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Some must employ the scythe . . .

train write 1 & 2

April 7, 2009
1.
yesterday was for meeting people
father and son
head to toe for ski trip
Kevin sat behind me
he was riding on and missing
a big game to ride
through the night to meet
his girl in Little Rock
I spent the most
with Maia in the observation room
she'd been everywhere
but fell asleep on my shoulder
while I looked for anywhere
that I might know
I stepped out to smoke in Omaha
I slept through the rest of Nebraska
woke to 5:40 Colorado
this is the best I've felt
it's beautiful
2.
Richard's a great
big black dude
who keeps ordering
$6 cheeseburgers
that 'taste like fucking rubber'
I'm so glad he's on until Sacramento
Timmy's going to meet us
in Little Rock at 11 tonight
he's got a cheap bottle for me
and a stood-up
to-be pissed date
I'm going to talk to Richard
about getting hammered out
in the observation room with me

Gene

You have stomped the last breath out of this community.
You have lost sight of what always was and what should have lasted for many years to come.
You have isolated an entire generation that should be starting to carry the weight of this, our world, our everything, on their backs.
It ends with this, this fucking mess.

LifevsArt

Ok for one second snap yourself out of the pop-culture bubble you live in. Stop your daily intake of gossip, rumors, top ten lists, blogs, reviews and interviews. Take a deep breath of everyday life. Fuck that burns, it burns with the stench of unfulfilled dreams, to do lists, unfilled internet surveys, dirty laundry, half eaten sandwiches, simmering lust, and burning desperation. Let me back inside the bubble before I expire. Every time I try to embrace my awkward humanity I find it too much to bear. Its too real for me to touch. I'm afraid, like a clumsy dad holding his first born I afraid I'll break it . I'm scared that as much as I want it I wouldn't be able to coexist with it. Let me sit passenger side and watch life pass me by from the side view mirror. Its much more relaxing this way. Its so much easier to pass judgment and advice when its too late to do anything with it and I'm already on my way out of town. I like my movies to be realistic and my life to be idealistic. Let film portray the gritty boring everyday truths and let life be grand and moving. I think I got it backwards. I'm living in Pleasantville while on Tv I'm watching a documentary on the morning routine of the average American adult male, fascinating. Will I ever be ok with being normal, with being just like my parents, just like my neighbors, just like you. When will I relish my role as the consumer and realize I am not the creator. I am just a dumb American. Will these feelings that I am bigger than my environment, my history, everything thats ever conspired against me to hold me back, ever go away. Are they just illusions of grandiosity to protect me from the harsh reality of my own existence or do they hold any resemblance to truth. At this point I could give a fuck less I think I would be fine with either one. Just someone pick one for me tell me what to do and I'll move one. There are no answers only questions. Life isn't a book. I cant wrap it up with a clever ending that ties all the loose ends together and makes me seem like a literary genius. No it doesn't work that way. Life is a joke with no punchline, a story with no revelatory moral, a painting thats just colors on canvas. Life is not Art. I'm sorry I ever thought it was.

workspace

I hand her, her oh-so-adorably elephant-shaped bowl that I proudly filled with the finest plant matter I've tasted this side of the Mason-Dixon Line that I had been saving for weeks for this very moment. She, true to form turns it back to me. "You know I like it better when you have greens, baby." What a girl. I bring the glass trunk to my lips and with a sigh of relief inhale the exonerating smoke. "If you only knew how long I've waited for this" I think to myself. See I loved smoking with her. I remember the night I ate those mushrooms and told her that she looked like a portrait. She didn't know what I meant that night, but by the way she looked into my eyes, I knew that somewhere in her god-self she had to have understood. Did she understand tonight? Did she understand that the months of hiding this glorious feeling into the short moments when she was away were eating me up inside. That I just wanted to her to be there with me every time. Instead, she calmly watched as I breathe in, look at her and crook a smile. "He's been so patient" I'm sure she thought. "I've missed you" is what I thought. I handed her the elephant and she carried on the ritual. Was it a ritual to her? Or was she just getting high? We continued to pass back and forth, playfully holding in the unforgiving choke of the smoke for as long as we could, bursting into laughter at our frivolous games. Did she know that I wasn't just getting high? Could she possibly understand what it really meant to me? I close my eyes and wonder. What does this mean to her? Will she ever understand? Has she ever seen life peel away from itself? Has she seen the word 'NYKDLN' painted in neon waves through her mind's eye? Has she ever seen the faces that laugh at us that are hidden among everything we see? Has she felt fear or faced death? Has she ever spoke without using words and realized the meaning of man? Has she ever gotten the chance to feel the power that flows through every last one of us. That is every last one of us. Has she ever really lived? Is she alive? Does she understand? I open my eyes and see her perfect thin-lipped smile. God I love her so much, but fuck, what have I done to my mind. The places I've been and things I've seen have made me a concept, no longer a man. And how can one love a concept? Furthermore, how can a concept possibly love? I smile back. "I wanna talk to you about the mind" I said. "There's so much I think about, and never explain. So many questions, so many thoughts. I just want to talk." Afraid that these moments of shared higher-consciousness were fleeting I stuck my neck out and took the chance. She smirked at me as she picked up her Super Nintendo controller. We had been stuck on that damn factory level for months. Her eyes squinted in that way that really fires me up inside. She responded. "Baby, don't be stupid."

Only in Africa

Only in Africa can you hear the word "rapeable"
and feel your lips not pull back to form a gasp
in fact its a laugh
at the absurdity of the situation you've found yourself in
Words, Ideas, and Concepts are fleshed out in the dark hues
of Broken, Beautiful, Proud, Beaten, Filthy Humanity
and I'm left asking
Where Is My Humanity?
it is overridden by the reality of my selfish prejudice
yet I didn't ask to placed on this step
I didn't ask to wear this mantle
I was born as the rich savior of the Third World masses
Mass around me say my name. I'll never feel more important,
more loved, more respected, more used than I do right now
Fuck protocol, heres a dollar for you
Use it wisely, I never seem to
Faced with the same situation I'd be the same
begging beggar you are
Manufacturing sob stories, like a top tier Hollywood screen writer,
You aim right in between the chinks
in my White American Capitalistic Kevlar
this Dollar burns in my pocket with the weight of a winning Powerball ticket
I've never felt so cheaply empowered
You value it and myself in ways I will never understand
and yet as much as I want to give this to you
out of the goodness of my heart.
I end up giving it to you to shut you the fuck up
like Third World Blackmail I pay you off to be quiet
and now you went from sob story to rob story
Plus your dirty in ways I can never imagine
I try to act like it doesn't bother me
But my own ignorance is more caked on than the mud on your feet
And I'm left to think ......

Rochester re-edit