WORKSHOP

"6 a.m."

people in motion
as the world keeps on spinning
frantically
looking for pause
life glides by
as if on ice
it is kept cold

the heart speaks
seldom listening
to the word

it hurts to breathe
the pollution of
man
stopping, waiting
going, fading
how many faces
can one dismember
in a single sitting
and they wondered

the cigarette burns
into oblivion
as life crawls
from the depths
of the darkest
corner
to the illuminating
sun

"black bird"

it's funny how things end up. you alone, breathing in a forgien air that is oh so familiar. jumping from moment to moment, hoping something will distract consciousness. the world is outside. through the doors of decisions. white painted innocense pearing through as the crow calls your bluff from decades ago. it's been done. they've all seen it. the lights, the action, the people cheering the names. when is it over?

the mind works faster than it ever has. fallen below again. staggering to a new dawn. clocks. fallen from the heavens. bellzebub. forsaken. holy son beaten and mangled and unrecognizable. disciples follow but the road is endless. searching for an answer. questions are all that lie in the ruff. looking for the diamond. trite.the

crows. outside. they call from afar. my name.

Poems for Workshop

Tuesday

Quickly descending the wet concrete steps
A family of crows emerges noisily from the grass
my foot in a shallow puddle goes pish
earthworms stranded on the sidewalk


Walking quickly

As I drink coffee I get hot
Looking at you make me hot
it is hot inside but cold outside
inside my body is hot
if I were cut open I'd steam
like my hot words in the cool air
as we walk quickly
throught the light rain

Smoke and Seashells

Seashells and cardboard masks,

the old farmer picking

grapes, mines full of smoke.

Birds drop into the sea, rolling

down thermals, and all crumbles

over nothing.

Our goal is creation,

our destiny may be

the honey and the milk.

On the edge the land is

constantly crumbling,

cascading in the cold sea.

I pick at the sand

in search of little seashells.

I like the oval ones that

shine all copper in the sun.

They stole it, the black

letters, black caps and silver

badges. Towers like treetops

fill the city skyline. Smoke pours

out of the window where

a woman in a white apron leans out,

to catch the letter on the breeze,

the letter from her lover, gone

to Louisiana last year,

that magic letter written on metal foil

that shines all copper in the sun.

Toasted America with Rice

Old Spanish nun,

where are your eyes?

The necklace of the holy

in the stern golden garden

No one here looks angry,

The blue square in the silver sky

Tower of babble,

go to sleep world America!

The din of continually failing

Communication, each meaningless cry

A different pitch, same drawn out breathe

Quiet poet sitting in the dark corner

What are you writing?

The rhythm of steps and

The angle of the eyes

My ragged cap and

A bottle cap on the concrete

The troubling fetus

each day our people birth us

troubling news on the table

next to toast and eggs

notes on the weather... assbackwards late

the weather makes me think ethereal experience your not supposed to completely understand. like a phillip glass piece or a painting thats nothing but blackness. i wont lie, i have a hard time appreciating this kind of literature. it seems whimsical, which is cute and all, but i can't seem to get over the whole publishing thing. maybe its the fact that i am an aspiring writer, and when i see stuff thats published that i find juvenile, i repsond with bitterness. i guess my real desire is to have the author, or some figure of literary authority, defend this work and explain to me where the value lies. thats why i think im so over critical. i dont take experimental literature at face value. i need substance that speaks of forthought and disciplne. while there are moments of clarity for me, namely the residence at c__, the day sections just seem tedious and over fanciful. i write that kind of stuff when im drunk or on drugs, and while it maintains a certain value to me (mostly nostalgic) i would never assume that there was value to anyone else. it reminds me of an experience i had the other day where i was playing my guitar, but in an unusual way. i had it resting vertically between my legs as i sat. i began to tap hysterically on the harmonics in an attempt to create a sweeping melody hidden in the percussive sounds of the tapping. my friend did the same with a ukalale. we were both on drugs mind you. we had a fantastic time and thought that what we had created was magnificent. when i attempted to recreate similiar music the next day, the magic was gone. the point im trying to make is that we all have interal experiences that are valuable to us, and there is certainly no harm in sharing them. i think oftentimes we overindulge writers and artists by appluading their work, even when we dont understand it. anti-essentialism, the beleif that their are no necessary and suffificent conditions for something being a peice of art, leaves the door wide open to anything. that being said, any artist can create anything they want, and as long as they want to call it art, or as long as their is a community willing to embrace it as art, it instantly becomes art and therefor worth appreciating. i think this is a popular trend among writers and artists, and i do not agree that just because you can call it art does it add value to it. as mone of my favorite sayings go, "just because you can, it doesnt mean that you should."