I
Here in the town of the common and the good,
only the flashes reach us. There’s no thunder
rumble, no sound to savor, no low music
to score the out-of-favor soul. No, first
it’s the din, carried air away east, then rain
broken in waves on main street curbs
where urges are nearly two blocks long.
Homines urbis mundi,
park in the lines [...]

“It was intelligence and nothing else that had to be opposed.” – Søren Kierkegarrd
The wind is against me
on my pedaled way to work.
A bus almost clips me
cutting in to its shelter at the curb.
A Benz would prefer to run the light
and me over to waiting one second more.
The finger inside shows off its white
length [...]

Alert as the light that changes color
with the weather atop the building
some mistake as electric, we’re mingling
our blood and juices without the dolor
that ought accompany a great big age
of disease. We are lovely here and welcome
the change we bring to each brown room.
In the phone booth, we tear our pages
from the musclebound book, feeding each
to [...]

When I’m done, love, when
the impalpable me has made his sullen exit,
scrape clean the meat from my bones. String it
in ribbons in the back yard trees. Wait
for morning rain and hear the glorified pigeons
attempt to sing. Summon then the odiferous
ones, the shunned ones, the old utilarians
who speak to no one, but whose sense
of dread and [...]

Half-full of someone like a mother
or her lover unbuttoned in dad’s
traveling robe, turned around
in an instant, to the strained grace
of pointed cameras. A kleptomaniac
of attention, eyes pinched in to lit
aluminum, hoarding the latest loss
of memory in a cipher nation of nervous
oblivion, entertaining what remains
of the children. Bozo is staring at his
shoes again, doing his damnedest
to [...]

While listening to BBC news coverage of Iran on the radio this morning, the words “Revolution speeds evolution” came to my head. At the time, the words fit the current Iran situation very well and time will tell whether there is a revolution, a new election, or crushed hopes and lives. Since it rang in [...]

In a bold sign of thawing relations between the countries, Presidents Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez announced today that the state of Texas would be traded to Venezuela for Jesus Moronta, a slick-fielding, hard-hitting 14-yr-old shortstop phenomenon, cash considerations and an undisclosed amount of raw, premium coca.

There are no camels in this combo crèche,
assembled in Malaysia, cooked in Singapore.
Pieces of play, each in place, dominate the living
room, diverting our path to where we cleanse
and empty and brush the store-bought teeth,
neither sneer nor smile from their snap-tight hold.
The lone cow’s head is broken, decapitated
last season, lost in the vacuum or the latest
attempt [...]

When home, I’m often standing outside my house,
looking in.
Perhaps this is interesting.
Perhaps examination is due.
Perhaps it’s why I smoke, still.
And take the longest shits known to man.

1-10
The Walkmen – You & Me
The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
The Bug – London Zoo
Man Man – Rabbit Habits
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig !!!
Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
Sons and Daughters – This Gift
TV on the Radio – Dear Science,
James McMurtry – Just Us Kids
11-20
Kathleen [...]