SIBERIA/LA

Okay. For those of you who’ve been actually checking in on this blog semi-regularly, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Will this mofo stop messing with the color scheme of his stupid site?” I know I’ve been saying it to myself.

I’m just trying to find the right combo that will look all pretty, but be easy to read.

If any of you out there who are more fashion/color/artistic inclined have any suggestions, please leave me a comment. I’ll take all ideas into account…

Unless it’s something stupid.

I’ve been missing him a lot lately. When he died, Jude asked me what it was that we were supposed to learn from it.

I’m still trying to figure it all out.

one human gallery

she laughs.
the coffee is lukewarm
in my hand
in the paper cup that leaks
slow drops.
i rip off a piece
of the almond croissant.
it’s too sweet
when we sit by the skinny tree
without a name
nor a reason to throw
a shade on the used up sidewalk
of a quaint neighborhood.
there is money
resting
in the cracks on the ground
made by high heels
and fat kids
and i reach over,
flick dust
from her yellow shirt
with the two green mantis praying,
causing her to stop
the laughter
for a second
and we join hands
drawing lines in the air
helix and circus animals
point reaching point
lines tethered to pink stockings
and torn lips,
all for its simplicity
and the forest of alchemy
and in the hot sun
i pull away,
wrap these swollen arms
around my torso,
trying to hold in the pigments
of my immediacy.
but she worries
that i will learn to embrace the uncalled blessings
for what am i
but yellow parchment
stretched across the slender
spine of a kite in spring,
what am i
but 170 pounds of a present we can’t name.
this is the moment
of shortening necks
and a busy phone at the family home
and her arms cutting through the air
as she teaches me
how to embrace the river
how to swim in the flood of bile and brown spit
how to stand on a slippery floor
silent and calm
while my father squats down
opens the bottom drawer by the dining table with
a loud screech
picking through a file
three hammers
crazy glue
and a green pocket-sized gideon’s bible
for a “d” battery,
even as i tell him
that i will reach the end of our street
with steps taken
from hatred.
nothing is blind.
nothing in my life is blind,
these incisions precise and well intentioned.
this is the moment
of hanging the body of our work
on hooked branches
and snapped bones,
opening the word for the last time together
finding god
and how we are etched in stone
by the deeds we failed to prevent.
i am but sin and the people i have hated.
this yellow is the worthlessness of my ancestors.
i see nothing but the blood of your children
seeping into the gravel of my garden.
she lets go of my hand
and i lick the spilt coffee from my finger.
diane is moving to hawaii with her parents
and mom’s teeth are hurting again
and all around us
they walk
they breathe
they manage smiles and courtesy
as we hang ourselves in the clean walls of
a well lit gallery
on opening night
with portuguese cheese plates
and french champagne
where people stand
with one hand inside a pocket
or hooked around a bent arm
eyes furrowing over
the details
of our lives
wondering about the blank background
about the thin lines
about the blunt red
strokes
dripping
down
over a clean white surface.

Just wanted to announce couple of events to y’all:

1. A new exhibit opening this Saturday at the ANGELA HANLEY GALLERY. Those of you who came to our “Ordinary Madness” party know what a cool space this gallery is. Our good friend Allyson Spellacy is an awesome curator and a huge supporter of Wednesday Magazine. The new show is called “BEAT” and the opening reception is Saturday, May 27, 7-9 p.m. Check out the site for more info.

2. This is a PERSONAL announcement. I will be reading this Sunday at The Hotel Cafe. The info is here. Tongue & Groove is a reading that Conrad Romo runs once a month and it’s been going for a couple of years now. Great venue. I’d love to see you all there. I think I’m supposed to read about sex. I guess I’ll go home and write some sex stuff now. Anyway, it’s at 6:30 this Sunday. Come a bit earlier to find parking.

That’s it.

Technorati Tags: art, event, los angeles, poetry, culture, reading, writing, writing and poetry

Who is this R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. guy and why is he so stupid? His idea of the Brightest Young Writer in America is definitely one of the signs that the world is coming to an end. Soon.

His little column here pretty much explains why I hate everything sometimes. It’s dumbfucks like this Tyrrell guy that reminds me EVERY SINGLE DAY that I’m living in a world run by Dumb Old White Guys, until they are ready to pass the torch down to Dumb Young White Guys. The following little bit from the column is proof that both Tyrrell Jr and Wolfe are both completely out of touch with reality (that picture of Wolfe is another good proof):

No group in society more earnestly appropriates the constituent elements of status to “exalt” themselves in society than the intellectuals, though adepts of the “hip hop” culture run a close second. Thus Wolfe has written a great deal about intellectuals and in the future will be writing a great deal about Hip Hoppers, assuming they do not kill each other off. According to Wolfe, “The Hip Hop stars’ status tests . require shooting and assassinating one another periodically. How cool is that?”

Is he fucking serious? There is no other writer younger and less white and less completely pointless than Tom “I Am Charlotte Simmons” Wolfe? Are you telling me that TOM WOLFE is the poster-child for ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM???

If I am as idiotic as I sometimes feel and am missing some BIG IMPORTANT POINT in this article, please let me know.

Here’s the link again. Go check it out. Leave me comments on what y’all think. I’ll be passed out under my desk with a bottle of Montepulcianno d’Abruzzo.

Side note:

Why is it that in this world, the White Male Writer can write any damn thing he wants. He can even write as a White Female or a Black Female or, most famously, as a Japanese Female. But if you are anything OTHER than the WMW, you are most often greeted with such beautiful feedback such as: “Your story is not Black enough,” or “Your story is not Hispanic enough,” or “You need to write a chick-lit,” or “You need to make the characters of your play Korean and have it performed in an Asian Theater.”

Reminds me of the time our good friend Big Tuna picked up a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha, all excited that he was going to be reading the raunchy entries of a sex-slave, I mean, geisha. He was all into it until we told him that the book was written by a white dude, pointing at said white dude’s name on the cover. It took a lot of baths and a lot of soap until he felt clean again.

Technorati Tags: writing, writing and poetry, WTF