Poem of mine up at today’s Winedrunk sidewalk.
Two new poems up at Philosophical Idiot.
New poem up at the latest Red Fez.
"Would that I at least carry, to that vast potential of the all-inclusive abyss, the glory of my disillusion like that of a great dream, and the splendor of not believing like a banner of defeat - still a banner in weak hands, but a banner dragged through mud and the blood of the feeble…raised high, however, as we vanish among the shifting sands, no one knowing if in protest, as a challenge, or as an act of desperation…No one knowing, because no one knows anything, and the sands engulf those with banners as it engulfs those without…
And the sands cover everything: my life, my prose my eternity.
I hear the consciousness of defeat like a victory banner."
And the sands cover everything: my life, my prose my eternity.
I hear the consciousness of defeat like a victory banner."
— Fernando Pessoa
The Deaths of Some People
The thing is the longer you stick around
the more everything turns to ghosts
and I wander the city
dying of everything
and nothing in particular
tired of poets
and the news of the world
with all the headlines telling me
how the deaths of some people
matter more than others
though I guess it’s good not having
to decide such things on my own
and I’m tired of people who look good in suits
while taking weekend getaways
to beach towns in Mexico I’ve never heard of
those with the audacity to have been born
beautiful and of use
and live as if death were some half-witted underling
you could slip a fiver to and send on its way
they’re out there shopping
attending yoga classes
and poetry workshops
doing any number of other things
I’ve seen on big screen tvs
in little bars
while scribbling loneliness into tattered notebooks
back home I manage to sweep the kitchen
wash the dishes and take a bath, as these are all endeavors
one is rarely called upon to explain
I consider finding a poetry workshop
so I might offer up these words and find out
if they’re any good
until I remember I don’t like poetry workshops
so I just dress them up as best I can
and put them on the sidewalk
with a few dollars and a paperbag lunch
and if they have what it takes
they’ll eventually make it somewhere
or else they’ll fall away like any other
ill-born thing and that’ll be the end of it.
A Proclamation of Sorts
Lately it’s been harder and harder
to find the words
and in truth I don’t really mind
so much
as having something to say eventually
becomes as tiring as everything else
I’ve reached a point
where I’m no longer too proud
to proclaim my emptiness
I figure we all
have to cop to it eventually
and now more than ever
I just want to dissolve
into the pretty sadness of the day
the perfect gray sky
above the lonely apartment buildings
the glittering shards of rain
and all the ghosts of the forgotten
and the pretty waitress arrives at my table
with a beer on the house
and the kindness of her face
breaks something within me
and I want to fall into her arms
and weep into her breast
for everything good
and everything lost
and everything we have become
and then I figure I should drink
my free beer first
just in case it gets weird.
I’m the special guest on the new edition of Daniel Crocker’s Sanesplaining podcast. I read a poem and we talk about stuff. It was fun.
New watercolor.
"All truths are against us. But we go on living, because we accept them in themselves, because we refuse to draw the consequences. Where is the man who has translated - in his behavior - a single conclusion of the lessons of astronomy, of biology, and who has decided to never leave his bed again out of rebellion or humility in the face of the sidereal distances or the natural phenomena? Has pride ever been conquered by the evidence of our unreality? And who was ever bold enough to do nothing because every action is senseless in infinity? The sciences prove our nothingness. But who has grasped their ultimate teachings? Who has become a hero of total sloth? No one folds his arms: we are busier than the ants and the bees. Yet if an ant, if a bee - by the miracle of an idea or by some temptation of singularity - were to isolate herself in the anthill or the hive, if she contemplated FROM OUTSIDE the spectacle of her labors,would she still persist in her pains?"
— E.M. Cioran
