From the Institute: 01-28-10

For now I am at the Institute.
My TD Bank pen tip dulls.
I steal the bar’s Sierra Nevada paper pen.
Is it an ink water fountain or ink vomit mouth?

*

My stomach rides on illness tonight.
Dark chocolate shuffle syndrome.
I sip the Voodoo White Magic from a very small glass.
I dream of the calmest bile shaded with caramel.

*

Some may say leave your hats on.
Others would talk about rudeness and indoors.
You would probably say nothing if you were here.
I tell myself everything, and right now.

*

During a workshop Jeff Weaver stood,
facilitating and staring at me.
He never got my name right.
I watched his lazy eye stare at the others.

*

On the televisions there’s a snowboarding competition.
The commercial is cut to as usual.
Now a gnome sails down some slope.
It is a raunchy third person close up.

*

Outside it is cold enough
to freeze my testicles to marble.
I wonder about frost giants.
Their sex organs must be godly.

*

Who is George Lopez?
What is the Ace of Spades?
Channel surfing is done on surf channels.
The state of television is the cause of television.

*

A man saunters on inside.
A 6-pack of something to go.
There are no 6-packs for here.
I wonder about alcohol markets.

*

So yesterday Howard Zinn died
and today JD Salinger did.
There are pillars of culture crumbling.
Left, right, and on down the center.

*

I still haven’t written about noise.
A flash image: Jamie Townsend’s grin.
The chef says Seven Deadly Sin-dwiches.
Satanic cuisine needs more of us.

*

When you go to your favorite place
you will see your family.
They will be lined up, like rabbits.
What awaits is a group hug or mass homicide.

*

Shit, man, it’s like a stout, a shrine.
Inevitably the cherry smiles are sequestered.
There is buckshot to your own abdomen.
Pigs in this dream gut themselves wide open.

*

Prior to wondering about fairy tales
I took up a stance to other streets.
All you shemales, fuck off, says the barbarian.
I can’t call that fighter anything else.

*

What’s with color in conversations?
We work all day wearing cool eyewear.
We take things too far.
We go home and fuck up the toilet.

*

New Holland has a beer called Dragon’s Milk.
All I see are drakelings sucking
grinding, plate-like teats.
I mean it’s horny unlike those silk trousers.

*

Haven’t thought about Frank Sherlock recently,
but I was at the Last Drop yesterday
and got Dirty Frank’s wifi signal.
While thinking about boozers I forget big connections.

*

I’ve moved on to Victory’s Helios.
It’s a golden amber that’s defined by Now.
Maine was all local bullshit brews;
Rhode Island was shit brews; Philly’s exotica brews.

*

Storybook romance in text message form.
Oh jesus Katherine we would be perfect,
perfect love but there’s so much rotting distance.
I hope you never find this metastatic notebook.

*

Steven’s faces on his phone are guttural.
I mean his facial expressions are all mushed.
Like let’s go disturb the entire world.
I mean Steven Silverman, you’re on my boat.

*

My favorite new concept is code-switching.
“I use the term acid jazz sometimes
because it’s dirty,” he says.
I want to yell like a pit bull looks.

*

95% of an average human being’s thoughts are negative.
Thank the verse gods.
Thank the meditative state.
Thank pornographic Blakean angel visions.

*

There’s not a drop of hope
leaning against this bar
where these lines cross with telephonea.
Style is public when you ain’t watching.

*

This guy has the best lines about music.
But I can’t write straight with this Boolean cube
synesthesia barking up and down the trees
of this submarine tragedy.

*

I have never seen
more people behind the bar
than on the stools
and I needed to see this.

*

It seems like it’s time,
said the girl and guy.
Clutched hands and the cold forgotten.
There is that oncoming frostbite, though.

*

Glissade. Glossolalia.
Movies about gladiators.
Really timed, stopped motion.
Faux succubae kisses.
*

Sure there is the father who left,
hiding beneath Illinois billboards.
Sure your hair is perfect.
You are the universal receiver.

*

It’s so easy analyzing our death obsessings.
Some Superman move on a movie, an abscess.
Crashing buildings and this dream.
I have a dream: let’s fucking stop it.

*

Wild nights, wild nights, and skinny bikinis.
When you go there
you will get drunk
and your endings will be enough.

*

At the First Unitarian Church
Kate sat down on the reversed pew.
We talked about the summer and the future.
Just to remind you: she has elf beauty.

*

Kat asks: Can I get a sneak peak of your work?
You don’t need a cure if you yourself are the elixir.
I smile and reply: When you feed me lines I love you like chainmail.
Your distance is like staring at a cloth map with ex marks on it.

*

Folks are talking about hot food stories.
I’ve got a leaky bladder.
Goodnight to the perpendicular.
Good morning late, abstract night.

*

Some days it’s easier to let it out.
To fart in public, to be that imbecile.
You forget why you’re where you are.
I think about China, and Vatican City, V-City to you.

*

Sitting outside on the Unitarian steps
the black girl smiled and stared.
At me I am the kingly one.
At me this is another first person’s story.

*

A metal suit to hold me.
A raw beet to gnaw.
This heat is a turned-on flame.
We are rocking in these caverns.

*

In a world wrought with disease
another planet reflects on height.
God exists as nether region.
A boy is whipped by a pastor.

*

There’s a snus because I want to.
Bed time is because of spiders.
Everything dies to reawaken.
Life is the swagger of the Grim Reaper.

*

Watch for the glance avoided.
Hang on to a hang glider.
Wait and watch that teddy bear burn.
Wreak your havoc for your hairnet.

*

As Richard Brautigan turned trees into curbs,
Richard Brautigan fantasized about fish.
There were no suicidal characters
before Richard Brautigan’s raised rods.

*

Smelly, hippy vegan dude walks in.
The bar is susceptible to radicals.
The radicals have been here
with the same smells for so long.

*

Jury duty and scoundrels.
Let’s put the emphasis on “and”.
Jury duty and scoundrels.
Let’s get kicked out because of the bathroom.

*

Could it be drunk?
Could it be a slam dunk?
Could it be North Philadelphia?
Could it be taking the socks out?

*

I don’t know like I am too selfish
like you are as pure as that sunset
on the computer I saw with brain matter
and heart disease and flower petals tangoing.

*

Let it be known that there is hatred
and a lot of laughter in every corner.
Let it be known that there’s a storm
and precipitation comes with storms.

*

Before the eyes twitch into other ways
a land loads into the memory.
We have remembered this for you.
Just click around and become free again.