"two polaroids from the future"

and in my reduced circumstance,
I will sit on a bench and feed crumbs
to ants

as you sit on your bench in another town
and the birds will come gathering round,
circle down

Outdoorsy!

I want to hike up your
skirt, all the way up and
over the back trail, past those
lovely rounded hills, down into
the valley nook deep between, nestle in
and set up camp by the brook

nobody's ever

nobody's ever going to make me feel the way you do
your eyes
cup mine, you say
nothing much, and my face
hurts from laughing. You
have the most beautiful
everything. And you are
without a doubt, beyond compare. nobody's ever

going to make me feel the way you do

but there are other ways to feel.

"boom operator"

I'm in the PICTURES, see
see my name up in lights
but you won't see ME
if my work's done RIGHT
I will be all out of FRAME
as I'm creating the SOUND
I am suspending the BOOM
can you hear,
hear me NOW? I am the

BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
boom, BOOM!

operator, BOOM!
operator, BOOM!
operator, boom,
BOOM!

and all my buddies and me
we hang out, out of sight
but all my best boys
get our names up in lights
I'm hanging out with my crew
- that's the SOUND CREW, dog! -
superintending the SOUND,
every word, catch it ALL!
I am the

BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
boom, BOOM!

operator, BOOM!
operator, BOOM!
operator, boom,
BOOM!

now the gaffer gets props
for how he wires it up
and he works with all the grips
key grip, dolly grip, yup!
for all the lighting design
and casting shadows around
and hey that's all well and fine
but I'M CREATING THE SOUND, I am the

BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
boom, BOOM!

operator, BOOM!
operator, BOOM!
operator, boom,
BOOM!

I keep the mic out of frame
I keep it up in suspense
I am suspending the BOOM
from which so much depends
as you're immersed in the scene
hanging on every word -
I'm making sure you can suspend disbelief,
UNDETERRED
I keep it all out of FRAME
if my job's done RIGHT -
all of my best boys
get our names up in lights
so if you stay to the end
you will be seeing my NAME
and you will know who to THANK
who keeps it all out of FRAME
I am the

BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
BOOM!
operator,
boom, BOOM!

operator, BOOM!
operator, BOOM!
operator, boom,
BOOM!

exploit. v.

Exploitation.
To exploit: defined
to make full use, and derive
benefit from.

The goodness that is in this life
must be exploited. It is there
to be exploited. It was given
fully, in expectation,
to be taken.

To not exploit
it
is
as
if:
to reject the gift that is

That is, it is as if to take
for granted,
and reject as granted.
Even though: it was granted
full willing, with pleading eyes, a plea
wishing only to please,

denied,

despised.

Pretend that the world was me. I want
("I am the world," I would say, to you
"for you, for the sake of our argument,")

I want you to give yourself,
to me,
fully,

such as you are: outright. A gift
to the world. And in return, I will give
myself, outright: I am yours.

"The world," I note, "is yours.
You must live as if, make full
use, and derive benefit."

Such as we were, we gave ourselves
outright. The world is ours,
all the world

takes only what it wants.

Unfriendly

If I Friend You, will you notice? Am I a friend of a friend you clicked on to pad your totals? Have we ever met over sodas? Sweated like pigs for an hour of bikram yoga? Fallen at least a third of the way over, laughing in a pagoda bonding over our mutual love of Yoda? Kept our affection for each other despite a huge argument over racial quotas? Portaged from lake to lake one spring in Minnesota? Done anything at all together? Do I know ya? I'm not saying people I haven't met aren't real, but if we met would you know me from Ricky Schroder? He prefers 'Rick' now I hear.

I can tell you what I prefer. But I'd rather show ya.

as fuzzy

I'm as fuzzy and compliant
as a soft summer peach, as fuzzy
and empty of stuff, full of wonder
as a newborn babe's not
-yet-hardened head, as fuzzy
and full of relief
as a cease-fire
from the high command,
on a hair-trigger stand,
the eve of a battle
whose armies are comprised
of all former schoolmates
and lovers, each on opposite sides
of tension-fraught, taut-drawn
battle lines, and yet -

- I would not say that I'm
particularly fuzzy. That word,
I don't know

it just wormed its way in
like a common denominator
that won't divide

delivered

Not all exchanges have to be public
do they? Let's post

our baby on the internet
and deliver him by high-speed DSL
no one will suspect

"him or her," of course - I'm sure a daughter
would go over just as well

and healthy, ten fingers and toes and
hell, eight or ten pounds easily

and soon to be in the top percentile
for growing big and giggling

his or her first words will be hilariously
apt - the things kids say, we will post them
in a video with our voices in the back
-ground cooing and oohing aahs

people will 'Like' it
and make comments like
"SO CUTE"

and

"o my god"

as the first million hits
hit, no one will suspect

no one will notice anything
odd

get set

but what the hell: let's
consider this hypothetically. Realistically,
if everything in the world were different

I'd still feel the same. And it would work
just as well as it did today

but since everything in the world is the same
I feel different now. I don't know. Hold on.
I'll explain

somehow

and, go

From you or, arguably,
anyone else
I could get away clean

But so what, what the hell
that isn't the point.
that's kind of a one-sided
impression. And I mean,

The truth is,
despite all contrary evidence.

I may be at least as much of a sucker
as I seem,

If only you
could make me believe in certain bullshit
not ever happening

A hard sell - but possible
for you or, arguably,
anyone else

- from what I've seen.

on your mark

you think
I'm kind of dangling
out there for the plucking for you,
any time you choose to stretch out your hand.
I mean, I know you know that I'm not

I think I might give the impression
nevertheless

I would simply and blissfully collapse
into your waiting embrace
if it were there.

which sounds so nice

*but not a real bearskin, that's cruel.

Sexy to me is a bearskin* rug
with nothing on. Waiting.
A wine glass, waiting
expectantly for the pour,
not knowing white or red
just knowing you - and knowing
it will be exquisite, with your lips
to follow. A plate, clean, white, gleam
- awaiting: something soft, warm. Salty,
savory; something to be scooped out in dollops,
and scooped up with toasted crusts. A door.

Closed; waiting.

A whole room, the whole house - darkened.

The misty hiss
of tires outside, rained-upon asphalt
rolling out a carpet for a car rolling up,
a carpet of wet black, shot across all over
with electric stars, a car rolling up
with us inside.

A slam
of doors and a laughter of running feet,
with elbows for inside position, as -

- a key slid in,
and thunk/click. And open and rush, and:

"Base!"

Home safe,
and dry.

brought to you by the number three

when you tell me these things,
it feels and sounds like a children's program
I know

there really are a lot of adults
who never learned how to be in the world, and
could use it explained to them

with a song, and a cartoon
I was not talked down to
my intelligence insulted
belittled and lessened
just to sit and let your lesson
babysit me, while my inner mom maybe
got something done in another room
washing the inner dishes

I sat entranced, no trace of ADD
at all, but also on some level
waiting for commercial

target audience

The key I think is the opening line
he's not talking to everyone, no
just you

and you know that his words
could encircle the world
and not one set of ears
could hear clear and true
what the meaning here is.

this piece was not meant
for the people who won't
take it personally. No
without any context of we
between you, you are sure of
exactly one thing

destiny

why I'm a listener

so finally I get up the gall,
the nerve, find a voice

equal parts reassurance,
and speaking from experience,
and a kind of wonder as if
still finding this stuff out myself

I awkwardly lean in, hanging on my
every word to tell you how much you mean

and of course, you don't

believe a word of it.

the girl like Linus

And her voice, with its Linus-like qualities, soft
with mercy and tenderness yet steel underneath
and firm emphasis (Linus doesn't play when it's
what he believes) her words soft, to comfort like
a blanket over your insecurities, yet with a flip
and a flick - snap crack like a whip!
to smack you smack-dab on the ass
whenever she sees

you need it.

rivalry

I've always been prone to rhyme like that
from time to time,

I'm not just finding myself
admiring her facility with a style
I'd already previously mastered.

but she beat me to it, I should have known
I should have flown faster
as if flown could be the past participle
of flow

but I guess, having come in second
I have to go
back to the drawing board and reinvent it,
as if there could be a market
at this late date
for a reinvented drawing board. Well,
maybe if I bent it
I could draw a design in ten dimensions
that would map out a rap diagrammatically correct
grammatically suspect and mathematically impossible,
drop it on all of our heads and say

oops, sorry y'all

that was a GUNSHOT

was that a GUNSHOT

we don't get gunshots
in this neighborhood?

it was
it must have been

the news broke in with a report
of a loud report, and outside

sirens wailing, bewailing the broken silence
converging from all directions to assail

the source of all this violence

just off the rails

trip off on a shot
like a tangent to a land
where only the premise applies,

and none of what's real can so much as raise a hand
to interrupt,

until the hypothetical has had its way

there was really no why to explain
the links in the chain as the train
kept a-rollin'

laying its own track
across the increasingly strange
fruited plain.

"Sacrament"

last night
I saw you in my dream
what's more
I think that you saw me, and you
were walking alongside
alone & naked
you looked into my eyes:
you're tired of life
of what you can do
and tired of the things you can't
you need someone to teach
and someome to learn
and someone to understand

well I will
join you
I will
join you
in this

it's a sacrament

we walk
a world we did not make
we tried
it wasn't to our taste
we speak
of wisdom and virtue
I think
the secret is inside you
you're tired of love
without knowing why
of flying with no place to land
with no one to teach
and no one to learn
and no one to understand

well I will
join you
I will
join you
in this

it's immaculate

and we met in a place
where nobody goes
and something passed between us
over and over and over and over
the moment is gone
you're left here with me
we hold each other in our hands
with nothing to teach
and nothing to learn
and nothing to understand

but I will
join you
I will
join you
in this

it's a sacrament

said I will
join you
I will
join you
I will, join you - in this:

we're transcending it
it's immaculate
it's a sacrament

a minimum

for trusting enough: thank you
for trusting enough

you have to be able to
trust people enough
to believe, trust them enough
not to kill
themselves. You have to

You have to be able to
trust them enough,
that they're not going to

do that.

Otherwise

how can you ever take a joke? Or hang up
after what they said
that they KNEW did not sound quite right
the moment they said it, no -
do not call back
it was not a call for help, please
not a call for help, please

you have to be able to trust

Which you do
Which you did, so for tonight
I will make sure

your trust was not in vain.

a good book

it's bright and blue, no storm outside
but the wind shakes the house like rain,
in squalls

I am safe in bed,
with a book too sad to stick to, long
and no one calls

and no one knocks, thank God
I'm safe

I'm safe at home. Today, at least
no one, nothing, can touch me here

I lie on my back as the wind breaks leaves
against the house, in bushels-full
I look at my book

this book's so sad - I don't want to go back
but I have to, though

all the way to the end
if it's bad,
it's bad

the perfect thing

we want everyone to be
the perfect thing that they're not

WE want them to be.
They don't want that.

or maybe they do?
some of them do, it is true
they want to be that perfect thing

well

maybe together: the power of you
both, delusion times two

can fit flesh to the ghost
raise least to the most
undeserving, I know

but that's how it goes

m.i.a.

you totally belong
and we miss you when you're gone!
but we're all of us a bit too good
at trying not to push, to push
and trying not to pry, and I
suspect
we all suspect, we know
that none of us belong
either,

especially
when you go

faith + or - one

there is a god
we are alive now in his thought
and will live forever
in his memory

cradle bird

I want to cradle you like a bird
but it's not because you can't fly
or that you need, really need my protection
it's just that I love to protect you,
and wish I could

in point of fact: you can't fly
you're not a bird. You're a grown woman

women can't fly

I suppose they can get a pilot's license
but this is only a deflection, a

an evasion

to cover for the fact: they can't fly

tried

I tried to talk about myself
with you, just now
and I'm not sure if it worked

I realized that I never do talk about me
with you I always talk about
the world? I guess
or ideas. Dumb ones
all the things there are in the world
to scathe

and I scathe them
scathingly, to make you laugh
make your face hurt

but I talked about myself, or tried
just now, and you didn't laugh

I'm not sure if it worked.

I burn books

all day, i choose them for content
and i dump them - covers akimbo
contents, chapters, spread open, vulnerable,
contained disarray in a big metal mesh
trash can

and then

i also have some wadded-up newspaper in there
packed loosely between and around the books
- for kindling, bitches!!!

and i light up a cigarette
take a long, slow pull of a drag on that puppy, and
get the coal all very good and hot and red
and i start fires

in the wadded up newspaper
and the fire spreads
like wildfire, and soon
the books catch:
bindings,
covers, blacking and smoking,
bubbling where there is ink, colorful
paperback covers turning black rainbows
hard covers, smoking
old, fabric covered covers burn dull and low
dust jackets, crisping into ash
thick wads of pages bowing and warping,
separating out, with razor-thin (paper-
thin) lines of fire tracing
the edges of the pages, as

heat expands

burning

Burn.

I stand well back from the soft roar
of literature, burning its way
into history

and I pick up my sign, as if this is
a demonstration.

My sign says

"I'm burning books!

It's ok
I have
a permit"

keeping

the shepherds were herding their sheep, anon
the bullwards were warding their bulls
the cowhands were handing their cows along
it was, all in all, in a thoroughly pastoral
sort of milieu that you I found each other
in our finding, and kept each other
in our keeping

purely to prove

mean
out of spite
purely to prove you broke me
I cracked into pieces
that slid apart
as I walked
away

Yes. Of Course!

You're asking a question that is almost
impossibly strange
for me to answer, the way you have
literally put it
into words. but, I think
I know exactly what you mean, and
and I am going to try to answer it,
hypothetically: if

I met a girl who
looked like you,
who talked like you,
who was you,
I might not think
or believe you were hitting on me, but
if you asked me out -
I'd be all "AW JEEZ
I should have beat you to it!"

So,

to answer you're question,

except when it is

It's not funny except when it is
not for the person who it's not funny for when

except when it is
there's the rub, there's the rub
rub it in now,
why don't you?

rub it in

Get it over with

have you already missed your shot at one true love?
have you quit waiting for your second chance to come?
have you already given up the ghost of it?
have you already traded in your membership?

hey there, happy! glad to see me?
we were on to something
bad at goodbyes
good at white lies
hey, you can't have everything
let's get it over with
let's get it over with
let's get it over with?
we're here

have you reached the point where you know that you'll never change?
have you figured out why everybody else is strange?
have you wished for someone
- to get hit by a shooting star?
have you lost
your illusions of how nice you are?

well, I've still got some
where's the shotgun
we can blow them all away
I don't care, really
seeing clearly
truth
is better than they say
let's get it over with
let's get it over with
let's get it over with?
we're here

wolf in sheep's clothes
bare beneath, though
set to howl and growl
and baah
sing it, baby
whatever, maybe
it's okay,
sera sera
let's get it over with
let's get it over with
let's get it over with?
we're here

"Love Makes No Sense And So Do I"

predict it
go ahead see it coming
and she said:
exactly what she wanted
and she said
you're not the type I want
so I said -
well what's your favorite font?
Yeah well, love makes no sense
no makes no sense say yes
love makes no sense, and so do I
so what?
yeah, well, love makes no sense
no makes no sense say yes
love makes no sense, and so do I
so what?

and you know
what you look for in a man
and you'll find
your mister master plan
the future
is what really counts to you
but I'm sure
the present has its moments too
yeah, well, love makes no sense
no makes no sense say yes
love makes no sense, and so do I
so what?
yeah, well, love makes no sense
no makes no sense say yes
love makes no sense, and so do I
so what?

and they say: to thine own self be true
but I know who I am
and I'd rather be true to you
and wise men
say only fools rush in
but I can't help
falling in looooove with you

yeah, well, love makes no sense
no makes no sense say yes
love makes no sense, and so do I
so what?
yeah, well, love makes no sense
no makes no sense say yes
love makes no sense, and so do I
so what?

serving suggest

When you are feeling down, and coming down,
and life has ideas of its own,
and the black clouds come over
then you can't help but cry
that's when it can get hard.
But that's just when it can help so much -
to get up
breathe, and walk down the hall
stand yourself in front of the machine
you pays your money, and
you press the button -
*CLUNKA*
- out drops an ice cold can of Coca-Cola.
Pull the tab - *PFSSST!* Sniff that bubbly fizz!
Hold that ice cold-can in your hot little hand! and then
SLAM THAT PUPPY! GLUG! GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!
"Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrp"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

DAMN

say it isn't

when news is this bad,
well what can you do? The mind shuts down.
The mouth stops cold, and
I pray you are putting me on.

oh how gladly
I'd be made a fool! Ten times out of ten
I never mind, if only you

could be ok

but I can't see or believe how that can be
I trust you

would not have told me
all of what I just heard
for fun.

please

make me wrong

tell me I'm wrong

tell me you got me good,
on this one

how many holes

This place,
without you, was bereft.
Bereft, bereft of you
in so many ways. Too many
ways to count. It's amazing
how many holes one person can leave,
when they've gone.

"Making Gaines"

I've been Driftin' Away, yeah
the Way of the Girl - like an Unsigned Letter
'bout the state of the world
so Lost in You, it's like Snow in July
and It Don't Matter to the Sun, Right Now
so I cry:

Maybe, if we could make Chris Gaines
put another album out -
the world could be the same
as it was back then!
so edgy and true
with a funky soul patch
under skies so blue

That's the Way I Remember It,
walking on Main Street,
Digging for Gold -
we knew life could be so sweet
'til we got beseiged -
can we ever get it back?
My Love Tells Me So - I won't
raise the White Flag, 'cause

Maybe, if we could make Chris Gaines
put another album out -
then the world could be the same
as it was back then!
so edgy and true
with a funky soul patch
under skies so blue

how badly

how badly do I need your help?
it can't be that bad, 'cause I'm asking
right? Oh you know if you can't, I can more
than take that
and on principle, use it
to fuel my fight.

If I really need help -
I would have to be so
deep and down,
trodden low,
that you'd never have heard

So, you know,
it's okay if you can't.
I'm okay, if you can't -
of complaint,
you will not
hear a word.

Options

To end this call
at any time, please hang up.
To continue this call, please
remain holding.
If you wish to press the pound key,
do so now, by pressing pound. If you wish
to press the star key, press the star key.
If you wish to select a number, please
locate the number on the keypad,
and press it now. If you wish to select
more than one number, enter them sequentially,
in the order you wish to select them.
Then press pound.

To continue this call
in Spanish, please remain on the line.
The menu of options will be repeated
in the worst Spanish you have ever heard. For French,
continue holding after that.