maim
in fits of passion
you sometimes stain
with self expression

latex fingers dressed and painted
our breasts
single-celled and pliable

fascinated with our forms

but now as we lay
expectant and exposed
granted the modesty of
a coverslip

your interest is divided
by numbers

spread like a painting
under your aperture
all you care about is chemicals

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pocket protectors

money to buy pants with empty pockets
space to place an interpant exchange
of fluids pigmented and watercoloring
off the face of commerce:

under where businessmen with careful creases
trade stocks for salmonella
hedge funds for hash-
remembering the advice of a thousand doctors
“sickness in small doses
keeps you healthy”
which reaffirms the value of our smallness
hidden as we are in patch pockets
praying to stay out of the wash
where our bodies are wiped clean
true colors run and messages melt
a loss of life
a small earthquake
dose

at my baptism I drowned
in detergent it was a futile exercise in hygiene
like trying to rinse George Washington’s face from a dollar
it may be a dirty message on the back of a stall door
but it has come to define
What that stall means:
a place where bodies are eager
pockets to be stuffed and traded
by schoolchildren for money
to buy pants with empty pockets

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Phluorescent Phallacy

We were so bored with each other
that we had started to doodle
in the margins of our relationship.

Admonished by love or masochism
we studied taboo, a shared interest
in the hope that it would lead to
shared shame, a public defeat
which was more titillating
than the empty embarrassment
of infidelity. Even our kinks
were at first more criminally boring
than shocking: sex in public,
at a playground, with a group of three
or more, with various groceries,
gardening tools and mod collectibles,
with ordained members of religious sects
dressed in habits or in drag.

It was as if we had culled ideas
from an aging pornstar’s boudoir:
we were lucky to maintain interest
let alone arousal for more than an hour.

In the end we realized our only hope
would be the liberal use of acting
and costumes, converting the grey
of bonerkilling reality into
an eternally furry fluorescent Wonderland.

But as we play pretend
acting like prostitutes in the grocery store
hapless foreigners at the airport
nuns at the Carnival

I wonder if it’s any different than cheating
if you must pretend I am
Marilyn Monroe
Mother Theresa
Bill Clinton
or your mother
to get it up.

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This isn't a post of work or anything, I just wanted to make a few general posting suggestions. I think it might be useful to use the labels for posting to identify the author and the type of work, that way we can search for all the work by a particular person, all the prose, all of someone's prose, etc. So when I post some work in a minute I'll label it Jocelyn, prose. You guys should do the same, as long as you think it's a good idea. Second, if it's cool with everyone I'm going to set the blog entries to have expandable post summaries. If you're familiar with Livejournal, you probably know that you can make text "cuts" for long entries so on the main page you just see an excerpt of the post with a little "more" link to go to a new page with the whole piece displayed by itself. I think this would be helpful since right now if one person posts something really long it takes up pretty much the whole front page. Through blogger when you do this the only problem is that it seems to say "read more" or whatever even if the piece is so short that there is nothing more behind the cut. If you want we can try it and then if we don't like it we'll just get rid of it.

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I am sitting down to write
a poem. It is the first real poem
I will write. Until now I have
only spoken to friends.

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Autobiography

Autobiography

The following information is important:

Name: Justin Anthony Hultman

- My mother told me that I was named after a catholic priest in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. In 15--, Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church. Aliquippa is a small suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Later, I would attend a small catholic high school. I was almost broken away from a small catholic high school, once for writing, and again for not being a man. If I were Martin Luther I would have nailed a list of complaints to the door of the chapel. Instead I would sneak into the back of the chapel and sleep in the warm sunrays through the stained glass. Now I assume Martin Luther would just send an email. I assume he would drive a car. In a car, I left Aliquippa and moved to Johnstown, Pennsylvania I went to a small catholic high school in Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Birth: July 23, 1986

- When I was born, a plane departed from the Pittsburgh International Airport. Aliquippa is a small suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Aliquippa is very close to the Pittsburgh International Airport. I assume a plane must have been departing at/or (around) that time. On that plane, people were leaving Pittsburgh. People with money were leaving cities all around the country. My father told me Ronald Regan was an American hero. He said in the 1980's the economy was booming. Now, I see a man on the bus wearing a Member's Only jacket and I wonder if he has money. I wonder if he's ever flown on a plane. I wonder were he was the day I was born. Every 20 years popular culture repeats itself. The 80's are back. I feel like I'm being reborn. I may/may not actually exist. Twenty-two years after I was born, the United States elected a black man as its president. He remembers the 80's much better than I do. The trends will repeat themselves.

Birth: July 23, 1986

- When I was born, a plane didn't departed from the Pittsburgh International Airport. Aliquipa is not a small suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvainia. Aliquipa is not very close to the Pittsburgh Internation Airport. Don't assume a plane must have been departing at/or (around) that time. Don't get on that plane. Please don't leave Pittsburgh. People with money are cities and all around the country is my father. Ronald Regan was an American hero. He was the 1980's. I am the economy. Now, i am a man on the bus wearing a Member's Only jacket. I wonder if money knows that it's money. I wonder if planes are ever scared to get on planes. I wonder if the day I was born will be the day I will be born. Every 20 years popular culture repeats itself. The 80's are back. I feel, therefore i'm born. I may/may not actually exist twenty years from now. Twenty years after i was reborn, the United States elected a black man as it's president. He remembers the 80's. The 80's remember being born. The trends will repeat themselves.








Ars Poetica:
The Art of Poetry

Unless of course there are two
and one and one we = mornings:
new dawn / a dead dew and grass
clippings. What are you hiding?

(I) barefoot on your back steps
(You) hate cigarettes
(We) made breakfast

On hold. each other waiting
for early bird lunch specials
catching the worm. Feed me.

"There, the hole. That’s where I buried it."

What are you hiding?

First things first among the second thoughts and
two hands like a spade. we cleft hours. Being:

Beating. Announce.

The second coming.

A child. A whore. The neighbors
Talkings to closed windows.

The alley. Two tin cans. Throw away everything you
know. everything can be understood. Just try. and catch

me. i am. i was. But now i'm not. you
pick up the pieces. Forget what I told you.

Only remember one thing.


Nevermind.


What am I hiding?

We are (I am) the only thing left.



Introspective:

1.

There was a time on the stairs. I understood it was on the stairs you later reminded me of our exact location, the time of day, even how I held my feet - tapping; the other hand folded grinding nails into skin leaving an early parable in scratches, arms blushing. This was not a once, but an everyday; years were vague, holding hands that held air and papers folded into books - remember. You must have. You never bothered to tell anyone. I am sure. I never. I manage. Leave an imprint on public walls above restroom sinks. Four more years. This is a two-fold reality. I in a shadow, or I in different haircut, different boots passing self and selfish never time to recognize; myself, here now backward in
motion. Strange, it was we leave. Leave capsules.


2.

Infection dancing Beautiful girl with crowfoot eyes and deep orange lips. Pages then Books then Learning: it was essential. How to cope Changing (bus schedules) skin and seasons altered the west
-ern Pennsylvania saint. Who brought god in, You Too, one of us was dying, changing shapes rain
that falls like orbs that look like breasts. You never felt. A woman I knew was lying. Leaving you said
the country you said best option you said. Running easier if the terrain was, essential you said the map was only half complete. You said my shoes were old, ragged my pants were getting slim. I had hair of disasters. Maybe


3.

(for jocelyn)

There is a matter of motion. On dance floors. In car accidents. We precipitate reality when we discover our hands. On smooth aluminum. Around a teacup. If ever there was a chance to take back. To talk to neighbors. To buy a wooden shovel. I have scene great cinematography. The forest. The space between your two front teeth. It was unexpected. To weigh you. To weigh options. Unless of course. You and I had met. Had you met. There was never. A glass avocado. A package of cigarettes. Reservations were required. To enter the hospital. To leave the cathedral. We kept trying to taste. The checkerboard. The parking lot. Tomorrow will be better. For tragedy. For children. Everything is wanting. A pen. A pen. Everything is only. A new haircut. A pair of boots. The only thing left is cognition. Or paralysis. Or capitulation. You told me you were reading. A pair of scissors. An elm tree. The animals are restless. Like skeletons. Like asphalt. Never had I thought of being a father. Or a salesman. Or a clock.










Birth: July 23, 1986

When I was a plane, I departed birth. The international suburb is people with money, am only cities – was only the 1980’s. My father, Ronald Regan, told planes to fly and they flew. He was an American jacket. His pockets were stuffed with money. His money was booming, it was all around the country, it was a born from black men. Twenty years from now you’ll all be sorry. You’ll be departing sorry culture existing men to feel like being born is repeating and seeing Aliquippa you’ll know. I wonder. Much better than the president, I am, on a plane. The only member of ::repeat: the only member of the United wonder. States the feeling much better than I do.


Today: November 11, 2008


Now: 2:12 PM



It has begun. Even now I attempt to hide. I will lie to you. In the following pages I will lie to you.




I am sitting down to write
a poem. It is the first real poem
I will write. Until now I have
only spoken to friends.


Sitting at my desk. There must be an order to this motion. The act of writing. Beginning - fresh pens, new paper :: a slight diversion to get a snack :: The view from the bay window out on to South Pacific Ave. These homes are family. They have seen the city change. The forgotten Garden Houses, the plight of the widow and unmarried. The walls begin to breath. Old houses sweat at the thought of another winter. The walls begin to talk to me. The wall adjoining sets of strangers. Hearing you. I know you now. You hate each other. The walls where talking. You were fucking a stranger. You take the garbage out every Monday night.

You found me hiding amongst the cantos.
Knitting ropes of words and disparate
images. Dreaming about the red wheel
barrow. and love letters to Alice B. Tolkin.
I wish I were building a snow man and cross
-ing the last day of April off the calendar
(They say it was the cruelest month) Yet
many seasons’ I’ve spent in hell it was
a game of dice. The red haired beggar girl
has taken my last coin. Giving everything
I have a name. Or A mantra. Repeating
syllabics and…


(On November 4, 2008 my mother refused to answer her telephone
for the first time in 22 years)


The only time I am able to get any real work done is when I think no one is around.



Rilke told the young poet to reach into his heart when no one was around and ask himself why he was writing. Would he cease to exist if he stopped writing. Could he not live if he was barred from writing. My mother said that if she were without her piano she would cease to exist. She purchased a grand piano to hide her light under. I purchased a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves so the women at Boarder's would think I was compulsive about grammar. You don't know anything about me do you. Fuck you, next time ask before you spend the night. I will cease to exist if this goes on any longer. Fuck you.



Sentences:


Simple
Once, my mother showed me the plants that pop.


Compound
Mother gathered the poppers and placed them in the plastic shopping bag.


Complex
My mother won't come visit me because she thinks the Turnpike is dangerous.


Fragments

At christmas.

Bakes for month’s prior.

The neighbors.

A good homemaker.

A good home.



Because
because now you are progressive,
Because
the only way to remain
Because
the only way



The average reader can read only the first and last words of a sentence and still follow a thought.
I can address you in the preposition. I can assume that you assume. This is how we think.



Birth: July 23, 1986

-Because when I was born, a plane didn't departed from the Pittsburgh International Airport. Because Aliquipa is not a small suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvainia. Because Aliquipa is not very close to the Pittsburgh Internation Airport. Because you assumed a plane must have been departing at/or (around) that time. Don't be mad. You were wrong. Please. Because people with money are cities and all around the country is my father. Because Ronald Regan was an American hero. Because of the 1980's. Because now I am a man. Because of the economy we now take the bus. Because I wonder if money knows that it's money. Because planes are scared to get on planes. Because I wonder, ok? Because every 20 years popular culture repeats itself and that’s not ok. Because nothing has changed.




Today.


If you decide to come back. If you find trouble remembering. Thinking is the only memory of childhood many of us have. The present act of attempting to remember. Do you remember birth? Will you remember death? A conversation with dinner plates is to remember a taste. "I've been tasting you all week." To long for is disastrous. To live for desire. Unfit, able bodied allowing time alone. Apart we grow apart. In 6 months your name will not sound the same. Parched; reaching for a juice glass to choke out a name. I seem to remember you coming back. You boarding a plane. You tipping a cab driver. You matching socks - a public launderette. Recall the last time in a place. Excessive. I was reason, You were too high. You offered to buy me a drink. You told me you could try to love me. No guarantee that our Philipino waiter was not staring at your chest. I will begin to stare at your chest. From the bottom of a pint glass the complexity of convexing lenses. I would have never assumed such beauty through these eyes. In the airport, vegetation grows up through the tiles in the restroom. The exchange of foreign soil. So many pairs of hands and feet, so many steps stepping over each other. I don't think I will miss you when you're gone. Is it threatening when I walk barefoot? It was presumptuous for me to assume. I would like to at least keep your hands. To have your hands would be to own you. This home would be constructed by you. This home would be constructed from you. Your hands on my VCR remote. Your hands on my favorite teacup, the one with the floral arrangement invested within it.

I own a thesaurus
It contains many words for morning but only one word for night. Night.
It contains a list of possible synonyms for ownership but only one for possession.

It has been altered to meet my current history. The dictionary is next.



Fuck you. For spending the night without asking.
Fuck you. For not ending the war.
Fuck you. For leaving me all your to sort out.
Fuck you. For
Fuck you.



An unwanted invasion of personal space. Coming back in the morning is shameful. Coming back at night would be unflattering. Not coming back at all has become alarming.


The Art of Leaving

40th and Market - train L: (Blue Line)

Do you have nothing
Has become of
when will we break

West bound - last stop: (69th street station)

Do you have
Nothing has become of when
will we break.

Look for the route 100 trolley

Do
You have nothing has
Become of when. will
we break

Three fourths of the way home.

Do you have nothing has become of when will we break.





I want to want a return flight. I want that flight to crash. I want you to not be on that flight. I want you to not come back. I want to change my name.



Name: July 23, 1986


With patience I am able to collect myself enough to consider this story as nothing more than syllables.
You are nothing more than a syllable.

If Tyler were still here none of this would have ever happened.


For tyler

11:30 / driving on white interstates / you asleep: front seat

Never did you reach / the coast. The city closer / than white elephants

Watching you from here / nothing but silos dancing / for miles eating grain

Poured like white oak, or / imperfection on pavement. / Last known survivor

A man slips on / a banana peel, and dies. / Well you might still laugh

Walls, or miles between / standing on piles of books to / catch the tragedy

Overturned bottle / on the threshold, prowling cat / never alone to eat

Coffee in tea cups, / without saucers, refined taste / this world will soon end

Hurry, scurry, jump! / Be masterful as the song / shoots you backward

Coffee in tea cups, / without saucers, refined taste / this world will soon end

Two plastic dice knock / against the glass, then turn up / in your suitcase

Never did you expect / your face a picture; / you forgot to look

The annual fish / fry in basements. All of them / are old - so are you!

When we met for lunch / I tasted your soup. You knew / but never told me

The open door, and / the open face, the black sky, / and etc.

I'm uninterested / in anyone interested / in anyone

The salamander / slips into the pond, and drags / me into the mud

Wrote by level, wrote / on motorcycles, bards, hoops. / Constant vowels, shapes

Complete meta morph / a noun removed from normal / reverb, normal jumps

The front door is never / home. Closed mailboxes and lights / on in the back room

Did I forget 5 / feet of rope. A tin can call / across boundaries; states

Rooftops! Dry branches / on rooftops, budges on branches, / at my feet - the acorn

I wrote stories on / skin or the carpet. In red / ink takes time to set

Chorus as a bell, / neighbors saying "my right head / gone." World of fresh, new

Churches behind churches, / skies behind skies, clouds drift / through the widest eye

Dishes in the sink / covered in forgetful lyrics / like men in black suits



To what extent: I am to become:

1. That which was once a hollow opening in a tree.
2. That which will forget to retrieve the morning paper.
a. The evidence is clear.
b. Headline: No News Is Good News
c. Right?
3. To make it through the night.
a. This was in fact a pleasantry.

What will become of these two teacups in the morning. What will become of these two lives in the morning.

Morning; silent, sleeping – the front seat of a ’94 Buick Century. Morning; silent. Sleeping.














The following places are important:

1. Stairwell; a family home.
2. The steps of an old Lutheran Church.
3. The oak tree in the corner of the Main St. Park.
4. Second floor; Fraternal Order of the Kiwanis Club – Center Ave: Age 12
5. The threshold of the public high school.
6. The intersection of Marian St. and Highland Ave.
7. The intersection of Marian St. and Highland Ave.
8. Rt. 422 out of Indiana County.
9. The backstreets of Oakland, Johnstown, Pa: Winter – Age 15
10. The women’s locker room – Bishop Carroll Catholic High School.
11. En route – Highway 22: Johnstown, Pa to Pittsburgh, Pa: 57 miles (No Jake Brakes)
12. Leaving 329 S. Pacific Ave Pittsburgh, Pa 15224
13. Never returning to 64 Wakefield St. Pittsburgh Pa, 15213
14. Wondering if you’d ever return for your rag doll. And the blender you got as a gift.
15. Memorial Day 2008.

(The above locations are important to you. Let them be important. Try to remember.)

A Confession:

The following information is important:

Name: Justin Anthony Hultman










Birth: July 23, 1986














Birth: July 23, 1986

- When I was born, a plane didn't departed from the Pittsburgh International Airport. Aliquipa is not a small suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvainia. Aliquipa is not very close to the Pittsburgh Internation Airport. Don't assume a plane must have been departing at/or (around) that time. Don't get on that plane. Please don't leave Pittsburgh. People with money are cities and all around the country is my father. Ronald Regan was an American hero. He was the 1980's. I am the economy. Now, i am a man on the bus wearing a Member's Only jacket. I wonder if money knows that it's money. I wonder if planes are ever scared to get on planes. I wonder if the day I was born will be the day I will be born. Every 20 years popular culture repeats itself. The 80's are back. I feel, therefore i'm born. I may/may not actually exist twenty years from now. Twenty years after i was reborn, the United States elected a black man as it's president. He remembers the 80's. The 80's remember being born. The trends will repeat themselves.

Read more

Though We Fell Short

Though we fell short,
the failure is mine
not yours.

A chapbook.

Written between 08.25.08 – 12.15.08



To participate in spectacle. A means of sustaining a past way of life. You have
become the Dow to my Jones. The exchange value of self. How many decaf
americano's is your television worth. How to depreciate in value. How many
words are too many. The radio paying Bruce Springsteen to keep order. Main-
tain boarder lines. The American dream sitting five rows back at a high school
football game. The next US president throwing up in a urinal. May have gotten
too high. May be willing to lead into a war. Simply a cell phone call away. Tell
the black boy my drink is getting cold.

To drive cars, which used to be cars. Are still cars if you want them
to be. Please don't look at me in the eyes. I want my vote to be cast
in shame. I think I want my vote to be counted. I'm sorry. This isn't
about us, it's about me. At the top of the US Steel building, I placed
a decal. It promised change. Yes we can. I'm sure you've spotted
it already. It has been noted that no change is still change. There's
a women in a rich neighborhood with a handbag that reads "I used
to be a (plastic) bottle." I used to think better of you. You've changed

In the suburbs. Men stand, naked, before the land they own.
To own land. To inform the women of her place. He exposes
himself to his home. Envious of the chimney. Open door sending
new life to walnut street. He punches the aluminum siding. Leaves
the indentation of a fist. Is beautiful.


A mobile phone is a device used to tether beings to being. Mobile or not
we're still landlocked. When the black man was president my mother
refused to answer her telephone for the first time in 22 years. Phones
have been tapped. Dropping gas prices correlating to the number
of land lines still in use. Small town America is landlocked.
The bigger picture was on sale. The more I buy the more things
will stay the same. I want to remain landlocked. We're receiving
satellite feed. You're getting closer. The distance between us is digital.
Your phone is an ipod is a typewriter. Text me. Come over. Can you
hear me now? Good.

Distributing wealth. Hands meeting minds working. The new economic plan.
Sound of change dropping in a beggars cup. Is there a new way of hearing.
Sound of men jumping. The purge of a great city. Dust bowls. A way of
cleansing. A way of creating a new country. Remind me how to save the
file as a ring tone. Can I buy you a drink? A new national voice.

I hold my breath as my father holds his breath as Dale Earnhardt re enters the atmosphere.
In subtle adolescent lust my yawn has rounded second base. After leaving the ATM I peer
around the corner. I don't want you to know where my money comes from. I seem to have
misplaced my bus pass. No, the walk will do me good. He was a black man, average height
for a black man, he attacked me because it was dark. On CNN, a woman carved a zero into
her face. She need a change. Unless you go quietly we will be forced to call security.
The mayors office has issued a citation. The American people will no longer sit by idly and
accept our dependence on foreign recycling. When your plane didn't arrive I assumed a rerun.
There has yet to be an interesting piece of fiction written regarding 9/11/ How long until the video store begins to categorize dramas as comedies. How long do I have to sit like this?

Read more

The American Word

2. The American Word: Writing in America

The american word:
writing in america

Things that were once on a table in any home: Food. Plates which once held food. Mail. Envelopes which once held mail. A single glove. A set of keys. A bottle of vitamins. A book. Things that could be found strewn about in any public place. Food. Plates which once held food. Mail. Envelopes which once held mail. A single glove. A set of keys. A bottle of vitamins. A book. Things that are, strictly speaking, American. Food. Plates which once held food. Mail. Envelopes which once held mail. A single glove. A set of keys. A bottle of vitamins. A book. Nothing is strictly american.

Walking - taking liberties that were not mine to take i considered the ground upon which i was walking. Walking in vain, walking with no purpose, walking across the american continent. The american east - on city streets littered with Food. Plates which once held food. Mail. Envelopes which once held mail. A single glove. A set of keys. A bottle of vitamins. A book. Picking up the food, i fed the hungry. I was hungry so i ate. Now, with plates which once held food, i was alone. Then a letter, without a return address, into a mailbox and again i was alone. At the bus stop late that day i noticed a man, with one hand in his coat pocket, the other naked and i wondered why he was alone. Was he alone, or did he have a spare set of keys. A home is proper nutrition, and a pill is anything that gives - a man is alone without a prescription allowing him to find safety. The only object which is truly objective is a book. Finding a book is a process best left to those who are not alone - those who are not alone have Food. Plates which once held food. Mail. Envelopes which once held mail. A single glove. A set of keys. A bottle of vitamins.

If ever there was a true american, his name is unknown. A phone book is a place filled with the names and addresses of individuals, couples, and families. Names found penned on bathroom walls, painted under bridges, costing a by letter amount in newspapers, and on billboards are bound to become lost between two opposing forces: a meeting of bodies and a meeting of strangers - a meeting of strangers bodies. A parallel to godliness: at birth we are all strangers. Strangers link godliness. Whatever is done to one side of an equation must be done to the opposing side. We are united within the context of america.

Notable "American" Professions
1. President
2. Blind
3. Blind President
4. Astronaut
5. Homeless
6. Homeless Astronaut
7. Academic
8. Ghost
If i was to call myself a poet, i would be a poet.

I will write you a letter. Full of verbs it will call you to live in the present. In the present,
america will become filled with poets. Living each day in verse - a newspaper, a lunch menu,
a billboard - allowing safe passage. This nation of poets will cycle through each of these
professions in time.





Notice: Architecture has become a thing of the past. We build cities on grids for just such a reason. To systematically recount steps, or greet strangers. Each unlike the last. A matter of motion. To embark on a great discovery. On dance floors. In car accidents. To precipitate reality; discover hands. On smooth aluminum. Around a tea cup. If ever there was a chance. Take back. Talk to neighbors. Buy a wooden shovel. See great cinematography. The forest. Space between front teeth. Unexpected. Weigh options. Of course. You and I met. Had met. Is never. A glass avocado. A package of cigarettes. Reservations required. Enter the hospital. Leave the cathedral. Try. Taste. A checkerboard. The parking lot. Tomorrow will be better. Everything is wanting. A pen. A pen. Is only. A new haircut. A pair of boots. There is only one left. Cognition. Capitulation. Recapitulation. Tell me you are reading. A pair of scissors. Animals will be restless. Like skeletons. Like asphalt. Never had i thought of being.
Never was I a father. Think of it like this.

It was as if: You, asleep in fibers creating dreamsandshallow breathing Becoming a part of two windows - 1) a ledge to hold life born out of turpentine and 2) miss matched china plates holding planters. Holding planters growing children it needs A catalyst: therefore, when water touches earth + the graceful slip of a wrist into nothingness (suspended in the air like bricks in motion on their way down towards the sidewalk) = the culmination of all that was ever, was ever, was willing And it was.

If you start to see things like this, then it will be easy.

Think: if was is wanting and thisiscreating a sound is a spectacle is an image in the void of color.
To create pictures out of sound and sense a new beginning. Taste the foremost sense and how to create it
on a page. Instead, inhabit sound. To forget:

SH
SHH
SHHH

she only speaks in verbs,
they said to engage the 'is' a quality of action
but only in the present. When you said 'was'
but are forced to 'is'. The action active.





Now reread. There is much to find within the previous line.
And that which comes before. The motive an ation of or it is
to forget. To regret. Motivation, or Things that where once left or have been returned

the proper owner What can be fit inside the confines of what it is to understand. Holding

heavy handed
and a shopping
bag filled with
prepositions, thr
own around like
direct addresses: Because you were a proper noun
because now you are progressive, (tense and grip an -ing)
Because the only way to remain grounded.
Because the only way

To act in the
past. Is to act
in the past. Is
to act in the past in which is the past. Made clear in bla and whi ck and te stress the sonic
quality and 'POP' into existence

and

HE
HEA
HEAR

himself

is bound to stasis is
like yelling at the
or the
or
the
is like to run
away
from/from,
or

It can be easy when you get the hang

to hang by
feet or by
ideas or by
words

the collar bone
the gall bladder
the forcing of life into a grid.

A pattern coded simple yet breath taking.

I must become a text,
the same in a book, the
evidence and a lyric

must be one who speaksandhears in predictable places:
In surgery incapable of
extracting the written w
ord it is now beyond exercising

Cut and paste
piece
by flesh
by breath:
is the thing
is the like
is
ever
only

It will be this way from now on.

Take a deep breathe.
Prepare.

This will be

In sequence: words after blank space white and stitch a story through instruction.

For the

Duration, each new attempt to capture or relieve re or astound live

Now

Saying: how easy it will be.

A life rewrite again the -ing the present becoming or to became

Relearn the art of construction Contracting seemingly disparate images of or out of everyday.

That which you wear,
or those who you eat,
are places you will go
when the time is . It is just that.
Now you have been taught, engaged: the formal expectation simplified for the now if the time is right to jump from the surface of the world and into Before you will be allowed the chance to sleep with Bride::Engage ment::Groom ing- a celebration preparing the margin to fade

So then.

You getting no chance restricted
breathing
becoming
and forget
ting to wa
nt for anything except particles

They made
you:

and making everything
a molecule
so infinitesimal
and
clear

Eyes that see the foremost image. Saying brick but meaning that which builds is to enact the substance of these thoughts.

Like cities. Like sea. Ties The space between the corresponding bodies. Bod de(ga) ies bodegas Of water wan (t) d(h)er Those things that are found in the most inauspicious places. We live in nomads

We live in

We have never hidden anything from you.

and so

You to become a silhouette
a morning
a means of keeping time
in pebbles Shadow
imprint.

Temporarily

becoming lost (a parking lot)
, then

(a public library)
lost



Held within these walls are books

a place only stories until

are electrical outlets

to charge cellphones

are men grooming in (a bathroom sink)

shaving, lathered from hand soap, they

are writing across live wires are writing in open air are writing because they can

open spaces

narrow
aisles.
must

trigger:
a new sensation

a smell: Dust and floor polish.

Only because it is so hard to hear a sound. Record each footstep
in linoleum, and hardwood prints.

Record: a public domain.
To dominate. To do what is right. To create a new media. To meet like a joint

in two separate floor boards. to meet
at an intersection (Smithfield and 5th ave.)
To skip pebbles (the 10th street bridge;)
each one a secret and a hawk -

so much damage to passing motorists

we laugh

Together - beneath canopy, (the local state store,)
told that outlines take one body;
become more of an idea,
a creative thought, or a short work of prose.
<>

You are becoming less of an individual being. (In text) You an I are becoming more of one another.

Now Text will become a sound. Many voices encouraged to speak. Consideration has become a thing of the past; You are primitive notions of modesty > SPEAK UP! When you cease to understand, listen closely - there are these things for certain:

Everyone who speaks eventually finds True silence
If absence of sound Breathing at the right silenceamplitude was possible
If you find no one to be uncomfortable.
just think loud thoughts.
yourself in said situation would realize just how loud frequency could becomes
ever when you speak, stay perfectly still.
impossible
The speed of sound is 299,792,458 m/s;
is 340.28 m/s,
I assume. Whoever invented glass, breaks velcro
Beyond an object When white noise, is 340.28 m/s, there is the speed of light
break a whole rainbow of sound.
while therefore I must have been deaf
it makes a cracking noise,
impossible
It is nearly you your circulatory system
long before a whip can see
while the sound barrier is a good example.
to hear you.

I can focus on only one sound.

You will become a shadow

You will become (in) time.

A sound.

To suppose

there was Once a time when this was common place.

Creating new (nu) an sees no one sees nuances For what
For you

Relocation bringing cities back.

Subtle: crooked tooth parking lot Dawn
made fresh foot: steps painted - lines and
ticket stubs. City, before downtown

(closed doors) eat your fill:
out sourcing gold brick drive
rural hills Peeling tar wondering
bituminously Communicating
auto cycle traffic lights
morose code -

first yellow, then red - stopping
minutes The meeting ` long lost
friends. Wonder:
A predictable a grid of empty spaces.

This a found text.

The way

A manual for understanding.

In other words:

1.Everyone who speaks eventually finds silence to be uncomfortable.
2.If you find yourself in said situation stay perfectly still.
3.True silence becomes impossible when you realize just how loud your circulatory system is.
4.If absence of sound was possible no one would ever speak, just think loud thoughts.
5.Breathing at the right amplitude and frequency could break glass, I assume.
6.Whoever invented velcro must have been deaf.
7.The speed of sound is 340.28 m/s, while the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s; therefore I can see you long before I can hear you.
8.When an object breaks the sound barrier it makes a cracking noise, a whip is a good example.
9.Beyond white noise, there is a whole rainbow of sound.
0.It is nearly impossible to focus on only one sound.

Notice: You becoming the reading. Held within the confines of the visual Painted we all are sound..

Critical: On How To Read What Is Not There
I Will Teach You How To Understand:

Until now you have not seen. Being
born is like walking. You havealotof
arms and then, you forget something
and have to turn around. You have to
turn around but still you see yourself.
(In a mirror)You are a kitchen a window
You are a pair used running shoes
You are a color. To reiterate, not to
win do of sh sho yous, to col lor (call
her) green. Thus, progress the kitchen
painted cooling on the windowsill and
you and i in stocking feet. Like children
or like transistors charged static packs
of breath rain or particles electricity
on and the We think like children
Informed decisive tantrictantrumtandum
2 eyes + 2 hand + some 2 legs + 2 stones
= part of a person whole at the middle
(asection)
symmetry was what was needed

Read more

Orbital

The door cracked open and cast a light on the back of the young boy's head. A tall man stood in the doorway, the shaft of light catching the white fibers of his graying hair. The man reached for a switch plate on the wall and pressed a button that switched the windows from opaque to translucent. The room filled with a soft light, illuminating what was clearly a young boys room, full of dinosaurs and rocket ships.

“Time to wake up Tommy. It's a special day and I've got a surprise for you.” The man was speaking in a tone meant to wake the boy. The boy fidgeted in his bed, the voice stirring him to wakefulness.
“What is it dad?” Said the boy nearly, shouting as he leapt out of the covers. Tommy had most assuredly not been asleep, in truth he had been up since nearly daybreak. He could barely sleep last night, for after all today was his sixth birthday.
“Get dressed and come downstairs and eat your breakfast first. Your mother made apple cinnamon waffles for you.” The man turned and shut Tommy's door and headed down the stairs.
Tommy scrambled down from his bed and flung open his clear fiberglass dresser digging through the drawers to find his favorite outfit. One by one he pulled out his triceratops t-shirt, his bright orange socks, and favorite jeans. He finished dressing and bent down to tie his shoes making sure to put a double knot in them like his grandfather had shown him a few weeks ago. Tommy finally bounded down the steps, skipping every other one.
“Tommy how many times have I told you not to run down those stairs?” Came the call of his mother as he snaked his head around the corner and looked in the kitchen.
“But Dad said he had a surprise for me and I didn't want to miss it!”
“Young man that's not an excuse. What would you like to drink today?”
“Orange juice!” Came the reply as he sat quickly in the breakfast nook. Tommy's father walked in holding a cup of coffee and a newspaper. He sat across from Tommy and put the single sheet of paper on the table, tapping the corner to flip through the pages.
Tommy's mother sat a plate of steaming waffles down in front of him covered in butter and maple syrup. She set the glass of orange juice down in front of his plate.
“So are you excited for your birthday today?” She asked as she filled up her own mug of coffee and sat at the table.
“Yuh dad sed id wud a spedal day!”
“Tommy don't talk with your mouth full.” Said his dad, looking up from the table smiling at his son. Tommy swallowed the entire mouthful of waffle and piped up.
“Yes! Daddy said it was a special day! What's my surprise dad?”
“Well you'll see, we are going to leave after you finish your breakfast.”
“Where are we going? Is it the zoo? I hope it's the zoo.” Tommy's face brightened immeasurably as he said this, for he had watched a show earlier in the week about giant pandas and had spent the past few days talking about nothing else. He had even made his mom get a picture book from the library about them.
“You'll see, you'll see.” His father repeated, turning his eyes back to his paper.
A short time later Tommy finished his waffles and his mother sent him upstairs to wash up and brush his teeth. When he got back to the kitchen his mom and dad were talking over a few last minute details.
“...and your phone, right?”
“Yes honey I have everything. I love you.”
“I love you to Alan.” Said Tommy's mother as she embraced his dad. She then turned to Tommy and ran her fingers through his hair. “And I love you as well.” She whispered as she pecked him on his cheek. Tommy instinctively reached up and brushed the kiss away, for that was something his parents did not him.
“Alright kiddo, let's get going.” Said Alan as he headed for the door out to the garage.
“Isn't mommy coming?” Asked Tommy with a slight frown on his face.
“No she has to get dinner ready, because your grandparents are coming over tonight, and we are going to be gone until late.”
“Okay. Bye mom!”
Tommy and his dad walked out to the garage and climbed into the small car. The car started with nary a whisper and the garage door creaked open. They pulled out onto the drive in front of the house and quickly left suburbia, heading toward the city.
“Where are we going?” Asked Tommy, just then realizing he had never gone on this route before, and he was quite positive the zoo was not in this direction because the sign near their house said the zoo was the other way.
“Don't worry kid we are going somewhere extra special today. I'm taking you to the same place my dad took me when I turned six. Maybe someday when you are all grown up and have your own kid you can do the same for him.” This last part went well over Tommy's head because he had no intention of ever growing up, especially if he had to drink coffee to be an adult. He had tried his dad's mug one morning thinking it was extra dark hot chocolate, but had quickly spit it out all over the table.
Tommy decided there wasn't much use pursuing this because he would to find out sooner or later where they were headed. Tommy looked around the car and found his dad's spare newspaper and tapped at the corner until he found the section with the comics. Perusing each one he delicately tapped the title of the first on the page and the paper zoomed in on the comic and it came to life. He did this for each of the comics on the page, laughing here and there when he understood it or it just had funny characters. He sometimes had to slow the comic down as it played so he could sound out the words if he couldn't read them right away. His father looked over and smiled appreciatively that his son was reading already and made a mental note to tell Sally all about it when they got back.
After they had been on the road for about an hour Tommy's dad turned onto the road that took them away from the city and out into the countryside. Tommy had just put down the paper and looked up at the sign when he squealed with delight.
“Know where we are going now Tommy?” His father said as he chuckled.
“The sign said Spaceport! Are we really? I mean are we going to see the ships? And how close can we get and can I see the inside?” He blurted out in that rapid fire way only an excited child can manage. The only thing that Tommy loved as much his parents was rocket ships and outer space.
“We are going to do better than that Tommy. Your mom and I talked about it and I told her how much it would mean to both you and I if we went on the orbital tour of Earth.”
“WE GET TO FLY IN ONE?” Tommy screamed as loud as he could, bouncing up and down in his seat.
“If you calm down a bit, I don't think they take hyperactive children in space.” Tommy sucked in a deep breath and settled in his seat. “See when I turned six my dad took me on an orbital tour and made me promise to do the same for you when you turned six.”
Tommy didn't utter another word for the next fifteen minutes but the glow in his eyes spoke volumes, as he kept his eyes out the window looking for any ships taking off.

Tommy was still speechless as they walked around and looked out the window at all the sleek ships waiting to take off. They walked through the spaceport and found the gate for the orbital tours and joined the rest of the line. When they reached the front of the queue Tommy's dad handed the woman at the counter two tickets and they passed through the accordion hallway into the spaceship. They found their seats and Alan pointed at the window seat, which Tommy hopped into without question. Positively bubbling, he could barely sit still as the cabin filled up. The lights dimmed a bit and a number of lasers mounted in the walls fired and generated a hologram of a stewardess.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we at American Spacelanes welcome you. The spaceplane you are seated on is the latest in the Enterprise series. Today we will be making a circumnavigation of the earth from a height of 200 Kilometers. The orbit will last approximately three hours at which time we will begin our descent and return to our present location. Now if I could ask you to please buckle your safety belts we will begin take off in five minutes.”
Tommy's dad reached over and strapped him in tightly. “Alright kiddo here we go.”
“Is it scary?” Said Tommy with a slight glimmer of fear in his eyes.
“Not at all, it's just a bit bumpy at first.” He said as he finished with his own seatbelt.
The plane started to vibrate and Tommy could feel the motion as the ship turned and moved to the catapult launch strip. He looked out the window to see as they moved to a clearing and the ship started to vibrate. Tommy heard a hiss as the cabin pressurized itself and the engines spun up to speed.
The takeoff was sudden and Tommy was pressed back in his seat with the force of it. He reached over and grabbed his dad's hand. He looked up and smiled, his dad smiled back at him and said. “Here we go.” The ground flashed by Tommy's window and all he saw was blue.
Around six that night Alan pulled the small car into the garage. He got out and walked around to the other side. He opened the door and unbuckled Tommy, whose head lolled about and his mouth moved obviously talking to someone as he dreamed.
Alan picked up Tommy and carried him up to his room where he laid him down upon the bed. He put up the opacity on the windows and stood in the doorway smiling. Sally appeared behind him and reached her arms around his waist.
“How was our little astronaut?”
“He was fantastic, I'm sure you will hear all about it tomorrow, and about his new dream is to be a space pilot.”
“He sounds just like someone else from what your dad was telling me tonight. Let's go downstairs and have dinner with your parents.” They both turned and Alan reached to shut the door.
In the bed the small boy dreamed of sitting at the controls of a ship flying amongst the jeweled curtain of space.

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Project

Rather than posting the longer piece I e-mailed, this is an alternative project meant to be literally posted down both ends of a street. But it might work in print as one long title.

Chris

---

Who Is on Fire
These Days With
The Abundance
Of Water
And Smothering

Who Walks By
Afraid Going on and On
About a Look-Alike
To Be Reading
What They Are Reading

If Mankind Is Foolish
They Live Among Fools
All Strolling Through
The Barrel Yet If Ever
There Was Beauty

Man Saw It Alone
In Cities Not of People
But Arrangement
God's Earth Not His
Not His Cross But

An Encounter
A Piece Not Carried
And Once There Was
A Man So Bottomless
He Could Create

These Complicated
Reasons
At the Top
Of the Corner
The Madness

Of Happiness
So Much Money
Goes No Distance
But Mind Runs
To the River

Who Is He Sleeping
Getting the Sun Up
Who Is He Listening
Pulling an Ear Across
His Voice

Who Did Not Need
Did Not Want
To Be Backwards
While Forwards
Ships Pass in a Drought

Who Did Not Mind
Cold Stages Curvatures
Explication
Is a Failure
Who Did Not Mind

Who Did Not Resist
Obeying Their Thrust
Cautious
Conscience
Conscious

Who Heard It Said
If Saying
Is Wanting to Be Said
To Be Heard
If Risk Is to Be Moved

To Love No Longer
To Move the Lips
Over Words
If Moving Lips
Was to Speak

Truth Itself
Walking Among Men
Amidst
The Metaphor Squall
Metaphor

Who Ran Through
Down the Wind
Given
Light Was
It Is This Half

Waiting for Truth
Waiting for Armor
To Blame Itself Together
Size Like Reason
Mime Like Action

Mind Is Over Matter
Over Everyone Else
Else Rebellion Is Set
To Be Part
Of the Peace Equation

Lazy Words
Of Tired Minds
With Wide Open Hands
On the Strands
Of a Blank Curtain

This Street Convinces
The Belly to Eat To
Promote Eating Later
Rows of Houses
In the Way of Roots

Of a Counter Heart
How Long Has It Been
Black Milk
How Long Has It Seen
Drink You at Daybreak

How Long Is a Song
We Drink You at Night
To Have Been Uttered
Play Up for the Singing
Never Before

This City of Braids
Got Loose
For Tunneling
Or for Listing Itself
Among Suits

Not Showing Its Fear
For Fear
Is a Rule Rearing
Its Top Above
All the Roofs

Anymore Man Snakes
Through the Crowd
Looking for an Eye
A Mouth a Chest
Furnace

Full of Angry Coal
Not the End
Of a Story But
The End of Something
Anymore

This Motive
Heals
Mouthfuls of Silence
But Is More Silent
Dissident

More Silent
Available as Capital
Or Clothing Products
Down the Street
Breaks a Glance Free

Walks By the Sheets
Burnt for Warmth
In Some Corners
Where Heat
Is Some Other Idea

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hey this is rough and needs worked

The Indian summer was casting a glow across the northeast, the daylight dwindling and the trees stubbornly refusing to give up their green. On an isolated street in the northern end of the city limits a single three story brick house was the only thing holding back the continual press of nature to take back what is hers.

Stan Dombroski stared out of the bay window in his third floor study. His patience was nearing an end, almost six months without a job or even an audition and frankly city theater just doesn't pay the mortgage, let alone the child support. He stubbed out his forth cigarette of the hour and buried his head between his hands.

There was a faint buzzing from somewhere below in the house and Stan left his study for the first time that day. Making his way downstairs to the kitchen he saw his phone had vibrated off the tile counter top and landed face down on the linoleum floor. Bending over with some effort he picked up the phone and flipped it open.

“Yeah?” He grumbled into the receiver.

The answer was a flurry of sentences spat out without so much as a breath to mark the space between thoughts. “Stan, it's Dan Friedman from the agency. How are we doing today?”

“How do you think I'm doing? All the money I pay you hasn't gotten me a job in months and the last part I had was three lines in a teen comedy. Let me count the dollars you promised me I'd be seeing when the movie became the summer blockbuster you guaranteed it to be. Here I think I have that money in my pocket, three dollars. I can't even buy a damn pack of cigarettes today. “ His voice had gotten to the point where he was holding the phone away from his face just so he could direct his shouts at it.

“Stan I realize you are upset and that's why I'm calling. You know it is hard to find lead roles for a middle aged man who isn't a Hanks or a Clooney. However, I think I'm on to something here.”

“What might that be? Getting my ass kicked in the next Jackass movie? Maybe I can start doing voice work as a cartoon dad who does nothing by get screwed by everyone around him.”

“Hey man, just listen for five minutes. There's a spot in some new independent movie Fox is financing and your name came up as a potential. Apparently the director saw some of your early work and wants to bring you out here to give a read through and meet with him.”

His interest piqued, Stan softened up a bit and sat in one of the stools at the island in the center of the room. “Keep talking.”

“Well I don't want to get your hopes too high but it sounds like a good deal and it's not a big movie but it has the potential to have some serious word of mouth behind it when it opens. So why don't we fly you out here to have a chat?”

September fell into October and Stan Dombroski's life was getting just a bit better. The meeting with the director had went extremely well and the script was definitely better than anything else he had read for in years. Some touching family drama about a man getting older and what it all means when you start to get near fifty. Stan had faith in the picture and the director, even though he seemed like he just got out of high school.

“You aren't a young man anymore Stan.” He told himself, as he watched the leaves twist and tumble to the ground outside. He picked up the script laying on the table next to the window and started to shape himself into the patriarch of the Millen family.

Broken, on the verge of divorce, and losing his kids to starlets and musicians, Thomas Millen was a natural role for Stan to lose himself in. The events of three years past playing vividly in his mind as he found himself saying lines that could have been ripped from his life.

He set the script down an hour later satisfied that he was Thomas Milen, Stan walked into the kitchen and turned on the TV for some background noise while the coffee dripped into the pot.

Country In Crisis! That seemed to be the prevailing theme of every cable infotainment station the careful alliteration worming its way into every viewers brain. Even Stan was starting to believe in this financial crisis. The buzzing in his pants brought him out of his internal monologue and he pulled his phone and flipped it open.

“Stan, it's Dan. I have some, well some good news and bad news.” The sound of Stan's teeth grinding was clearly heard on the other end of the phone. “Hey, I don't want you to worry, the picture is still on and you still have the role, they just want to push production back until the start of the new year so they can make it part of next year's budget. It's just a financial move and a smart one if you ask me. This way they can line it up for awards season next December.”

Stan breathed out and shut the phone. Not all bad news, he thought to himself better than whats on the TV anyway.

January reared her ugly head in a mess of arctic wind and snow storms. Stan was alright though. He was packing up the last of his things before he headed out to Los Angeles. He just needed to get the flight details and arrangements for housing from Friedman.

“Hey Stan, we need to talk. Look, have you been following the news at all lately?”

“A bit. What are you trying to tell me here Dan. Is the picture off.?”

“No not at all. But Stan, I don't know how to even say this...”

“Just spit it out Friedman.”

“Well apparently Kevin Bacon lost almost everything because of this whole Madoff thing, and being who he is, he pulled some strings and got the Milen role. But listen to me Stan we are gonna fight for you, they have at least offered you another role in the movie.”

“As what, the lovable neighbor who has two lines in the whole fucking movie?” The words carried so much venom that spit was flying from his mouth with each word. “Fuck you Friedman, this was my shot and you fucked it up, just like everything else you get me involved in.”

The phone shattered into a hundred pieces as it hit the tiled counter top. Stan fell against the closet door and in a fit of fury wrenched it open without turning the handle, splintering the frame. He grabbed the biggest bottle he could find and walked up to the study.

He collapsed into the desk chair and tore the cap off the bottle of Glenfiddich. The burn hit his throat and he just kept drinking, throwing the empty bottle against the wall three hours later. In a haze of inebriation and double vision Stan rummaged through the desk drawers finding what he was looking for in the bottom right drawer.

He never tasted anything quite like it, metallic, oily, and cold. For Stan, nothing ever tasted so right as that barrel did.

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Not titled, yet..

When I was nine years old,
My father carried angels by their wings
From the highest walls I'd ever seen.
He brought me with him
And I watched from plaster-rained floors
The colour of sacramental wine
My legs used to shake when I looked up.

We were better off that summer
The house resounding with the psalm
Of drills and table saws
I walked a hall of plaster rain and
Watched the men working on our kitchen
My mother smiled at him back then,
The papers and cheques signed in repetition
Lord have mercy,
Lord have mercy,
Lord have mercy
Fortune brought on the wings of fifty-one angels.

It is much quieter now
We fixed the caulking on the sink
A couple of times
Papa gets up early for services, and I
Stir once before returning to flight in dreams.

Time, like hummingbirds, carried me fast and far
Beyond the shores of my adopted country
To a place in shades of green.
I walked in whispers through a ring fort
Veiled in moss, and crossed myself.
The same day brought me riding on the back of a tractor,
Mud pattering my face from its great wheels
Saint Patrick, resting wooden head, was silent company
I shyly held him round the waist,
Eyes averted to the fields.
I remembered how my legs shook, watching angels descending.

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a bird in the hand-- she began

I said, don't even finish
she said it’s better than the altnerative

what if assumptions lie? I asked
still, she said, sucked down her fag to the filter
and tossed it out.

the clock cried out in the courtyard,
I turned and moved away
summer nights electric then--a current
moving through me as the birds called
from unknown treetops and she called
after my footsteps, what have you decided?

it's not about decision, I replied
it's chance, not choice
and the spirit, prepared, standing on the curb,
bags packed early--or even spirits
that stumble out of bed five minutes after
the appointment's start, mussed hair and cold sweat trickling
(sometimes, a smooth smile and not a trickle of doubt)

yeah, I held a bird in my hand once
stunned by a windshield, eyes bright and black
I held a bird another time, the cat dragged in, half alive
I picked them both up, the cat more roughly

and shuddered, tossed both outside
and washed my hands of it
what did you do to the cat? she asked
lighting another
(she cupped her hands against the wind,
and the voice came disembodied)
nothing, I replied, it's in her nature, after all

no, I said,
I don't prefer a bird in my hands
it only spells defeat
I'd rather two in the bush
three on a wire
four in flight
five taking to the sky in migration

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Travel.

I have a hundred little bruises claiming patches of the land of my legs
The result of self-uprooting -- every several nights a new town,, a new bed,
a hundred new doorways and furniture edges
unmemorized into coordinated movements in the dark
or in the drink
and so I bruise, a new curse in a new place issues from my lips

I collect a hundred scraps of paper, the only solid proof and memory
of every place I've seen
Receipts of restaurants, museum tickets, even clever beer mats
in a foreign tongue
I stuff these each into my wallet, backs of notebooks, pockets, handbag,
until my life becomes a puppet stuffed with paper
sometimes giving paper cuts to new acquaintances
but I can't be blamed for my travel-weary clumsiness

Taking to a new place, I learn to call it home
so that in leaving, I feel torn anew
I traveled Prague alone, the lack of friends resulting in a quiet bond
with every stone beneath my feet and under my palm as I touched buildings,
tracing fingers over gothic details and nouveau swirls, learning by heart
the nuances my heart needed

There are a hundred things I perhaps should have said
A hundred more I should have caught between my teeth before they left my lips
A few kisses, a few mistakes -- sometimes one and the same
I have been one of two ships passing
I have been a regret
I have been a blessing, a double-edged sword, a pleasure
Once, to my knowledge, the one that got away
I wore many hats, I wore out many shoes -- blisters turn to old scars,
a rueful memory due to fade after my bruises

I have lived a hundred years in a span of four months and nine days
loved a hundred people, lost a hundred doubts and preconceptions
learned so much more than I was told I would learn
My heart, my stamina for feeling has grown a hundred-fold

I could not tell you, would I do it the same way again,
just that there is no such thing as regret or accident,
going back and starting over
there is no good, no bad weather
just the weather, just a life to lead
free to be made of what you wish.

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