Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist. Jose Ortega y Gasset





.














-

29 December 2009

Benji + I on broken + bowed guitar @ hArlemspace

Sounds like, I think, more than one instrument with reverb . . . Or mayb Im just trippin like I do...


hOw I care

I am taking care of yu
right now i am ready 2 care
for all living around + in me

yu may hav 2 trust
that i've much to say
all i ever ask to do is need

to ink forgiveness, make it concrete
- just now i cannot find a damn pen!

Im so sick of borrowing
tenderness from tha wolves.

Trust: that all of time is here
bumping against your perception
that love is yours, always has been

before tha words.

Trust my name not
me, somehow forget me, but know
that forgetting demands effort
is reparative but
compulsory -

Show, now, if it's love
for we're dead meat
substance-less and dis-
appeared, and worth forgetting.

In such expulsions
out of the nowhere of mind
presience reveals

trick from illusionist's nostalgia - hopping curious mammal
first blip, then ghosthood - haunting perceptability.

In this way, being forgettable
is a gift to + from
a life where we all will always be.

Not a shame tally

For Kay Merryweather


If you don't mind then I don't mind shamelessness, impressing

Upon space-time: do anything to stop that baby's crying!

Girl why you have to keep a list

minimalising our very soul's content,

casting less in bated-breath

than would in gasp or on respirator?

What is it we have yet to claim

from words + rhythm?

Where do we find strength to mean?

Everything besides the very thing

names a space, numbs body in joining

sense or else clashes with the scene.

Inevitability in which we revel:

Time + Ecstasy, not virtually, enfeeble.

24 November 2009

Highcrimeslowflow


hIghcrimeslowflow

(start-point)
(:00) lOw-fi bye-bye!
(:19) hI-fi hi-hi!
(3:21) zOmbiepepperbattle
(7:56) rIchard simmons is embarrassed for yu
(10:48) frEestyle over drum (bare)
(11:40) frEestyle over drum (hard as nails)
(12:59) frEestyle over drum (ain't too proud to swallow)

To nurture

jEsse orations

jEsse, a precocious student and erudite mentor of mine, reading original compositions. Offscreen I direct him, but next time I'll let him flow his own ways. This was captured on webcam so please excuse tha staggering, just listen to this writer's words and you just may begin to-











Paul Baumann Collaboration @ hArlemspace 2



Here, student and mentor Paul Baumann is freestyling while I am deploying text from 'Infinity is running low.' This was shot during same workshop session as preceding post, at hArlemspace this summer. Thank you Paul for all your hard work. Let's keep it up! :)

Paul Baumann Collaboration @ hArlemspace 1



My student and mentor Paul Baumann + I are freestyling. This was shot during a workshop session at hArlemspace this summer. Thank you Paul for all your hard work. Let's keep it up! :)

iAmnoone

25 June 2009

SEAN'S EVIL

I/we ain't no accident
these things just can't be
all here just is
or is and be
will you invite
purposeless, trivial
to supper table?

- last place I want to look
for mooring or dinner plate
if as squall
in glade, crow's shore, disused promenade
ship captain's diary: bide
eons planting anagrams.
Thy lot's in man.

Fowl and sin.
I see girls.
VEILS. LINES.
SIN'S ALIVE, LIVES.
SEAN'S EVIL.

It's funny

If you want me
here take me
first tell me
what is me?
Pointilism?
Sloughing-off me?

Is equilibrium
worth ten dollars?
I can't pay today.
I'm down for layman's
exhumation - don't
require no interpretation.

As I am drunk like me
you can trouble me
cos you're a lot like me
you please me
for momentary slieghs on;
to hell with the rest of me.

Just walls and forks and
- I have feet?!
Suck on them already.
Step into bleedy.
Isn't this funny? It isn't
funny. O - it's funny.

Anger is what makes america

I'm sorry to report
the weather is lovely
today. It's disgusting.
You should be sorry.

No matter how strenuously
you wade against
the stream, you can't help
but survive 'not even
merely' genius but in

genuflection, in
nighttime you thrive
in five seconds you get
outta my sight, and 'all
the asshole can say is goodbye?!'

Beginning with quote from Nina Simone

Most people don't want to live how they live
Yu don't know how lucky you are to be you
O are you sad? But you haven't forgotten how to be mad?
You can be mad or we can go shopping.

You can impress your date.
How much is it worth to you, your fate?
I saw you by the piano longing to play.
Was that here, right now, or just another day?

You had to get, I have to get away.
Maybe I'll make a record; maybe not.
Then from slow rhetoric, any and all listeners -
Don't weep, don't die. Let's just rot.

In the vanguard

Thats the final thing I had to say to yu
I was ready to say more but you weren't listening anyway
all I wanted to say to yu
and yeah bitch you best believe me
is that too much rain will make your garden die
too much water makes the river overflow
noone's even lookin' out for you
but you've got your eye on the third person to the right of you
it's not that I want you to look in that direction
at least that's what I'm going to say in the
cold nite when we gotta do
what we never wanted to do again
it wasn't about the third time you flew to the sun
it wasn't about you at all
it was about how you acted when there was others in the room
this even isn't about the volume
in the room drifting wafting down the stairs in the mid- to-early- evenin'
sound wafts like smoke thats why martinis and weed go so well together.
This aint
even about the
button-
down shirt
this shit
isn't
actually good
that's
why
people are
steppin'
all over
you.
Act like
you don't see the love in front of you
act like its time
to go home as if anyone will be waiting for you to get home
and there's a reason to have a home.
Just cos you ain't got noone there
you think that gives you the right
to force all the the sad
acquaintances in your life to swallow
the bullshit you carry around as carcass?
You aren't in the vanguard
you aren't even living in this city
at this time.

Go storytime

It's all got to come down to who you are being in the moment
in the morning of high regard
you get the floss while I get the sword
you go home

while I go board you go home
and I go hard
you go storytime

I go to bed
hungry
I garnish plate you then throw it against wall

it's not the hardest or most natural
daylight we can get for our
picture or your paintings

this best light of day,
it's really just the best we can get.

Infinity is running low

dont thank me
forsake me
dont invite me in

if yu think im worthy
ive failed clearly
to let yu go

forgive me NOT x 3
(or else)

i repeat myself
(dont) open your heart
i repeat myself
(dont) beg for more
(dont) let 'em go

we are all
happy whores
happily
tooting our horns

i repeat myself
(don't) open your heart
i repeat myself
i am your whore
i beg for more

infinite jest, infinite trust
infinity running low

09 June 2009

Life ain't always a celebration. . .






Here is a map of our neighborhood. Click on the green house icon for link to pics of the flat, the building, and the surrounding neighborhood.


- 'Life ain't always a celebration/unless it is/this I can state with no hesittation: you deserve what you get.' - sS -

Two errata

The first error is performed even repeated throughout everyday discourse on trusted and unsuspecting acquaintances, partners, friends and probably it's best to avoid wielding this device in aggressively light-hearted interactions as the residual effects in that case are drastically divergent from these intended: to unnerve + to play dumb for one greatly admired, break into own expected/predictable/unidentifiable question/response/polite attention pattern abruptly + unannounced with articulations along the continuum of '. . . but yu wouldn't like me when I'm the one who's made mistake, as I quickly follow one mistake with many others, such as murder, assassination of the utmost foul endeavour, I could make you hurt for a short time or a long time, i could crush you, take your fate as a solicitor of wrath, the felicity in suffering. . . yes, I could definitely go for that sometime. . .' to 'don't you love raping young children?! in fact, this staircase we're passing thru currently is an ideal spot to drag limp body, halve them, and have your way - just as I plan to do with your body in due time. . .' all the while, intensifying and severing quietly - malevolently - identification your (preferably solitary) audience member has been allowed to believe in; sever these ever-so-briefly, disrupt your kindness but DO RETURN as perversely and in as unsettling a manner as possible even returning (after also decidedly-severing previous, recognizable, expected stances and mannerisms) your body to what is now made precious, preferred, a haven of sense: banter, deep-thought, kindness, and reverie.


Erring twice: Noble but orphaned, sliver is discovered by a crawler. Crawler at night - or in day bright - is swaying, inside. Confident, consistent waving leads crawler to lift. Lifting in rhythmic motion, ass then hands are as if wrung-up by marionette. This sliver is grasped between two powerful fingers. And sliver must be unwound, returned to fibrous sinew. Undoing. The crawler is a crawler no more, but now and then standing assayer. Sway, unwind, sugarcane. Even a small sliver of culture or pulp may take years to renew. It'll be worth it to undo man.

09 March 2009

Northwoods-bound

. . . IF ON such a cold and rearing-up-on-hind-legs-day you should find yourself crass at tha lake:


16 February 2009

Loosing control 'n' Against medi(c)ation

What did I

get myself into?


. . . Left palm, four left

digits, left

thumb, left me

blunt against banister


I'm absolutely not


Did I really end

up down here

under the Manhattan

just for this?




That's just it;

there is no remainder

enjoined to divert

if a plan takes

grip straight thru


you – as if a person


as if even if a person

merely freight, hedging


me (me) – when

it's cold outside





I never get to see

landmarks cosmo-policed

parody of touch;

no Queen's

every anything


willing to be argued

against, reasoned

with, ill-entangled

or resorted-to for meaning –

But steady. . . frays not,





rusts and crumbles not,

yet: these cables, bilevel decks, bedrock


Too-well ensured

integrity of whole

deny spontaneous

drive to disassemble?


If: not pancaked

nor gang-raped

otherwise intimidated

or ever made-eye-contact-with


then: this shore



bear no semblance to

'York' or we just not

that kind of city anymore


I can

not probably be

– ever have been –

here, now




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000011687 StartFragment:0000000591 EndFragment:0000011670




How do you know. . .

how may you be

so certain?


entertain bliss

for a moment

or ignore us


imagine for just

imagine: anything

could come to an end


how can I risk, not doubt

that 'nothing' last forever?

that this is all that is

or need be





Pray – hold to

hold back your 'finish'


shiver, or grey

or cast in what is owned




I know, I know

seeming ≈ clutching-to


so moments appear fleeting

irreducible

too being a loss mourned


You could be, newbie

a lot less apt

to grasp the strangeness


of a sudden

nearing neck


yet instantly you know-

Bitch, it's me!




get over your demand

that what's here bestowed


is so precious as to

summon allegiance

reiteration, or study


defense of

very core is necessary but

we remain aimless, bound

scrawled like a visitor

onto Finity's wake. . .





. . .expectations of invitees

or else!: B.Y.O.


P.S.S. F.B.I.


U.S.A.W.O.L.


C.I.A.I.D.S.


L.S.D.N.A.



(O R U- O! AREN'T U


A ZOMBIE TOO?!



Homeless soon

Homeless soon


The things I could move myself to

speak about - they were the passion

of a moment, an unforgiven passing


we can't expect to have learned

anything about each other,

if this is the goal of Encounter


with stranger it's double dare-

triple catapult over a handshake,

brush off a bullet


that's why lady bugs crowd 'round my toe

okay okay it's not my toe,

stump growing into the plain


altogether I'm just

a pitiful stab at a tree

shot down in sapling stage


drug down by my weave.

Daylight would enhance those fragments just so.



A book for years

     

22 January 2009

19 January 2009

While You Sing Your Pop Song







Why You Sing Your Pop
Song







Blank green branches
spin around in an unnaturally



white valley. Simply
while you, completed in your gaze, you



knew that you would be
sustained. This ion's what turns



if I relate the drifty
rocks within which the day would



position its antlers.
Because maybe it begins with a



tempoaray contract, and
is sometimes less tenuous if it stands for



passing by billboards,
while within all minerals with a penchant



for hitching rides in
raindrops, these few parachuted out



some of the hopes they
had chewed in their fully petrified



annual rings, except the
few that had already been excluded



in the highly groomed
library aisles that conclude



most mausoleums. You
were no longer tilting our blindness,



being calmied in a
toupee. The strands of your hair trembled,



Your fingers were shaky.
A fish sang in your air,
ad then you remembered something. Even
so you are



edgy in the rocks'
shrinkingly traslucant smokes, even so



the one badly made up of
ventriloquist's doll naming stars



outside the window
strains to see when the one



gentlemen caller flashes
across the viewfinder.



Paul
Baumann




Toroweap















Toroweap. To row; weap.
To reap; row.



To appear to row, to



reap. To wear rot or
tear torpor.



A pear or wet oar.
Were tower,



peat top. Trap part or
rear porter,



wear water wrap, weep
torpor, peat, rot.



To row wet oar, tear
rotor, eat pear.



Row to Toroweap.



Paul
Baumann




The window conveys















The window conveys the
enthusiasm of one of the



legs of the sun stepping
across. There is a little oval



halo of irridescence
around this mark of brawls.



In the gray haze just
above the gleam, representing



the featureless expanse
of an adjacent building, pass



the drained corpses of
sundry Sunday vehicles. Early



evening light, wan, a
little warm, quite servicable.



In the crosshatched,
elongated shadows of bicycle parts



crenelations throw a
comet's orbit against a hoodlum's



stubble. His face rests
its eyelts gingerly in a flowered



scarf. His fingers break
a crumbling floe over a river



of shuttered stores. A
garden hose is carried through



the mercury marches
grimacing around the boots. A



knitted, engorged rose
emerges from the skirt at the hip



as she bags for him a
breakfast which he



will nibble while passing
lobes flattened



against the insides of
gated windows.



Paul
Baumann




The pulse that verbs divest















The pulse that verbs
divest



The commotion in paper
cups



Where ageless insects
gaze at clouds



Is there an idea in these
scraps



a notion activated by the
eyes



by itself pushed on,
thinking?







You open your lips a bit
to the rim



feel the wave arrive,
warm, bubbly.



Has it settled again, the
theatre of a night sky?



The place was offered
within this zero.



Paul
Baumann




The clock speaks into a microphone















The clock speaks into a
microphone



A custodian hears a quick
rasp







Two waves push one
another



Are they both excited







You crunched my dream in
a shoebox



You robbed a bubble into
its hollow







why do they stop saying
those things



when they think







Some of their notes are
pails



Some of their fingers
chunks of ice







trying to remove a sky



for winners







The stars shift



over the hood







squeezing the planks



drying on the scaffold







The stars they tried to
pry



into the stars







not that they could move















a truss or a tank







wild enough for their
teams



We were always your team
and mine







They are still saying
them over now



as they say those stars







Two waves push one
another



Why do they stop saying
those things



Paul
Baumann




The best thing















The best thing about
gruesomely comic hippos



a phrase once heard, a
fire in itself,



a sort of mystery,
flimsy, repititious



and quite devoid,



all fragrant and green
and cool dark,



electric spontaniety
semi-hard boiled



with discontinuities in
fact highly linear



characters pouring a room
from eggs



then sinding them back,
underdone,



stabbed, rolled,
tuned-in,



their hand telling the
story -



the hippo's account of
the days drones on -



he wants to escape from
the suffocating merchant,



to get on a boat thwarted
for variety



having the right stamp



or getting into another
character,



hanging out in apartments
lacking air,



taking a bite of glass



before they found their
brand names



Paul
Baumann




The beach recognized for the crash















The beach recognized for
the crash



which piled into its
solace







The solace rooted in hiss
and tongues



The beach imagined of
windows







where horsemen hail each
other



I the drapery







flowing among blue walls



the drapery imagined of
windows







where acrobats are
brought to stand



Aren't I in it this time







The beach swells becore



another drapery







brings its roots



Yes, that's how it's
recognized







Haven't the feet washed
in



stretching the eyes under
the grass







When do I lean into
'drapery'



because someone expired
here







All of them are washing
into the nebula















All of them are needing
to stand



Paul
Baumann




Cramp-like coils in the evening















Cramp-like coils in the
evening



Some images puncture the
way new neather comes



within the same paragraph



Puncture them sighing,
somewhat swaying the boughs







A new century is just a
dusty shelf



its bare trees line the
converging walkway



Our breathing is not like
wings, chimney smoke



the same interspersed
buds







Each word the common
ground plants in itself



Paul
Baumann




Autoform















Autoform



pathfinder



mechanics



taurus



black circle hand.



full line



legacy



general civic



Acura



murano



sport



tacoma



caravan



odyssey



jetta



quest



lumina



tempo



Pilot



maxima



Automatic



sedona











explorer



sidekick



infiniti



Western star



Titan



Uplander



Tundra



Lincoln



El Dorado



cx-7



Rav 4



Savana



Highlander



Altima











all acess dental



mutual, all



access



perimeter



jewelry



world [hat]



beaver circle



bomber sticker



creative coming soon



ulex tinted glass



River Ridge comdomiium



(Bridge)



Aluminum door



'B0Ans!”



BOANS!OYE



Askiya



abbas



mayor y



totally free trucking



debit rewards



sox apparently



shoe chain



our secret



mutual neon



full spectrum



Bowery Ballroom



mutant



rest supply



white arrows



exclusive



lighting



Yee Fay Inc



Fung Lam Produce



Ting Ho Broccoli



Auto Service



Go East



888AMISAFE



The Good, The Bad &



The Ugly



La Esquire



Paul
Baumann