Dear Lorine Niedecker

You float on the

surface and

converse with the fish.

I breathe underwater

and miss TV.

Hope is Migratory

The weather is just something

we talk about.  In the A/C we drink milk

with our steaks.

A hermit in the wilderness, that is

to say the owner of the wilderness is alone,

walks.

The infinite companion

to nature is the galactic:

we paint landscapes like we are birds.

The wilderness gives the impression

that it is wild.  It is more afraid

of us than we are of it.

Two mourning birds gather

around the black one, by the sliding

glass door.

We collected and placed him in

a tiny dirt box.  We cut at him with

a modest knife.

Brushing the powerlines, against the

windows, rubbing up next to one

another: at night the trees sway like this.

The killdeer wears the hairshirt made of

twigs, crowing dirges from the small

pile of gravel in the lawn.

Spring is like something

like nothingness,

like emptiness, or the strange.

Everything's Coming Up Digits

Fingers tied tight to the train tracks.

Here the locomotives go "whoosh!  whoosh!"

Hear the townspeople shout, gasp, and cry.

Reconfigure the way to logically pinpoint pain.

Am I really this sad?  

Turn my head away.  Turn the blood blue in my mind.

Read the pain in all zeros and ones.  Zeros and ones.

Touchpoints

Botany

Botany

I could set the chair on fire in the woods.

And cause a

blaze.

We could listen to Bob Dylan.  Let our heads

hang.  Lay backwards on the tailgate of a pick-up

truck in a Tennessee field.

We would feel it.  If only for that moment -

infinite and we could do no wrong.

Something like smoking cigarettes on the beach.

Something like store windows all frosted over, 

frozen to the touch.

Something like rows and rows of babies in a birthing center

viewing room-

we try to find our own.

I could walk through this forest,

crumple and tear leaves.  Spread them behind us

like bread crumbs.  Reaching up, we grab at them.

A creaky reaching elbow, worn down from the cold.

All the trees here are shaped like slouching wizards.

Check this out!

A buddy of mine, Geoffrey Forsyth, has just released a chapbook of flash fiction callled In the Land of Free through Rose Metal Press.  Click here to find out more.  It's a great read.

Alice in Chains: Alice in Chains

Another installment of "Albums I Own."  So this is an album I own.  Alice in Chains' 1995 self-titled album is one of my favorites.  Also it features a three-legged dog on the cover (I grew up with a three-legged dog named Rebel.  Rebel was a german shepherd who used to be the guard dog at my father's plumbing shop.  One night Rebel jumped the fence and chased a burglar into the street, where Rebel sadly was hit by a car.  Rebel was taken to the vet where they removed his back left leg. Rebel was then sent home from security detail to live with us.  We loved Rebel and he cold still jump fences and run and play.  He had a smile like a joker - in fact his father's name was Joker.  Which is a great name.  But my Southern parents decided to go with Rebel.  We had other dogs with Southern names:  German shepherds Dixie, Belle, Delta, Magnolia, a chocolate lab named Hershey.  A cat named Pyewacket [named after the cat in the 1958 film Bell, Book, & Candle], and she had a daughter named Puddin'.  That's right Puddin' & Pye.  A rooster named Henry [a male hen, hence "Henry"].  Another cat named Murphy.  Murphy was unnamed for a long time until he got his tail crushed in the door by an electrician named Murphy.  A meincoon cat named Katahdin [after the mountain], who was the size of bobcat.  Two goats named Mr. Goat & Mrs. Goat - they were married.  Mr. Goat & Mrs. Goat's love was a tragedy that will have to wait for another installment.  Stay tuned!).  I was always attracted to the cover.  Couldn't take my eyes off of it.  My first dog was Rebel and for as long as I knew him he had three legs.  So for me, it was not weird to see a three-legged dog.  Whenever I'd see another dog with four legs, I would immediately say to myself, "Oh, that one's got four legs."  As a child I believed dogs came with either three or four legs.  Rebel was a three-legger and Dixie was a four-legger.  So now whenever I see dogs, I count the legs.  

No matter what cover is on this album, it's awesome.  Album to album and song-for-song, Alice in Chains is a band that does everything you want.  They scream when you want them to scream, they do everything at the exact right time.  When I first heard Alice in Chains I instantly wondered what I did before - without them.  They give me something that until I received, I had no idea I needed, which makes it even more special.     

The Dark Knight

I saw Dark Knight last night.  Going again tonight.