Tramp Stamp

My niece in ten years
straddles a bar stool
hair unwashed
tramp stamp
above buttcrack
no more compromising than
my lack of one. Every
novel I read I remember
unexamined entrails of navel-linted
complicity, some furrier
than others though all
in my key.

BLEGGELB

I put a brand new still shrink-sealed tablet in my new bought for London backpack, the current moleskin just a quarter used. I’m a rube for rituals and rules, my ritual and rules’ rubery why I think you’re a rube. I’ll carry new shrink-wrapped tablet in new backpack until the moleskin is finished, a policy already harming  the quality of what I write in moleskin.

Honestly, who but the complicit can save us from the complicit?

I work in a profession that’s as fraudulent as any other except other professions laugh at librarians like surgeons at pediatricians (the killer interview question for a librarian seeking a job is, English major, Art History major, Philosophy major, ….?). Librarians, smart librarians, know they’re obsolete (I’m not a librarian as librarians enjoy telling me, I’m stupid, my masters is in English, I work for librarians), ten more years, fifteen more years, museum pieces.

BLAG 1/22/09

My fascination with sports kits
explains why Barack Obama’s
face will be struck on quarters
within months of his death.
My fascination with tarpolin
shirts unfurling towards me
reminds me the first time I heard Sinead
O’Connor’s “Mandinka” I thought ka-pow.
My fascination with kits creates
suicide bombers and Steely Dan fans,
she don’t remember the queen of soul,
riots my grandfathers’ unions stoked,
factory softball leagues keg-powered,
confessional booths. Sure feels good.
Players leave, the uniform stays,
its fans the sole survivors.

BLAG 1/9/09

Dicks are dishonester
none more Fuckface Chris Richkid
ducking out a pool-hall’s side door
losing 1-9 racing to 10
double-or-nothing
owing me $900 already
twenty-two? three? years ago
who yesterday was arguing in a Safeway meat aisle
with a meat-cutter over a better cuts
and fucking better prices
on porkchops.
He knew who I was is a thousandth of a second
a thousandth of a second later he knew I knew who he was
a thousandth of a second later he knew I knew he knew.
He ermed, coughed, flipped his porkchops in his cart,
fled.

BLAG 1/2/09

If all can go to anyone
for need
most will congregate around two.
Fists beat beat fisters,
rats subvert
garbage theories.
Button-testing yes
exploratory and disciplinary.
Power yet harnessed
tested branded as lifestyle
yes, ongoing modeling.

BLAG 12/29/08

Time to move over here. My handwriting’s
better here, I imagine buying a calligrapher’s
pen but stop, all credit is a testament
to tablet. I held in my hands
a different format but did not buy,
not tenets obeyed but overarching
focus observed. The scandal now
they fear isn’t temporary, market-tested
swerves thus far ineffectual, re-branding,
repackaging still in pre-development. Toggling’s
clumsy. People die. Formulating a belief
when survival is that belief
is like me believing in tablet
and the calligraphy of my handwriting.

BLAG 12/28/08

Or micro-breweries and polo shirts
holding court. Laugh like vinegar
whisked with smirk, swallowing olives.
The want in to want out, Jolly
Rancher brillo-ing a candy-scarred
palette. Let me buy you a beer
as bear-baiting. To be best
at what everyone swears they care least about.

BLAG 12/23/08

What enemies say picking
themselves up and plotting revenge

is what winners begin thinking
just after victory, the word “orange”

as rhyme reviewed in referees’
hooded booths. While I’m inured

to your fetish for gotcha allusions
did you see what I just obscured?

BLAG 12/22/08

I am being mocked without help noticing,
thanks. I never needed nagging but always
until recently, noticed while nagging
baggers over deadlines met.
You piss me off fast as bluetootheds
screaming DON’T YOU, WHAT?
into their implants. Why I need
publish with or without
connectivity has nothing to do with billing.

Should I start ink as starlet
and tablet as smoldering husband
or tablet as star and ink as mule?
Ink plus pen versus tablet? I’m
using Uniball Vision Elite with purple ink
writing in Moleskin quadrille tablet with orange
and cobalt blue Uniball Vision Elite pens
ready when purple burps at a period.

BLAG 12/21/08

Preventative dentistry scares me
almost as my handwriting
can be classified as calligraphy.
A friend wrote, your ability
to process information astonishes me
which puzzles me, since unencumbered
blackboards erase more cleanly.
I’m watching a fat 55-year-old ply
a pliable 44-year-old skank with Bushmills
and shitty Irish music played by bad
non-Irish musicians in a faux
Irish bar, let’s argue
apprehension as if conclusions
are even negotiable.