RIP PSH

I can’t believe this crap…

It only took me one day to run out of things I want to write about…

Whatever no one is going to read the stuff anyway…

I guess I could write a poem, but I don’t know, I don’t feel like getting drunk enough for that…

Maybe I could go back and write another fake lover letter to Rasputin…

I don’t think so.  I can’t do two letters in a row.  People will be all like “what is this a blog full of letters?”

Maybe I could write about one of my dreams...  I don’t remember my dream from last night though…

Perhaps I should write about love, or truth, or the spirit…

Nah the golden rule is “write what you know”…

What do I know?  What do I know?...

I know that those mice in my house died a horrible death…

A horrible, accidental death…

Oh the fragility of all life…

Oh the suffering…

Man I am hungry…

Why am I hungry I just ate like a whole sleeve of Ritz crackers…

I need to stop snacking and start eating regular meals…

I think Oprah used to tell everybody to do that, she was also super anti-carbs…

Remember when the meat industry tried to sue her…

Isn’t that how she met Doctor Phil?...

What!?!?  Philip Seymour Hoffman died what a bummer…

Bummer…

Well time to get real and get this blog post written…

Wait isn’t it Super Bowl Sunday, I got to see the new commercials!!!!

 

A Letter To My Father On His Birthday

Dear Dad,

                Happy Birthday!!!  63 the big six-three, you don’t look a day over 62 and a half.  I hope this letter finds you well.  That is kind of a fun expression don’t you think.  It personifies the letter as if the letter was ‘searching’ for you and has now ‘found’ you.  Not only did it complete its’ ‘search’, but it has somehow ‘discovered’ that you are ‘well’, as if it can determine your state of being.  Imagine that a piece of paper actually being able to qualify your emotional/physical/mental state.  WHAT FUN!!!

                How is Mom?  … I guess you can’t answer immediately since this a letter.  So, I guess I shouldn’t have even asked, she may be great now, but by the time I get your response she may be terrible.  So, never mind about how Mom is, I will just ask when I call you later. 

                The rash went away.  FINALLY!!!  And most everything is going well with me.  The heat just stopped working in my apartment, but I have taken to wearing socks on my hands and my head and my genitals, which is the style nowadays anyway, so I keep pretty warm.  The pipes froze the other day so I haven’t showered or drank any water in the last 72 hours.  I dug a hole in my backyard to dispose of waste which has worked well so far, I felt like a very DIY handyman type.  DIY means do it yourself by the way, in case you don’t know the new hip lingo.

                I didn’t get the promotion at the job that I hate yet.  But I am still holding out, there is nothing like more responsibility to really get me motivated.  The other day I was thinking about what you were like when you were 28.  Do you think we would’ve been friends?  Either that or mortal enemies.  There just wouldn’t have been room enough on this planet for both of our 28 year old egos.  You were married and had one baby girl by then.  We probably wouldn’t have hung out much because I am afraid of babies.  I think it is because I am the youngest and we never had pets growing up.  When I see a baby I tend to just think of the worst possible thing I could do: i.e.; smash it, throw it, etc.  Also, I don’t like talking to them like they are babies.  I would much rather just talk to them like normal adults, but then everybody looks at me weird.  Like last week I asked my friends baby “So, baby, how’s is work going?”,   he just pooped and cried.

                Well, anyway happy birthday dad and remember each day is better than the next.  I love you and you are my hero.

LOVE

Your Son, Joe

 

P.S.  Send money

P.P.S.  Did you know that “P.S.” stands for post script

P.P.S.S.  I was just kidding about sending money

P.P.P.S.S.  Did you see Miley Cyrus’ MTV unplugged that junk was off the chain! 

      

Back To School

     8 am January 13, 2014, I am back in school it has been a little over five year and my first class is 19^th Century British Novels.  The building I am in has barely changed.  They don’t change the buildings already in place they just build new ones.  I walk into room 326, a little groggy, I woke up at 6 am because I couldn’t sleep.  I am nervous.  I am 28 years old and I am nervous about school.  The feeling that this is not where I am supposed to be is in my stomach as I sit down in a desk 4 rows from the door and 2^nd from the back of the class.  I don’t want to be too close to the front, and seem too eager.  I also don’t want to sit all the way in the back and seem afraid.  It is a delicate dance inside my own brain that no one actually notices.  I wonder if these others think about this as I take in my surroundings.  I am early so there are only about 5 people sitting spread out throughout the class.  There is a dry erase board up front, white walls, white floors, white ceilings.  The room is intentionally made boring so attention is paid to learning.  There are two girls having a conversation a few desks away from me. 

“I was accused of cheating in highschool once… it was cuz I wrote too good.”

     This seems like the sort of chit chat that you would get in a class that only English majors would take.  The class begins with roll calling and I look at faces as she reads the names.  I could be the oldest person in here but there are a few that may be close behind.  Everyone has an ipad, or iphone, or kindle all of which have been mass-produced and issued to everyone in the time I have been out of school.  This reminds me to pull out my flip phone and turn it off.  I then start to look around the room to inspect the females in the class.  There seems to be a prevalence of women no longer wearing skirts or pants just shirts and what I remember as tights.  I think they now refer to them as pants, and functionally they are.  There are some subtle differences though. 

     The professor hands out index cards.  She asks us to write our full name, what we like to be called, what gender pronoun we prefer, and something about ourselves that we think may make this class challenging, if any.  I immediately start to panic.  For a total of 15 seconds I convince myself that I have no idea what a pronoun is, and that I don’t belong as an English major and that I will never be successful in this class or any other.  I also start to try and examine my gender identity and that also worries me a little.  As for something about myself that will make this class challenging.  Well there is the chronic hereditary laziness.  I am a slow reader.  I haven’t read any of the novels we are reading this semester.  And I tend to get distracted.  I wrote on my card.

"JOSEPH PARTINGTON COLEBURN…’JOE’…’HE?’…I think what may be challenging for me is finding the time to express all of my unique insightful ideas about literature during class discussion!!!"

 

     Before class is over we go through the roll again, but this time the professor wants us to share what we expect from an English class.  Do we like lectures?  Do we like informal discussion?  Do we like sitting in a circle, or sitting in rows?  What do we like about lectures?  What do we like about informal discussions?  What is it that is so comforting about sitting in a circle?  When she gets to me, I mumble something about not minding how we sit and that I prefer discussions and she continues on with the roll.  Around the last names beginning with the letter ‘s’, someone says, “I enjoy diversity of analysis.”  The next person on the list says: “I also enjoy diversity of analysis.”  I chuckle on the inside and start to feel better.

 

 

Drunken Dragon(beer run)

Drunken Dragon (beer run)

Doors slam and tires spin
The beer run is done
Pop the clutch and we are in fifth
Seatbelts, no thank you
The yellow lines blur as the chariot sings
A hum humm hhuummm
Feel it in your gut
Beg for more, more, more
Screams from behind you beg you to slow
Silence them with a glare
Screeching down that back country road
Riding on the back of a dragon
Rubber is burning, metal sweats, hearts are pounding
Worry tries to set in but you laugh
Maniacal invincible cackle
Echoing its way
A drunken dragon swooping down towards the pinprick lights of the small town
The town knows not of the demon fire in your heart
It knows your face has seen your eyes
Felt your breath hot and wet
And yet is does not know of the danger lurking
Descending upon her, never suspecting a drunk dragon spitting bourbon flame!

A foot moves the brake slows, the dragon is just a man, mortal, just a man.

Charles Peterson "knows" Things

     Charles Peterson "knew" many things.  For instance he "knew" that the secret evil organization that runs the Federal Reserve had president John F. Kennedy shot.  Of course he "knew" Oswald had not acted alone, I mean nobody believed the magic bullet theory least of all Earl Warren.  Charles also "knew" that the reason behind this was the argument over using the Federal Reserve note or the United States note, which was all but decided until Kennedy, then low and behold you pop him and our money has been made by the Fed ever since.  Charles also "knew" that there was something nefarious about putting fluoride in the water system.  He was pretty sure it was a way to make all Americans docile zombie'esque creatures that did nothing but consume and ignore the fact that they were being exploited.  He also "knew" that there was no possible way that a plane took down the twin towers.  Now, you might ask, was Charles Peterson an engineer?  Was he a chemist?  Was he a historian or journalist with some sort of vetted access to government documents?  No, he was none of these things which allowed him to "know" a great many things without the burden of unbiased evidential proof.  Most mere citizens don't want to believe that there is one giant secret satanic society that is responsible for all the worlds ills.  Charles Peterson didn't even need to believe it, he "knew" it.  Now, there have been a few naysayers that old Chuck has come up against.  To them he says snappy things like "I've done my research"  and "Ya know Hitler put fluoride in the water first" or "What about building 7, what about building 7" all of which usually just serve to exacerbate the competition long enough for them to just leave him alone to his theories.  You may ask what has all this "knowledge" really gotten Charles.  The answer is nothing.  Nothing but a fear of any food that is not organic, a fear of drinking watered, he must drink distilled, and a sense of superiority over his peers, who he refers to as zombies.  I think that perhaps it is best not to "know" things.   

A Holiday Story

     On December 23, 2013 at 10:30 pm a tall slender woman with blonde hair slowly walked into traffic on Main St.  The speed limit on Main St. is 25, so the first motorist that came upon her had plenty of time to stop.  The car only had one headlight burning, but the man driving the car still saw her clearly.  She wore brown boots, blue jeans, and a gray hooded sweatshirt, and it looked as if she was in her late 20’s or early 30’s.  When he stopped in front of her she stood there and spread her arms wide and stared.  Main St. was a one way street so it would not be hard for the driver to simply drive around her.  But the driver didn’t move immediately he sat there staring back.  After a moment he became worried that perhaps this woman was in trouble so he waited for her to move over to the driver side to ask him for help, but she didn’t.  She just stood there and closed her eyes.  This the driver thought to himself was strange, he pulled into the other lane and rolled his window down so that he could speak to her.  “Is there a problem?” said the motorist.  To which the woman replied “Um yes I want you to kill me.”  The motorist rolled up his window and drove away, he didn’t have time for the problems of stranger’s.  He was on his way somewhere.  Besides what could he do?  He had already spent a total of three and half minutes on this stranger, and he doubted if he could convince the woman that this was a life worth living in another three and a half.  So, he drove on into the night thoroughly bummed out.  “Fucking holidays.”  He thought. 

COCKTAIL NAPKIN POEMS

 NEEDLE STACK
A needle in a stack of needles
Start over begin again
Lather rinse
Absorb the new
Shake your ass
Scream the lyrics with a fist in the air
Blood boiling heart beating through concrete
Crush everything there is no stopping you

HARD WON BAR LAND
she brushes my arm
  Intent on having my attention
Must be the Pabst
  Or the Schnapps after shave
Maybe she’s in heat perhaps we should meet
  Before I can investigate she is gone
And now this asshole is slowly annexing my bar space
  My appeasement tactics are not working
They never do
  These fascists in their tight tees encroaching on my hard won bar land
I need breathing room

LEFT OF CENTER
Arrogance my only virtue
Narcissism my only vow
I sweat for work
I bleed for nothing
I eat to stuff it
I drink to snuff it
I don’t sleep
So, now it is time to adjourn
We only have the present
I will spend mine being the buffoon
The center of attention
Or at least slightly left of center

BLIP
Counting the hours
What hour was it when his breath last fogged the glass
The hot mist of time thick with shoulda, coulda, wouldas
Solid and substantial but waning
Ebbing, leaving us with every moment receding
A dawn with no dusk to follow
Or twilight eternal but in a wink it is gone
Time is folding up in front of me
A line on paper doubled over
Meaningless as names
Essential as the sun
Strong as water
Pure as snow
Then the sun sets early
Youthful star that seemed so bright yesterday, is gone today
It is not yesterday we only observe from the future looking back at our past sins
He was shot for four dollars and an Iphone, he was here three days
He lived a blip

WILLING VICTIMS
The object of my desire
Never objectified
For the crown she wears keeps her chin raised to the sky
My courtly love, my courtly lust rather
I am trapped, jailed, imprisoned within her eyes
My eyes know what my hands, my tongue, my whole body want
Dream of
Yearn for
I see her shoulders bend and spring back
A bird, no feathers just smooth creamy coffee skin
No bird, a cat, this lioness cranes he neck her eyes searching for prey
Is it my heart or my loins pounding
They are both willing victims
They have succomb
This woman
This goddess