the birdman part VII

A birdman never forgets, and although it has been some time since the last post, he's back to give you a taste of the night wicked and cracked and spines and girls in oyster shops cracking up with hot sauce (inspired!). Taste the night with my feathered, superhero friend. Part VII:

he was ready to return home. the birdman

plummeted as the stones

of our fathers’ across old fields we never knew.

he crossed paths with a villain

upon his

way.

the man sneered. the birdman cracked him upon the back of the head.

window dance,

city times, believe in love

of the old order of sewer grates

and coffee shop hymnals, crush the pomegranate stand

on the corner of 8^th and 8^th,

particles of brick, hot industrial glue, a horse

shoe imprint upon cobblestone,

wicked waterways, the dust of the saloon man without

his gold watch,

dust in the tenement building,

old men and women in ivory bathtubs near telephone

wires.

the villain stumbled and faltered and fell. the birdman,

aloof for freedom,

continued his noble way.

America

By the popular demand of myself, here are the tasty lyrical tidbits of the song "America" (see previous entry):

Land of the free, home of the brave
Pray to the Constitution in order to be saved
There's nothing more American than that waving flag
than a wing-spread bald eagle wearing a stars 'n' stripes do-rag.

America, America, America
America

Well you can die hard or live free
under representative democracy
and if you offend me I am going to fight you
it's my Constitutional, fundamental right to.

America, America, America
America

Vote early, vote often
I voted at birth and I'll vote in the coffin.
There's nothing more to add to make America great
except to annex the whole world as our 51st state.

America, America, America
America

welcome another new face at the bla blog

Hey, here's Jeff Dangerous' brother, Chris Daily, folking up the Domy Bookstore with his awesome song, "America." He sure is a dapper gent, ain't he?

the museum is in us all

Hey fellows, returning once more to the house that Boho built, here is the next addition of Jeff and my monumental epic to pomp and circumstance, "Museum." Come and stay with us; donate a little if you like; browse the store; speak with a docent; steal a work of art.

5.

Hey guys, can I get you to come this way? Cool. Watch your steps. Oh no, that’s alright. That piece is actually meant to be activated by kinetic atmosphere. It’s a wind sock, really. What? Ha. No, I’m kidding. Of course. Oh yes, it’s all sacred.

Oh well, really, here we are at our next exhibit. It’s titled “Not so important people live here,” and it’s a photographic show of small homes, rutted roads, countryside, and other elements of underdeveloped places – the forgotten states if you will. The states aren’t named, of course – that would be cruel – but if you just follow along the contours of the photographs, you might be able to figure out the region.

The first photograph is a beaten house foundation and a chimney

standing erect in a prairie scene. There is a kitchen sink left lying

in the center of the torn down house. The next picture is two lovers

holding hands and standing on a snowy bridge. The third picture

focuses on a giant tire in the middle of a creek. ‘No survivors,’ is

written upon its façade. The fourth picture features a blue house

stood beside a tree. The name on the address says ‘Wilson.’ More

pictures prominently display mountains and roads, crosses and

window latches, women with dirty mouths, children kicking gutters,

and errant men in search of hats. The finale picture shows a rope

swing dangling over a lake.

Yes, it is romantic, isn’t it? The elements of the compositions – those that are not so meager, those that inherit and invest in preconceptions – are full and vibrant. It’s a little point of pride, actually, but I lived in an area featured in one of these photographs. I can’t tell which one, but – well, it’s a secret I long to keep. That’s the point, people. Secrets, of course. The great American pastime. I like to look over these photos and imagine a million maids and elementary teachers and garbage men trouncing about the pace of their lives. Would that they would have known about their ghostly presence in our midst, eh folks? Also, pay attention to the levels of light in each photo. The dimmer the picture, the more remote the location. Yes, it’s easy to discern what the artist meant – isolation, loneliness, sameness, proximity – but let’s go one further: harmony. Is it that each picture is balanced, or is it balanced in what is missing? We have lovers, an ersatz tire, a candelabra, a gazebo, a waterfall. Human achievement, the endeavor of our struggle and the epic failure of our existence, written large here. It does not spell god, but it isn’t far off, is it? What’s missing, I asked earlier: well, are any of you there in the pictures? Imagine if you were. Would you be here now? Where would you be? Think on that, I think, and explore. I’ll be waiting.

Salutations

Among us
there are whole lineages
of ill begotten
inventors
tending to
subtle aspirations

unbridled

somewhere
they are succumbing
quietly
to some
unseen
disbelief

And now
we are to
build a jube
of appendages
and trash
to support
their ilk







in1984
We were long promises
of aluminum fencing
outstretched over the backwater
as industrial artifacts
pretending to be jobs

You had no breasts

In their absence
was a candy dress
your mother refused to eat
Thinking it more like garbage
and less like
your body

At night,
Alpha Centauri
rolls dank
through long specter miles
of vinyl siding

gaining on us


2.

Noberto,
your children wish you would come in from the garage

They think the refrigerator is singing to them
and have fallen asleep
in the kitchen
dreaming of grocery lists
and those cartons
of cheap cigarettes
you get from
the Indian reservation

Outside,
Clifton is unraveling
out into the boondocks
as a bland band
of branded landscape
hot in gas and coffee

Closer still,
ELI is attending
to a family
as they abscess
in all the moldering homes
of the feeder road
of no phones
of the late shift
swollen and bent
under the pressures
of a huge expanse
of stubborn
southern
night


1.

In moving,
our children will be
tired little agents
of some deceitful
skullduggery

trained
under
the employer
of all our
tight muscles

to be
telepaths
re-imagined
as work



Where
together,
we are
a treacherous thing

of dredged scenery

exploding like steel
in the bellies of trees

And out across their
undergrowth
a rolling debt of infrastructure
inspires complete townships
of sidewalks
and
lazy betrayers

as they sink

deep

into a pink ridge
of chemicals

Where,

oh my,
Miizzzard

we are haunted bodies of
appetites

tangled in a static web
of power lines
who’s transmissions
billow
over the heads
of the ugly children
of a plastic forest

Where
they are
a lull of
joy and madness
sighed just below space
by a suburban hush of
gates
tall in
humid stupor

tired embers
asleep
through waking states
of qualitative happening
only to dream
in terms
of ash

of an ill begotten
owl headed
conjurer
of hammers
plodding out
tributaries of highway
caught cascading
into southern pools of fields

to
collapse
impossibly

into a job

back in action

Hey guys, the whole internet connection shazam has been fixed so it's post post post time at the Savage Ranch. Starting today, I will be posting video from our reading at Domy Books last Saturday. Watch out!

End Times #11(click to download)

We’ve come to the end of the “End Times” series. Christopher’s dark ecstatic poem can now be heard start to finish. I suggest, as the one who produced the music, that you listen to them from the beginning. I hope you will hear the music as a whole piece instead of separate units.

One final note: We boho coco bloggers are in the early stages of planning the next lit zine. We want to encourage those of you who have discovered this blog to contribute words or drawings to our next issue. All submissions will be considered. Send ideas to austinnewblog@gmail.com – We look forward to discovering new voices. Adios!