TIME, NO LONGER

does it simply
slip through, it
is like all things
now like nothing
has gone before

HERE NOW

the sound where
sounds had been
as more thoughts
become forgotten  

OPTIMISTIC

Hey, I'm optimistic about a lot of things. I just feel optimism must always be tempered with equal amounts negativity. For every cute puppy you see, another one has just been tossed into the gas chamber. Life is a constant manipulation and we all know there is a price for everything. The yachts do not exist without war and famine. It's all intertwined, interwoven as they say. Perhaps the Hollywood Squares were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda? Maybe Justin Bieber will become the next Hitler? Who knows what finally sets the trap? The state of transcendence is to be at once enveloped by the beauty while at the same time being aware of the trick. There is nothing in life which we should ever take personally. The salmon run through the shallows as well as the deep. A whale moans halfway across the earth while you contemplate your sex life. Are you almost out of diapers? Did you forget to buy half and half? You think the meat in the fridge still good? See, you should've just gone ahead and cooked it the other day. The bills arrive like scavengers upon the carcass. What the hell happened to our world? Your cell phone bill may as well be $10,000 at this point. What the hell's the difference really? Why is Ted Nugent's face in my brain? Why is Matt Hutchins's soup so good? When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was riding in the hatchback of my father's orange 280Z. We were driving home from a fish fry somewhere and my parents were up in the front talking about the strangeness of it all. Some new friends had invited us but they had failed to mention that it had to do with some church. I had brought some Matchbox cars with me and I was driving them around on the rough carpet back there. For some reason, I looked up just in time to see two monstrous birds swoop down from a telephone pole. I mean, they were fucking enormous! I'm serious, they were like 3 or 4 times bigger than turkey vultures! "Mom! Dad!" I yelled. They kept talking and did not answer. The birds landed beside some sort of roadkill behind us. I'm not kidding, they were the size of large dogs! "MOM! DAD!' I yelled again. "What?" my dad said, turning his head. But by then we had driven too far and the birds were gone.

REFRESHING

I just want to be able to film myself on some specialized camera that can be replayed in slow motion while I sit out in my yard on one of our big orange chairs, sipping beer all summer long with my mouth hung open as much as possible in an attempt to capture something, maybe a big dragonfly or just a large moth as it flies into my mouth and the ridiculousness of my reaction. I mean, come on, would that not be something spectacularly refreshing?

NO, NO, MAN, THANKS

"I gotta tell ya, it just feels like a cry for help. It comes across as, I don't know, inappropriate or misdirected. It's like you're as frustrated with your own writing as you are with the world. To me, that's mostly what comes across. You're really funny sometimes, but all these outbursts and then this sort of whimpering... And you're always repeating all this stuff about your mother. I gotta be honest, it's a little embarrassing. Ya know, I just wish you could channel it somehow into something useful. You HAVE tell stories. There's no getting around it. I mean if you want people to read your work. Hey, whatever happened to that graphic novel you worked on?"

"I don't know, who knows?"

"Hmmm. Anyway, sorry to be so brutal, man, but that's my two cents. You know, you asked."

"No, no, man, thanks."

CARTOONS EVEN I WOULDN'T DRAW EVEN IF I COULD DRAW THEM by Philip Bram:

Two men in white hazmat suits are combing the aftermath of a suicide bombing on a street (scattered body parts, pools of dried blood, a charred, twisted frame of a car behind them). They are both investigating about a 6 inch long piece of something or other at their feet. One of the men is looking down at it while the other is now looking up towards us and our viewpoint which allows us to see a portion of their very serious looking boss, standing, watching on with an Ipad in his hands.

MAN IN HAZMAT SUIT LOOKING UP: "Hey, remember the scene in Caddyshack where Bill Murray eats the candy bar?"

THE CARDINAL

was their
grandfather
they kept 
pointing
saying
look so
no one
forgot