Fell off this week



(I mean year),

warped in my head now



pressure,

the way I feel,

no one can

pretend to here



I do, but I really

lose myself



in



anger and nowhere to put it.



fucking people don’t know me



misery purely my own fault



I’m the one to blame for wasting whatever I had



hate myself. And hate everyone



involved with



bitch,



make him grow horns.



I write this with teeth gritted.



A portrait in self-immolation.



No one could get a bead on that other Vincent, either.



At least he had a brother who believed in him.



Here, in poisonous age, people like us

have no such

fucking luxury.



I’m sulled up,



man

give it love



your eyes

are ovaries,



oceans

sought,



future miles.



now in

the grass,



light wind

sifts



your hair,



a low



shimmering

field-borne



odor



feeds our breath.



I touch

your long



fingers



in the bare

cool



night

I feel the day singing or else



in the pictures of New York City he referenced



I once again felt it:

the mesmer,

the trance



view streaming humanity

harbor bodiless sense of witness a sense

of floating, a sense



of senses



looking for kicks, feeling

like art

might happen.



immortality,



a dash of the feeling

I can't be killed

or, rather, won't be



that I shall



not

be in any way

compromised.



in the pictures the young people's faces are gentle, guarded, intelligent, interested, amused



going for drinks, knowing you can



I was always broke and alone even in good times,

slept with rancor

pinned to my chest.



were time an opera mine was

Humiliario



who wrote the score,

resonated the timbre



maybe instead of this

garbage I should be

posting homegrown

images of a dog,

a can of beer,

a cloud,

a girl's arm,



my frame of now,

a fenced backyard,



so I can see if



I'm happy

a resume



The breed has a distinct personality marked by direct and fearless, but not hostile, expression, self-confidence and a certain aloofness that does not lend itself to immediate and indiscriminate friendships.



The man must be approachable, quietly standing his ground and showing confidence and willingness to meet overtures without himself making them. He is poised, but when the occasion demands, eager and alert; both fit and willing to serve in his capacity as companion, watchman, blind leader, shepherd, or guardian, whichever the circumstances may demand.



The man must not be timid, shrinking behind his master or handler; he should not be nervous, looking about or upward with anxious expression or showing nervous reactions to strange sounds or sights.



Lack of confidence under any surroundings is not typical of good character.



Any of the above deficiencies in character which indicate shyness must be penalized as very serious faults and any man exhibiting pronounced indications of these must be excused from the workplace.



It must be possible for a judge to observe the teeth and to determine that both testicles are descended.



Any man that attempts to bite the judge must be disqualified.



The ideal man is a working animal with an incorruptible character combined with body and gait suitable for the arduous work that constitutes his primary purpose.

my new thing



measured silence,

a clear-eyed

listening strategy,



a witness

strategy

The Astral



For two years

my place of residence

was a corner apartment in the Astral

a shabbily grandiose behemoth of building

on Franklin Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

less than two blocks away from the East River.



Though I never knew for sure,

I always imagined that the Astral had once been a hotel,

a destination of nineteenth-century romance and intrigue,

frequented by sailors, merchants, wayward European couples,

gamblers, ex-gunfighters, dissolute scribes, etc.



The building, six rugged stories that loom

the entire block between Java and India Streets,

is in fact cited on certain maps as one of Greenpoint's

historic buildings.



Whatever its past, today these apartments

house a diverse assortment of folks of modest means,

ranging from solid domestic types to utter bohemians,

from hard-bitten immigrants to the bitterly indolent,

from the vaguely criminal to the criminally vague.



Affordable rents and close proximity to Manhattan

recommend the Astral to many young people,

while the proximity of the East River,

not to mention mounds of curbside trash,

recommend to the Astral legions of huge cockroaches.



While living there, I had ample

opportunity to consider the obvious relationship

between affordable rent

and an abundance of vermin.



There may or may not be gargoyles

incorporated somewhere in the Astral's façade.



From the roof, two things are apparent:

a magnificent view of Manhattan and the East River,



and the bizarre, seemingly random sprawl of the Astral itself,

as though the architect had been a proponent of free-association,

or else a drinking man.



Probably both.



Walls and parapets erupt weirdly

from the rooftop.



Small mice appeared routinely in my apartment.



I found it agreeable to imagine a lone, itinerant mouse

including my space as part of its usual circuit,



rather than seeing one as the immediate representative

of an infestation, of which it undoubtedly was.



In this way, as well as others,

I was victim to a fond, ubiquitous fallacy endemic

to Gothamites generally,

and to many Astral tenants in particular.



The fallacy involves being dedicated

to the idea that uncomfortable situations

somehow become optimal in light

of one's geographic location.



The larger fallacy being that New York City

is somehow

the ordained center

of the Universe.



Days I was utterly, tragically

earthbound in Brooklyn,

I would return to my Astral abode

to ponder these and other useful delusions.



Then the World Trade Center

was blown all to shit by airplanes

and people were jumping to their deaths

and dying

in other fantastic ways

all that whole morning



and I had to say fuck it all



just like everyone else



and evil is everywhere all over this whole earth



so I'll save my Astral shit for projecting



projecting positivity into a world that needs it



and fuck New York and all enemies



wherever they reside



(they are everywhere)



find the fucker bin Laden



impeach the fucker Bush



I think that'll settle some of it



(the parity

in this assertion



is what's most



depressing)

waiting on my system boot



crack open the dictionary



shame



shameless



shaman



I'll put $50 on 3 to place



all those things I should have been doing all along



I'll do them now