Free Write Friday the 13th 2017

it's friday the 13th
students giggle and say jason and say date
and i say
you have a date with jason?
and she says it's friday 13
and i say oh i see
i didn't even realize the day or the date
luckily luckily luckily
i make kids say it five days a week
i'm reminded of time
i got 3 hours to kill in the teacher's room
should i tell you about the weather?
down here in the naka ward
it looks like early evening
it looks like 5pm
should i tell you it's 11:24am
they use the 24 hour clock here
so really it's just 11:24
you know you know you know
perfect for a gloomy friday
here in never never land
i sift through the news
it's all hurricanes and fires
not much has changed since 2013, but it looks like things are getting even hotter and wetter
but here it looks like a normal gloomy october day
should i go shoot some video
yeah yeah yeah
im stuck in this room
but not really not really not really
i haven't free written anything since 2013
but like i said
things seems the same but magnified
now instead of a well meaning symbol of _______________
we got a charlatan made of russian gold
yeah yeah yeah
and Abe called an early election
i ask adults
who will you vote for
i get that we Japanese don't talk about politics
we are happy with the status quo
we all have our houses and our lives
& yeah well who doesn't
i'm too american
i'm too something
some europeans surprised to hear it
you're not canadian?
does it all come down to education
or
are we wired
are we wired
are we wired
missfired
synapses
that brain man
that brain
i wish you had told you me you see hallucinations
i wish i had known you were sick
things would have made a lot more sense
is it all about me or all about you or all about them?
false dichotomy
yeah maybe george carlin was right
are all my heros men because of patrirchy // because women have been silenced since our power is proudction?
oh bb oh bb oh bb oh bb
oh bb oh bb oh bb oh bb oh
it's friday the 13th and i got a student who's got a date with jason

krary muzak in the drug store
it's certainly not home
& you're probably away from everyone you love
but there are still potato chips and beer
there is still free streaming TV
and michael westen to keep you company
writing like jenny holzer or ben austin
is
impossible
but there's still beer there's still beer

you payin wit somethin

faux dual party system
neo barbarians c/r/i/n/g/e @ transparency

we got lead in this pocket
and we walking into the ocean

free write battle ship down // tell me who you werkin fer
                           // george carlin conspiracies
type a, type b            //both the same type

we workin under an illusion of choice
& how much longer till the barrel bursts over the falls
neglected fossil fuel debate

get liberal all you want
....but
it's to keep you sated
neo barbarians speak in dollar signs bb
art made in the 80s is still relevant but now more expensive
free///free///free
the /// to pay attention
you payin attention // you payin wit somethin
what's yer sign bb? i told you i cant fuck with that

4.28.13

she announced at the beginning of her creative writing class:
she was//is a marxist

no human being was more special than any other
no human being was different from any other
but then she gave some kids a C and some kids an A
nullifying her own argument

our basic needs are the same if that s what you mean ma m
food // health // shelter (gimme shelter) // love


and...


i m sitting
somewhere between ayn rand and karl marx
but it s an uncomfortable swiss made modernist chair
A: "is it the only chair we have in this gallery?"
B: "yes"
A: "shit..."

broke down systems
denim blue collar workers
how did jeans get so expensive?

she tugs on me
she tugs on me

A: "you re great"
B: "i m just average"
A: "you can be whatever you want"

telephone game:
oscar wilde whispers in my ear from beyond death
i got a paper cup tied to a string
he s saying something about decadence and walmart
but i can t quite make it out
fitzgerald chimes in and...
i say: babes we been here so many times
nitzsche is talking about eternal return and pinky twirls his mustache
ayn rand rolls her eyes... happiness is something you can buy
oppen just sits in the corner with william carlos williams
both blankly staring, refusing to play the game

A: "i love you"
B: "prove it"
A: "i can t"

intangible love lines
connected invisible blue strings
connected by data blood banks
mood dependent swing votes

people are all different and the same at once suddenly says oppen
and then i pass out

control

quick fix
it didn't hold up
in court
ppl are angry
ppl should be
misdirected house and senate bill a busters

"it's the chicago problem"
"it's the philly  problem"
"it's the oakland problem"

and you think...it's a human problem

but...when it happens in ct that's where we draw the line

controlled arms
from mental harm
long law arm
neo barbarians put on the best shows
quick get out yer popcorn
annie get out yer gun
the race to the quick fix has begun
they knew they wouldn't win
rigged/fixed/quick/fix/trix

deep deeper deepest
"money it's a crime"
kids knee deep
ignorant bliss
black & blue finger kiss

back up big gov you killed mlkjr and hundred of thousands of thousands of thousands (can i buy a 0; oh a vowel; sorry wrong game)

it's no slippery slope
it's a rope a dope dope

her stomach is a ball tightly wound into nothing; she holds a hand out...
neo barbarians walk past; pass control; pass go;
collect rent from board walk and mediterranean; don't forget the rail roads;
get out of jail free cards and yer a winner

mama i got the quick fix blues
& they is riding down my spine into my empty stomach
cough syrup symptoms of root issues

jw13

maybe i am ready
to go with you
and it's telling when the heaviness hits
b/c i write about myself and you and the past 4 years

your arms told me we are ready to leave the party
your mouth in a dream
the eyes you had when you were happy

my whole body hurts
and i dont have any money again
i made a lateral move to the other side of the world
crying onto my keyboard

the heaviness
your blue is a heaviness that i had on my shoulders
and some times it's a lightness
of knowing that you appear in the dream plane
or maybe i died a little in my sleep
on this island country of rock and fault lines and helpful strangers in suits

but i am ready to leave the party
b/c you left before me
and it still hurts a little less each day; a little more others

time doesnt actually heal anything
i want you to know this
b/c a memory can be released so easily
and with little cause

a breath into neurons
a flash of litmus paper

i remember them all & the pain

i googled his name for the first time in years
johnny weir whispered it into my ear

you're having a baby; after claiming infertility & expressing a lack of interest
i wonder if you still write but i can't find any evidence that points me there

you are my ex lovers
and my heart is an elephant

nostalgia is the real bitch

hits reset back to 91

who could have foreseen the smart phone
in rape cases

i worry for teens these days
nostalgia for a decade unremembered
but there was something simple...quaint
about a vhs trailer and an answering machine
having your own phone line and a beeper was tops
a cigarette at the diner with a coffee and a pizza bagel if you had the cash
no one could contact you if you didn't want them to
and cnn was a reputable news organization(?)

before kids were shooting each other at schools
and the subsequent issue of id tags and metal detectors in mine

we cut class at an abandoned house
and smoked rings around the yellow wall paper
we walked over to video thrills
and stole all the vhs horror flicks
we drove in a honda accord with a sunroof and a joint
and had bonfires outside at the farm house
and it was 99 for columbine and we all waved goodbye
to what we knew

and who could have seen the future
as it unfolds from the front and behind:
a roll of red velvet trimmed with cerulean silk & a polyester paisley print chartreuse bottom)

3.23.13

incredible surreal night mare that was kazo
the train ride wasn't so bad on the way back
japanese people politely looking at you
or not so politely
this is a free write and i am tired
exhausted out of my wits

i miss a beard and hair

i miss a brown eyed smile

but here i am
on a rock
and i have a friend and it's good they put me near my friend. he is very helpful but hides things like a squirrel.

women are beautiful and confusing
i am beautiful and confused
i am not used to this key board and installed classic shell b/c windows 8 blows.
but this toshiba is ok.
dang sony
you pulled the wool over my eyes
but that vcr still works
what a brand

i am tired
exhausted out of my wits

hey guys the internet is getting real good at telling me what to watch on youtube
let's not ruin it

chapter 11 of dorian gray is the best chapter
i am sitting in the dark in yokohama
with my money and a stuffed penguin
i did not go to roppongi

2.21.13 thoughts on alt lit and poetry

i.

love comes in waves but i would rather it  be a constant gentle whirring

a white noise humming gently lulling everyone

to forget its presence

          its there under the surface

helping us sleep or relax or live

iia.

sometimes i wish i never went to college

i did this before college

and it’s not like college is responsible for my craft

it was like joining the most expensive book club known; with contests held every few weeks for written work on the read work and yeah; but more like swimming b/c that’s always a contest between yourself and the clock

iib. 

alt lit: it's hard to know/recognize sincerity (don't get me wrong; i love irony, but i find it hard/disengenous to pull off) 

alt lit: a warm embrace by a community of people looking for a voice amidst confusion

i have always believed that any one can write and read poetry

which makes it so beautiful

but of course i am speaking with bias

iii. 

w/e you decide to label it, poetry is embedded in humanity itself

we produced poems long before anything else

ancient rhythms/modern rhythms/post modern rhythms

all signifiers

to indicate a time, a cursor blinking on a line of data of human history

somehow i think we moved away from this

as a result of war and technology

but alt lit is a way to give poetry back to humanity

to bring it back to the vernacular

allowing the mundane/fascinating story of this century to be told

we live during simultaneous wars

i don't think the romantics ever could have imagined something more frightening than tuberculosis (the “a bomb”; “drones”; “aids”; “world war”; “famine”; “malaria”...et al)

iv. 

this is all i can do

all i have ever done

as long as i can remember

so...

v.

i want to write about love and triumph and defeat of neo barbarians

i want to write a love poem to your consciousness that you share with me

i want to write a love poem to the singular and the masses

i want to write to a world that doesn’t yet exist and make it into existence with my fiction

i want to tell a story of love and triumph

but i already said that

vi.

i was never comfortable with irony

in terms of audience reception

like do you think they’ll get it?

who cares says my other self;

they are 2 sides to one coin

for lack of a better metaphor

see: taoism

see: buddhism

the middle path

between darkness and light

epilogue:  

i have given away so many of my possessions and i always feel light weight afterwards

and i think some other girl will be able to wear that dress and feel confident like i did when i used to wear that dress

free writing 2.26.13

you know what phrase really grinds my gears?

"it's just business"

like ok
that's why we had to create ethics
if it were just as the phrase says
then there is no room for humanity
it is quantified as just business:
harsh and cold and just a way to turn a profit, the bottom line

them's the breaks
fist hired first fired

humanity turned itself into a commodity
by virtue of its own greed

isn't that fun?

it isn't any wonder that monotheisms had a rule about that
and buddha
and parshva

stepping back
to look at the colorful circus of our world
it isn't any wonder that people love capatalism;
this is mine,
i earned it,
i worked hard,
i have ownership b/c some bytes were sent hither tither to me as a result of hours i was at some place doing an assigned task...

yeah

i have nothing against work. i actually like it; when it's rewarding. isn't that the trick?
and you aint gonna find that reward at the bottom of the customer service barrel


but..

to hold onto possessions as if they aren't as ephemeral as our lives is...strange

i remember cleaning out my grand mother's possessions
she was a nurse during world war II
and her pictures were lovely
photographs of her and my grandfather and cocktail parties
she had lovely scarves
and i took some with me and some other things
but we still had to donate or throw a lot away

so sometimes all i can think of is the waste
but it's so much more waste than even my grandparents b/c of disposable/obsolete technology and plastics
i think of alien archaeologists digging into landfills and puzzling about the "humans that once lived here"
monuments to waste
waste mounds
ancient burial mounds of waste

love

love WILL tear us apart again
b/c it’s that word
4 letters

so heavy

like

fuck/cunt/hate

i think love is the heaviest 4 letter word
and it will tear us apart underneath its pressure

of connotation
false connection
entrapment;

words are both neutral bodies of symbols and boxes at the same time

11.26.11 Part III

i wish to be reincarnated as a lap dog

close to the bosom of a young celebrity

oh to cuddle in those breasts

and why censor who you are

or the personal from work

isn't it all personal

but i want to connect

i want to make contact

i want to correlate the thoughts that we all must have

collection conclusion concurrent>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>generant

key strokes

organized tappings

word searching

technologies available to archive the vast amount of information of public domain

once entered into another consciousness it becomes public

it is no longer yours

once you have articulated it to another

and so is the place of all food commerce and art

all that can be consumed

is here

readily available

Published Surface Goods

i remember this poet i met once in the cafeteria break room of a whole foods
i looked at his poetry
i just remembered his name again
i looked again; just now

and

it's the same as it ever was
a tinge of misogyny
a struggle to understand the female
surface goods
published

and a novella

if mediocrity is the trend
let's break the curve

too cool to talk to me then
and too cool now

is this sounding too bitter? well ok
whatever nevermind

11.26.11 Part II

people ask me what i want to do with an english degree

and i tell them i do not know

as i spend most of my life doing

letting itself sort itself out

letting it lead me

b/c it is the true master

control being limited and false

follow the stray red string on noriko's* jacket

the umbilical (dis)chord

enzyme splayed particle

language spreading as a signifier to interpret the material world

echoes of the sorrow of colonialism and the repercussions we all feel from our shared history

and there is no change

people live in the dark whilst sleeping

people are limited and narrow b/c they [b/c they need to be] want to be(?)

i am not sure

nit sure

sit tight

aim for the glass

the tumbler of rock and progression

sifted to melt

i am in this position

of nothing

i am in this position

to say to the void that is this screen

the void of perfect silence in the hum of the far reaches of the machine

material machine mind

mechanisms

to interrelate to the happenings of the animals

*see: "noriko's dinner table"

11.26.11 Part I

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy?INTCMP=SRCH

including this in the list of topics

of demands that in america the real truth of capitalism remains

greed alt corruption alt material alt language alt surface

                                                   tension                                         the tsunami at the beginning of 2011

/forage

/camp sites on public sidewalks pepper sprayed

/egypt /libya /and that region under the eye of the world and local regimes

/communication devices

/CHINA alt gov alt emerging middle class alt thanksgiving

i read the news today

                 /oh boy

                 /imagine all the people

                

recordings of music made on small plastic or larger plastic discs

/vinyl /polycarbonate

recordings made on other plastic items

/degradable /ephemeral

alt stone tablets alt architecture alt art alt political systems alt waste

unrest

civil disobedience

civic duty

dreams of materialism have rotted your subconscious

are we capable of more

than creation of technologies that allow us to inherent the permanence that is not so

what is it

that we are searching for

in the divergence of language and power and aim and substance

the i is something that i am not sure of myself but there is in an objective sense a body

and the abilities of that body to perform

material is what allows us to implement ourselves on other implementations of ourselves

what is not natural

what is not known

what is us

flawedoutputdelay

i am now 30 in the solar judeo christian calendar

what is love
baby don't hurt me
but really
i know you for 10 years
i love you
more than i love people that didn't show
for over a quarter century
yeah that's right
the 30
the dirty
dirty
and of course i am drunk
yeah i did some of that jim beam
im not stepping back
it was good to see you john kennedy
i did some of that weed
and i was 5 dollars
yeah i was
here in america
i am 30 right not
this instant
in the way we keep time
smokey bear says only you can prevent forect fires
and if i could only live alone with you
with our friends
in a close warm space...

getting fired 1.16.13

when the phone doesnt ring
and there is nothing to do but accumulate time x money
at 3pm
the boss's office
strewn about dog toys
the ____ business ain't so hot
poetic licence please
so make like it's the 50's, look tootz we aint got not money ta be paying ya
so ugh, yeah, we have to let you go
last one to get hired
first one to get fired

nothing personal

one manager quivers


quietly you remove items from atop a
[MDF: UF or PF surface (but most likely the one with the formaldehyde because it's less costly to produce)]
picture, knicknack, can opener
and say one short goodbye
and go

to live in the blue electric light

Light Fiction: Nancy

Tuesday

415 pm:

nancy browsed Zappo’s sale section

apathetically looking at boots named: Passion, Throne, Claudia, Lets Walk, Bullet, Peak

she particularly enjoyed Nines West's line of oh so desperate black boots: Too Late, Cashy, Platnium, Had It All...

was the owner desperate or the boot she wondered aloud

a co worker snapped her neck

what was that?

no ugh nothing says nancy

and it was back to the boots

more women’s names than others: Alison, Angie, Janessa, Daisy, Fatimah, Joan of Arctic™, Tiffany...

there was no nancy in the sale section, size 8, black boots

525 pm:

subway train ride home

no headphones

no book

trying not to catch a stranger’s eye, leaning hat head rested on Poly(methyl methacrylate), the same waterbottle

chasing a rat or was the rat chasing it? up and down the aisles up and down

a boy came through the doors, large home made sugar cookies in a cardboard box,

cookies a dollar

no money, sorry says nancy

tinny bass sounds, at least 3 different languages, whispers, shouts, stop at city hall, interchange of passengers bringing new conversations, wistful young couples, young professionals in overcoats and boots and tweed

nancy wonders what woman’s name is attached to another young woman’s boots with

a jaunty step off onto the platform of her destination

On a Wednesday night 1.2.13

he burnt out the rubber component on his MagicBullet®

b/c there was always too much fruit in his smoothies

a poker table

as seen in basements and rec rooms and man caves of the 1980's:

aluminum fold out legs; faux wood grain top

various plastic communication devices: various periods in present and past available technologies rest atop

a scrap of fabric meant to look like a table cloth featuring brown squares and sunflowers; splattered with last night's dinner

discussion of HTML 5; unified language/platform/means for visualization of data representations.

IPV 6, extended numeric combinations; location of data

recyclable items form a windowsill lining: emptied cartons of orange juice, milk, papaya juice, milk, emptied yogurt containers

black garbage sacks neatly stacked on the opposite wall in absence of a bin

we sit on aluminum fold out chairs

or chairs of red vinyl as seen in the 1970's

be
neath

a cloud of smoke

while we bear witness to the faulty design of MagicBullet®'s and rubber and the heavy use of any object toward obsolescence.

sunday nights

i can't sleep and i wanted to start writing every day
i am going out on the limb of a hand rolled cigarette here
ya know
it's not the
most
sturdy apparatus
what else is left to do in the winter cold but write
sleepless nights to quote a recent text:

     +------------------------------------+
     |The nazis figured out the answer to |
     |sleep, drums of amphetamines forced |
     |on fighter pilots. That worked well.|
     +------------------------------------+

drug addled addspace
3 am's a real drag
just wait till 5
the hour before scheduled awakening
the bits to get ready
dried hair
in a crumpled office shirt
a cup of fruit to go from the au bon pain in suburban station;
the coffee is more expensive but that's a small price to pay for
convenience


all of this
to say
thank you for calling_______my name is _________, how may i help you?