"a ball of lint"

-what should my last poem be about?
-a ball of lint.
-really? what about it? oh, you put it here on my old laptop? should i write about how it looks? speculate as to what article of clothing's fibers it's from? muse on how you like how i pronounce it "lent" in my vaguely texan accent? or are we both just poemed out after a month of more or less daily poeming? is this ball of lint plopped on my keyboard the death rattle of 31 days of forced creativity? there is one ball of lint here. i wrote maybe four serviceable poems. not a bad ratio. thanks for the memories, lint.

on the conversations taking place in the other room

the other roommates have gathered around the makeshift kitchen table
as they are wont to do from time to time when mutually convenience and loneliness align,
and the conversation sounds spirited, with each chiming in animatedly on their particular
area of expertise:
we have:
-dispatches from the art world and assertions of pieces being of superlative performance
-a dissertation on the human brain and how it handles complete sensory deprivation
-stump speeches covering socioeconomic landscapes of greater St. Louis suburbs
-interjections on architecture littered with questions of where to play tennis
and I'm holed up in here too afraid to walk past to go piss because I don't have an area of expertise
and I'm sleepy for no reason and don't really feel like nodding.

nightlife

I spent two summers in Seattle
but they were non-consecutive,
so I didn't get pruney.
The sun set at like, 11pm -
so late that sometimes businesses would
already be closed.
It was fucking weird to go to get a sandwich
in broad daylight, only to be turned away
by a "SORRY WE'RE CLOSED" sign.

This Is Just To Say Sorry For Drinking Your Seltzer

kale

10 years back i asked:

"what's kale and what does it do?

just ate some. what's next?

ON SLUSH ETIQUETTE

with the storm of the century comes the slush of at least the decade.
one hundred thousand park slope toddlers descended on Prospect Park
and their two hundred thousand tiny rubber boots stamped the fluff into hard packed stuff.
similar aggression took place on the sidewalks and streets
(although nowhere near as dramatically).
but the result was the same.

a secondary sidewalk of ice coats the regular sidewalk,
and as the temperature flirts with the other side of 32
that secondary sidewalk begins to relent.
the main issue here is that

THIS CITY DOESN'T DRAIN.

the sewers are too jam packed full of human waste and human talent and human failure
(not to even mention the waste/talent/failure of animals and plants)
to accommodate such an influx of meltwater.
so what happens?

slush happens, baby.

at every intersection a baby pool of slush waits to squelch over the tops of your shoes
and soak your socks and dampen your already surly mood.
snowbanks render these pools - the only navigable way to cross the street, i'm afraid -
impassable by more than one person at a time.

[rule 1:]
the right-of-way is never clear, so it's safe to assume you never have it.

as commuters storm through the gap and splash cold water on you as you stand to the side
allowing them to pass
they scowl and grimace and trudge toward their trains - which...

HEY BUDDY IT'S GONNA BE DELAYED ANYWAY WHAT'S THE RUSH
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE ANYWAY SO WHO THE HECK CARES IF YOU'RE
10 MINUTES LATE TO WORK...

while you stand out of the way and let the whole neighborhood pass
and your socks are soaked and it doesn't matter that you don't have anywhere to go
because you still feel your time is valuable and your feet are best served dry
and you start to get that twisted feeling in your gut because you feel like a scrooge
for hating all of humanity in that moment,

and this only worsens until the four-hundredth and final person walks past you,
splashes in the puddle
turns to see you
cold and wet and dejected and miffed by your own passivity
and says "sorry!"as they keep marching toward wherever.

and in that moment everything is okay.
because somebody in this god forsaken place understands slush etiquette.

no time for full thoughts

a meeting about goats
quickly derailed by a
rising tide of acronyms.

it started out fine.

real words // a leisurely clip.

but like florida swamp water filling a sink hole
LMOs and PWBs and EODs percolated up
& by the 1/2way pt. we'd reached max. lvls of verbal eff.
+++++
no more real words were spoken that day.

Platforms

Today on platforms we:
-solved the Sunday crossword in over 3hrs
-found out what Keenan said
-nearly slipped thanks to low-stick-boot-tread
-talked to a friend on the other side
-that's it.

Frasier

Can't spell Fraiser right the first or second time
But I'm damn sure privy to the show's underlying theme of death.

WHERE DOES OLD STUFF GO WHEN IT DIES?

there used to be an infinite stock of pinball machines in the united states of america.

now only a handful of the originals exist, sprinkled across the country 

as though salted to taste.

many are housed in a museum in seattle, and other pockets exist in the homes of collectors,

those world-weary souls who have chosen to harbor these valiant old machine-games,

take their responsibility very seriously and cherish it above all else.

but every day, statistically speaking, one pinball machine succumbs to the years, 

the grubby kid hand prints, the power outages that surge its circuits, the spills and bumps,

and sputters out, unable to launch the pinball up its slight incline any longer.

what happens then? when the nations three certified pinball repairmen can't breathe life back into it?

is it tossed off the dock into the swells of the ocean to provide the skeletal framework for a new reef?

or is it dismantled for parts then reconfigured into a new machine, pinball or otherwise?

there used to be a pinball machine for every manwomanandchild across this great land.

that's a fact.

but they slowly are vanishing. theorists maintain there ought to be hidden mass burial sites.

none have been found.

pundits debate this hotly, and experts tracing the trajectory of fallen machine,

takes them to dead ends routinely.

the fact is nobody knows where old stuff goes when it dies.

14 Minutes Left

Old roommate visits.
His replacement is away.
Things feel right right now.

REJECTED SCREENPLAY ABOUT MY MILD INJURIES FROM DISTANCE RUNNING

FADE IN:

INT. PURE WHITE ROOM - INFERRED DREAM SPACE

MY CAGEY ACHILLES TENDON, MY AILING PSOAS, MY CRUNCHY PELVIS, and MY MILD INTERMETETARSAL NEUROMA (collectively INJURIES) sit around a conference room table smoking cigars. PAUL materializes before them, wearing an all white tuxedo.

PAUL

Fellas. Can't we come to some sort of agreement?

INJURIES (IN UNISON)

Nope.

PAUL

Just forty miles a week. That's all I'm asking!

PSOAS

Fat chance, trash-dick. You'll get 15 if you're lucky. And they're gonna hurt.

PELVIS

Yeah. And they're gonna be slow.

PAUL

What if I stretch? See a chiropractor? Pop ibuprofen like they're goddamn Skittles? Go to yoga irregularly? Self-massage? Rub prayer beads? Give up jerking off? Anything?!

NEUROMA

Not gonna happen, bub.

PAUL

(Sighs) Alright. Same time again next week?

ACHILLES

(Grunts in acknowledgement)

PAUL evaporates into the ether. The INJURIES chuckle and pass around a suckling pig, tearing bites of its flesh out as it completes the circle.

chicken wings

i guess they're going pretty well

thus far, these vegetarian venturings.

not missing the burgers or the nuggets or the sirloins.

not really  missing the patties or the links or the strips.

no - it's the wings.

tiny and bony with cauterized flesh soaked in beautiful pinkorange goop.

fuck.

{i once attempted and failed to complete

  a wing-eating challenge on the basis of heat

  no amount of milk could alleviate the burn

  and for days after the loss it did nothing but churn

  on a walk through the streets of seattle's downtown

  i thought i'd shit myself and was forced to sit down

  mercifully a bathroom appeared from thin air

  or it would've been a messy ending to what started with a dare}

no PTSD can stave off the crave 

i feel for those wings.

but for another day i stay the new course.

airborne organ meat on a hot hot day

yellow highway signs
with chili pepper font
advertising impossibilities:
"zero visibility possible,"
[but highly improbable.]
air void of anything damp
and suitable only for
immaculate conception of hatch,
and evapo-perspiration
so severe that no rapdity
of liquid intake will suffice,
and the usually calming
presence of mountains
- from horizon up
to the sky's midpoint -
is skewered by their
unnatural jagged edges.
(weathering doesn't occur
here anymore, just
baking from the sun.)
events innocuous
suddenly seem devlish;
"a drive from hell"
is no mere hyperbole.

packing a year's worth of domesticity into a day

we don't cook much.

Jeanne stirs eggs, i burn hash browns.

we call it a day.

pleading for her things,

she concedes two bags of stuff.

it was a great purge.

two great minds converge,

they try, are bested by

the sunday cross word.

Commuter-scoping on 9A (Northbound)

This place reminds me of what I Expected of it.
Before I'd ever seen it or smelt it or lived it.
The way the setting sun casts a net of oranges and purples
over the big ugly Jersey buildings, mosquitos across the Hudson
Feels familiar and reminiscent of something I've never known.

the secrets to sound body and sterling resolve

by now you've undoubtedly heard,.

and yes. it's true. it's all true:

i've turned eating into drinking,
eliminating the need to chew-
and with it the potential for strained jaw muscles
from overambitious mastication.
nope,
now i can just slurp it down
through a plastic proboscis unsheathed
from a tube of recycled paper,
handed to me by the deli man
(even without me asking for it).
slurp down whole fruits,
whole feelings of goodness and vigor and health.
slurp down health, a longer life, and eventually
immortality.
nothing taxing about it and nothing scorbutic about me.
welcome to the future where you drink yourself to life.
but the price we pay for convenience is complacency.
smugness from a carton of juice.
so to stave off the stagnation of a life lived by
bouncing from convenience to convenience,
i get the kind with LOTS OF PULP.

Hung up on Aluminum Foil

I.

It's hot then it's cold.

Thermodynamics? Who knows:

just how tin foil works?

II.

Metal is heavy.

But there is an outlier.

Aluminum. Air.

III.

Braces don't hurt teeth.

Fortunes are built on this fact.

(Don't you dare chew tin.)

frank's day

taking his daily route, inadvertently tailing 

(and downwind from) a stranger on the same course farting without inhibition,

he breathes through his mouth

but smiles nonetheless.

he goes through the pains of appearing authentic:

keys on carabiner, water proof back pack, hiking boots, cargo pants, wool shirt and wool cap,

and of course, black plastic bags hanging just visibly from a cargo pocket,

long and narrow,

and manufactured with the sole intent of containing dung.

he walks with nonchalance but purposefully until he gets there

and opens the gate,

and strolls in.

completely petless, a dog park voyeur.

seated on a bench with retrievers and spaniels and terriers swarming around his feet

like furry koi he removes his bag from his slumped shoulders,

setting it beside him as though it were a toddler, before he zips it open.

inside: four pounds of thawing ground beef mashed up with cigarette butts

collected from the ashtrays outside the diner he lives above,

painstakingly collected over the past two months.

"which one is yours?" a woman asks as she approaches.

he scans the park then locks her gaze,

"the brindle french bull dog over there."

he can't wait to feed the fish.

Paraphrased Advice from a Chiropractor

"Back's good. Stomach's bad.

Sleeping is the new smoking.

(If you do it wrong.)"