Don't Pay Heed To Temptation

- do y'all have any headache medicine?

- there's bottles of it behind the bar.

somebody's telling a strip club story of 5,000 down to 5.

the hippos are being electrocuted in their tanks all around me.

like frogs in the slowly boiling water.

like the rhinos in heat fighting for control.

walkmen like cigar store indians still watching over me.

this is where i'm ended up.

the same yes the same ol same.

with a hometown cocktail just the right touch of french.

more than herbs than can count.

"dye your hair yellow and raise yo hem"

lawyers talk about shows i watched to hear bands sung by singers i met one night to have drinks with years after my french class crush had faded with ex-girlfriends whose hearts i broke by giving in to the poor planned staying arrangement desires instead of spending nights with improv friends who first illuminated the academics of language before disappearance into unknown frontiers into which i had once trekked with broken hearted ex-girlfriends of the men whose women i then loved with women who lived with women i had once almost loved when my own were somewhere else being beloved by loving strangers over the phone...

it all comes back to somethin don't it.

and all this over a hometown cocktail that never was my own but the drink it sure could be.

the hometown where i once met that girl, no not that one, or that one, nor that one, but yes, her right there, for a lunch just to run into the past i had left behind and had seen the day before.

something else?

naw, the something same.

the shrimp and grits were perfect.

"what i want you to remember as i disappear tonight"

good strong drink makes the connections.

just like the time i was with but still without that girl no, not that one, not that, no wait yes her in the city where i was with my girl.

- it's such a good message for the kids.

Don't Belong To Every Choir

each song a profane prayer
a dirty joke
an anthropological six-day drunk

amblin in and outta towns with dead leg limp and lazy eye. roll. roll it round. roll it roun yo mouf. cigrette slowwwwww shtep. shit. done an gawn. oh gawn you jes flattrin. flattrin me i keep comin round this place to be overhearin all a kinds a my peoples but do i say a thing? naw naw naw i am in affect choo AL! eastern european cheese farmer tired lawyer granny smith apple drink maker! these is all the sort's my peoples but do i speech? do i throw a hey hey hey!? naw naw naw in affect choo AL! shiiiiit naw nothin like the sort i should go home and drink for free wait...

- i's s'posed to have a pipe shoved up my ass. i mean, you're asleep an everything.

- it's still a pipe shoved up your ass.

...my folks' liquor cabinet ain't but bible verse crochet and best wholesome intention so "free" ain't quite a right "cheaper" now yeah thas the word drink fo cheapa cheap cheap cheap sang the little birdie bird so's like i say go home and drink fo... aw shit "home" ain't right neither god damn if i don't keep gettin stuck on the words. i s'pose it means i oughta get another drink and make a few more false courage friends. or maybe jes another drink.

i come back to the red shirt girl with black hair accent a southern and tits all a big doing pirouettes on the back deck to not quite a plause to igor stravinsky to social distortion to everthin else and nothin a t'all wouldn't i mind settlin myself between them an all. an other and i ain't nothin but a listner. frank. frank listner. pleased tuh meat cha.

a stum bull back
the mutant faced child
looks up in wonder

In All Union All Is Hid

- what is it i want to say on this day the day of your marriage...

i remember hearin those words and thinkin i must be the luckiest man alive hell i didn't even make it through the sentence much less the service before my mind set to wanderin on the what was to be. just gettin lost in her shinin face. and her starin straight back.

______

eyes. windows. into the soul. burnin. open and burnin. seein knowin cryin out beggin. somethin. somethin. somethin more. inadequate. a not quite. never quite. but almost. just enough to. no. won't. cain't. wouldn't ever. but maybe. if only. open and burnin. the soul. windows. eyes. window. eye.

who are all these people and why are they really here and why?

______

i was there, watching the two of them standing before god and man, but i was the only one who saw, was the only one who heard, was the only one who really knew what would come of this union, and i sat there being ripped to pieces somewhere between knowing what i should do and what i couldn't do and realizing that the two were the same sides of a different coin, and even though i knew he was standing at that altar feeling as though blessed by some holy spirit... she was as good as laid bleeding before us, an entire open wound, unexplained and muttering.

______

- oh my good lord it's just some kinda wonderful. them two's gonna make just about a perfect match ain't they.

The Stranger Shows Up In Town

well... i remember he showed up in town hell what was it. earl! when'd that fella show up round here? earl! goldangit good fer nothin sonofa. that boy. his brother ray ain't right, but earl, he ain't none closer to right than his brother. course they's both so young neither of em prolly remember when he showed up anyhow. it musta been thirty odd years or so. i do remember he showed up leadin a mule packed with none much but a few satchels a what looked mostly fulla books, a cardboard travelin case, and a shotgun. he had one good eye but he looked like it ain't seen much a the same. and that girl. lord amighty that girl. she was some kinda somethin. he looked near abouts forty years her senior but with a fella like that it's hard to tell if it's calendar years yer lookin at or if it's the way life's done treated him. i reckon that fella had seen a thing or two he'd rather have commenced to forgettin. never knew how he got hitched up with a young thing like her but like my grandaddy always said: that's one a them questions you don't ask your acquaintances outta respect and it ain't a question you ask a stranger cause it ain't none a your business. around here... everbody's one or the other.

she musta been averse to age cause i don't think she looked a day older at her funeral. oh we all went. didn't know them two well even then but it's just common courtesy to show yer face. pay your respects. they went ahead and buried her in the churchyard even though i don't remember seein neither of em in church one single sunday in all their years in town. i ain't sayin they weren't christian. just seemed their way a doin things. kept to themselves. stayed on that farm a theirs. saw him in town from time to time. never said much. never stayed long. got the necessaries and moved on.

hthere was once we had what might be considered a conversation. i remember we made our pleasantries whilst waitin on that boy from the feed store to get back from an errand but we left it at that. after near abouts what seemed like all durn afternoon i was about to leave and by way of common courtesy said i weren't gonna wait all day - c'aint just walk away leavin a man standin alone without sayin somethin - and as i was set to step off a the porch he comes out with "until the day when god will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope." i turned round and stared. saw some kinda glimmer pass across his eyes til he looked down all silly grin cross his face. we all knew he was somethin of a literary man so i s'posed it was some line or other from one a his books and thought about askin as much but there was a somethin about the way he leant on that porch post, somethin about the way the sunlight hit that still smirkin face below that hat pulled down low, that one good eye sparklin, that i remembered my grandaddy sayin: that's one a them questions you don't ask your acquaintances outta respect and it ain't a question you ask a stranger cause it ain't none a your business. and like i say: round here... everbody's one or the other. so i walked off. leavin him waitin. leavin him hopin.

Have You Ever Felt The Feel Of Status?

the thing is... i'm near to certain you ain't gonna understand. but i s'pose i gotta tell you. or i should tell you. or i might as well tell you. At the very least.

it ain't so much that it were a different time - it was to be sure - but what it is at the heart of not understanding has less to do with a historical shift in perspective and more to do with the simple fact that a story changes over time. hell, when a story is actually happening it ain't even a story. it's just an "is," a some kinda thing simply going on. the story of it don't come 'til later. the story of it usually shows up on the doorstep right about the time it becomes necessary to actually understand just what it was that happened. sorta like the science you learn in grade school: you learn that your body needs to breathe in order to survive but that don't mean that the first breath you ever took was sitting in some school desk staring at the blackboard. sure it's easy to conflate the act of breathing with science proper, but not knowing how your lungs work don't make them do so any less.

hell, now i'm talking in circles - an easy fix to get yourself in when you get to be in my position. but like i say, the story and the thing are two different things entirely, and, in this particular case, so much so you ain't likely to understand much if any of it. but you're here. listening. and i'm already set to talking so i might as well keep on.

they say the best place to start is at the beginning though some would contend that the just before ain't bad neither. right before the stranger shows up in town, when all is still right with the world, but as i got no stranger to talk about as such i s'pose i'll start somewhere between the eleventh and twelfth shot he fired straight into that animal's skull. it was the twelfth what finally done it so i reckon that the important one. the one that counts.

______

i have read the diary of Jerimiah Edward Macintosh nearly every evening for the last seven weeks, and each time i begin again with the hope that i will glean some new... something, some previously hidden fact, a deeper insight into who he was. but while it always feels as if i am reading it with fresh eyes, i have as of yet not been able to walk away with anything more concrete than i did on my first reading. the simple story plainly understood. not simple but rather... innate. it's almost as if i were breathing his words. automatically. necessary. unnoticed. i, of course, will return again this evening, though i expect little in the way of revelation. though, as always, some small part of me clings to the possibility.

When You're Lost In The Rain In Jaurez

they sat together in the park
as the evening sky grew dark

there's somethin in those two lines. somethin like the patience it takes to really watch a sunset. somethin like holdin hands for the first time with someone you love or at the very least pretty damn sure. somethin like knowin that everthing is gonna be ok. somethin like that which doesn't happen all too often and not enough.

i pick off the hours like a sniper at a half click out.

and i smell the smoke in my hair, smoke from another fire i set alight, hot oil on the coals and incense in the blood - this ain't holy service and it ain't whole no not while somethin's missin and not while somethin's amiss.

i contemplate the droppin of my g's and realize that doin so is another false somethin but recognizin that voice out of the ether makes me remember that i do come from somewhere and somewhere is where i'll one day be.

how long will i be ridin?
how long must i keep my eyes glued to the door?
will there be any comfort there, señor?

i was once told that home is a place worth dyin. i didn't believe it for the longest of time, and i still don't know that i do and fully, but i can say for certain that i've finally come to the point of understandin. i've finally come to the point of knowin that home ain't just somethin imagined, ain't just somethin pulled from nothin. home is a place worth waitin for. even if it ain't never gonna come.

music of children pulls me out but only just for a moment. a switch to the next to hear the soft tones of french into the most american of english puts me back on track. just a quarter past four minutes is all it lasts, but if i had my druthers i'd stay there indefinitely. but there it is, the soft blueglow of sunrise pokin through trees in front of what i currently call home, so i s'pose that means the end of one more ramblin.

i'm at the end of a rope that i didn't even know was there 'til i was nearin the end. but ain't that how it goes?

when i was sittin in front of a fire tonight i remembered a lyric i once writ:
home is where the heart is
read crocheted mantle piece
and that's all i could remember. but i s'pose that's all i needed to.

So Proud To Be Alive

bird faces, iced hair
pink and white
tights like sex
of the unknown kind

south loop train stops
for college girl mysteries
for high skirts
hiked up high

like the first minute of
a public transportation porno
stop after stop after stop
getting more and more

dense crowded intense
faces tired and hispanic
black and beaten down
young and hormonal

this...
is chicago
birthplace of house
and of slam

of improvisational
of sound design
hog butcher for the world
mecca of and for the midwest

"voices of broken hearts,
... voices singing, singing
... silver voices, singing
softer than the stars
softer than the mist"


blues brothers sunglasses
spring time's 'a comin'
and on a mission from god

A Psychogeographical Saunter-Step

wait... no just wait. Do you hear that? No, really try. That's Moscow in the telephone, and they're waiting for a reply.

Now i've never been to Moscow. Mike has. I haven't. But i've known city streets like you wouldn't believe. Europe. North America. The Caribbean. South America. Australia. The Pacific. Don't believe me? Check the map. And with a fire amidst face and belly i've walked those streets looking for something, for anything really, trying to find more than just the next stop on the itinerary. Prostitutes in Valparaiso. Blind harpists in Quebec. Cabbies in St. Kitts. Homeless in Memphis. Coconut vendors in Tonga. Drinkers in Filey. Lovers in Paris. Pretty much what you might expect - more so if you expect the unexpected. Now. All of this has left me with no more than party conversation and dinner party stories, but here's the thing: I'm no storyteller. Like Dylan in the movies, i'm a farmer... and who ever heard of a storytelling farmer? What it comes down to, what it is that matters, is home. And where is home? Your guess is as good as mine. What does one do without one? "But surely!" you'll say, "One must have a home!" Well that's where your exclamation gets a little sticky. Because fact is: one mustn't. Or not necessarily must. If i were once again a college freshman i'd write a dictionary entry for "home," but those days are long since past and sadly. If i were a crocheting housewife i'd point to "home is where the heart is" above the mantle and say that's that. C'est ça, c'est la. But again... not so simple, pas si simple.

In his Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography Guy Debord wrote that psychogeography, "could set for itself the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Ok, ok, i know i'm defining like a college freshman (and Guy Debord no less), but there is something to this. He goes on to write, "The adjective psychogeographical, retaining a rather pleasing vagueness, can thus be applied to the findings arrived at by this type of investigation, to their influence on human feelings, and even more generally to any situation or conduct that seems to reflect the same spirit of discovery." Pleasing vagueness? Yes. But if you want direct straight arrow aim-is-true bastardized some kinda direct: The streets we walk make us who we are. I'm gonna write that again if for no other reason than to drive the point home and hard. The streets we walk make us who we are. Now. Like i said: I've walked streets. I've seen alleys and avenues. Boulevards and back gardens. Cross ties and cul-de-sacs. Have they made me a more of a person? Hell, no. But have they made me? Most certainly.

In Kushner's adaptation of Corneille's L'Illusion Comique there is a line spoken by the Maid, Lyse - and so well spoken - "To want. But to want less." It's one of the vaguest, most difficult to judge lines in the genre of modern classic theatre. "To want. But to want less." It isn't a strong character choice. Where does she draw the line? What is the difference in want and want less? Here's the tough part: there isn't. There is no line. There is no Haussmannian boulevard to barrel through the vague declensions of human desire. And that's the goal/problem/paradox of psychogeography. The smallest something is something, and the greatest something is still nothing. We can walk the streets of the world, Broadway from Battery Place to Yonkers, the grid of Chicago, the Boulevard Périphérique from Porte de Versailles to Porte de Versailles, but where does that get us? The same place from which we started, that's where. But with a something else.

What is that something? "I'm not sure of... i can't remember the name." And oh yes oh yes it's a nameable thing, but no one can remember the name. "It was down the street from my apartment. I used to go by there pretty often." Nameable but unknowable. "Once a month or so." Every so often we lock into these places. A name, a smell, an odd convergence of light. "It was set back from the street in a courtyard garden." And we think, if only for a moment, that we are home. "A courtyard garden. A winding path. A stone gazebo. A..." And the transmission is lost. But wait... something from the ether... something... "Beautiful tall windows and red stone walls." And the signal fades.

But if you listen close... you might hear Moscow in the telephone. "At every step, the riddle of human behavior and the nature of love appeared bound up with Russian." ...What?

Resignation of the soul? Or spirit of discovery?

"I never went inside. It was clear to me i should keep it as it was in my imagination. The most peaceful place."

Les Communards Sans Soixante-Huitards

we roll from banlieue to arrondissement avec triumphal arch all electric magentic cord attached to the back pulling it down in the process all the while a fuck you smeared across lips, and
- you changed your hair
- yeah
and then she was off with age old an older than expected but still not so very old yet not so very young should'a seen it wish em the best hey when's the wedding!

and we were left with the before all a beers bar sittin waitin to be somethin useful when all of a
- i know you!
- yeah you too!
and that was that.

next!

so this is what is a community... les commune? fuck i cain't keep up. just simple southern boy whooo-wheee just country boy tryin to keep from gettin too overwhelmed... when the reality is somethin more like: yeah. i got this. we run this town. the music playing in my ears is more like:
assassin for hire.

the ring road our castle wall parapet. we. are. les centre ville.

have you seen the city on it's own and famous holiday? i have. it ain't nothin all too much worth shakin over. i promise. grab a seat. watch a firework explosion and boom. that's all they is. the wine and roast chicken is worth more a somethin more for payin attention to.

- let's do this again.
- i like that idea.

you see... sometimes the painful tortured oh-my-god-how-can-i-ever-face-this-shit-again becomes the: yeah... alright. And against all better judgments. How does it happen? If you don't know then i'm not telling.

oh alright.

fine.

here goes:

¬ a couple outside relationship working
¬ a headphone music loud experience
¬ a new hair white t-shirt
¬ this time baby i'll be bulletproof
¬ questionable decisions
¬ bad decisions
¬ a vague email that is undecipherable to the point of giving up on
≈ is what is.

there you go.

oh is that not answer enough for you?

well goddamn aren't you a needy fucker.

let me put it likes this:
we roll from banlieue to arrondissement avec triumphal arch all electric magentic cord attached to the back pulling it down in the process all the while a fuck you smeared across lips.

still not enough? that's too bad. because that's all you'se gonna get.

Nothin' But Clouds Of Blood

and i can't help but wonder what Ginsberg thought on and upon and around during his own long walks home after late nights, evenings, soirs, nachts und noches with his very own stumble-step versions playing in repeat. did he come up and over with new thoughts poetic and plain filled with mixes and free and friendly given him by accidental neighbors in squalid flats of lonely dive?

now seems a moment in worth staying in and on of peripatetic lifestyles neither rich nor famous to discuss another cityscape love song but i'll suffice it to say - and with words of another - "well the winds in Chicago... have torn me to shreds."

and if you've ever wondered how deep is deep:

well there you go.

and if you think this unsatisfying in the most, least, and any other wayst, well to that i'll say: yes. yes it is. it's all unsatisfactory. factory burning bright.

"well there's too many people.... too many to recall."
and somtimes you're mistaken for strangers by your own friends,
and the smallest voice can take you to the worst of places.

The Fish And The Cow

the sun is out in a far southern corner of my window to the point that slightest head motion forward blinds and reverse does opposite - but isn't this just the natural way of things? and it leaves in its shadow everything all a blueish white. and it leaves a parallelogram projection screen on my wall with dazzling shadow effect. and the leaves... well, there are none to speak of. a coffee and leftover lentil breakfast the first thing in my stomach since white wine and fine french cookies; rosé wine and a dinner of pork, sauerkraut, and potatoes; red wine and paté, cheese, and crackers. there was also the simmered veal bones, but that's not finished, not even yet. the entire experience now just memory and list. a catching up, a getting closer. the process measured in hours, the meal, minutes. the end rarely more than the means. but isn't that just the natural way of things? at least as we see them? did i forget to mention the bread?

Angels On The Console

unknown Japanese candy, spindle cells, cheap red wine: and i go slouching toward Bethlehem. the signal chain is faulty and i'm the only one who knows it. multi-adapted many cable run and there it is, the beginning of the universe in one more room while i lie awake trying to crack the electric code. i'm told that thoughts can sometimes suppress feelings, that we can't, like a dog, just hump every other dog and see what happens, that our social interactions are very complicated. well... yeah. and dancin, oh how they dancin.