Hats off to (Roy) McAlister

IF I said it, I must of meant it . . .
The AltEnergy movement got a huge boost this month, courtesy of a pbs special. [ Nova:Saved by the Sun ] Several pols have identified PBS as the most trusted source in america, ahead of things like 'the press', 'the government' , or religion.
In short, regarding ideas tranmitted over media, things on pbs are 'real' to Americans. This fact has NOT gone unnoticed, and a battle for the soul of public television is even now underway. (I blame Mit Romney, but all that is another story entirely. . . )

The single most impressive thing on offer on this solar-palooza was the cheeky fact that (As It Turns Out ) Germany had instituted a crash program to go solar, with the idea to get about 20% of their power that way by 2010. Now, in 2007, they have already hit the 30% mark!

I found this shocking, since everyone I talk to in the states sort of views solar power as a lovable pipe dream - maybe not as outright silly as Heironomous Instruments, but certainly not as something practical anytime soon.

I was pretty shocked - how did this elude my notice for years? ? Some quick research revealed that the German push WAS reported, largely in trade and finacial press. Not Surprisingly, Japan is the second [to Germany ] 'most Solar ' nation.

Gauging the responses at the diner, no one seemed to share my amazement. ' Well, that's Germany, not here. ' was the consensus. So I've been looking into this some more . . .

Las Vegas of course opened the doors here, and construction has just begun on the lagest Solar plant in North America - In Sarnia, On. - about 40 minutes outside Detroit. ( You may recall that Detroit is the 3rd LEAST sunny place in the continental USA)

Where part of the 'That's Germany' shrug has been the suspicion that the US are lagging behind technologically, the prime movers here seem to come from Berkeley California -much of the German tech, as well as the Sarnia plant has been built by or licensed from.
So, it's already happening, here and abroad. The next generation of the technology is already in use by NASA.

. . . So either I owe him an apology,
Which Brings us to Roy.

My first exposures to RoyWorld certainly had . . . a certain feel? ? ? Everything was in a certain VOICE one usually associates with, say, a Stanislav Szukalski getting you wise to the idea that half the human race are descended from Yetis, or Dr Richard Ruhling expaining how the Bible helps him predict earthquakes . . . well, not exactly yet, but LIVES could be at stake.
-ANd I know that INTENSITY, the urgency yet holding on to THE BIG SECRET, and the leanings towards GRANDIOUSITY . . . and perhaps I associate all that with my own personality avoidant disorder. . .

AS I've talked to people in the business of alternative . . . thinking, lets call it . . . the IDEA that the GREAT DAY already came -in fact it actually happened back in 2004, is depressing to them. It's like Christians finding out Jesus already came back - in fact he's been living in Des Moines the last 60 years. ( if anyone is interested in helping spread that as a rumor, please help me out!)
When I try to imagine this in terms of WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN, there are some interesting things afoot. We have the collision of a subculture with the monoculture. What do all the conspiracy theorists do who claimed Solar power was supressed when Exxon and BP start selling it to you?

The idea that Royal Dutch petroleum and Siemens have created Shell Solar ( is Roy on their board of directors?) has poured salt in the wound, and it seems clear to me that there is an underlying belief system at work here. Is there such a thing as Populist technology? ? ? Was there a political or perhaps more precisely an ideological dream at work the whole time? A liberation for the Enron generation? I can see this in the tail end of the baby boomers who were hoping for a Reckoning, where 'The powers that be' would admit that THEY were wrong and the fringe was right . . . ( Again with the right and wrong! Where does that come from - is it conditioned like 'Fnords' in the educational system? As I've already written, that's about the hardest thing to get . . .the 'I'm right and you are wrong ' thing eats up soooo much availiable energy. )

Or Nothing At All . . .

THEN AGAIN, Fuck all that - it looks like Solar energy is already passe! Here is the US patent (5590031) office's milestone grant to a zero point free energy device - http://www.google.com/patents?id=at0nAAAAEBAJ&dq=5590031 -[ a glance reveals that on Mythbusters, the dish antennae was replaced with a wire, which seems like trying to pick up satellite tv with a coathanger . . . ]

Sorry Roy - it looks like Zero point and Nano tech are going to be what you thought Hydrogen and Carbon fiber would be. ( as a dandy and fop, I am forever proud that the first commercial use of nanotechnology was in the making of stain-free wrinkle resistant pants! )

Then again, who knows what else might happen? To be sure, there are rumors, as always. The latest one is that the Irish are getting up to something big this summer with magnetics in the free-energy race . . . and who knows? ? Solar power is still sci-fi to some folks who are already getting it. Maybe that's what this is all about - How the Transition Happens. Everything that seemed like Sci-fi but is in fact tenable will eventually come to pass, and it doesn't happen in an exciting revolutionary way. I think that 'the revolution' has been an article of faith for a long time. So I would like us all to look out for the effects of this. I imagine there will be similar transitions requiring alot of lateral thinking for us all over the next decade.
Love,
-El Pirata

a post then a letter then a post: Talcott and Leeds

I am down in engineering. This machine is not where I work, but the place where the internet comes in, which means the movies, the music, the email—contact in a way—the teletype. Meanwhile, I don’t have much idea of what is going on—what ever that means. I felt strange, here felt strange, like the sky was stealing breaths, taking long greedy inhalations and not letting go. So I looked into it. The barometer was falling. A storm was on its way. I been thinking today, yes. After reading P's post I wanted to be involved—what ever that means. I have opinions, know things, know what I don’t know about others, and part of me (that is part of me) has a belief that the information is out there and behind a veil all will be revealed. That other part of me thinks that this revelation is made through the inquiry. Only one thing I don’t like, and can smell it like a hound—an absolute.

P, I started this as a post. I don’t know if it has its place there, except to say I am warming-up my cultural criticism on your lead. First, it seems there is a problem; I mean, you know, something wrong. It’s like a question, that wrongness it seems. And the answer, or remedy is made out of materials at hand. It's some sort of push and pull, action reaction. I can’t see things as right, see. I got something that says, "no". I imagine this as ethics. There is this book. Well, there are lots. Even, there is Shaw…but, anyway. Not that I have read Shaw, only some of his words. This first book I didn’t mention says something along these lines—and it is about the idealist, how they want to realize their vision, and how it is different from what they see around them. The idealist's opposite is not the realist, but the mediocre.


There is a great word in Spanish. And imagine, it is a compliment. It was used for me once. I remember it like a ribbon. The word is inquieto. It means, in its most course translation, restless. But like I said it is a compliment. It means unsatisfied. A compliment. How is this possible? Only if you take the state of a man, not as a pathological aberration (see Du Bois, "how does it feel to be a problem"), or something to be medicated or theraputed away—but having a cause. And then having a cause, inquieto has a purpose, something to realize. Passion has received blows like a rusty nail, easier to smash flat than pull out—that is, when there is some interest in recycling the board. Bless the Spanish language, if for nothing more than that.

And bless the French, and I will explain why, and based on the particulars of personal experience too. When I went there and people talked they asked each other 'why' they thought what they thought, what ever that might be. Sometimes the question was 'how.' There was a level of seriousness--in its personal application: respect. Let’s flip it in an exposure by contrast with the factory touched barrios we know; the response would be this: “You’re crazy.” And crazy, like 'different' or pissing the right people off becomes a nuanced divination, an aspiration. At least that’s how I see it. There when someone took someone seriously, it was not an attention to identity in the way we might think, but by thoughts—that stuff going on in there. Trust based on observations and evidence with the possibility of agreement, not conformity.

Simply said, for what ever reason, and comprehensible I believe, the American seeks a label (a sumation in the name of quarantine, not the process that is personality). Why? Because the American is terrified that value is in someone else's hands, built between people that knows us naked, not on a sham facade--just to have arrived, not the getting there. To the myth of the self-made memory is the enemy. Like a rabbit, always a rabbit, even when hiding under a predators hide--Pets or Meat. "Give me your tired, your poor, your humble masses." This country cultivates weakness and dependence for its own esteem, i.e. power--the big house, known just the same to a passing stranger and can be shown in a picture--to become an icon. There is a moat of blood. Conscience is subdued by calling the world a savage place. And just like that, back to the Middle-ages.


Limits comfort, same as dogs are by orders. I heard this guy talking to his dog while out for a walk. And it wasn’t so different from how I hear people talking to each other--posturing to save face. Status, pure status. Dogs and Americans, for that matter Americans and children are getting closer together, just trying to establish who will wipe whose ass. Order is the ideal—preserve childhood! And so well done with bickering over absolutes (on what to agree) like officialy trying to pronounce a cause of death (to be read over democracy long since gone). I know there is talk of narcissism, perhaps. The way I understand it narcissism is a response to a crisis—the crisis has become terminal. In limiting grief (like all other passions) this culture has gone catatonic. Notice the hunger for the cool—holding-up to off screen tribulations. Emotions are public, meant to be--not the mark of weakness, but engagement; without expression, without a responsibility to thier expression what can there be of freedom? Instead of the bold individual standing alone, a better discription would be insulated; and with one common result—apathy and impotence; and one extraodinary--rage. The nail sends sparks through the machine or is quietly diss-membered.


I have been thinking, wondering about something—safety glasses, masks, that sort of thing; and how men, the brusque ones supposed to have guts scoff at them. There’s something here, I thought, something is going on. What kind of statement is this? What kind of rebellion is this? Courage? And then, let’s just for a second flash back to something I heard in the Army how you could get an Article 15 (an Article 15 is like a misdemeanor); well you could get one for a sunburn—abuse of government property. The indignity of slavery never went away, just lost its color line. What rebellion is left besides self-abuse to demonstrate one’s power when not even your body is your own? Wounds become pride. Obesity dissent. Ignorance protest. People are left with a singular battle, with their own appetites--John Henry against himself, a patron of a most backwardly modern sophistication.

r

ORGY OF THE DEAD

Part one - Clearing the set . . . and Death of a Douchebag

For whatever reason, It's a fatal time.

My imagination was caught by the Dead Clebrity trio of

Jean Boudrillard, [ who now that he's safely deceased, is taking his long deserved place as the next link in the philosophic chain after Foucalt and Derrida. ]



Don Ho, [ Having just rediscovered him during the switch to vinyl the week of his death, It seems safe to say he was the Hawaiian Dean Martin. ]



and Kurt Vonnegut. [ whom I'd finally read a book by this year - the latest, man without a country. While never partaking of his literature, I enjoyed his interviews tremendously over the years - particularly during the miserable Reagan Era, which we are still more or less in the throes of . . .]



And no sooner had these ruminations begun, TRIOs of trios began dropping like flies . . . Sir Graves Ghastly, who everyone will miss, and then Jerry Falwell, WHo . . . well, sometimes all you can do is point and laugh. Rob told me over the phone, and I danced a little Jig of Delight on the front porch. I haven't been so cheered by a death since Kurt Cobain was rubbed out by the Reverend Horton Heat . . . [ Well, talk to Billyzebubba if the real story matters to you . . .]



Yes, Falwell is gone, and it's tempting to try to pick out golden moments . . . Though the time he and fellow imbecile Pat Robertson blamed the 9/11 attacks on unwed mothers has to be the topper. It's hard not to laugh, but alot of people took him seriously. In fact, when he began posing for photo-ops with Reagan - that was the time the Evangelical community felt their beliefs deserved a POLITICAL EXPRESSION. He was a key figure in moving the right so FAR to the right that even today we have diffuculty finding the center. His career did alot of damage to the USA. I worry that no one will replace Kurt Vonnegut - but I'm glad no one can replace Fallwell.



Part Two: Shallow Graves.

If there are two things that worry me, it is that I find myself discussiong in several states the respective returns of Nuclear Power and Hillary CLinton.



SO far these seem comfortably unconnected, like rumors of zombies in far away places. ( - and with the current pork barrel frenzy over subsidies for biofuels, it doesn't seem like we'll be glowing in the dark anytime soon,) but if anyone is in want of a reminder, or material for argument - check out the wikipedia entries for Rocky Flats [ THRILL tosee how a plant VITAL TO NATIONAL SECURITY with at least a modicum of oversight is mismanaged again and again ] and Karen Silkwood. {gasp in horror at the civillian version! ! } { in fact, this week Kerr-Magee is in dutch with the epa again }



Since Global warming is like, so totally hot right now, the idea that as a technology Nuclear power is somehow GREENER is out there. [by the way, who is claiming that besides the Nuclear industry?] . . .except that the KINDS of pollution, including those released into the atmoshpere [dioxin, carbon tetrachloride, etc ] are the worst toxins known, and these are just the routine problems. Europe was very nearly destroyed by the chernobyl disaster. [ It's an interesting defense mechanism to think that's trite, or alarmist, but that's the legacy of 8 years of bushspeak.] In fact, the only reason Pravda can give for why Chernobyl didn't explode is the intevention of helpful flying saucers! Since I have yet to see Aliens endorse a candidate in the weekly world news, ( which has a better track record that most pollsters, oddly enough ) I don't feel here in the US it's a very wise move to go backwards. Of course, the Germans seem to have rendered the whole issue obsolete. I hope.



The case of Hillary is more puzzling to me. I had thought it would come to an open and shut Obama Vs. Guiliani showdown, but things are muddier now. Usually, I watch the foreign news, and the candidates they bother following have always become the front runners. This has never failed me in 20 years. Better than the weekly world news. AND the BBC, for example, WAS tracking Obama . . . and then . . . Chaos.

If we GET our Barack/ Rudy showdown, It'll be a far better thing. . . if we're left with some kind of cheap Edwards/ Romney nonsense, It'll turn a whole NEW generation off from politics, and Arnold Scharzenegger will rule America until the year 2020!

[ watch the current immigration legislation to see his loophole! ]



But Hillary . . . It's always a strange feeling to see the times you lived through in a history book.

The last 20 years, in Green Christines class, are titled ' the rise of partisanship ' - it would seem that by now the REWARDS thereof are understood clearly enough, [yet only Schwarzenegger has claimed to be 'beyond political parties .' ] The Clinton strategy - to be so conservative as to steal republican support in red states can't work - the red states HATE her. In fact, the Democratic party as a whole has never won on the idea that they should be so conservative as to be indistinguisable from their opponents. But they are still trying. It's like teaching poodles to fly by throwing them out the window. [ 'Oh, that one ALMOST made it . . .' ]

If anyone wants a gaze at the Electoral distribution [ http://www.fec.gov/pages/elecvote.htm ]

It doesn't look good for Hillary.



But that's not the point. It's always been a queasy feeling for the hipster world that Hunter S. Thompson didn't like the Clintons. In retrospect, his words seem to have been born out -

' And then I remembered the ancient story of the Old Woman and the Snake . . . When I dealt with Richard Nixon, there was never any question about who was the old woman and who was the snake, and I suspect that is why I got along better with him than I do with Bill Clinton. Nixon was so agressively evil that he almost glowed at night. His political instincts were so dangerous that he made the politics of total opposition honorable for two generations of the best people in america. . . We had no choice, really. Nixon was like that 16-wheel peterbilt in that famous cult movie about the desperate traveling salesman who gets chased across the desert by a kill- crazy semi with no driver. The monster truck pursued him at insane speeds, through gas pumps and phone booths, and even over cliffs, but he never knew WHY. . .

He was weird, Bubba. He played in a league where Clinto will never be anything but a batboy. Nixon was a monster with insanely wrong convictions. Clinton is a humorless punk with bad habits. Nixon was so bad that he could get innocent people INTO politics, but Clinton is bad in a way that will get all but the worst ones out. . .' - HST, Better Than Sex: confessions of a political junkie.



More than that. It's been shown that to wage a dirty, negative campaign drives down voter turnout. So we can expect some intersting things this time out, I'm sure, and this is where Hillary is the most vulnerable. Looking back, and taking Hunter's words into consideration, I would propose that the death of Vince Foster was AT LEAST as significant for the politics of my era than the Death of John F Kennedy was for his. With completely differing effects, of course, and that's something we should watch closely as a new era is creating itself. . . .



To say that Vince Foster is Hillary Clinton's Chappaquiddick is probably too simple [ see wikipedia for a daily battle of alarming back and forth editing!] [ Or Uncle Hunter's ' The Horrible 'Suicide' of Vincent Foster and why it destroyed the best minds in the white house" ]



At a time when Zoe Baird was on the ropes, Ken Starr had Webb Hubbel up for multiple felonies [ AND good Ol' Webb was promising to talk for immunity ] . . . THEN there was the case of Hillary 's friend who was serving jail time for contempt [ refusing to testify ] . . . suddenly there's a very convenient death and everyone clams up. Small wonder Kenn Starr shifted the investigation's focus to sex - with the disproportionate numbers of Clinton bodyguards turning up dead, it seemed like something they were concerned about . . .

AND of course, it all did more good than harm. Bill was literally In Like Flynn, and nobody bothered to look anymore . . .

But alot of people got off the boat in those days.

' He was sitting with the Concerned Clergymen under the cross they had erected. He was thinking, bitterly, that they should have erected a tombstone instead. It should have said 'here lies the New Deal.

Here lies the belief that all Evil is on the other side, among the reactionaries and the Ku Kluxers . . .'

- Robert ANton Wilson

In the end, that only gave us George Bush.

ANYWAY -

The reason this is such a hot topic right now is because of IRAN.

The Republicans agreed to drop the Vince Foster case if the Democrats would drop this ' October Suprise ' scandal . . . if the Persian goes down the way I expect it to, certain actions of say, the presidents father may be interpreted as TREASON. And it couldn't happen to a better bunch.

There are certainly enough players left to make all this happen - after all Webb Hubbel is still alive and hapily blogging away . . . and who knows what players like Adnan Khasoggi might be willing to bring to the table. stay tuned . . .



On the Republican side . . .well, the farce of a debate should be a warning to us all on the state of American education. If you havn't seen Idiocracy yet, it might still surprise you . . .



My favorite moment so far has been when Romney as caught lying about his hunting to the 2nd amendment lobby - and the next day his staff claimed it was a misunderstanding - everyone should just GET OVER IT - he was, after all, only trying to show support . . . Indeed. The next day his slogan should have been - 'Mitt Romney - He CARES enough to LIE '

ANYway, I have more to say, but this needed to clear out for next time . . .

- El Pirata

amblestrophe

Quick to laugh and listening wondering who to, someone knowing, lip spliter, to thread a needle, dive for pearls, speak a line that blows behind curtains, and have some sort a sense that the more given the more that comes back, all about bad math, looking for a who that will answer in the death of the afternoon, at the still point before the light starts to make up its mind, and throw back on the swords and leak off the plank.



I got a voice, see... I got this too, this ball to throw; the wind hasn’t been good at returning; only scouring away dry, a winnowing clean. I…how’s that again? I got diamonds in my eyes and all down my cheaks—but you know, sparkles, over the surface, heard the whispering at the drain--some thirst. Got no more than any, none of us, so far as I’ve seen, a few locked chests tight, some butterflies. What, in naming? That would, would lead to duplicates, then how’d we know what's born free—yeah. As free as what’ll fit in a pocket and get swept up when alls gone by, gone home, glued to streetlamps.



So, you were only drawing water, just the other side of the hill. See any toads? I know. Woods, you told me. What you come across? Learned to hold your breath. I am. Till you smile. To call you near…no. My hands they got a way of bruising things. It’s the grip they tell me. What say you to that? Not minding? You’d left dirt, walked across it, infused it with a warm meander which I, my muscles, not me, took up, and spread over the roofs. Stay you where? Oh. There. Then. What’s the use of waiting, if you’d never really gone. Just like bees humming, the blue over rocks—yeah. Humm over me wet in a net too big to cast.



And it sounds—this has nothing to do with you—the sounding impossible. Nothing impossible, that’s what's taught, taught to you too though right? Heard of it maybe? Learn while they flipped cards, impossible, possible, likely, more than likely, and what’s left? Did you ever, I imagine you must have, what we’ve got in common, how we knew each other that first time… from that gasp--thinking impossible had nothing to do with us? But that's not a question--just a smile, with color, like sparks off a cable car, like embers spewn up out a coal chug flit up a black plume… we float.



We are this I will have you know, dancers till it changes, and strangers to them before and can’t fit into their rooms with their powders and folios and we don’t give a dot. I know you by your appetite when it’s quiet--one might think it's something like the way death... We turn like cutting a mountain with a wink, or what ever you can think bigger, the sky, what’s that? the universe? Anything more? Well I’ve got it here, I do, and so you. In the din, the shining, the bells whistles and bops, stride after stride, double u after double u, looked at, as an ant might, but m’s from the other way up—m after m after m, like saying mmmm in deep long pleasure across the surface.



You are the needle I the thread. It's my lip you open and call red. And I will dive into your center, looking same as being, into and about--earth, all earth, up and from and to--floating mmmmm.



r

THAILAND Vol. 1

driving circles 'round the ren cen in my blue olds achieva...
listening to manu chau, how did i end up back here?

i'm somewhat removed now from my southeast asian getaway
and i'm collecting my thoughts. i don't really want to lay down
a play by play but perhaps some flashes of the brilliance of my
whirlwind tour. i'll say this: their thai food is spectacular!



a little lizard lived on the bathroom floor... today he is taking in a warm rainfall. i'm in the shower washing off the heat of Bangkok. we call him little lizard. sometimes Nora thinks he's hurt or missing a leg as he sits motionless for hours, even days. and just when she seems to be right, he's up on the wall all four feet gripping the slick tile. what goes through his dreams? i used to say "if i had any patience at all i'd be a buddhist." that statement is no longer true. if i had the patience i would stay under the soothing water and really observe little lizard. and just maybe, like cortazar's axolotls, we could switch places. all muscles clenched as another bout of soapy rains come in from the heavens. i like this place, regular rains in the morning and an occasional afternoon shower. the tiles are cool and inviting compared to the heavy sunshine of the massive outside world. yesterday a convoy of ants paraded right in front of me... they've got some brass. i ate seven of them before they knew the word terror. sometimes i can hear the gods talking. i have no envy that i am not like them. they loom so large as to block the sun from my skin... what would i do with such mass? what would i do with their knowledge of good and evil? i close my eyes as a wave of cleaning product washes over me. in my dream i no longer cling to tiles. i'm suspended in the air with no wings. i can sense color without having to look. i can feel love without having to hurt. i can talk to god without having to shout.




sweat rests on the back of my neck. it has all come down to this. just one more point and the Labor Day Vikings will defeat the Kansas Jews thus preserving their unblemished record in the hallowed game of Badminton. much was overcome to get to this moment: deconstruction of younger/faster opponents, the machinations of a brash line judge fresh from being ousted by the force of the LD Vikings, and the always troublesome presence of a lamp post right in the middle of our court. i'm told it is called a shuttlecock but i tossed the birdie into the air and readied my racquet.
these images raced through my skull as dizzily i stared across the court. P'George's body bent like a willow branch then snapped into action sending the shuttlecock blistering down the line for another kill. i don't think i moved. somehow the news preceded me to bangkok. You know, Joel is a member of a team called the Labor Day Vikings... he's undefeated at Badminton amongst the Detroit Theater Community. The Thais couldn't wait to get me on the court. Nora works with an incredible group of people. hard working, full of generosity and smiles, and always looking to display their english. they bestowed feasts upon me, took me on boat rides, led me before giant golden buddhas, opened their homes to me, but perhaps their gift i'll remember most fondly was when several of Nora's officemates (including P'George & P'Nui) took me to play their game. They display an incredible strength and grace on the court, switching from fast-paced smashes to lofting clear shots effortlessly. i scored two points against P'George (but that's only because he let me) Luckily for me, i didn't bring the camera along for this adventure... lessons from the zen masters rest soley in my heart. by the way, Nora is developing a mean snap on the birdie! the evening was capped by a late night visit to the noodle stand at the end of Nora's block. P'George ordered me up a spicey broth with glass noodles and fish balls...Tremendous!

P'GEORGE


P'NUI

BELIEVED

The glowing lionhead of Jesus emerged nightly
from the wall of clash pink and red and blue flowers.
I was not afraid. Nightly I welcomed the glow
to the left of the window where a fireman would know
I slept. In case of fire,
my dad posted a sticker of a 1930’s bob-girl
rescued by a red fire Man. I had nothing to fear

until I slept on another bed near another window
on the night when sullen snakes eyes emerged from the brick slant
(also flowered papered) near my pillow.

I don’t remember shaking

not even on the steep steps that crumbled
down to our flooded basement.

If I gazed down
into the gray world of restless dead
I'd dive into the dark canal and swim.

(h.l.)

wine

Water collapses on the shore of

Warm gut left soured and rotting

Pours the glass mostly full as

I pull off my shirt above, looking down

And the moon sinks into the next day

The flickering candles muted glow

My palette of actions

Your palette of actions

Drinking to prolong this thirst

Dry earthen tongue rusting hastily

Stumble up, glowing pale and blue in the window

Looking at you, gut warm with ember

Looking at me, illegible

Mood tinged with ill luminescence

Two trains spilting the same track

Hands with heat ruined shake

The clock asks for closure

Eye to eye, lip to lip

Reach for water, get wine

h

i can see the echoes you left with your shoes
like pitched pebbles in a pond
hopping from star to star across a reverberant night
never letting go of my hand
and when sleeping time came you called it nocturned
only now the sun is on my shoulders crying together was better
than rearranging the names of streets in your voice to lose being lost
dear sweat souls i know you know it was i who let go
to use both my hands to strip off my clothes and dive in on my own
to rise and find in the true rising height
buildings left and sky left
water towers held up in towns under of all things rain
i’d of lept on a bomb for you
and i know you knew knewest knowest how
that i can love
because of you
and i hear the mississippi talking at night
turning rocks inside out
the way you went
shyly red and heavy
nocturned
i put together feathers and whistles and sunk them in fire
you were once and now never not were
a visitor
like me will be
come to your earth
to overlap
a bear
shown to water

r

Friday in the Park with Bangkok

my shoulders remember
your heavy air
with noodles for breakfast
and the wagging
tongues of dogs
babys on motorcyces
and singha on ice
the streets wet with fish sauce
fried chickens on sticks
i can't fit my heart
around all of your toil

two boys wearing smiles
with designs on me drenched
burgle closer and closer
pistols in hand
little do they know that deep
in my pocket my hand too
clutches cool hard plastic
celebrate the new year
with white chalk and water

no matter where you'd like
to go: 10 minutes down the street
or three sweaty hours out; it takes
45 minutes to an hour and a half
to get anywhere in Bangkok

--vikingo mak mak