& back.

uninteresting things in uninteresting places

"In this story stalks the horror lurking in much Southern humor: the intensity of hatred within families, friendships, and communities; the defaced white Negro as externalized mask of blacker white passions; and existential nihilism no less powerful for being encased not in portentous Kafkaesque allegory but cheerfully Americanized into grisly practical joke"
David Grimsted, American Mobbing 1828-1861: Toward Civil War

are nonexistent things, everything is interesting and everywhere is interesting and Donaldjudd said "a work of art need only be interesting" and everything is a work of art and jumping jacks in frozen park plazas.
and I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness and running in their running shoes on frozen white streets in the dead of winter and everything I said fell frozen on deaf, dead ears blocked by ipodbuds blasting something about lollipops and hannahmontana and future copulation love sounds.
You are a microwave in the face of a thousand frozen bagelbites and no one can stand to see it. Cubed pepperoni bits on cubed processedcheeseproduct on top of hydrogenated tomato paste oils on top of non-bread bread preserves.
So i stopped talking and saying and those running shoes kept running. But all my movements are staccato and nothing fluid pulses through these legs. I will not join your running pack. I will breathe hot on those frozen streets, melt the ice and lay on the pavement, sun shines through. I'm with you in Rockland, just not moving.
Some notes and comments about this book: This is Truth. This is Life. Everything here is real. Everything inside this jacket tells you how to breathe and move and not die. Jesus is the Story, you are his subject. This is the Word of God. Note your context and note the name of the writer.

I'm not working. I'm not thinking. I'm not drawing. I'm barely writing. I'm barely moving. I'm barely breathing. I'm moving constantly. I'm missing the mark and you and everything else. Hyperbole.


"where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls col-
lapse O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're
free "
Allen Ginsburg
Howl for Carl Solomon

"& I will sit here and wait for a bridge to be built to cross this river."
"but the pylons have yet to be driven. what's more, they've yet to be built. you are 1,000 miles off."
"I will sit here until this river dries up."
"but the rains have just begun and the sun won't be seen for years. you are 1,000 miles off."
"I will sit here until the winds blow and I am carried to the other side."
"but the winds haven't been down these roads since the dustbowl and no one in this town has a fan. you are 1,000 miles off."
"I will sit here until a ferry comes my way."
"but the ferry sank and the shipyards have moved to the ocean's sides. you are 1,000 miles off."
"I will sit here until the river freezes and then I will walk to the other shore."
"but the water won't lay still enough to catch a cold. you are 1,000 miles off."
"I will sit here until you sit beside me."
"here I am. would you like some tea?"

blueberries &/in cheese sauce.

goodnight, she said at the break of day and closed her eyes and opened her eyes and said, goodmorning.
you came by these doorjambs when the day was done and the cashregister had counted it's last, but i will lock the door behind you and you can turn the sign and not turn the lights out and tell me about the cracks in the sidewalks outside my picturewindows, he said. and she turned the sign and turned over letters and spelled every single word he had ever read, flipped the switch, and told him,
there are some cracks that would swallow your shoes and others that don't even know themselves. once i fell in up to my knees and my father threw me a rope and the rope turned into your arm and I held on tight and started flying.

goodnight, he said at the first of the morninglight and closed his eyes and opened his eyes and said goodmorning. a minute ago while i was dreaming, he said, i saw a thousand cracks and at the bottom of everysingleone there was a mirror and when i bent at the knee to look i did not see me, i saw you.
those were not mirrors, they were windows and behind those windows were portraits of me, and behind those portraits of me is where i sat, with answers. & waiting. i ate an oatmeal sandwich cut diagonally and drew a thousand pictures of my shoes not walking and not touching the ground.

and sometime afterall of this, he said, god, there are so many things in this life that are real and you are one and you have shown me another and this one has fingernails and eyeballs and is not hotwater.
and god said, son, there are. and there are things in this life that are more than real and i will show you one. and he did and there were a thousand colors in every single light and the air stopped moving and there were ripples on the backs of his hands and the bottoms of his shoes and, and.

and she turned to leave and she did not drive
and she turned to leave and she did not walk
and she turned to leave and she did not run
and she turned to leave and she did not crawl

and she turned to leave



and she flew.

The story of your life in 1000 words or less.

OWCCCHS 2003 talentshow awards winner: people's choice, best props, overall winner.

then get in your car and drive to me, she said. we will climb these mountain passes and see every single setting sun in the sky.

I will not drive, I will fly. passing through 65 thousand falling raindrops to the place where it never rains except for when you say hello.

then get in a plane and land somewhere near here, where the sun comes up and stays for days and days and a day and then for one more day.

all of my, he said, sleeping patterns are following all of our, he said, speaking patterns. 

okay great. she said, I can tell you've not written this before. but, I like your punctuation.

{!}

shooting stars in all our hearts.

we stood on a brooklynrooftop and aimed high. we shot the sun and watched it fall. a sad and holy glow streaming off of every single southern facade in the city made by men made by god. one hundred thousand steps from here to there, a thousand miles, a thousand faces, a million trees. 

I returned to where they laid joseph's body. the coat from his father now the ground, every thread a tree and shining colors fit for a prince among twelve brothers.

what's your favorite thing about the holy scriptures? they asked in unison as foreign tongues and foreign feet beat the air and, and, ground above a flooded plaster ceiling.

that they are holy. and that you are asking. 

and what about words you'll never say? which ones are those? 

_____________, _____, _______, and, __________. I will never say these words.

It's snowing in westvirginia and the city that never sleeps is still never sleeping and the band that played the final note as Doug and I walked through those cardboard trees and linen art gallery leaves are back in their beds (SF and FL, respectively) and you are around bonfires and on the back porches of a snowy mountaintop and at home and at the other end of a telephone line and I will be home tomorrow or some day after that one.