Monday, August 31, 2015

Enough about me. Let's talk more about you. What do you think of me?

I answered one of these questionnaires on October 23, 2010. I decided to update some of my responses. Feel free to copy/paste and insert your own answers. 



1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?  My father.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?  Yesterday. Thinking about Chooch.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Yes. It resembles chicken scratch and some dead language. It would take an enigma machine and a team of handwriting experts to decipher it.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Roast beef - rare.


5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?  Nope. I love kids, but I fear for their future.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?  Most assuredly not. I would fight myself like the chicken on Family Guy.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?  NOOOOoo I NEVER use sarcasm (sarcastically!) 

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?  Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Never. I have a terrific fear of heights.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?  Admiral O's of course.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Nope. I tie them once and that's it. Usually I prefer Van's (no laces).

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Vanilla with bits of Madagascar Vanilla bean. So simple yet so complex.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?  Whether or not they are a bullshit artist. 

15.WHAT IS  YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?  Orange. Fall colors. Child of the 70's.


16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORlTE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I am becoming more and more reclusive. When I am forced to be in public I usually adopt a dreadful fake personae.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My Great Grandmother Naomi.

18. MOST EPIC SONG OF ALL TIME? Supper's Ready by Genesis.


19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Black & Black.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Phases & Stages by Willie Nelson.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Hunter Green.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?  BBQ!

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Gina.

25. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE ARTIST? - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? The Winter Olympics.

27. HAIR COLOR? Brown with a daily increasing amount of Grey.

28. EYE COLOR? Brown.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Glasses.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?  Pho.


31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?  Both. 

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?   Ghost Story w/Fred Astaire.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Green Hulk sleep shirt.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Winter!

35.  WHO DO YOU ADMIRE? Writers, artists, and anyone who works to achieve social justice.

36. IF YOU COULD WORK IN A DIFFERENT PROFESSION WHAT WOULD IT BE?  Full time writer ...maybe organic farmer.

37. BEST MEAL YOU EVER HAD? KFC in Harrisburg, Illinois. It was snowing. I was a starving college student. They had an all you can eat buffet.

38. FAVORITE FILM AT THE MOMENT? - Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky.


39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? The Court of the Red Tsar.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? I have a Soviet Propaganda mouse pad.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?  The Tim Tracker.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)?  Manual Typewriter.

43. IRONED OR WRINKLED? Wrinkled.

44. BEACH OR SKIING?  I am not the most outdoors-ey kind of guy...

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Empathy!

46 WHERE WERE YOU BORN?  Phoenix, AZ.

47. WHAT IS THE GREATEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN? - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER? At a Barnes & Noble - She asked me to watch her purse - the rest is history!

49. FAVORITE CITY? Chicago.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Magic Soap

Magic Soap


There’s a madman
ranting
on my bottle
of soap

“All One!
All One!
All One!”

It’s magic soap


it cleans
your body
mind - spirit
and purifies
your soul

“All One! All One!
All One!”

but is a
teaspoonful
enough
to wash away
the scent of
ammonia
in a Nazi
bucket of piss?

or Zyklon-B?

or the ash
of loved ones
spewing from
Auschwitz
chimneys?


 “All One!
All One!
All One!”
say’s the blind
old man
bobbing in a pool


lather up
and forget
the tears
of children
left behind

a snapshot
of his son
held aloft


 sun drenched
sinewy
arm

the toddler
in his hand
like lady liberty
offering up
her torch

“All One!
All One!

All One!”

The Moral ABC
his magnum
opus

tinkered
with

added to

subtracted from

from 4am phone calls
dictated for hours
to secretaries


 only to be recanted

“All One!
All One!
All One!”

cement caked
hands
climbing the fence
of an Illinois asylum


 starting his enterprise
in the city of
“broad shoulders”

It’s not a half
bad legacy

a bottle of soap

wrapped in a
label of madness

it’s fair trade
the workers
and environment
are provided
for

The Moral
ABC is lucid
in places

between the lines
there is truth

miracles abound

like a million
tiny bubbles
rising up
in a bottle
of liquid soap


there’s miracles
all around

like Spanish moss
swaying in a warm
breeze

or a bird’s nest
in the crux
of a McDonald’s
arch

or a moments respite

a workers lunch
in a hospital
parking lot

miracles are everywhere

like a girl from
New York

and a boy
from Arizona

born 2,436.54 miles
away from each other

falling in love
in a Barnes & Noble
café

meeting

at just the right
moment

on a perfect afternoon

I met her at
27 years of age

I waited for her
that long

Those 27 years
Those 9,855 days
Those 236,520 hours
Those 14,191,200 minutes
Those 851,472,000 seconds

a millisecond before

and a millisecond after

and we might not have met

we made journeys

her and I

her from New York to Florida

me from Arizona to Illinois
to Florida

everything converged
that day
in that Barnes and Noble
café
and my life has
been made better

my heart’s capacity
grown larger

I’ve returned to the booth
where we met

realized a miracle
took place there

851,472,000 seconds
and it came
down to one

“All One!”

I love Dr. Bronner’s
soap
it’s minty
and refreshing

it makes me
feel clean

it helps me
to see that
although the
Nazi’s murdered
6 million Jews

6,150,000 Jews live in
the United States

with an additional 5,600,000
living in Israel

a state of their own

or that 58,209
Americans died
in Vietnam


but my father
survived

he came
home safe

and had one
child


who met one
girl in one
Barnes & Noble
at one precise
moment
and fell in love


and that is how
the world lives

it’s magic

a miracle

“All One!”

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Electri-Christ-icity

Electri-Christ-icity


Indelible,
we arc across
the wavelength

intertwined
spirals

sublime
executions

like satellites
in degraded orbits


 our trajectory

our inertia

the velocity
of our becoming

diffused
& diffracted

I see the Christ
betwixt the crux
of time

his copper cross

his hands and
feet

bound by electrodes

The wraiths cling
to wires
that hang
like entrails

The form is
implied

each piece
- the hair
- the beard

stripped cords
and diodes

the crown of thorns

- a saw blade
with modules
in the subsystem

hard-wired

to the mainframe

with shiny
metallic
tchotchke
as scrollwork

welded and
taped and
glued and
bolted

until the parts
- themselves -
no longer
represent
the whole

A procession
of docents
impart their
interpretation
with laser
pointer
precision

the rust
and poorly
welded seams
are "marks of"
humanity's
imperfections

each eye
unfurls
a different
slant

until the
wordless
throat
stretches to
scream


and showers
of sparks
fall as
brilliant
minutia


across the sky

as the sun
falls to blackness


and the final
vesper resounds

The kill-switch,
pierced into
the dented
machinery
of ribs,
is alight
with blue
flame


the air is thick
with the smell
of
electricity

as insulation
melts and
drips into
pools of
multi-colored
geometry


A harlequin
works the
armature
of the jaw

(up and down)

and screams
with laughter
as the mechanism
of the mouth
opens & closes

like the jawbone
of a dying man

There is no
sounding
the depths

no flash-bang
revelation

the man -
the symbol -

is an installation

The malignancy

is a morality play

that becomes
cannon in the
hearts of a
thousand men

who would
guide the oarsman

and claim

the crown

9/13/2010
9:21 pm

Needless to say, I have had a strained relationship with the idea of religion as an institution. It is much like a controlled substance in that it is so easily abused and corrupted - especially when mixed with politics. It should never be used to manipulate or to cloak evil purposes or to divide us from one another. The idea of loving your fellow travelers and being kind and giving - you know the Humanist interpretation... I agree with. The other parts, like the ones illustrated above, I find revolting and an abomination. I lay the blame at the feet of charlatans who have through the ages used alchemy to twist words and deify themselves.