raft poems by c.a. childers ====================== copyright 2003 c.a. childers, some rights reserved. cachilders@apeinfinitum.net http://www.apeinfinitum.net/pub.html first ascii text edition this document is distributed under a creative commons license, which may be viewed at the following internet address: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/ under the above license, you may freely distribute, manufacture, and perform this text without further approval from the author, however, there are rules that must be observed: attribution. the licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. in return, licensees must give the original author credit. no derivative works. the licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display and perform only unaltered copies of the work - not derivative works based on it. noncommercial. the licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. in return, licensees may not use the work for commercial purposes - unless they get the licensor's permission. ====================== ============ introduction ============ what follows is a compilation of poetry, though i'd like to qualify that statement by pointing out the subjectivity of the term. -c.a. childers, march 2003 =========== planetarium =========== this point in space sixty-five miles from the core of ever expansions the ribbon spins down to hell like a magic bullet wrapping around our tongues in a portent of things to come and we slide down that way and we think of the times we reached the bottom and found puddles of water we can only make it down these things so far before we discover the limitations of the metal the limitations of manufactured goods these are the drinking fits and the universe crawls ever outward from us dreaming that one day it might find rest in a blinking eye swirling and angry it grows while defining the virtues of space the laws at the other side cannot be the same but we move forward trying to keep our feet dry and we dream as well of being at rest swallowed into ourselves and coolly forgetful of the places we have been before never knowing of the ways we were in the past we would need ancient eyes for that we would need hand blown glasses and sharpened sticks ================ elephants and me ================ elephants have the same skin as me theirs is gray maybe mine will be too some day my feet have never been umbrella stands my tusks have never fluted gunpowder or sheathed fine knives ancestrally speaking, i killed my share of them i'm sure they trampled a few of me as well we share many things but mostly there is the common pride that we are not rhinoceroses ================= flood kills seven ================= april rains came early this year a mistake missed take the scenes of the film were shot in thirty-five-take blocks scene thirteen take thirty-five action april rains drip from the early sky thirty-five-million drops careen wildly to a common fate accepting wholly the limitations imposed upon them by gravity ============ a siren sang ============ needled into her skin the words seemed even more aggressive i asked if they were a warning you mean like the inferno, she asked i nodded they still went in, she said smiling a little in a vocabulary so wracked with guilt as the english language there was not a single word that could stand up against the truth of it crags and cliffs were built to splinter ships she was no different our voices drowned away as jet fighters ran patterns above ============= march quietly ============= march quietly little feet for tomorrow is sharp and your thread is bare dull your eyes on passing moons as losing then is a gift of glass wrapped carefully in today ======== emissary ======== west of memphis the sky seems more yellow a bird swings groundward of all these branches of all these leaves of all this world a picture of birth across the yard over the dusty two lane just beyond the trees in that solitary point of unknown there is an ocean curled across the earth on the head of a pin ============== tandem writing ============== her? if by her you mean here, yes. no, HER! not he! her is a question now you're thinking! starting now the stingray groan vibrates the room a sweet ride, even twenty years past its prime there is one small scratch on the door. (i put it there. because nothing is perfect.) that son of a bitch told me this thing was mint wait, are you doing yours from a different perspective? no. robert urich sold me the car. those kids just stole it from me. no, i mean the poem! should i be? it is so difficult to work with you lets start over, but this time tell me what you want tell me what i want no punch out endings _ ============= silver halide ============= ring falling sideways and always with the rolling and i can't remember the last time we laid in the concrete and stared at a yellow sunrise. film was different then, images got lost to emotion, flecked and flawed reflections of moments never accurately revealed in hindsight. burn the albums first. "i see lies" is no less true if frozen in layered color. so we can be agents of unlearning, or we can be learned by agents of untruth and easy goodbyes. ==================== twenty-seven seconds ==================== for twenty-seven seconds the sky went black a blinding halo in space signified the edge of the darkness thermal fax paper ceased to function, seconds at a time broad generalizations grew slightly more refined and those who seldom considered the little things asked children for advice twenty-seven seconds passed like twenty-seven awkward conversations and then the world made sense again meanwhile in a diner on a quiet street a young couple, unaware of the darkness that has been debates the appropriate tip for a forgettable meal ======== an audit ======== the items in my living room are arranged at ninety-degree angles round objects are seated in the gaps left by rectangular ones the effect is a series of ground based squares each unit of furniture can be accounted for with a monetary value established at the point of purchase certainly, these values do fluctuate typically lowering in resale terms and rising in finance terms a patient person one with a knowledge of simple economics given a pencil and a sheet of paper could evaluate each right angle every rounded corner and ultimately they would be left with a numerical understanding of my life a life spent building boxes ================= house of tomorrow ================= it is the work of each generation to comfort the next. not with kindness or understanding, but with the illusion of motion. it is the work of each generation to move dramatically forward from the one that preceded it. to force the present to escape the past, so that any man can stare back across the narrow landscape of his life and recognize the great voyage he has made, and so that any child can look across the lifetimes that have passed, and see the work that lies ahead. ====== a wall ====== it was held together by rivets of hard-particle light a solid wall with the power to bend the view ahead we never tried to walk through it even with the limitations of our vision i think we recognized it for what it was to the man i am now it seems silly that we ever wanted to bypass it to leave the cool grass of our fathers' yards for the gravel and broken glass of out there once shawn told us that he and some friends had made it over and we believed even though we had failed to do it for a solid chain of five summers he said they'd found a warm six pack leaned sideways against a telephone pole he'd already had his fair taste of the stuff by then so he decided to shake his can and fling it at a rock we listened in awe as he told of its rocket-like ascent and of how the others were pissed that they'd hastily drank theirs instead thinking back i'm inclined to believe that he did make it over just like he said but when i consider what came for him in the years that followed i wonder if he ever really made it back or if that day the story we heard was just a whisper on the dry august wind ============ tractor pull ============ it was pretty awesome. steel and fiberglass monsters tugging crazy loads over mud and grass. bigfoot was there, not to mention the dark and mysterious eliminator. at the snack stand, dad tugged me to the side and spoke of his lingering love for my mother; of the thinness of his new life, the emptiness of his new wife. three dog night played. joy to the world. one is the loneliest. they encored with eli. the bottom dropped out of the world as the rockers assumed their positions and jammed recklessly for the last crowd that remembered them. i bet they felt like stars again, even in the unforgiving shine of midday. i wonder now, which song rang truest for dad in that moment below the fairground sun. i imagine it was the one about loneliness, but maybe, once upon a time, it was joy to the world. ========== b. autocar ========== contaminants grip the home husband approaches supercar performance until new information reaches horsepower administration officials of which are: lost acceleration the heat tamara belies other companies balanced looks complement the rest ====================== 1912, extremely modern ====================== curt barrett the important lived much like the rest in the coast resort in the world's chilly drop with the car felt weird health maintaining whether treated completed i welcome this improbable scarcity this fundamentalist database planted fresh irrigated tractors control the percent ============ the knocking ============ the knocking was to a large extent overwhelming stop the god damn knocking i took the continued knocking as their response to my demand through the peep hole i saw them twelve spanish aristocrats they had come to a decision i could only guess that they had come to serve their verdict the neighborhood was changing cars planes tennis the knocking was to a large extent overwhelming ===================== thirty something a.d. ===================== the situation presents itself jesus finds a wallet calfskin, to be precise the sort that seems too large to fit in a pocket maybe it holds a checkbook so he finds this wallet on an empty cobbled avenue in full awareness of the fate that rushes to meet him it contains three hundred dollars three credit cards and the valid identification of a popular roman statesman age: thirty the ease of the crime it seems to me would make it unlike a crime and though my mind balks i imagine a dusty avenue a discarded wallet empty and the sound of hoof beats it's judas arriving in the nick of time come back to make right by his good friend spare donkey in tow they could ride off like that into a yellow desert sunset the money could buy their freedom herod would throw his hat in the street and curse the day those christ boys ever came to hazard county save yourselves would call a gentle voice from the distant horizon followed by a joyful yee-haw ====== winter ====== these birds will be my falling snow these words will be my feet from longing step to swollen glow from albatross to peep not one but two from chimney flue on tuesdays and too deep could we should we take it slow or simply count these sheep ================= dinner last night ================= the french restaurant served only snails. water glasses were offered at thirty cents per ounce. there was no ice. i believe i demanded the stuff, but in a cool tone the waiter assured me that it was intended for warm consumption. he was right, i suppose, but it proved so easy to drink that before the snails arrived, the tab had grown far too large to remain on the table. i offered it a seat, but it politely declined. claiming its hat and coat from a doorside hook, it tipped me a courteous nod and crept quietly into the night. ============== street sweeper ============== metal makes a spring a jangly jing a dancing jingly thing i tied a few to my shoe a bounce a trounce ninety-five dollars an ounce eight foot leaps for all my peeps a new and useful sort of springy dingy sport drink a quart this stuff makes you a star you can buy these things don't let them say you can't why shouldn't money open doors politely tipping its hat to the moon this oyster is the world pry it open with quarters, thumbs, and cookie crumbs welcome to the team ====================== master's mystic mantis ====================== fleck a'kleck m'gordiek man k'tan k'tay osh k'tomm cas'borliomm m'gigliook m'fay statues fall from fronting walls business end of this i wish i could i wish i'd stop i wish i might if i could i'd pop and shop to drop asko dass k'foley opp princes drink from kings a castle born from ear of corn the biting mist it brings a fool a folly shoop shoop shuwalli it may be a dream for fallen stance and craven glance we short ourselves these things ===== ^down ===== sorrow sang pigeons white and gray for eating blue squatters drifters notes to a song cried in the shallows wading there catching crawling things forcing smiles on anyone who passes ================ thirty makes one ================ foraging through the remaining bags this is proof of burden last seen: in the arms of last heard: coming around the mountain pick these up at will call jog this up to fifth looking closely is missing the point a party was thrown in your honor the courtroom restlessly attacks these are the fallen days half days squashed by intent contently migrating from left to right and always through tunnels always down streets esses become like fives then what it could spell d-i-5-a-5-t-e-r two points next word =========== rabbit ears =========== merchant ships of jelly white climbed the horizontal hold shaken to looser form and formed again tripped to wild the face is there but the thought is is is we used to know the answer the story of merchant ships of jelly white there used to be a beginning there certainly was an ending but now only static ====== bengal ====== the website for bengal lists fifteen prime attractions and boasts of a royal legacy one-hundred-twenty-five years in the making. a map identifies it as a large area containing such famous words as calcutta and bangladesh, but the crude top-down view offers no glimpse of what the wind feels like as it rolls in off the bay. in the end, i have no sense of the days lived by a man who works away a lifetime, no trace of how mothers someplace else in the world sob for stillborn children. i guess they don't make brochures for that. =========== terra firma =========== at earth's core there bubbles a field of grass centered hillside a silo a silent silo judiciously observing the squirming wheat snails fold in upon themselves for fear of becoming rays of light the machinery rusts too heavy to move too cold to melt ===== drive ===== snow rang the rusted hills milk from curdled cartons dropped side-weary by the sleeping old forgotten by dreaming cats lapped away by wanting mops of sun ray design a wicked-empty toss of child man and drifting wife stumbled in hours late for magic years early for failing minds counted forward by strokes of two laid long a map comes born a path of two-wide sticks ten feet deep from then to now littered by darkened side with why and honest blame ===== pause ===== mind your toes the conductor calls silence takes a bride he loses track of these lulls in time of coffee sipped on natures dime the minutes tick and the world floats to a different tune a waltzing tune death takes a lunch break it's never much but for the world there are butterflies birds seem to clock together in ways never dreamed ancient volcanoes forgive the transgressions of their people and water slaps the debris scattered beaches with a contentment that seems hardly imaginable ============== nature|nurture ============== broken bottleneck glasses stroked hard against breaking waves of the opposite sex children produced through explosive moments seem somehow less combustible more shouldered with their heads more connected to their beds beneath which monsters prowl who an owl slung noisily against the painted night form finds its shape awakened burned and shaken too weak for the weekend the radio blasts a milky tune as teeters totter cursing their anchorage to the icy mud =========== illustrated =========== harrow is a funny word not sure why the harrowing tale began that way with harrow no less harrowing were the details to follow bird based words flitting down organically from collective thought three tipped prints traced a path a harrowing path wrought with beastly bastions of bakery bread the children it seemed had lost their way had tossed away all hope of a dinner in hock for a swollen trail of crumb snatching swallows so when they lit on the lightless shack the candied crust on gingerbread stack they eyed their prize with glistening joy the hag on the other saw a meal in the boy and so it went on that a pie would be baked a crust would be pressed but the witch would be faked no more found than when they were lost the harrowing tale of the house and its cost would be locked in their minds for a million years if only the wolves hadn't smelled their tears ============== fully equipped ============== starting at zero it seems utterly impossible to find anything like sixty that's the bitch of it and then you're there and you're crawling and the only place to go is faster more better and before you know it ninety at one hundred and ten you no longer sense the ground you glide faster twitch slightly to float left and in that moment of perfect control in clear focus is the understanding that the slightest change the most marginal drift or miscalculation will end you ============= il presidente ============= the president of school has salt and pepper hair. since seizing power at age ten, he has grown only one inch, yet the lines of his face betray his diminutive stature. some say he has a napoleon complex, however, i disagree. the president has, to be sure, made many rash choices in his tenure, but that is only to be expected. after all, he has never left the building, not for thirty-five years. on most fridays, he trades baseball cards with the third, fourth, and fifth graders, though he tends to fare far better than they. on tuesdays he opens the gates to the parents, allowing them to inspect the workings of their children's educations. next wednesday is photo day, and the president will tirelessly pose with each student who wishes to record evidence for future generations. things could be better, no doubt, but they could certainly be worse. ==== rote ==== branded for twelve with an eye of gold cats outside stomping my glass down chomping my grass down so i closes up shop once and for once more puts on my derby brown and slides callous like down sixteen avenues of bristling light shudder the night don't think too tight we all falls down and crawling is and walking makes i creeps these bridgeways i copies the moves but i misses the beats ================== standing room only ================== heavy faced the apprentice informed the expectant crowd of his master's demise with his hands in his pockets like that he looked more like the old man than he ever had before but they did not see they only slid away a rail of gray footsteps in search of all points north in search of a night without eyes ============== shoot straight ============== shoot straight like you mean it cause you haven't got a chance and birds of a feather you know what they do drag you up six-point-two miles of razor blacktop and they always hang you from a tree and birds of a feather only think one thing do one thing eat one thing fuck one thing and they fuck it good until it's dead birds of a feather don't know your name and you better be glad for that cause birds of a feather write clumsily about kicking the shit out of stuff and because birds of a feather will never work for you your mom saw'em comin' clingin' on the telephone lines she read their names in the bathrooms and bible backs and she had to tell you somethin' momma gotta tekt'er kin, dun'she and all you can do is shoot straight and close your eyes and hope the hotrods can't juice the facts but don't count on it little boy cause you're either for or against and birds of a feather can tell their own ====== stimga ====== yea i know what you're thinking it's misspelled well congratulations you're right just like always i'm stupid just like always hey i stole this car for you but it doesn't run still i wrote this line for you and i'll hold your hair back while you do it but that won't be enough i know i wouldn't settle for it i couldn't settle in a tub of rain water i saved this you know sedimental reasons but i think it's safe to throw these things out now i'll box them you'll burn them and we'll meet in the middle ==== lost ==== large black cat green eyes julian last seen tuesday at bus depot child devastated please come home please forgive us we miss you likes string cash reward ========= the party ========= last week i attended a birthday party for teddy roosevelt. i felt underdressed, but made an effort to blend. i brought a pair of tan pants as a gift, only to watch in horror as he opened three identical pairs before arriving at mine. the ones i gave happened to be three sizes too small, which made for a great laugh at my expense. during dinner i sat beside a terrible bore named eugene. eugene, it seemed, had sought fortune in india, only to discover a dramatic distaste for indian gold. "you and teddy have something in common," i suggested. eugene paid no mind. "you," he said with a quiet coldness, "were the one who gave the small pants." he had me. i could do nothing more than eat my meal in silence. ============= made sex/eggs ============= more local access numbers than any isp thank god. granted, the internet is a juicebox. granted, i wanted to buy this for you, but it appears you have bought it for yourself. granted, i believe what draws me to you in a flytastic honeybent ramp-up, is the fact that english is your second language. but i am forced to disagree on a number of points. most specifically is the glaring disparity between: juicebox icebox boombox swim low in the thinking blue swim low in the sinking you i forgive ninety-nine percent of my own mistakes, thirty-five percent of the time. ========= rain in d ========= whiskey give me handshakes and then if it's okay i'd like to sleep under your bed tonight i think i forgot how to be your friend so would you mind writing instructions seriously though i'm trying to drive this car and imagine a reason why light curves at the thought of you if we could start again i'd want two of you and none of me ================ embrace the past ================ embrace the past lift up the future the meat and potatoes of them are fantastic birth death can't beat the old standby for finality in either direction don't rock the boat but hock it you can't take it with you and even if you could they wouldn't let you ============== mop [and] glow ============== there is no better way to clean your floors through acceptance of this simple fact one could unlock the potential of floor cleaning complexity and beyond today: shine tomorrow: unified field theory there is only one way to skin a cat yet there are a million ways to view the act a plane is a tool for shaping wood and wood should be shaped for the common good so why do we feel so misunderstood and why do we wonder if wondering is the root of the bad way we feel if wonder is the square and life is the wheel ============================== ceiling plaster constellations ============================== in the attic we store the walls but there's no keeping them up there and they pour down and there aren't enough pots pans buckets wallets to catch every drop and we're right back where we started locked in surrounded barricaded all because physics dictate downward motion cities feel like mazes when you're this close to the bottom days feel like graveyards so i try not to whistle and i never close my eyes i try not to fake it and i never ever ever ======= catalog ======= blink if it's that easy but think twice before you disregard the things we've seen this line was not drawn in ink and these feet can shuffle off in three-hundred-sixty-degree options the limits as expressed by the following statement (mathematics fuel cellular discovery) are easily passed though in moving beyond certain restrictions greater ones will almost invariably be uncovered the plastic coat the rubber boots the vinyl umbrella these items will keep you dry though i predict given your affinity for the ocean that you would much rather be swimming than standing here with me ============ night/broken ============ could this be the time? whole and holy. death, burned, buried, and spurned. look at the elephant's memory on this bastard. i drink this one to all of that, to you and her, begotten, only as far as twenty dollars could have taken us. i remember the first time we ever laid eyes on the shadow of winter, dripping from the melting tree branches. i don't think i can forget. let's drink this to forget. could we forget so much that we remember all that was ever known? ========= the whale ========= bill whaley an appropriate name to look at the man hardly evolved sea dweller yesterday cab driver today can you believe it he rode back there on the worn brown seat back there just like everyone else bill couldn't have known pulling away from the greyhound depot he had no way to know i imagine that if he had looked the whale would have seen something in his passenger's eyes if not a single bullet snaking its way through the air defying physics then maybe the key to his own approaching end two years head on two more years of cruising that cab spinning his wheels two years of smoke and a.m. band radio two years of dallas never ending it couldn't have lasted long never does in november just another fare the passenger kicked at the floor at the remnants of the ones that had rode before him he ran his finger along a split in the stiff upholstery the meter whirred indifferently in the silence bill imagined a winter where it snowed not too far from texas he imagined a place where a man could learn to live again only in denver he thought only in denver ================ merch man's wake ================ here lies merch man here is the place where he fell feel free to have a look around behold merch man's blanket little use to him now given the circumstances and here is merch man's imported rug note the rich colors i believe you will find much to be desired in his vast multimedia collection but that dear friends is only the tip of the massive and tapered object for in these boxes are the objects that defined his existence and these are the photos of him enjoying them it is almost like we are there with him frozen in time how much for the shoes the bidding will begin at twelve do i hear thirteen fourteen these are the shoes of the once great merch man worn only twice each time to bury a parent surely one of you will pay twenty yes twenty-five thirty fifty sold to the gentleman with the eye for exquisite footwear take a bow sir margo yes margo let's get a photo of this fine man with his shoes glorious now this next item will be of particular interest to the ladies ============ kill is kill ============ hit the street running and don't stop until you're dead hit the street running forward slash back slash c colon back slash x hit the street running and pour me a glass of water because god forgot to turn your red light blue god forgot to tie your sneakers but give it time that'll fix it for sure and if it doesn't i can stab it thirty two times in the chest and if it does then i can stab it thirty one times ============================ water, two million feet deep ============================ from all these halves could spring a single hole a blind place at the edge of where i know to see a dark spot only true in those rooms so absent of light that the blindness is made sharp in contrast but ruin is made to be seen and blindness can be no cure so i see you there thin blanket morphine drip i see you and seek only to leave but the bridges here are weak and every door is a mirror here i brought you this it's a stone from some house i've forgotten low now, so the others don't hear it's all i've kept that single stone everything else is in those boxes if we hurry we can wave them good-bye from the shore carefully now i would carry you but my own problems are a little too heavy for that i'll send a car here's a cloud of dust in the shape of me at the origin of the tracks i've left don't call i'll write limitations of mortality you know that long standing wrongs can never be righted but when i look out over this glassy lake i see lies that dream of dying skip that stone before we fall for the dream of clean and endless potential shake out the stern face of the icy place that hides beneath and i'll stop making excuses and you can stop pretending to forgive ================= under the whether ================= a six a.m. sort of cold blew through the walls. she told me to wear a coat. she was dead though, so i didn't. collapsing backwards through a lifetime of forget, i get wet, face down in an inch of muddy rainwater: all it takes to drown. but it won't be that easy. nope. i have to live with this stuff. with bugs sealed in jars to breathe the calming waves of common household poisons. with money i took and stashed covertly in potted plants. and so it all grows clear. desperately near. i wonder if you would even see me. if i fell through the black heart of your eye. some darker flower, grown up from below. the roots of the bigger trees grow through everything. clinging to what's left like it was what's all. and what's more? ========= this road ========= this road was built above another one it comes through like a battleship choir first row no lower than the first my new watch can make the sun rise but at a cost of lifespans it's a feature i don't suppose i'll use very often sugar coat these honey walls before they dry up it doesn't take much to affirm things handshake - backpat it's the repetition of the procedure that hangs me low if we could compress the artifacts into a dense cube there would be room to breathe we'd only need one television and a trebuchet but disease is heavy and it makes syrup of the boys and girls thick waste with no rain to wash it away ================ jammed frequency ================ i've milked it for what it was worth blew it flat broked it and choked it and still i'd like to find a way to extract what remains value residue light grasp on drain chain and it can be followed to it's source an ending not an answer i shift gears all day fifth to fifth to fifth to fifth movie-magic, people it's just significantly more entertaining to watch me shift even if said shifts are ghost thrusts to absent stops calling all reverse all calling if you've misplaced your ace check with betty at the desk betty is a name worthy of forgetting honestly, betty you're worth it ========= perp walk ========= forget everything you know about sentences like forget everything you know and focus on feigning indignity did you dig nancy gray skirt tight sweater she let you tug on her boobs for a dollar groove in her tube with a holler but you'll never forget the first time worst time pressed against cardboard boxes in restaurant walkways and it only took a minute to forget her face and the cool air smoothing over your arm on the drive home and the moon ballooned out in a heavy halo seemed to promise more than this a trillion hours past and the answers come slower than ever now never how you thought it would go ================ raised by thirds ================ i shot you the bird because necessity is the mother of babies and baby we could've been something but familiarity breeds like bunnies and in time it bleeds through the cracks in the walls floods us in so we swim until we swam and the wading was the hardest part since you were always number one and me i must have been one-thirty-two ========= sea level ========= sail composed mostly of canvas though i suspect that's not all she had decided to spell she with an x xhe didn't know what xhe was doing but the salt air tasted nice and the aging was constant the sea dropped off in the distance and xhe circled that spot with a magic marker "magic" in that it didn't exist "marker" in honor of her ex i'll be there tomorrow xhe whispered but the bathwater was getting cold and the wind knew all the ways to make her cry and tomorrow was further away than home ================== managed until null ================== clay pots shaped according to chart subdivided into sixths sixths cleaned until smooth fragmented into subsixths subsixths measured and noted filed according to shape notes doubly noted filed according to topic ==================== a = sqrt [g * R * T] ==================== they shattered the sound barrier last week with a paper airplane. such subtle design, one could hardly believe it was real and not some dream from the house of the future. if i turn sideways, i turn light rays and quiet days sink into davy jones's locker once more. but i'm a daydream believer and i can't be killed, a baby boom mic swinger, not easily thrilled. =================== sell me to the moon =================== "we all have to wash our face" thanks for establishing that obviously so axiomatic that it needed to be said so we must be better for it i don't think i can go on living not without your product not with it going without has become worse than giving up thanks for establishing that thanks for clearing that up for me where do i sign after all i'm only one man we all have to wash our face we all have to drive cars we all have to read magazines we all have to take pills i'll take a few if they'll seal this breezy hole in my chest no my mistake claims are cheaper than cures at least from a manufacture and distribution perspective so keep up the good work ======== sf ultra ======== if you seek to secure domestic security build a fence to fence in your fences a verbal parry subtle barbs make fine deterrents we make changes to words minor ch8nges in an effort to safeguard our beliefs semantically when called on the carpet the response is rote default to what's written you misread my meaning see the words are flawed you read god i wrote dodd as in james marshall dodd inventor of the subtle barbed wire fence and so on we kick our way through thin wooden doors and patch our busted paths with paper dotting every i signing every x each exit opens onto a bricked up wall we tear down this wall mister gorbachev in the name of greater walls not worlds mister gorbachev words ======== treasure ======== this is the spot as marked by the x there in the concrete they marked this place for us to find the map was an old recipe upside down cake dreamily appropriate function three springs open the mail application never functions well for me but maybe you're different dig and don't think twice about those other chumps this is our treasure i won't stand idly bly not while these idiots rape us to pieces i want this money [for christ's sake] i need this money more than you could dream oh i can dream i can dream of a place with no money no movie-magic broken to bits and it's right here under our feet now dig ===== vegas ===== what happens here, stays here. now that's a scary ad slogan. makes me think of moe greene taking one in the face. i can just hear the hit squad calling michael now- what happens here, stays here, boss. click. but there's promise in a motto like that. you can fuck a hooker in a denny's bathroom without a care. burn the sheets at your motel and slap an immigrant worker. arizona's only a dream away, after all. nothing really matters in a town that doesn't travel. nothing really matters, in vegas. sorry officer, what happens here, as they say, stays here. he's right boys, close the book. ================== he lived in a hole ================== joined in exile we warmed ourselves to the missing link he taught us to beat brush-pigs into meat and we took polaroids of him holding a cell phone he painted us on stones with root resins and we ordered him sandwiches from a family restaurant we offered our god he declined we gave him a job he resigned he suggested the walking fishes as suitable replacements but they refused to work for scale so we farmed the work to a temp and cherished the good old days we jotted our observations into stolen library books and plotted the stars with bones when the time was right he sent us out into the world the fires he assured us would burn endlessly in our absence beacons to lead us back one day =========== 394 32672 5 =========== the slide portrayed an african savanna. { common is desired common, but from good backgrounds easy } we started there, six million years ago. { central in development carried beneath formless god blankets ego } the photo, taken in the modern age, showed zebras, bolting over the flat and expansive green. { come into day cease believing formulaic gray bullets edit } the numbers obstructed the view, but it was beautiful, nonetheless. ============= milkman march ============= calcium, they claimed, was at the root of their unrest. we were all surprised at first, when they stormed the gates of washington. there were thousands of them, most dressed in brilliant white suits, hats like turned over boats. the air seemed doubly confused, whipping up into sudden wind, only to grow still, only to blow gently to the edge of america. the speakers were varied, representing the whole spectrum of their ideological mores, but all touched on a central theme: calcium, a word so rich that to form it in the mouth was to feel it. round and soft and thick, it was a word that was so much a part of milk, that to say it was to taste the stuff. still, for all of calcium's obvious aesthetic merit, the milkmen were displeased. culture had strayed too far. the fibers that once connected the streets were becoming brittle. for men such as these, there were seldom more answers than those provided by life's calling, and so, they preached calcium. they were, as one participant put it, filled with a genuine sense of brotherhood at the close of the march. though most doubted the world could be changed in a single day, all seemed to agree that powerful seeds had been planted for the future. ========= your face ========= your face is a twenty pound devil i saw it two foot two and not an ounce of fat how do you sleep at night with that thing on your head with that pitchfork in your mouth ============ storway pome ============ i stole the spelling from you and the voice in my head that rattles off these lines is yours dropped in my lap by recordings that william could have destroyed and i stole the beat because i never knew it i wonder if you did or did your toe only tap mallways more and ever steady i'd like to turn the car around now but i'm already in it i'm already here and there goes a place i used to think i was heading you're all gone now even allen i burned off a candle for you boys and i try to forgive the things you may have did remembering lucien is tough because the ears don't know words and all i know is here i am two pm and even that i stole but we used to drive and nothing's the same now and everything's gone and it all seems inevitable and i think i'm losing everything absolutely everything ======= gypsies ======= they spilled gypsies here and a case of wallets we've been scraping up the marks with widestock cards and there's little future left that can't be bought they spilled gypsies here and ran to hide but we never saw'em coming i guess the scaffolds were just too high =================== minor constellation =================== solid gold and i haven't got a dime but good deaths come to those who wait and i'm checking my mailbox daily hourly why don't you call anymore phone's out sure, that's it i can't remember if i paid the bill or if i had a reason to it occurs to me that i lack connections simple things like a to b lines that's what's missing put out an all points bulletin and while you're out there why don't you pick up some milk life essence of the universe, you know before us, there was only milk a raging sea of the stuff and above it living creation and then there's me checking the mail ========= gone west ========= william sees orange trees and wonders how he's come to be here in sunny cal and on and on this wheel was the best of it but it could have been better and better and better what a thing it is to be a wheel and roll i can only walk while thinking watery, thundery thoughts but in my dreams i have wheels make the most of the ground before breaking the sky that's my motto that's a very craven policy as the man says a cave-in policy must consider each potential outcome must be part of every rail cart line and when the miner says here come here come see this gold we should all come running we should all skin our knees and spend that gold in our heads spin loose, the golden threads licking lips in moist anticipation of sharkskin duds and oily-slick cars that drive on positive thoughts so fast that there can be no death so fast that there can be no death ========== late shift ========== tried to take a nap in the lobby tonight three am plan undermined by telephone sometimes it rains outside past the electric locks but i never hear it so i think of the man that discovered magnetism and i think of the moon and i think i'd like to be home ========== the bottom ========== the caves here have mouths like elevator doors yawning wide promising upward motion but caves they remain and the stairs here all spiral down but they painted clouds at the bottom to rub off the edge and the beds here they're sharp by degrees and they make it seem safe but the snakes ate all of the birds and left their feathers as a reminder that this is the valley of death and there is no high ground ======= galileo ======= old galileo jones sleeps soundly now beneath a billion miles of rock and sea buried here as a compass point and all good things point north but the earth tilts in degrees broken down by the minute and safe jumps are measured in klebolds (them being egratios in such that, as a unit accumulation must be a symptom of stratus-bound fall- throughs and earth-away breaks) they lost the ghosts here but we can chase them we can catch them if we can hold them in our minds and we can kill them if we can live them reversed sharp reversed soft reversed true and break cold trails amount to little more than alterno-ways each little more than changeable paintings above neverchanging passages i trade in jawbones and collect the things i lost but galileo is sleeping sound and in this silence pins could fall without consequence and ring in the new day ============= process no. 8 ============= begin by writing a sentence. then write another. replace the second word of the first sentence with the last of the second, and remove the second word of the second sentence altogether. begin another writing a sentence. then another. reverse the position of the first and last words of each sentence. sentence by writing a begin. another write then. altogether the second word with the last of the second, and remove the second word of the second sentence remove. sentence another writing a begin. another then. sentence the position of the first and last words of each reverse. now compose another sentence using the first word of each sentence preceding it in chronological order. begin then replace begin then reverse sentence another altogether sentence another sentence now. now compose yet another sentence from the final word of each sentence preceding it, once more maintaining the order of use. sentence another altogether sentence another sentence begin then remove begin then reverse order now use. now interpolate the sentence composed of first words with the sentence composed of last words on a one for one basis, beginning with the latter of the two. sentence begin another then altogether replace sentence begin another then sentence reverse begin sentence then another remove altogether begin sentence then another reverse sentence order now now use. now, using the first letter of each word in the interpolated sentence, create a string of letters. sbatarsbatsrbstarabstarsonnu now eliminate the patterns that repeat, leaving space between each of the remaining arrays. ar sr ra rs onnu finally, compose a poem from what remains, allowing each array to form a line of words that begins with those letters. above ridgeport slightly refined reasoned against random satellites only needing night - until ======================= igloos are made of blue ======================= simulated peril is in many ways the direct equivalent of standard peril therefore standard peril can and should be replaced by the simulated varieties this transition can be made in much the same manner as with the igloos which while once composed of such substances as ice and snow are now built entirely from the color blue safe simple blue nobody ever got frostbite from a color nobody ever found milk in a whisper but fear we can sell that without the danger because fear is made of the things we own and peril all we need for that is faith in things to be feared and that's as easy to cultivate as the color blue ============================== i remember things we never did ============================== apples gone lose from lunchsacks and the brown sun shined through the paper until star charts came revealed we walked the desert for diamonds rubbed our skin until the moon came through gentle red glow to call home the bears in the wedding night wind my forgettin' has come full circle my drop it is a matter of choice ==== bell ==== east of sideways they built a bell small and perfectly human they ring it once to tell us the day has begun but at day's end the only vibrations are the roots of the things growing in on us and the shadows cannot be made separate from the absence of light and to tell the time we count the dead we do it so quietly that we disappear among them adding ourselves to their numbers until we can only lay down and wait for morning or for the ring of that bell and we wonder if the one thing is the other if without either the other could not be and we wonder if in the ringing morning those others will rise with us to greet the tasks of the new day or if they will rise alone and leave us to silently lay ===== order ===== silver line comes through these parts once every tuesday once every other night once you think about it its been and gone but we get all comers and othertown, usa soaks up the goers i used to open the bars here and close them after visiting hours but the mop is my arms now and the bucket is my house my house is a house in order primary secondary and so on and so forth should follow tertiary in the grand order of things but i place things where they belong on shelves in drawers the orders are arbitrary only the belief of order is real faith based brackets for the storage of items items gathered for purposes i could never imagine but each thing has a place and each place needs things it's called an economic model wherein we model our things after our tastes and shape our places by rote geometric complications will follow so the sources of trouble must be the leaders and leading by example is only another bad call given our failures thus far so i keep my head down and i hum and i believe beyond belief that one day i might find the final thing needed to complete my life's work and i can sleep deep that night sleep deep until never becomes always and another ice age comes to grind away the proof and you can start over without me because i'll be long gone by then you won't even have a word for how gone i am ===== glass ===== you were prettier i think when you were broken glass prop jewelry for abandoned construction sites i wish i had known ==== home ==== not so often as i think i'm home i wonder where i have gone and in those moments of perfect clarity i see that there has never been a need for electric light because the sun has not yet set and no matter how i draw the curtains i find it impossible to block out the glow so i hide quite quietly beneath the bed i breathe deep and imagine that i am home again and it is night and the sixtywatts buzz with the satisfaction of a job done without ego and i've given my happiness in exchange for cathode tubes and my options are safely stowed where they can do me no harm ============= closing notes ============= i've taken pains to spare the readers of this book from my most awkward and unintelligible works. there are, however, a few pieces herein, which could benefit from a bit of explanation. what follows is a series of notes, meant to detail such entries and to shed light on the particulars of their construction. tandem writing: as the title suggests, i was not entirely responsible for this composition. coauthor credit goes to friend and fellow writer, randall havens, although i imagine he might prefer to remain unnamed. the piece was composed in an online chat, and i don't suppose either of us ever fully understood the rules for such an enterprise. i include it here for the honesty of the moment it captured, as opposed to its overall value. b. autocar and 1912, extremely modern: these two are the results of a technique i've developed, called mapping. it's an overly complicated method that mixes elements of generative writing, like cut-ups, with those of constrictive writing, like the sort developed by the oulipo laboratory. i think it's beyond the scope of this book to detail the procedure, but it's important to note that while the vocabularies were produced through a generative process, the writing was entirely organic. managed until null: this is a study of a fictitious culture, one where the work of artisans is immediately dismantled. each dismantling is then equally dismantled. all dismantlings are journaled, after which the resulting journals are journaled. in the end, they have no dishes to eat or drink from, and are left with a filing system that overshadows their lives. i believe they would approve of this terse sub- sub-sub-journaling method, though i regret they would most likely file it away before it could be read, and thereafter file away the filing mechanism itself. a culture of this sort would, most likely, micromanage itself out of existence, though they would probably have developed a reasonable system of archiving their remains for later cultures to discover. process no. 8: this one was a bit of a game. the idea was to make the process into the product, and to invent it as it was written. the fuel for the process comes from its instructions. for instance, begin by writing a sentence, is the sentence with which the piece begins. it is also, however, the sentence upon which the process is operating. the end result is a cute little poem, which seems sadly small compared to the work involved in building it. the term sentence should be viewed as a loose label within the context of this composition. 394 32672 5:
another game, this one a play on physical context. on one hand, it describes a photographic slide from an educational set. on the other, the call number of the slide, visible in the lower right hand corner, is used as the rule for the changing refrain. each array defines a line of words, each word beginning with the letter represented by its corresponding number ====================== ========================== Machine-readable metadata: ========================== Raft 2003-4-1 Poems by C.A. Childers C.A. Childers C.A. Childers eof