nocturnes / mikrokosmos / notapoems

i feel it is late.
not in terms of tonight, or morning
(which is a few limbs away still)
i feel it is late:
if life itself were time.


*___*___*

the things we learn and know,
do you ever stop to realize how
pointless it will be to you one day to
remember differentiating 'internal' from 'international'
genus's of armed conflict?


*___*___*

hi. i'm a
small, pale, shy
quiet story.
___(probably just need a tune


*___*___*

she sleeps before me.
always. __usually.
she purrs and turns.
i look up from my page.
she has the blanket between
her legs and a dream
between her eyes.
(celesta nocturne,
astrological carousel)
enough i say to the book,
who turns his cheek from me
and looks away.
and her sleep brushes aside
the blanket and lets me into
a new night, less dark,
less silent, less late
than mine.


*___*___*

a sleep with no dreams.
a sleep with no dreams.
a sleep with no dreams.
what are you writing? she asks
i say a sleep with no dreams.
she asks why?
sounds nice i say.


*___*___*

in ten years , or months , or something
will i have lost you to facebook?,
a name reminding me of Munich or
Chaucer or 2005 :: hollow ghosts
and precious feathers ; when it reminds
me it's your birthday i'll wear a grey suit
and spill wine on myself and ransack my
room hoping to find secret notes you left.


*___*___*

today i had a banana.
coffee. two half-pieces of gum.
three energy drinks.
my brain runs on solar energy.
my eyes on rain.
one night i'll get the urge to
climb into the garden.
drink evening's syrup.
wake a clown-shaped flower.
and dream only
_s _l _o _w


*___*___*

i spent 2 hours reading about chess grandmasters.
when i'm sad i listen to the Antlers.
refuse to sleep out of spite.
keep a tally of kisses you owe me.

one day i'll know how to say the rest.


*___*___*

a slowly disappearing font,
growing weaker with time,
distance, disappointment,
so that when it's most necessary
to speak your mind


____how strange empty rooms sound)
___
____________________________.

these words are not what i mean /\ i do not mean these words

untitled, heimdalsgate


these words never had any purpose , words in books and articles and published in the Paris Review stand proud , pretentious nose-uppity words those words have a place to go home to at night , rest in a comfortable bed and consort with their wives and with the eyes of soo many mistress's eyes , these words are vagabonds. a jumble rattle-bag of flotsam and jetsam leftover on the coffee-shop table train seat bus stop and soo left no one bothers to pick it up , these words are homeless with their hands in their pockets ideas in search of heads to live in and paper to live on and these words are miscast in the sentences they star in and the paragraphs are no better than our divorced and divorcing parents .

////////////
/ / / / / / / /____<-- this is to represent that it's raining right now
////// // / / //

if you were here i might kiss you . if for no other reason that to keep you from talking to me.

_*__ *__
/\___\\____ __<-- this is to represent two people leaning towards each other to kiss

i speak to a girl in a black dress who plays with her hair. i walk away, shout across a courtyard, when i turn i see my teacher who asks how i like assignments in equity, and i tell him about a competition, i unsuccessfully argued restitutio in integrum (he tells me i was right ,
____but now i'm jogging in the rain , my sweater is heavy , i feel gravity is flirting with me
___and what good is being right when you are old,
__(old and olding)
_before that i read.
before that i woke up sweaty from dreams i couldn't remember.

then it is evening.
but then, it is always evening.

what are you having for breakfast? he asks.
relief.
relief, when i rejoin air.
a banana. sometimes cereal.
highly caffeinated energy drinks and amphetamines.
either my hands shake, either that, or they can't be moved.

my essay has a name, all it needs now is a soul.
'Whose Invisible Hand Is it?: Ethical Taxation and the Price of Carbon'.
if i die before i wake,
carve it into my tombstone. _put QED under it. _if they cry remind them i was an asshole.

then it is evening.
i consider pills , decide instead on tuna. substance over form as they say. each day grows from the last. there are thursday's vines in my friday. wednesday's light is trapped under your eyelid. ssshhh, hear that? the thin buzzing is from tuesday. if you stand on one foot in the kitchen wearing a green shirt you can hear it really loudly.

these are the words i have that have no name. and which describe things that have no name. and which are about things that aren't ready to be confined to thoughts yet. passings and goings. throughing and throughings.

::::::::::::::::::
::____ _ _::
::____ _ _::_______<-- this is to represent the things we do not know.
::____ _ _::__________________(it is not to scale)
::::::::::::::::::


i don't know when things end anymore.
i'm concerned. my concern is that things never end.

1+2+3+ ... + ∞______<-- this is not to represent its true mathematical meaning, but rather: tick tock

the reason why this concerns me is in the box (see above)
i have knocked, but it has not granted me audience ,

when i look up it is the sort of 11pm that feels like 4am [or is that a metaphor for youth?]


but what do you write about? i am presently concerned with the conclusion of youth.
and what does that mean for you? (see above, box)

she plays with her hair, a thick bunch of it. twirls it. kinda rough.
i commend her for wearing a dress.
courtyard.
equitable assignments.
something or another about tax.
woke up sweaty , pills for breakfast , pills for lunch , insomnia for dinner
jogged in rain
but what do you write about? __[the end of things that do not


then it is evening.
but then, it is always evening.

GF MISSING!!

IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO:
APENNYFORTHEOLDGUY






andrewkonichiwa

penny sparkle by Blonde Redhead

the tracks are out of order
so i listen from last to first
and consequently feel upside down,
walking backwards up a hill,

i read a few reviews, they
tell me the band's ruined,
all promises are spent .
couple pennies maybe left
for a jukebox tune, but who we were
mumbles the lead singer as she
walks home to type out a resume (
carrying a guitar case with her)

someone asks her if she's scared
she smiles, at 2am cowboy -
or if she feels like she failed
staring at her boots she says finally
you still listening to me?

i have a soft-spot for the unappreciated.
in other words you see ghosts? she asks, standing:
she stares at me over her shoulder making tea,

doing nothing much at 3 in the morning,
i drink the last sip, and wait for some something

she's singing, nothing in particular.

i take a few moments to acquaint myself with
this moment, doesn't see to be going anywhere.

portrait

we ate that pizza, that one time, by the lake,
you with your suntan, me and my library-tan.

the traffic jam, on Vermont Ave, you saying it's ok,
apologizing for the city, while we listened
to the same radio station for 5 days play the same
5 songs.
on the 5th you realized.

me across the table shouting what now!?
and you: oh, were you reading?
and me: no, i'm just staring at the book and turning pages sporadically
and you: it's ok i worked it out.

your room, mounds of clothes and books,
where we slept on wednesdays to catchup on
television and life,
and in quiet moments you'd whisper to me
you're young don't forget
and by morning i'd wake again to argue
with you about where all the pancakes had gone.

i missed your award. i blame your dad.
this time around, you will too.
and i'll go alone. and chit chat with him and her,
without a crowd an award's just a piece of paper,

___and poems are just words -
not even sentences, just puddles in some person's head.
some random dude half-a-world away with no name.
words that make no sense because it's just the leftover this's and thats,
fingernails and tulip bulbs and 3am's he's got lying around.

i found a little heart drawn into the dust on my lamp.
in the shower there's still a star of david.
somewhere under these books
there's a scrap of yellow paper that reads smooch.

i've put them in water to see if they grow.

i stood in the kitchen that one time,
midway between the fridge and pantry
what are you doing it's been 10 minutes? you asked.
i couldn't decide to get the cereal first or the milk.
when you get like this you have to ask me for help ok?
i'll help you.

and i nodded as you handed me the cereal.

___

the shovel story.

when the ghosts of me refuse to speak,
and in my dreams i watch tv
____Braid of Voices by DM Stith












iphone by .:*ghost*:.


he had no idea why he did it. many years later when he was a middle-aged nothing, the kid next door interviewed him for a highschool assignment and he'd say that the last thing he remembered seeing was a calender with most of the day blocked out. things to do things to do. to do. to do. in any case, he'd gotten up. knowing it was likely to be an important day he bothered to brush his teeth and wash his face. but that was all. he was still in his navy pajama pants wearing a tshirt that read on the front NOT ALL MIND ALTERING SUBSTANCES ARE BAD FOR YOU and on the back THE ECONOMIST when he walked into the garage and returned with a shovel. why a shovel? the kid later asked. what'dya mean why a shovel?
- i mean, doesn't it make more sense to get an axe or something?
- cause i didn't have one kid. that's what i found, that's what i grabbed. i wasn't really thinking it through like that ya know?
walked back into his bedroom and slammed it into the face of his white desk. truth be told it didn't do too much. splintered away at the chip board, shook the thing. papers fell to the ground. so he took a swing with it, hauling it back like a heavy baseball bat (slamming the wall behind him, the jiprock broke and a framed painting of women praying in Jerusalem fell to the ground) he swung it back around slamming the table from the side. one leg bent out of shape, but it was the end of the desk, that's for sure. three four kicks and heaving, panting it was done. looking right he saw the sliding doors of his wardrobe, he thought that'll be nice because it had glass on it, couldn't offer too much resistance one swing that was done for. he stopped and stared at his books a long while. but in the moment, who knows. could have been a minute could have been an hour. interestingly, it was the only thing left in tact when they found the place. his computer having been judiciously snapped in half and then bludgeoned, papers and folders everywhere, the couch with a knife through its heart.


*___*___*

- it means you don't know what you feel.
- i know how i feel.
- do you know what the name of your feeling is?
- yes.
- what is it?
- bad.
- i was thinking you could be more specific. like... disappointment, or, regret, or anger.
- ...
- ...
- nope.
- that's what i mean. you can't communicate to me what you're feeling.
- actually, i can. i can. i have this blog on the internet, where i pretty much spend all my time telling strangers who do or don't care about my feelings. i kinda feel crap about myself for it too.
- that's probably describing your feelings. is that what you're doing?
- yes.
- describe them now.
- ...
- ...
- it's a hallway. very plain. i walk to the end, i can only turn right. walk to the end, turn right again. and again. then i'm where i started.
- is that a feeling?
- yes.
- what's it's name?
- Gerald.
- very funny.
- i'm giggling.
- i can see that.
- but what is this feeling?
- i don't know. it's a kind of stifling no-air where the why the f&ck am i still here i thought we're done with this and no we're not we're stuck on the merry-go-round don't wanna be here i hate my tshirt why didn't i shave today what's the point of reading that saying hello goddammit i don't have any money left kinda feeling.
- name?
- Claudius.
- he was the good one right?
- yes.
- who was the bad-
- Nero.
- right right.
- you feel bad. you can't understand what the feeling is, so you can't fix it. half the time, i doubt you're depressed at all. i think you're maybe stressed, or disappointed, or regretful, or ashamed, and you don't know which. and because you don't know which, you don't know what to do about it. or know if it's a 'normal' bad-feeling. so it just stays.
- yes, but it's stagnant. it's rot. it smells. i can smell it. i can smell my own skin's unhappiness. everywhere i look i find hair and particles of skin. it's overpowering me.
- well, you need to be able to communicate with the feeling. you need it to introduce itself to you.


*___*___*

as i walk past i see a blue diabetes blood-sugar test strip on the ground. about a centimeter in length and a quarter of that in width. the colour of a meaningless sky. i haven't seen those in a while. whenever you'd come over there'd be a few around afterwards. they were your flower petals. like your hairs in my bed, or an occasional hairband besides my sink. after you left, i'd vacuumed. i've left your shampoo and other things as they are in the shower. there's a framed portrait of a sad looking cat that you said resembles me when i'm reading. but, the test strips were all gone. these test strips are more intimate. a little robotic chip with a dot of your sweetened blood on it. perhaps i am a hungry vampire, perhaps, this is my mid-afternoon snack. maybe i should pick it up and lick what's left. maybe i should pick it up and bring it to you.
instead i walk past, skirting around it. i refuse to pick it up, or interact with it. it's sacrosanct. it has to stay there.


*___*___*

- yes, but isn't this what your meds are for?
- not really.
- not really?
- no.
- i don't get it.
- the pills slow my brain down. so it's not soo erratic and jerky. they smoothe it out. that way, it doesn't fixate on negative things or create problems out of nothing. it's like static, static in my head, aberrations because it has too much, or too little neuro-energy-thingees.
- so...
- so, they keep me running smoothly. running smoothly, and functional. when i'm not erratic and static-y, then i don't get sad about random-nothing. and i don't have panic attacks about random-nothing.
- right.
- but if something tips me, the pills can't fix it. it's gone.
- is it gone now?
- no.
- where is it?
- around here somewhere.


*___*___*

i sit. in the afternoon. i can't tell exactly what time it is, the sun's gone behind some clouds it's suddenly darker. i watch an episode of Mad Men which helps me feel no-better but less alone. i eat KFC and giggle thinking about that episode of southpark. i take two pills washed with an energy drink. i had a friend in Israel, he'd always say: watch out for boredom. boredom's the mother of all naughtiness. i'm fine till i'm bored... after that... i sharpen my teeth on trouble. maybe he's right.
- hey, let's get high on something.
- no.
- no?
- no.
- ok.
- settled?
- yah. you make good points, forget i said anything.
- no prob.
- ...
- ...
- ...
- what you meant was 'let's go to the movies'.
- the movies?
- yah.
- is that what i meant?
- it is.
- c'mon. i'll buy you a frozen coke, you'll feel better.
- i will?
- you will.
- ok.
- settled?
- yah.
i come home and it's dark. i read something about economists being social engineers. i read three paragraphs about the origin of fiduciary duties: fiducia, from the Roman, it means "to trust". i fall asleep and wake up with a beard. black, puffy eyes. i get a haircut. transfer some money. get some KFC and come home. watch Mad Men, and giggle thinking about southpark. i take two pills washed down with an energy drink and realise that i just turned right for the third time in my hallway.

no one knows why he did it.
why he thought that it was a good morning to get a shovel and break everything.

thoughts (fragments)

you touch me,
i hear the sound of mandolins











untitled by ohsweetnuthin


Q, i fell in love she says. i nod, smile, look away the whole time. after a little while, she adds, he's in the army. he's 'there' now. i keep nodding. or maybe, it's that love is the devil. it's all i can think to say. amen bruther. i continue to think about the film about Francis Bacon i just quoted from.


*___*___*

she's got long brown hair. i imagine her in an old house, like my dad's maybe. can't tell the colour of her skin it's too dark in the room. she wears an oversized knit. in reality maybe it's purple but the lamp's missing a shade, so everything's cast a cheap golden tinge, i can't tell, looks brownish. she's like a little hope growing out of the old couch.

a couple hours later, she's thin. her hair colour's irrelevant. she sits with her legs crossed and dangles a slip-on from her foot. takes the other one off entirely, sits there reading. teasing gravity.

a while later she's short. eyes yellow, like a cat. smiley, but not too talkative. the kind you like to have around because they're happy but not annoying. she looks up at me - a consequence of genetics, nothing metaphorical. but it's an optical illusion, feels like we're eye to eye. in this dream someone calls me over. i look up, but she keeps staring at me. i'm extracted from my reverie.

with shorter hair she's cuter, but i can't tell why. probably makes her lips look more the shape of love-hearts. or shows her face rounder. she has on a tshirt she stole from me. when she moves i see glimpses of leg and underwear. when she looks away to think her own thoughts i remember to breathe again. when we kiss she'll whisper in my ear brrreeathe and i'll exhale on her neck. and she'll hold me till the blue cloud in me subsides. then she'll bring her face close for me to kiss again.


*___*___*

at the start of every semester i remember how tired i am. how much i want to go away. be away. how tired.
i walk out of the library, having stapled, holed and/or bound about 200 pages of reading. an armfull. i dream it's a package, wrapped in brown paper of flowers. orange tulips. or those cheap white flowers. or half a dozen fresh baguettes. or Finnegan's Wake. and it's not the brick path going down to my office. it's not that room, where i face dark wood paneling, besides a raised stage with a constructed judge's panel and three ornamental chairs. it's somewhere else. a cheap Berlin studio maybe. a rented garage in Wisconsin. and my footsteps aren't this silent hushed monk act. they'd crunch under half a centimeter of snow. a little crack, each step.

it's 2:11am i realize i haven't eaten since breakfast. the feeling in my abdomen is hunger.
yes but, do you understand what alexithymia is? my therapist would ask and i'd say yesyes i know what i means, i get it. except i didn't. i worked it out a few days ago. or maybe i knew it, then forgot it, then worked it out again independently a few days ago. it's feeling 'bad' without knowing why. not knowing what the feeling is, other than it's not happiness. it's sadness or hunger or fear or paranoia or disappointment or some million other things, i can't tell. i just know it's bad. so i wait it out.

it's not 2:14am. it's breakfast. they weren't sticks of bread, turns out they were flowers afterall. i'm on the second floor of an old apartment building. i have my balcony open, sheer curtains that blow in the wind. it's Paris i think. it's bright for the morning. it feels like this morning in Tel Aviv when i went with my dad. a decade ago almost to the day. i'm sitting with a woman who smiles at me but doesn't speak. we have heavy plates set out and i our tea from a japanese pot. maybe she's not really her, it's just the flowers. or she was the flowers. or there were no flowers at all it was just a handful of late autumn/early spring. maybe it's wasn't that either, it was 2:17am which is whatever you want it to be.
except breakfast.


*___*___*

i cancel my games of scrabble. tell my regular opponents i can't rematch them because i'm moving to Libya. to learn sorcery from an ascetic ex-cowboy named Wilbur Monroe. they don't believe me. i tell the next one i can't keep playing because i've been diagnosed with a terminal illness and i need to devote my final months on earth to sleeping in perfectly clean white bedsheets everynight and taking twice as long to select music to listen to and movies to watch because every second should be sublime. the third i resign from midway through. i tell him/her, who knows, that after months at the gym, i've finally put on the final 5 kilos required of me to be accepted into a professional wrestling organization and that they're paying for me to take acting classes with view to incorporating me into the show starting next season as a badass named Ateyour Mombo.

Le Moulin is playing on the ipod at that time so i decide to dress in a blue striped tshirt and i put on the hat that sits on top of my piano and has done so for the last year. i decide to pretend it's last year, so i put on the hat and sit quietly behind the piano. last year no one would have been home so i pause the ipod and take up at the next bar, playing it myself, quietly. with the practise pedal on so it doesn't disturb anybody. the nighttime likes it and i can feel a swell of darkness gather around the outside of my window as the night presses its cheek and ear to hear. she gets lonely walking the streets, i know that much about her. sees a light on, or hears a sound wants to see who's up.
___it's last year, so i still have a few friends. i dial a girl i know for no reason. just to get a response i tell her i'm a vampire, and vampires like having coffee at 2am. she says she'll have coffee with me. i'm so shocked i'm not sure what to do. she has on a black fake-leather jacket. something blue. shirt? maybe a sweater i don't know. i tell her i'm not interested in being her friend. she has to be my girlfriend and give me smoochies from time to time, or be my victim and let me suck some nominal blood from the back of her arm. she says she'll need time to think. fair enough i say.

my phone buzzes, i check the text:
i'm home alone. i have a bottle of champagne and toys. what are you doing? ;)

a year ago i didn't end up responding to that text. so tonight i delete it. get back to whatever i've been doing. reading. reading. reading. my eyes overheat. bad radiator or something. dry as weeds i drip drops into them all day. people ask me what it is i answer narcotics, eyes are the closest thing to your brain. your optical nerve travels a few inches up your nose straight into your brain. in 12 minutes i'll be Robinson Crusoe i won't give a f*ck about you. they don't seem to believe me. (the wresting-acting classes must not be working).

a year ago i'd probably not write to you. i'd find the half-drank bottle of dark rum i had hidden somewhere. listen to New Slang by the Shins on repeat. drink until i felt sleepy enough to sleep. this is what happens when you run out of diazepam. where're my pills? mom asked. gone. long long long gone. for the record she'd stolen them out of my grandfather's medicine drawer. after he passed away, knowing the value of an 8 year old one-third full bottle of benzodiazepines, we raided his house, every cuboard, drawer, under the bed. old boxes. what have you got mom? she didn't have anything. lots of warfarin. you? nothing useful. maybe i'd change the song though. after a while. Glorybox by Portishead for a while. Slow Show by the National. Eva Cassidy singing Autumn Leaves. drink till you sleep. only way out of it. when you wake up, your eyes are red, and the ground's been pulled up on one side it's annoying as hell and the guy from across the street crashed into the back of your car on his way to work. good morning world. good to be back. (maybe Birds by Electralene).


*___*___*

- Q-zee, what can i say?, i like the guy. and let's face it, we're not getting any younger here are we?
- no we ain't.
- no we ain't. anyway, his tour finishes in like november. and i'll be back in december. so i'll see him. we actually live kinda close. and... we'll just see what happens.
- sounds... prudent.
- prudent?
- came to mind.
- it's like the least romantic, least sexy word you could have thought of.
- love is like the least romantic, least sexy thing i can think of.
- when did you get all post-modern commitment-phobe on me?
- when post-modernism caught up with me.
- ...
-...
- he has lots of tattoos. couple of 'em i don't like.
- no one's got it all [i mumble this]
- what?
[i sing for her:

it's alright it's alright it's alright it's alright,

no one's got it all.
no one's got it all.
no one's got it all.

- [laughing] what the hell are you, are you singing!

i'm the hero of this story
don't need to be saved
i'm the hero of this story
don't need to be saved

i'm the

______(no one's got it all)


*___*___*

2:43am.

what now.