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Friday, July 5th, 2002
1:53 am - thoughts on independence day
I knew an old, old man who drove a
riding lawnmower to the store every other day.
when not on it, he
kept its wheel chained with a Master lock
wrapped links around a sturdy post of his front porch
(his house a one-room collection of tin shingles that stood on serendipity)
so that if someone tried to take
his final fleeting means from an A to a B
they'd have to destroy an endpoint too.

he was a role model for those who kept
wanting after getting, he had none and more
he loved the idea of independence
simple sitting-up and walking wherever the hell
being bad for its possibility, but not for its sake
he was obsessed with the fresh fearlessness of no family
to squall and holler at missing the toilet or spilling juice
celebrated the fourth every weekend: swam in Olde English and
lit the skies with Newports.
this man was more American than sport hunting.

You could say- no, he was Spartan not salesman,
absence of technolust being proof of commie but
that would prove my point- I think Americana has more to do with
appealing to one's (sinful) desire to collect
disagreements.

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Tuesday, July 2nd, 2002
1:35 am - free write
you spelled me, out
each letter slowly drawled
said heat like "i'll meet you see
by sycamore trees willows and pine"
and friendly i absorbed
sweet syntactic tea
you dreamt late, ear
handles on my pitcher
pour reflection: jackrabbit
carrot gnawed parents gone
habit-helping gauze

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Saturday, June 29th, 2002
9:39 pm
Happy, irreverent, top lip solemn.
Dreaming of methods for life uncommon.

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Friday, June 21st, 2002
2:14 am - fishing poem

we rolled up; cast
rods and poles in fair azure
splash and flies collapsed into worried clouds
found rock and reclined twisted twine til it returned
overly mayoed (faithful) tuna sandwiches overly minted tea
called for a dog that never came never was
she caught one bass rotating retrograde butter churning water
and one both-hands bream zigging metronomic
sun simmered our bodies candy apple
she borrowed some gum to kiss my cheek and
we laughed as the lake went on

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Wednesday, June 19th, 2002
7:12 pm - written quickly as i could
i squirmed and breathed pushed and breathed breathed and spit kept caving on me that cakey gumbo dirt daddy always called it gumbo cause mamaw made her shrimp gumbo so thick the bowl could go upside down without spilling we dug for three hours today each plowed out his own foxhole here in the cacklebird mangy wilderness biting buzzsaw flying insects with purple plumage set sixteen bitemarks on one exposed sliver of the back of my neck no bigger than a vienna sausage well we received cover fire from up top from east and south-southwest sporadically and had to hunch down in our holes a little early they ain't aimin at nothin junior told me they just tryin to scare us out kill us psychologically cause we don't know this hell from any other cause we're americans cause they can and i believed him for the most part until buddy joseph caught somethin hard in his hole right next to me hollered like a bloodhound in a trap bellerin low-high low-high like death's mating call i tossed a grenade over the way and the bellerin plus explosion cancelled out so all we heard was our own ears ring in d minor

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Monday, June 17th, 2002
11:06 pm
It was first in the waiting room that Jeb felt Time must have gratuitous chest hair, like a Vegas Elvis, like a country polyester cop. Every time in this situation he tried to think of something clever to say when he could finally go back to see Maggie, some morsel of duct tape wit that might buttress her dilapidated spirit. And the result was always: he sat up straight, concentrated on the wall clock in conjuring some ice-cream-pasture-and-puppies pun... six minutes later he forgot it all, blinked and wondered what just happened, and the process started over. When he awoke from this daze he felt prickly and fuzzy in the brain, the stark nakedness of white fluorescent beam overhead, an itch all over that passed before it could be scratched or fully sensed. Gratuitous chest hair.

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1:26 pm
Bud stood simple-suited peering over the dark red hole marked by the stone, dressed at its fringes by white carnations. Through an eye-blink and sunbeam it reminded him of the glimmered reflection, magenta candlelight off of Thanksgiving dinner's cranberry sauce, how the look of pure flame was so distorted and damaged from bumped can-marks on a chunk of something so supple it could not be held tightly without escaping his hand. Light is diverted by the weakest substance if its scars are sufficiently deep. His concentration was broken by a ghastly feminine quiver; chilling, stuttering, calling to mind an ephemeral image of gray smoke, fallen soldiers, lifted flags, a distant fog-free choir mocking it all by penny-opera commentary. Lord bless this tender field of sod. Our sandstone cradle housing the one true God. As the bones in this dirt shall rise, we shall live. A crow-caricature matriarch, dead white even at the mouth, wheezed words into tones, weakly but resonant monotone, like a disinterested child banging at a three-hundred-year-old bell cracking dawn into asymmetric pieces. Her voice descended in finale: As the blood in the body shall dry. As the sons of the sons shall die. As the bones in this dirt shall rise, we shall live.

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1:08 pm - hello world
Does this sucker work?

current mood: accomplished
current music: bach - goldberg variations

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