NOVEMBER

"Nothing matters," I said. She smiled insanely, widely. "Nothing," she said. The moon was hidden by unreal clouds, forecasting disaster or some new gloom.

SAD NOBODIES

Ethan looked at the sky and imagined it was water but that felt forced and stupid.
People looked ugly that morning. Ethan figured that he looked ugly too and smiled.
The drainage creek ran along Eight Mile Road.
Ethan and Cal found a stove underneath a bridge. Cal said, "I was sleeping over there," pointing across the water, "Last Summer. This horrible noise woke me up, startling as all hell, I saw this stove bouncing. I looked up at the bridge and saw two men laughing."
Ethan threw rocks in the creek. He didn't try to skip them or make big splashes.
A loud truck went by every thirty seconds.

WORLD WORSE PERFECT

Now that I can't ever know, now that I'm defeated for today, I was never close to the end of my sentence, until this pencil hit the paper I was left for dead--words fill up space, this is instead of Heather, she's locked up in the east, I'm locked up in the west, and I'm determined to discover something worthwhile by writing and writing the suicide note that won't stop.
Here in the psych. ward each friendship lasts a few days and almost certainly I'll never see any of them again, so I almost care less than ever, I almost don't care about myself now, so here comes fictional salvation--

FIRST WEDNESDAY POEM
How come we live beneath the A-bomb blasts?
Flowers for dead people.
Flowers so precious for
They are the flags of God.

And where do I stand with God?
I race to escape his displeasure!
Prostrated on a tile floor!
Marching to the corner store!
Dressed to the nines!
I am designed to love one girl.
The rest of my effort is
To make the world better for her,
So she'll want to live.
I want only the best.
Give me the worst,
We won't know it's not the best.
I don't know why I'm here,
Or even if I'm really here at all.

This is sad but it's my "mission:"
I was a punk,
I am a mod,
Living to save the ravers.
Can't stop or I fall into my grave. Easy.

[Easter 2001]

SPORTY SPICE IN PERIL!

"Cock Robin's Death Song" on All-Hits Radio Six, the sun ascending stately an invisible arc, girls in summer clothes give each other the eye. Cars crash, lovers fall out of love, and all the while the price on Sporty's head skyrockets.
The killers can't find her, they never will, and here's why: one hour she's Miss January 1962, the next she's the last President of the Society for Cutting Up Men. Oh, also she never really existed. She will, though. When Sporty Spice makes the scene I and everyone will stop breathing. No, not death, that's not what I mean. I don't know what I mean. I only know that I can't wait. Hurry, Sporty! How long exactly do you expect us to hang on to what?

CINCINNATI 4 A.M.

John still sat at the curved coffee shop counter almost an hour
after he planned on leaving. He glanced up at an amazing-looking girl every forty-five seconds. The waitress had stopped refilling his coffee cup long before.
When the amazing-looking girl left the shop, John followed
her car in his car. She pulled into the driveway of a house, John
cruised past her house, parked his car a half-block up and
bawled for five minutes. When it started raining he began the drive
back to his own house where he ended the night smoking cigarettes and not really doing anything much at all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY DEATH

You are entranced by my fake charm./I hide in your house, you hit the light,/I'm standing there with your butcher knife raised over my head,/I'm smiling, thank God you're laughing like crazy./ I tell you that my gift is my song./You know I'm kidding./Here. A wallet chock-full of $100 bills./Happy Birthday. Happy Death.

APRIL WAS EPIC

Try just once, "Jeff". You're in the world, this world, only once. In a summer resort house you're complaining about your two-plus week vacation. Some mystery man. Some super-hero.
Go to a mirror. Go see a worthless guy. Go see a clear-cut, open-shut case in support of mass white suicide.
I'm not angry, I'm not upset, I don't hate you. I don't even really know you. Listen, "Jeff", listen for once, this once: no, there's no reason for you to exist; as far as you know, everything that's ever happened to you is illusion-- there were no good times, no bad times, only Saint Sameness, and our worthless senses of perception.
I'm not exactly sad, no, I am animated and realistic, masking my outrage for the sake of passing for a kind man, practicing kind acts only because there's no other choice available to me.
Girls walk by dressed in summer clothes. I turn my head until my darkness goes.

AN END AFTER THE END

In a white house your various murders and failures are planned out, your boyfriend/girlfriend's face reminds you of a killer's face in a movie.
You like to talk about your day. I listen and don't tell you that another day has been shoplifted from your sad store of days.

WE LOVE YOU

I can't get started today or tonight on a train of emotion or action to sustain me through the everyday life we're facing. My inner life is my career, sad to say, and it's barely there today. The world is mine, of course. I'll give you half. Let's begin the golden age.

FRAGMENT

Beside the whirring rooftop air-conditioning machine while the sun sank prettily in a polluted Christmas Day sky, Shannen waited, chain-smoking light cigarettes, watching lights come on across the city.

SPORTY SPICE OFFERS MOCK EXECUTIONS!

Imagine a friend from the Federal Reserve walking through our distressed neighborhoods with all kinds of cash and gold instead of all these penniless priests! Let's find a parking lot where we can erect a field of crosses for these frauds, I mean, really, man!
If you can't reply to Our Sporty Spice first of all I feel sorry for you and after that ... there's a keyboard right in front of you, a machine, less than any real effort, I mean what's wrong? Do you have cancer? AIDS? Or if you had the fatal illness would you be more likely to make the effort? What is wrong with you? Tell me quick ...
All right, girls and boy well-wishers, how about some entertainment?

SPORTY SPICE IS A SCANNER AND A SEXY GIRL
I don't care about your warnings, this is real--
Yeah, she's fourteen, I'm aware of that fact, fine, fine--
Yeah, this hallucinogen is super dangerous, I won't forget--
Yeah, we'll all be killed for certain if we try, I'll remember--
Understand, please, this is not for suicide, this is
A real attempt to improve the quality of our lives, that's all.
Have you never really heard of Risk?
Sporty Spice is about to murder you, no, really,
I am Sporty Spice and I am going to kill you in about five seconds.
Yeah, that's me Sporty Spice in that commercial,
On the cover of all kinds of magazines.
My other name is YOUR GIRLFRIEND.

So, you're either with Sporty Spice or you probably never really existed at all.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

The bees died off early that year so everyone in town was super happy. Kids never came into contact with peanuts or latex. Shul Neighbor, barber and unofficial town king, ordered the deaths of three Jews. His men searched but none were found matching the king's description: lamb's wool for hair, giant bird beak for nose, and lengthy fangs coated in Christian blood. The townspeople began to question the king's judgment. One man even went so far as to call Shul "unfit" and was immediately exiled. I am that exile.

DEAR WORTHLESS FRIENDS

This is your worthless friend typing his most urgent appeal to my fellow suburban superstars: get lost or give up! I'm really tired of waiting for you ... I mean, no one really cares about your life unless you have your own broadcast television program ...
Can you get this? The only way to rescue the world is to wreck the world. Anything less is abject failure. "Kill Yr. Idols", "Hate Your Friends", and, of course: "Don't believe us!/Don't believe us!/Don't be bitten twice!/You got a Suss! Suss! Suss! Suss! Suss! Suss! Suss! Suspect Device!" *

* "Kill Yr. Idols" is a Sonic Youth song and a reference to the idea that if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him (since perfection is impossible in this world, it's an impostor.)
"Hate Your Friends" by the Lemonheads is a perfect punk song about irritated unhappiness.
And "Suspect Device" by Stiff Little Fingers sums up the worthless frauds that think they control the world in quite a thrilling manner. The quote is from near the end of the song when SLF include themselves among those who should be disbelieved.
"Hello Young Lovers" is an old (late '50's? I don't want to look it up,) tremendously good, wistful ballad that I know from the Nancy Wilson version, but many others have recorded it as well.

SIGNAL

Off La Cienega standing on a musical scale on the sidewalk I combed my hair, toothpick stuck in my teeth, I mean I was as handsome as a middle-aged man could be, in a tailored black suit even!

In the mid-summer of the last year before the world began when a woman with a perfect contentedness fell into a slough of despair ...

Television Science Fiction: As far as I can see life.

Drag queen for a year, how he shimmered! So fabulous! So disturbing! A Self-Made Frankenstein Assault on Life! You're just there! You're so there!

ORDINARY SPRINGTIME NIGHT IN A WORTHLESS OHIO TOWN

John was alone these past seven weeks, his wife Betty gone to El Salvador with game show host Bob Barker, he now had the heart of a killer but thankfully the manners of a civilized man. In a seedy bar in a supposedly dangerous district on an early Friday night, John studies the jukebox while cops battle winos out front and inside opiates and cash are exchanged and everywhere a noise-- his songs having played John exits into the park, pretty pointless park, and eyes the bright lights of downtown. High on noise, John walks like a zombie toward the pretty lights. The sight of a bank of payphones wakes him to the fact that he could use some allies. After a number of calls he convinces comrade Paul to show up at some stupid disco-overdrive club in an hour.
Receiver back in its cradle, stripped of his zombiehood, John stares at a blank wall while he searches his pockets. Finding some pills, he gratefully pops them and drifts toward the river, waiting for the buzz or whatever.
Later at the disco, John drinks cocktails and stares around at the girls and their dresses until Paul is at his side, muttering who-knows-what, but John is glad for his company.
Now it is late on a random Friday night and John is intent on finding a face, a voice, a dress like Betty's and this is hopeless he muddily reasons, she's in El Salvador and Ohio can't compete with that, so let's find a fresh-faced girl we can lead astray in a couple hours or-- or-- John is standing by the DJ's booth while a robotic sex song plays so loud-- John takes the live microphone and all of a sudden he's a 2002 beatnik--

In a combat zone /Called I'm-So-At-Home/Line up for cheap rates on your very own grave!/
Pretty faces, pouty faces, worthless farces/Yet you pay and you pay/For the right to fall into this bed!/No, that bed!/This nightmare won't stop/So I guess I'll walk away

Then, shockingly, the frail-looking DJ throws an effective punch at John's jaw and the wasted young man collapses into Paul's arms. Later, driving north on the interstate, Paul asks tentative questions about Betty which John answers. Paul announces that they are going to drive all night to Cleveland and John falls asleep happy and calm.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND REPEL PEOPLE

YOU ARE LUCKY! Fall down on your Sara Lee cheesecake! Drive to the strip mall! ROCK the USA! March for abortion! Throw coins at the fountain! WAY TO GO, AJAX!

WORSTSELLER

When Columbus, Ohio is a dream destination things are wrong. The entire United States resembles a trap. I'm not really complaining, I'm sometimes in love with the horror of it all. Nothing going on now and and less to come.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF 1984

The Strange World of 1984 is made up of three monster slave states, powerful, ruthless, constantly at war. Overworked and undernourished, deprived of past and future, the average citizen has become a mindless robot, trapped in a world where love is forbidden by government decree, hatred is aroused against one's own will, and two-way television has made privacy a punishable crime.

THE STORY OF MONDAY

Please don't say we'll never know./Please don't say it's up to God./Not today./I mean, yes/You're right about this mystery/And the Will of God./It's just, right now I need silence./Just this grave-like silence./Yes, I was stupid./Give me silence.

There was a girl./I said the wrong words./I should have been quiet./I'm a stupid guy./I should be a silent stupid guy./And I know it really doesn't matter either way.

THE STORY OF AUGUST

1914 ruined August forever after. No more Central Powers vs the Entente, no more Franz Ferdinands or Rapes of Belgium, no more Russian Armies invading East Prussia, no more French Theory of Attack toward the Upper Rhine, no more "Which side will Italy join?" Now we commemorate A-Bomb Blasts. 11/11 did work wonders for November, though.

YOUR ENDURING LOVELINESS

I'm certain, you're capable of every effort, I bet you fail well, and your success is in emerging from infanthood into this world ever at all, I mean thank you, I'm not kidding, I'm happy that you existed and since I've known you you have assumed the standard for me, you're the measure of all my useless efforts, if I accomplish anything and I don't hate what I've accomplished, then I remember you.
A fun fact: appearances aside, I am ordinary, an assembly line magnet and, well, you have an iron core.

OHIO ANTHEM

For now./For all time./We invent insane smile-like expressions/For this sad town Upstate from Forgotten State Capital./We count empty cans and bottles of Liquid Quick Death/Oh-so-legal in the four corners of this one-room/Wrongness!/Pointless!/Fabulous!

DESERTED PLANET

Locked inside ... out!/Forever this once./No treasure./There's no remembering here./Really I'm not here./One time--yes, "here"--/I want you to see/What kind of night/Dying might be like,/What "not dying" is like,/For sure,/For now.

EXPLANATIONS

With these mass-mailings I hope to trigger a response to a cryptic phrase. You are invited, "Anonymous". Maybe only wasted high-schoolers take an interest in crypto-com. So! "This is your superstar movie, you're the co-star and we are your fans. We're loyal, you'll wheel around to 'tops', yes, you're an attraction. The audience is all underaged at a 'Restricted' feature. You are the idol of that audience."
One version: Remember. You are in a life. Your ambitions are served. We love you. You're an exemplar of your point of view.
Public Service Ltd.

MODERN ROMANTIC

On a night when lovers decided to switch to being enemies, when cars wrecked everywhere, no survivors, when the wrong was touted as the best while the best languished in typical obscurity--now, now I have to tell you that everything is going to be fine, and it will be, this wrongness is almost always background sound, you and I are opting out of this wrongness, we'll find difference, though I can't promise that it won't be a new version of the same wrongness.
We'll find a new way out. Into another situation.

DARIUS SMITH IS A FRIEND TO ALL

Wrongness is valuable./To be mistaken is to be rescued./Rescued from Jesus doldrums--/This rage to succeed at I don't know what--/I mean, yes, what a nice house/And rare, so powerful motorcar./Your children are healthy and I swear/I'm not exactly against any of this ... /Only, only-- I despair to imagine/The grave-side eulogies,/All the precious DNA like virus monsters/And yes, I know I'm the lowest/Kind of human being. Please understand that this life looks too much like a trap/And I know that my only real options/Are to love my trap/Or to become a trap destroyer.

ARE YOU INTO DEATH TRAPS?

A stillness, a calm, no sound but only for a second--now a steady tone, this is all you will know from now on, you have arrived in eternity or lifelessness or Nirvana--there are no names here, no events, no order, no sense, there's only what used to be you, now maybe light, or particles in the void reflecting light. If you could know anything here (you can't though,) you would realize your immense failure in this weird world: our common failure and Our Absent God and our sad common destination.

THE STORY OF THE NIGHT

The sun goes down and I hit the ground and I'm almost happy, that's the way I want to be. At 4 a.m. I stood in front of the Coke machine now and at the hour of our death. It snowed from two to four then rained from four to six. I laid awake stunned to discover that Catwoman might be the best movie I've ever seen. Cincinnati Cops commit murder to the Harper's Bizarre version of "Feelin' Groovy". Rumored soundtrack to tonight's "unsolved homicides" is "Red Rubber Ball" by the Cyrkle. An Ordinary Late Winter Morning in a Worthless Ohio Town.

EVERYPLACE, YES

The place where our stupid hearts/Beat out of our sad chests--/Into muddy grass/This green, unearthly tonight./Underneath the bank of clouds/The Moon like a bone button./So I'm not an animal./Maybe not a man even./I don't know./I'm not worried.

CIGARETTE FRIEND

I'm your cigarette friend in the park at the overlook on a perfect summer day. The FedEx men play chess while I roll Top Cigarettes at the American Expeditionary Force monument. Babies suckle at the teats of a wolf across the toy boat pond. I spy a mighty river, a cloudless sky, a giant greenhouse, and a notebook. I hesitate. I write this paragraph.

LET'S CRUSH THE SPRINGTIME

John and Betty, war veterans, Academy Award winning screenwriters, and well-received first-time novelists, married two years and the parents of a beautiful girl, living in the finest house in Columbus, Ohio, both close to forty years old: John listens to the radio at noon stretched out on the living room carpet in a robe, Betty drives around town with their daughter.
From this first paragraph, dear reader, it's all too painfully clear: if John and Betty don't splinter soon they'll fast become worse than irrelevant ...