HOME

my brother saw pauly shore at the airport today while i smoked and read a book on language and imagery of the bible

the weather was warm today when i decided to break in my new adventure shoes. first i went to pay my rent. i walked through the alley by my house where there was broken glass. when i walked on the glass it did not penetrate my shoes and i was thankful.

i crossed the street. the wind was blowing and a car was coming. i put my hand on my hat and ran across the street. i felt my shoes provided proper support for the sprint.

i went to the bank to cash my check and when i went up the stairs i did not notice any problems. at the bank there was a line and i waited impatiently. when i tapped my feet to convey impatience i felt the soles of my shoes emitted a sound appropriate to my level of impatience. i felt the people in line knew to 'hurry the fuck up' even though i wasn't really in any kind of a hurry. details such as these are important to know for the future.

i cashed my check and then went to my landlord's office next door. they were closed so i started for home. i had $225 in my pocket. i went for a walk.

i crossed a bridge over the creek and the wind carried a spray of water into my face. i closed my eyes and tried to look like i was in the closing scene of a movie where the protagonist is content and satisfied with the universe. i felt that in terms of aesthetics my shoes helped convey to the viewer that i was a young and interesting character with deep thoughts and valid emotions concerning the state of mankind and its progress to someplace.

i kept walking and i ducked down to look into a hole in a wall. the wall had black bricks and was built in 1890 because that is what a carving in the wall said. i think this wall was where tourists used to gather when siloam was a healing resort. i walked up the hill and sat on the wall with my feet hanging over the edge. my shoes did nicely in dangling with my feet in them. they looked funny when i swung them around and pretended i was a muppet. i had kermit the frog legs. i thought it was funny. my shoes are funny.

a small asian woman came to fish at the creek. she was funny too. she suddenly noticed me and was surprised. she nodded her head up to say hello and i nodded down to say the same thing. she didn't catch anything. when she left she waved goodbye and i smiled it to her and wiggled my feet. my shoes wiggled with my feet and everything went accoriding to plan.

i laid down on the wall with my feet hanging over the wall going down 12 feet. i imagined the forest was hugging me and dragging me backwards into a fox den. in the fox den there were speckled holes on the ceiling that looked like stars. the foxes danced and sang for me. i tapped my shoes to the beat. i felt the beat was very well kept with this the tapping of my shoes.

i got up and then walked down to my house where i made toast and ate in the living room with the front double doors wide open and the warmness coming in.

phrases written in blurs of time

The seal under the ice pierced the school of fish blue.

A wave of birds flew up from the trees, folded and then turned back upon itself and the sun looked pretty on their wings. The swarm sent signals through itself and their silver-grey back made flashes with the sun.

The forest of fireflies pulsed with the weeping of the trees. In the summer we sat in the canoe and watched the neon from the water.

There was synchrony. There was order.

When we came home, the pipe tubing moaned for hours like a siren muffled under a pillow. The entire city came up weeping. We dug deeper into our furniture.

I looked at all the names of the Duggar children pass with their picture of it. I whispered their names quietly to myself. They all looked really quite very beautiful.

dream #16

i was sitting on the floor in my bedroom looking at a piece paper. i began to feel lighter and lighter. i felt so light that i began to feel myself rise out of myself at the angle of my waist. i started to feel even lighter and i felt myself rise again out of my second self and also at the waist. i felt that my rising out of my waists had created some tear in something i didn't have a name for. the tear was above my head and looked like a giant black X. the X began to get bigger and the bigger it got, the weaker i felt. out of the X i saw something come out and it was jesus christ returning in the clouds as a wolf. he was wearing white and leading armies of wolves down from the X. with the vibrations of his hand i felt him moving through my selves and at my center something vibrated and it went through all of me. when the wolves landed they walked on their hind legs and shouted at us go to sleep. i was suddenly surrounded with people. we all got into our cots and i put my covers over my head but left a little space open to look out of. i saw a wolf paw stop next to my cot and look at me. the paw went away and the lights turned off. the entire room was silent and we were all afraid.

i began to realize little by little that i was dreaming. i was a little scared of getting up and having one of the wolves yell at me. i got up and took off all my clothes and put on some other clothes. i looked and saw the jesus wolf coming again in the clouds but in another room. this time i didn't feel the vibration. i was looking at the back of him. i got my computer and checked blogs and read gawker to calm me down.

Rikki and the Underwater Kingdom

Rikki used to push up on her bottom eyelids until her sight was so obscured in the liquid the entire world seemed an underwater kingdom. The tall buildings in books were ancient statues and the cars in magazines were the rusted dung beetles.

In the underwater kingdom was Rikki's bedroom.
Rikki's room was part of the underwater kingdom.

When Rikki pushed on her eyelids her bedroom room filled with water and her dolls and toy and bed floated all very quietly. Everything in the room was new and brimming and bright. The light beneath the overturned basket blurred in the water while the books on her shelf floated on past her. The teacups spun on the surface of the water. In her bedroom in the underwater kingdom, Rikki was a princess. In the underwater kingdom only beautiful things were allowed to happen and never any bad things. This was because there were many children there, in the underwater kingdom, and they, the children, were all quite pure.

One morning in the underwater kingdom every one woke up to purple jelly sky. All the inhabitants of the underwater kingdom stood outside of their houses and looked up. The dolls and the chairs and teacups all looked at each other in puzzles. It looked like jelly hanging down like clouds. Everyone was feeling weak and some of them began to fade into tight sharp balls of light.

Some birds came and pecked at the jelly. When they nibbled on the jelly their bodies went limp and the fell through the sky. The inhabitants knew there was no way to reach the jelly from their place in the underwater kingdom. It was up too high.

Rikki saw her subjects and she saw they were worried. Rikki loved the people of the underwater kingdom. She held the special power of determining the happiness of the inhabitants of the underwater kingdom. When she turned the knob past the number 10 the inhabitants began to crumble into themselves in piles of crumb and cloth. They were laid to dust inside of their sneakers. They often found their own insides in their pockets before they knew. Then all that was left was the charred feta cheese remains in their clothes.

Princess Rikki was confused and sad. The blood jelly moved lower and obscured everything in maroon. The entire underwater kingdom was in dark water and the light above sparkled red. There was only silence and everything spun slowly counterclockwise.The ribbons leaked their string softly.

Rikki began to cry and rubbed the magical conch her father had given her. Her father came out and he said he was sorry for what he had done. Rikki told him that it was all his fault and that now the underwater kingdom was maroon and dark and the inhabitants were spinning slowly counterclockwise. Her father began to cry and Rikki kept yelling. Her voice grew louder and louder until its sonic waves shattered the bones inside her father's body. He lay in a jagged heap of pointed and bendy flesh, never breaking but always jutting.

silly and insane

last night i threw up in my car into a plastic cup. when we stopped for gas i emptied the cup in the snow.



this morning i woke up feeling very happy and satisfied.



now i feel silly and insane.

things i saw

i went to get the mail on sunday and then i didn't stop walking. i walked down to the park and i didn't know what to do with my hands. i folded them across my chest and then put them at my sides and then picked up a stick. i carried the stick for a little while and when i reached the park i threw the stick in the water.

at the park i went to the one-lane bridge and watched the ducks paddle up to me and dip their heads under the water. i watched one duck balance himself in the water so he could nibble at something under his wing. i laughed out loud and a man was behind me. a truck needed to pass on the bridge so i moved in closer to a duck eating grass. i thought it was bizarre. i began to sing a song. but i could only remember two lines from it. i couldn't remember which song it was either. the lines were 'why do you do that only/why are you so odd.' i sang these lines over and over. i crossed the bridge watched more ducks at the other side and looked at all the styrofoam cups in the water from the christmas parade we had last week. another car needed to cross the bridge so i moved out of the way. the person in the passenger seat said something to me as they passed. i don't remember what he said.

i crossed the street and began to walk up a hill. next to the street there was a ditch brimming with leaves like water. when i stepped into the leaves i sank down up to my knee. i walked on the embankment and kept sing the lines. 'why do you do that only/why are you so odd.' i still couldn't remember what song it was from. it was a sunny day and then i started singing 'the artist walks among the flowers/appreciating the sun' and then i remembered what song it was. it was 'story of an artist' by daniel johnston. i decided to walk in the grass instead of the street. i looked at the pretty houses and walked around them. the street was very quiet and i heard something scratching above me. it was a squirrel nibbling on an acorn loudly. i stood and watched it for some time. then i kept walking and a man was leaving a house and crossing the street and going to another house. we just missed each other and we pretended we didn't see each other. i walked by a big mansion that i always looked at down from the road. i had never been up here. the front gates were wide open and i thought about coming in but stood in the cul-de-sac and watched.

i went down these broken concrete steps with my hand on the rusted tubing that led down the hill. the walk was covered in leaves and the trees were all bare above me. i stood and watched two families taking their portraits in the park below me. i looked at them through the trees but i don't think they saw me. i went back up the stairs and ignored a barking dog. he was very interested in getting my attention and in letting me know he was going to sink himself into my throat. i kept walking.

i saw a tiny little house made of rocks. it looked just piled one on the other. there were windows in the rocks and there was a roof over the rocks. i looked inside and someone was getting a book. it looked like there was a lot of stuff inside the house. i kept walking. behind the house of rocks i saw a dog statue perched on its back legs with his paws hanging at his chest. he looked very real. there was squirrel the dog seemed to be looking at. the dog did not move. i found the house of a girl i used to know once in high school. it was bright bright pink and very small. i turned around and started walking back. the dog statue had moved and now had its paws on the ground but still staring straight ahead.

i kept walking and picked up another stick. the stick had a hole in it that looked exactly, exactly, like a vagina except without lips. this was when i started singing jeff buckley. it was the nina simone cover he does at the beginning of his live album. i kept time with my shoes walking on the asphalt and then slapped the stick on my thigh to mark the offbeat. i sang as many verses as i could remember. i was asking the stick to be kind to me. 'oh mama, love me good' i said. i found a father watching his son wash the car. the boy was spraying the car with water and the father was not talking and just watching. i passed them and watched a mother pulling a wagon with a girl in it. she was passing out bread to the neighbors. the little girl was singing. i found a dead possum on the road which i poked with a stick. later i forgot which end of the stick i had used to poke the possum. i did not throw the stick away. i looked into other houses and saw people doing things. one person was opening a cabinet.

i found an empty lot and laid down in the grass. i kept singing 'oh mama, love me good.' i watched a plane in the sky. i got up and looked down into a meadow. a family with a private drive owned it. they owned the whole block. the meadow had an entire playground in it. there was a built-in swimming pool and the house covered most of the meadow. i kept walking and sang 'if you want me to, i'll cook and sew.' i found a giant tree on the a giant property. the house was far away. i came to look at the tree. i wanted to touch it but there was someone sitting on the porch so i left. i came down the hill and started walking back to my house. my neighbor drove by and stopped to ask if i needed a ride. i was holding a vagina stick and a clump of leaves. i said 'no thanks, i am just walking.'

one day i will be able to do long divison and when that day comes i will divide you into an odd number and not even THINK to leave a remainder

on my itunes 'recently added' playlist i am listening to celer. i am drunk. in the hallway. i get better reception here. neighbor's wifi. franzia blush. 'this drink will absolutely make me an alcoholic'.

a few weeks ago i acquired van dyke parks.
i acquired celer directly after.

when i finish listening to celer, the next album to listen to is van dyke parks' 'jump!'

right now i don't particularly feel like jumping.

i feel like sitting in my hallway and pretending i am invisible.
i feel like hiding in a secret cupboard with invisible doors.

if someone were to walk by i would put out my foot to trip them. i would watch their eyes suddenly widen in bewilderment and their hands busy with whateverm, suddenly impeding them from breaking the fall.

i feel this is truth. i feel that suddenly impeding someone from breaking their fall is truth. i feel one day i will break the fall of millions of people and they will thank me and i will not have social anxiety anymore. everyone will be my friend and i will not have to go to ozark guidance anymore. i will just walk around town and the shopkeepers will know my name and give me things for free.

when i am free i will post a link which will enable readers to download me for free from bandago or mediafire or rapidshare or something. there will be a minial level of spam and i will understand how exactly people share themselves and how they take care of each other.

dead animal parts in envelopes

i have not been eating very well lately.
i have set up a web site for people to donate money so that i can eat.
please consider donating to www.meals4israel.com

****

a blog called 'i don't like pandas' wrote about me.

it is in a language which i do not understand. i think it is in the language that they speak in the netherlands. i think this because i mailed a cd to rotterdam. rotterdam is in the netherlands. if someone understands this language please let me know what it says.

***

i will be featured on a song with rio en medio for the save darfur/world food program compilation released in march by borne recordings/acuarela. i spent last week recording and i think it is a very pretty song. sometimes i listen to it to relax.

the lineup includes: marissa nadler, devendra banhart, mi and lau, fern knight, rio en medio, larkin grimm, arborea, alela diane, mica jones, big blood, micah blue smaldone, cursillistas, magic leaves, the plains, starless and bible black, david garland, ora cogan, eric carbonara, and jozef van wissem and maybe citay.

i don't know many of these people.

***

in june when i came back to arkansas i decided to write every day for 2 hours. i had no real purpose to do this but just to write. i was living behind my parent's house in a garage that had been (poorly) converted into a house and writing on my typewriter because my laptop was hit by lightning. i did not have a job and i did not have prospects. every morning i woke up at noon and then wrote. i watched television until conan and then went to sleep. or i would bike to the casino and drink free soda with richard. at the casino there were many amputees, chain smokers, and people with scabs on their faces.

needless to say i was not very happy. what i wrote was not very happy and reading over it a few months ago i realized that i did not make me happy to read mostly on account of it being very bad. by this i mean, not good at all. there were many false starts, some more enthusiastic than others. there were many cheap tricks employed and just plain rip 0ffs. i don't understand how anyone can write when they are anything but happy. i think david lynch said something like that.

reading over what i had written i decided a complete re-write was in order. this re-write i think was motivated by some form of direction in my life after getting a job and making friends. i felt less alone and like people in my direct sphere of influence would miss me if i died. i think this important. i felt like putting effort into writing because life seemed positive. i felt crippled before and could not write anything. i began by adapting the things i had written. but writing with this new thing happening underneath everything the stories have evolved and warped into these surreal frames of consciousness. i feel overwhelmed with the stories that are happening everywhere now. everything is a story. i don't know. i will start posting drafts of these stories.

***

soon i will start working on something important. the object stopping me from working on this important thing is the thought of, while beginning work on this new thing, the time i spent not working on this thing already. like i wasted time. like i am not getting enough air into this animal here. then everything will be moist and wet like damp soil. i will then put down the things that i used in order to start this work and then not do any work at all. i feel this a great problem. i feel i must take active steps to fix this problem.

i was trying to tell the therapist this today. everything i said she would repeat but in different words. i felt i was in front of a machine that repeated things to me and not a human being. i began to smile because it was funny. she would not look me in the eye.

my challenge for today will be to figure out a solution to this problem. this problem of 'doing vs. being'.

fuck, okay.
i don't know.

i will go into the woods and pray.

PARK

The birds came to eat the bread from my hands in the park. Two ravens.

When they began to throw their bodies into the work I felt a sudden need for weight.

I watched them dig into my skin and pull up dark deep strings from my wrists.

Soon they hovered over the library with the strings in their beaks.

A boy asked if he could have a turn at my kites.

Right as I was about to hand over the strings to the boy, the birds gained some form of place and plot.

They carried me through the sky and the little boy became smaller. I called to him and told him not to worry. He cried with his hands in his mouth.

I watched the park become smaller.

We landed in an old Indian burial ground. The birds put together a small bed of twigs for me under a peach tree. I felt asleep thinking of the boy in the park and the way he cried as I was lifted to the sky.

He was very beautiful and I wanted to see him again one day.

I asked the birds if I would see the boy again and the birds did not answer. The birds were busy working the strings into the roots of the peach tree.

I asked them again if I would see the boy again. But I couldn't get the words to come. Instead I vomited a peach on the ground.

The birds took the peach and buried it. I began to cry and kept asking if I would see the boy. An Indian ghost burst from the ground where the peach was buried. He chanted a song for me and put his hand on my wrists.

I felt a cooling power pass through the strings and into my face.

When I opened my eyes the Indian was slurping the strings into his mouth like spaghetti. I began to feel weaker and weaker until I slumped to my knees and asked the Indian for mercy.

The Indian granted me mercy and took me into his teepee.

When I woke up in the morning half my body was covered by an intricately woven quilt. Beside me stood a wooden loom working to finish the weave with the strings from my wrists into the quilt covering me.

The cone lapels of the teepee opened and the boy from the park came in holding a brown tablet carrying bread and water.

He left the tablet by the loom and then pulled something from his shirt and left it in my shoes by the entrance.

Two dead birds.

ryan manning is my friend: greatest hits

ryan manning is my friend. i think he is a good person. i believe he causes many people to feel happy and loved. i believe ryan is a special internet person and i feel he cares about important things. there was a time when ryan and i chatted almost every day. i don't know where he has gone recently. i hope he comes back. i felt sad when i read mean things about him on the internet.

to prove that ryan is a good person i offer ryan manning's greatest hits from my conversations with him on gmail:

5 -- here ryan and i tinge sadness with humor and jokes about sex and masturbation and employ literary techniques such as alliteration and metaphors to do so.

6:58 PM me: how are you

6:59 PM ryan: so tired

7:00 PM me: why

ryan: sleep deprivation

5 minutes

7:05 PM me: why

ryan: i don't know

anxiety maybe

me: what are you anxious about

7:06 PM ryan: life

it is chronic

7:07 PM me: that's true

7:08 PM i have found that going on week-long masturbation binges when i don't leave my room even to eat does not make life not so chronic

7:09 PM ryan: that sounds painful

me: and bloody

just kidding

i hope you feel better

ryan: masturbation rampage

me: hah yes

ryan: thank you

me: castle of self-abuse

ryan: haha

torture chamber music

7:10 PM me: bastion of boners

ryan: moat of motherfuckers

me: ok i have to go now

4 -- here ryan manning takes care of me when i felt crazy.

ryan: how are you

4:16 PM me: lethargic

you?

ryan: is it hot there

i feel tight

i need to exercise

me: no it is kind of crisp

how far do you walk

4:17 PM ryan: just around the neighborhood

i am not sure how far it is

sometimes maybe a mile

me: i need to eat something

i think i have a problem

ryan: eat eat

4:19 PM me: good idea

i will do that now

ryan: what will you have

5 minutes

4:25 PM me: i don't have any food here

ryan: oh no

4:26 PM me: i will do something

4:27 PM ryan: what will you do

me: i will make rice

i have rice

i don't know

ryan: rice is good

me: i have to leave or something

4:28 PM i have to paid my credit card bill

ryan: godspeed

4:30 PM me: i will do something

ryan: yes

units will move

3. here ryan manning asks me if i was able to download an album from the link he sent me which was a nice thing to do

7:02 PM me: yes i think so

you were typing something and i interrupted you

ryan: i was just going to ask if you were able to download celer

7:03 PM me: oh yeah thank you for that

ryan: good

2. here ryan manning exposes me to erotic art

1:53 PM me: how did you find this blog

ryan: bendmeover.tumblr.com

1:54 PM me: is this called 'art porn'

ryan: i think it's called erotic art

1:55 PM me: ah ha

ryan: artistic nudity

what difference does it make

me: whatever, it gives me a boner

ryan: haha

pornography is boring

1:56 PM photography is interesting

this is a statement

1:58 PM art porn is one way to call it

me: this is an erection

1. here ryan discusses internet writers and their need for sex.

ryan: internet writers need sex

me: maybe art is things that make us feel or remind us to feel or soemthing

2:00 PM i know, i've read your poems

ryan: maybe

my poems are a cry for sex

my penis is crying for sex

me: why do you feel that you have to cry for it

is crying the 'apex' of human emotion

tears or not tears

2:01 PM ryan: there is no vagina anywhere near my penis

me: this calls for lamentation

ryan: haha

yes

me: what would you do if the entire internet community of writers and bloggers pitched in some money and hired a call girl for you in your town

2:02 PM ryan: i think i might do it

music i deleted last night from my itunes library at 3 in the morning

this is some of the music i deleted because i do not listen to it because i think it is bad. i feel very tired of the music that i have. 20 days of music and nothing good to listen to. i would like something good to listen to. if i had something like this i feel i would be excited about writing again.

lists, i feel, embue me with meaning.

- why? : alopecia
- erykah badu: new amerykah part I (4th world wave)
- ellis paul: speed of trees
- malajube: trompe-l'oeil
- au revoir simone : the bird of music
- el perro del mar : from the valley to the stars
- dungen : tio bitar
- elliott smith - XO & figure 8
- david dondero : south of the south
- devotchka : a mad and faithful telling
- the faint : danse macbre
- joanna newsom : milk-eyed meander
- ed gein : judas goats and diseleaters
- sondre lerche : phantom punch
- seu jorge : samba esporte fino
- rites of spring : end to end
- rilo kiley : EVERYTHING
- RATATAT : everything
- pedro the lion : control
- page france : and the family telephone
- of montreal : satanic panic in the attic
- neon blonde : ?????
- girl talk - night ripper (bullshit)
- the kinks - some live album
- broken social scene - some shitty album
- jorge ben : africa brasil
- umbrellas : illuminare
- flaming lips : in a priest-driven ambulance
- final fantasy : has a good home
- beirut : flying cup club

agua de hierba luisa

my mother just made me an organic tea from leaves an old woman grew in her backyard.

the leaves are from a type of grass that is similar to lemon grass. i don't know what the real name for the leaves are. i think it is called cedron.

my grandmother used to grow lemon grass in her garden outside our house when we were little.

the leaves are boiled and then served. maybe with a little bit of sugar.

the tea was called 'agua de hierba luisa'.

today was my mother's birthday.

dream #15

NOTE: i haven't dreamt since my last evil dream. i feel like i am waking up a little.

I was living with my friend Jessica in a small apartment near the library in town. There were young high school guys staying with us for the weekend. Across the street I had found a small rehearsal area. It was boarded up and old but warm enough to keep everything toasty. It had begun snowing. There was snow on the ground. I was worried it would be too cold. The high school kids kept me up at night yelling downstairs in the living room. One afternoon Jessica came home and I told her I had found a rehearsal space across the street and you could see it from the living room window. I said it would be perfect and the two of us could split the rent there too. Jessica was making food and there had been an accident with a pressure cooker and some food had exploded and the room was a mess. Jessica seemed very nervous and was cleaning up. I told her about the practice space and she said that she would love to but that she was moving to tahlequah to be near her gay friend who needed her. then she walked out of the door and drove away, presumably to tahlequah. I went to have dinner with a friend of mine who told me she was pregnant and that I was the father. I told her I didn't know who she was and ran out of the restaurant. When I got home the high school kids were playing drinking games. It was 11:00 at night. The kitchen was a mess from the pressure cooker explosion and the living was filthy because of the boys I told them that I had to get up early in the morning. in the morning when it was still dark i went to take a walk and when i was coming back the high school guys were packing up their jeep. they were leaving for somewhere. i felt very sad and lonely. i didn't know what i would do by myself. I tried to get them to stay but I didn't end up saying anything. I stood outside by the car in the snow while they finished packing. They all came out hungover and drove away yelping and fishtailing in the snow. I went inside and thought of names for my baby.