Tuesday, September 25, 2007

50 year-old Rock Star

Milton will wear his silk underwear to work and wink at the girls by the water cooler whispering strange lyrics in their ears wondering if his record will play
if the DJ will open the letter
Milton sings in the shower
in the elevator
underneath the stairs
at the back of the ballpark
small town hero with a xylophone
strange little rock star
with a limp
marimba man in sixty nine degrees of stereo cool
quarter track tape
forgotten player
Milton sleeps in the buff
save for his mask
like Zorro without eyes
fifty years and wishing for a different life
fifty years and wishing for a wife
fifty years and
contemplating the ending
of his life

Monday, September 24, 2007

imagine how she sings

on the bus
coming home from the doctor
she sings to herself
she always sings to herself
i imagine her there
i imagine how she smiles
at a thought
how she frowns
at the dark cloud passing
across her heart
how the sun
plays upon her face
how her eyes
hold so much
and nothing at all
on the bus
coming home from the doctor
another repair
in the fabric
another tear
opening up
imagine
and listen
to the song
she sings

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Moon was Eclipsed, the Planet was Asleep

i wonder if she will go to bed with me
i

wonder what's on channel 345 i
wonder if the president

wears boxers or tidy whites
i
wonder
why all those dinosaurs had to die just so i can ride my harley

i wonder if
my heart was defective at birth

or just grew into itself

or if tomorrow will make a difference

or if

others wonder what they will have for dinner

i wonder if we will ever wake up
and see the moon overhead

that miraculous

eye of god

Monday, September 10, 2007

Titanic Dreams

She and he quietly eating breakfast
in separate rooms
at different times
like dinner the night before
like life in general
he arranging deck chairs
she pointing out the flaws
in his effort
suddenly this iceberg looms out of nowhere
and the captain says "I'll be damned"
and orders full steam ahead
she
playing games on her computer
he
playing keystrokes
on his
open your eyes
and
dreams come to an end

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Elevator Music Revisited

first floor

faint glimmerings of hope and men's shoes


second floor
lingerie and leering husbands



third floor
cutlery and bones




fourth floor
everybody dance now





fifth floor
introspection followed by remorse






sixth floor
everyone knows there's no sixth floor







seventh floor
executive offices and cockroaches








take the stairs

to the roof

look at the stars

listen to the city

smile at the joke*

and

wonder why


you ever thought



of jumping




off









*Joke not included.
Management not responsible if you trip and fall off the edge, in an ironic twist of fate.
.









all previous posts are crap









.

Elevator Music

rage boils down through the concrete floor like a nuclear reactor core headed toward some groundwater explosion super contamination tears melt down through these arms and limbs and blood searing flesh and feeling like they can take no more thoughts race across these synapses firing like tracers in nighttime battle soldiers music eats this moment until you wake up feeling like you've reached the bottom floor

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

rainfall

will my kids remember me as the guy who dug up really cool music or just the guy who was living back there in oregon it is the deepest regret that i am just that guy back there in oregon where it rains, man it rains, i can tell you that just when you don't want it to, it rains

sat ThERE Wondrin'

this strange thought crossed my mind that this might be the day that i wake up and shake off and step out and do that crazy be that it is crazy thing and finish a screenplay or carve a whale or build a race car or become a rock star or get my taxes in on time something other than this thing called today

tears make paper wrinkle and cause major traffic accidents

the woman on the couch is my wife
not my enemy
but the battle lines are so accurately drawn
the trenches so precisely dug
so deeply into the fabric of our daily lives
the woman with the soft brown hair
is the love of my life
but strangely wishes me dead
i could cross these barren barbed-wire moments
i could raise that tattered white flag
i could get shot dead and stabbed in the heart
oh
war
oh
love
oh
how i wish
i was not a combatant
all i want to do

is hold her


in


my



arms

rising through dreams

something will lift you up
just when you can take it no longer
something will make you smile
when nothing seems at all worthwhile

tears make paper wrinkle

you could be so small in your father's arms
you could be so large in his eyes
you could grow up so beautiful
and you could grow up so fragile and frail
in his 50th year you could make him smile
so big at the the thought of you
this was the ripple in his heart
this was the moment he would cherish forever
that time you were frightened at the setting sun
and suddenly he was there,
that time you danced in his big tennis shoes
that moment he watched quietly
from the other side of the crib
as you breathed again and again
and again and again and again and
again
each time breaking his heart with joy

The Enormous Echo

The leaves moved across the sand like lizards until there were no more leaves and only the soft sound of countless specks of former mountains tumbling in slow-motion along the never-never. David Kngwarreye stood silently in the sun. Today would be a better day, of this the birds had sung. Sky would turn to water, snakes would dance in the wind, and David would cross the Kakadu in bare feet like his ancestors before him. Tomorrow would be his death. Of this, he was sure. But today stretched before him like eternity and that would be a good thing. He was alive for today, and that was a good thing.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Lewis Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1848. He was the son of George and Rebecca Latimer, escaped slaves from Virginia. When Lewis Latimer was a boy his father George was arrested and tried as a slave fugitive. The judge ordered his return to Virginia and slavery, but money was raised by the local community to pay for George Latimer's freedom. George Latimer later went underground fearing his re-enslavement, a great hardship for Lewis' family.
Lewis Latimer enlisted in the Union Navy at the age of 15 by forging the age on his birth certificate. Upon the completion of his military service, Lewis Latimer returned to Boston, Massachusetts where he was employed by the patent solicitors Crosby & Gould. While working in the office Lewis began the study of drafting and eventually became their head draftsmen. During his employment with Crosby & Gould, Latimer drafted the patent drawings for Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for the telephone, spending long nights with the inventor. Bell rushed his patent application to the patent office mere hours ahead of the competition and won the patent rights to the telephone with the help of Latimer.
Hiram S. Maxim, founder of the U.S. Electric Light Co., at Bridgeport, CN, and the inventor of the Maxim machine gun, hired Lewis Latimer as an assistant manager and draftsman. Latimer's talent for drafting and his creative genius led him to invent a method of making carbon filaments for the Maxim electric incandescent lamp. In 1881, he supervised the installation of the electric lights in New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London.
Lewis Latimer was the original draftsman for Thomas Edison (who he started working for in 1884) and as such was the star witness in Edison’s infringement suits. Lewis Latimer was the only African American member of the twenty-four "Edison Pioneers", Thomas Edison's engineering division of the Edison Company. Latimer also co-authored a book on electricity published in 1890 called, "Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System."
Lewis Latimer had many interests. He was an inventor, draftsman, engineer, author, poet, musician, and, at the same time, a devoted family man and philanthropist. He married Mary Wilson on December 10, 1873. Lewis wrote a poem for his wedding entitled Ebon Venus that was published in his book of poetry, Poems of Love and Life. The Latimers had two daughters, Jeanette and Louise.

Mobile Mouse

Then, later, at her insistance, he had purchased her a large new HP laptop. To go on her lap. And new games were found. New ways to make the mouse click.

Mouse Clicks

He could hear the sound of the penguins getting smacked by his wife in the other room. She wasn’t very athletic, so it counted as exercise, he supposed, the clicking of the right mouse button over and over making a caveman bat penguins like baseballs. The game made a pleasant polyphonic xylophone tone each time she succeeded in hitting a penguin.

It would be an over simplification to say that she was fat as a result of her sedentary lifestyle, but suffice it to say the delicate little flower who had wrapped her legs around him and kissed his socks off while they were dating was now 60 pounds larger and planted in front of their computer whacking penguins. It made him sad.

He wanted to feel passion for her, but she seemed content in her new body, and equally as content with the new lifestyle she had assumed after their marriage. The vibrant, sexy woman he had fallen in love with now spent her days sitting in the front room watching TV and clicking the mouse, making oh so many mouse clicks.