Good Words For All of Us

From H.E. Situ Rinpoche

The Comeback's Exoskeleton

My new book has just arrived in the world. It's full of all sorts of poems and mind-shards for you to fun around with. I wish I could give everyone cigars, but I don't have everyone's address. So, to share the joy, git yourself a copy!

You can get one by visiting upsetpress.org.

Enjoy!

Brooklyn College Exoskeleton Inauguration

Here are two mp3 links to my first reading from my new (and first!) book, The Comeback's Exoskeleton, given at Brooklyn College on Monday, April 7 at 2pm:

Introduction by L.S. Asekoff and Inaugural Reading

Q & A Session

Multiple #1

Your something this and your something that and did you get enough sleep this month, this week, this year is a strange one. You go to interviews you write and you think and you write until your hands come off or it feels like they do and you try to breathe and you ride your bike up and down hills and hills and something like the shortness of the day closes your eyes for a moment and you are up again and doing it again there is no next day only a sense of again again again. There is the disc, glowing the sky, our sky, a musical place with animals and yams to hang on. Some sort of glow comes from inside our hands, our writing hands are re-wiring and something goes, making sounds as it goes, making me (us) ((our multiplicity of selves)) into something more, something rich with sound and unconnected rhythms, something about loving makes loving easier, something about all of this regarding the frightful truth. And friends in strange hats make things easier to see, to understand the roil of sounds inside, axle grease, refusal to fight, switch and be progress, be all over sound, be fire trickster and range rider, steel tube rider, with wheels below and a shocking sense of hair getting thinner, urgency of poetry and urgency of torque, legs, et cetera. Something about memory and smell. This, then again, maybe this other.

Series Of Teams

What it means to be sad and unheard,
Why the door to the roof is locked,
Why children fear basements.

There is the ground,
Up where the sky begins.
The ground’s dissonance makes it beautiful.

Shining through soliloquies
Of lamps and translucent skin,
The voice of a lonely man roves towards town.

Thinks the voice: How to be a part of something that rings,
How to leave this old blandness behind?
I could be a bandit, stealing food for my family,

Or slip away unseen,
No one knowing I was here when the world was dying,
And become an inert chunk of time.

The voice trips over hills between fields,
Dissolving as lights from town approach.
No alarm sounds.

The plight of being made of thought, rats and voices alike:
One team must seek, the other must flee.

His Language Of Need

And he makes them, and makes them, and he makes animal sounds, he makes animal sounds and the day is, and the day he makes animals sounds the day runs into ruin, as the sounds run and he makes it, he makes them run, he rolls them, rubs the river, the day changes, he makes the day’s changes and it makes him, it names him, the animals name him, they go to him, he seeks them, they turn to him and he turns the day, the day runs with him, makes him something, goes toward rivers, makes changes, his sounds, make them changes, make them bread, make them with eyes and long uninterrupted swing sets with horns where eyes are, horns above lightning, feelings in the deep, in the war, he makes war with animals in his mind, the animals don’t befriend him if he makes war, and he makes it, he puts his face aside, he runs with the combinations, he retools things, makes everything run in the belly of animals, of scared people he knows, of walls, and he resigns, he goes to the basement, he keeps his tools there, he makes sound there, makes words and elephants, big elephant words that carry him in his war with words and animals and walls and the frayed ends of his liver that he wonders about in his medications, he sweeps aside things with his hands, his hands roll the grass up and take everyone to the river and to the train tracks and to the prison cell, he sneezes peels, he syrups snowstorm snowdrifts, he shadows his hearing under snakes, he envelopes crying, his tears tear his jaw down, he slumps, he feels horror, he goes to the people, they cry around him, they take his liver out, he looks at it, they are afraid, he is afraid, they feed him to animals and his liver regrows him, he is alive again, he is not angry with people, they took care of him, they did what was necessary, they eliminated the ardor, they followed through, they made him whole again, they fed him, they gave him a sense of when the time would be right for him to go on a journey, he went, he came back, they thanked him, everyone was having lunch, they sat him down, he told his story, they ate his story while they listened to him speak, there were bones making noises in the rooms inside their houses, the war was in their houses and the man told them of their war and they ate lunch, they had lunch next to the man, gave him sandwiches and salads and soups and they saw something of a feeling coming out of him and he was alone in that he could not feel them seeing that something was happening to him, he was alone and they were together and they felt him give way, he felt himself give way, there was something to say and he couldn’t say it, they listened and he said it but they could only hear their own hearing, them feelings, they thought, them feelings he’s having, it’s the war, they thought, it’s the war, and they asked if he wanted to leave them and he said no, and they stopped eating and asked him to sit down again and he took his arms and did something with his arms, used them in a way they could not understand, he made new words, made words without sounds or symbols of sounds, made unconnected wheelings of arm words and he left them thinking he might come back again, then the sky allowed for his passing, the light covered his shoulders in orange and he was washed clean of even his name and feelings and any other forms he used when was alone, now he was his own together with the dawn and the rich animal sounds coming from the river and his newly formed words that only he knew, his language of need

Blake's "The Tyger" (and film)

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

1794

Amando Tu Aparición

para la mujer que mora en su propia campiña

Amando tu aparición,
Tus manos de sombra,
Tu cuchicheo:
Respiración sin aliento.

Abrazando tu fantasma,
Olor de la tierra en su cabello,
Vórtice de su pupila…
Donde está el amor y donde está la muerte?

I, Too, Am A Fly, Chanting Recollections, Waiting To Be Shocked Into The Next World By The Strong Blue Light Above

So how can I get close to that rebellious creation force? If there be madness, may it go unswatted. Container of spoiled cottage cheese green and tough at the edges and I have my ambrosia. Riveting. Waste smell: a desperate inspiration. Cherish these pearlish wings, they bring travel freedom for mites and viral fevers. Artists move from illness to gloried striving: rare to find much food in their bins. They have no voice, but I thank myself for them. Racing over can continents and steaming dung islands, I lay eggs in everything, my posterior insuring I have left something to posterity.

Notebook

by Patti Smith

I keep trying to figure out what it means
to be american. When I look in myself
I see arabia, venus, nineteenth-century
french but I can't recognize what
makes me american. I think about
Robert Frank's photographs -- broke down
jukeboxes in gallup, new mexico...
swaying hips and spurs...ponytails and
syphilitic cowpokes. I think about a
red, white and blue rag I wrap around
my pillow. Maybe it's nothing material
maybe it's just being free.

Freedom is a waterfall, is pacing
linoleum till dawn, is the right to
write the wrong words, and I done
plenty of that...

april 1971

The Hungriest Day Is Devoured

I start myself with a question: Simplicity in me? Whoa, I don’t know. Bouncing bell horses smuggle what’s blue, playing like a room. Shh, I told myself, myths abound in forests, waiting to be counted, counting on weight, rolling under steam.

Only change can come from the gong, open the way all sound opens, ritmo under span of buses, bridges, tunnels and plains. Notions glimmer a moment, even some of all of them. Not afraid to be completely skull, skeleton and other masses rippling. In rubbings, ministers show winning numbers, a marina for twisted ships, tumbling in the grip of flanged abandon.

We hunker out in corpse of ocean and waist deep in my marrow find a meadow of cool place. There is swerving silence; bonjour swerving silence, brushing worthy building-tops, from whence have you come? Coarse walkers crash the planet, scene in time. Jellolujah, sing the kids, up-ended in angles of light.

Here is we, filling dense mystery with fuel from swollen mornings, faces cleansed by total eclipse. Haul down the skipper picture, our new captain ate the sea.

Anecdote Of The Bear

Breaking bread with a grizzly, a chronic allergy sufferer sneezed mucus onto the bear’s shoulder. The grizzly pulled off the fellow’s hands and wore them for a whole winter, keeping them on as he slept through the cold and snow. He kept the dismembered allergy sufferer in an insulated barrel at the back of his cave. In the spring, still wearing the hands, the bear went out and used them to pick berries and scoop honey into his mouth. He found them much more useful than his own awkward paws. Nevertheless, the compassionate bear hauled the emaciated allergy sufferer out of the barrel, reattached the hands, and taught him to forage for his meals. When he was plump and healthy again, the thankful fellow embraced the huge grizzly, shook his paw, and went on his way in the world, never to sneeze again. Lonely once more, and unable to keep a diary without opposable thumbs, the bear returned to the city of his birth. Eventually, he married a beautiful Spanish hedge fund manager. In the small but wealthy circles of society he and his wife frequented, he became rather well known for his soft fur, kind strength, and wise investment strategies.

All One And Alone

stunned
my voiceworld
will be my helmet
my protection
in sullen places
a dog makes his way
simply dissolves
a lonely pony
like a leader of granite men
I wantonly scramble
through infusions of tea
bearing ritual objects
through fire
down chameleon-eyed walls
with weird friends
I get out of the shower
with weird friends
down chameleon-eyed walls
through fire
bearing ritual objects
through infusions of tea
I wantonly scramble
like a leader of granite men
a lonely pony
simply dissolves
a dog makes his way
in sullen places
my protection
will be my helmet
my voiceworld
stunned

Exploding Heads

Men used to be able to make their heads explode. Some could do it by staring at the sun for a long time. Some could do it by snorting a few grains of rice up into one of their nostrils. Still others could do it just by watching another man’s head explode. Most of the men who used to be able to do it aren’t around anymore to teach the upcoming generations. If they were here, would they share their art with others, or would keeping it a secret be a matter of pride?

In a room, an oiled and shiny head spins on the end of a stick. Swiftly back and forth, the eyes maintain a crucial rhythm. Sounds are shut out, the mouth is opened wide but remains silent. Eager young men file into the room, laying their cash on the floor and trying to catch diamond engagement rings that fly from the spinning head’s ears, one to a customer. As each man exits the room, his head explodes.

Three skilled pilots flying three separate airplanes crash-land in the same mountain range. After wandering for a while, they happen upon each other. One has water, one has food, one has matches. They build a rainproof hut out of leafy green branches and diligently tend to a large signal fire. One day they see a plane flying overhead. They shout wildly and wave their arms at it. They watch it crash into a nearby mountain. Before the plane explodes, their heads explode.

An Inuit Song

And I thought over again
My small adventures
As with a shore-wind I drifted out
In my kayak
And thought I was in danger,

My fears,
Those small ones
That Ithought so big
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach.

And yet, there is only
One great thing,
The only thing;
To live to see in huts and on journeys
The great day that dawns,
And the light that fills the world.

America Is One Dog

Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

So Many Damned War Pigs

For Your Listening Rage:

The Black Sabbath Version

The Cake Version

The Doormouse Version

The Freakwater Version

The Hayseed Dixie Version

The Government Mule Version

Back in college,

In 1991
when the Gulf War
had just started
it was close to exam time for me &
I remember
I had this sociology final
& the class
was dead boring

I could barely drag my ass into the room

where the professor would drone away
all the football goons staring at our T.A.
a tall blond grad student I was afraid to talk to
but I used to go to class anyway
’cause there was this gorgeous and feisty girl
I was dating who was MAJORING in sociology
& she was the only thing that kept me there

I couldn’t study a bit

not even when the final came
I stayed up for two (maybe three) nights in a row
thinking about I dunno what
staring into space thinking

shit

here’s spoiled notstudying me in college
& guys my age are gonna go DIE
in the desert & I’m gonna sit here
mooning myself & messing around with women

crap

& when I had to take the final
on 2 days with no sleep
I fell asleep during the test
& dreamed I was in tan fatigues
a soldier in the Gulf
so I finished my stupid multiple choice test
took a bus downtown to the

Marine Recruiting Office

& asked to speak with a hangdog-jowled officer
who sat me down & said

“The Marines will teach you about life
and how to be a man
and take care of yourself!”

& I, in my frenzy
of insomniac lucidity
asked a billion questions
about every detail

like

what do you do eat
what do you do talk about with the other MEN
when the shooting and bombing is over for the day
& what is the pay like
& other stuff

after a while

the guy looked at me
sadfaced, beaten
(& beaten) said

“Kid,

in the end,
The Marines is just like any other 9 to 5 job...”

but I finished the thought
in my head with

“except you have to kill
people
and maybe get killed.”

So I shook hands & walked out as 2 young kids
in heavy metal T-shirts were standing in front of another grayfaced
officer taking the Marine Oath

and I went back to college
to sleep.

Letter From An Angry Soldier

From the best of Craigslist, a letter from an angry soldier.