Kitchen Sink Excerpts

2009-02-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

check out this:

ex-patriotism-and-poetry.blogspot.com

thats the real stuff, yo.

excerpt from new fiction piece

2009-02-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

Just the beginning of the piece. Its pretty ok, the end (not posted) rushes too fast, according to most people. I'm working on it, alright? I'll post more later.

--

What Artists Do When Not Suffering
By Tamarah Phillips

I think it might have been Oakland, or maybe it was my own devices, but I would like to blame Oakland. Smears of white powder gleaming my eyes, looking out at a crowd that’s waiting patiently for me. “This one is called,” I say, “Picking away at Sobriety with a Bourbon Ice-pick.” And they laugh. They always laugh. I used to too, but that was before Oakland.

Other renditions of that night can have me standing, smoking and looking for anyway to get to a place where I can stand my own voice. Getting on a red-eye groundhound bound for Oakland, I thought leaving Seattle would leave behind a life of degernetive trust associated only with the feelings of self destruction. In other words, I thought I was tough enough to survive left to my own devices. Sitting outside my drunk motel room with a girl I found spare changing, we shared a joint and I realized this was it; this is what I had been waiting for.

I found Natalie the night I moved to Oakland. She was sitting outside Nation’s Burgers asking for cheap red wine. I bought her a blueberry pie and a cheeseburger. We went back to my motel room and got drunk past the point of collision. I had a bottle of whiskey and a 12 pack and thought I was going to change the world. She had a gram of cocaine and knew she could do nothing but resign herself to life of depravity.

One night walking down near Jack London Square, the place where Oakland meets the bay, seeing San Francisco glittering in street light constellations, hearing the sounds of trains in the not so distant future we held hands and made plans to kill off the pain and live in a quiet desperation. Behind Barnes and Noble, in an alley smelling of urine and cardboard boxes, she pulled out a mirror and cut us lines. "This is real pain," she told me, "You can't fathom the sort of depth I have been."

--

other than that, I'm back in Olympia taking a Writers Workshop class. I have written a feature article on Stephen Jesse, which is neat. Got OK reviews. My friend Mel 0pened a bookstore on Vashon Island. It can be found at www.strangerthanfictionbooks.com

It is a very good bookstore, great poetry section. The owner is well versed in everything he sells and it's a great little place to get a tattoo too! (more about this later)

UPDATE. First time in months....

2008-11-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

Meet with the Writer In Residence at the Richard Hugo House on Friday. Ed Skooge, look him up.

We worked on a poem of mine and a story. Here is the edited poem:

I am Secretly An Important Man

the chuches on Broadway glitter in neon lights;
dark catholic hums that you can cash in
for heroines on heroin any day of the week.
They shoot noise and make up.

groped between breaths
in the back seat of my ford pinto, 86
blue smears of white power
gleamed her eyes
passively passing itself off as longing
instead of momentary lust
which was all i wanted

Pulled out of her Revlon lips
and forced myself back into the house
where ponytailed monsters
draped arms around jail bait
looking whores.

I had nothing to do
with my hands
smoking cigarettes on the back porch
snow falling, eyes whispering
"fag."

there is a loaded gun in my pocket
wrapped in cellophane and cigarette ashes
that struggled against scary fingers
lingers through swollen lips
I licked up the last of the juices
running down my chin and the clock chimed
ten past three
and man am I tired

down at the donut store
where bearclaws are 35cents
broken hearts a dollar
I saw that red cotton dress that made me hurt
ripped open like the back of her zipper
forced stares at that eye in cocaine
that eye in lust, that hair pulled down by suave
and please god don't forget that ass
of all orangutans screeching

she pushed up against me
and for a moment i pretended she was my girlfriend
covered in scars
only teeth and drill bits can make
i wanted her to forge maps
my body in her chapstick lips
so everywhere she went could be a reminder
that sometimes even her girlfriend doesn't tip her

back up on broadway
there is one good resturant and a bar
that although they try
they cannot
wipe away the boredom that has spewed these streets
back in the late 1960's.

"hey ma," you said to me crossing the street holding my hand,
"does it ever stop raining?"
and "son," i said
"it will stop raining the moment empty churchs
stop ringing bells on sunday mornings."

he was too young to know the difference.
I took out a smoke and he asked me to stop.

What do artists do when not suffering? Scientists believe they get it on.

2008-08-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Obsequious Learnings

2008-08-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Been writing, manically, intensely daydreaming at work trying avoid the monotony. I decided to re-read Ariel Gore's book because it makes me want to write, experience things and describe them beautifully to others.

Also been listening to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" way too much. 2008 reissue is beautiful. Add to the old favorite is Cohen's "Songs Of" because that also makes me want to write. Dealers dealing, stranger songs, going down to the river with Suzanne etc.

Some photos I have taken recently: (on my holga):

All Blacked Out And No Where To Go

2008-07-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a story, been working on it for a while now, just wrote a couple pages more on it. It's about a house (as all my stories are) where addicts live. Its about trying to overcome addictions in a form reserved for those desperate but not wanting 12 steps. It's about love and friendship, the hardships that come along with those and most of all it's about honesty. Honesty is everything.

Here is part of the part I recently wrote.

I made my way home eventually and the music was over. It was sometime in the morning. Early, just after the sun rose. Margot was in the kitchen, tears swollen and trying to find recollections of something human within her.
“Hey”
I said. She looked at me and continued smoking.
“I need to go to church”
she said.
“Church?”
“Yeah, only God can forgive me now.”
I paused for a moment.
“You don’t sing”
She had tears in her eyes and there was ice cream on her shirt.
“What?”
“All I’m saying is that they sing a lot and you don’t sing well, it would be a pain to hear you singing all those hymns.”
“What?”
“I used to go to church, ten years ago, now all I can do is wish I never knew those songs. I can listen from a distance but that’s all over now”
She started laughing
“You’re nuts”
“I’m telling the truth. Swear to God.”
“ I should not go to church because I can’t sing”
“Yeah.”
“What about faith?”
“Do you have faith in yourself?”
“ I don’t know”
“Neither do I”
“We can try, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be your savior if you will be mine.”
She glanced up at me. It was the honesty that killed me.
“Yeah. Only Margot can save me now.”
She smiled

League of Innovation: Writers. (National Winners)

2008-06-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

FICTION

FIRST PLACE

"My Best Friends Are the Ones I have Given Scabies”

 Tamarah Phillips 

Seattle Community College District 

Seattle Central Community College

SECOND PLACE

"Nadia’s Fire”
Cheri Browne  Lane Community College

THIRD PLACE

"Rube"  John Strubberg  St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley

Quatchi! (The 2010 Winter Olympic Mascot)

2008-05-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

So, this is amazing. Go look at THIS

A bit about the Sasquatch mascot "Quatchi"

Quatchi is a young sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada. Quatchi is shy, but loves to explore new places and meet new friends. Although Quatchi loves all winter sports, he’s especially fond of hockey. He dreams of becoming a world-famous goalie.

THAT IS ALL.

So I just found out about this:

2008-05-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

Poetry and music with free Thai buffet at the bar & all night happy hour prices on drinks.

Bai Pai Restaurant & Bar
2316 NE 65th St
Seattle, WA

Every Monday.

Also next Thursday is Cheap Wine and Poetry Night at the Hugo House. Ya'll should come.

Today I got my first rejection.

2008-05-04T20:14:00.000-07:00

Well....that's not true, not true at all. Today I got my first rejection that was more than just "We're sorry, can't include this in this issue." It was more like (in my words) "This is trollop. We would never publish you."

Oh well. I should get used to it. I know it is good, I know that it worth a damn.

Yesterday I met with Harris, we discussed (among other things) a piece I am working on. It was decided that it should be called I am secretly a middle-aged man. In reference to this book:

Because, really, I just want to be Steven Jesse Bernstein. I am working on recording above said poem and some other things with some friends, putting out an EP of poetry. Should be fun. If you want a copy, give me a hollar.

notte

2008-04-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Today I took some pictures that didn't turn out so hot. It was quite disappointing. Here is a poem I've been working on:

Witness (in progress)

the chuches on broadway glitter in neon lights
that echo dark catholic hums that you can cash in
for heroines on heroin anyday of the week.
They shoot up and make noise.

There is one good resturant and a bar
that, try as though they might, they cannot
wipe away the boredom that has spewed these streets
from the death of chief joseph, back in the late 1960's.

hey dad, you said to me crossing the street holding my hand,
does it ever stop raining?
and son, i said it will stop raining the moment empty churchs
stop ringing bells on sunday mornings.

he was too young to know the difference
I took out a smoke and he asked me to stop.

(snapshots)

2008-04-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Elegy for 2nd Avenue Pizza

2008-04-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

In Belltown
there is a hole
where a pizzeria used to be.

We would sit outside
from 4 to 6pm,

Passing time with 40oz of social grace,
drifting in and out of cheese soaked dreams
and mourning passerbys who had no mercy
for loose change.

Standing next to the oven
we saw them bake personal hearts
into the dough with pesto sauce
and chicken alfredo.

There was a jukebox,
which i'm sure is on a grave right now,
that played only early grunge music
and dixie blues.

Moments lost there
whistled and blink in high scores
chasing reveries
that hovered above the 50,000 point zone.

Closing one night
after 2am and counting
leaving rumnates
of small chunks of heaven
besides an out of business sign.

In Belltown
there is a hole
where a pizzeria used to be.
(and somenights I think it's still there)

---

I've been working on that all week, considering where it came from I think it is going in a good direction.

Photographs and Things Happening this week.

2008-04-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Things have been quiet around here, small moments of coffee in the morning and writing and editing and reading. I'm reading "Tegami" by Mac Crary. He's a seattle writer and well worth the read. I would try to explain it, but I am feeling mighty inarticulate right now.

I'm also working through old pictures that I forgot I had. I used to be good at shots of minutes where people looked honest. I'd like to see eyes through viewfinders again. This is Bobby-Raddboy from too many years ago.

---

Monday:

Homeland at On the House
Every Monday night from 7:30 to 10:00 pm.

Feature TBA. Open mic. Poets and musicians welcome.

No cover charge, but donations gladly accepted.

On The House

1205 E Pike Street

Seattle, WA

Tuesday:

The Visiting Writer Series, hosted by Pacific Lutheran University, presents Mary Oliver

Tuesday April 22, 2008

"The Writer’s Story": 5PM,

Reading: 7:30 PM

Wednesday:

SEATTLE POETRY SLAM

8pm, Wednesdays at ToST

513 N. 36th St. Seattle, Wa 98103

$5 cover, 21 and over, ID required

info@seattlepoetryslam.org

Thursday:

"Cheap Wine and Poetry"

A special all-poetry "Cheap Wine and Poetry" celebrating National Poetry Month.

Featured readers: Roberto Ascalon, Elizabeth Austen, Rebecca Loudon and Cody Walker. Hosted by Charla Grenz.
Open mic; wine is $1 a glass.
FREE. Co-sponsored by Richard Hugo House.

http://www.cheapwineandpoetry.com/

Cabaret
Thursday, April 24th, 2008, 7:00 PM

In remembrance of a man who is not here anymore.

2008-04-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

I saw a man pursuing the horizon
by Stephen Crane

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,"
You can never -"

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

Poem in your pocket day

2008-04-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today was poem in your pocket day. Today, in my pocket, I carried this poem.

My Papa's Waltz
by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Mountain Graveyard

2008-04-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

Spore Prose

stone notes
slate tales
sacred cedars
heart earth
asleep please
hated death

Robert Morgan

---

People I would like to be like.

2008-04-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

So, I've been reading too many poems lately (Sylvia Plath, Richard Hugo, Robert Bly, Robert Morgan, Elizabath Bishop, Raymond Carver) and while are all very good (I'll leave one of my favourites by Richard Hugo) nothing beats the spoken word of Stephen Jesse Bernstein. I recently started listening to (again) is his sub-pop album Prison which was released posthumorously after he killed himself by stabbing himself three times in this throat. Here is a track called "No No Man (part 2)":

Also, here is the Hugo poem I mentioned earlier:

Degrees of Gray in Philipsberg

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can't wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs--
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won't fall finally down.

Isn't this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn't this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don't empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You're talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it's mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

Documentaries and Poetry

2008-04-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I watched this documentary the other night. It's really good, well shot and just fasinating. This is how Jim White came into the spotlight, so to speak. After his album Wrong Eyed Jesus (Mysterious Tale Of How I Shouted!) After director Andrew Douglas got his hands on this album he decided to go searching himself for the wrong eyed jesus. He brought Jim White along for the ride and they created a really fantastic film.

We have this book Poetry: an introduction 4th edition by Michael Meyer for my Intro to Poetry course and it has all sorts of intriguing poetry and not to intriguing poetry in it and how to compare, constrast and analyze poetry. While most of my classmates barely read the poetry for the course I have a tendancy to, well, read the entire book. It makes it difficult when trying to remember specific poems but on the whole I feel as if I have been able to grasp a larger concept of the different forms, styles and craft of poetry. While usually I hate anthologies like this I have to admit that it is a rather good resouce to use in the beginning of analyzing poetry.

I also remembered the other day that it is, indeed, April. This means it is national poetry month. This month is really not celebrated as much as it should be.

and this is how I am planning on spending the rest of my weekend:

Tales from the triumph

2008-04-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

So I have been reading this book:

And it is mighty good. Tom Barbash referred me to it right before I left CCA and I bought it a while ago (oh back in the days when I had money to spend on 80 dollar books) but have been too swamped to read it until now. Not to say I am not swamped now but my writing is not going anywhere so I thought this will help me get out of this awful fiction block I am in. I like this book because it focuses on craft as well as classic stuff and whatnot. I really need to improve my writing craft and try to become a more literate writer as opposed to being an amature knock-off.

I also have been listening to this album a lot:

Which is Low's The Great Destroyer. Every track in this album is pretty solid, can't think of one that isn't worth listening to. Highlights are California, Death Of A Salesman and Cue the Strings. I started listening to low on Secret Name (which is a great album, for your information) and I would listen to that and Things We Lost In The Fire pretty exclusively until I found The Great Destroyer and Guns and Drums. What I am really getting at here is that Low is great band and you should check them out.

All that said, I'll leave with some Doormat Poems.

Doormat Poem (#46)

The rain expands the door.

My shoe has a hole.

I need milk.

Doormat Poem (#360)

Girl, your butt

makes you

and turns me.

Doormat Poem (#100)

While at the supermarket,

Waiting for passing thunderstorms

A pair of tripping wellingtons

Realized their problems.

I want this book.

2008-04-07T19:15:00.000-07:00

I could tell you but then you would have to be destroyed by me by Trevor Paglen

By submitting hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, the author has assembled an extensive guide featuring 75 patches — icons that represent CIA projects known by peculiar names and illustrated with occult symbols and cartoons — to reveal a secret world of military imagery and jargon.

In other news: I am still awaiting the great return of the Little Gray Books series. Since Hodgman has become popular there has been a serious lack in updating of the Little Gray Book series. There are still some in the backlogs of the webpage. I do still enjoy those.

Tonight I was meant to be going to The Richard Hugo House to read some poetry at the open mic by since I am a pansy and can't go alone and all my friends bailed on me I didn't go. I'm sorta really regretting that now, but hey. What can you do? I'll make it next month. There are still a bunch of awesome things coming up, like the Poetry Performance Contest and the Cheap Wine and Poetry night. It is national poetry month, after all, so this month should be all about the poetry.

I just stumbled across a website called Washington Poets Association that has all sorts of fun goodies.

I've been working on some Doormat Poems. I'll leave you with one.

Doormat Poem (#71)

I went shopping
to find hearts.
artichoke hearts.

Doormat Poem (#9)

The ashtray tells me
that he is planning
on leaving me
as soon as he grows legs.

Doormat Poem (#8)

Watching from
sea.
It's the cargo
that needs
its hand held.

ABC3D is neat.

2008-04-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

That said, I ran across a dream last night in which I met a man I thought I had know in real life but thinking about I'm pretty sure I hadn't. His name was Daniel and was gay but not overly gay. He wore a navy blue peacoat and had blue eyes and sandy blonde hair. He sat ourside an art gallery in which a play was taking place and we talked about things that I had long forgotten.

I need to get out more.

Naïveté Strikes Again

2008-04-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, instead of winding down as perscribed, I followed my heart to the end of the islands and found love in the arms of a man with a blue line down his head shaped like hair. He gave me kisses and told me he would never leave me but after about six hours he did leave.

Before hand there was karaoke and champagne and gin and a bartender with a smile that could melt icebergs. You sunk titantic, i told him. He smiled and gave me another drink. Motioning back to the sea of blinding drunks I saw a man who broke my heart, he was old and I could see the years creeping up on him so I avoided him and danced with Randy.

Later is when I found the mo-hawk and the cigarette. We shared a beer and that was the end of the night.

Falling into Darkness (the revenge of Daniel Amara)

2007-09-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

I've overexposed three rolls of film and my hands smell of chemicals. being born of a star sign that has an tendency to rush things is quite the predicment wheneveryone is telling you to SLOW DOWN/ yesterday I shot down my lens and saw a pretty girl staring back at me; her name is natalie. she smiles and the world becomes a bit more beautiful.

Later Dan, Nat and another girl posed like an old Vouge magazine. I laughed at this and took the picture anyways. Sooner or later, later being the more probable one my camera was found to be light broken. Being, the light meter was broken. Pick that up and drove it home to Apollo! where sooner they will fix it.

Today I was sick/I got Mao Tsetung's little red book. I'll march around and be pompously communist and laugh at myself. No one else will lauh with me so I might as well laugh with myself. People are too serious these days. I just made dinner with Vencenza, who, like most people, is a starving artist the only difference is she is a starving artist whos work actually matters.

I don't know, I'm going to bed.

(Nights before San Francisco)

2007-08-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

Pushed up against a wall, your mouth tastes like home. Past; pending on whether we allow ourselves to faulter, yet again, into each others arms.

You take my time, for it means nothing to me, and wrap your arms around solitude, where I sit, drunk on green liquor. Hair falls softly, enshrouding in dark fantastic, wondering if home will be created or destroyed. Sounds play in the background, but nothing matters, except your eyes on my breasts. A slight trick of hand and then down you go.

Morning will find you awake; wishing you hadn't done something you did. Morning will find me parched and perished, searching for lust in your eyes but finding only regret.

Toronto (your love will always fail me)

2007-08-21T01:03:00.001-07:00

Close my eyes, watching over morning due. Naked, beyond comprehension, we lie like two mechanicaldeers frozen in the snow. I'll watch over you, as you sleep, listen to bouys tinkling in the fog. Magic realism creeps in, my back hurts, and takes over as the jet lands in Toronto.

Missing you will have to wait until the moon is too full of itself to hold water.

My eyes are soft now, with thoughts of spiders making webs between our toes. Your cigarette smoke lingers in my cord jacket. You know, the red onewith the sailor buttons. You always did like my parliments best. Awoken, breathless, forsaken and cold.

I drink too much, play beethoven on the piano and read a lot of trashy novels. You watch too many late night John Wayne re-runs instead of making love to me. When I'm gone I'll wonder why the sand never holds our shape after we move or if I was the one spared or the only one not invited.

To tell the truth, your mouth was the only home I ever wanted.

Bellevue! Bellevue! Bellevue!

2007-08-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

Drifted, dazed, I'm up at Bellevue Bellevue Bellevue and drinking champange. Down the streetlives a man, onced fucked, twice removed. I'll take another drink and pass the bottle to PlaytapusRex. He laughs and spits the champagne out of the bottle and into his mouth. Marvelous.

Twisted, beyond reasonable doubt, towards the setting sun. Below blazed the freeway which is backed up andsirens and wailing. I'd write more on it, but we all know city life. Dazed, Reckless and much morethan convenient descriptions abound. I'll give if you do.

We get up to leave but something draws us back. Aqua Marina is passed out on the bench, wimpering about He-Man and the princess of power. We lug her up the street and string her up to the sign posts advertising Bellevue Bellevue Bellevue.

Rex and I romp down the road and smoke a bowl of Salvia. Wishing and washing our hands, we divulgeinto a sea of delicious redvines, creating a rope to swing down the road on. He asks me what doth my purpose be. I tell him to fuck off and take another swig of champagne. It's classier that way.Move over, we're heading north now, Vancouver B.C then onto midnight.

In my rear-view mirror I can see her facetied to the post advertising Bellevue Bellevue Bellevue. I almost feel sorry for her. almost.We strung her up good. Slammed the nails home. Almost christ-like.

Afterwards we all felt relieved.

This is in reference to a CocoRosie song

2006-09-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

The angels hair is a meadow of gold surfacing sweetly into the rhythms of our sex fasten to wings. It’s a marigold. The world of flight surfaced after we conquered the underworld of fiery sea waters. I trembled in thought. My eyes bounced back and forth gazed fixed on everything and nothing and something and anything.
We made out while bill and ted had a bogus adventure. The market is going up and we’re having a picnic inside wits and candles abound.
Oh my, you made me laugh.
If angel is back with her marigolds and telling me not to dare you. I’m sorry but my libido got the best of me. I’m a horny little fuck aren’t I?
We have seven slots open and it’s my birthday. I’m gallivanting off to have adventures far beyond the world of ecstasy!
This time I hope the world stops spinning.

This is Olympia.

2006-09-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

I’ve been laying in bed, counting the hours as if they were minutes. I went to see someone about a job the other day and they fired me before I began. Said I was too old, too young and too fat. I am short, fat and have a limp. Remember me this way and not some romanticized nonsense you poets like to. Don’t write me in iambic pentameter or haiku. I deserve free verse god damnit.

Anyways, my coffees gone cold and I’m working backwards again. What I am trying to say is that I meant it when I told you that the virgin mary took mine, sweet jesus watching the bastard. He saved my soul alright, saved it for himself.

We sat watching the sun set and an old transistor radio sang French accordion music and we waltz gently in the breeze, the wine going to our hearts and heads.

We woke the next morning ashamed and embarrassed. I looked at the upside spoon and laughed and you asked why and I couldn’t answer. It seemed funny a moment ago.

Pajama Parties

2006-08-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Ian came over this morning. He came as soon as he woke, in pajamas and all. we were meant to be heading to Portland today but instead we lay around in pajamas drinking Australian merlot. you see, I’m Australian and I’m the kind that only drinks Australian wine.
we drink until we drunk enough to want to eat meat so we piled into the car before realizing we were too drunk to drive so we staggered the half mile to the store. we were in our bathrobes. Ian got a pillow and carried it around with him until we got to the frozen food isle where he put it in the freezer there. then we went and got hamburgers.
later I was walking down the street and this lady stopped me and said I had beautiful eyes.

I had a dream about this once

2006-08-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

I was at the store early this evening. I was on a mission, nothing could stop me. I had a 5 dollar bill in my hand a dream in my heart of a god forsaken bottle of cheap wine. I held the 5 dollars in front of my body and walked straight forth into the store. It was a thrift way in West Seattle. I had moved there from San Francisco once David Lerner died and thought if Joshua Guerci could make this town, anybody could.
Dangled the hope of getting drunk on my knee and set my eyes a drift for that wine selection.
It was late, like midnight late and they were stocking produce and boxed goods. I past the teen boys boxing shelves and pushed my way through the dairy selection finding milk I needed at home but wanted that fucking bottle of wine.
the liquor!
fina-fucking-ly. I grabbed one, settled at a price for $3.16.
Nearly skipping I made my way back to the front of the store.
the clerk was a ugly little botton with acne covering her face. I grimaced and she smiled sweetly and pointed to a sign.
it told me
LIQUOR NOT SOLD AFTER 11PM.
and dejected I slunk away.

( I went MAD)

2006-08-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

tonight I went out with a friend from a long time running. we were going to go for coffee but nothing is open in this town past 7pm so instead we went for Mexican desserts. after we sat she told me about her crazy friend that I remind her of. her crazy friend overdosed on heroine and checked herself in. we never said it but we both thing I should be checked in. checked in. checked into a mental hospital. a nut house. a cuckoo’s nest. a crazy ward. that’s where we are both thinking I should be.

earlier that day I had swam up the drainpipe and found myself trying to fly off the roof. I found a note in the bottom of a lemonade bottle telling me my soul is tired and needs to be lifted up again. I thought flying would do that.

I haven’t been sleeping well. she tells me her friend had the same problem. I don’t believe her. she asks me what it’s like, I tell her its like a drunk in my head yelling at me throughout the night. she says she’s sorry. I say for what and I tell her she can’t be sorry for something she doesn’t need.

the next morning I found myself on the interstate heading south attempting to validate my past with the hope of future/ he stopped the car at a café with poets lining the bathroom reading poetry. I ask them why they stand there and not somewhere more visible and they say its because more people will listen while having a crap then when they are drinking coffee.
I think they might be right.
back and flying, south like two birds drifting, attempting to solidify ourselves.
together.

Three Hours

2006-08-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the last three hours sitting a in lecture hall contemplating the reason for learning. The people there were talking about intuition and instinct. I’m wondering when tuition is due and how much money I do not have to go towards it. Rent is due at quarter past three and I’m forty-five dollars short. My coffee I got two hours ago, paid in nickels and dimes, has boiled cold. The sugar is sticking to the bottom and the cream has floated to the top. The seminar leader is questioning my motives now, asking why I am here if I do not read. I tell him I am too poor to read. He tells me the library accepts no money and I tell him it accepts no checks either. My fines have gone beyond the range of monetary installments. I spent days reading on the romantics, digging deep into Michael Swift’s mind trying to uncovered the last stanza to that William Blake poem. He never knew it. He never knew it. He never knew it.

I gave in to his desires and spoke aloud a poem I had only ever read. I told him that Satan Was A Bus Station. He gapped and gasped and said I spoke the truth and made me into a martyr. I didn’t want to die, I am just a Poet! I do not believe in faith, in religion, in gods or demons. I believe in line breaks and enjambment. I rant and rave about white space and how to believe in something is to have a religion and mine is that of Carl Sandburg and William Carlos Williams. I do not believe in Jesus, Moses and the Messiah. I believe in the destruction of the best minds of my generation and the two roads diverged in the woods.

Not that he notices anymore. He is busy building the cross I am to be crucified on. He stands me up naked in red square and screams for me to tell the world who Satan is. I say Satan Is A Cold Fried Egg. He yells for more and forces people to stop and listen. My heart cries to be let gone but still it continues. Finally I break and scream I AM A POET I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THIS NONSENSE OF SATANS AND BUS STATIONS. I BELIEVE IN POETRY. I BELIEVE IN POETRY. I BELIEVE IN POETRY. And they let me down.

Later sitting around a fire created from a broken house we shared a beer and I explain that my classes mean nothing because a poet does not need education, she can write anytime, and a college degree will only give me more to write about.

They scorn and toss the bottle onto the fire. It pops and sizzles with delight.

At home, or what you can approximate to it, I find a drunken gay boy fiddling with Miles Davis and posting Polaroid’s of his penis on my door. Oh, my dear drunken gay boy, I plea, why oh why do you do these things. He tells me his heart was broken by Colorado and he needs to share his love again. I do not know why this means what it does. He spends the night on my couch and in the morning I was gone before he woke up.

I had class. Three hours of intuition verses instinct. The three hours of cold coffee paid by dimes and nickels. The three hours of wishing a poetic life was more poetic and less lecture. Three hours of knowing rent is due at half pass three and I am forty-five dollars short. The three hours of wishing I had more than a cigarette for lunch.

that is all.