talking my way to your place

               


     owed one


i realized the other week i had no idea what the washington monument really means.

i wanted to try to figure it out, so i resisted the urge to google it and find the easy answers.

it really means nothing other than what it is to your senses and filtered through a bunch of ideas you have in your head like gravel in a fish aquarium.

just like everything else.

but you know what i mean.

i resisted the urge to ask other people what it means to them, to hear it go through their gravel.

it's good to use to get your bearings if yr physically there.

in washington d.c. i mean.

it's a pointy white stone that slave owners made really tall to impress you.

japanese people like to have their pictures taken there and say "ooh ah-mer-ee-ka! where baby phat store?!"



     owed two


the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about a member of the B-52s dying of aids.

i think cindy's singing it because her brother ricky died of aids.

the girl from ipanema is suddenly in greenland.

she just keeps singing it over and over: GIRL! from EE!-PA!-niiii-ma. SHE! goes to. GREEEEEN-LAAND!

but it's a happy song.

and the band looks so miserable in the video even though they're pretending to be these happy surrealists but death is visible in the way they hold their elbows and the strange expressions on their faces between the smiles.

that was something they didn't want to see.

how he died.

i remember flying over greenland and it was one of the most beautiful things i had ever seen.

the emptiness went on and on and nobody was there to listen to the sea or the ice changing shape and you smiled at me devilishly and i smiled back and almost wanted the plane to crash right there but only for a second or two.




     owed three


i watch shows about serial killers most days.

i probably know about every serial killer who has been documented and his or her victims.

i am a strong believer in the death penalty which is a trait other left leaning people seem not to share, although we might agree on many other political issues.

i often vividly imagine the terror and horror experienced by their victims, and feel if you can imagine this vividly enough you won't want the killer to live.

because if you keep someone like that alive it will only allow them to relive their murders with happiness at night when all is quiet and they can enjoy the Kodak moments.

have you ever seen how much it costs to keep one of these people housed for a single year?

it is the usual governmental bureaucratic waste which could feed about ten poor people very well for that year.

ten poor people who didn't vivisect anyone or stick knives in a child's rectum.

if you have religious beliefs you should try to rush this person to the afterlife as quickly as possible so that they might receive the benefit of divine guidance.

the truth is that our culture has commodified the serial killer's act as successfully as it has commodified sex, and serial killing and its daily dramatizations on television now fulfill somewhat the role which bullfighting fills in spain.



     owed four


i'm not really sure what i believe in.

i believe in people and their right to be free of pain, but that's so fucking abstract.

so much of this is because we are animals which know we are going to die.

i think i would be a vegan if i knew animals knew what death is.

i hate to see animals suffer as much as i hate to see people in pain.

i think there are probably universes where "people" are more like music.

people are probably energy forms that just organize and reorganize constantly...but we are that already...sort of.

and possibly these song people just merge with one another like two songs that suddenly coalesce.

and maybe later when they separate, one of these song people notices it has lost a bunch of its notes and the other song kept them.

but it's too late to get them back now. work with the notes you got.



     owed five

you get to a point where you know too much about things the world has done to people to ever really be joyful for long periods again.

because you know joy like that is based on a heedless oblivion.

not that you can rescue the dead.

somebody should pay to put up a big billboard with huge black letters against a white background that says simply: "RESCUE THE DEAD!"

because it's only the doomed gesture that is beautiful, really.

like love.

"makes me pull my hair all out. to think i could have let you leave."

robert smith has inserted himself here. i like it when he wears his pyjamas in videos, he seems to like doing that.

now fiona apple (who has a morbid fear of insects, did you know that?) is singing through her blue piano. making the snow shine brighter on the other side of this window, and all of this has absolutely nothing to do with you.



     owed six


heaven can wait.

heaven can't wait.

i'm not sure which statements about heaven are true.

heaven is computing your heavenly f.i.c.o. even as we speak.

heaven, if it exists, probably doesn't know what it wants either.

did you ever think that possibly you are fucked up, but not fucked enough?

i think that sometimes.

heaven might be perfect fuckedness. i mean the way music handles fuckedness and can manage that fucked beauty.

and only the really fucked get in.

i think in heaven when they see a clear-souled person approaching they yell, "Quick! I see another one coming! Close the gates! Turn out the lights! Make 'em think we're not home! Hurry, move your fat asses!"



     owed seven


some people spend their lives trying to be someone.

some people spend their lives trying to be no one.

some people fuck around looking at life with a squint.

these last ones can be very sexy.

but these people are terrible albatrosses.

terribly, sexy albatrosses.

if i started a poetry magazine again I would call it terrible sexy albatross.

i would make up rejection notices that said: "you have been greatly misunderstood by terrible sexy albatross, and now have a gravamen."

or i would send cryptic rejection notices like "mark chagall was a pussy."

even though this would have nothing whatsoever to do with the person being rejected, because they are a poet they would take this with the greatest umbrage possible and go around muttering "what an asshole" for days, and possibly weeks.



     owed eight


the cat wants out.

the cat wants in.

i have to keep opening and closing the door.

i think my cat is playing buddhist games.

maybe my cat is philip whalen reincarnated. anything's possible.

if that's you philip, go sit on that red hat. lift one paw like that japanese god.

he wants the door open at all times; it's a feline koan of some sort.

people often intuit a great depth in the actions of their pets and lovers (which may or may not really be there).

it can be humorous or annoying to watch from the outside.

but never disabuse them. or a karmic airplane. will fall on you while you are getting close to an orgasm of some sort.



     owed nine.

my computer just did this...

the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about
the girl from ipanema goes to greenland is about

i thought it was pretty.

okay computer. you're a verbo-visual poet.

have you been and/or have you ever had a terrible, sexy albatross in your life?

yesterday i asked a dead person a question.

most living people do ask dead people lots of questions.

i wonder if there are any cemeteries where graves have mailboxes.

could you imagine all the junk mail that would accumulate.

most people are immortal because of junk mail.

almost all literature starts out as junk mail, if you think about it.




     owed ten


shirts: in a benevolent universe the person wearing the "I FUCK PEOPLE BECAUSE OF LOW SELF-ESTEEM" shirt

would meet the person wearing the "ASK ME ABOUT MY SUICIDE ATTEMPT" shirt.

and the person wearing the "ANOTHER FUCKING DAY ON EARTH. yay."

would meet the one wearing the shirt that said on the front I UNDERSTAND YOU, JEFFREY DAHMER" and on the back "NOW I NEED TO EAT YOU" on the back and one smile would fuse them for all time.

possibly the "TOM CRUISE HAS A CLEFT ASSHOLE" wearing person

would find solace with the "I KILLED SOMEBODY BEFORE THEY HAD DNA TESTS! SUCKAZ!" person.

and the really sadness-addicted person wearing "RELEASED BECAUSE OF PRISON OVERPOPULATION"

would find the perfect pillow with the "I WANT TO BE THE LIAR YOU COME HOME TO" person.

and the "MY LEPROSY IS NOT THAT CONTAGIOUS, REALLY" shirt person would lie down as the lion did with the lamb with a "THE DINOSAURS DIDN'T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS" shirt.

but this is not that universe. and these people will most likely all meet very sensible people whom they will offend for several decades, apologizing often, and dying very quietly and privately.