Current writing ideas to consider before writing

1. messy essay tetris escher, can't see sunset subterranean.

2. compassionate for the inanimate

3. Ginkos grandfathers old autumn and wrinkle in the soul of the cold.

4. Punks picking noses with Priests and Politicians making ecstasy O's and Prostitutes weeping.

5.Pervasive perversions, annoyances annointment, Pigmentation Segregation

6. If you're going to stand in a way, don't stand in the way.

7. He was such an asshole; he wouldn't even hit me!

8. the break up is real now: he defriended me on facebook.

9. "They don't need explanation; they want explanation. If they don't get it, they're lost and confused, and that makes them feel uncomfortable." -my sister on her rejection of explanatory text accompanying visual art.

10. "It looks like a field of butterflies outside." -Wendy Xu

A Letter to The Them

Having to endure the vexations and frustrations
of incredulously fruitless plans and conversations
has brought me to the reluctant decision to accept
"pity[ing] this busy monster, manunkind,
not." *

I abhor circumstances and persons without fruition,
be they extrinsically tangible or intrinsicically motivating.
The irrevocability of your w a v e r i n g
attitudes
perpetuates a distance
between us that you Must acknowledge.

Should you be so ignorant as to wave a hand and up a chin, it should have to suffice
that we oughtn't waste energies navigating the choppy murkiness of
unsures
and
itakethatbacks.

Get a [grip] on , then get a [grip] on how you >--connect--< to others.
So far, the wiring is making the b u l bl i nk, and we're trying to read.

Next time I find myself in front of
spanakopita, I'll think of you.

*"[pity this busy monster, manunkind,]" is a poem from Edward Estlin Cummings's 1944 collection "1 X 1 [ONE TIMES ONE]."

Freckles

I told her to stop counting her tears like steps
behind her exodus from dependence

and just tell me already. My ears and eyes
sought subtleties to appetize my idling.

we lay for ninety three minutes in speaklessness,
beside gasps and dashes of beginning syllables

darted from initiation to conclusion. Her
tears ran from the backdoors of her eyes

and into the alleys of her hair and bridges
of her nose, the red of her eyes glowing Amsterdam.

My eyes were closed all the while since there
was little to appreciate beside her sadness and

the overcast skies of an early New York autumn. How
apropos the lighting for the dollhousesize conversation.

"You already know." No, I didn't, I don't, we never do.
Men are deficient in many ways, and filling those knows

is one of them. Tell us, women, outright like a child.
Gentle weeps can mean death, parents, or bloating.

I wanted to play the part in interrogation of a
compassionate fool, and chose to scream instead,

whispering "I don't think you realize how goddamn
annoying and frustrating it is to leave me like this!"

And I had meant to leave me sitting in anxiety,
but she replied punctually "h-How d'you know?"

God. Goddamn it.

When I began wakin up, I couldn hear anythin but the static drone of everone else's A/C. I can' rub ma eyes out to that white noise, and I can' stand that harsh EH EH EH EH EH EH, so instead I gotta alarm set to WROK, 98.7 FM "The Rock" to rooster-crow me up an' out. Usually I need more than Fleetwood Mac to garagedoor ma eyes and telescope ma fists. But the lilting "Gypsy" snakecharmed ma synapses, at least. After hittin the snooze five times and countin
one
___two
______three
__________four
______________five conscious numbers
shitnowamahalfhourlate, I did it. I sat up an' swung legs outta bed, scratched crack, jiggled dick, an' opened arms to a new fuckin day.

I hava studio window so I can see Brooklyn Bridge ottovit. I wish I had suspension cables strong enough to hold me up for more thana century; sometimes the coffee and overthecounters don cut it. Maybe I should switch to black and white, respectively. A wide window also means voyeurs have a hootenanny with me. I don care if the redeyed insomniacs and yuppie earlybirds across the way see me sprawled up from down. I stretch my Holocaust emaciation right there just to piss em off. Ribs and fists makin a regal entrance into the public mornin.

Maybe they like it: one Suit 'n' Skirt does in the red brick penthouse lookin down at me. She pouts after slappin on lipstick and kisses the glass of her seethestreet window sometimes, an' I know i's for me. I know I got one guy across the way with bottlecap glasses growlin his way through the world and sneerin each sippa espresso with scoldin eyes on mine smirkin. Another, few stories lower, is a flamin broseph desperately attempting to subtly spy ma pimpled ass when he's flippin a tie in the mirror. He looks good, but no; I wouldn fuck em.
Is it odd that I wonder about their lives sometimes? I mean, I got my own problems an all, and thinkin about others is a nice, cheap waya goin about not havin to deal all the time. Don hafta pay any fees or bother any girls, jus stand an wonder through the window. Suit 'n' Skirt's prolly got a man or two that she keeps aroun for a good time and dinners outta the house, but they like her more than she likes em. I know she comes home after work after dark all the time because she's walkin roun, trippin an' stumblin until 11 otherwise. Those kisses aren't for me: they're sweet but superficial goodbyes in her earlier-than-his morning. An she's gonna keep seein em until they realize themselves that she's not treatin exclusive explosives an outta all the arms dealers they've worked with, she's the quintessential cutthroat.
Bottlecap's gotta family's jus beginnin. I can see the kid in his arms bouncin sometimes. He stares. He doesn coddle or gaze lovinly. He doesn kiss his alright wife without seemin distracted. She doesn pay im too much mind either, though. He's at the right age with the right savings and the right job in the right place with the wrong woman. And I see that in his few and far between smiles. He's not sneerin at the street's happenins; he's sneerin at his decision. It's worst when he talks to her over the kitchen island and each time she rushes to the kid cryin, he walks away from the island draggin his fingers off and away.
And Lispy McFootball could have any man he wants, if he wanted men. I know he does. Why doesn't he? Maybe he grew up in Indiana. You're in New York, man. Lou Reed New York: "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side." Bob Dylan New York: "Oh the times, they are achangin'." Jesus Christ.


So stretchin out like I do, I reach to grapple and hooklinesinker those last moments of ephemeral but entreatied unconsciousness rapidly ascending into nothing. Like a diver's lungs'll explode comin up from the depths of the ocean if he doesn exhale, ma imagination's gonna have it out with ma awakin memory if he can' remember details that could mosey into riffs, poems, equations, prophecies, or actions that lead men to greater glories than their conscious could've provided.
Those nonsequitur flashfictions in my life where I have no responsibilities and no control over anything. Anything. Those who say you can at least control yur own life, or yur decisions, didn take dreams into consideration: I've killed men an' kissed sisters in my dreams; uttered untouchable names and touched unutterable friends in my dreams. No control.

The lady next door started hittin' the wall widder fists instead of her usual "Shet up!" so I figured she had a rough night an' deserved a little quiet. Lord knows that bitch's got reason nough to complain: gottawaxhisbackhair husband, brattish kids, and a cataracted dog. The works.

I smacked the radio head, heavy stepped to the stall, threw a roach on the wall into the tub drain with a churna the faucets, and was about t' hop in when the window struckmestabbedmekilledme. This closet peephole into outside forced me closer to gritting my teeth than anything before. If I'm ever in prison, I've already got real nice associations with sieve-thin grids and grates in opaque glass now. Jesus Christ.

I never understood why Whitman was so fond of the word "yawp" until I heard it away from verse. She didn scream, an' she didn sigh with her throat out, but she yawped. Like a kid gettin licked witha belt or a doe before somethin' bites i's neck. The mornin was spoiled with this wall of a beached whale moan, someone's untraceable agony. Was this someone I had seen through my window before? I never considered considering voices in the faces I had come to know through my kaleidoscope psychology profiles an' hypotheses.

I thought about connectin a face who had to taste blood in the back of her throat: a woman jus--just absolutely hysterical...uh, her pinkin streakin face collapsed into her tremblin hands. Fuhgeddabadit now, c'mon-is a nice mornin. Like she's got Parkinson's or somethin. Mornin hair, uh, cascadin over. Flurries of dreams and nonsequitur flashfictions gettin her hair mussed overnight tossin and tumblin. Every part of her body spasming with each abrupt breath. Catch your breath, lady, c'mon. I looked out of my squarefoot glass 'n' fence open nexta the street. Ambulance lights dancin roun the surroundin windows. Ambulance sittin an' hummin. Oh god, c'mon No. Waitinta serve humanity (yet knowing that its heart couldn't beat fast enough to race too many dyin lovelies to the hospital in time).

I can only imagine what happened, buh why would I wanna?

As a distant humanitarian, I stared into the air for a consideration, eyes blurred and crusted over, tryna concentrate on some onesizefitsall prayer. I couldn muster up more than "God. Goddamn it." A softness for myself. Entirely inaudible to her. Was it because I really cared?
Or because I really wanted to care?
Or had I wanted to believe that I cared but really didn't?
I didn't know her. But is anonymity reason nough for apathy? Is this why news anchors are so calm when recitin genocides?

Even if I did care, she prolly would've been just a mere acquaintance, a petty "Bleshou" to an overheard petite sneeze while standin next to one another and waiting for the screechin metro to take us to our eighthour burdens. Maybe I'm anyone an' she's noone.

We weren't even that.

I couldn tell who or what she was from her exacerbated weep (for solace and silence, I'm thinkin). Let it out, lady, let it fall. If she was younger, maybe I'd checked her out down in the diner at the corner of our streets before; chewin on some bacon, thought about fuckin her from behind. I didn know. If she was older, maybe I thought about how happy she is in an "American Beauty" sorta moment of reflection.

As an ignorant-everyone, I caught ma breath, blinked, and took one stride into cool blue tiles with even cooler water punchin me in the back. I oscillated ma head under what felt like cicadas explodin an' meltin down my back an' face. Remnantsa summer dronin beetles drippin from ma hair. I pissed in the shower thinkin bout how I couldn see ma contribution to the faucet-rain illuminated by the sunlight cascadin in then. I thought bout how the water surroundin taunted how I hadn't cried in 4 anda half years. I miss you an' I'm sorry I don think boutchu more often... --why did I feel so awful bout it? People die everyday.

Why did I think that someone died?
This was gettin ridiculous.
I tried t' focus on wakin up.

By the time I gototta the shower, the ambulance was gone and I couldn hear the woman yelpin no more, so I didn have to close the window. I shaved in silence. I brushed my teeth in silence. I went through the motions of corporate presentability in silence. I straightened ma tie in frontuva mirror, and proceeded to drag my hard hand over ma face, closing ma eyelids with the thumb an' forefinger like I'd read bout before. Jesus Christ.

Conversation

"No one else loves you."
"...Like you do?"
"No, period. No one else is capable of loving you but me."

Hable A Ella

You left "i left someone" for me to read,
and I wrote my rights to you to reply:

1. To "take it right" in my Lionmane pride
__when I synthesize your diction into mine.

2. To speak to you and write to you in
__heiroglyphics and onomatopoeias and colors.

3. To presume nothing when you expose
__yourself to me; both eyes closedIpromise.

4. To shake our words around in conversations
__and call it dancing while lying on the floor.

5. To deceive your reluctance for praise by praying
__words into observations: "Complex. Like you."

6. To love your petnames because "rickrickarack hey child"
__has more slapyourhead honesty than my birthname.

7. To take touch slow, sighing your alrights with every
__advance of my deerly fingertips picking lint.

8. To offer you the patience and calm it seems neither your
__daily interactions nor your own brain have in stock.

9. To stay silent, mosey silent, when in my head I hear
__yelps and yips and yawps of "ILOVEYOUILOVEYOU!"

10. To challenge your originalities and eccentricities, make
__them more your own, and to make you think. Think.

11. To paint your toenails and kiss your forehead the
__next time you say you don't need closeness.

Strawberry Knees

Evelyn didn't mind being a girl. She knew what it meant to be a girl of her age; wear pink and frilly everything. Love unicorns and poke boys with sticks. Enjoy candy, cartoons, and sleepovers with other girls.
She was unaware--at the gentle, pigtailed age of nine--of all the obligatory accoutrement that she would eventually grow into. At this age, she was not yet familiar with what "patriarchy" means, who Anais Nin was, and what expectations society had in store for her teen-aged and adult selves. Pencil skirts. Spider eyes. Celine Dion. An explicitly specified sense of sexuality.
But these qualities of womanhood were so surface and she questioned much more often the elemental differences between boys and girls. Cosmetic surgery and drag can make anyone anything, so she knew that physical appearance wasn't it. Give a man some duct tape and a woman some duct tape and they can switch roles.
Instead, she thought, while riding her bicycle, if only girls liked riding their bicycles. If only girls sometimes trip up, get a shoelace caught in the cogs, or glance away when eyes should be bullets forward, and scrape and chafe their skin against pavements, dirts, and cool spring grasses. If only girls beat their chests and yawped in pain and pride for their strawberry knees and busted anklets.

[Maybe I could be an Eventually]

Maybe I could be an Eventually
and live up to all of my procrastinations
so that I'm reliable in some respect.

Maybe I'm a not-know,
trying on for size your yesyesyeses or nos and
finding assurance and safety unassuring and unsafe (unsafely).

If any is a euphemism for choice,
count me in as anyone, anywhere, anyhow,
surviving out of and off of anything I can d.i.y.

And if I can live on and propose any anys,
they'd be a handful of unsures, a pride of
idon'knows, a tattle of hmmms.

Camus imbued absurdity in the life of a
million Strangers sold, and I couldn't count
on a more satisfying quietude of apathy.

Now I create divisiondistortion, within the harmony
we float through. So while you're looking at your
watch, I'm trying to avoid planning my next move.

___________________________________________________________________________________
*Because Justine's right, these notes are only for the truly oblivious. But I can't delete them after having experienced the thrill of notes from the likes of T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," or most nearly everything from David Foster Wallace.*

* An abbreviation for the contemporary anarchistic creed of "Do it Yourself," the belief that we should live our lives relying solely on ourselves for most of life's predicaments in order to make us more responsible and stronger in character, mind, and body.
**Albert Camus (pronounced Ahl-bear Cam-oo) wrote The Stranger during the Existentialist movement, and it has since been considered one of the crowning achievements in narratively explicating many of the philosophies of Existentialists: the absurdity of life, individuality, non-conformity, hedonism, exploring the significance of tangibles, etc. The protagonist is defined by his apathy towards social norms, living for himself in passive means and ignoring the consequences of his actions.
***Modest Mouse is a terrific band whose single "Float on," is primarily about not getting too heated over lukewarm predicaments in life, but here I enrich the phrasing by emphasizing the passivity (in life and in its multitude of moments of decision) inherant therein.

Richard

I was born a lion,
and have never felt more like a cub than when I gained my mane.

The mane grew robust and golden, a natural reflection
of the natural selection of who gains responsibility, invincibility.

And everyone expects me to keep the pride,
strengthen the pride, make the pride together and strong.

Today I belched long and deep in the throat
and felt like a lion. But being and feeling are not fraternal.

And it's been months since I bit something
until it bled and slept in the warmth of my jaw.

And if I do so soon, will I experience the
same remorseful jolt I've craved and offered for years?

An old man once dreamt of me trotting along
the coasts of Africa, and asked himself what it means to be [a man].

Our jobs

I wish I could tell you that my job doesn't bleed into us.

But when I come home late, squint at words, words, words, and can't see you,
we know the letting has come.

You wish you could tell me that your job doesn't bleed into us.

But when You come home early, mourn over my absence by fucking someone else,
we know the letting has come.

But I can't come home early,
and You can't come home late,
so when's our thicky thick milkshake
gonna turn into an empty wine glass?

Corona, Queens, New York, New York

There are six barbershops (and gold traders and bodegas and laundromats) in a 10 minute walk. These trades and services are seemingly flourishing, at least along Junction Blvd. The recession did not affect them because everyone needs a clean cut, Downy clothes, a 1a.m. fix of coconut milk, or cash from World War II brooches.

The streets have never not smelled like la basura and pigeon piss.

Contemporary Mexicana pulses from loudspeakers outside of record shops that also sell shoes.

Under techniwarmcolor fabric umbrellas, glass-plastic boxes of fruits (from sweet sun mangos to succulent flamingo watermelon) and corn-on-the-cob-on-a-stick are sold. Thick-spread butter and snowy paprika for savory flavor to grit the sweet crunch of maiz amarillo. Even in these months when we know what "wind chill" means, these umbrellas offer the reminiscence of summer temperatures atop Mayan mountains, lush and green.

Cheekless pantyhose over shameless mannequin budonkadonks and spouseless shoes shrinkwrapped in plastic.

Some random crazy dude yelling craziness in Spanish at the top of his lungs all the fucking time. The same phrase over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Something about buying cell phones....

Dudes two feet shorter than me handing out cards with beautiful black haired women displaying their curves and the opportunity to talk to them for only $8.00 a minute.

Fifteen hours a day and night of car alarms going off with no one sprinting to be called humanitarians and an ice cream truck with a clap clap clap manifesto rhapsody.

Trash of La Dentista Handbills, Restaurant Sewage, and McDonald's bags line the tiles and curbs and pocks of this urban ground, this gum-tarred and Graffiti pretty streetside. I can't tell you how many infants' socks and shoes, without their significant others, have been been abandoned and left to dampen and spoil in the streets of Corona.

"Jaded Princess"

I should have heeded his warning and kept my

distance.

You first were expecting corruption underneath silks and beads.
But after the kindness and obedience, loyalty turned too much,

too soon.

Perturbation reigned shortly thereafter until I selfishly took
it from you, took you, tucked in you, fucked in you, fucked you,

And then returned.

Rough and tumble lust didn't host your oohish afterparties, so I'm
sorry I didn't show and didn't want to show after saying I'd come,

and then returned.

Time in scarves and streets playing sweetness, but I'm a notknown.
And you were too, so I thanked you for your honesty not a moment

too soon.

And I reserved the right after the months' deceit to call you
a cunt and instruct you to maintain what was the most civil

distance.

"She's a big bowl of crazy" sounded appetizing initially.

epilogue

You keep saying you won't
___keep me waiting,

and I kept believing you
for the sake of finding

the gentlest kiss and
the hardest fuck and

writing them into a
featherlight sonnet with

your cunt for the epigraph.

The Journalist (Denouement)

Pools and Greens dropped to
pools of leaves hazeling after her

'Ineverwanttoseeyouagain' schtick and
kitsch and my 'we'llsee' promptly thereafter.

Months passed. Our New York autumned
a gentle adieu until her tacit disregard

for me bled into scissors snipping ribbons:
"Hey. I dreamt about you," she began again;

They were words suspended from an identity
since I'd suspended her from my mind.

"You apologized." And I would come to
apologize and whisper to her again.

But not without distortions, up and down
(spikes in) brows and lips, voices and hands.

Not without trekking Manhattans of
songlessness and abrasive diction.

Not without a night of kissing for seconds and
sleeping sexless until glowing curtains woke us.

For too long we had faith in our turbulence,
that dissonant musicality. Our silent smirks.

And after calling me "sweet" and "rude" while
thinking her a cunt and nun in two week's time,

I realized we can't make this music. We're better
off turning off the mic and going home.

Teaching Seventh Graders Poetry

Fuck the margin, kids.

Summer

I love this weather,
the objectification of those glaring smoothnesses,
those curves bare in the sunlight,
_______________the rippling,
________________________ jiggling,

voluptuousness _________of their bends.

We call them tits and ass,
we call them breasts and buttocks,
and though I know
_____________-I do, _______I know-
that women are persons too,
goddamnit, sometimes they don't wear their humanity.

Walking Lyrically

Walking lyrically, I happened upon a list of a stranger's aspirations.
And thought how I'd make making love to you the last of my own.

And you'd be on the list last because I want you to think I want you.
But I want to continue quietly telling myself "I'll be sure to abstain"

without necessarily thinking it the truth, the godawful truth. I
never want to see you again (but, of course, I will).

I'll Serenade You

I'll serenade you
amongst these romantic souls,
and hope that my voice stands

out.

Not because it's awful,
but because it's
sincere.

[Zip down lips direct for this fatlip affect]

Zip down lips direct for this fatlip affect
to say "now go," to say "now" slow just
to savor this breakup a little longer.

Masquerade, clean away the mascara
so that we won't think we know the brink
wellenough to remember how we weren't tough.

Phone Message

* "beep" in an onomatopoeia for 'go' ...and 'stop.' *

-Hi there,
my sincerest apologies for
not having called in so long;
I've been busy breaking down,
and I thought you would have changed by now.
Well,
when you get the chance to speak up,
be sure to scream:
tell me of your weekend, your week,
your seconds and years
without me.
And by the by,
I'm sorry
for everything...
and I lo-

Relieve and Release

Not having picked up again, or
having picked up with a no,
this stranger, this
strange
her
sounded off on
my smile and "sorry"
while her graceful glance and nothingmore
translated to a sweet salvation in isolation.

Untitled

O, how I wish for these days to end,
the hours and thoughts and smiles...

Pet Peeve

You are probably
in bed with your ex
right now
laughing and touching.
Which leaves me
in bed with myself
right now
sneering and staring.

And after I stare at
the floor and ceiling,
trying to decide which
is less boring,
you'll try to decide if I'm
writing about you or another
girl pseudoboyfriendified.

[I've built a home of skin and bone]

I've built a home of skin and bone
to occupy my time when I am alone
because these walls

(cannot and) have not

whispered nor wailed,
nor caressed nor harassed

nor silently failed like the lives that I've known,
all the lives that I've known.
All the lives I've called friends who have not spoken nor shown.

And so alone I'll stay,
quiet and smiling
in my skin and bone home
at my stack of lives
decaying and
piling.

Pull Out The Tea, Pull Out The Lace (An Allegory)

I didn't think that this was worth posting until a friend encouraged me to do so given her enjoyment in reading it. I said "But it's childish," and she replied "Exactly," and I considered how she was right and that's what I was going for in the first place

You see

Out I was, in this grand graceful night,
Navyblue sky, wandering without light
(the moon had capsized, the stars had drown,
the sea of clouds rose up, up, and down).
And within a great wood, I bestowed a great sight.

Through these harshest of winters, it had endured,
An improbable thing by which I had been lured:
The petals of a deceivingly timid flower
maintaining its majesty, its angelics, its power,
and aspiring to inspire while proposing its cures.

And so I took the flower from the ground
held gently in my hand, a Rose up from down.
Well I furiously, passionately, willingly ran
(taking the flower to the nearest flower stand)
escaping from the bats and owls without a sound.

And at that stand I told the good sir
"Please, sir; help me, sir!" "Ah!" he said "Sure!"
He took it from my hand, ever gently so,
and I waved to it as it waved to and fro.
I nodded to its beauty, and he grinned to concur.

On the 7 Train

You look like the kind of girl who deserves a kiss.
You look like the kind of girl who has not been kissed
in a long time.

And I so much so want to kiss you so,
but who am I to intrude on your loneliness?