Spires of Ryan

soap shoes

under flaps of denim

winged beast, I am

in this stripper light


vape stick
romantic flatbill
Arabic selfie
payday kōan

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν

VEDIC SEXTS
MOORISH CREST STRIPS
FRIGHTENED IN THE STRATUS

"THIS IS THE FONT OF PLEASURE"
IT IS NOT IN THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PONZI

A BLINK OF THE HISTORICAL EYE
//THE WILD BLOOD OF CHRIST\\

sati, salos

widened eyes

the entire party stopped
we shuffled out into the Indian summer
streets of Mountain Brook

Lexus leather
strongly odoriferous,
the waft toward my nostrils
is slow and solar

"That wasn't me back there."

I'm supposed to nod.

we watched the smoke rise from our phones

in Pythagorean horror
our eyes danced from point to point
in the never-grasped present

the wild bones of saints
press against the garments wrent

if Christ is God
this world is split

Delivery for Mr. Heartbreaker

part my locks

foakleys on (check)

Super Sayian on that ass

snowshoe hesher

I'm an expeditionary

I'm Mowgli of Antioch

I leer at the skyscrapers

"You aren't the only thing"

I'm satisfactory at work

my doorknob is Evel Knievel's

likeness

my doorbell is a subwoofer

welcome to my thunder castle

welcome to my gas mask party

it's a freaky conversion

try my digital cake

It's totally divi

prance on the wild side

Presbyterian Wind

eyes closed
against the Presbyterian wind
in Oak Hill

standing in the way of a horse

I witness a swing set self-flagellation

a swift kick to the moldy basketball
and
the trees explode in temporal flair
oranges and reds and browns

that Kia Sportage (over there)
is an opiate buoy
in a sea of coloration

the white bovine tongues
wagging against the fence

brain fruit on the ground

I hold your hoodied hand

Umbros swish
against my growing

a cedar fire is nice
for this boy

now
on
to
your
Memphis Group sofa
in the sunroom

your hook-up line gaze
is deeper than Welch's Concord Grape

motion to me in some way
I can understand


I wear one backpack strap for you
I pretend I have no parents for you
That is not my mother summoning me
in a silver Previa
I am feral
I am the Mad Max of these undeveloped woods
I am handy with a hard edge ruler,
with a mechanical pencil syringe,
and with excuses

tact

Moses taught us to drown the enemy out. Like moles in the spring. We never knew how bold we could be. When the summer sun set the drummer done sweat! Does the moon come every night? I thought about getting a tattoo of a row of parking spots. They'd be vacant, and the heart of em would be stained with oil and gum and everything else you associate with a parking spot. But then I thought wow how symbolic, right? It's almost nauseating how dissimilar we were. It's almost nauseating that you wore that visor to your aunt's 15th sobriety party. I remember you played with the swimming pool butterflies.

west nashville

I sat in circles in early life
on the other side of town
sat my chubby-cheeked wife

we touched toes and recited rhymes
our multiplication was sublime

predecessors in the ground
a fine tooth comb on the ground
the playground dust swirled around the ground

like phat phantom dirvishes
West End nighting
gale

my tempest brake
was Radnor Lake

in the hereafter I hope to soar

millions of Scarface t-shirts

peeling over the asphalt
coolly
1995 Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas
quilted vest
upon my bodie

DJ Squeeky
forwarrrrrrrd, hoe

morphine bags in the trunk
fangs on my simile smile

"I'm balling like Jefri Bolkiah"

millions of Scarface t-shirts

Heaven

Portuguese Water Dog whimpering

under Christmas candle display

all the Victorian musk can't keep us back

from dishes of eastern Kentucky origin

a stack of books lay demolished

in Cooper-Young

These Days by Nico

in a Crossville fog

The Gates of Hell

aren't prevailing

this life is blast cap fast

and Hell is whipping up

I dream of heaven

The Ultimate social network

I want to meet the obscure

souls and chat

I was wondering if there's a version of hell

that mirrors Inception and a bad acid trip

The perpetual doubt

roiling and roiling forever

I want the swarming peace

the instant communion

expansive pervasive peace

nonterminal mind hug

Todos Dios

crisp morning
"summer-on, Hefty bag...
sizzling in the street"
I muttered to myself
as I glide my fingers
across the Nashville Basin;
and I pinch waywardly gentlemen
from a quartermile out

You know when you're feeling Pythagorian?
and the very limestone beneath your feet
harbors vibrato
from the spheres,
you jump like MJ (you pick),
the air catches your lip-corners
and thou art turnt up?

it's a polemic of its own;
the slow motion videos of smiling
on YouTube
the car crashes in the nite
lives scattered and smashed
todos
los
dios
not one day where a life isn't smashed
because it is good to be smashed
and regrouped
at the risk of sounding like a hippie

I am looking forward to rebooting
in a stark sense

and if heaven is real
would my solipsistic past
kick in and say
"whoa there
buddy, now now you don't
savor anything under my watch"

I should hope to be pierced
and for my iniquity and doubt
to pour out
into the cosmos
(causing Northern Lights and star twinkles
for the most remote persons)

warble

wound 'round
swimming pool jets
(((((((we are your local
hydrothermal vent creatures

all of the freedom
that we partied for
was to be found in old garages
as "rummage edifices"

I am doorknob
reflecting
bad room things

the hot birds in the conifers
at Alpine Camp
were "forward enough"
as the progressive stench
of my growing contempt
for authority roiled
down the dry creek beds
in Mentone

oh, the summer I learned the words
eradicate
&
edify

minor threat

two-fold Bill folds
on the edge of light
as if light was a papered plane
folded on the towel rack
that he's coating in tears

his father
wandered along the 35th parallel north
scouring and lauding
scouring and lauding
there were and are still
thousands of 70's bathrooms
at which to stare

"yeah I finished this sleeve out with the surface of Io"
"my dad is literally a rocket scientist"
"my other piece is a tactile graphic of the Nokia ringtone"

the elevator doors closed
and a man purported to possess
"mucho dinero"
and
"10-10-220 money"
chortled and jangled
his Infiniti J30 keys
"Redskins game tonight? I've got a good feeling about it.
I need to keep a positive mental attitude about this team."

Bill folds his paper and wonders how many others
are staring at the Otis logo at this moment in time

"No thanks I've got to get home to coach my own losing team."

agua fantasy occasion

pedalling my

20-inch Murray
along the road
(Konami MIDI)
((Spanish moss))

I heard the roar
and saw
a Bombardier 415
over head

"The Ceremonial Splash"
is what I imagined they'd have named it, or something

a guy wearing an O'Neil sweatshirt
hijacked the plane

and dumped 1,620 gallons of water
onto his ex-fiance's wedding

Oblation of the Senses

waking up face down in some Memphis mulch
my God
it is Sunday

this is the day the Lord hath made
this is the day the earth hath baked
I hear many new car doors thump to a close
and the soothing triplicate sounds of Stan Getz
which means I'm in Midtown

which reminds me of a man I met
in Kosciusko M i SS i SS i PP i
he had mother of pearl teeth
and a knack for pinky rings
and funny custom dress shirts
pink broadcloth with a white point collar
and a tie tack
and that hair from the early eighties
where every strand is held in a
matrix of dry suspension,
a nod to the ablative heat shield
of some 70s astronautical triumph

"I heard some blacks wanted to move in, so I bought the entire block."
"We were watching the History Channel program on the Ole Miss riots
'Well I'll be damned Martha! There I am!'
with a brick poised to smash an MPs head.
If only we had a mortar; get it? Brick and mortar."
"I own the insurance company and the funeral parlor."

The Stan Getz was still playing
and I tortured myself into rising
with whatever I was holding
(keys)

I waited on Poplar for a rolling
rectangular prism
to kneel and pick me up

it was so psychedelic
I was blessed to witness the day

Sunset Riders 3.0

TOWARD THE ORB OF LIGHT
UNDONE (LUCKY JEANS)
FOO FIGHTERS TICKETS
UNBELIEVABLE SKILLET IMPRINT
ON A FORMER RANCHHAND
WHO HAD A KNACK FOR STEALING
BABES
FROM DUDE RANCHES

I PUT THE NOZZLE BACK
93
PREMO
WE'RE RIDING
AND PASSING HUNDREDS
OF PIZZA PARLORS
"JOHNNY CAGE"
KONAMI, ET AL

WE'VE THE WHOLE DAY
WE'VE THE WHOLE DAY
WEAVE THE WHOLE DAY
LEAVE THE WHOLE DAY AND DON'T SAY NOTHIN
I SEE HOW IT IS

HOW IS IT?

Commerce Street

my head is out
of the window
of a '95 Civic Si {sí}
twiddling my fingers
against the artificial wind

I'm a Monster
I'm a Rockstar
I'm totally twisted
{Medusa}

"I turn all the upcoming women...
to stone"

Recede

BUMP THIS TRACK
ON LOWER BROADWAY
AND THROW FAKE MONEY
OUT OF YOUR WINDOW

CAR-SURF BECAUSE
THAT'S THE ONLY
KIND OF SURFING
YOU'RE GONNA
GET HERE

SURF'S
UP

Winging It

(hurry now it's about to start)
live, from Love Circle:
the wind rapes our faces
the trains whine downtown
"last time I was up here, I fought the trip"

"at this moment the saddest thing
I can envision is David Berman's beard
full of tears"

now it's 2013 and my beard is sopping

Wolfcastle

OOOH OOH RATHER POIGNANT
"LIKE A IVY PLANTER THROUGH THE WINDOW
OF A SKYSCRAPER"
"LIKE A CRYING PANTHER PERCHED ON A BRANCH
OVERLOOKIN' A DROWNING FISH"
"OR SOME OTHER ANTHROAPOLOGETIC NONSENSE"
MY MOMMY TOLD ME I COULD HAVE ONE MORE
AND/OR
STAY UP LATER
"YOU'RE LUCKY TO HAVE ME"
I'M LUCKY TO HAVE YOU

Eudaimonia

bated breath, arcade breath
pool water breath
Mexican buffet breath
marshmallow breath
cry-mouth

ur such a cry-mouth
your mouth opens like moth caverns
and a bunch of cries come out
it's so startling every time
like the first time you hold a baby
who also happen to be major cry-mouths

rollerblading in the back of an Embassy Suites
my farts are outrageous
good thing my dog is at home because he'd love this to death
the workers come out for cigs

I'm like "hey" or something
and they don't have cellphones to ignore me with
given that they're expensive
dad has one it faxes 69 and 420 and 80085
all the funny stuff

my dream is to hear the ocean
and smell the ocean landscape
spongy grasses
neon asses

tart mosaics in the fiddling outdoor hallway
I have a bead necklace I made at camp

the same camp where I learned the word
"eradicator"
and
"fucking loser"

the sun is setting on a civic si
hatchback / those were new
then

I fondled my Umbros and warp-sped
to my dad's voice

time for some real gulf coast food

time for the wet elevator

knucks

The middle of finger of Gawd
doth penetrated the Woyld
and retroactively pinched death
between his ashy knuckle

on the bus I see the people
who were once children
and have seen so much shit
since then

they all nod along with the bus sway
clutching their belongings
clinging to their accidents
hiding their substances

I nod off and dream I'm on a mesa
surrounded by a clone army
of all my ex-girlfriends
they're holding banners
"we could have luved u 2 Death"
"omg such a radical shift in beliefs"
And from the clone army of ex girlfriends
Sandstorm by Darude blasts through the cacti
and Mugatu's seapunk cousin
rises from the leftover t-shirt geodesic dome
to tell me:
"BEHOLD, MANY LULZ
dude come out of the think zone,
to the Lower Appetizer:
I've got drink specials
I've got permanent luv
I've got macho body replacement therapy
My irony is endless
We're welting with pleasure
(MLK Junior owned a handgun)"

headshake after everything

(i'm over here in the bad boy corner)
my dog
my dog
MY DOG
MY DOG

(woop)

laid upon the pool
table

you didn't have to go
you don't have to go
don't go

you will be a master
of this life
if you stick and stay

I cry at my cubicle
my God

my God

I've been like this
since I was nine
or so

graphite syringes
(mechanical pencils)

Flood Brothers
move my heart
sediment collapse

the rush of sad
in my warm body

homeless poems (no home)
ageless poems (no age)

Exxon vapors

American life

Publix sigh

mom why
dad why
family help

no boy
you go girl

Duke Swirlie

tranquil logs

Smartie necklace

no experience needed

West Knoxville Sunrise Coffee Vapor Evaporated And Rained in Madagascar

pun pin pen peen
mean goy
rich and poor
for and against
ying and yang

magi yanger in the manger
skittle dots in the ditch

mod scooter, hot topic

so many decaying groovers

so much moron

such moronics

free creek

"this creek is free if you buy today"

4-3 zone
heart defense

tie-tack ear-ring
blaq tie event

"yeah and then ol' Marty
fired up his John boat
and chased the sunset.
I'm assuming he died.
Nobody talked to him
later on in life."

Meerschaum is Seafoam

Dark Turquoise(Dress Shirt and Matching Tie)
I'm looking in the mirror and what I see is
going to get the ladies this night

Cuban links
on Cuban links
tiny umbrellas in the drinks
tiny women puking drinks

I say this to myself:
I AM THE GREATEST
MY SWAG IS UPON ONE MILLION
MY JORDAN COLOGNE
IS STILL POTENT
I HATH
NO FEAR
IN THE FACE OF THE
VARIOUS AND SUNDRY
WOMEN,
MOST OF WHOM SHALL DENY ME THREE TIMES
BEFORE THE COCK CROWS

THE TIGERMART IS MY BITCH
NOBODY HAS EVER CRIED BEHIND THIS TIGERMART
BUT I WILL MAKE A HOE CRY THERE IN THIS NIGHT
FROM MY PASSING BODY IN TIME AND SPACE
AND THE WAFT OF MY JORDAN COLOGNE

IT WILL BE TOO COLOSSAL A SIGHT
THE MAGNUM SUN MIGHT FIT ONE MILLION EARTHS
AND PRO ATHLETES MIGHT BE MY AGE
BUT MY SWAGGER IS UPON
100 TRILLION
DUE TO THE FACT
THAT THERE ARE 100 TRILLION CELLS
IN MY MAGNIFICENT BODY
AND EACH CELL IS ZEN JIGGLING
"DON'T READ THIS LIKE SOME SORT OF LAST NOTE"

THENI pulled up to the scene with my ceiling missing holy GaWd
there's a bad one
she bad
my bad.I knew ya in da womba
(my "-as")
goon mode
lol
rite

okay mane
ya duh

wass
maximum domination

llama money

spiting at ewe

mane
mane
mane
mane
mane
mane
mane"and the mane was struck by his own
mortality behind the Tigermart and he cried"


"and the mane was underwhelmed"

Ho Chi Minh to Qui-Gon Jinn

from Ho Chi Minh
to Qui-Gon Jinn

Letting the good times roll
in the United States of America

is no easy task
for the weird (will prevail)

God touched the world
disruption, eruption, ruption
and we've wrestled with it ever since

how could you?
COME ON DUDE

dream log

This stadium is forward thinking

Swimming hectares of unthinking

The rollerblades and alcohol

Thousands of fists thru the wall

I luv so much I can't commit

My DSLs quiver and quip

I'm not so famous

Vanity hath struck

nonlethal force in pick-up truck

reuptake blocked is crucial, key

fiddling with drawerknobs

To check again

My berserker barrage

Is run it's course

May acid rain

on a pet horse

My nose can smell

Sniff and blow

Why wasn't I born

Craving Optimo

The white owl mistress

With checkered future

Had a pair

Covering bluchers

Faust 2.0

Rousch, Tupelo

"my company of peers

Is in the past some distant years.

Outsiders artists and some queers

The tug of truth, never desires

Light the fire light the fire

A wilderness retreat

Some quick line about a seat

Sedevacante counselors

Warshed forn from hands

In pale moonlight

And nestled weary heads

Alone into the pillow she smelled like"

I pour these words unto the screen

As if God hasn't already strung together

every possibility

(still so lonely and ever known)

this Tinkering.

this thunderpierce

I forget how peculiar

we really are

Geometry of Regret

Lexus door tint barricade
my cryful face is indecent

I wrought my hands (inculcate)
the spittle pooled on grey cement

mia culpa!

Atlanta Public Housing

the Courts and Groves
and hollowed Coves

homes

the Glens and Shades
and Palisades

homes

the Microtel and Matchbox cars
cigarettes, candy cigars

homes

gentry came and gentry went
after all, the patience spent

homes

manor gates and cherried dates
felt a kiss from knickered Bates

homes

my Jordans clean
like my TV screen

homes

across the way the Applegate
mansion waits (inward decay)

homes

porch subverts, inducting plates
scribbled paint obliterates

homes

trash creek members
and bare Decembers

homes

complex of shame
complex of shame

homes

I'd vote for him
but I can't write my name

homes

my barrel's burnt
my cousin's dry

homes

I wonder if the boy's
gon' die

homes

Airsoft

((
)))
(((
))))
((((
(((((
))))))
)))))))
((((((((
((((((((
)))))))))
TRAIL OF TEARS TO
ANTIOCH
WHERE MY DOG DIED
UNDER GREY GOOSE
SKIES
<>
TURN ON THE DISTORTION
TURN IT UP DUDE
I WANT TO TUNE OUT
AND BREACH THE TIDE
THE LUNAR TIDE
THAT WARSHES
MAH MAHND
AND SUFFERS UNTO
THE LITTLE CHILDREN
NOT TO PLAY WITH
THE LOBSTER CLAWS
IN THE GOJJ KROJJ
"A BULLET FELL FROM THE SKY
AND LODGED INTO MY LEG
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY"

Spring Chant

李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍李小龍

Jen Crodd

just want to ride around
with you
wearing our grills
yours, bottoms
mine, fronts.
together:
one voice
(without speaking)

I have news for you
I have many things to tell you

fireworks in Detroit streets
peace signs on Poplar Avenue
bicycling in Austin
foraging on Charlotte Pike
Brooklyn street shivers
many friends are howling
since you've gone
this grief is heavier than any day
it's worse than any candy jail

picking at my cuticle 
crying in my cubicle

Kintaro in Like (שְׁאוֹל)

BRENTWOOD (FARMVILLE)
RECEDING TREELINE
DONUTS IN THE PARKING LOT
I WANT TO PARTY LIKE A CAVEMAN

MY DOG RAN
AWAY
MY LEG BROKE
N2

NEVER BEEN TO TRINITY LANE
AND DICKERSON PIKE

NEVER TRIED OUT
BUENA VISTA HEIGHTS

NEVER HAD
A LAVERGNE SWEETHEART

SHUT DOWN
IN CRIEVE HALL

DODGED A BULLET
IN BELLE MEADE

KRAV MAGA
AND A GLOCK 19

COUNT DANTE POSTER
ON THE BATHROOM WALL

YOU CAN DIM MAK
MY HEART

YOU HAVE THE POWER

Jelly Fish

I employed
zone defense
against a juice-cleansing
cousin
(getting out in the nick at night)

I walked down the seashore
and saw fish flipping and flopping

You wore a straw hat
bought at WINGS

a panhandle tragedy
in the middle of the moon

a yo-yo washed ashore
the string spelled "ass"

we trod along the Lisa Frank coast

the fungi kicked in and we
turned to each other
and nuzzled
our leathery cheeks
and cried
because
we
thought
we
were
grooving

the sunburn was awesome:
I writhed, played Halo
and guzzled Capri Sun

while your body
sipped saline solution
coolly
at Gulf Coast Medical Center
in Panama City, Florida

#16670 (Kolbe)

My wife! My children!
I am to be slaughtered
I am to be taken
from this world
for the Pax
Christi

My wife! My children!
The nine are crying
(This terrible fate!)
The nine are quiet.
The nine are silent.

My wife! My children!
I trade my crown of white
for red

Soul Patch

the singular genius
onward
toward
"post-identity politics"
and sweatpant couture

Frank Sinatra in the endzone
twenty thousand Jewish mothers
went wild

and a nu-groove
kicked the door down
and a dust plume
curled around
the fallen door

we're wearing collars.
we're buttoning
we're tying laces
we're grazing the marble walls
short sleeve dress shirts
and a Kangol beret /
Wikipedia, toiletries
eyeglasses.

"we're just beat dude"
This is not limited to the city boys
"I dig this truck, etc.
I'm chilling on a dirt road, etc."

Charlie Parker
tended his lettuce patch
and played saxophone
in the Camarillo State Hospital band

git

moonlight on the cold neon sign
that reads: WELCUM 2 PARADISE
we trampled the Daisy pellets under foot
as we traversed the tell that has amassed
around the property behind our house
because it's been a million different things
like, such as:
snake oil sales office, spoke engraving,
saloon, Vidal Sassoon [Minchey's Cutz],
Apple II repair, Warhammer Clubhouse
and a place for strippers to dance

Sunset, the neighborhood dog,
is perched on the porch
acting like he's got a deed
and a prince for a master

and this is gorgeous:
our faces pressed to the barrel
of a sheriff's gun
GIT
GWAN GIT
AND DON'T YOU TELL YOUR DADDY NOTHING ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE
SEEN HERE

Branch Manager

the acorns
split
under foot,
under black patent
leather shoes

his top half
draped immaculately
(white dinner jacket)

did I mention
the drape was immaculately
conceived in the din
of some
smudged matte turquoise tailor's
nook/backroom

he gazed into the natural weave
of the moonlit branch
manager

he fancied it was some haint
from the bottom of a well
that was lost

in the Word
only to be pusht into the
maw
of the Earth.

The sun was off somewhere
illuminating a Coptic
courtyard
where a soccer ball
undid itself and flowered its
pentagonal cells onto the ground.

he came closer to the branch manager
and saw that there were several
tears
scrawled on her cheek
in Indian ink
and in the tears, little people
like early renderings of sperm

a supermoon was happening
right above the branch manager
and him

the dark brown hand
brushed his shawl collar
and he stood silent
with his mind on his fiance

"you look nice; you ready?"

"ready as I'll ever be"

he had many helpings of leftover steak
touched by the lips of the patrons
he served

his cab license fell behind his study door
and has gathered dust
for thirty years

never again will he shut himself
into
that study
where
he snapped and stayed

out of trouble forever, mom
into his books, mom
on to the great debate, mom

"I only do this on weekends (coordinate)."

the doors
were flung open

and someone in the back of the place
hung her head
and cried

Memphis Summer

I took a walk in Victorian Village
down Adams Avenue
I planted myself firmly
in the belief that those were
just firecrackers in the night
and nothing more

I stopped in front of the James Lee House
and thought how it resembled a font
gurgling through the silty crust
of the city by the river

a font of wheezing breath
gurgling up through a funky gin bath
perhaps this is sculpted at the Brooks

Perhaps my symbols are off key
as I was walking in Memphis, Tennessee

I thirsted for the smell of fresh
poached video games' cellophane weft
and fortitude under duress
to be my very very best

I sing softly to Hostess cakes
rotting on the steely grates
jelly pews and putrid malls
faces painted on basketballs

my fuzzy porn and whistling trees
a brewing, dormant, dark disease
under the sill I perched and thought
I wonder if I'll e'r stop smoking pot

I wonder if they felt this way
when listening to Marvin Gaye
Trigg-interpreted summer time
lacking yellow fever turpentine

Garden City Conceptual Love
Suburb Making Babies Tough
Johnson, Markey, O'Moore (Too)
I Hear It Called "Hollowed Out Canoe"

bt

MISSING YOU


MKM

DOUGLAS SUPREME 3000

THIS NASHVILLE SPIRIT

THIS FURTIVE THANG

THIS TRYING TIME

... THIS IS A DOWNWARD AND OUTRIGHT

WARDEN OF THE HC (HUMAN CONDITION)

I TELL YOU WHAT

Pithos

A star spangled trident


upwards from the wine vat,
turned yellow snow

into "real trap shit"

)()(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
and the sun also rises
on
Birmingham

and in Mountain Brook
waves of "black persons"
crawl belly first and must forever
grovel and liq the pavers beneath
as the cackles of button downers
ring out with the clinks of fluted stemware

and the right hand of the Father
has mercy on us

and a white young man
from the Upper South
wore a tuxedo in Tuxedo

"They brought them here
now they're our problem."

(10 churches gone)
(Katrina blew over)

and the octoganal chapel at
Birmingham-Southern
so ecuminnny
ecumenicalical
ecumenicalish

(out side tho...)
College Hills
Graymont
Fairview
Bush Hills
and the East Thomas Park Swimming Pool (I have a baby)

Legion Field sits lonely in the nite
Legion Field is sweltering
Legion Field has MLS games in it now
Legion Field is a tumor of McLendon Park

the right hand of the Father
has mercy on us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xwLeb7hWfg

GB/GB

I was apprehended by a Ghost Boy


playing a Game Boy

on a tiedye lanyard

embossed (in script):

"Blessed are they who are wholly occupied with

God

and have shaken off the manacles of the

World"



and the Ghost Bully protested:

"YOU DODGE! YOU DODGE THE 'REALITY'

THAT OL' KIERKY ARTICULATED:

THE OPTION OF FAITH IS THE

REAL

DICHOTOMOUS

DOG AT THE HEELS

DOWN HERE ON THIS ORB OF FATE

AND GREEK ALLUSIONS.

O WESTERN WORLD

WITH YOUR PANTS

AND YOUR DOWN-IN-THE-DUMPS

DIRVISHES.

TOWARD THE DEFINITIVE, FINITE

OF THE VOID

YOU DANCE 'CROSS

IN A FURY UNKNOWN

EXCEPT

IN SOME HOUSING PROJECT IN MEMPHIS

WHERE THE BROKEN TOYS GROW COLD AT NITE

AND THE CHICKEN BONES AND GRAVE DUST

SCATTER ON THE GROUND AS FORCES (ONE) JUKE

OVER SWIFT GRASS

AND AN OLD DEACON LADY IS SMOKING A

YE OLDE BLAQ & MILDE,

ONLOOKING AS A 2001: HONDA ODYSSEY

ROLLS BY (TERVIS TUMBLERS RAISED)

((WHITE ANGELS))."

Tiki Torchbearer

ontological arguments in the Tiki Torch light


dice-shaped ice cubes in the Kahlua froth

Onstar prank call (nod off)

mother goddess garden orb

a folding chair in a sedevacante room

groovish in the groove zone


loc'd in the Buick Regal

my climate zone is optimal and Optimo flecks speckle my damp jeans

"I'll have one Reese's Blizzard for yo' monkey-ass"
cruise to the dock of the spring-fed pond

dip our ankles in and hope we've been covered
(freckles near your nipple)

that looks a little like Rodney Dangerfield eye

crest white teeth prick tiny nibbles

on my lobe

and the tiny persona in the cranium district

is full-moon gleaming on my bitch-ass

"grab the epidermis, because it's showing;

don't worry about nothing but the rain

meter aka Paul's flat-top."

("Bitch, collapse." - Bong Jong Il)

Reid and the twelve inch subwoofers

Reid is hopping

Reid is bumping

Reid is seizing

Tuxtlas (preview)

I was born in international waters
our yacht hit a drug sub
and sliced it open like a manatee
I hear they have two man crews

I hear they have ten tons of drugs
I wonder if the crew gets lonely
eleven miles per hour for
one thousand miles
is ninety-one hours

we limped back to port
my mother changed into her
peasant costume
and my father was
carried in a bag
to the back of a Mercedes
with the square tail lights
wrapped in those ridges
that kind of cry when it rains

I am hearing this for the first time
as a Keurig sputters out another cup
in the butlers pantry
"It's easier than the other ways of making
coffee."
"So my parents were drug lords?"
"Your parents were very high up with Los Zetas"
"Where is my mother?"
"A ranger found her in Los Tuxtlas
with a hippy camp that was sorry
to say that she had passed in the
night under the watchful eye of God."

I clicked my Sperry's together and wished
I had been born to Starbucks parents
who would leave me to play in the bra racks
at Target

or who would have left me once in the rain
and let me poop my pants and scar me
in some ordinary way

DISTANT DOUGIE

MY DOG, MY DOUGIE


MY DISTANT YOUNG BROTHER

YOUR STARCHSPANGLEDBANNER

SITS STIFF ON MY WALL



MY MKM, COREY BENT

MY AFTER ALL

MY NEVER MEANT

YOU SIT IN QUIET MINDS

... IN THE NIGHT



MANY MILES LEFT TO TROD



YOU AND I, COMFORTABLE AND ODD



BUT WAIT! YOU LEFT WITHOUT HEARING MY LAUD



MY ONE AND ONLY, MY ONE BEN TODD

Aaron Douglas and his Arkestra

I put away a reefer
and strolled into
Cravath Hall
with the full intention
of hurling the cosmos
around
and
around
the humid grounds
with the aide of Sun Ra
aka Master Groover
aka Mad Dog 20/20 Retrospective Vision
aka Most Solar on High, Horse
aka Horus 3000

the sun was shining on my
peachy skin

each layer of the Metro General Hospital
started spinning like a Rubik's Cube

all of the infirm, derelict, and waywardly
gentlemen and ladies
flew from the building as dew from the beard
of Zoroaster

Georgia O'Keefe peeked from behind the
statue of W.E.B. DuBois
and winked (hold the wink for the shape of the
winked eye should be remembered)

a thoussssssssand Sesame Street
moralities moonwalked by this spectacle
of me and GO and WEBD all in time and space
and so out of the zone at the time of this spectacle

and from the project housing across the street,
the clamor of cold toys
in the darkest night of all time
gave me the impression
that at any moment (now)
the elderly men I grew up watching
joke nakedly in the Country Club locker room
will presently walk out of the floral security doors
in lugged Ferragamo loafers,
spiritedly discussing the DTC (DownTown Core)
while
their cuffed pants are swishing this way and that
to the sound of some crazy trumpet blasting
as if
on
diamond paved
golden arches (wiggling and jiggling)
like a symbolic cartoon in the New Yorker magazine

and their sons' pasty legs and Alabama hair
are intent on keeping pace with the finest
SkyMall small talk
on coy Kurdish women
"I understand the burkha despite the competition."

One million sweaty thank yous have fallen to my lobes
and up them like a rolling tongue of some circus
clown who had a stroke in his horse-drawn
clown-quarters

Thirteen pouty cigars
cordon
the blue linen
Tommy
Bahama
jazz shirt with a jazz collar

the 1993 Corvette squeels away
and my darling outlook
is left in a pool of its own
blood on the coroner's doorstep

Time Honored Tradition

From the building top
I sawr the childe
waving his hands
"we're okay"
"I'm with stupid"
is the shirt he had on.
delicate and rippled,
the puff-letters

the storm enveloped me
while Sandstorm played
on the Smoothie King speakers
with plastic precision

my dog welped and weened
itself from my gravitas
and bore down the lane
to backwards-hat Johnny

O hippie Johnny
with cargo "lateralized"
and subdued on the thighs
your forte shines bright

in the night in the night

in the glove box of a
furry old Fiero
you'll find the VHS
"of things you'd find by the river"

Profugus

O Parthenon
upon this base
an aggregate place

of fancy fiberglass Athena
The doors of 615 Church too
bear the Mark of the Possum
and Leach the weary road from
our stories

the weary road is no longer in our stories
as it has been leached from our stories

the weary road is made of the space
behind the statue of Demonbreun
strewn with trash and alabaster
skins turned sooty and grody

A Man rolls down the hill
in Richland Park
as
his children walk to school

and Mount Vernon's dreams
of familial peace
threw out the baby
and the claw-tub bath

and footsteps away a place
where likeable racists gathered (profugus)
this city is full of dominators of mind
in kind, in like, in love

I wonder why the sky's above
my gentle dome
my turnip head
my sleepy wonder
my steak and bread

L and C light red and green
as the world's largest
adult bookstore
changed management

my dog, my dougie why have you gone
my dog, my dougie our work's not done

to liberate the feet of teens
to scream and dream and preen our wings

to mousse the shabby head of man
and lead to water a fluffy lamb

my dog my dougie you'll always be
my numero uno,
my willow tree

and in the shrine of Dude Let Up
you'll always be my TN hero
my Jubilee

BENT

I smell the under ground tubes

of the city

and my time in this cubicle
is drawing nigh

and my time with this esoteric

set of facts

is not long

Eulogy for Ben Todd

Hello. My name is Whit Smith and I was a good friend of Ben Todd’s, as were a great number of you, and it is with great sadness and frustration that I address you today. We’re gathered here to celebrate and reflect upon the life of Benjamin David Todd, who was surely a gift from God to you, me, Nashville, Tennessee, the United States of America, and the World. Some of you have known Ben since before he was born, some of you only in recent years, months, or days. Some of you may have never met Ben, but were compelled to memorialize him because you knew his magnanimity, his larger than life persona, and were moved by the Zeitgeist he helped to conjure and sustain. Among the bristling creation of God, a great many are bound by locality, while some others are freed by the history and heritage of a place, and are then able to help others unbind themselves. Ben Todd was among the latter, a great emancipator of sorts. He welcomed and encouraged all: freaks, outcasts, punks, hippies, weirdos, kids, junkies, the hopeful, the hopeless, artists, shams, posers, winners, and losers. And he chose his hometown as his home base, at times opened his home to these friends and strangers and actualized a movement and environment that fostered the arts for all. And how Christ-like of him. And I don’t mean in a Ginsburg sort of way. Really, but with whom did Christ consort? Christ stuck around the general vicinity of his tiny portion of the Roman Empire and surrounded himself with and LOVED the despised, the half-way-there, the unclean, the confused, the weirdos, the punks, the freaks, the thieves, the prostitutes, the murderers, and the down-and-out. And like Christ, Ben started a movement and recognized that like himself, the freaks of the world are the most capable of good. Y’all know that now-cliché Kerouac quote about the insatiable ones? Well, that was him. And that is us: insatiable. And he knew it. Ben had a transformative power. He could turn a frown upside down. He could turn a mood inside out. He could literally turn a venue inside out. He could smite the weaktalk and bolster the courage. He could prod a band to greatness, splash water in the face of a sleeping community, and make magic happen.

Christ said “let the children come to me.” Ben did too. How many all-ages events did Ben create? And how rare is it in an age of pretense that a man should open up “serious art” to kiddos? Ben luv the keeds. I have so many stories that illustrate the person who Ben was, but that’s for later.

Ben was a rare bird in this freaky world. I am forever grateful that I have known Ben Todd, been apart of the special world of Ben, and to have made so many friends through Ben. I’m saddened that he’s gone, and I’m more saddened that he chose to leave. I don’t understand or condone his decision, but I do understand that God is good, and brings good from the darkest of times. So, pray, meditate, bang your head, and carry on the tradition that Ben so firmly planted; that of a father of a movement, of a natural son of the world, and of a spirit of the community. May we champion the freaky-deaky, champion the fun, champion the good. Goodbye Ben; we’ll always miss you and we pray that we stay forever young.

Gojjer

Where the gojj things are
Sweet nothing's in my ear
A bleary Bon Jovi
In the brightest lit
Lot
A pillar of soda
Encamping upon a Trojan shore
A man is made of luck and lore
Self generative,
Intact,
Snore!

Total babes immersed
In gore
Boner bash in '94

Monarchism

How caramelled this apple
of late has been,
bit
and the monarchy of my mind
is usurped by powers of some
other magna carta

my darkest day is filled with
light
shedding the old fallacy
of a triphop drug addled
baby boy of corduroy

the flap of flags is all I hear
on the isle of Whit
a gleaming tear
a patriotic snear
a Tridentine Mass
neither here
nor here