Some Private Words

Political differences...

Kris — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:03:46 GMT

My Father-In-Law say this difference between a Democrat and a Republican is this: Say You see a person drowning 20 feet from shore. IF you are a Democrat, you throw them a Life Preserver and walk away. IF you are a Republican, you throw them 10 feet of rope, and tell them "Work it out yourself." Whereas a Black Militant I met back in 1992, who's name escapes me at the moment, said the differences ammount to this: They both want to fuck you up the ass. A Democrat uses Vaseline as a lubricant. A Republican uses sand. So I register as an Independant, and keep muttering the word Kallisti more and more as Election Day Approaches...

Big Savings in Eternity Equity

Kris — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:20:00 GMT

As relentless and timeless as hunger, and as meaningless, to some infinite and unseen hired power, that bellows out of nowhere, with the force and depth of God's own public address/Emergency Broadcast system, "Nothing but the Newest in Nightmares tonight, Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls, of all unimportant ages, Welcome to the Redemption Demolition Derby!" As a white hot spot sweeps the semi-frenzied crowd of habitual offenders, Substance and cirumstantial abusers, pyschopathological liars, fear addicts, doom junkies, and all the other gratefully deadened heads, hateful til the last appeal, but good til the last drop, of any generic Messiah's blood, sweat, and/or (especially) tears, And down on the killing room floor, residing inside her own individual killing jar, a none too Snow White, both older and colder than Disney, and twice as stiff, whistles through a broken jaw on broken knees, above an endlessly dripping wishing well, "Some day, my Prince will come," no doubt like something wicked, and go, like a hacking cough or soaking sweat, Double vision or a double scotch, or random, drive-by shooting pain, before a night of heavy breathing, while waiting to inhale, explode, or maybe just cause some cancer, forever ending in impotence, heart ache or heart attack, constant as a new National Pastime past due, as yet another President of these United States of Hysteria, presents a dirty thumbs down to the Great Unwashed, before slipping them the finger, like a surprise rectal exam/IRS Audit, and after 2 good coughs and a retinal scan mutters, "let the games begin..." Back to where it all began, down and dirty in the mud of this damn nation, full of fading cities and dead end jobs, and vanishing manifested destiny for all, and forever more, Battle, like batteries, not neccessarily included... copyright 1996 Puddinhead Press

Compulsive

Kris — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:15:11 GMT

Expression walks the line between thought and action, drawing blood like drawing flies to a mixture of honey and vinegar in which my shadow dances, like a long forgotten jones or insomnia's day dream. Lost in broken moment, reflected in a broken mirror, relentless as the sun. copyright 1994 Puddinhead Press

Not-Quite-Freestyle For An M.I.A. Muse (in the key of E)

Kris — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:08:00 GMT

My muse is missing, presumed dead, for the last two weeks or three, but that last part could just be, that Motor City pessimistic tendency. Someone said it had to be that poem about a crunchberry, but that's a sad ass joke, like, "Dude, it's karma, for dumping that chick Calliope." And there's other factors that make me shudder, nearer and dearer to me, than dedication to "dead arts", or bad history with female mysteries. Like being driven to distraction and back, my back up against wage slavery, so I won't be foisting off any whack, second hand jack off fantasies as reality, or resort to retorts, like "I am an army of one, being all I can be." Cuz one against all just dumbassed, Lotto odds to me. And it may just be symmetry, for my lack of public sympathy, for every neophyte poet wannabe, I systematically showed no mercy, north or south of Diversey, laughin' mean while they cursed me, but that is my legacy in this twisted country, with all of it's sanctified savagery and pageantry, an outsider looking in at the whole glass managerie, of the Sex and Violence industries, courtesy of shining seas of TVs, via VHF's Big Three, full of tits and ass, beer, guns, and SUVs, and amazingly crazed, infotaining celebrities, and it's clearly had it's way with me. But then again, conversely, I'm fatally attracted lately, to sanity, sobriety, and (don't laugh at me) satiety, while just trying to feel stately. And yet again, I'm sick of Thee, and Thou Art, defining "high arts," when my work's free meter, free range, free style poetry, and this damn sure feels like a cure to me, an undissected resurrection to respectability. Back in the land of the living and thanks-giving and healthy, the wise and the wealthy, physically, mentally, and morally, orally representing ME, Myself, and everything up to these unblinking eyes, I need SO bad, cuz that's how I see this shit see? So I need no disguise to grab the prize, while you sigh, "C'est la vie. Spare me." Cuz this here marks the start of a whack attack rhyme Dynasty, without regard for property, family tree or pedigree. But my long lost Lady of the first line, in the first place, where is she? Another victim of Intellect's, Scorched Earth, Zero Tolerance Policy for Epiphany? Or everything else, unprovable empiracally? Or is it just the turn of the worm, on the Trick by the Tricky? It's sick to me, this lack of finality and existential banality. When finally it comes to me, like it's a Hex on me, She's right here, right now, right fucking next to me! Laughing like a kid, sayin', "KID, let this mess be. I love thee eternally, oh tragicomic chimpanzee. You're such a little monkeyhead, you big dummy. Your cage it don't exist no more, and sure as the day that you were born, you are finally, and fully, FREE." copyright 2001 Lovecraft Technologies

9th & Hennepin By Tom Waits

Kris — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:35:32 GMT

Well it's 9th and Hennepin And all the donuts have Names that sound like prostitutes And the moon's teeth marks are On the sky like a tarp thrown over all this And the broken umbrellas like Dead birds and the steam Comes out of the grill like The whole goddamned town is ready to blow. And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos And everyone is behaving like dogs. And the horses are coming down Violin Road And Dutch is dead on his feet And the rooms all smell like diesel And you take on the Dreams of the ones who have slept here. And I'm lost in the window I hide on the stairway I hang in the curtain I sleep in your hat And no one brings anything Small into a bar around here. They all started out with bad directions And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear, One for every year he's away she said, such A crumbling beauty, but there's Nothing wrong with her that $100 won't fix, she has that razor sadness That only gets worse With the clang and thunder of the Southern Pacific going by As the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin And you spill out Over the side to anyone who'll listen And I've seen it All through the yellow windows Of the evening train.

The Stories of the Street by Leonard Cohen

Kris — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:14:27 GMT

The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh. The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas, and I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose, yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose. I know you've heard it's over now and war must surely come, the cities they are broke in half and the middle men are gone. But let me ask you one more time, O children of the dusk, All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us? And where do all these highways go, now that we are free? Why are the armies marching still that were coming home to me? O lady with your legs so fine O stranger at your wheel, You are locked into your suffering and your pleasures are the seal. The age of lust is giving birth, and both the parents ask the nurse to tell them fairy tales on both sides of the glass. And now the infant with his cord is hauled in like a kite, and one eye filled with blueprints, one eye filled with night. O come with me my little one, we will find that farm and grow us grass and apples there and keep all the animals warm. And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, O take me to the slaughterhouse, I will wait there with the lamb. With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world. We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.

My Favorite Rimbaud Poem

Kris — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:08:33 GMT

A Season in Hell Introduction Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed. One evening I took Beauty in my arms-- and I thought her bitter-- and I insulted her. I steeled myself against justice. I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care... I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy. I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness. And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot. Now recently, when I found myself ready to croak! I thought to seek the key to the banquet of old, where I might find an appetite again. That key is Charity. (This idea proves I was dreaming!) "You will stay a hyena, etc....," shouts the demon who once crowned me with such pretty poppies. "Seek death with all your desires, and all selfishness, and all the Seven Deadly Sins." Ah, I've taken too much of that; still, dear Satan, don't look so annoyed, I beg you! And while waiting for a few belated cowardices, since you value in a writer all lack of descriptive or didactic flair, I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.

My Mantra...

Kris — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:47:10 GMT

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Mantra is a word, used in the "East", to meditate on, for the good of one's being. It clears the mind, calms the heart, and nourishes the spirit. For me that word was, is, and probably shall remain ENOUGH. I gained this word from a STRANGE place, the classic Western (ironic right there, no?) The Magnificent Seven. In a pivotal scene, the bandit Calvera, confronted by seven men protecting some all but destitute campesinos, asks how many men they'd hired to stand against him. Rather than saying their actual number, seven, the head gunfighter, Chris, responds, ENOUGH. I'd seen that movie a zillion times, but the last time I saw it, this simple word, especially in that context, echoed in my head for days, weeks, months, and years, right up until today, drawing its wisdom through me. That wisdom is this: ENOUGH is all you will EVER need. Recently, I was utterly captivated with the short film MORE, that my friend Patrick was gracious ENOUGH to let anyone who wanted, bare witness to. It astutely illustrated that the notion of MORE is a beautiful lie, and that it's pull is ENDLESS. It hit me hard, and now I am realizing fully why. I grew up poor. Most of the food I was fed until I was 8 years old had the USDA Government Issue label on it, and most of the housing I lived in was subsidized by the Government as well. My mother explained it was only temprorary, that when she got her doctorate in Physchology, we would finally have a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, full of nice people. It didn't happen until I was 14, and there was a lot we had to endure along the way. And when she was finally Dr. Darlington, the place we ended up, Oakland County MI, 1982, bore NO RESEMBLENCE to the Someday I'd been raised to wait for. The houses were big and beautiful, but the people who lived there wanted BIGGER and MORE BEATIFUL houses. Their cars were new and impressive, but they wanted NEWER and MORE IMPRSESSIVE cars. They wore new and stylish clothes, but they wanted NEWER and MORE STYLISH clothes. And even as they wallowed in this mentality, unaware that it was the source of pain in thier lives, they taught their children the same thing, with the same results. I couldn't understand or approve of this, and so I was scorned and villanized, perceived as a critic of something of GREAT VALUE. Part of what fueled this in me, was how FEW of them had this oppulent way of life, compared to how MANY folks I'd grown up with that had much LESS. I saw a direct correlation between the two ways of life. In order for a few to gain MORE and MORE, many had to get by on LESS and LESS. And the MORE they rationalized their behaviour, the LESS I could understand them, their children, or their way of life. At the same time, I had no desire to go back to living in poverty, just to prove the intangible nobility of my point, and thus I struggled, both to make a living, but also to do so at the expense of NO ONE. That struggle led me many places, and through the lives of many people. When I moved to Chicago in the 90's, I met gang members and drug dealers who inflicted misery and violence on their neighborhoods because they too wanted MORE, and couldn't care less how they got it. I also met Trust Fund Anarchists who actually chose LESS, and thought anyone who didn't do likewise was morally bankrupt. I looked at both, saw some of their points made sense, but they were taken to such an extreme degree, and were rationalized to such an absurdity, and with such vehemence, that I felt like there wasn't an answer out there that I could accept. Then one day I was watching a UHF Channel Afternoon Movie, and the Magnificent Seven came on. When the aforementioned scene between The Seven and Calvera occured though, something "clicked" when I heard the word ENOUGH. And I realized it was all I'd ever need, for the rest of my life, no matter where it took me, or who it surrounded me with. It was simple, direct, and flexible, the mark of a deep truth in my limited estimation, and it has become the focus of my journey through this life. But like any truth, it is only effective when it is remembered, and in the 8 years since it occured to me, I have been distracted away from it many times, in many ways. Through loss, injury, injustice, and pain. Through anger, desire, fear, and loathing. Through seeing decent people suffer, and dangerous, viscious fools prosper. All that has made me look around me in pained confusion, when comfort and clarity awaited inside me with a single word. ENOUGH. I am in a better place these days, physcially, emotionally, and spiritually. With ENOUGH space to hear my thoughts, ENOUGH food to keep me alive, ENOUGH kind & intelligent friends to keep me company, and ENOUGH money to keep it all moving along, comfortablely ENOUGH. While I wasn't consciously aware of it, I realize now I have internalized my true goal to such a degree that I cannot do anything but exist in it, and appreciate it for what it is. This is why I am SO grateful to Patrick for showing me the great vision of MORE, and for all the others who have spoken the right words, in their own unique ways, that remind me of this essential truth, and to Sarah and my own families for being concerned that we do indeed have ENOUGH. Bless you all, and may you all also, always, have ENOUGH

Scarecrow (by Beck)

Kris — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:38:39 GMT

I'm walkin to the other side With the devil tryin to take my mind And my soul's just a silhouette In the ashes of a cigarette Illusions never fake their lies Trick cards fool the eye Carry zeros over till they add up Bury tears in the chapters you shut Sometimes the jail can't chain the cell And the rain's too plain to tell All alone by a barren well The scarecrow's only scarin himself I've been diggin the ground Thru the dust and the clouds I see miles and miles And the junkyard piles I wanted hope from a grave I wanted strength from a slave What gives you comfort now Might be the end of you then Crows are pullin at my clothes The wind got my fingers froze Standing all day keepin watch Over all the treasures we lost Sometimes the jail can't chain the cell And the rain's too plain to tell All alone by a barren well The scarecrow's only scarin himself

No Contest

Kris — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 17:21:33 GMT

When I cease to race my waking age, that turns days to nights, turns days to paid and unpaid hours, transcending semi-prepetual motion, within society's semi-critical mass, I linger in the moment where I can smell nothing but green, unclean heart almost halting, remembering the earth is turning, take me for the ride of my life knowing, I've never been here before. Behind cool glass, inside silver's razor fine safety line, my twin who claims this body as his and his alone, regards me with mirrored eyes, reminds me of the secrets, the rules, the ropes, taught as laws Faster being master, speed doesn't kill, impact does They can't touch or teach, hit or heal, what they can't catch or keep Can't reach to explosive moves, raging for the rest of our lives Living is dying doing time, better to be a blur, or an object in hard static focus, who stares them down with bleeding eyes, and says of self-defense "My life's been a bad dream, so I want to be a nightmare when I grow up, so far, so good, I've only grown old, so fucking what! Too lately, I prefer fields to rooms, disinterested in my insulation, Instead obsessed with my pulse and hard won breath, feeding not fueling, feeling without touching, no intentions, just attempts, staring at the sun, howling at the moon, reaching out to the sky with open palms and forgeting this man created by children, scared within inches of life Because innocent doesn't mean not guilty, it means you're welcome. Thanks to finally meet you. Hello. Hi there. copyright 1994 Puddinhead Press