Better or Verse - "Big Gulp"

[Ed. Note : primary writing done last winter. I made a good deal of solo late-night convenience store runs, replenishing my caffeine and sugar levels and occasionally shaking my fist at the security cameras and silently imploring, "WHY! IS! THIS! MY! LIFE?!" Every poem I've written since the age of sixteen has included at least a touch of goofiness. For me, the seriousness of the medium well-nigh demands irreverence. If I ever find myself in sequiny black-tie regalia, you'd better BELIEVE I'll be mooning someone. ]

I am become a Paul Westerberg song
Destroyer of self
And not all that easy on anyone else

These emotions go like Bubble Yum
And occasionally beef jerky
(What I mean to say is,
they stay in the mouth
tediously long
before you work through them
or just spit them out)
Mindsets you can purchase at 7-11
Don't tend to be terribly healthy

Of course I turn in,
Turning outwards just turns you
to somebody else
I'd sooner cut to the chase
and disembowel myself
(bleed out in non-foods)
Disgorge a quart all over the floor
(knock some Meox Mix off the shelf)

There comes a time
(being twenty-four-seven, we're ready)
When the primary things
lighting up your eyes
are fluorescent, polyethelyne
and words apparent even to the cashier
as the laziest of lies
Given three minutes,
given an eternity
The burrito and the tender spot
Lukewarm, piss-poor
Nasty, babe, but steady

Better or Verse - "Late-Nite Trinity Marshmallow Roast"

I. night's gone syrupy could get sleepy could get antsy moon is jellified could be napalm could be candy shadows and bare skin on which mosquitoes are alighting something soft, scratched hard enough just invites deeper biting

II. all orbits shift a hip switch neuron twitch a collision perfectly perpetually missed with the coordinates of planets, or of dragonflies there's a certain natural fallingfast a built-in alphabetization words unspoken, the tune hums you (we laugh at memorization)

III. it manifests subtle, something like an unshoveable nudge (hurricane-causing flutter) unpoppable bubbles it buries itself inside the earth from which it is borne you could call it a propensity it carries a humid dampness, a dark richness, (sweet inevitable) a certain... density

Better Or Verse - "#8"

Of course you can live here
No one's afraid of you
Little muddy crookedness
Shifting down a
Shimmering silken straightness
Working over a
Mesh to which our good luck sticks
String streamers 'cross our ceiling

A tiny James Bond
Rappelling around
In exoskeletal glory

A small Gothic life
We've welcomed to ours
Stay; scare the hell out of the dark.

Better Or Verse - "Islamorada"

Perhaps [better/more experienced/more egomaniacal] writers aren't as afflicted by self-doubt. Perhaps they complete a piece, exclaim, "Aw, yeah! EAT IT, entire canon of Western literature!", then take an invigorating dip in a wading pool full of advance money.

As opposed to me. When I finish writing something, my first instinct is generally to print it out on heavyweight, 100% cotton bond paper... because that'll produce the biggest flames when I set the thing ablaze.

Every few years, however, I amaze myself by actually LIKING a recently-completed work. Occasionally, it's a technical memo (I laughed! I cried! I did not require a static IP address and thus skipped to step 9-C as directed!). If I'm lucky, it's something not quite as dry.

If it's the following poem, it's actually, um, rather damp.

This was written a few summers ago. I was going for e.e. cummings' "i like my body when it is with your" crossed with a painfully earnest note scrawled on looseleaf and poked in your crush's locker on the last day of school. And - holy flock of Christ! - I GOT something like that.

Hope you enjoy. And if you do, show your appreciation karmically. The next time you see your Special Guy/Gal sitting on the sofa, looking singularly bored with "Hitler's Wackiest Bloopers", slither into their lap and produce a little not-for-broadcast-television entertainment, why don'tcha?

"Islamorada"

float on little lust waves
on a crackle plasma sea
sweet jelly sting enveloping
rock and shell and salt-glazed skin
wet and thrill spark through me 'til
i go crashing 'cross the beach
like tidal force to you of course
i'm drawn and i'm your souvenir
my want in you like sand in shoe
my tongue like taffy on your teeth

Better or Verse - "M-80"

[Ed. Note: when fucking around with poetry {which is about ALL I can be said to do with it}, I go for mood rather than comprehensibility. There's nothing to "get", per se. It's like I told J.Q. this morning - "NO! NO! NO! SOAP IS FOR CLEANSING THINGS, NOT EATING!" Ahem. Poetry is for feeling things, not understanding.

But lest the more literal-minded of you get your Hanes Her Ways in a bunch... this is basically "Possum Kingdom" making out with "Only the Good Die Young" on the lawn in suburban New Jersey. This is the second thing which was going through my head during a recent late-night run through my childhood 'hood, the first being "AIIIIE SCARY FASTER FASTER DON'T WANNA DIE".]

One of those humid restless tangled-sheet nights
I went out back
Deconstructed your mind
Laid it out across grass in need of a mow
Like damp sandy towels
Or lawnmower parts

As it ought to be
I took things slow

And do I get the thanks of a grateful nation?
A lungful of Love's Baby Soft
The last biscuit from a drive-through box
Remuneration, meaning
A lil' something beyond
Eyeful of cutoffs
Quick grab of frustration

And, as the kids say, and I use the term fully ironically,
The shaft.

The dark sleeknesses that softly slide
Across the sides of new black pickup trucks
Could be headlights
But once I've trained your eye
Could be things murkier and more seductive

Petty vandals or
Translucent sprites
That drift on the bottom of swimming pools at night
And cling to you without your knowledge
No consent, but lesser harm
And much later, trickle happily away
From your hair, your skin, everywhere
As you sleep
They liked the warm

There must be something that I've earned
Light your eyes as the middle of a firefly
Show you where taxonomically-unidentifiable
Juiciness grows
Guide you through thickets that are best traversed
Without your clothes
Not for my sake, naturally
You should really let some things sleep late
Lest they drag you into the treehouse
Or your bathing suit snag on their claws

You go back to school in three weeks
The algebra, the too-high laugh
The trials, tribulations, two sharpened #2s
They're all you
But not walking too close to the tool shed
Shapes shifting in back of the sprinkler
Staring down the night with the lawn on your back,
the earth on your fingers,
galaxies in your eyes,
those words in your ear
Admit it or not it's all mine

Better or Verse - "Brand-New Effervescent Action"

Nothing is as sweet as this moment
caught improbably between the teeth like a bullet.

To mentally calculate the odds of such a thing ending well
is about as wise
respectful
appropriate
and advisable
as biting down.

The properly appreciative state
(and I don't know how to achieve this, but I'm trying nonetheless)
Is one of unconscious, reflexive grace
Drunk, giggling and balancing on a moving El Camino's hood
The Roadrunner, post- cliff edge
But pre- looking down.

The rare Metaphorical Luna Moth
(cue the turquoise and crystals and incense)
Would be the perfect spirit guide
Antennae unfurled, gratefully receiving
Vibrations, visions, glowing pollen specks
Happy little twitches that haven't happened quite yet.

The moon is bright. Breath crystallized. Her hair spread across a fresh-chalked goal line.
The lake's blood-warm. Sky melted Creamsicle. World saturated in liquefied sun.
You do not think about the harshly bright awkwardness of the next morning.
You do not think about driving back to Providence on sopping wet upholstery.
You just jump in.

Better or Verse: "Reverse Tantra"

In the dentist's chair, nails in pleather
The taste of copper and the smell of bone
From the ceiling, you count backwards and just know
You're days from the free toothbrush, stern lecture and home

Marshmallow, skewered by fiery glare
Wondering, not yet s'mored (or forest-floored)
In this new carbon cloak, where do you stand? There's
No oblivion, nor going back to the bag

Progress reports just don't indicate
The panache with which you do calculus
In reverse, strangely pantsless, in public and late
For some other all-important final exam

It is one hell of a party trick
Lit coal peering from a soft, trembling palm
One could have a fine career: The Human Wick!
Who can't decide whether the warmth is worth the burn

You have been burdened with buoyancy
And will come to curse the gurgle, the gasp
And the swap: what's in for what's above a sea
That has scraped you across the beach so many times

Better or Verse: "Five 'Til Ten Then Back Again"

Head rests
On your chest
All I do
is wonder
'Bout getting off
Getting under
Ripped nicely asunder
Under?
The thumb
Off via?
The lover
Proverbial other
Cigarettes lit
Worry sheet-covered
with happy litany
Name means nothing to me
Y'know, the OG
Mary supposedly mothered

It goes love then no quarter
When it's lateral motion
Adored to deplored
I'd rather be
the safer
less popular
notion of
ignored

This is how the party goes
for those
You know those
Uncomfortable in skin
Moreso in clothes

You stand on your own
You leave on your own
Life ordered by verb
tense
Conjugated alone
Through ever sigh-heave-throaty-moan
You may rumple sheets here
Coexist with me here
Keep well aware
you get no drawer
I'm not your home
Jeans and Dep 10 can't
displace alone

Things slide better
post-you, post-hu-
if I forgo the glue
Stick with
or slip with
or flail to forget
Using mutual disinterest
Bondo
and sweat
A bemused glance that says
I did not know they made faux-crocodile pants
in sizes quite that large
But I'm still
not sick
of you
quite yet

50th Post Double Feature!

Aka "THIS Is How She Repays Our Loyalty? By Making Us Suffer Through a Crappy 'J. Alfred Prufrock' Pastiche Before Getting To The Funny?!"

Better or Verse: Classical Deference

Shut up, mermaids
Cut off your tails
Condition your hair
With my chum-pail

Don't know 'bout Michelangelo
Maybe Mark Sandman and "Swing It Low"
A baritone and bass in the dark
Will substitute for the whisper and spark

Eat a peach?
Maybe once per week
After baby's gone to sleep

Of course with bib
And an ear towards the crib

When teeth are brushed and
Naught but pit remains
Juice still stains
Smile beatific and profane

---

Color Commentary

Almost everyone shares a similar fear when first meeting online friends... that in-person, you're dry as toast, boring as NPR and bound to be a grave disappointment to anyone accustomed to the sparkly veil of lies which is your online persona. No matter how many of my online relationships are successfully parlayed into real-life ones, I still live in fear of the following scenario:

Online Friend:"So..."

Jul: "So..."[A tumbleweed rolls by, despite the fact that we're indoors.]

Jul: ""So, um, have you ever noticed how Splenda packets are, like, yellow, but Sweet 'n Low packets are... um... shit. Our table doesn't have any Sweet 'n Low packets. Uh, never mind."

Online Friend: ""I, um... gotta go. Right now. I, er... left... a TV dinner... uh... wouldn't want my Beefy Mac to burn, so... uh... bye!"

Terrifying, no? However, a recent switch to a new variety of chill pill has made me a good deal less socially anxious, not to mention a tad hypomanic (all the "Whee!", none of the putting-$10,000-worth- of-Maazola- on-credit-cards- because-biodiesel- is-THE-FUTURE!). I am officially (at least in my own mind) As Fun as a Barrel Full of Bonobos on Ecstacy. Several recent examples:

On Van Halen Lead Singers:

M: "You always THINK it's going to be a good song. You wait and wait and you're getting more and more excited, then you wind up saying, 'Crap! It's just Van Halen!'"

J: "Yup... very disappointing to brace yourself for greatness, only to get... David Lee Roth."

M: "Or Sammy Hagar."

J: "Eh, same shit, different piles."

On Nautical Aphorisms:

J: "Yeah, it's like that old sailor's saying... red sky at night, sailor take flight, red sky at morning, sailor take warning."

S: "Isn't that the exact same thing?"

J: "Hmmn, I guess it is. Wouldn't a more concise way to put that be, 'If the sky is red, freak the fuck out!'?"

On Exercising During a Thunderstorm:

M: "It's REALLY coming down out there!"

J: "I'll be fine! But... um... if you hear a loud bang and then smell sausage, can you please come get me?"

On "The Lord of the Rings":

J: "So... is the eye of Sauron like a PHYSICAL thing, or just a concept?"

S: "What the hell are you talking about?"

J: "Is there an actual ginormous eye hanging out up in the sky, or is the eye of Sauron kind of like GOD? Like, he's always there... only, y'know, evil."

S: "There IS an actual eye, up on a tower. Didn't you WATCH the movie?" [Ed. Note: yes, I did... but I'm also the same person who, seventy minutes into "Predator", piped up, "Wait a minute... so the PREDATOR is an ALIEN?!"]

J: "Where's the rest of him?"

S: "WHAT?!"

J: "Y'know... most people aren't just an eyeball. A flaming eyeball."

S: "He's disembodied. The eye is all he's capable of projecting right now. He's trying to use the magical ring to get an actual body."

J: "So... he wouldn't technically HAVE to be an eye, right?"

S: "Uh... no, I suppose not."

J: "He could be the Nostril of Sauron, or the Chevy Impala of Sauron?"

S: "Well... yes."

J: "He could be, like, the HASHBROWN OF SAURON!"

S: "I would think that would be somewhat less intimidating than a giant flaming eye, but yes."

J: "But the only part of him which could SEE would be the part where the wrapper was peeled back!"

S: "Oh, god."

J: "And whenever one of those little hairy guys successfully evaded him, they could use it as a colloquialism, like 'skin of your teeth'... they'd be like, 'Whew! We barely slipped under the wrapper on THAT one!'"

S: "You're an idiot."

Better or Verse: "Angry Women Racing Around Target"

All that poly-cotton that you bought
Ain't quite the sturdy stuff you thought
Clearance just the past writ large
Wanna put the new life on store charge?

What breaks today
Duct-tapes tomorrow
Seventy bucks
Squeegeed-up sorrow

Free, unchained and just for you
Lipliner and an Icee do
For a start
While baby throws things from the cart
It all falls together and apart

Dedicated to all the ladies who have ever managed to purchase Purex, prevent your child from gnawing on a shopping cart handle and wept at the same time. You know who you are.