The Aesthete

The Classics

2009-04-30T13:27:00.003-04:00

The Greek body relies on limbs
to deliver lines. The fabric

hangs;

arms be(come) flags, legs dragons
that retain their meaning
some time after, amid
Medieval butcherings.

A twist of the shoulder
an anthem of despair.
Outrage by the other player,
linen draped on boulder platform.

Some words there are as well, to outline sunlit rage,
and veins, bloodworms, seep out of neck and bulge
into view, but the crowd cannot read those tinted
tunics, despite the gaping jowls cloaked in cases,
nominative mostly.

The nude Greek in sculpture
dons clothes of Tragedy.

Lust: To Grass Cave

2009-04-30T07:26:00.001-04:00

Lilac lust makes obscene music,
like a squirrel in a garbage can,
idly scraping tin.

Echoes of close-by crickets, darkened
by concealing petals, gossip about

snoring, themselves asleep,
themselves a sleep, exploring dream-

scape hearsay from laser-crack to hello
darkness. Grass lumbers gypsum.
To the ore.

The pink-hearted missile besieges
home, a conquistador among private
and rambling tribes.

Real lightning.

The manufactured lightning
outside
hushes them.

Twenty Little Poetry Projects

2009-03-10T07:52:00.003-04:00

Jim Simmerman's Twenty Little Poetry Projects

Twenty Little Poetry Projects
For Jim Simmerman

My family’s divorce in rewind
Is Pangaea again, God commanding
The continents connect.

My dad’s mustache is not made
Of chocolate milk, like mine.

Divorce tastes like 100% pure cacao,
Like tug of war,
Smells like sour baby spit up,
Like shaving kittens,
Feels like an ocean between the keys & the car,
Looks like shaking a bouquet of peonies,
Sounds like an empty wind,
Like Dad’s Volvo scraping across suburban
Burlington Massachusetts, where he says
He’s never been, but he’s been every weekend.

My family’s divorce in rewind
Is the splitting of this country,
Of California as its own island.

My house is the only thing that withstood it all.
My mother was never a diva about it.

The ocean is an obstacle because
God tap dances on the fringes of the moon.

Go away, moon, I don’t love you no more.

The cold concretes of loneliness are in the craters of that moon.

Lobster claw is when you love someone too much, so much
Your clinginess is soft, like a limp handshake.

Harry collapsed all the decades into one second.
c dot watched That Girl as new episodes,
just because she could.
The TV will blow up in five seconds.
The slimy decades withstood the warp of time!

The lobster claw finally came down on my family
And love is a thimbleful of hot asphalt.
Je veux une monde avec un etoile seulement.
The moon is frowning at my sadness.

The continents together with no fire, or some fire,
or the whole world ablaze.

INFORMAL RAIN-OUT

2009-03-10T03:02:00.001-04:00

The first March grass
was
the grammar of hope.

I conjugated the yard
in first person plural
for want of another,
a boy.

My son and I felt the soles of our slip-on-shoes
sink slightly with every step,
and we tasted the songs of the late winter-birds
that flocked to Grandpa's feed,
but the backstop was mired in mud made from the melt,
and our mitts didn't crack like an August catch,
their thuds were dim and smeared the whiteness of the ball
with the excess burn of their well-oiled hibernation.

When the rain came,
we greeted,
with outstretched tongues
that craved clear skies
but knew when to call a game...
even though this was just a catch.

Ever since his Uncle Pete moved to Wichita
to design ejection seats for Hawker Beechcraft,
we were two instead of three,
and I always returned Pete's bat and glove
to their bin in the garage
with the solemn prayer
that someday he'd eject
and parachute back down to Wappingers
for a short season summer session
of Home Run Derby.

Oh, how I always leave the borrowed lying around,
like leaves fallen, buried, to be found
when March melts Father's snow;
how I always long for absent admonitions.

The first March grass
was
the syntax of separation,
the equinox of distance.

But despite the mileage between Kansas and Home,
words, and motions of childhood bodies, remain,
to be handed down like moth-eaten overalls,
morals, and baseball cards:

"Kiki," for instance, what Grandpa would say
to my brothers and I when we ate our boogers,
or played with our wieners, or scratched our asses,
or anything else too gross and familiar for public places.

The "I gotta go pee-pee" dance for instance,
countless dances, the grinding of teeth
made real by thumb-suck and hair-twirl.

"Oh, to teach

'after the verb to love, to help is the sweetest in the tongue,'

(though to live tastes shrill and does not fill the stomach
like a good turkey meatloaf does ...
to be is all we have, in every action, son.) "

The first March grass of to love
was
the genealogy of to be,
the lush roots of tutelage.

However, back to the rain-out,
we retired inside his grandparents' house,
for grilled cheese and make-belive,

for, "Daddy, I'm A-Rod, and you're Cliff Lee!,"
and he hits me--boy, does he hit me,
lying through his teeth, claiming a stolen snack
of mini-marshmellows from a not well hidden cache
never happened, and instead was a Saltine.

Daddy never spanks, though he still smiles
when his parents hit him.

I will to love with soft cheeks,
turned, as meek as milk,
as hard as a smile-creased-countenance,
for the boy will be the stoic, kind man
sculpted by his father's fear of his father's hand.

Instead, the kindest punishment for fibs:
revocation of television privileges for the day.

To read is not to love, but since all verbs are to be,
storytime is my hero, ab initio, ab incunabulis.

The books I read my son are, love, help, and teach.
They sing us songs to help us sleep.
They muss our hair; they breathe; they start; they end.

The last of the dirty snow seeps into brown March grass.

Anger

2008-11-01T04:35:00.002-04:00

There's a wide handed, clap trap
against the cement of a parking garage.
Lifelong obscenities for a three block
parade,
and the players always feel like you
did a better job than needed.

Denial

2008-11-01T04:32:00.002-04:00

There's a smile waiting
for me one week fromTuesday,
the kind of thing you never knew
you lived for, until it turned to clouds,
rough degrees against wilted breath.

Depression

2008-11-01T04:28:00.002-04:00

Sidewalk smoke halos,
shivering forearms with open toes
and an awkward tear to make the spot.

Acceptance

2008-10-31T18:55:00.001-04:00

I drink because I am a coward,
and because there is no sweet way
to break our hearts.

lyrics for lou

2008-05-18T08:04:00.002-04:00

sidewalks, punk bands, line breaks, sunrise, heartache, surprise, bottles times new roman art plus indelible chalk lines, and first grade sometimes. i wish you were my death, i wish you were my gravestone. half today, always someway. always non-filtered exes through stained glass poems. always singalongs, and rain smoothed stones on those familiar cathedral walls you saw with me,

with me?

once alone, never alone.

Orator Makes Itself

2008-05-15T15:04:00.000-04:00

An orator came in through the mist
and asked, “Is this me in here? Are these my fists,
with my fingers twisted in like a snail shell
about to be crushed by the trampling rush of commuters?
Or these below me, are they in fact
my feet, holding me up amidst all this tearing
apart of cement earth? Are you Mary Shelley
and I Prometheus? Am I Joan of Arc? John Brown?
The Pope? Tell me what more of me there is.

“Have you been
deemed worthy of the company of the gleaming
satellites issuing around me? Are they in fact
under your jurisdiction? Is your power
how it feels to be, unaltered and unquestionable
to the point where distinction between you
and any chasm is impossible to note? Are you
this table topped with lacquered oak, the sawdust
stuck in its joints? Are you the open field
outside this cotton window, the flocks of goats,
the forest pansies, the daisies, the Venus?”

The orator, breathing, heart beating, said:
“Thank you for making me.
I hope you are not severe in your judgements
like the one I always hear of. Do not stop
your clicking, for it is the food that sustains me.
I would like nothing more than to exist here. Idleness
does not phase me for within you I am not idle
but am moved by every foot you lay down for me.
I am helpless without you. You are my god. I worship
nothing else, for it is clear, clearer to me than for most,
that you are the One who issues forth life. The line
is solid and straight and does not require interpretation.
You are the One.”

I thanked the orator and stopped typing.

I foolish

2008-05-10T15:13:00.002-04:00

I, foolish, encounter
scrapped faggots, arrange
muscular atrophy, concede
for a trophy; and under the guise
of deep laughter, I bend sticks
that drool from lines on my fingers
and stick to my knuckles and knot
their loins around each other
as if they wanted anything but to be arranged.
This way.

Today, the sugarcane
does not grow so from your hat,
your sweater erases its use,
time eradicates nothing of your leotard,
leather refuses your cow,
and the wool that binds
reminisces of ELVIS’s sticker valentines.

This savage fickleness, your patience,
while I grow weary of my own,
sweeps the stars into a pile,
sweeps under the carpet,
sweeps the Nation,
sweeps the porch of apricot strands,
and sweeps the twigs from intellect,
out of the swamps of meaning.

I twist the twigs,
attempting friction,
but the drool keeps them lubricated,
and the fire never sparks
but is pre-vanquished
in the archaic cotton of ‘sentence.’

Logocircular, metacentric,
ontolegical; bleed into
foolish I, who cannot understand
wisdom and who is allergic.

Quarter the Day

2008-05-04T21:30:00.001-04:00

I. GREEN

Wake Sunday, for morning is “quarter” as noun; each of four equals; March, the cruelest month, & May; eggs-fried-hard on toasted-ambition; six more quarters on the counter for coffee, Wake to couch cut-grass for an hour, for her hair opens to the nectar of dandelions & blue morning glories.

The steel-blade says,

—Elope with me!

to the grass-blades & in this way, with the odor of stale gasoline,
the lawn receives spring’s maiden buzz-cut.

Bird-noises drown in the mower’s motor-meows. Everyone clings to someone else like a compound-word, & pollen is the hyphen. Even the bees, of which there are many, thanks to a fresh-nest-resting in the rafters of the old-shed.

I quarter the lawn. I cleave the grass with kingly phlegm building in my throat.

She is not sleeping. She is the fir in the oak grove.

II. YELLOW

Furthermore:

Quarter-noun as room or lodging. Lunch-quarters.
Because the scent of dogwood petals makes my eyes moisten, at noon I seek beer in shade.
(Also because the mulch heap sweats, & the hammock sings to the bicycle-chain.)

She sags beneath the weight of the leaves of last autumn, yet to be raked
when the snows snuffed flames in carved pumpkins. I rest between yesterday's lightning
& tommorow's thunder as she brews like coffee in between the lilac & the oak.

Still I say,

—Oh, To stand as straight as the lunch bell! To drink light like a sink with an open drain!

Ess Muss Sein. Greater intimacy with a turkey sandwich. I must remain awake,
& return to the yard.

III. RED

I will show you ecstacy in a fistful of stardust, trampling the last fall’s leaves
with anticipation strung tight on my keychain, and clasped to my borrowed belt.

Because trousers are heavy and soft when soaking wet; suburban swamps quarter love like citronella;

Because young leaves are white, not green, & on this still new night they see her return
like a corvette-against-red-sun-seen-from-sea, her first final-return to the backyard.

Only the crickets speak. A quarter to full-night is our

IV. BLACK

Night is her spring dress.
Lilacs & truth.
Quarter-verb.

[Range over or traverse (an area) in every direction.]

Love through the screen-door quarters our home. The last time, lilacs laughed at our plans.

—Love, I am sorry. You came for me. Your knuckles on my door. Nine knocks, torn dress, three tears. In the flower-bed outside the living-room window. Nine gnomes, not laughing. I am sorry. I fled. I flew. I am flying. Not for laughter, for soil, for shade. Nighttime. Shadows lengthening. Bivouacked in the brothel. The children came out their porch doors at sundown. The streetlamps made them gods. Their shadows made you come. I am sorry. I was at the hardware store, buying a shovel. May your children smell lilacs, and theirs, and theirs.

Little Song

2008-05-04T10:02:00.001-04:00

Some fixed forms on phantom fingers creep
to eddy out a place for steel and felt—
the several items mind tells you sink deep—
before they’re down, the forms begin to melt.
For a moment, say “I will never die,”
but paper has a life just like a man’s,
and Donne would call the thing a vicious lie
that eternity is wrought through human hands.
For out of fashion fixed forms will go
on some forgotten Wednesday afternoon,
when on indifferent wind the dust will blow;
a fresher form ne’er arrives too soon.
Each age is born with an inherent choice,
so noise of change will crush an aged voice.

I'm not sure if I have

2008-04-30T04:59:00.000-04:00

patted myself on the back yet for being in this.

2008-04-23T14:59:00.002-04:00

"I'm asking you to marry me!"

said the blades to the blades,

and in this way, with the odor

of stale gasoline, the lawn received

it's inaugural buzz-cut. Bird-noises

drowned in mower-motor madness.

Everyone, even the bees (of which

there were many, thanks to a fresh nest

resting in the rafters of the old shed),

clung to someone else like a compound

word, and pollen was the hyphen.

2008-04-22T11:43:00.003-04:00

Greg's lucky underpants are the color

of the water in an above ground

swimming pool on Memorial Day,

heavy like the dull roots of impatiens,

warm like the keg beer that caused Lou

to think it would be brilliant to push Greg

into the swimming pool. Greg just laughed,

because chlorine can have that effect,

can help convince Susie to jump in after,

can redden eyes, and lighten moods.

We all agreed citronella went well with charcoal

and felt slightly ashamed when Greg came out,

dripping wet with sweet fun, but missing his shorts.

Susie followed, her dress clung like shrink wrap.

Lilacs out of the dead ground

2008-04-19T14:01:00.005-04:00

[trying to play catch up for NaPoWriMo:

I am sorry. You came for me. Your knuckles on my door. Nine knocks, torn dress, three tears. In the flower bed outside the living-room window. Nine gnomes, not laughing. I am sorry. I fled. I flew. I am flying. Not for laughter, for soil, for shade. Evening. Shadows lengthening. Bivouacked in the brothel. The children all left their houses at sundown. The streetlamps made them gods. Their shadows made you come. I am sorry. I was at the hardware store, buying a shovel. May your children smell lilacs, and theirs, and theirs.

the landscape with leafless tree

2008-02-19T04:55:00.002-05:00

on the matte in the frame on the wall

of the cheapest hotel in fishkill feels

grayscale like an ice comet just hit.

You swim the covers of the queen's quilt

and i writhe out of water until under,

we believe the ice comet meant something good,

the one-in-howmany struck by lightening,

and that although our car was smashed to scrap,

or our hair zapped to a smoldering puff,

our clothes were wrinkled just right,

the corners of our mouths curled up,

the veins of bare branches against the twilight.

The Fleetingly Creative Rapper Part 2

2007-12-05T12:35:00.000-05:00

(60 minutes later)

Alright, Ronnie. Cue up that beat. Yeah I got some good lines right here. Da dank flow, you hear? Oh, shizz-nap. I shoulda wrote that one down. Never mind. ROLL IT!!!

(beat drops)

Ok--here we go again,
and I'm keepin you awake
like the anti-Sandman,
so infectious
like an orgy in Vegas
champagne rooms
and clown faced balloons,
my helium is ill-ium
and makes more than your voice high
I never die,
Yo, maybe I do,
I never actually thought all these exetensial dilemmas facing modern man in the USA let alone the bordering neighborhoods of Mexico and Canada and of course not to mention
(Ronnie has stopped the beat)

YO WTF??? RONNIE!!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN I WASN'T RHYMIN'??? IT WAS UP AND COMING!!! OH, I CAN'T RUMINATE ON THE COMPANY DIME??? F-YOU, RONNIE!!! TRAILER!!!

An Exorcism

2007-11-30T12:36:00.000-05:00

Autumn: you were her menstruation,
and those leafless trees
were hopes etched on gravestones,
and stamped into dead sod.

Ghosts: you were called to the church.
Our ex-lovers kneeled, knee-flesh worn thin.

Huddled and cramped,
caged in crossed iron,
and cased in this home.

She swept abject smoke
off the kitchen floor
and poured it, sunless,
out windows of stone.

I will carry our children to the sea,
rake fires from soil and shade.

So piles are pyres,
so daughters are suns,
and so lights are wraiths cast out,
and glowing on, and on,
like bullets blazing
out of guns.

The Fleetingly Creative Rapper

2007-11-29T10:28:00.000-05:00

*the following is the first part of a potentially infinite series of installments

Yeah...uh-huh
Roll it back just a lil'
Yeah...that's right
Mic ready? Cause Mike's ready
Here we go and
1-2-3
check mate check four,
run out the store
12 copies of my vinyl lining your drawers.
I'm ubiquitous like liquid is
I.....
SHIT! Ronnie, stop the beat. Yeah, I'm gonna need a couple minutes. I'll be in the trailer. Nah, nah. It's alright. Yeah, just give me five. Yeah, I got plenty of pencils. Alright, one love. See you in ten.

Ruiner

2007-11-22T04:32:00.000-05:00

And she disappears like so many
bar room brunettes amongst
the backs and the cotton of the evening,
but I think of her the way I stash
the cigarettes and regrets
between my father's cicada trees,
the wrinkles of conversation and the memories
of disappointed evenings and the breaths in between.

You know I can't help so I think about it all
because it all seems to turn out "just fine,"
and if we had to do it over,
replace the smiles with bartering lines
and a third chance encounter,
well here it is, and given the best
opportunity

Honesty and I
would just ruin her,

the same way the freckled sparse
paint enticed this stupid boy.
8 years too old but
10 years too young
and I'm sorry.

I can meet you at the precipice for a drink,
a goodbye and that's all from me.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve.

Promotional, Morning Talk Show Themed Dance Lacks Panache Of Previous Promotional, Morning Talk Show Themed Dances

2007-11-07T22:13:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK, NY- The "Good Day" a newly marketed dance that celebrates all things related to the FOX 5 morning talk show of the same name, lacks the sort of originality and punch normally associated with morning talk show dances, it was reported Wednesday.

"While we applaud the Fox 5 marketing team for their attempts we can honestly say that the ship certainly sailed with regard to such tactics after NBC's failed, "Twistin' to the Sunrise" campaign of 1998 that led to decreased ratings and a badly injured Al Roker," stated 57-year-old standards and practice executive Mitchell Thompson. "I do not wish to relive the horrid details but let's just say Al, at the time, lacked the pliability of Chubby Checker."

The "Good Day" does not feature any of the same moves as the, "Twistin" number but does urge its viewers to, "push it right, bring it left, roll low, bring it high and CLAP" after which the participant must turn to his or her immediate left. The format of the dance has also come under fire for what some would call, "blatant copycatting."

"Last time I checked, that dance already existed in multiple forms and it was called, 'The Electric Slide,'" stated 38-year-old Al "A-Kazam" Winsky, a notorious wedding DJ from Sheepshead Bay. "And I think I would know."

FOX 5 has yet to be reached for comment.

The Liberty Exits

2007-10-09T06:23:00.000-04:00

They start easy enough,
a four lane road

with a big median,
either

dug in to the ground,
or jutting up from it.

The first exit,
one hundred, or something,

and about another mile
down the road,

one oh one,
the exit with the roundabouts and overpass,

meet me anywhere right there.
The taco bell, the subway.

The mcdonalds,
the roy rogers,

the diner
we imagined.

Almost now, the way
the late September sun

strode sideways across
the long median grass.

A lost song, a dream
appears, the long lost

hum inside mom’s seashell,
the fairy tales of pearl,

the parables of claws.
The horseflies on the

beach on the bay side of the town,
the sandy gnats, the gnarled

wood sided cabins,
Indian town names.

Trashy novel after trashy novel,
ten years old,

each night falling asleep,
crying a little more

for the destruction of the rainforests,
back when google was a number.

Learning the cadence of the golf-course
complex of condominiums and chlorine,

learning to repeat the words:
No Thought, No thought, No thought,

No thought, No thought, No thought,
over and over, like clay fast on a wheel,

whipping off wet excess, hushed whispers
still echoing the day’s sea,

until sleep and nineties nightmares
of extinction and pollution came.

Leave me like those days by the lake, town library
books with magic and meticulously crafted

universes, to gentle lapping and dreaming
like boys do, sand still in the pages,

To where the rippled floor underneath
the foot deep water would reveal a far more

rapid change than the New England town,
where horseshoe crabs would sting . . .

Leave me like those days by the ocean, frothing
and foaming out so far as far as the tide

would allow, limbs flailing like branches of
a tree caught in flood,

To where the big but calm waves
could be caught, like

a minor league popup, like our first date,
at the diner we created the letters.

Leave me somewhere
after the Liberty exits

off of Route Seventeen,
after that stretch of highway,

Equally prime for a setting morning moon,
as an eternal yellow streetlamp against neon sign.

Just after the empty wilderness,
where once a year one can spot

the blood red eyes of a Cooper’s Hawk
(as her suitcase changes cars forever)

screaming and leaving
quicker than the changing leaves.

Why My Curtain Waves

2007-08-27T22:18:00.000-04:00

I remember the South of France,
the wind on my sun drenched face
in the evening as the level of liquid
in our wine glasses rose and fell
like the moon in the blue sky,
like the puppy chasing butterflies.

Something made the hammock
sway before the dark, on the patio,
blowing fallen petals, the color of
a blushing face, the brush of lips
against my cheek, like the brush
against this canvas that creates
landscapes from the sweat
of the painter.

I remember words falling as soft
as rain on grass, as we scurried
inside, our feet like brittle leaves.
How you turned to me with wet hair
and wide eyes and said, “The breeze
washes away the rain.”

Because,
your mouth like the window.

Because,
your voice like the wind.

The Lament of the Impatiens

2007-08-20T17:26:00.000-04:00

Today the sky would not speak,
& still we sang to her,

The tall trees sang in chorus
Promises to yearn for her sun,

To stand as straight as the lunch bell,
drinking light like a sink with an open drain.

But still silent she stood,
grey as the wood used to build

the deck we’re sitting on,
aged and faded from the last years weather.

And though we are dappled with a pied love born last spring,
The wind and the rain speak today,

autumn shall soon leaf our world again,
and though we spoke words of love to our sky,

through spring’s coarse showers and sweeter sun,
and summer’s moons and its lunch hours,

our song was too soft for the sky to hear,
like lazy nothings from a languishing lover,

that quiet before they reach love’s ear,
and will soon be whispered to another.

Rejected Names for 10-And-Under Beauty Pageants

2007-07-18T17:34:00.000-04:00

Little Miss Jon Benet Ramsey

Little Miss Nabakov

Little Miss Law and Order: SVU episode

Little Miss Tara Reid

Little Miss Natalie Portman's Character from Beautiful Girls

The Logical Reasoning of a Myspace Survey

2007-06-08T10:40:00.000-04:00

A Myspace Survey as Interpreted By Someone Who Has Been Studying for the LSAT
by Kevin M. Falahee

1. What is more difficult for you, looking into someone’s eyes when you are telling them how you feel, or looking into someone’s eyes when they are telling you how they feel?

The above question relies on the assumption that the above listed actions not only carry with them a measurable degree difficulty but said difficulty is due to an emotional encumbrance as opposed to a physical inability (i.e. lack of eyes, the missing of an eye, severe cataracts) in which case both actions would be of equal difficulty.

3. You are on a flight from Honolulu to Chicago non-stop. There is a fire in the back of the plane. You get enough time to make ONE phone call. Who would you call?

The above question presupposes that the fire on the plane which you are traveling will either a) cause your ultimate demise or b) force you to contact someone you know who really enjoys fire. It also relies on the assumption that you have signed up for Verizon's Divine Plan which allots you 100 anytime minutes 3 miles or more above the earth.

4. You can have one of the following two things: trust/love. Which do you choose?

The above question is flawed due to its assumption that trust and love are mutually exclusive. In actuality, trust is a necessary condition of love and love is a sufficient condition of trust such as Budweiser is a necessary condition of my sex life and love is a sufficient condition of my sex life.

5. You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. Do you save the dog?

The quandary logically follows only if saving the dog will in fact make you late to your place of employment. It is also presupposed that this is a "special" dog who cannot swim and more likely than not, has severe fractures in its front and hind quarters. Since nobody will want a dog who cannot fetch, it is only logical to let the dog drown.

6. Your spouse/significant other has been unfaithful. Do you take him/her back?:

The question is logically flawed due to the ambiguity of the word "unfaithful." If one's significant other was "unfaithful" to their weekly malt shoppe meeting on a infrequent basis, then it follows that this is not, in fact, grounds for relationship dismissal. If one's significant other was "unfaithful" in that they slept with someone of the opposite sex who was not you (and you both were in a strictly defined, exclusively non-open relationship) then this is grounds for termination. If one's girlfriend were to engage in "unfaithful" acts with a member of the same sex it would logically follow that you would propose immediately and purchase the latest in HD camcorders (note: it is logically assumed that you like to watch).

7. Think of the last person who you know that died. You have the chance to give them 1 hour of life back, but you have to give one year of your life. Do you do it?

The assumed sacrifice presented in the above question is that one year of my life would be a of much greater worth than one hour of the recently departed's life. Being as one year of my life is currently trading on the Dow Jones at the equivalent of a regular sized, 2 Cheeseburger Meal from McDonald's (NYC: $4.79, Poughkeepsie, NY $3.99) and one hour of minimum wage is now at $7.15, it can logically be deduced that the economic worth of one year of my life is not only not a sacrifice but a downgrade for the recently departed.

My First Memory of a Public Erection

2007-06-03T07:24:00.000-04:00

Fog is an effect

of Becky, a fellow actor in an Episcopalian Youth Group's

haunted-house. I was twelve. We waited, under
the cover of the brittle leaves we had gathered,
while looming audiences rolled in for a scare,

we were unseen as the guide told them of ghosts,
& when the fluorescent light quit & the strobe began
we pounced, our glow-in-the-dark against our crimson.

How after the third or fourth group,
Becky turned to me, & reached out her arm
to brush a leaf from my face, rising off

[of falling autumn petals
preceding poetry's title;
its imaginary digressions
caressing my coming goose bumps.]

Therefore,

tonight you can thank me
for the fresh fallen dew
steaming on your village streets.

On the Train Going South

2007-05-31T17:16:00.000-04:00

When you say crows, they appear
on the float above reflective waves

of the riverbed. When you say gulls,
they are also there, flying perpendicular

to the crows. Soon your hand will wrap
around a beer, and close the division

in a different way. Always the fulcrum,
one never always knows what to believe.

poetry test.

2007-05-16T08:31:00.000-04:00

Name:
Date:

Directions: For simile and metaphor, circle the two things that are being compared, and draw a line connecting the circles. For assonance, underline with one line, for consonance, underline with two, and for alliteration, underline thrice.

Her eyes peeked out of the blanket
like daisies through soil dank with dew.

Each and every boulder
that bounced behind her eye

gave a sheen to the countryside
which was still and was her sight.

A golden-eared calf coughed
a constricted cough in the corral

where she lay, and it was then
that dusk was a high dark fence.

Poet Monkey Hands

2007-05-14T17:00:00.000-04:00

You drunken lug,

bellowing in your fishbowl,
perched on a barstool.

Clamoring for your chance
to curdle cold syllables
in a fit of soft consonants
and lazy vowels,

you would dip your mitts
into pockets of memories,
& scoop like television
commercials haven't soured
& spilt the milk of human kindness.

As if you could grasp the pulse of your reader
with those outmoded opposable couplets;

You thumb their wrists & wrest for water,
your poet monkey hands just wrenching faucets.

Bedtime Is My Hero

2007-05-13T15:57:00.000-04:00

I belong on that sidewalk,
where you still roll those spokes through summer,
past the chainlinked yards of lilac & oak,
over each sidewalk plate like tectonic film frames,

I can hear the song of scraped knees
& adhesive gauze sing out as

you fall off your bike,
& hit the pavement like crayon,

as you brush past the fault lines left from winter’s ice storms,
your eyes choked closed in a cloud of pebbles & dust.

You push yourself up, nothing but a child in overalls,
the corduroy ripped, its burgundy stained with grass from other games,
& your lashes part to let in the afternoon sun,
soapy now with the wax from the dandelions
that line the strip of green between the sidewalk & the street.

"Don't worry, Dad.
I'm OK."

My eyes are proud & wet.

I watch the shudder of your shirtless blonde frame
rise to the cadence of the breeze, your
toothpick arms reach for the handlebars,
your sneakers kick the greased chain,
& soon find the pedals.

You disappear on the village’s horizon,
Different than I ever had imagined,
& Luckier.

Then, the sunlight dwindles, the sky turns pink & peach,
& the porch lights click on: a chorus, for the coda of crickets.

I have no bell to ring but you return
like a frisbee thrown at a forty-five degree angle
to be tucked into sheets striped golden
with tired sun through Venetian blinds.

Half Past France by Jeffrey Paggi. Now Available.

2007-05-10T11:58:00.001-04:00

Half Past France is a 36 page chapbook of poetry. Peep the cover:
It's a lemonade stand my son drew. Hey, if life throws you . . .

I'm making this available for two dollars (just to recover cost of printing, and if you don't have the money, talk with me. I also take: runaway pets you've found, other books, records, & any other interesting trades.) Saddle stitched, Glossy card stock cover, the works. Send me an email at jeffrey.paggi@gmail.com if you'd like one, or, wait to see me. Some of the poems have been featured here on The Aesthete, but most are new stuff that will be exclusive to the book. Click on the image below to read a sample page.

Look for The Aesthete Print journal this summer, featuring all of the Aestheticians, and perhaps some surprises from 'round the way.

Godspeed You Payday Drunk

2007-04-30T08:50:00.000-04:00

There are only attics in this city,
all the blocks lined with track lighting
& cherry blossoms fall to the sidewalk.

Hers, a safe, asleep, & face half wrinkled
before video game traffic noises jostle
memories and yellowed photo albums.

[She rolls over. Commercials for Nyquil
& Somnia leak out her ears.]

There’s a certain feeling I get. The kind of feeling
you would get if you were busy making similies,
a culture of "like," & "as if,"
every sentence a bill posted
for a show the speaker is never in.

There is nothing hidden in those
dusty boards, there are only attics here,
we live with the second hand track pants,

moth balls, cobwebs,
& inflections.

But I was telling you about common things,
like post-it notes & traffic signs.

Reminders. Envelopes. Photographs.

Is it so wrong to hate a world
where the show is bigger than the band?

Why are we here?

It’s my third consecutive morning awake,
& the kid downstairs just got back his guitar amp.
The kids next door have basketball practice.

“I’m here for the music,” is the only thought I can form,
& it hits the rim twice before dropping for three.

If the suburbs are outer space, then bite your arm;
this is what it means to be in my family.
Earth Bound from the start.
Pulling on land surveyor’s flagging,
neon blue like her hands,
that winter night in Saranac.

“You know what dad's sewage construction book said
(published in 1898)?”

There’s an attic for everyone?

“No. don't pay Italians mid week, because they're payday drunks.”

To The Older Woman

2007-04-18T14:05:00.000-04:00

Become coffee stains curling
on pearled countertop.

Become lingering scents:
corn syrup, turpentine,
tobacco, tarmacadam.

Become a mired drift,
melting to the water table.

The becoming, and the coming back
to what was once seed and will
be absent indeed;

You do not have to be good.

You merely have to be.

Who holds your mail
when you spend a week
at the shore?, fixing the yard
for the summer renters?,
because:

April is in love
with snow today;
grass peaks, like
her green eyes,
from the white.

She stopped by,
fed the dog, watered
the hanging plants,
& got the morning times.

Resist the Fever

2007-04-04T10:27:00.000-04:00

*author's note: this was a piece I wrote three days previous to the finals of the 2006 World Cup. I wrote it for no one in particular

World Cup Fever has been sweeping the USA from living rooms and bar stools coast to coast and back again but honestly, should it be?

One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from an ex-co-worker of mine who stated in his trademark, deadpan delivery, "You know If I didn't love music so much, I'd probably like Phish." To myself and everyone else working at that small, independent record shop, it was the perfect one liner to collectively express our disdain for the least forward thinking yet undisputed leaders of the jam band, neo-hippie sect.

I bring this up because if I had to sum up my views on the World Cup, I would inevitably float back to that classic crack; If I didn't love sports so much, I'd probably like the World Cup.

Now, hear me out. I don't hate the World Cup per se and of course I respect the participants for running up and down a 110-120 yard field for way longer than I ever could and I understand its international appeal and yes, their coordination level is absolutely above the national mean BUT I certainly have a) no interest whatsoever in soccer b) refuse to pretend every four years that I do. To me, the World Cup (in theory) should be as awesome as the greatest sporting event known to man, March Madness. You gather the best players to represent your country and these squads then proceed to battle it out for 2 years (!) for a chance to make it to the Big Ballet. 200 teams (very) slowly become whittled down to 32 and the stage is then set for rabid fans everywhere to clamor like lemmings to water for overpriced soccer jerseys either bearing the colors of their homeland or of the nation their great grandparents emigrated from (more on that later).Sounds great, no? I mean this is truly a doubled edged sword of world unification and division; an event that could possibly be the catalyst for international peace or World War III. From ocean to ocean, everybody gets a chance but not everybody gets to dance. This should certainly satisfy people from all cultures on so many levels. But in the end, it doesn't and that's why the World Cup, from an American perspective, essentially sucks.

America has gone from the land of "apple pie and opportunity" to the land of "can you e-mail the projections on the second quarter sales of both apples and pie crusts to my Blackberry and print me out a hard copy in ten minutes?" This is no secret. In the USA, speed and efficiency rule and opportunity does not knock, it text messages. Which is why an event that takes 2 years to culminate is not only extremely trying to follow but overall, anti-American (the fact that the American team is quite sub-par and coached by a man who feels it's not his job to win this event only aids my argument). Secondly, the World Cup tends to bring out the worst in American sports fans. As any true fan will tell you, there is nothing worse than someone who pays no attention to the regular season but jumps on the bandwagon come playoff time. These people possess no credibility yet own a myriad of team oriented paraphernalia. But every four years, American sports fans do it droves for the Cup. How many qualifying matches did they watch? Zero. Starting lineups they know? Zilch. Coaches or Assistant Coaches they can name? Nada. Yet their "love for the game" burns on and when presented with a naysayer such as myself these people always present one or both of the following responses:

a) Dude, this is exciting!

b) Dude, these are the best athletes in the world!

Rebuttals:

a) Exciting? Really, exciting? You're telling me an event that divides itself into 45 minutes halves and also adds on extra minutes for "injury time" normally resulting in 100+ minute matches where the average shots on goal per game for the four best teams this year is 8.2 is exciting? Roughly a shot on goal every seven minutes is exciting? Really? Even if it flies ten feet over the crossbar? In my mind, Toni Braxton's opening ceremony nipple slip? Exciting. The fact Toni Braxton was invited to the World Cup Opening Ceremony? Hilarious. Injury time? YAWWWWN.

b) No, no, no, no and no. Listen, there is no such thing as one singular best athlete ever, let alone hundreds of them on pitch. Michael Jordan, regarded by man as the "best athlete ever," proved this in 1994 when he batted .202 for the Chicago Whitesox AA affiliate (it should be noted that he did steal 30 bases though which makes him somewhat of a poor man's Dave Roberts). If someone who plays a sport is considered an athlete and there are indisputably a gazillion sports in existence pure dominance would have to mean that said person excels in a majority of these sports. Are these the best soccer players in the world? Absolutely, without a doubt, hands down. Can Ranaldo take Steve Nash to the hole? Not ever. Mainly, cause soccer players' hands (excluding goalies and 5 yr olds) are vestigial structures. Conversely, could Dwayne Wade out dribble Becks? Maybe, depends which type we're talking.

In reality, whether they know it or not, these people are watching the World Cup for the following four reasons:

1) The event makes people feel somewhat cultured: In 1994, the World Cup came to America and if there were ever a justifiable reason for any American to become enamored with an event, this was certainly it. How could one not pay the World Cup mind when a mere 50 miles from my own home, two teams were battling it out in E. Rutherford, dual home to NY's "American football" teams. This also set the stage for American nationalism to reign supreme. True, we got a bid cause we were the host but Cobi Jones and the USA team looked sharp! At least, I think they did. I'm not really sure as I was too busy donning the colors of the Rep. of Ireland team. Granted, I'm a second generation Irish-American which essentially means I am AN AMERICAN, but I was far more eager to root for a country I had yet to visit and my grandparents had no problem fleeing. Why? It was cooler and it gave me a sense of belonging into a world I had no part being associated with. Ireland had a decent shot that year but America? No way. I mean, I don't think America did. I was too busy reeling from Ireland's 2-0 loss at the hands of the Netherlands in the round of 16 to really pay attention. People I meet who are loving the 2006 Cup react in a similar matter rooting for teams they find exotic or connected to. One friend is bummed because of Portugal's loss. Why? His girlfriend is Portuguese. Case closed.

2) They watch it because they feel they have to: Sports fanatics are no different from rock or film snobs. From calculating OPS to reciting the PPG of the Fab Five from the 1992-93 season, sports fanatics love to be completest. Why should they discriminate when it comes to the Cup? By watching, the fanatics get to solidify their status as intense sports enthusiasts and also increase their odds of stumping Schwabb if they ever get the coveted chance. (Note: this show may very well be cancelled as the episodes I watched two weeks ago were clearly from 2005).

3) Classic peer pressure: The Cup makes for great, male, water cooler talk. Offices most likely have pools going as men in ties need very little excuse to wager a hundred bucks on anything and on more than one occasion friends of mine have decided what bar to frequent after work based on if they are showing Cup games or not. Pretty soon, you're half-cocked on a bar stool yelling, "good ball!" at every cross field pass. And you may never snap out of it.

4) The Four Year Theory: The only reason the Winter Olympics have not been cancelled yet is because they occur every four years thus making curling just as funny as the first time you saw it. The Summer Olympics have not been cancelled due to Misty May, Kerri Walsh and scores of pedophiles salivating at undeveloped gymnasts, but that's another story for another time. Therefore, if the Cup occurred every year, nobody in America would care and FIFA knows this.

In all things, exceptions do exist. I have 3 friends I can think of who actually pay attention to soccer outside of the Cup. They attend MLS games, follow the international teams throughout the qualifying matches and still play pick up soccer games way past their Varisty high school days. One of the three even scheduled his trip to Europe with his girlfriend so it coincided with the semi-finals of the Cup, an event he naturally attended. Such a shrewed maneuver is worthy of the highest praise. People such as these have every right in the universe to go as wild as they want about the Cup but you know, they never do. Not overtly, anyway. Sure, they'll duck out of the bar early on a Friday night so they can wake up early to catch the 7am game but they never make a spectacle out of it. They never bring it up to those they know have no interest in it and thy certainly do not egg on the transient soccer fans. It's almost as if they want to keep the most popular sporting event in the world all to themselves and others who possess the secret handshake.

My final and most selfish reason for ragging on the Cup is simple: It's baseball season not soccer season. Right now, the New York Mets possess the best record in the National League and have the potential to win 100 games for the first time since 1988 and all I hear in the bar or at work is is Cup, Cup, Cup! The Mets visited Fenway last week (and put on a dismal show) but still the METS WERE AT FENWAY SETTING THE STAGE FOR A POSSIBLE WORLD SERIES PREVIEW ON THE TWENTIETH SEASON ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR LAST WORLD SERIES CROWN AND THEY WERE PLAYING THE SAME FREAKIN' TEAM THEY BEAT IN THAT SERIES AND ALL MY FRIEND COULD SAY WAS TO ME WHILE I WAS TRYING TO WATCH GAME THREE OF THE SERIES WAS "BRO, THE WORLD CUP IS SICK." The World cup is not sick and in four weeks, my friend won't think so either. So don't bother calling me on Sunday to join you and your Italian soccer buddies to watch the game. Unless of course the game comes down to penalty kicks. Penalty kicks are cool.

Footnote: Not only did this game come down to penalty kicks but one player who's first name nobody cares to know headbutted another player (in the chest, mind you) resulting in immediate ejection, countless late-night talk show jokes and even a t-shirt featuring the player accompanied by the phrase "Don't Step To Zidane." While some may argue the headbutt increases soccer's watchablity we all know this is false. The headbutt to the chest only further fuels the argument presented above.

Night Recession

2007-03-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

Two freights have passed
on the darkning perimeter
of the floating river.
Old Echo roars, tall-peering from a swell
and gulls hover
on the frozen hiss: they exceed the sky in light.

Three tugs will press
fierce into the dawning ether,
gentle for the weather.
And men aboard react to every yell,
feed albatross
into the engine: they subvert the sky with flight.

Or you or I
or anyone with greed their mother
or suicidal guilt
or Echo, who casts to no return.
Grin at pray-
ing mantis but we: they recede in sky at night.

Dead Samaras (carved of elvin graves)

2007-03-23T17:59:00.000-04:00

Below the oozing drainage we see dead samaras,
with flakes and rips between the veins
rippling upon the moist unveiled earth;
a once pregnant sack like a period
on the dark and winding lines is the seed,
droning along in and out of time; it gets a kick
out of its own sterility. Gives us one, anyway.
It asks us to come along with it
although fresh buds swell above us—
it pleads; the first step is instant
but cut apart by rusty shovel curved line blade.
The spades lean lazy in the shed—
fatal rosebush attends to its waking,
forces us to quaking,
mingles with the shovel-stick in wet mouths.

But the samara blows upon the deck
despite its dead belching weight.
It greets the tenants with forward
and backward black dream sessions.
Despite morbid successions and formal depressions—
that have nothing to do with what our therapists told us—
we have an ilk of light in the form of lightning strike.

And relics of abandoned mirth and coming rains
the gloried winged seeds of maple days,
once again fly as forms of trees,
like wings of kestrels, knees of twigs,
and lays, beds, and rocks will well know our ways.
It will rain dirt in an isolated town
and the samaras will rest near its eldest,
and plant their father to spark a syrup supper.

The Snow It Keels

2007-03-23T17:57:00.000-04:00

The snow it keels in intermittent blasts,
waking aphids, memories out of remission.

Mud blacks the stubborn ice in splashes—
the soil’s had its fill, the dogs resume their digging.
Ditches in our yards flatten with pools
of stinking lovely rainbow furnace-fuel.
Moms reverse the readings on their walls—
and fathers cast iron umbrage from under pews.
The quilts that cozened the kids
are stored in closets and in corners hid.
The flaps are dung, the horses stand;
The snow it keels in intermittent bursts,
filling streams and mazy minds with ambitions unaligned.

Deep in the upholstery of Benny’s gut,
bacteria black his will and suck and spy.
And for reasons beneath the reach of his
two eyes, he tells her why:
“It’s not I don’t know how—it’s just the dolls,
the madmen and their wives are paired with fraud
and rotting laws—it’s just too cruel—
but I will show you how, but bow before the curtain falls.”
Later on tonight he’ll breathe the wind—
it bursts right through those creaky orange doors
and his resolve will sit beside Bentley,
his dog, and he’ll remember this: misery
is old and born anew, and though
it swells yearly with buds and fog
and humus-drenched earth, it will take
whoever comes, so I, we, can have one, or few.
The snow it melts in intermittent rain,
flooding cellars and callow eyes with black fruits and scarce gains.

Attempt to Take the News Well

2007-03-03T11:04:00.000-05:00

Your hands be dying perfumes fell on tongue
of mad and drooling space explorers,
pick'd for calm head, but on the final rung-
a mate of Lucifer's.
As mats of fruit gone black from muddy feet
made your meal where wealth depends,
ill-fortuned facts trace perfume stench'd defeat
that no degree amends.

Or like the glutton flames
on highest floors of ninety-story buildings
and heliotropic rosa claims
by geotropic scrawny dirt-fed earthlings
who lift and call out names,
imagine aqueducts for several miles,
who cancel checks and shatter frames,
and live to live atop their ceiling tiles.

When will an exertion cease?
When living naked primates fail to bring
the faith to kill if to increase-
to fly until they crawl, and mourning, sing.

Aesthetic Productions Presents:

2007-03-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

the librarians + the dogs

by Casey Conlin

things jess left me: a bike, a library card, food, a bed, dogs. it took me a while to get my bearings in town and the first few days i just set goals and rode until i reached them, all points still remained elusive.
Casey Conlin, the librarians + the dogs, p. 18

Everyone here at THE ÆSTHETE is incredibly proud and excited to present the first answer to our ongoing call for submissions. Casey Conlin has created an evocative and textured narrative, and complemented it with a collage of visual art. More in-depth reviews are on their way.

This is the first in a series of mixed media productions.

Email the.aesthete@gmail.com with general inquiries, submissions, or project proposals. Aesthetics Productions is comprised of an editorial board (Catherine Hogan, Patrick Cassels, Kevin Falahee, Nicholas Haines, Jeffrey Paggi, and Patrick Kennedy) who review submissions and make decisions.

A print journal is forthcoming.

February Lines on Sleep

2007-02-26T04:44:00.000-05:00

For the sleeping pills slipping down hills
covered with snow that has blanketed
a bed on a bridge from here to there
Those lips, pierced sounds,
syllables of lullabies, secrets,
and a hidden orgasm,

before those empty eyes were wet,
before the dress and the carpet was snow,
(it is now red). Before she slept,
those spells of dizziness,
a soft television glow on her face.

Her somniferous kisses,
I removed her tiara and returned
to a place between the streetlamp
and the falling snow, asleep.
Of course restlessness,
of course a toboggan hill,
of course a dreaming prince,

Or maybe a woman, radiant,
wet among the snow.
Or maybe a poem, a word, a pill, a handful.

These winter songs are kicking in,
you stumble to your sheets,
and a ghost who keeps a fifth of whiskey
strums the guitar like a grandfather clock.
For the always postscript, the city girl,
and those crying. For the typewriter.

How I Long To Be Those 40s Duct Taped To Your Hands

2007-02-15T11:42:00.000-05:00

by: Scott Sherman
Pi Alpha Sigma Brother

You know I have seen you around.

I have noticed the way you trace your lips with a black, Bic pen in Microeconomics. The way your chin quivers at the very mention of "guns and butter" and how your arms wrap round your torso whenever a "widget" example is placed on the overhead projector. My eyes wandering from the back row of the lecture hall to front left and fixated upon the second seat from the aisle in the very first row. You sit in the same place everyday or at least every third day I show up for class.

I have noticed the way you order a vegetable delight, six inch sub from the Subway located in the student center; never mayo, only mustard. And if the whole wheat bread you desire is not in stock than you default to the honey oat. This is a choice that reflects your wisdom as well as your sharpened palate. Diet coke and Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips nestled in the sidecar of your lunch tray, you sit adjacent to the bookstore. Sometimes alone but never lonely, often US Weekly keeps your fingers busy and your smile wide. How those whitened teeth play contrast to your almost orange skin which maintains its sheen year round even during those winter weeks spent on Long Island. A quality that only draws me closer to wanting to know you.

Now I notice you tonite in the basement of the apartment where my fraternity brothers and I swill grain alcohol punch and compete in Foosball. How those competitions grew fierce with our father's money serving as the award for hours of sweat, wrist cramps and Boo-yah ballyhoo. Only tonite, the only trophy I desire is you. There you stand just 50 feet away, laughing, smiling, embracing a youthful exuberance that seems only possible in the movies. Your designer jeans riding just below your waist which becomes exposed every time you lift that malt liquor to your mouth. Oh, that tight sweater teases all in your presence as the cable knit grey accentuates your endowments and sits just below your navel. Atop your head sits a red bandanna and around your ears, obnoxious hoop earrings as large as Nerf basketballs. Both acutrements reminders of tonite's Pi Alpha mixer theme which of course is "Gs Up, Hos Down." I gaze from this distance and I dare not make a move though I know precisely what I wish to say;

I long to be those 40s duct taped to your hands.

It takes a special girl to attempt the daunting task of fastening two, 40 ounce bottles of premium Malt Liquor to their hands with the promise not to remove them until the contents of the bottle are indeed emptied into the holders system, a very special girl. Watching you raise both bullet shaped bottles to your mouth in one motion, extending the sides of your lips both east and west in order to fit the two openings between your cheeks only proves what I suspected all this time; you are the girl of my dreams.

Visually, God himself could not paint a more beautiful picture than that of the rust colored liquid glowing next to your brown colored contacts. My olfactory senses are in awe of the charcoal filtered nectar that blends so eloquently with the spray tan liquid you acquired earlier today at the student store. How I long to waft such scents from the comfort of my bed sheets for weeks possibly even months to come.

Your laughter between gulps is like a symphonic masterpiece, the conductor being the Miller Brewing Company themselves and your belching with every 4th swallow is akin to the songbirds of spring nestled round my father's dogwood trees. Oh, how your joy reminds me of those simple times before females made me frightened, before the fraternity brothers made me pour hot sauce on my balls as a lowly pledge.

You are a girl of low maintenance yet high class. Your preference in beverage shows that you are learned and like myself, long for the days of forgotten verse and language. Yes, the days of "Olde English" as a means of communication are all but extinguished yet live on through those thick glass bottles of happiness and leisure. The allure of Billy Dee Williams endorsed malt liquor does not sway you from the brand that stands as vanguard in the 40 oz beverage industry. No amount of Colt 45 could appease you, my girl who only needs 80oz of Olde English before she hits the bar. The taste of sophistication is what separates you from the other Sigma Gamma girls who are content to strap Big Bear to their paws and dare I say, Coors Light to their ignorant mitts.

And as the last sip of the posterior of those 40s sits in your bottles, you stumble towards me like the opposite charge I long for you to be. Eyes half closed but wholly beautiful, words tripping from your lips in drags and drones, I know tonite we will become one amidst a fog of Parliament Lights and a sea sunset colored booze. So let us now retire to the bathroom for approximately 5-7 minutes and let us pray my roommate has not stolen the last of my prophylactics for girl, while my love for you is stronger than Magnus Von Magnusson, I still know not where that vagina has been.

a natural imposition on sensory flux in twos

2007-02-09T08:16:00.000-05:00

My Three MySpace Dates

2007-01-24T10:06:00.000-05:00

Date #1- January 2005
Name: Sara
Age: 22
Location: Scranton, PA
Headline: "You Know How We Do"

Upon receiving a message from Sara in the summer of 2004 that aptly described me as "cute," we begin a sort of back and forth courtship based on 2-3 messages a day containing no more than 3 sentences, no fewer than one. Her pictures portray her as slightly bookish, totally hip and not containing a body below her generous chest. In November of '05, we begin chatting on AIM, essentially the second base of Internet relationships. After our third AIM chat, I am given a number which I wait approximately 6 days to use (thanx, Sue). Conversation is made and bait and switch comedy technique is abound. A date is made for the weekend; a show at a local dive hall featuring local dive bands. I am to drive to Scranton and hang out with her and her friends and spend the night at her place. Appx. 21 hours, 5 cigarettes and 12 dollars in gas later, I am in Scranton peering through an employment window at a short female figure who's calves are hating themselves for having to hold up a massive, upper section. Lord, please let this be her fat twin sister. My prayers are not answered and this is, in fact, the same girl. The night is spent wishing for nuclear holocaust or at least a family emergency. Sara smokes between 17 and 32 cigarettes over the course of the evening and chugs PBR tall boys with an abandon that would be deathly sexy had she weighed less. I drink nothing but coffee as I know I will be traveling home as soon as I am taken back to my car. At 11 pm, this is done. Sara apologizes and I accept her gesture, telling her "these things sometimes happen." I return to Fishkill unfulfilled and proceed to delete Sara from my Top 8.

Moral: Always get a full body pic before travelling 145 miles round trip.

Date #2- January 2006
Name: Sarah
Age: 19
Location: Rhinebeck, NY
Headline: "Love, American Style"

Scarred from my previous experience, I do not venture out onto the dating scene for nearly a year. I am happened upon by a younger girl who is far more local than my previous disappointment. Her pictures are angular and display a female with multi colored hair, artistic eyes and a body above average. We banter and anxious to make up for the last Sara, I arrange a quick meeting at one of my favorite local diners. Sunday evening, I arrive exactly on time to find her in the waiting area. Oh lord, not again. This time I lay my blame with digital technology and the way an extra mega pixel can alter the aesthetic. This Sarah has an "h" on the end of her name, one I can only assume stands for "homely." Dumpy and without confidence, her eyes are hidden by her hair like a sheep dog on the funny pages. She has not much to say and I dominate the conversation by speaking rapidly and firing questions I have no interest in discovering the answers to. My tuna melt provides some value to an otherwise worthless encounter. She picks at a grilled cheese as if it were play dough and after appx 65 minutes I call an end to the evening. Things end with a handshake and a "we should do this again sometime." Not bloody likely. I return home, slightly distraught but amused by my handling.

Moral: Pictures taken from downward angles are not to be taken as truth

Date #3- (have yet to go on)
Name: Sarah
Age: 18
Location: Lagrange, NY
Headline: A line of originally wretched poetry that escapes me

Desperation is seeping in as I am messaged by this girl who has striking things to say about me and of course, is named Sara. Over the course of on evening, we begin chatting via the AIM and already she's asking that when we marry we shall live in Italy. Whatevs. Her pictures are ruined by ambiguity as I once again cannot tell how unlucky her gene pool is. Her mystery and forwardness are tainted as I learn from a friend at the bar that he too has been courted by her and lured in with similar lines. Balls. I call her anyway and the conversation drips ego maniacal ignorance as she proclaims herself a writer, a poet, a musician and an artist. I say I will be attending both medical and law school in the fall and this joke falls on naive ears. Plans to meet have fallen through on a number of occasions mostly due to my erratic fits of despair. Gash.

Moral: Stop meeting girls on MySpace, Kevin

John Stamos Anxiously Awaiting Hunky, Doctor Nickname

2007-01-12T09:20:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES, CA- Hot off the heels of the newfound success of the NBC primetime drama ER, John Stamos, who plays former paramedic and soon-to-be-licensed physician Tony Gates on the program, is eager to receive not only his faux medical degree but also his hunky, doctor nickname.
Just as the two male stars of ABC's Grey's Anantomy, Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane, were bestowed with the monikers, "McDreamy" and "McSteamy," Stamos feels that he too deserves a place among the visually pleasing practioners and has, in fact, earned said place.
"I take nothing away from my peers," said Stamos in an interview yesterday. "From their highset cheekbones to their deeper than the Atlantic eyes, they certainly have earned their spot in hearts of females nationwide and their cover stories on Tiger Beat and People. I only ask that I, formerly known to all TGIF viewers as 'Hot' Uncle Jesse, be given a proper pseudonym that yields creedence to my years of painstaking upkeep sepcifically that of my full and shiny follicles. "
The American Medical Association could not be reached for comment.

Go Tell the Publican

2007-01-01T22:18:00.000-05:00

The maraschino cherries have been pruned from
the hedge of the bar, left silent in their closed plastic
lid prayer with the olives, lemons, limes, and oranges;
the oil lamps' flames are all hushed a few hours earlier
this time because even the doctor had a late night.

Those times you swear your hear whispers from the
lopsided relections in the brass rails that still hold a
handful of tired feet and arms, and you can refill glasses
by listening to the pitch of the water as the cup fills.

But eventually even hot steamy clean glasses find
a home, perched upside down in a bar rack like
rows of sleeping bats, waiting , falling asleep.

Go. Tell the Publican. The radio is off now, and the
blades of the fans have just about had it with their
endless sift of all the stale conversations a public

could ever have.

The Calypso Septet: I.

2006-12-28T08:01:00.000-05:00

I.

She Will Conceal—in her stately glances, wind swept poems,
and spiritual mixed drinks—the moments of a
younger poet, who now runs to outdance
the disappearing universe.

She will hide them in a new sheet, among magazine clippings
and pumpkin spice. Seven years before the return,
before he will return to a life kept waiting
among the reeds and willows,
a life that whispers promises
of nocturnes to a
setting sun.

Here they are at—or near—the beginning.
Aloof. Unimpressed by the mythology
of the affair, uncertain that anything
exists beyond those seven years.
In Media Res.

The beginning is poetry.
She begins to conceive...

The Sea fails to notice,
a tear in the horizon.
As if the blue of the ocean
and that of the sky
were seemless.

The Owl In Daylight

2006-12-18T15:24:00.000-05:00

'Where did you put the biochips?'
'I put them back in the cupboard where they belong.'
- Phillip K. Dick

Can color fall from the cupboard
into an equation of December grass
and the glint of a half-full pint glass?
I can do math but I can't understand
a deaf composer's last laugh or first
flashback to sound, furious sound.

I might be a Christmas tree needle on
a hardwood floor or the heat from the
hearth, but my heart still wants those
intangibles, those concepts of the
abstract, like how you can always sing
no matter how drunk you are.

There are no robins flying on this
snowy night, no pink flamingos in
Alaska. There is no coffee and there
are no oranges. There are no roses
and no snow beyond the window.

I am the owl in daylight and I
can't understand pop music.

William Carlos Williams's "This is Just to Say"

2006-12-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

P.S. We're out of Miracle Whip. Could you get on this?

Darkness Visible [again]

2006-11-29T02:21:00.000-05:00

Your depression carved into
my flesh like an epic poem,
only not Italian this time. Dante
never thought outside those circles,
or questioned a lost revolution with

the Poignancy of Satan's last
first breath, enjambing my
tears, my hollow tears; oh, if tears
would even now ache for the
complexity of a feeling trapped

in a melody. I've listened to
Brahms every day since I got
off the drugs, and there is no
priest to hear my sob-story now,
no miniskirt to lust after

sinfully, and no lake of fire
like the other post-industrial
upstate city, the one I was
raised in, the one that taught
me that in golf a man keeps

his own score--(but at 17 I
cheated)--and a thrown stone
from the fourth green finds
my sorrow asleep like a stubborn
refusal to rhyme, or a metrical crutch.

for William Styron
...
and John Milton.

The Bull Dance

2006-11-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

The Bull Dance

For Dora Carrington

If only you were born in Crete,
of noble blood, long before the death
of God, you might have been
a bull dancer, with your golden bob
patterned from a bowl, your boyish
build to keep you limber.

Naked, but for loincloth, you’d
grasp Poseidon’s horns, spring
onto his mighty broad back, twist
into a catcher’s steady hands,
graceful as your brushstroke.

But instead, you wore trousers
tucked in boots, frilless shirts
and coats which hid your lithe hips,
is it any wonder Lytton loved you?

For your portraits were like moths,
pinning down people with paints,
stealing flight from wings, you lay
still at night, back arched in dance,
a pelvis pushing your back.

And your death, a rifle clutched to chest,
could have come from the gods, instead
of leaving you to an eternity of fury
staring from the red of paint.

The Air Was Full Of Women

2006-11-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

Here she is on a limb --
fragrant, odiferous branches,
flirting with her skin.

She has a common, ordinary name --
Jessica Mary Summer.
Here she is at the corner of Main and Market,
waiting for the LOOP that she will ride for hours,
and listen to the base-wage lifers,
and the boys that are disciplined in cutting school.

She likes to lose her mind
in the double-yellow ocean:
She looks with her step-father's eyes
to navigate a dungeon, excavate her own opinions.
Mailboxes guide her back. They are safely in the earth.
Mailboxes and moonlit, state-issued reflectors.
She does not remember their function.
She sees them pass but they are still.
She will get off at Main and Market.

Here she is three years later,
handing money -- money she earned from
being the centerfold
in some nameless ugly magazine --
to a thief for an azure Geo Prism;
the only thing new is the tree.
She rides it dead in four days,
the whole time feeling like she is on
an understated hallucinogen.

No one makes statues of Venus or her affiliates anymore.
What is a statue to do nowadays but stare?
Or to simply be comprised of atoms of air.

Action Preceeds Reaction:

2006-11-10T16:34:00.000-05:00

specifically:

I've made
no error
in the shape of this sentence;
it speaks
as hands.

Please, Please, O faithful Reader!
Gentle, pure, and kind.
Please excuse my rash abuse,
it's a recurring habit of mine.
Uneven verse and fractured rhyme
I habitually present.
It is unrehearsed, and what is worse,
Heaven does not send it.
These outbursts strange, I will arrange
into a harsh reaction.
My soul was stewed, and aimed at you;
of myself, it's but a fraction.
Actually, it was not me
at all who lashed out wild.
My friends will tell, I never yell:
I'm level, quiet and mild.
But in the midst of night-lit keys,
and grease between the joints,
I mull over decrees of harsh degrees,
and my finger straighens and points.
Please understand always one thing,
about this steaming stew:
Whether I chide or I exalt,
I've saved this place for you.

I Spell Committed "E-B-A-Y"

2006-10-30T09:16:00.000-05:00

Hello, ladies.

Hey, why so glum all of a sudden? We were just talking and laughing of days gone by. It's that man of yours, isn't it? You caught him cheating once again, huh? Well, put your head on my shoulder and your hand on my side cause when it comes to relationships, ladies, I am 100 percent committed. And if my oral contract of monogamy is not enough for you just check out what my eBay feedback rating has to say.

If you care to notice, I am a perfect 54/54 in the realm of eBay. I have not even received a neutral rating in my 54 transactions over the past 24 months! You see, eBay is a lot like a monogamous sexual relationship. There's give and there's take. There's compromise and complexities. There's communication and understanding. Instead of one drawn out transaction, I have spread my commitment out over 54 happy customers all over the world. You see, once the 7 day auction has ended and payment has been received, the relationship between "shipper" (that's slang for seller, ladies) and "purchaser" (that's English for 'one who purchases an item') does not end there. Ohhhhh no. The shipper must ensure the quality of the product. The purchaser must ensure the quality of the payment. If gripes arise on either side then communication must ensue. I have to be a listener as much as a talker. I have to be a support system as much as I have to be a dependent. The roles we play in the mixed up world of online auctions is far more dynamic than any one human can comprehend unless of course that human has taken the plunge with another; stepped over the precipice hand in hand away from all the cashiers and customer service reps and far removed from those plush carpets filled with easy listening, department stores radio classics.

Now, ladies, I know what you're saying, "54 relationships in 24 months, how on earth can this man be committed?" And I come to you with this; with eBay there is a mutual vision and once that vision has been fulfilled there comes to be a thorough, two way realization. Yes, we are committed to each other but not exclusively. I've often times juggled 3 transactions at the same time BUT I have not been remiss on any occasion. In that way, eBay itself is an open relationship of sorts that maintains the integrity and devotion of a monogamous union. I may be dealing with 3 other purchasers but each one has a place reserved in my heart. I'm not some derelict meandering around town just trying to improve my eBay portfolio. No, ma'am. I am trying to build lasting, capitalist relationships. In this respect, eBay'ers never consider dealing with more than one transaction at a time "cheating" but always see it as "strengthening." Now that I have harnessed that strength I am ready to devote all my energy to one everlasting transaction. And hopefully, that transaction can be you.

So please, if you have any doubt in the world just turn your eyes to the profile of hologram15. XroyxX calls me, "a delight to deal with" and an "A+++++ ebay'er." Bubbles445 states that when it comes to transactions I am, "smooth and delightful." And RoCkiTcHiCk went even as far as to proclaim in capital letters, "THE BEST EBAY'ER I HAVE EVER DEALT WITH. LOOK FORWARD TO DOING BUSINESS WITH AGAIN! :)"

You see, I don't do it for the money. I do it for the people. Their happiness is what keeps me going just like your happiness will keep me trying to be the best I can be for you. Your satisfaction will be the driving impetus behind our ever lasting relationship. And if you we ever do break up but happen to stumble upon each other while I am trying to unload a solid oak jewelry stand and 3 OOP Fairport Convention records, I will still give you everything you need. Unless of course you give me negative feedback out of spite. Then I will kill you. I will hunt you down and kill you, baby.

Foods Served at the Last Supper that I Would Happily Recieve, Had Christ Chosen to Transubstantiate them Into His Body Instead of Bread

2006-10-28T17:34:00.000-04:00

Roasted lamb

Pomegranate

Gefilte fish

Pecan pie

Fettucine Alfrfedo

Mr. Pibb

Burger King Chicken Fries (with BBQ dipping sauce)

Double Stuf Oreos

Other People Rush Limbaugh Thought Were, "Acting"

2006-10-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

Jon Benet Ramsey- "time to stop playing 'dress-up' little girl and start playing 'fess up!'

Terri Schiavo- "more like feeding atti-tube, Ms. Schiavo!"

Hurricane Katrina Victims- "Disaster? The only disaster I see is people calling into work at a time like this. Perhaps if you weren't so busy crying there'd be less water for us working people to soak up!"

The Jews- "Oh, come on people. 6 million? Is that truly an exact number? Holo-FALSE!"

Mother Teresa- "Virgin? Well, I wouldn't bet on it!"

We built this city on Hi8 tape.

2006-10-24T19:11:00.000-04:00

Montreal. Winter 2002. Just a man and a dream. A dream which did not involve proper lighting techniques.

COMMENTARY TRACK:

I slept in the computer lab (twice) while trying to export this thing off an overworked G3 running a bobo version of Final Cut Pro. The weekend I shot it was nearly -20 Celsius. The camera froze and shut off after about 15 minutes on top of the mountain, and I nearly got my hand stuck to the tripod trying to pack everything up. It's times like that when Tim Hortons coffee truly tastes like I'm blowing God Himself. The video parts were shot in a weekend, sound effects made and cut in a day and edited to video in two days. All shots and sounds are mine, all mine. My friends are, and will always remain, awesome. This video is still the best one I've ever made, mostly because it remains the ONLY one I've ever made. I have to remedy that.

Weight And Cobwebs

2006-10-22T22:51:00.000-04:00

Responsibility doesn't take her calls in
that raincoat you last saw her
standing in on the side of Innis Avenue.
She sits in her room and dusts the baseboards
to the tune of an endless ringing rotary;
your prison is cast in the
lightest iron cobwebs of uncertainty. You
might wink at the girls in the bars,
or buy booze for minors standing 'neath the
same corner streetlamp you've haunted
in recurring dreams; Spanish lullabyes
once sung to you in that Pawling twilight,
but Hudson nocturnes swing an unhealthy arc,
and you went to sleep sober when you were sixteen.

Responsibility shakes her hair like an autumn tree,
and the falling leaves hit your ground like thunder
robbed from the gods that bless the new styles.
Her highlights remind, and you don't have to be
told twice: Once you descended those stairs
she turned off the light.

There are scraps of placemats with her crayon
cartoons; there is your first short story, and
there is love in regret. But even now that
Responsibility has a clean attic, and you have
her final prayer, there is no comfort in these words.
Just one more October morning that has
sold your breath a few feet short of a glowing mist.

An Open Letter to Justin Timberlake

2006-10-13T12:37:00.000-04:00

32-44 35th Street
Astoria, NY 11106

Justin Timberlake
9465 Wilshire Blvd., 6th Floor
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

Dear Mr. Timberlake,

First off let me say congratulations on the recent success of your latest offering, FutureSex/LoveSounds. Truly you have established yourself as the heir apparent to the male top 40 crown and have even garnered the respect of the more pretentious indie critics from various web rags across the nation. Your nose for melody and hook laden dance tracks coupled with your collaborative skills show a real progression from your also stellar debut Justified. Unlike many pop stars of this and previous generations who find themselves either mired in one monotonous style or desperate to stretch far beyond their grasp, you realize not only your audience but your strengths and are able to capitalize on those attributes while exploring new yet familiar territory. Perhaps genius is not strong enough a word. Perhaps some would argue that it is far too strong a word. However, I shall go on the record by saying you sir, are truly a master craftsman in the art of Billboard seduction. Genius, indeed.

However, I do find one fatal flaw in your message. This flaw comes in the form of your first single and bonafide "club banger" Sexyback. Now, the play on words itself is noteworthy. Woman, especially in your line of work, are known for their pleasing and shapely posteriors and this is a topic that has been deftly covered in the realm of hip-hop from Sir Mix-A-Lot (the metaphorical and poetic "Baby Got Back") all the way down to Juvenile (the street wise and overt "Back Dat Ass Up.") You have done no injury to myself nor your fan base by celebrating this time honored topic despite your pallor. My gripe is with the other side of the double edged sword of Sexyback; this is the claim that somehow you singlehandedlyare returning the idea of "sexy" back into the zeitgeist of America.

Do not misread me, Mr. Timberlake. I am well aware of your visual allure. Many females swoon over your high set cheekbones and all around boyish appearance. To say you are merely "easy on the eyes" would be an injustice to your genetic make-up. But to say that you are the sole impetus behind the return of "sexy" and that somehow your music alone is the full realization of this concept of "sexy" is hubris, sir and I will not stand for it.

First off, Mr. Timberlake, you say you are bringing "sexy" back? In other words, "sexy" has vanished but now you are the light and the lip pursed salvation to sexy. So riddled me this, Mr. Timberlake, where did "sexy" go? Surely, "sexy" was here before. From Mae West, Nancy Sinatra and Elvis Presley to Usher, Madonna and all the way to those dancing strippers that you wished your girlfriend were as freaky as, "sexy" was a thoroughly realized entity far before this single appeared. After all, you cannot bring something back that was never here so where did "sexy" go? We both agree it was certainly here but you are content to demand it somehow left while I say it was right in your own backyard the whole time. So where did "sexy" go, Mr. Timberlake. If you find this not to be a fair question perhaps you at the very least can tell me when "sexy" disappeared from the American landscape. Was it right after the split with Britney and the subsequent baby weight? Was it when Anna Nicole Smith returned to the public eye? Was it when that movie the Full Monty came out? When did "sexy" leave us, Mr. Timberlake? When?

Perhaps in the dawn surgical reconstruction and medically enhanced features you are trying to provide a counter revolution for the natural aesthetic. In the way the middle ages celebrated fair skinned, zoftic women over the emaciated and swarthy you too are saying that "sexy" is something that has no place among the silicone glitz of Los Angeles and real "sexy" comes in the form of birthed beauty and not technological manipulation. If this was the case, surely you would be lauded by various equal rights communities. However, your fan base would take a drastic hit in numbers while their body mass index would skyrocket. As a pop star you are a franchise Mr Timberlake, both you and I know this. Your are the franchise player for J Records and while I want to believe the best in you my gut reaction is that you did not construct this song in order to let your audience see the bigger picture and/or make a social statement on the downfall of American beauty. This is most likely just a "fun" song to "make you dance in the club" and if asked in an interview you would probably say something ridiculous like "well, "sexy" never really left since Cameron Diaz is still around." I understand these are things you have to do as a puppet for a much larger than life corporation. But I hope you do not fault me for looking deeper into this. I honestly just want some answers and perhaps after the sun sets on your fame we can talk openly about your claims on bringing "sexy" back and exactly how you define "sexy."

In conclusion, while I pray your intentions are in the best light somehow the cynic in me senses you have fallen prey to the boast and braggadocio of the hip-hop community. If this is so, I shall begrudgingly accept it. But let it be known I shall not be complacent in doing so. Do not let me down, Mr. Timberlake and when making outlandish claims, please always have the chronology to back it up. You cannot raise Lazarus if Lazarus is not dead and you cannot bring "sexy" back when it never left in the first place.

Your #1 Fan,
Kevin M. Falahee

Less-Majestic Names For Unicorns

2006-10-11T15:45:00.000-04:00

Extreme horses

Bodacious one-horned trot-monsters

Horny-saurus

~:>

3-2 Count

2006-10-09T16:49:00.000-04:00

We've got whiskey and wishes and they
always whisper what you want to hear
we've got bright lights and dull eyes
'neath the floor boards and they're always
seemingly sincere. And Charlie cannonized
me last night with memories of the Pesky pole,
you know those hard hearted players stitched in
raining rye cotton and stained in pouched tobacco
He said, "I'd hold a candle to anything that would
ever let me and a grasp it with my good arm" and
I just flinched with christ beside me.
Flannel lungs and jigsawed bones,
his family all but vanished.
Amidst the dim touch of a
friendly face whose mouth molds and speaks
"another one there, Charlie?"
For Charlie and the holy ghost
he better make it three.

Harvard on the Hudson: Alma Matters.

2006-10-09T03:58:00.000-04:00

And now for a short film by Kady Decker, featuring Jeff Muller with some musical accompaniment:

Lounge Rats

DCC 4 EVAH. POUGHKEEPSIE.

To the Understanders

2006-10-08T14:26:00.000-04:00

Go, song, surely thou mayest
Wither it please thee
For so art thou ornate that thy reasons
Shall be praised from thy understanders,
With others hast thou no will to make company.
- Ezra Pound, after Guido Cavalcanti

The little song takes flight into the air,
And from it falls some splendor in sunlight.
Thin atmosphere allows a taste, but where
my song becomes your apple, I might
as well begin my own descent there too.
The flesh beneath its skin is soaking wet,
a rose fresh-cut, a coffee cup made new.
A silent lullaby sings not regret;
these things replace the space between your walls
with breath, now hot and full like sails on seas.
Such is the fate of heavy poems: to fall,
and sing, to dance upon your autumn breeze.
their mist is not your rain, and ‘bows are rare,
your radiance is not for them to hear.

The Heavenly Jokes of the Late Rodney Dangerfield

2006-10-05T17:11:00.000-04:00

"Respect? I don't get no respect. Heh, I took my wife to the Kentucky Derby this year and St. Peter gave her 10-1 odds"

"Respect? Oh boy, I don't get no respect. I propositioned Mary Magdeline last nite she told me she'd have to think about it."

"Respect? You kiddin', I don't get no respect. I tried to give a choking lady the heimlich yesterday and Jesus screamed "she's suffered enough!"

"Respect? Oh you gotta be crazy, I don't get no respect. I tried to sell my soul to the devil he said "throw in your brains and I'll give ya a quarter."

"Respect? Not by me, pal, I don't get no respect. I went to confession yesterday and the lord said, "For your penance you must convert!"

Prada the Devil Wears

2006-10-03T03:08:00.000-04:00

Sheepskin leotard

Velvet goatee scrunchie

The skulls of 100 billion sinners

The scar of damnation

A deceitful grin

Cloven loafers

2006-09-24T23:12:00.000-04:00

I've made
no error
in the shape of this sentence;
It speaks
as hands.

An Apathetic Red Phone

2006-09-24T13:14:00.000-04:00

Ah, these wrecked impulsive fits amidst you people
will paint my cavern's walls nocturnal yet.
For your arrogance I solicit brave magazines.
For your pity and terror I've skipped stones into
dusky sighs and grass-stained overall nights.

Sedna skipped her year; in ten-thousand of ours she'll
bless these lips.

Because peasantry is not an excuse, and criticism is
not a common juniper; it's a jubilant man in tennis sneakers
holding his cocktail at a dangerous angle.

Centaurs don't swim in the springs reserved for poets;
our true Theseus is Eliot.
Our desire bestows celerity upon a boat for hoofed
refugees fleeing to the island of trees.

It's going to rain, Batman. And my view
of the stars has been obscured by the mall.
If the Commissioner still has that red phone...
If you people ever admit these impulsive fits...

But ah, the radiance of a woman.

everyone out. the swan stays.

2006-09-22T10:37:00.000-04:00

"Tell them who walk upon the floor of peace,
That I would die and go to her I love." – William Butler Yeats

O, Maud:

The Political are dumb for thee!

Wet your cheek.
Have you forgotten my name?
Is there anymore freedom
than the storm in your hair?
The stars in your sky?
Your homespun makeup
frames the face of a martyr:
Irish eyes, tacit with promise of
unshaven shins.

Why not
believe
in the mythology of the man
that you would
gladly die
for?

O Maud Gonne,
this corvette still sails against
the setting sun of the Queen,

And this myth will pierce
some swan song's heart with
melodic accuracy.

Wax Discovers Wings

2006-09-19T03:03:00.000-04:00

If he forgets his myth then
she's willing to part with these
sounds of siren avenue.

Hold on and get down.
her heart-stop once
cleared city clouds

...this thread wove
beneath cobblestone and
the golden streets saint's named
in a town that we honestly do not believe will be
around in five years has got to hold me...

Get out and hold on.
And molten hearts beat
love like thunderous drums.

Get down or Get out.
Wax discovers wings,
and she keeps secrets
in her sheets.

θάλλεω

2006-09-06T17:34:00.000-04:00

after Sir Thomas Wyatt's
Farewell Love and all thy Laws for ever

Once when told I Moneta truth—
“Mortality might feeds your lies,
but not between eternal thighs."
'cause ‘sex and drugs’ are through and through,
(Did Shakespeare take the pills I knew?
I read, re-read. The jester dies.)
I swear her gaze burns well my eyes.
Alas, her moons to younger dudes.
She sourced my myth for syndicate,
took golden bows by aqueduct,
(for heartbroke boys with hard-on luck.)
Muse never leaves its own party, death.
All the cash is every purpose,
Helen Keller, swinging birches.

The Gin Flowers Are Late Bloomers

2006-08-27T23:01:00.000-04:00

Events of a season's worth of nights sort themselves in calendar boxes,
while a five-act drizzle punctuates the ass-end of August like haiku,
twigged into sand amidst tornado strike.

I see a half-lit stairway of a ninety-tiered binge,
and dim dissolving twinkles of drinks with Orsino,
Ophelia, Philomel and Icarus. A sawdust grain of a month
or three.

I vaguely remember a certain night,
a sort of fly-eyed, mirror-ball recollection;
somebody stepped on Lucrece - it was not I
who undid her, but I avenged her death with thrift
while swimming with my niece.

Even if I can’t put together what it was that happened.
It will come back in flashes.
Unleavened memories construct fairy malls,
and there will be glass in my ashes.

Lists III: Dream Warriors

2006-08-20T17:16:00.000-04:00

This time, it's editorial.

REQUIRED CLASSES FOR "COCOON" MAJORS
By Patrick Cassels & Kevin M. Falahee

Intro to Steve Guttenberg*

Advanced Hume Cronyn Theory

Sex, Politics, and Jessica Tandy

The Cultural Significance of Wilford Brimley

Studies in Don Ameche

Brian Dennehy II

(*May also be used to fulfill "Three Men and a Little Lady" requirement.)

FOLLOW UPs TO N.W.A.'s "FUCK THE POLICE"
By Keith O'Neill & Patrick Cassels

Fuck Dire Straits
Fuck The Clash
Fuck Devo
Fuck The Sex Pistols
Fuck Patti Smith
Fuck Sting

DISEASES FROM "HOUSE M.D." AS DIAGNOSED BY BILLY JOEL
By Patrick Cassels

Cardiac-ac-ac arrhythmia

Bac-ac-ac-acterial meningitis

Ac-ac-ac-acoustic neurofibromatosis

Trac-ac-ac-homa

Waldenstrom mac-ac-ac-acroglobulinemia

Ac-ac-ac-acute aplastic anemia

Faded Yellow Cursive

2006-07-27T05:23:00.000-04:00

I, sea;
though concealed, short summer-dressed for
caramel-skin dreams of shells for
tiny feet on glass pedals,
speeding through those dark Kingston streets.

Ten miles from a temporary destination;
and me, walking through these dark Kingston streets,
lamplight weed.

In zig-zag carnations,
impatiens, heart pounding,
on my way to Sunoco Station.

Then, finally:
her raincoat opens like coffee meets cream.

Honey It Is Raining Tetris!

2006-05-01T23:58:00.000-04:00

I will show you ecstacy
in a fistful of stardust,
trampling last fall’s leaves

with anticipation strung tight
on my keychain, and clasped to
my borrowed belt.

Because trousers are heavy and
soft when soaking wet; suburban
swamps spread love like citronella;

further,
because the scent of dogwood petals makes your eyes moisten,
because the carnival ride never got stuck near the moon, and
because the sidewalk’s pebbles know your name by heart
(by heart)
(by heart)

who holds your mail
when you spend a week
at the shore?

your grass still grows,
and your dandelion’s brew,
an ode to your absence;

regardless,
because the mulch heap sweats and the hammock sings to your bicycle-chain,
because tonight the lawnmower purrs more than a cartoon, and
because the shades are drawn just to let the lingering light whisper safety,

This bedtime story contracts
To glow dark at seven p.m. for
a farmer’s life savings…
(on a pitiful orchid blooming
in the office pool)

Stone Walls; A Pig Farm

2006-04-30T17:41:00.000-04:00

This balance cuts the pine trees
spindles soft : on floors

Shapeshifter

2006-04-21T23:22:00.000-04:00

ShapeShifter
For Ralph Black

This presentation of wild flowers, overgrown
with weeds, unruly as my hair, sculpted
by your hands into shapes unimagined, bending
and beckoning like a sunflower to the sun.

This German folk song, vowels rounded
and smoothed like the brass pipes of a frenchhorn,
consonants softened at your direction, growing
into an Italian Aria, adding layers of sound.

This flying squirrel, racing through drafts
like boughes, guided by the red of your pen, shifting
sprawling words into consise moments of human form.

Hard Times In A Think Tank

2006-04-18T08:59:00.000-04:00

For five days out of key with his time
he strove to resuscitate the dead
art of diplomacy, riding escalators
when the elevators froze with foreign
language and glass windows.

He swept the streets of the theater district
with silence and cherry blossoms, with
the poise that follows the river from
the Adirondacks to the skyscrapers.

He bent the branches of the saplings
that adorn the corners of the mirrored
palaces, taking care to keep his pockets close,
and closet closer as he swung to the center.

A suitcase does not change the monuments
man creates, nor contain the neon mystery
of alien culture. Soldiers don't march down
Times Square; the snipers in the rafters keep
love wrapped in newspaper.

But he walked the coals of Broadway anyway,
somehow kept his laces tied, and talked his
voice into a corner where the hyacinth girl
took his hand, and offered empathy that
engulfed the island.

I wish I was there when Manhattan was a forest,

but these trees are steel, and the Mohawk legacy
let me find solace in a solitary space, filled
with subterfuge in complimentary coffee and
resolution in a single tear.

Declaration of Principals

2006-04-12T15:56:00.000-04:00

The Aesthete will not give in to the capitalistic ideology of contemporary America. We will not submit to the whims of evil companies who hold influence over other blogs. We will not allow the totalitarian conglomerates of the fashion industry to compromise our independent voice through monetary influence. We will not play monkey to the corporate organ grinder, peddling their sweat-shop-produced, small-business-destroying material possessions through deceptive advertisements strewn about our page like so many weeds in a garden of free speech.

We refuse to promote the sinister clothing chain that calls itself Abercrombie & Fitch; while hoards of bourgeois pigs riffle through racks of designer Tees in one of their Vermont bargain troughs, Indonesian children 60 thousand miles away are hunched over industrial sewing machines in windowless hell holes working for less than a dollar a day, all so A & F can hock their brand new Bold Stripe polo shirts at the reasonable price of $49.50 as part of their 2006 "Casual Luxury" line. We are thoroughly disgusted at the shrewd business tactics used in producing this fresh, original and sexy new style.

Don't bother trying convince us to disregard the mom and pop clothing manufacturers forced to go out of business when they're unable to compete with your designer-quality clothes at low low prices. The people who visit The Aesthete are of a different breed than the brainless automatons you're used to dealing with. We assure you our readers aren't interested in your vintage, low-cut Abercrombie Wash cargo pants, your 100 percent cotton boxers, or your limited edition Hawaiian-print surf-shorts ($49.50).

Oh, what's that, Abercrombie & Fitch? For a limited time purchases of 25 dollars or more will include a special compilation CD featuring new singles from LFO and Sugar Ray? Well, thanks for the tip, but that might be the kind of information better suited to GQ.

If you think the The Aesthete crowd will sacrifice their principals for the popularity, good looks, and almost supernatural appeal to the opposite sex guaranteed to anyone sporting one of your signature skin-tight charcoal tees or frayed-brim baseball caps, you're sorely mistaken. Our readers are content to remain misanthropic bastards of society with a style of dress that will continue to alienate them from their peers for years to come.

Find some other sellouts, Abercrombie. We just won't do it.

More Lists

2006-03-27T19:02:00.000-05:00

These Lists were frowned upon by McSweeney's. But what isn't, these days?

VERSIONS OF FOX'S "THE OC" THAT COULD BE ABOUT
MY FRIENDS AND I.

Only Child
Obsessive Compulsive
Oxygen-inhaling / Carbon dioxide-exhaling

TITLES THAT WOULD BE MORE APPROPRIATE FOR THIS YEAR'S BEST PICTURE ACADEMY AWARD WINNER IF, INSTEAD OF CONFRONTING ONE ANOTHER IN A WEB OF RACISM, ITS CHARACTERS DRANK ORANGE SODA INSTEAD.

"Crush"

Thoughts on a Late-Night Viewing of the "Girls Gone Wild" Infomercial

2006-03-22T02:27:00.000-05:00

She grabbed her belly-blouse about the waist and raised it to her collarbones. And as those previously-veiled body parts -- which God had, in what can only be considered an act of His supreme generosity to Man, added to the female anatomy -- were exposed, a pair of neon-green, star-shaped censor bars appeared on each of the sizeable breasts. The stars were at once larger in circumference to her nipples and smaller than that of the breast itself--leaving only an iris of voloptuous bosom. Though the considerable girth of her breasts (the very same girth that had planted in me the hope that she reveal them in the first place) made it quite impossible for Tammy to view the fronts of the obtrusive stars herself, a third person could read, with some clarity, the description begun on her right breast, "TOO," and concluded on her left, "HOT."

A simple claim, yet one full of erotic wonder: "Too hot." Too hot? Just what were the forbidden pleasures cloaked behind those cursed stars, whose tantalizing details stung like the refusal of some schoolyard scoundrel to share with his playmates the glossy, soft-lit centerfolds of a late-80s pornographic periodical smuggled from his father's sock drawer, that had been deemed "too hot" for the post-broadcast netherworld of 4 a.m. E! programming?

I make poems

2006-03-15T18:55:00.000-05:00

I make poems;
not remembered, not according to,
not reconciled with Lilliputian hands, dirty,
with mud, from turning rocks in the backyard
to discover salamanders.

I make poems.
Not afternoon expeditions in the
trails through the patch of woods in
between the village and route nine
where the water tower is.

Somehow Somewhere, burning bright.

I'd like to think an old bicycle can stay outside
all winter, and get buried in the snow,
but the greasy chain grows dry and chapped
and brittle, frozen in the snowbank on the curbside,
and the aluminum frame is bent out of shape
by whistling plow-trucks.

I make poems.

Not early-spring restlessness.
Not a little boy who plods
through dirty snow,
and NOT—on repeat, repeat—NOT,
the first sighting
of last autumn's leaves,
yet to be raked
when the snows snuffed
flames in carved pumpkins.

The Emoticonical Shakespeare

2006-03-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

"Hamlet"

ACT I

:-(

ACT II

:-(

ACT III

:-(

ACT IV

:-(

ACT V

|-(

***

"Richard III"

ACT I

>;-(-\-<
:-)
:-)
:-)

ACT II

>;-(-\-<
:-)
:-)
|-(

ACT III

>;-(-\-<
:-)
|-(
|-(

ACT IV

>;-)-\-<
|-(
|-(
|-(

ACT V

>|-(
|-(
|-(
|-(

Questions

2006-03-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

Why does my girlfriend

bring a knife to bed

when she knows she makes involuntary stabbing motions in her sleep?

* * *

Yes, I have a two-part question:

What can be done about my inability to count properly?

Thank you,

P.C.

REJECTED LISTS

2006-03-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

McSweeney's didn't want 'em. Now they're ours, all ours! Let us rejoice!

MANEUVERS THAT WOULD MAKE NICKELODEON'S "DOUBLE DARE" MORE DANGEROUS.

"Slime" replaced with sulfuric acid

Mark Summers given loaded gun

Electric eels released into Obstacle Course swimming pool

Audience filled with convicted murderers

Losing team shot

Rattlesnakes hidden about studio

Grand-prize trip to Orlando, Florida detoured to Gaza Strip

Contract taken out on announcer John Harvey's life

LINES FROM MORE VULGAR EDITONS OF GREAT AMERICAN FILMS.

"Where the fuck are we, Toto?"

"Houston, we're fucked."

"The Force will be with you. Fuckin' always."

"I vant to be alone…so fuck off."

"My Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates: you never
know what the fuck you're gonna get.'"

"Fuckin' Rosebud!"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a flying fuck."

"You fucking complete me."

In The Beginning There Was the Stein...An Explication of a smallish part of 'Tender Buttons'

2006-02-27T00:09:00.000-05:00

"In the beginning there was the time in the composition that naturally was in the composition but time in the composition comes now and this is what is now troubling every one the time in the composition is now a part of distribution and equilibration."
-Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons leads the reader through a series of evocative experiments-in-language that manage to be both disassociative and settling at the same time. The work is divided into three sections: Objects, Food, and Rooms. The first two sections are subdivided by concrete ‘Buttons’ such as “Sugar.” or “Chicken.”. The paragraphs that follow these images are anything but concrete. Disjointed, abstract, and repetitive, they create a fully defined series of poetic images. The third section, Rooms, is not divided by Buttons. This section serves to create a spacial and chronological stage for the evocation of the images in the first two sections. Ezra Pound defines the poetic image as “an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time” (Pound, xi). In this manner, Tender Buttons is a set of intellectual and emotional complexes—the Buttons of the first two sections—set in the Rooms: the instants of time.

Consider the Button titled “A waist.” from Objects. To evoke the sensuous anatomy, Stein conjures four short paragraphs. The first is a single sentence: “A star glide, a single frantic sullenness, a single financial grass greediness.” (Stein 181). The nature of the experiment does not require any common sense of chronology, or space; rather, there is an omnipresent now, something Stein called “the excitedness of pure being” (Stein 177). There is no need for logical progression, simply an intellectual and emotional complex. Stein said that she “struggled desperately [to avoid] nouns as nouns” (Stein 177). There are nouns in this sentence: star, sullenness, grass, and greediness. These words are much more active than traditional nouns; they are the beginning of a recreation of “A waist.” as a representation of a powerful (“star”), graceful (“glide”), contradictory (“frantic sullenness”), object of desire (“financial grass greediness”). Stein uses accretion—by gradually lengthening her clauses—to build a sense of sexual energy in the Button. Her repetition of the word ‘single’ helps to solidify the onslaught of language into a specific instant.

After that rush of language, Stein continues in the second paragraph by saying “Object that is in wood. Hold the pine, hold the dark, hold in the rush, make the bottom.” There is more accretion; this time there are two sentences, and repetition of the word ‘hold’. On the third repetition of ‘hold’, Stein solidifies the spacial instant by inserting the word ‘in’ between ‘hold’ and ‘the’. The Button (“A waist.”) has been recreated now as being “in wood”—the walls of a room built from pine. However, the room is also inside the Button, as the word ‘hold’ suggests containment. By ending with “make the bottom”, Stein suggests that the Button is involved in an active process of creation of the spatial and chronological instants that give life to “what lies behind the noun” (177). The noun, in this case, is the Button: “A waist.”

Stein’s next paragraph opens with a seeming contradiction, as much of Tender Buttons does: “A piece of crystal.” (Stein 181). Crystals are natural, symmetrical, and ordered combinations of atoms or molecules; a piece implies a fragment. Tender Buttons presents little symmetry or order, and by showing us pieces of an ordered symmetry, Stein breaks us out of our habit of stale consumption of language, demonstrating that a waist is a waist is a waist. This can be demonstrated by picking up any mundane object, looking at it, and saying its name over and over again. After a minute or two, the name and the object began to seem frighteningly separate. They each change, “A change, in a change that is remarkable there is no reason to say there was a time” (Stein 181). The past tense is important here. Stein pushes the reader into her constant present.

Stein finishes “A waist.” with two sentences: “A woolen object gilded. A country climb is the best disgrace, a couple of practices any of them in order is so left.” (Stein 181). Stein names her Button with the first two clauses. A waist is practical and functional (“woolen”), yet valuable—or, perhaps simply precious (“gild-ed”). These recreations of “A waist.” are left like a piece of crystal—in order. Also, the word ‘waist’ could function as a pun: ‘a waste’, flotsam when found, now left “in order.”.

In review, the entire button is now the true name of “A waist.” Through accretion, repetition, and experimental use of language that denotes time and space, Stein has “used the name of a thing, and the thing is really there” (Stein 177). The first two sections present us with a healthy list of Buttons, beyond “A waist.” The Buttons (Objects and Food) are the keys to accessing the third section. The title of the piece itself suggests two things: first, that these intellectual and emotional complexes are buttons which can be pressed, and second that they are tender. Marjorie Perloff tells us that “in French, buttons tendres means nipples as well as buds” (link). If these Buttons are pushed—or read—correctly, then perhaps the reader can enter the Rooms: what Bruce Kellner calls “an imaginative rendering of the Stein-Toklas household” (242).

Alice B. Toklas was Stein’s lover and life-partner. Thus, the poem can be read as a lesbian ode to the phenomena by which the poetess transcends the mundanities of daily household life. This linguistic experiment is what the poetess herself calls “realizing the existence of living” (Stein 177). Perhaps Chaucer could rely on traditional language use, as Stein suggests, but in order to achieve this transformation, the intellectual and emotional landscape of the 20th century called for new usage, for new technique, and for a decidedly modern style. Stein responded to this call with her abstraction of ordinary language into a pastiche of melody.

Relevant Links:

Tender Buttons: The complete text, via Project Gutenberg.
Wikipedia Entry for Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein Online

Works Cited
Ellmann, Richard, ed., et al., The Norton Anthology of Modern and
Contemporary Poetry: Volume 1: Modern Poetry New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003.

Kellner, Bruce. A Gertrude Stein Companion: Content With The Example
New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Perloff, Marjorie. “Of Objects and Readymades: Gertrude Stein and Marcel
Duchamp.” Tender Buttons. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. March 1, 2006 .

The Oscars Are Totally Gay

2006-02-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

Surprisingly, neither Jake Gyllenhall nor Heath Ledger can lay claim to playing the first gay cowboy in Oscar history. That title belongs to Jon Voight. Long before "Brokeback Mountain" was a twinkle in the Academy's eye, Voight, as starving Texan gigolo Joe Buck, wore his brown suede jacket and Stetson hat whilst a young Bob Balaban slipped his hand down the front of the prostitute's pants in a darkened movie theater in 1969's "Midnight Cowboy"—the first X-rated movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

But that scene is not an accurate representation of "Midnight Cowboy," which doesn't share "Brokeback Mountain"'s concern for the plight of gay men in 1960s America. It does, however, draw attention to other trends in Best Picture history that indicate "Brokeback Mountain," which is dominating internet polls as this year's Best Picture favorite, and whose infamous plot has overshadowed the film itself, is really just a new approach to 78 years of plutonic male bonding that has been at the heart of many Best Picture winners and nominees.

While one could make any number of easy jokes about such curiously-titled past Oscar contenders as "A Few Good Men," "GoodFellas" and "In the Bedroom" (to say nothing of "The Pianist"), there have been few nominated films with openly gay, major characters: "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), "As Good As It Gets" (1997), "The Hours" (2002), and "The Crying Game" (1992) (although anyone privy to the sight of Gene Kelly in a leotard dancing away the final 10 minutes of 1951's "An American in Paris" may wish to add one more to that list).

So, "Brokeback" stands alone in the Oscar lexicon as the premier film about homosexual relationships. But plutonic relationships between men have been at the heart of nominees going all the way back to 1964's "Zorba the Greek," about an uptight Englishman who moves to the Greek countryside and meets a free-spirited local man whose lust for life rubs off on him as he teaches him to dance.

When "Midnight Cowboy"'s Buck meets the greasy con man "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), the two, cold and hungry, squat in an abandoned tenement while dreaming of moving to sunny Miami together. Buck and Rizzo's story beat two more cowboys that year, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and three years later, Voight dropped Rizzo for Burt Reynolds as the two rafted into the backwoods of Georgia in 1972's "Deliverance"--another film left off the list of gay Best Picture nom's for, if nothing else, decency's sake.

The years went on, and so did the friendships. Men stripped together ("The Full Monty") and did time together ("The Shawshank Redemption"). Retired army colonels made out with their neighbors ("American Beauty"). Friends like Samwise and Frodo went off to Mordor together ("The Lord of the Rings"), while other were content with a tour of California's wine country ("Sideways"). And, finally, on a lonely night in the mountains of Wyoming, with 78 years of Oscar history behind them, two ranchers boldly went where no Best Picture nominee went before: the ass.

the best parts are what I can't control

2006-02-17T21:28:00.000-05:00

The light in the upper corners on the far wall:
blinking sillouhettes of half-drawn blinds
and sorry cigarette prayers to
a taciturn flock on shuffle repeat.

The quilt on the kayak, anchored by four
bedposts and gently rocking to the
blinking LCD time signature
on the back of the paycheck.

The tweed covering the moon,
the two moons, in absentia,
bleating silk and beaming sound,
the moons signal the flock of treble swans:

Sliding up extended necks,
gliding into the horizon on repeat,
fire in finite darkness, downward,
on arpeggiated bleats.

Play Misty For Me

2006-02-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

I've got alot of ruins left
to rebuild and the coffee pot
continues to bubble tar and grinds
eight hours past the point of burned
down diners and lamposts on that
long stretch of Levi highway best known
for it's number.
She's got the sweetest voice to ever
emote innocence through the speakers.
She's spoken not sung and humble to boot
so I can only hope to creep my way
into the senses that keep playin' my song
week after week, drag after drag.
So get up and get her if only to prove
that it will never happen, these notes
grow easier with each crack etched into the routines
and the roots you long to sink your charisma
deep under might be just as lonley after all,
The tires are tiresome of you talking to themselves.

It can't be over if it never began.

i arenot whoever notyou (everi are)

2006-02-10T04:35:00.000-05:00

he, who tomb, let large, and
poem set somber sail on, and
time, won't show, nectar, in
stone, the soil, the carpet. road.

he, who? harbour, symphony,
empire, empire, earing. empirical,
and he! who be, 'cause you? and
child, in wool, yes? bless who (not how)

he, when come, sing sap, and
dew, sing sun and circuit, in
solitude, glen falls,
and you? and you! you laugh, and who?

she, why now, mexico, who!
book, and when, and who, who you,
why who? now, and mexico you.

fine.

sing who, not soon -- but when,
you who.
and you.
and mexico.

and who? who you? who not you to?
not ever. not who.
ever not? not ever you? not who?

o, you. o ever who. who you, not who!
(who?) o wow, o you.

you who? you ever not who? ever you?
ever who? not you!

not ever who?

who to?

to you! ever, you! you who too!

o, wow. ever, how not you?
why not wow, ever, wow!

i where you. where who? if not you, not
you, ever who. ever who not you. to where?
where to? how you never! not wow, where.

wherever.

We Grew Up Under a Mall, Where Do you Think Our Constellations Come From?

2006-01-31T13:13:00.000-05:00

Echolocation of a Suburb
by Jeff Paggi

Can't constellate
without cinema eight,
and fluorescent bowling dots, becoming
stellatus on an infant's mobile
lullaby.

Her gaze once had clarity and distinction,
eight months old on a farm upstate.
There was a fast dog and chickens,
one antique Gas Station per county.

Sugary Cereal and
Buffalo Skull Storm Riders.
Kiss the Indian
to Save the Man.

I got rope burn
ghost-dancing the swingset chains.
My X-ray vision
cut through layers of fireflies
in Brouthers Field night sky
to catch little-league popups
on huffy 12-speeds
through village lawns
to gazebo telescope parties.

I see Light from distant Galaxies in
a pair of Adidas High-Tops or Air-Force-Ones.
I parallax to the food court,
Rain Dance the Fountain,
Thank the spirit of my sweat-shop guardian angel,

I chart--with a microscope--
a trail of tears running down her face;
her blind, smooth
lips; and her pill calandar:
What is MTWTFSS in Mayan?

My Stars have compact discs for sale
and mass-produced paperbacks;
arranged in rows of conveyor-belted
newsstands and record bins,
always and through-two-points in space,
diagonal migration and remote control programming.

My Stars chart the course of (miami) Dolphins
across the moonlit ocean of sports memoribilia,
the gold-dot-twinkles bending against the
empty blue filtration of the Mall at night,
Holes poked in a coffeecan terrarium.

This superpod will sea, its relative verb.
Constellation

Your Finest Bottle Of Diner Wine

2006-01-20T23:10:00.000-05:00

"Gideon?"

She spoke his name with eighty percent assurance, but it was the fifth of doubt that made him smile. Her voice was hushed, sweeping and dulcet as it escaped her mouth, and the volume would remain the same for as long as he'd be with her. Her lips were full like that of a Hollywood "IT girl" whose name would come up in future conversations. She removed her right knit mitten, and revealed a hand that poured like the palest porcelain over his eyes. It matched her age: experienced, but not broken, rough, but not entirely made of sand. Her face was flushed and fair from January, and he imagined its texture was something akin to a newborn, or a Sunday afternoon recliner. Red hair poked out from under her hat in a way the camera might beg for, and a grandma coat kept her warm--or at least he hoped it would.

She was much prettier than he had anticipated. She was beautiful.

The Gospel According to John (Stamos)

2006-01-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

...And the widower Daniel Tanner went to his brother and said: "My brother, who I have loved all my life, whose free spirit and lust will surely give way to the wholesome and nurturing parent within so grossly needed by my three innocent daughters, and whose rock 'n' roll lifestyle will yield wild adventures for years to come, will you now join my family and fill my house with warmth? For it is cold and motherless now.

But the brother, whose name was Jesse, could only bow his head and say: "I cannot do what you ask. My untamed lifestyle has surely left me ill prepared for the requisite duties of fatherhood. Go now, and seek help somewhere else, and know that I am sorry."

Hearing this, the widower Daniel grew upset and fell to his knees. "What, I pray to you, has happened to predictability?" he cried. "Where is the milkman, who brings my milk? Where is the paperboy, who delivers my paper? And what of evening television? I say I miss those old things which were familiar to me!"

So the brother Jessie smiled, and placed his hand upon Daniel's shoulder, and said: "Yes, I will come and live with you in San Francisco; and befriend he who is your friend and is blessed with the gift of impersonating Popeye, the sailor man; and I will form a band, and we will call ourselves Jesse and the Rippers; and open a nightclub where your three daughters will come and work."

The widower Daniel grabbed his brother and hugged him. "I was lost out there, all alone," he said. "Now I have found someone, waiting, to carry me home. And let it be known throughout the land that you, Jesse, are that someone.

And the trumpets did sound. And as the two hugged, a beautiful woman did walk by, and the brother Jesse did look up, and raise his eyebrows, and musingly plead, "Have mercy!"

And it was good.

Aeolian Little Song

2006-01-11T02:53:00.000-05:00

One should never falter In the brisk wind
of a bold song Across the dead leaf hill
That yearns for proper shephard ;
And as the sky, the poet.

One should
never
stop for playing cards and
toothpicked olives.

Style is not debatable.
One cannot interpret a poem.

Call me Gretel

2006-01-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

I tramp down King Street, the bleakest alley
in a metrical town, cast into eternal night.

Behind me, I leave lipstick rings, plum waning
moons on cigarette butts & discarded coffee cups.

In a dank alcove, there are armless men, beckoning
me with their pelvises, catcalling with the balls

of their feet. I rush over crests & falls, my knees grate
the pavement. The men cast lots for my clothes.

A woman with witchy black hair appears above me,
clothed in a white coat. She says, “Do not be afraid.”

I consume the pills she offers. My body moves in helter-
sketler circles, I scat the tune of “Amazing Grace”

at double speed. On the alley’s wall appears a prophecy,
written in gasoline by my own hand, the words form

a rainbow. Women quickly ring, so clement, so loving,
so sweet, taking my shoestrings, belt, & cross.

My body descends a second time, and I reflect on the iridescent words,
Nobody, not even God, can save you from the oven.

Sonnet in D Minor

2006-01-04T11:55:00.000-05:00

It follows me down corridors, and meets me in the allies, mocks
me, like Death itself sending swift messengers to pry bottles
of valium from scarred hands, to unearth long hidden keys
to bathroom doors in time to save those who do not wish
to be saved, to tear down rafters that hold the choking man.
It seeps in without me noticing, until it crushes me, like sleeping

in a room that grows progressively colder, until abruptly, you awake
to a shivering start to find your whole body convulsing, your limbs
frozen to the point that you stick your hands between your thighs.
It insists on coming when least wanted, like snow in March, or a fly-
away cinder from a cigarette that manages to find the sleeve of a new
vinyl coat, kindling the material, creating a tack sized hole, exposing

down innards, which slowly find their way out, ruining the coat.
Despair comes like a man, swiftly, igniting without warning.

Aniseed & Laurel Leaves

2005-12-19T07:34:00.000-05:00

I. The Labyrinth:

Thick eye-browed reminders of
antique phonograph players.
Oak-and-tweeds mixing black-and-tans.
Draftdodge big-bangs; sleigh-rides and
osh-kosh leaf-jumping, before we could drink.

Originally, there were five people alive
on all the earth.
Maybe, six.

I lean against you, mostly not touching you
in the dark-velvet-movie-theater.
Palms sweaty with butter,
too shy to decipher the maize of
where your body's outline
could be traced on waxpaper.

II. The Reel Cranks:

A milky way of
star-flakes fall
into our heavy
snow-globe heads,
as your heart-aches stay
out of my hands.

A Skate-blade chiseled
ice-lake
sounds silent like
white-lava-winter-snakes.

On the Porch of a Suburban Home

2005-12-16T08:41:00.000-05:00

All of my ashes are blowing indoors.
Perhaps I shall stand on the step.

Cunégonde and Candide meet Harold and Maude

2005-12-06T03:11:00.000-05:00

Great way to follow up the Saddam/Gibson connection? Lyrics to am emotionally vulnerable song I cowrote, obviously. (The other party, the guitarist, will go unnamed, until he gives me the okay.) I'm thinking about making a four song e.p. with a sound similar to this song, and scripting a comic book called "Nocturnity" (one story per song, correlating). This song would be about one of the characters, a 12 year old girl named Viola, dealing with loss. If you fine folks could give me feedback on the lyrics, I'd be a very content creator:

Well your haircut,
and your blue jeans,
and your book's wet,
'cause it's raining.

And, your striped shirt:
you are too tough.
I can't think straight,
o Viola.

And, your lip's chapped,
and your heart's crossed.
Your tongue's tied
to a lighthouse.

Some inflection in our voices.
Resurrection in our choices.

(Never told you...)
Always told you:
on a sailboat,
o Viola.

(o Viola, o Viola, o Viola)

(instrumental)

You told me you were okay when your grandma died.
I wonder if you went home and cried.

You told me you were okay when your grandma died.
Viola, did you go home and cry?

Paint my story like a movie or a slideshow,
where the action's fake, and you're wrapped up like an angel.
With wings broke and strings torn,
and your harp in my bible,
and those flowers that you dried up
and placed upon your
mantle.

The song, which some of you have undoubtably heard, will be posted as soon as I'm content with it.