double edge

I couldn't

display my daughter's pictures
when I lived with HER;
oh, one or two
out of HER direct line

of vision - -

God forbid one should look
upon the likeness of
a beautiful smiling child - -
not in HER universe;

NOW after

humping my belongings into
my own living space
fresh from three years of
holding my itchy, self-righteous tongue

I find

my favorite framed cherub grin
absent so long
whispers almost audibly
of long distance love and failing



child support






09/07

Faint echo in a silent canyon...

a rocky reincarnation



shoveling my life’s accumulations
inside an old garage for rats to shit upon,
I then crawled into
a friendly and sympathetic vagina...

after eight months gestation,
my time as a reclusive and bruised
forty-something fetus ended
with an agonized final push,
emergence into harsh desert light,
and a hard slap that made me cry
so I might breathe on my own...

first a colicky graying baby
weaned on increments of self-reliance
and permanent ejection from
now-frowning and dry vertical lips,
I presently stumble about - -
a stubbly toddler - -
bottle-fed with Zoloft and Clonapin
and long to fit comfortably
inside the adult clothes that never truly fit me
in past incarnations...

waaah.




2006 by ATB

From the "This looks better to me AFTER the 40 oz. Miller" dept. ...

Attempt at Writing Something New


fear of hitting the keys...
minutes stretch between short lines - -
afraid tappings will
amount to fingerpainting
with ineffectual transparent shit

and the lonely grey-and-white house cat
feeds me a line,
boldly stepping upon rows
of contemporary glyphs:

0000000000000000000000llllllllllllllllll///////.///

- - then jumps away to stalk
a light brown date-sized winged cockroach,
leaving me on my own
to finish

this.




2006 by ATB

Time to flamboyantly blow off a couple of fingers...

... like everyone else, this coming Tuesday I'll be trying to get through the day without singeing-off the majority of my ass-hair! A fun July 4th tip dug up from my mental archives: buy a healthy quantity of "Screamers" or "Piccolo Petes" from your local "Red Devil" or other fireworks source; rip off the plastic platform, take a hammer, and give the end at the opposite of the wick a few well-placed whacks, until it is fairly flattened. Then light, wait until the wick is close to igniting the precious pyrotechnic device, and throw with great velocity at an object of personal scorn; watch the surprised expressions of others and experience your own sense of exhilirating delight as this device - - originally engineered to entertain and thrill with a shrill screaming whistle while firmly planted upon the pavement at a safe distance from human onlookers - - explodes like a miniature roadside insurgent-bomb, scattering undesirable party patrons, authority figures, and general innocent bystanders alike with sure-fire results. Ah, being a sociopath has a hell of a fun side, to be sure!!! (NOTE: THIS IS PURELY ADULT FUN - - WAIT UNTIL THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN PUT TO BED [and you have sufficient money in your checking account to cover your bail]!!!) Take care!

Atomic XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Visiting from the void...

Howdy! Hope everyone is doing well... I've been spending my days working and going to the gym, trying to metamorphose from a Jabba The Hut-like creature to a slightly better-looking Jabba The Hut-like creature... I'm keeping an eye out for places I might consider moving to (right now it's L.A. [where I have family and which I love], Fort Worth [where I have a very dear friend], or Savannah [which is near my daughter...])... mostly I'm just keeping a low profile and working on some personal goals... blah blah blah! Wish I had some new writing to post, or something exciting to pass on (well, I've run into Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde in and around Joshua Tree (where she lives) a couple of times - - she's really very friendly, and has a great figure [yow!] - - that's about it). Anyway... talk to you later!

Sincerely,
Atomic

Finally lost my Georgia drawllllllllll...

Howdy! Finally over my jet lag and a bit of post-partum melancholy... I will develop the film from my trip soon... I have a habit of taking rolls and rolls of film and setting them aside for sometimes up to a few months... I hope to break that habit with these new pictures. Now, if I'd only lay down about 150.00 for a digital camera, I wouldn't need to deal with this quirk of mine; I'm just a freak for my super clean, mint condition Minolta Maxxum 7000 (circa 1987) - - a REAL camera... ! Anyway, blah blah blah. Thank you all for your interest and your words; I suppose I'm not the best friend on Tribe when it comes to staying in daily contact... I just allow the challenges of life sink in a little too deep for my own good, and I can be just an eeensy-teeensy-weeensy bit self-involved, if you know what I mean... anyway, thanks again! Oh, and while on my trip, I visited the local satanic Wal Mart and had some pictures developed and put on disc from last Dec., right before my daughter left for the east, taken at the Los Angeles Arboretum (along with a roll or two I'd taken some months earlier in the desert - - told you I was bad at developing pictures), some of which I'll put in my Tribe photo album... I don't believe any shots of me made it into these rolls - - all the better for any unsuspecting viewers, as a glance at my likeness just may lead to blindness... buh-bye!

Sincerely,
Atomic!

Hello from Georgia...

... going home tomorrow... having a wonderful time with my sweet little baby... I'm starting to talk with a drawl... 'bye, y'all.

Thank God...

... finally going to visit my sweet daughter, Juliana, from 04/27 to 05/02, who now lives in Rincon, GA, which I suppose is essentially a suburb of Savannah. If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd eventually have to fly to Georgia to visit my daughter, I'd have thought them mentally ill. Ah, but who knows what surprizes the future brings... From what I'm told, the town is composed of housing tracts, lots of trees (well, you can't go wrong with trees), a "Days Inn of Rincon" hotel (in which I'll be staying), and various other establishments such as a Mac Donalds, a Sonic (I suppose I get to try the food after seeing commercials for the damn place on cable in California, where none of the goddamn things exist), a mexican restaurant, and I suppose, a few gas stations. The nearest library is in the "next town over", so I suppose internet access will be unavailable. Yet, for 5 glorious days I'll be able to run around in the trees with my daughter, catching bugs, frogs and lizards, we'll swim in the hotel's pool, and generally bask in each other's company... this will be a slice of what I call heaven! And, even consciously living within and enjoying each present moment to the limit, I'm afraid that it will be over all too soon...

From the "I had nothing else to post" file...

“heaven exists, just don't blow it”



i know a woman that, sandwiched between two blackened eyes
wears a surgically-altered nose, transformed into nasal Nirvana
by carrying another's grafted DNA into unexpected extended existence,
most likely the only after-life experienced by the deceased donor - -


and although the "giver's" cognizant vision of Heaven would conflict
with reality's inferior location and finite duration, at least it can be touted
as an after-life receiving sporadic visits by the Master of the Realm
in the form of, it could be said, "the Finger of God".




2003 by ATB

From the "Unintentionally Misogynistic Metaphor" dept. ...

"stalking the periphery"



insecurity equals emotional terrorism:

trapped in a suspended rusted iron box with
rats biting flailing feet,
breathing the fumes of your own demise,
gagging on the rotton taste of
a decaying ego;

eyes spinning like pinwheels,
fingernails ripping while clutching a
jagged precipice,
dangling over the distilled boiling
congealed puddle of you - -

the you of isolation and fear,
the you of the abandoned child,
the you of the adolescent shadowboxing abuse,
the you who allowed seduction by
sadness,
helplessness,
hopelessness...

the Ness sisters;

you never could find the right crowd.





2004 by ATB