As The Year Comes To An End...2010...

As The Year Comes To An End (2010)

1. this year I have written

the odes to past lovers buried in fields of plain soil that they might grow into new lovers for some other lost soul that needs new love to live so that they might give back what has been given in hearts and minds for years to come

2. this year I have written

the haiku of moments sabotaged by natural actions of the world and the unnatural actions of the human condition that put the pieces into place before the pattern was begun that led to this current situation of measured rhythm into polyrhythmic dance movements that are so quick and precise in their exacting execution as to define beauty through moments like single breath prayers

3. this year I have written

stories of internal struggles with fear and external journeys into conquest, or contrasting defeat with lessons about living woven into the fabric of the eternal goal to acquire that which was lost or that which has been unknown as if to discover life as new and original once more

4. this year I have written

epoch poems in celebration of the history of words from the time of charcoal rubbed on cave walls, sticks scratched into drying clay, blood ink on animal hides, the oily essence of natural ink scrawled across papyrus that led to pressed letters on pulped pages and finally electric impulses onto binary agreements of light typed into contrast blazing out from liquid crystal displays of the gathering of all words of all times ever searched for

5. this year I have written

celebrations for all of the lives that have set my flimsy craft through space and time from the past to the future and back to the here and now as the stars all beam down from the heavens and my eyes look up to see if there is the glimmer of more hope on the horizon that my fragile vessel might make it further into the year to come as it moves off of the momentum of those that passed away into an unreachable darkness abandoning their shell upon life's waters with my words bidding farewell

6. this year I have written

about the dissection of the troubled times around me as more and more seems taken from us all and the vanishing of everything seems to happen all at once in succession after succession of no discernible victories but many notable losses in the face of heated rhetoric as all life seems to be getting pushed around a great gambling table by unseen hands of greedy prosperity and world order

7. this year I have written

all about the day to day struggles with the damage done way after the needle passed through and the dish ran away with the spoons until every little thing seemed massively trivial and overwhelming so that every mundane aspect of getting up and getting the day started was like a psychic porcupine that emanated from the smug smiles of those who had it on the ball and on the go the way I didn't and I poured it out about how I felt my way into darkness with broken hands and wounded spirit held together by duct tape and bailing wire but the arrows and slings kept coming and the shortcomings even happen when there are lights to see the world go by so quickly as to leave me behind in an overwhelmed amazement all alone

8. this year I have written

about the love that never dies and the lust that is in my eyes and the collision of beauty between the two with its sticky residue of aftermath and afterbirth to the quenched desires of lasciviousness and depravity for the sake of escape from internal demons that are always best defined by the images of those I have objectified and exploited for their raw appearances as human bags of fluid dripping lubricants of ideas and thoughts become primordial action for the sake of grand release into the moment just before collapse upon the human heap of yearning that has driven prose since symbols made flesh a record of interest

9. this year I have written

annals of war, moments of peace, outbreaks of violence, natural disasters, human borne illness, unnatural catastrophes, punitive decisions, privileged allowances, superior advantages, manipulated outcomes, ironic comeuppances, karmic disintegrations, economic reality, political surrealism, democratic depravity, socialistic frenzy, fascistic tendencies, mass hysteria, massive corruptions, biographical fictions, anarchistic revelations, superseding hopes that truth might become the faith that the world is finally guided by

10. this year I have written

creative works with the motive of profit so that I might know a new life

I began eight novels, five screenplays, a television series, a short film

I failed in these attempts, but I have followed them with my truth about what life

looks like to me as I dangle on this lonely precipice above the hungry void

wishing on stars that might only be airplanes in the distance

or satellites in high orbits up above

wishing

that I might have one more chance to stand up on my own

one last time

so I can wave good bye

to everyone

kiss my children

my grandchildren

hug them tight

and finally

let it all go

for good

Call Time: Eternity

Call Time: Eternity

it is certain that you saw the painted bird

inside the tortured remnants of your mind

flying back to its flock as it escaped

the coloring of the rednecked brush strokes

only to be ravaged to death by its own flock

driven into a mad frenzy of jealousy and fear

the bright colors of ornamental ignorance

a death sentence for a bird bent on survival

fighting for freedom in flight from reality

flying right into its own doom

like a jewish boy in poland

taking communion as an altar boy

to avoid the one way train ride

just to come out of hiding

just to be

as hated by the communists

who toppled the german terror train

you escaped like young polanski

into a world that allowed you to create

the upper east side raconteur persona

so coveted by anyone who was ever left standing

in the cold winter barricade outside studio 54

you just missed the blades of manson's gang

you warmed the couch of johnny and ed

you wore accolades like gilded laurels

until

the echoing voice of the villagers

that felt the exploitative pull of your words

that questioned your commitment to craft

that wanted to pull you asunder for your

upper manhattan means and ways

as your tousled hair rained ambiguous drops of sweat

on private onassis beaches and exclusive polo fields

your statues were all torn down by academy police

and reporter alike as you reviled the world with

the idea that it all came from your mind

without the veneer of righteous autobiography

much like the imprisoned marquis

as any reader who read it was exposed as

an erotic sado-masochist unbeknownst

to their own hearts desires

you silenced yourself like an ex-patriot in hiding

leaving one last puzzle piece that didn't quite fit

going to one last party to mingle

telling one last story before

collecting your wife and your coat

bidding the hostess good night

drawing a bath when you returned home

climbing into the water after writing your note

that I will plagiarize here:

"I am going to put myself to sleep now

for a bit longer than usual.

Call the time Eternity."

then the hated liar who told a good story

wrote the most darkest recesses of his soul away

to a world that turned against him

pulled the plastic bag around his head

breathing in all his carbon dioxide critics

falling asleep in the bath

without ever addressing

their criticisms

to any satisfaction

but his own

Far Away Grand Daughter

Far Away Grand Daughter

washed out runs of desert chaparral dripping like liquid candelabra

songs sung low and sweetly to sleeping babies dreaming

storms pass through their minds as they reach a new home

thunder rolls across the dunes toward the mountains

as they stand so superstitious in the distance

minds eye is upon the rose bud as it blooms

a winter wonderment in this flooded land above the delta

with currents lulled into tranquil riffs against the rocks and cacti

sleep now baby girl and dream of songs on windy nights

like lonely horns of sounding love come for you in waves

water levels are higher than the highest ground below the waiting station

the noise of rushing movements is like a lullaby that keeps her silent

a tempest takes no pleasure in its work tonight, but it is unrelenting

as sands of shifting clockworks on ancient rhythms shift away from us

pouring all that is historical into the waiting gulf's depression

feeding its desire for lost artifact of sun bleached soul inside bone

afterward a treasure of relics born anew to coming solar storms

marking new calendars with story become legend become fact

taught in minds that age and decay as these babies sleep through

this tumultuous monsoon that brings a sacred heart to her dreams

as she sleeps peaceful under blankets of new tradition woven with old love

these blooms of yellow rose so unnatural in their scarce beauty

wishing on their bright colors that beam against the red stones

gives dreams of safe passage to growing limbs of love

that reach up past stars and moon toward a new sunrise

like a ship to rescue unwary travelers that go back and forth

in the coldest night of stricken arid plains illuminated blue

then phosphorescent under lightning bursts that belie fingers

pushed down into the earth by their electric arthritic extension

digging up graves of lost flowers that never bloom in sunlight

only are they now revealed in visual echos of bolted aftermath

she stirs as if to listen to the songs of coyote chasing itself away

into swirling winds of wailing sorrow that she has yet to know

in its place the love of movement to hold the hands that give strength

making flowering petals pull out of stems grasping to outstretched arms

as if to hug an old man who searches for her across arroyo into night

just to tell her of the loving pride he has for her before he closes

his tired eyes to dream of a desert floor covered in blooming flowers

each one a rare magnificence that points upward to a new sun

the sun rises into dawn after the storm relents into passing

she opens her eyes as if to say hello for the first time

Holy Night Upon Us

Holy Night Upon Us

tongues are prepared thusly:

in the slow motion space

the tumbler goes falling

light as a bread box

no anticipation before it

sharp as a bread knife

all crumbs fall away

this salt trade will be

the bloody death of us

shake it up shake it up

shaken unshook

boom shaka

shaker

a terrible dilemma is as intravenously skilled

as a method rectory into a manger

of diorama drama

no harm can come to those that...?

just there and now it was

dropped off into an isolated oblivion of lust

lessons never learn lessons in learning

you leave here lost before you left here

here hear /here hear /here herd

the quandary thickens into revelation stew

shout it out, "soups on for two" too late

there is double the pressure in the crack

made by a fisher among humans

a monger among friends

slip silk streams of satisfaction in solipsism

self is surveyed since self sold sacred shares

slicing slits slitting slots solidly

with the sweet sound of assonance grinding its way

across the world's stage in the VIP area

picking up the rainy dollars of every denomination

some pop bottled elastics see the sum of all arts

as crafts are left to walk the streets in a lonely ubiquitous stride

we see the morning chill is all that is felt in time

heroics and status seem as palpable as greek

with a little more spice to make it latin

a little more challenge to make it hebrew

too much sentiment to make alexander the less

speaking mostly farsi to sullen wives of disaster

urging ayurvedic elephants breaking contemplative trees

into forests of orangutans tooth picked into convenience

with snow leopard sanskrit extinction sprinkled on top

of dolphin sushi all you can eat monsanto salad bars

as turkish coffee covers an arabic desert

along a silk route into the last lapdance

of a land war in asia against a sicilian warning

spoken in hushed screams of a germanic language

forced to lose its own alphabet in a blind alley

like teeth knocked loose with a sucker punch

stumbling drunk on christmas eve toward a pagan log burning

reading holy scriptures written in a tyrants blood out loud

all its presents lost beneath the candle wax of ancient oil lamps

all its presence found above the screams of martyred children

as blessed saints with beatific smiles give candied treats to virgins

who fly their cellular planes happily coast to coast and over oceans too

these stories feed the restless dreams of orphans born inside

cold tee pee motel rooms as the reservation runs low on spirits

so we just borrow some from the refugee camps next door

that overflow with solar powered diamond mines now safe for minors

that make up a relentless labor force on a permanent technological

unpaid vacation at the last resort of sacred medicinal incarceration

under the filling stations of the cross into spilled oil wetland dreams

but guests are always uncomfortably welcome in this plastic paradise

promised by the side of the road to an economic downturn blanket

that covers no recovery of lost artifacts that might help you misunderstand

what the give and take could be in the measure of this wholly eve

as the world prepares for a delivered mass of something

be it peace, war, love, will, unity, self, restraint, chaos, hate

it shall all come to pass the leader as they round the final turn

all positions jockeyed for continuously even in stillness

contested loudly with sonic boom even in silence

feared by every stork delivered child of a virgin mother

these are the words of the first coming codex of unenlightenment

it is upon us like wild wind in the countryside

it is past us like the flood waters receding

it is ahead of us like the narrow pass of never

some will see it first as most will see it last

look for it now and forever as it comes to pass

birds fly away from it all

fish swim away from it too

we stay and fight

just to see

the moon that was missed

along with a fabled

star that is never even

visible

to the naked eye

For Wayne Dean Parkinson, travel safe and well, brother...

Letter To A Young Writer Who Danced With Words

(you never have to say you are sorry to me)

it was those strange days of summer before fall

on the first day of kindergarten

everything is overwhelming then as the stage is being set

awkwardness is the norm and anyone too graceful is suspect

life has changed so much for both of us since that day

you were graceful to the point it would work against you

as the progression of time went on

you seemed to know more than the rest of us

talk more clearly and concise

like an adult, not like a kid

you were at ease in conversation

speaking on topics when the rest of us

were still "la la la la la"

I marveled at you immediately, I remember

I watched as your ability was transmuted into

the strange social astigmatism that made most of us

the least popular for whatever reasons

we began to talk about books and reading

back in the first grade

we did well on tests

became more ostracized by that

we went to cub scout meetings

learned about the strangeness of adults

got to see what crazy really looked like up close

as the world became secret and open dualities

alternating on a strange rhythm that we could almost decipher

I started checking out by nine years old

it was safer for me there in the middle of violent turbulence

than the world of pleasing teachers and applying myself

the way you did it so well

I would always tell you that I admired your resolve

fuck what those "cool" kids say to us

the stoner loser and the brainiac nerd

we looked at the world differently together

we shared discoveries in music and art as I went unbridled into

the streets of run down hollywood bringing stories of my

long weekend exploits to the A/V room where you had class

where I liked to ditch class and hide reading rolling stone

and making reel to reel mix tapes of music we had discovered

we played pirate radio over school loudspeakers at lunchtime

dr. scott would tell us stories of japanese concentration camps

where he learned buddhism and to forgive his captors

you became subversive at the school newspaper

printing stories about central america and revolution

without the authorities approval

you always spoke of rights for people who were not represented

you always would champion a cause that was just

you always wanted to be a voice of reason

in a stormy sea of unreasonable humanity

you informed me of thoughts and ideas

that were way ahead of their time

most of all what stood out to me

was you were always willing to

put it all on the line, everything

for what you believed in

I went away for awhile

but saw you again one day in riverside

at the university

I was crashing the scene

come to rape and pillage the academy

you were excelling beyond expectation

overtaking the ramparts of intstitutionalism

I heartily cheered you on as you had developed

your own language within the system

the same way you always had before

but, now it wasn't kids stuff

anymore

I told you to look me up

if you came out west to LA

but you seemed committed to the area

until we crossed paths again in frisco

you gave me and my companion

shelter as we traveled

I was always running from something

or to somewhere

but for a week we just rambled

art shows, punk shows, coffee shops

drinking and dancing in castro bars

my girlfriend passed for a boy

so I blended right in

until

the santa bear tied to my car's front grill

was stolen

you stated it was liberated by a faction

of activist bears that took it personal

we laughed about it all

we pushed ideas to their limits

we just missed each other later

in the streets of old calcutta and howrah

reunited years later in the mission district

you played music as the belly dancers danced for us

we ate food on pillows like fake rajas

you told my fortune from the grounds

of my overturned coffee cup

you looked me in the eyes

it was serious as I laughed

you had begun to believe in something

that I did not quite understand

my only higher power was manufactured

in burrough's outerworld of lost souls

I kept my god's in baggies

weighed them very carefully

you had become transcendent

in conflict with your own power

I cannot remember my fortune as you told it

I did not believe in fortune being told

but, fortune is still there for us to share

and I shared what I could from

my endless supply of baggies

until I had to run for my life

as I usually do

nonetheless

years would pass away

until one day these electric lines

crossed our paths again

I was so glad to see you, old friend

many miles and much time had separated our paths

we shared our words again

revisited our memories

all the way back to five years old

we talked of being grateful

of doing new works, new ideas

you spoke of struggling with inner conflicts

that I recognized in myself

(you always strove for such perfection

that it seemed to cause you suffering)

I shared your work with others

I believed in its merit as I always will

it will always bring me hopefulness

we conquered many things to get this far

I know in my heart you might have gone farther

but I know it is as far as you could go

in that moment

as the meat puppet monkey

that we both talked of seeing in the mirrors reflection

helpless, as we always felt we were or we had become

to change anything

to stop anything from overtaking this fragile form

this form of the world of a dancer dancing in circles

the form we so loved to watch in the dance of any dance

done to any music that would move a body to extreme

I know it difficult for dancer's to age gracefully

few ever do in true happiness

it is sad to think you turned in your dance card so soon

but I will never forget you, old friend, the way the greatest dance

was always the light in your eyes

always involved the unmitigated intensity of your thoughts

of your pure desire to affect a change

in the choreography of the world

your frustration at its most perverse complications

your hopeless moments that you took in alone

one too many times

with that idea to just stop it

to just stop the dance

to turn off the music

just because

it can be tiring

and

you were tired

one time too many

so rest now

until we meet again

I believe in your fortunetelling abilities

now and forever

so I will always believe in you, too

Picking Up Buffalo Nickels Outside The Dakota

Picking Up Buffalo Nickels Outside The Dakota

they call us american myths

but mythos needs religion

as much as religion needs

mythos

the feed line gets broken

hunting and killing it's way

back to starvation

we didn't invent glass

but we shattered it

to make political counterpoints

more dramatic

pleasure that was so elusive

is now the main commodity

of a collapsing market

that cannot reassure

it's own existence

regimes look better

in advertisements that use

reality show characters

to sell diplomatic envoy ideas

on secret digital rolodex

cold war encoding devices

that never saw the bullet coming

only presidents falling

into strawberry fields

forever

where they have erected new stores

in many convenient locations

here to help you

with rock bottom prices

to give you a varied diversity of monotheistic choices

that keep some of us hostage

while most of us fight over them

until the birthday is less and less sacred

if it even really ever was

to begin with

in the first place

you will be able to talk about it

amongst yourselves

after the funeral services

that is how plans work

for the living

for the dying

the living always win

every argument

except the last one

characters get assassinated

more quickly than people

so most will die here

with a dead character

falling before them

as anger is the passion

that most feel easiest about

you only have to be right about it

once

to be right about it forever

Afterthoughts of The Decline Pt. 1

warm beer with

ashes

was what you

would get

for passing out

too early

or waking up

the same

nowadays you'll hear people say things like,

"yeah, I used to be into that."

as they somehow knew all along

it was meaningless and fading

and I think about how nowadays

Lucky is a lawyer

Milo is a teacher

Henry is an artist

Phranc is a folksinger

and others are bit actors in low budget hollywood

movies and tv or rock-n-roll glamsters on MTV and

many more are something even worse

and I'm still alone

still an outsider

sitting by myself, I put on an old tape

so worn out that you can barely hear

over the muffled grunge of time

and I remember long ago feeling

like I was part of a common voice

it was a feeling that evaporated like

gasoline spilled on a hot July pavement

and after all the time has passed

and all these thoughts and feelings have faded

the one thing I have managed to keep alive

is the bitter taste

of warm beer

with ashes

a. razor, 1987, "Soaked, Bloated and Waiting to Die", Drew Blood Press, LTD.

Afterthoughts of The Decline Pt. 2

you can steal every scene in one take

you can absorb every emotion

with your celluloid sponge

and sell out all the tickets

just so you can rent it back to me

on a rare video cassette copy

in a hip and slick alternative store

you can spin off a sequel

on safer, longer haired, better paid

hollywood rebels

who think they will be considered

shakespeare rediscovered

in a rock fanzine of the future

you can market darby crash suicide kits

to every disturbed kid left

in the wake

of your slasher society

the same way you might sell a piece

of the berlin wall to an east berlin squatter

all of these souvenirs of chaos

and someone elses misery

you can bring a coming of age survival reality

to a theatrical segue climax

for your formula scripting of

post-gen x acting studio

monstrosities

and then finally roll the credits

but, don't expect me to offer any applause

because I have been too numbed

by life's perfect edit

I know I won't go to heaven

and I have already been to

Las Vegas

so all I can do now

is try not to be bought out

so easily and cheaply

next time around

a. razor 1990, "A Chapbook by A. Razor", Dew Blood Press, LTD.