Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Dan Raphael...

Yes, this is still a blogazine. That's an ugly word, innit? Feel free to send works and words for consideration to Bewitjanus@aol.com. No guts, all glory. No pay but eternally dwindling fame. No problem.

And here's a guy who's been making it happen personally and ultrapersonally for years and years...Dan Raphael....Dan, you write a long line and I apologize that Blogger is going to make up its own relineation a little, but I think poets with poetry ears will be able to tell where you are pirouetting and where not...



Another January


some trucks been warming up for hours;
a mile long train blocking my egress     progress      traffic floss;
a micro-stream attempting to sweep the streets without run-overs or trippings

why are the people at different magnifications, visually ventilated
grayed from a distance, so many breaths of newly arrived air
lift feet and arms, we hear some rhythm but different ones
dancing with our shadows when the light source is unstable or whimsical,
im not paranoid about it though others close their eyes i want to roar,
furry furor,      fluorescent lean-to,      crafted imbalances.
without wind our brakes would wear out faster the pedal wont let go of my shoe. epoxy laces

turn your head to the south in this windowless room you were blindfolded into,
a thin sheet of cooked egg edible window.    wall not all there,     tendrils of possible fiction.
slight vertigo but im not sure where my hand wont go through.   rent raised again.
the shadow of a skeletal horse, for example.     curtains on a wall.
how many hands would it take to create the last supper.
the sixth time I saw the wizard of oz was the first time on a color tv.
next month the wind becomes digital and I need something new between my senses and my brain.
or I need a new brain,     non-analog,     i call them as I remember their numbers,
i want to leave a message but dont want to sound needy.
dont want to imply anything, not even neutrality or promise

some long held beliefs did not fare well in the recent windstorm.    i thought one had better roots,
that another could trust its neighbors.     the previous storm planted new ideas.
next weeks menu features rain in a neo-fusion format with a nod to the lunar new year.
found out yesterday im a metal rabbit.
my polish calendar features potatoes, root vegetables and cabbage.
when you have salad you have color.    we brush shadow on our cheeks when the sun is full
or when the moon is back after a week of therapy.

all this time I thought i was inside.   i mistook growth for structure..
i miss so many messages by sleeping 8 hours a night.
when the curtains are sealed i’ll stay in bed til my legs ache with boredom.
why cant I sink through the floor and be in the kitchen quicker.   coffee is constant.
when I turn the faucet and nothing comes out my world is shattered, the air is thick as gravy.
the pizza slice gets larger and softer in my hand as im suddenly in the middle of an old playground festive with bags    butts   condoms   and stains.
the wind is offended by the one basketball net remaining.
i take a deep breath.    the top of my head assures me the sun is out there somewhere.



//////////




So cut and remains nice
Drops down here
A shirt of sweat, a fly become fishing line in passing more than i can press
against the surrendered artery of wheat and sugar collapsed as i climb;
when the horizon is under water, when a ridge of captured lava blinks in welcome
to take me through a doorway long before a house arrives
I am simmering in memory without wallet cards pictures
as a belt can be boiled to release a 19 cent hamburger—ground goat, feral pig,
hundreds of mice fueled the wolves tundra marathon
I have oranges and peanuts that don’t grow here,
i have waterproof containers from the planet inside our industrial mind
Dust will judge me,
dust will weigh me,
dust will value my salt for a week or so
I hold my cupped hands together til i feel the egg there, warmed by the lighthouse born inside me spinning its eye as if the sea moves around, as if the rocks will rumble like grains of moist salt
with nothing to unclam me from this used paper warehouse
I was days from the road, i was nights from myself, mountains ahead of me,
a steep drop to where i didnt want to return,
stars littering the dried lake or tympanum of an extinct planetary ear
I open an imaginary door with no idea whats inside:
no floor    no walls    food i cant reach
A breeze is my prayer
A bird flying overhead means i have a couple hours


//////



Working Backwards from Eternal Life


when the grand canyon is dripping with the boneless, the radiant pacific
lapping like a violet cheese of increased air pressure across the tines of sandstone time
enjoying the sound of its rain in the steel drum nebulae of atoms made flesh.

tell me what it looks like and i’ll tell you the time
figuring earths inside each other
the way I store my socks to peel away a rainbow of blacks from each decade
like a planet so hard in the middle even the sun has to get devious
to enthrall with a one way ticket of i got what you need
and nobody else can break through your smile so teflon cold

from the footprints on the bark, from hair samples in abandoned buildings,
from the letters so decomposed i can only snort their meaning coz my brain is paper too:
if digital is the antitheses of analog the synthesis is too explosive from my body
to not surrender all my marrow and bloods treasury of partial solutions
and see what was on the coin I didn’t think would flip

a plane crash. a breast too large for my body.
how sunshine is an addiction i just cant shake so i keep travelling ahead of the darkness
sucking fuel through my toes and sparking the fumes with how my balls click
against my wooden thighs. im here to redefine disposable

all i can say is names— names of gods,     names of forces,
names of ways to mix water sugar and fat, ways things continue after death
i open a restaurant and close a town..
if i had 2 thousandths of everyone who walked by on the day before chrirtmas,
a way to get them to do what i want. but if none of them can dance.
if all of them are beautiful as my tears freezing before they hit the beach
if the wind would stop for one second so i could surrender.
no putty, no primer, no 400 watt light.

i run through the cables 43 selections 43 times and hear esperanto in 5 part harmony
meliting shivers of glass like vampire fangs
or eiffel towers of bio-engineered chocolate that birds fall into
and whip a feathered frenzy that smells like lunch and sings like tomorrow on a jetliner
about to slide into an unexpected vein
like an aneurism waiting for a week before the election with internal collapsars
holding a second me in blind orbit the way I could marry myself
when it took a year to find the ocean, where everything tastes like industry


when i get home dinners already in bed.
when the helicopter pushed me through my recalcitrant mirror.
i want to hover. i want to ascend without a runway.
once the number of holes in my head reaches 13 my skull will assume its natural shape,
my brain will grow outside the bones and steer its antennas to the future colonies
where we sing like buddhas fucking among the galaxies, our fertilized eggs
slowly begin to cluster as stars and planets,
as i get out of my car and scatter like a thousand people sneezing at once
infested with the blessings of subdermal music I inject
to keep me from singing whenever an engine explodes.

the houses melted into boulders will groan when the tide of a moon manufactured 7 galaxies from here shifts the wobbling planet to tempt the flames of our invisible souls
into the central chasms of eyes feeding micro-memories would touch nipple to battery
or the scene a swiveling desk lamp shrinks 90%
like a bread-bag sail recycled so many times
the polymers break open to a mile-wide footprint never dry but always damp,
like a city with extinct countries in every plaster wall is a spot meat will sear with inescapable garlic

don’t french, don’t thai, don’t bahama--
pour the continents back together and this time the oceans don’t win.
too many volcanoes on one side divides the gap tween venus and mars.
back then we only needed 5 planets. To get beyond 9 would mean the end of everything.
fission is the path. sweeping up what fell back onto the ridge where it sprouted,
if the only thing to walk on is thinner than the space between my pores
I will slide on bone skates trading calcium for energy, folding like a tent
just big enough to keep me in orbit.
          even from space i cant get the big picture,
focusing on faces and how they fill their jeans.
what that flickering eye is trying to say.
An unstruck match rubbing against a candle wick: how many tongues can meet in airless space
where our eyes microweave an interrelationship none of us can splinter


/////


Plicit


implicitly weather
as my clothes change
thinking to see through
in corridors with tables    narrow halls     sudden balconies
don’t look up
reflecting the transparent floor on this train without tracks
as fast as walking without a destination
i cant see the house numbers, every corner the names change,
arrows in chalk, a stack of 3 crumpled food bags as if boy scouts
as if a forest with wide streets

implicitly climatic—guess the month, nose in the wind
im thinking of a flower, i don’t have words for its scent, im guessing the color
when houses shed,     cars hanging from vines,     squeaky umbilicals,    
cloud hat,    itching scalp:
the idea begins to form of breakfast fresh from the backseat, a 10 minute alcove
i rest before im tired, i move with one shoe
by staring at a window i can see the last things said inside
a mannequins hand used as an ash tray, a lampshade of 4 wigs aligned with the compass
there’s the cool chair   and the drafty chair,    a tentative chair--
im wondering if itll collapse or how i’ll get back up, rising with the tide
as the minute hand approaches twelve
the mood will change
like expecting orange juice and getting tomato

as if im seeing the doors but not the buildings around them
one glistening tooth, eyes that cant agree
turn the key and let out the clutch
i cant get there without trampling ferns

bonemaker    sky graffiti
artificial skin stretched into almost letters     kites without frames
i have a 2 pound iron finger—our bodys tool kits must become more diverse
for all the world throws drops & sprays at us
the best shelter blinds me     rains sonic camouflage
my clothes are dry but the body inside them must be changed
you were outside half an hour and didnt hear the sky?
furniture on a clothesline
trees bent together so the bees will think of art

im waiting for rain with bar codes
the sun wont shine on me til my PIN’s entered
i get off the bar stool and fan out through the neighborhood with a pocketful of houses
some of the pennies on the neighbors tree are ripe enough to fall
that’s the third time september called today
the wall looked so sky-like i thought it was glass and tried to climb
nocturnal fish hovering just above the surface
i catch flies with a hand sized net weighted with raisins
bowl in a spoon, plate caressing fork
no one personalizes napkins these days or remembers the origami
japanese paper made when the air is so compressed—
falling from trains,     clabbering around insistent neon,     this color doesn’t translate

i tried to inhale and exhale simultaneously but some air got so confused
i started to fall through the floor.     each time the wind knocks it has more knuckles
i see jupiter through the peephole
the butter begins to current before im halfway across the bread
yeast just needed some time with its family

i go to my basement but arrive at a small dock looking across a river
to twenty foot cats neither asleep or awake
i glue a walnut shell to each palm & shake everyones hand,
then stomp the floor like a flamenco, shoes with heels on both ends--
you must be this tall to get on this ride
some people want to be measured every half hour
i know time has passed as im hungry again
slits in my thighs to keep my hands warm
a flock of hubcaps hopping around the schoolyard

do i want a garage or a stream running through
mosquitoes have learned to live underwater
is it food before or after i eat it
no breakfast in the yard as the skys reflection in my spoon distracts me so much
if night never came i could be a plant

since there’s no wall doesn’t mean you can go through just anywhere

looking over my shoulder i see a plasmatic word, almost amoebic, glistening dry,
pixillating like a stadium crowd whose message cards are frozen breaths escaping from their foreheads
i randomly fling myself against the air--sometimes it flings back
when the sky looks at the town below it--where curtains, missing doors and roofs,
people clustered & swarming, so many dots without connectors as if my eyes sneezed
only when its within an arms length
the only difference between then and now is somethings in my hand

can you have electricity without friction

when I dont want to breathe im quickly overruled