today like everyday

... walking toward the light
on st. claude avenue i heard church bells
ring twelve o' clock amid hurling cars
and the banter of crackheads
leaning in shadows.
i was walking away from a show
at Cow Poke's feeling lonesome
and so made a great gesture home
staring wide eyed into everything
on the ground and beside me.

someone had left out a crusty box
full of clothes and room furnishings,
letters and old porn on the sidewalk outside
Cajun's Bar. i grabbed a clean blue collered
shirt in the bottom and resumed walking.
there were ex-patriate middle class
runaway punks sitting and drinking outside
of Hanks on Port st. and thugs with fat assed
women hanging on their shoulders in the parking lot
blasting Little Wayne through bass speakers.
a brown tabby cat ran bright eyed and heretic into an abandoned home
across the street staring at me as if i should
know something
while another runaway grabbed cardboard
out of Hank's dumpster.

St. Claude avenue is a large two way street
with long bodies of grass seperating each direction.
everyone smokes cigarettes on st. claude
and everyone is weary of either getting shot
or fucked with some way.
i find it an avenue beautiful usually just wanting to
get home, pick up groceries or find a show at some
bar. the avenue is beat beyond repair.
three out of every home or business per block
is either abandoned, squatted or under repair.
and the cops drive by flashing red white and blue
hailing down and up the road pushin sirens
in our ears. the trains are loudest and most modest.
they roll in and out of the military yard
on Press St. goin real slow and patient.
although last year my friend Patrick told me he
was heading home to his squat near the tracks
when he saw a gangster jump out of his car
after bein in hot pursute by the military police
and he ran straight in front of a passing train
dieing, instantly in front of Patrick about twenty feet off.

today like everyday

its another day,
and i can't tell if i'm tired
or plainly eager.
woke up at 8:00
this morning, looked out
the window on to the porch
covered in snow.
beyond that was a jungle
of forest and neighborhood
covered in white wintry wonderland.
three birds split in either direction
over the house as Art Blakey
began squeeling Come Rain or Come Shine.
it was a most official wintry seattle suburb day.
Obama began talking on the Television and on the radio.
i took two showers and jacked off once.
bemused over an article on two twin poets who
were "making a mark in America."
and set the laundry to dry
as the top ramen in my pot boiled on high.
the three cats at my place
are three shades of gray
and with the most official look, lie around
and wander outside in offense of something.
i littered a mixed cigarette as i listened
to the voicemails left by Daniel on my cell phone.
he was recalling something i'd written him in a letter.
he was cracking up while reiterating what i'd written
about businessmen on airplanes - the air plaines from
new orleans to atlanta and to seattle.
i wrote that "business men, moustache business men,
and middle aged women wash down
their salt peanuts with light beer."
listening to daniel's
three voicemails over my letter i'd sent him
sent me in a bout of convulsive giggles.
and as we both laughed together
i noticed three birds split in either direction
over the house
as Art Blakey squeeled Come Rain or Come Shine.

today like everyday

strange, the past time of the day.
watching people and things fly away.
i could care less about amusement
if i wasn't sentient.
now i must be infused with stories
that are hardly that of my own.
a curious rest about the future.
as if angels sit beside me now
as i write the contract of my life...

today like everyday

in the boiling parking lot
of america
i stand alone
and scream.
for all of the wires in the sky
that rain death upon our minds,
all of the machines,
their systems of babble and time.
i call
for unified essence!
a grace
to enrich us again.
as if from the sky
or from the ground.
SOMETHING so natural
as GRACE to revitalize
the coars of our BEING.

today like everyday

why am i obsessed with writing?
it just doesn't ever STOP.
i'm addicted to it like a dream.
like a stride pianist,
these words and images
keep coming to me
and i place them with such a melody.

there is a bounce bass,
and a low vowel held for measures.
a high howl of sudden bops!
and petite pleasures.
with such a sad richness to its moving soil,
its like a hot jazz combo killing
a crowd with machine gun banter
- what tone, breath and exhale.
a climbing god upon the stairwell
into stardom.
the very myth we question.
ah, writing is a farewell
to the future.
6 hours a day
into heavy drive.
its as if lifting weights
or jumping jacks in the morning
instead of coffee - although,
there is lots of coffee
and mixed cigarettes,
time and handling.
jacking off into the chilly cold
announcing in
sighs.
wet soup and bread for days.
a few shots and beers around.
scares, threats and consultations.
a few kisses over phone calls.
nocturnal sunshine of the mind
i am holy, a writer.
a bygone be bygone
freak of nature.
incessant fool am i,
although desireous
of such essence,
essence of measure.

today like everyday

i wrote for four hours this morning.
and sparsely throughout the evening.
i sat, wrote, drank a whiskey 7,
rolled a couple cigarettes,
and jacked off.
i ordered a pizza
and watched a war flick.
angela called and i
strummed the guitar
singing Blue Moon of Kentucky.
sent a poem into McSweeney's
Magazine with my name,
address,
number,
and e-mail.
i thought about grandpa
and his missing leg.
my mum and all the family
of relatives.
olympia and the chaos
thats growing.
i wonder about
new orleans, Will and the crowd.
Angela and how i want to hold her.
my friend's address in hawaii
as he grows coffee
and plans to travel japan.
the economy recession
affecting people's lives;
falling.
falling.
falling.
a black flag is falling.

we will become sillhouettes
amid great light.
when all our hopes and dreams
are dealt with as morning crossword puzzle.

today like everyday

ashes to ashes,
dusk till dawn.
life is another,
life is a father.
it will take care
of you.
or put you to
the hell of what is imagined.
ashes to ashes,
dawn till dusk.
life is another,
life is a mother.
it will birth you
inside.
it will kill you
out-right.
ashes to ashes,
dusk till dawn.

a sad smile
upon the angel
whom carries us all.
naked and pale,
an example of people.

ashes to ashes
our saint lord's passions.
we are what we are
as to argue what we're
here for.