The Lazarus Pit

The Smith

2012-02-14T19:38:00.000-06:00

I still smith
Archaic tools
And hold them
To humanity’s flame
Like a fool
Returning home
With diseased meat
To feed a family,
Or the dehydrated idiot
Lapping feverishly
From the salted sea

The novel is dead,
Replaced and ignored
By the philistines
Who race towards the line,
Mouths agape
And drooling
Their bovine eyes
Drying in the breeze,
Their sclerotic brains
Knocking around their skulls
Like almonds
In a guitar

I have found the source
Of that
Cosmological
Sucking sound.
It is my fellow man,
Slurping oysters,
Hoarding shells,
And keeping the spoils
From the bowery boys,
From the urchins
And gamins,
The remnants
Of the fourteenth ward

They killed Coney Island,
They killed City Lights,
They killed Greenwich Village,
With the robotic
Torpor
Of their pathetic
America.

Har Har

2010-12-07T17:44:00.001-06:00

I blame it on my ancestors. Those dimwitted bastards who after traveling hundreds- if not thousands- of miles, looked upon this useless tundra and thought to themselves, this’ll do. They set up camp, copulated with utility, and stowed themselves away each winter for generation upon generation, until I slid out wet and putrid in 1982. (Just as useless as the drifting kegs of snow.)

The Mammal

2010-07-05T20:46:00.004-05:00

The mammal
Regarded her simply,
Wagged its tongue,
Sharpened its teeth
On stony words
And pressed upon her
With no remorse

I listened idly
With my legs crossed
Like a modern
Homosexual,
Like beta

Tears balked
At her tarsal glands,
Fumbled like shaky hands
on a greased knob

The mammal mocked her,
Smiled a thin smile,
And called her tears
Water

I entered the mammal
From the rear
And forced fingers
Into its eyes
Until they gave way
Like the skin
Of grapes

I looked at her then,
With its eyes
I Witnessed frailty
And used the mammal’s mouth
To say “I’m sorry”
Forming the words
With a pinch
Of the lips

Her skin flushed
And pricked
As I pressed a mammal’s hand
To her brow
And slid it to her neck

I withdrew
From the creature
And sat back down
Exhausted
With a clean conscience

Goings On

2010-06-02T19:11:00.002-05:00

It’s official. I finally sent some poetry to the public chopping block. I mailed a couple poems to a handful of literary magazines. I plan on swinging by Target for some cheap frames for the onslaught of rejection slips that will soon pepper my mailbox. I figure I could cover a bedroom wall by the end of the year if I remain diligent. Rejection is frightening to most writers, but I look forward to it. Failure is confirmation that I’m trying. I won’t fail every time, so if shell the industry I’m bound to hit something, someday.

I’ve also been working on a few short stories. One of them is historical fiction, which required some research. It’s worth noting that a fair amount of pleasure can be wrung the process of researching a particular place in a certain time. My story takes place in ancient Persia, so much of the focus was on what sort of trade took place in Alamut, what sort of food was consumed, were there kilns, etc… I’ve no experience with this sort of writing and I’ve learned a great deal that will hopefully transfer to everything else I write. Developing a sense of place in such detail is helpful in the telling of a story. It helps to define your characters.

I’ve effectively put a hold on all things journalistic for the moment. It’s liberating to back in the domain to which I belong. I feel like less of an imposter. It’s time for me to drink with friends, so I’ll cut this short.

We Howl For Dogs To Join Us

2010-03-08T19:29:00.001-06:00

We howl for dogs to join us
And sing
Our solipsistic songs
We bring the women
To the yard
And pinch their wings

We howl for dogs to join us
And rest our palms
On the wind-beaten foreheads
Of friends
Until the creases unfold

We howl for dogs to join us
And oscillate with the pitch,
Our bodies like bowls
And the tongue the apparatus
Dragged along the rim
So as to sing

We howl for dogs to join us
With the merchants of vice
To bathe our short fuses
Under softer lights
Until mortality
Seems tidied up

We howl for dogs to join us
And pray the sky
Doesn’t join the expanse,
Become borderless
And draw us in

We howl for dogs to join us
As we let go the wings
Or nail them to boards
Or simply take a feather
For a hat

We howl for dogs to join us
And forgive us our dread
As we forgive
The dread of others

We yawn
To the sunset
And yawn
To the breeze
And forget the toe
That broke the pond

We howl for dogs to join us
Weary of the wolf
Careless of the calf

Conan the Non-Partisan

2010-02-23T10:38:00.001-06:00

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in October 2003, many expected the actor to be a moderating influence in the GOP. From his criticisms of Sarah Palin’s op-ed piece on climate change, to his railing on the Tea Party movement, he has lived up to his roll. The past two days have evinced his stance as perhaps the only non-partisan individual among his caterwauling party. No doubt his wife, democrat Maria Shriver, is deserving of some credit. I doubt he would find a coddling wife at nights if he spent his days as another “get-in-line” GOP megaphone for misinformation.

On Sunday, Schwarzenegger administered a castigation of his party for rebuking Obama’s stimulus, while openly endorsing stimulus-funded projects. He took special aim at Mitt Romney for the fatuous statement he made portending that the stimulus hadn’t created a single net job gain. He criticized the majority of his party by saying, “they go out and do the photo ops, posing with the big check and they say: ‘Isn’t this great? Look at the kind of money I’ve provided for the state and this is money to create jobs’.”

The following day he brought his criticisms to light once more, branding the GOP’s wish to restart the health care talks from scratch as “bogus talk” and citing it as a partisan tactic. Schwarzenegger’s sane by comparison approach has been acknowledged by the white house, as he was the only governor to be granted a private meeting with President Obama after a joint governors meeting Monday morning.

Having been casted as the scourge to the Republican Party, and equally disliked by democrats, Schwarzenegger has found himself in a political purgatory. For this I salute him, as a man among mice, whether we’re witnessing the courage of a lone man, or simply his fear of marital reprisal. Despite the many grievances of his voters, which are well-founded in some cases, on this song he has been nearly pitch-perfect.

New Song Lyrics

2009-10-07T19:06:00.002-05:00

The bivouac smells like the hair of a dog
Take your bummer's cap and fill it with hog
There's a hospital rat called Jimmy the Weed
When the ball opens up he's nowhere to be seen

I've got forty dead men in a cartidge box
And the fresh fish behind me with their wollen socks
So go grab a root and get up your grit
Or leave the pop skull and boil your shirt

I was wallpapered when the orders came in
So I found a Sunday soldier and stood behind him
I peacocked about like a high-falutin wig
Poking somebody's darling with a twig

A baby-waker rang on our eastern flank
As the breastworks came down we loaded buck and ball
And a peaked pie eater took his pig sticker out
He found a butternut and stuck him in the mouth

It's all you can do
to be a man

Bring Me the Goblet Once More, and Let Me Drink of It

2009-09-30T15:47:00.002-05:00

I want real rock and roll again. I want the sweaty, claustrophobic bar with scantily clad everyone. I want the spit and the blood; I want it to rain champagne and Alka-seltzer. I want the taquitos being hawked from short Latin grandmothers who weave through crowded venues with their coolers and nimble grace. I want my eardrums ringing, the mic stand between my legs, the screaming people. I want to wake up and see an image of Iggy Pop in my toast and call the Sun and the Guardian and give them a real miracle. I want to count the injuries on my deteriorating, soulless temple and roar with laughter. Then, after a moment, I want to do it all over again.

The Waiting

2009-07-23T09:52:00.001-05:00

This summer is a torpedo that failed to launch. It’s sitting half way out the barrel and the crew is in panic, knowing the damn thing could go off at any moment. I’m the dumb bastard who volunteered to poke it with a broomstick. Either it explodes and my outcome is sudden, or it dislodges and sinks like a sleepy tomb, saving the crew above. I wonder what the explosion is like ringside, to see the burst and the brightness. I’d rather catch it in the face than be the men on top who slowly drown as the ship goes down.

How do I define the destruction? It could be any of a number of things. Success, failure, confidence, confusion… a new self awareness, a new attitude, the ability to write or to fail at writing, the ability to love or to fail at love… It is only one thing when broken down: change. I am the torpedo, the crew, the ship, the ocean, and the creatures inside. I am the sunny storm that warms the water and the dark glacier that cools it at night. I am the silent poet, the fruitless killer, the chordless balladeer. I’ve heard someone say that the awkwardness of morning is better than the loneliness of night. I will push the torpedo to see if they were right.

I used to think that France was my destination, but now I know it was just a stop en route. I sat in the shiftless trains and depots and restaurants and became Parisian. I smoked Gaulioses, drank 1669, sang Montand, and slipped through the streets of Picasso. I traced Miller from New York to La Place de Clichy, I rang up tabs, told stories, gallivanted and danced the Carmagnole from Paris back to Minnesota and now I’m broke. My soul is a food stamp, my heart a pre-paid debit card. I spent all I had, so I push the torpedo for a new balance.

Since I’ve been back, the work has been tireless. I’ve sung to hundreds, gyrated my hips, stomped my feet, clapped my hands… I’ve put in extra time meeting and greeting and loathing and seething. I’ve wished farewell and welcomed anew. I am still thirsty. The people wanted Petty so I gave them Dylan. The people wanted Lessing so I gave them Rimbaud. Then someone noticed I was giving myself and now the sound of chirping lulls me to sleep in a fantastic boredom. I took away reference and watched the eyes of the audience saturate with bovine wonder. There’s no time for this man, they say. So I push the torpedo from more time...

Musing

2009-06-18T22:08:00.002-05:00

The man who accumulates is inexorably inferior to the man who creates. We have totems of success in America that can only be appreciated by the cruel,
capricious, and diabolical. We have no placard for the imperfect man, no reward for truthfulness. Honesty has become a failing, a lack of couth, a sign
of poor upbringing. If everyone encountered satori out of wedlock, marriage might stand a chance. To look upon a loved one's shortcomings with satire is to
accept them. Anything else, the want of change, is solipsistic, self-serving, and unrealistic.

Rasan Rolenkirk

2008-12-15T23:36:00.002-06:00

I’ve been thinking about a concert I heard on the radio a couple years back. Rasan Rolenkirk in Germany, 1972, blowing mad notes out of a brass instrument. It’s 36 years since the recording, two years since I heard it for the first time, but the memory of one note has remained with me ever since. The song came to me from the tin space of public radio on a hot summer evening, the kind of hot when leather becomes magnetic. I was sitting in my car somewhere in the heartland, festooned with a misery of some trivial sort. His song shuffled between three distinct themes until he broke the cycle with a lone, mangled note that dripped from his trumpet like a string of spit, thin at places, thick at others, wavering like a nervous mother up at night. He held the note like a foot on mankind's neck until I could nearly envision the legs of convention thrust and shake before falling limp. Strip the biology of life to a single prehistoric sludge and squeeze it through your fingers. You’ll find the same note there, shrieking like a child blowing on a blade of grass. We who can hear this note are mad. It follows us around every corner, it intrudes upon the rhythm of our lives, it stalks and distracts us. It can be heard hissing along with the whip of our often recalcitrant tongues. It is a general’s call to arms. It is why painters paint, writers write, singers sing...

I can see myself grown old, sitting at the end of a table, white beard, red cheeks, bellowing with mirth while recounting the sordid tales of youth, laughing at children prancing around the table, stuffing myself with bread and game, whiskey and wine, grabbing at the soft rears of women with flaxen hair and aquiline features… The scene is set so vividly that I can smell the cork on the table, the musty breath of well-fed friends, I can hear the pots being set into the sink, I can feel the warmth of a loved-ones lips upon my neck like a warm, softened tamarind. This image wilts if the story changes only slightly. I do not see myself sitting there a banker, a merchant, a line cook, or yoga instructor. If I seem distant, or avoiding, it is because of this image, and my need for it to be real. Sorry babe, but I have to write something tonight.

Part of the Introduction

2008-11-18T13:39:00.004-06:00

The world is a bountiful oyster, the only problem is my lack of stomach for anything mollusk. But at least now, through my ageless perception, I have come to understand the origins of that cosmological sucking sound. It is my fellow man, slurping with fury, hoarding the shells, leaving not a scrap for the modern urchins and gamins, the artists and thinkers. These robotic philistines run full speed toward the line, their mouths agape and drooling, their bovine eyes drying in the wind, their sclerotic brains knocking around their skulls like an almond in a guitar...

The novel is being replaced. I am a blacksmith in the modern era, hammering out archaic tools and holding them to the light of this century like a fool waving a rotten piece of meat before his starving family, or the dehydrated idiot drinking from the sea. In a world this profound and lovely, America has no place for me.

A Toothless Gravitas

2008-10-07T22:38:00.004-05:00

I am warm with drink as I write to you. A half-century-old barkeep by the name of Nancy tried to show me her new tits tonight, fresh with stitch-and-all, plugged in with cellophane bags of youth. Her hair is brittle and cracked, like planks of wood with chipped paint and she stalks young men like myself from her lofty perch as a neighborhood barmaid. She pleads for a little show and tell behind the old attached liquor store like a drug fiend. Her eyes are narrow and wet, stalking, unfixed and belittling. She speaks to you while looking over your shoulder on account that her boyfriend is a lunatic with a trailer full of cats and shotguns. I don't scold a person for looking for their claim, but I'm tired of being a prospect in some toothless woman's fantasy. For a while it was the flattering "you're so cute" and "I love my boy", but now it's spiraled into the "I want a threesome with you" cast of creepiness. These days I'm marked by ungratifying thoughts of being stretched upon a rack in her living room, with a multitude of starved cats swarming over my bruised body in a scene that hearkens back to a bad Stephen King novel. Some suggest that I leave the po-dunk atmosphere of northern Minnesotan for something more culturally rich, but when I weigh the Ed Gein existence in opposition to the hipsterdom of Uptown, I'm left with no real option. I'd rather move to Portland.

A Bitter Screw

2008-09-18T21:46:00.005-05:00

Staying on task is a lesson in futility for me. It's like fucking the crease of Popeye's elbow during a spinach binge- he could flex at any moment and tear my cock clear off.

I say we shake Alaska from its hinges and push it towards Russia.

Tumblweed and Sex

2008-09-10T23:11:00.002-05:00

Minnesota’s got me by the balls. I’ll spare you the seasonal affective disorder sob story, because that’s a given. The women here are far more depressing. It used to be they just wanted someone to listen to Courtney Love with them while they cut pentagrams into their inner thighs under a rickety ceiling fan adorned with dismembered Barbie dolls that swung through the haze of bad incense, but now, in this disgusting future, it’s become something altogether asinine. Gone are the days when they could fall in love with a dream. Now they’re all democrats or republicans, pro-lifers or pro-choice. The women I’ve met in the last few years have all been definable, predictable, and self-salient. They went to college and were given opinions. Now they believe that “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams was a great poem because it described color so well. They’re anti-contrarians. They set aside the exotic islands and settled for Baltimore. Well, I’ve still got the brochures, baby. I shit maps of Mazatlan every day.

I’ve met my share of politicos who fall prey to convention rederick. I’ve met fans of Oprah’s book club. I decided long ago that I’d rather suture my cock hole shut with a cattle prod than go on a dinner date. What happened to slamming whisky at the Turf Club, or listening to vinyl with a joint and a bottle of Oregon Pinot?

The women of Minnesota are either in hiding, hitched, or dead. So let’s drink wine and slam into each other like fleshy boats on the misty Lake Superior. Let’s talk smart, drink well, and let our minds be pleased. I could go on much longer and I probably should, but I’ve been drinking Beefeater on the rocks with a few allergy pills and I’m about pass out. Goodnight, you torrential homebodies.

Well, Fiddle My Privies!

2008-08-20T09:36:00.003-05:00

Hello, my cock-eyed cobras. I started writing my death-folk, pseudo-Americana acoustic set (or whatever the hell it is) yesterday and it’s going surprisingly well. I nearly finished one song and gathered a few verses to another. This weekend I will pick up a set of harmonicas, which will have me boarded up in a room for a while as I figure out how to play the damn things. I’m just excited to hang my junk over a different ledge for a while.

Apparently I have something foul lurking in my subconscious- the two new songs both feature murder as the major plot twist. In one, entitled “Mary Come Up”, the character is waiting in a field for the piggies to round him up after finding the hacked corpse of his lover in an old motel room. The hounds are tearing through the brush, hot on his trail, but there’s an overwhelming sense of resignation throughout the song. The other song features a man who is confronted by a hussy who insists her little boy belongs to him. He analyzes the problem and does the only logical thing- shoot them both through the head. Yes, the little wide-eyed boy as well. He even brags about it. Tasty stuff, that.

Before you wander down the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” path of assumption, I’ll have you know that I’m not killing women in my songs as a way of illuminating some deep resentment. I have another song that highlights the many benefits of breathing, blood filled, stitched up, wholesome, meat-on-the-bone, LIVING women. Fuck.

Fickle Mistress

2008-08-15T10:20:00.002-05:00

Now that Corey has left the Jacobins, I’ve been thinking about many things, and I have a confession to make: I hate playing rock and roll. There, I said it. My laundry is on the line. This may come as a surprise to nearly everyone except Corey, who has listened to me complain about the transparency of rock for the last year or so. I’m a master of hyperbole, as anyone who knows me will contend, which is to say I make exaggerations to drive a point home. I get a huge kick out of it. So when I say I “hate” playing rock and roll, it really implies that I’m more or less just a little bored. However, I do hate everything that comes with being in a band. The lugging of equipment to and from shows, the five rehearsals a week, the long sound checks, the meet and greet before and after the show, the sweating, cocks-out, lights low, amps up, no vocals, string breaking pandemonium…the dick sound guys, the asshole owners, the retards in the other bands… Kids who play rock music are epically unaware of the world around them, which makes for the most gut wrenching, apoplectic, hemorrhoid-inducing backstage conversations known to man. Then they get on stage and take a cosmological crap that affects the karma of every person in the audience for at least a week, and leaves us haunted by the jagged memories of the pinna-tearing auricle lambasting.

Rock is notorious for its simple-minded, Australopithecine lyrics, which is somewhat understandable. The music tends to precede the lyrics when writing a rock song and it’s easy to get locked into playing the verses for four measures before moving to the chorus (for example), because you set these parameters with the band as a way to come together and understand where the turnaround will be. It’s nearly impossible to convince someone that the verse should be longer to accompany more words after playing it one way for weeks. This leaves the lyricist a small window through which to cram a message. This is why rock lyrics can be so redundant. This I detest, sans hyperbole. I’m a writer first and a musician later. I need lyrics that go beyond just one level of thought.

In light of this, I intend to write a more folk-based album where the lyrics come first and the acoustic guitar steps back to act more as a podium for the message. I explained this to my brother and he nearly shit. He’s not a fan of the idea, and I’m sure many people will share his sentiment. I’m pulling the reverse-Dylan, going from electric to acoustic. The band will surely go on, if we ever find a new drummer, but I’ll let it take its time. So the next time you see me, bring a different set of ears. So stay tuned, as I’m sure I’ll write a new piece in a week or two entitled, “Why I love rock and roll.”

Five 'O' Rings of Death

2008-08-14T11:20:00.006-05:00

Every four years the world sends its finest athlete-foot-infected closet homosexuals to whichever country plays host to the Olympics, to participate in the grandest form of masturbatory hyperbole known to modern man. And every four years we find out who our own “ambassadors” are days before the games commence, thus beginning the half-assed analysis by our seemingly palsied, but otherwise capable, broadcasters. Watching Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon discuss archery is like watching my nephew try to choke down grilled asparagus.

The Olympics do provide, however, a plethora of meaningless tidbits for the media outlets to fling into our mouths like popped corn. Did you know that Michael Phelps consumes over 12,000 calories per day? Did you know that divers take a shower after every dive to keep their muscles warm? How about they shed some light on what the hell “Olympic equestrian grand prix dressage” entails? At first glance it sounds like the rapid ornamenting of mares. But let’s face it- it’s much more appealing to watch sailing and rowing than coverage of, let’s say, the Russian-Georgian conflict, right?

Then there’s the obvious, but always shocking reality lurking behind the scenes of such pageantry. The 2 million Chinese evicted and displaced, while their homes were destroyed and replaced by parks to beautify the Capital for a measly two week event. 40,000 of which were later imprisoned for organizing protests. But this is the most grandiose display of the beauty of mankind and tradition, so the games apparently must go on.

We’ve seen how Olympic events act as mere accoutrements to underlying political issues. Tommie Smith and John Carlos come to mind when, in October 1968, they displayed the infamous black power salute. And recently, a group of homely volleyball players took out their aggressions in the sand, their skimpy bikinis symbolic of their nationalistic pride, and after the dust settled Georgia had defeated the Russian aggressors. The Russian team refused to admit loss. Why are these floundering activities lent more meaning than they deserve? “The Putin Puppets destroyed my homeland, but I kicked their ass on the beach in three sets!” Oh, the perseverance of man, the will of the underdog! This has deeper meaning, right?!

The public reared its ugly head in disbelief, despite the commonality of such poor behavior. (For the record, I think good sportsmanship is bullshit for the most part, but that’s another issue. Sometimes it’s advantageous to hit a batter with a 90 mph fast ball. Crowd the plate now, you little bitch!) The Olympic Games have two purposes. One is to promote travel and tourism, the other is so jock countries have a public platform on which to act the bully and the baby. Don’t get me wrong, my sentiments aren’t as deep as I’m making them out to be. My blood isn’t boiling over the thought of the Olympics, but spare me the false importance of retards hurling discs. There’s nothing on the line. Nothing will come of this.

Drone

2008-08-13T11:27:00.000-05:00

Beautiful.

Pentagon's Unmanned Spokesdrone Completes First Press Conference Mission

Greetings

2008-08-13T09:55:00.001-05:00

Cue the doves, sound the trumpets, and fire the guns. I finally blogged myself. In the kitchen. With a rusty spoon. Coming from a perfectly stoic, emotionless upbringing, I’m not sure what I’ll do here. I presume nothing more than scribble, muse, quip, and moan, but don’t expect to find any sordid details of my sexual conquests or imbedded emotions. That’s what the novel is for. You’ll have to purchase that. I do, however, plan to lower my gloves on occasion- so that the foot has an unobstructed path to the mouth. In the words of Winton Churchill, “if you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.” Keep reading.

Blarney

2008-08-13T08:46:00.001-05:00

Humans will always attempt to transcend natural limitations. We make proclamations we cannot adhere to, promises we cannot keep. We resolve to be more aware of our surroundings, to never stub a toe again, to anticipate the punch, to see that bus barreling down the road… Eventually, after some hard living, we learn to fess up to many things. We fess up to not making enough money, we fess up to our inability to love each other wholly, we fess up to our clumsiness, our inaccuracies, our missteps, mistrials, misdemeanors… We fess up to our stench, our sweat, our yearning, our hunger, our weariness… We fess up to being human. That, my friend, is one hell of a thing.

From the Glass Podium

2008-08-13T08:44:00.001-05:00

We are in an age that is unfamiliar. We have a president on the verge of becoming our nation’s first despot. His autocratic ideals have instigated a perpetual state of consternation among the subjects and citizens of this country, rendering our dissent sparse and dim. Our principles, as outlined in the constitution, are as moribund as this generation’s desire to revolt. The cloth of our flag dampens daily with our incredulity, ambivalence, and nonchalance in the face of a government that strives to become an ominous thing. It is with the weight of these actualities that our flag will become too burdensome for any coffin or pole to bear. When I ponder the future of this once-republic and the future of those nations we affect, it is with great despondency and immense importunity that I turn to you, my fellow man, to unite in the name of change. As the true employers, we must end this mutiny.