grab bag

Hey guys, I've been writing a lot of things in series lately, so I thought I'd share several different ones with you. If any strike you, just comment and I'll post the whole series! Whoah! Which will it be?!


the broken jaw gang: elliot


don’t call me eli,
I didn’t like it then,
course
I don’t like it now.

just call me li, that’s good enough, I guess.
and if you really
got
to call me, well,
just ring a bell. I float light, kid,
just
like a whisper.

you know, I’m the kid. I got
dynamite
in
the philly lilly dill
dill.

oh, you know, just once I’m gonna’
be
the carousing god,
romping a romp through the garden and diggy
dig.

did you hear about loud susan?
she ate some shark –
then –
shift, bang, boom!
she was dead.

I ain’t gonna’ be dead. no. not me.
I eternal and
xanadu and partridge and
all
and all.

well, home be love, I guess if you got to
call me one thing,
just make it Elliot. I got love
coming,

know what I mean.
I got all the lovey
love

in the spider wick whittle once
world.

give me something, oh, you know, I guess,
just

go drop the lolling leaf from the edge of the world.
call me
after.

the broken jaw gang?
yeah.

I guess.



unhappy generation: rolo


first off,

thank you mom and dad,
thanks

for the calendar days,
thanks for ice cream,
thanks

for old trucks in rusty parking lots.

do you remember?

rolo was only two when he split his lip
on the staircase
while

holding a glass of milk on his head. do you
remember?

second,

thanks a lot to the men
in the big
buildings

eating construction cranes and industrial waste:

you who do not fly in the small spaces of
the loft where the keyboard rests
on a bike seat,
you who do not watch silent films in
Paris in New York,
you who
rarely leave the city and think of the path of
pebbles
dabbing the creek bed.

the unhappy generation is a thankless
creature roiling in the
modern sun,
eating its children,
wearing fashion
on its numb fingers, and applying
makeup to fire
hydrants and
old queens.

I eat your bread,
I sleep
in your car.



of the things to say


of the things to say
there
remains only this:

give me your
flesh and place it in
a brown bag
and
draw a face
in black marker
and
ring my doorbell.

I am a noble savage
digging
in the wasteland.
isn’t it fine?

isn’t it just?




and we'll throw an untitled in there too:
untitled 4966


one year ago:

today I see Heracles jumping
the river bend,
waving to me, whispering that he’s
not coming
back.

today I see the black dragon in
the sky,
blowing past me, cavernous
and dutiful,
hungry, passive and impartial.

and today I see the old woman
selling madrigals by
the old hardware store,
collecting dust from glass to coat,
asking eagerly of the passersby
the time.

I am, as in all things,
a fool,
a lover, a gambler,

and, despite my bravery, I am now, today,
able to assail a fence, climb
the pole, muster a leap,
and land very near to nothing
in the adjacent graveyard.

there is another girl composed of fine
black marble,
and if in carving her I forget
too much,
then I am forgotten.

it rains
and then it rains
again, and the day, like the locust,
is gone, hastened and lusted
after, yet a mirage a mirage.
I see finally,
too,
the adventurous couple venture a walk
past a neighborhood playground
and a snarling grunt towards
those who play
and swing.

begone, I say, begone.