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





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05 January 2012

Don't forget to breathe


It’s not for nothing
that you are stricken, dreamstate having
its way with you right now
which is forever and I’m burning hair
pasta with beetles and coconut sauce
won’t win you any friends
and that’s something that happens
these are the threads of the ladder
back up Moses I have no father
my name is in a language without weather
seek one who presses her breasts
against the glass of a mirror
slick as (please don’t take
my) Mondays away-

I apologize for wearing
the dress you were buried in
at my college graduation, in closing
I forgive supply and demand
accept no responsibility for its function
I’m not worth anything
but I’d like a big bowl if you’re
offering - don’t forget to be
diseased, and it’s falling out
dream tooth is the mouthpiece
of all reality, and it’s gonna
find you and make you pay
for all those wasted years of loveliness hollowing
carcasses of prophets and desire
to read them infected the dying
which is to forever as singer is to
songwriter - one and the same when
heard from above and farther away
even regretful for growing more

more distant pulsar
without mind or imagination
broken free of my trap

When I was restless and weeding one day
in that megalopolis by subway
arrived a breathless deceiver feet-swollen
come to draw no one away from their faith
offering belief in self some voodoo thing (I’m sorry
for being racist) willing to
enforce it easy to be forgiven
because he asks for forgiveness
don’t forget to ask for forgiveness
if you want to matter, let your actions
settle, your words unclutter
let your days be spent with pens
in hand perspiring - do not defend yourself
against the vainglory or honest
those in drink or headspun reverie
they spied your spoon and extendable
fork now all the colonies claim duress
demanding representation without taxation
but even centurions on horses need hooves
to brandish the stick or cow with a bun
baked rye with golden raisins anterior
scene of one cell being nourished
surviving - won’t you let that
biology be?  All we are paid to do is
grieve, piss, and dance

Don’t forget to off yourself
when the sauce is peak temperature
(with no absolute hot, roiling seductively
in its galactic pot is no longer unseemly or worth
indefinite simplicity, uninterrupted prairie
disastrous to feel any human connection to one or another)
reminiscence breeds misinformation so please
stop dreading.  We get to pick
boulder to be placed atop the pit
where all humanity’s ideas and
accomplishments will turn to tar
I hope we can use nails in the wall
if so, I’ll lean the frontispiece like a
funhouse of history - forward and
threatening to topple us underneath,
clearly erasing any of that worry
you treasure much more than your
brothers (no rest for the weary or wicked) having bungled
the seed of one thousand nations
once in a while it becomes possible
to catch glimpse of dribble on
our shorts, having come
after an insufficient shake - that is something that happens also
- restaurants close their
shutters for hurricane of famished revelers
enduring crisis of lasting
peace so they worshipped him
now he is the night’s Special plate
served with no sides, simmering

Weapon of my spirit, crystalline arm backwards-bent
in sling, rise up now to perform my deference
foreign eyes traverse the script we
excrete and notice how slippery
is the censure of grace, non-plussed
as you are comfortable in your body
matastasized, appendage amplified to tool
your goofy appearance is only exceeded
in inanity by that which spurts forth
here, now gushing like rain lions
don’t take very long to quench desert
soil and overfill roots of herbs
for lizard get to scurrying - don’t forget
to breathe when the android or half-dead
band hunting drift towards - think of
yourself as always surrounded, alone
on the menu and infinitely hungry.