Monday, July 17, 2006
27 Marathon
I take your love as though I'm running last in a marathon and it's a cup of water.
26 Rev Calls
"Where are you calling from?" I say.
"I'm at a bar," she says. "A pub."
"A bar?"
"Yeah, a bar. I'm here by myself. My buddy's late & I thought I'd give you a call. If you don't want to talk to me because I'm at a bar, then forget it—I'll call someone else."
"What bar?"
"The Knot, near the Airport."
"Don't know that one," I say.
Then she is silent for awhile. I can hear jukebox music in the background. She is about to ask me for something, I can tell.
"Hey, did you get back over to Tubb's place yet? See Willie?"
Willie again.
24 The Next Best Thing To Being on The Inside
Love, like investing, is an art and not a science. What is a stop-loss order? What is a protective put? I ask, "How do you manage risk?" You say, "Take what the market is giving you." I say, "But how do I do that." You say, "Purchase what is selling below its real value and sell what is trading above its real value."
"But how do I know value?" I say.
You say, "It is only charlatans who are certain. Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainly is a ridiculous one."
Never tell anyone what you are doing in the market because later it can force you to do things you might not want to do.
23 The News
Really, though: what the hell else is there to do? Get a back pack, a wallet with a credit card, comfortable shoes. Fuck maps. I'd miss La Rev but it'd teach her! I'd make the fuckin news but even then no one'd hire me. They'd say, "Man, that fucking guy's really nuts!"
22 Where?
She is here and then
she is gone. I want to
dial her number but
where is it?
21 Job Posting
Send résumés to:
NLU Law School, writer/editor (e-mail)*
AG Medical Publishing, managing editor (e-mail)
Graphic World Companies (mail)
* Problem with attachment!
•AZU Phone Number
(314) 470-0862
•Or, apply in person:
3545 Lafayette, 3rd Floor
St. Vincent, MO 63333
Just ask for La Rev.
19 Is the magnitude?
I ask you. Is the magnitude of how good it'll feel now commensurate with the magnitude of how bad it'll feel later? We all have needs, La Rev: this present self, that present self—
O, pride, to whom can I be fair?
It becomes a question of proximity, a time & place bias.
I realize it'll feel bad later but what about the current me, huh?
What about him? When does he enjoy life?
When can he do something not because it's lucrative but because
it's a goddam human fucking impulse?
I want to tear magazines apart
I want to smash tables;
to put my hands through mirrors;
to fuck it all goddamit!
I won't want it later, La Rev.
Ah, Rev, I want legible magazines;
and tables to have tea atop;
and mirrors to gaze upon your beauty;
and faithfulness and loyalty and calm.
18 La Rev's Creed
Just write and
mother-fuckin
drink you
fuckin coward!!!
Death be damned
Love be damned
Life be damned
You didn't ask for her
but you love her anyway———
Don't look back
Don't look ahead!
17 Affinity
Finished off the first affinity.
Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays "Take Five."
I feel it working on me already.
It don't take long.
Doesn't seem like I got shit else to do,
'cept think about La Rev, wherever she is.
Ah, Rev, why did you leave me, me and your trees.
They're still here, growing for you,
refusing to drink my water.
It's full of alcohol, they say.
16 Hungry
Really, though, I need to get a job.
And I will, it's just a matter of time.
More days like today: 8a-4p in
front of the computer. Searching, writing,
sending will have to yield something. So now
I'm sitting in my La-z-Boy recliner,
writing and drinking, the fan is blowing on me—
all I'll read anymore is declared fiction; the
rest is just bullshit and subjective propaganda—
and I'm in my denim-colored boxes that La Rev
bought for me though I reimbursed her and
also I'm wearing sky blue sox from the Gap
and reading glasses and I'm a little warm and
I could use a shave and I'm g-d dehydrated—
after just one stiff drink I'm pathetic about that—
so I'll go out and see if I can't scrounge up
some water at least I'm not hungry.
15 Muse
Well, I still want to be a writer but, God, I'm not actually going to say that to anyone, anymore. What kind of fool do you think I am? We'll just keep it between you and me, La Rev. Ah, Rev, you're my favorite muse.
14 Cough
You have a bad cough but the only time you feel good is
when you are coughing really hard; you feel really bad
but the only time you feel good is when you are feeling
really bad
13 The Cynic's Assessment of the American Dream
A Joke
—How do you live forever?
—Tell people you want to die when you grow up.
11 Self
To my prevailing self: Let me Out!
Sometimes with drugs you touch it, feel it—
me—yes, there you are, slippery little bastard of brain.
You are buried so deep. How did you get so deep,
where no one else has been, not anyone else,
not even you. People think you're going nuts
but dammit you just want to be yourself and—
isn't that what sanity is all about. Let me be!
10 Depression
depression—knowing what's wrong but feeling like you can't do anything to fix it
He says, "It's there in front of you—why don't you just change?"
I say, "Because I fucking can't you fucking asshole. Don't you get it?"
9 Be Aggressive
It's like, I know how I wish I could be. But I just can't be that way. I can't be aggressive; speak up. To myself I say what I want to say, communicated in a complete absence of body language. It's right there, so obvious,
the universe of me doing that—speaking up, being myself, getting aggressive—
it exists somewhere. But not here and that's when—that's when you start to think that suicide might be a very viable option.
8 Baptism
They put Galileo away for believing Copernicus who believed in the Sun, even more than the Sun. They could put me away for believing in you, La Rev. Ah, Rev, you're a church with the highest steeples. Your water is beyond holy. You baptized all of me when you kissed my forehead. I felt my whole body go under. I shocked the ocean and killed all its fish.
But you brought them back. You invented air conditioning but I'm still hot. Kiss my forehead again. My love grows for you like the inverse of a tumor. I know no malady that I know you. I'll follow you, La Rev, in your celestial orbit, in your quest for the rest of space. Ah, Rev, you take me beyond the Space Station, you take me far beyond Jupiter, you take me where only comets will go. To Jupiter and beyond.
7 Airplane
You worried about me, didn't you? You didn't want the worry. You didn't like imagining me having to undergo a heart attack. You tried to take your worry to the bank, but they wouldn't cash it. They are smart those moneychangers, you said in exasperation.
But you brought me back, didn't you, La Rev? You strapped me to the hood of your car. You made me aerodynamic. Like an arrow, like a rocket. Like an airplane composed of skin and bone. I flew, La Rev. Ah, Rev, put on that skirt I like so much. I heard about this new tree, growing up on the bluffs. Up where the eagle screams, where the grass grows tall and almost touches the sun.
6 Cool Love
I knew, like, what it was. And, I knew, like, the symptoms. My heart beat is off. It's beating in another time zone. I've canceled all my magazine subscriptions. I'm living now, baby. The door is open. I hacked my AC to pieces. Feel the breeze?
