Love Poem for the Pessimistic Pornographers

back dimples were once precious indentations guarding
the base of his spine--of her spine,
moving up and down
with their partnering buttocks for each step of the strut.
now, accompanied by stretch marks and cellulite,
i think little physical defects are sexy, don't you?
they lose their original effect,
soon gone for good.

for example,
take his chipped tooth, her chicken pox scar,
or the hairy mole on his upper bicep.

the guitarist strums his guitar for the strumpet.
years are bearable for both
when they are able to strip bare the body.
the metallic triangular cover of her G-string
is slowly pulled down by the thumbs and reveals another
triangular cover, bushy, of the wet groin,
some like the pull of hair by teeth, grazing the field.
differing textures appease the wet appetite.
unless the audience is rather drawn to smooth loins.
like those of five year olds. that can be remedied
with the ole Venus razor.
no shame there.

history tries to erect myth, set it in stone
--to enforce a nature behind the moving picture
of the woman taking the pound, pound
screaming oh, yeah and loving the crowd.
i like the crowd, it makes me feel alive.
--as if power could be bestowed
from spectators to spectacle.

history belongs to the phallus,
making it a hard force to swallow whole.
this is real interaction between artist and audience;
audience entering and coming
into/inbetween/fullforced
onto canvas.
its milk has long turned sour,
but with a jeering crowd:
"chug! chug!"
the doing it becomes more than doable.

Untitled Project on Sibling Actors, Part 7: Coffee, Actressing, and that Dragonfly

Now we go into Sister's playroom. Photographs are scattered across the desks against the walls. On one desk, a pair of sharp, fabric cutting shears rests next to a green Tiffany table lamp. Sister turns the lamp on. Pendant emerald dragonflies with bright orange eyes are spliced with black, smoldered copper that bolsters the glass pieces of the lamp's cone. Under the light of the dragonflies, the cutting shears blush green, glistening at the inner edges. There is a brown paper binder on the floor next to the desk. Sister grabs a couple tasseled throw pillows from the couch and tosses them onto the floor near the binder and then sits down on the floor. She opens the binder and reviews pictures she has collected over the past few months that have been cut out of magazines, art books, and illustrated biographies on actors and artists that are dear to her. She takes a few seconds with each picture. Marlene Dietrich in a white, two-pieced suit, leaning backwards against a stair railing in the street. Catherine Deneuve in a golden seventies' spread for Chanel No. 5. Tilda Swinton, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis.

Sister holds the last two photographs in her hands. "My Mother told me never to speak badly of the dead. She's dead…Good!" Her toes wriggle in her loafers. Davis' alleged icy epitaph, which she so kindly uttered for the late Crawford, sealed the famous actress rivalry in a state of titanic mythology. Two goddesses, one with melodramatically-thick eyebrows and eyes wide on the offense, the other with drunken cheeks, sagging and contemptuous. Their lips! Crawford was said to have had a nervous breakdown from the pressure her costar, Davis, hammered down on her head off-set. Finally, Davis sent Crawford off the stage, her insides writhing while her face worked as hard as it could to conceal the stench of artistic jealousy. No one could ever accuse the stars of being undedicated.

Sister places her hands on the carpet and pushes her body off the floor. In front of the couch there is a coffee table with a small crystal bowl filled with toffee and classic Hollywood Chewing Gum. Sister knows the importance of being good to herself with the occasional unprecedented gift. Leaving her folio open on the floor, she walks to the coffee table and grabs a handful of wrapped toffee bits as she plunges down onto the sofa. Martha walks into the room with Sister's coffee:

--There you are. And voilà! Here is your coffee. The milk is already poured in, as you like it. (Looking back at the open brown envelope on the floor) Oh, I see you have your collection of actresses out on display.

Sister:

--I'm working. I need inspiration.

--So, you will call the director soon?

--(Sister accepts the coffee mug in both hands, as she draws out her response lengthily) I will soon.

Sister wanted a specific way to deliver that line to Martha. Martha gently places her hands on her hips and looks around the room. Sister places the coffee mug on the table. Head tilted back onto the back of the couch, Sister keeps her eyes fixed on the toffee bits in her hands that she drops delicately, one every thirty seconds or so into her mouth.

Martha:

--Where is Laurent?

--Well, I'm not sure. It looks like he went out.

--He went out?

--Outside, Martha. He just went outside, I'm sure of it.

--I'll go make sure.

Sister waits for the maid to leave the room. She then sits up momentarily before leaning into the palms of her hands that are supported by her elbows she has digging into her lower thighs. She lets out a sigh and reaches for the mug to take a sip of coffee.

Outside of the house, Laurent walks around the pool and stretches his arms. He will hold his left arm straight against his chest, pointing to his right for a few seconds, and then he will let that arm drop and do the same with the other arm. The morning miserable, coping with his morning body aches. He reflects on the Cornish’s from last night, who will surely report back to Mother and Father about how wonderful he and Sister are and what excellent, mature hosts they make. It was not quite an invasion, but it was unwanted from his part. Laurent's chest is congested, his breaths, deep and raspy. How much did we smoke last night? Martha comes outside and sets a coffee mug on the olive-green tea table where Laurent's parchment paper and pen lie in waiting. Careful now. To his relief, Martha does not spill the coffee, as far as he can see.

Laurent shouts from the other side of the pool:

--Thank you, Martha!

Martha smiles and walks back inside. Laurent continues his stroll around the patio. Crumbles of speckled gray cement pervade the patio that separates the grass from the pool. They stick to the bottom of his feet and eventually rub off from the friction between skin and ground. At the base of a clay flowerpot several ants operate, disorderly and drunk, off the trail, poking here or there, seeking sugar underneath the sun. In the outskirts of this busy insect gathering, the trail emerges. There is the scent. Mildly intrigued, Laurent follows the insects, keeping a step's distance away from the line.

The ants accumulate at the patio mosaic. Laurent realizes he had been searching with the ants for the dragonfly corpse he left on the ground yesterday after his swim. Edges are now tattered a bit. The ants partake in the sap of the insect. They crawl all over its body, which has been displaced from its original position. Fire underneath everything, partially hidden by the itchy ant carpet, swarming and fuming. Laurent is bothered because he would have liked to hold the insect himself. Maybe take it back over to the tea table for a while. At this point it is better to leave it be and go on.

Laurent ends his stroll back at a lounging chair next to the tea table. He takes two long sips of his coffee and whiskey and then takes the paper to place in his lap. The pen is uncapped and ready, now if only language will just come to him and help him to find a voice. Although the time is perfect for writing, Brother forgets that there is nothing convenient about writing, not that he knows very much about the art. Not that he feels he knows very much about the art. Brother writes the word, "afterwards," at the top of the paper. After words, then what? Spaces:

"In physics, so much is defined by what is lacking, or what might have been there one second but now has moved on in its course." Well, that's true, isn't it? The universe is terribly busy. "The brick wall behind my back is none of the following: a summer breeze, a thick and fuzzy quilt, a point of reference to plot on a Poincare map." In fact, it's wicker and not brick. Why am I defining something by everything it is not? Seems unfair. "A brick wall is defined by time and space, that's why, and as much as I love Dalí, this brick wall is quite rigid. It will never slump forward as I do now with my coffee and whiskey. Only memory slumps forward"

He looks up at the sky and scratches his hair. He needs a cigarette, but they are inside and he is approaching an artistic mania. There is no time for interruptions. He stares back down at the parchment paper and reads everything written down thus far. He waits and moves his jaw muscles, cracks his neck and then relaxes:

"Do you like the color of this stationary? Personally, I'd rather it be more minty."

Absolute fodder. How did this become a letter? I'm not writing to anyone. A few olive leaves rustle against the cement near the pool water. Laurent taps both of his brown oxford shoes against the ground, agitated, because he cannot decide whether it is that language is so expansive and that he is just ignorant or if it is that language is clumsy and unavailing. No, of course we need words to help communicate our ideas. There are loads of things we wouldn't know about without our words. We'd all be complete idiots without language. Laurent, the idiot…"What is it with this obsession with being untouched, unstained? There is a constant fear of alien invasion. How do humans feel about symbiosis, really? Why go on perpetuating these pretended brick walls? Is it really that a clean room makes for a clean mind?"

We've got to mend that crack. Laurent realizes he has been holding off the release of his urine for some time now. He sets down the papers and walks off into the lawn to the side fence behind the cypress trees. In a ritualistic exercise that he himself seldom finds bizarre, Laurent urinates on the grass. Of all the times that Laurent has been outside with the bodily urge of urination in the backyard, they have mostly ended with him relieving himself outside. He thinks to himself how surely this is natural. The product of nature, broken down and filtered and then excreted back into nature. What is not so natural--and even Laurent can admit this to himself--is his tendency to relieve himself in his bathroom sink, rather than walk the extra five or so feet to the toilet. Sister would find this appalling, but who is she to argue with the prick of Laurent?

--Laurent, really? There are ten restrooms inside. You can pick any one of them, but the outdoors suits you better?

Laurent zips up his trousers after the last drops of urine are shook out and faces the patio where Sister has called out to him:

--Is brunch ready?

--Yes, come on inside.

As Laurent is walking across the lawn back to the tea table where he left his writing, Sister continues:

--You know who just called?

--Would it be that director?

--(A light scoff) No, I'm to call him, remember? And I will, later.

--Then who?

--Charles.

--Our brother?

Untitled Project on Sibling Actors, Part 6: Theater and Hypnosis

To the young couple hiding away in a bathroom stall of the lady's room in the foyer--the poor damsel being screwed from behind over the toilet, her hair being tightly pulled by her unyielding, sworn protector: cover your tits, Madame, and zip up those trousers, Monsieur. Is your hair frazzled? Well quick, straighten things out--there are mirrors, you know, mirrors in the lady's room. Perform an inspection to determine if you're suitable to walk back out into the foyer. Did you forget your program? Well, there are loads more with the attendees, standing at the doors to the theater. Mr. Stiffnecked-Hadfield, if you would, your doting wife is waiting patiently in her seat for your return from your last-minute cigarette break. Oh, your friends from England are acting tonight in our show? We were not aware of the association. It is a marvelous thing to be friends with an actor! Be nice to Mrs. Hadfield when you come back, for she loves you very much and has fulfilled her martial duties today beautifully, would you not agree? She worships the ground upon which you stand erected and drenched in your own vanity. Speaking of being drenched, does anyone need to urinate? Quite an inconvenience, the burning pervasiveness of bodily functions. You should go relieve yourselves now. If you miss anything at the beginning, your partners are there for you on your return to answer all your questions. But quickly, now. Say hello to the frazzled sex couple coming out of the lady's room! No! You have taken the wrong row, Dubois clan, and now another party has been wrongfully displaced. Each row has a letter clearly marked on the outside of its aisle-seats. How could you be so off? Oh, well here they come. They will show you their tickets and explain that you are all sitting in the wrong row.


Okay, people are returning. The leading oboist, the concertmaster, is sitting at attention to the maestro in the pit. Do not worry; this is not musical theater. There will be no outbursts of song that drag on forever in-between the drama. We will be using the philharmonic as a backdrop, primarily. Be honest. You love the cacophony of the tuning session for its excitement and promise. Here comes the note. The rest of the wind band eventually joins in the musical nonsense.

It is good to see that practically all are here in their seats for the opening of the curtain. The characters on the stage are from another place, so there is no need to worry about any seeming resemblance. You are not obliged to love the characters, just as you are not obliged to love everyone of this world with whom you encounter. We hear that writers should love their own characters--that this affection allows for the story's characters to be fully realized and developed. But you are not all writers, so leave the loving for the creator of the script. Oh, I see that a few of you are. We certainly would not want to be accused of treating any of the characters unfairly. Well then, love away and love them all. Everyone, the ritualistic warming up and tuning of the orchestra is coming to its close. The prelude will come next. Come children, let us open the box and take out the puppets, for our play is about to begin. I will count to ten and the theater will be transported through time and space, across fields with cypress tress and olive tress under a gentle sun to a mansion inhabited by two siblings. Action and atmosphere are both more vibrant and real in a mansion, which does not make its inhabitants any more glib than necessary this evening.

One: You have all been merry making in the lobby and that is a good thing. Our foyer bars are staffed excellently and we hope, consequentially, you are softly buzzed. Although you have left your champagne flutes outside, the music of their social clambering is carried into the theater and it rings in your ears, its fizz slowly dissipating on the outsides of your mouths, tickling you pink. When an actor stands in a spotlight, he or she becomes drunk off of the craft and this helps to carry a scene through to its end and, ultimately, to your applause, which gets the acting crew hammered by the end of the play. Stage and audience become buzzed together and that is lovely. That is real interaction there, between artist and patron-socialite.

Two: You are all falling leaves that ride on invisible air currents, zig-zagging to and fro and occasionally flipping over yourselves. Until you touch the bottom of your descent. Wet with summer pool water. Float here, now.

Three: A man and woman are lounging outside of the pool in wicker chaise lounge chairs. Both are drinking cocktails and carrying on idiosyncratically. Coughing out their private jokes at each other. You are still gliding on the surface of water, pale in size. The chatter of the two is lost on you. It gurgles in your ears. Above where they lounge, another, more squab woman is resting against the balcony railing, smoking the last black drabs of her cigarette. Her attire is quite plain. Uniform like. You understand now that she is subservient to the two sitting below. She attempts to make this time to herself above on the balcony her own time; however, it cannot be her own time if it is being paid for by another. Now, where you float, what looks like a ship is heading en route towards your coordinates. Bells are ringing to let you know the ship is approaching its destination. You all are no longer leaves, but back to your normal selves, only much smaller. You wait, each one of you standing on your own leaf upon the water surface, for the ship to drop anchor. The ship is not a menacing one. Strings of lights, tiny bulbs in blue, gold, green, and red, line its external anatomy. A party ship where there are more bars with bartenders awaiting your next order. What will it be? We hope you do not find the conditions on the ship to be too congested. Climb aboard! Wave goodbye to the poolside strangers.

Four: Further into your voyage, you come near the coastline of a land covered in a thick forest. From the heart of the Black Forest a woman with obsidian black hair walks under the moonlight. She keeps close to a river of gold that is slowly poured from the heavens, holding out her right hand with unsettling majesty. The tree limbs part away from her foot tracks that glow as little pools of fluorescent elixir feeding into the earth. You are bewitched by it all.

Five: You have all been invited to participate in a gangbang. There are two women, two of the same woman, in the center of the room holding each other in their arms, caressing the back of the other and resting their chins upon the other's shoulder. The adagio movement, where the performers are able to collect themselves before the pounding begins again. Men are lined up against all of the walls, beating themselves off, grunting, cheering and jeering for the act. Lines form again from the outskirts to the center of the room. Time is up for you, time for your pounding! A mirror is attached to the ceiling of the meeting place. Both of her, reflected into water snakes. She likes the way her body acts in a mirror; she moves for herself and not for the others. Look, men, at how beautiful woman is when she is stripped! Look at how perfect and docile nature is unsheathed. Both of her are able to stare into each other's eyes. Against the walls, the community of men cannot look each other in the eye. Maybe, they can look each other in the groin. Oh, he is hoping they would have been masked, but that exotic element is already gone. Still, it is good to see woman in her natural state. And you thought woman's special connection to nature was mere mythology. Oh, look: a dragonfly has found its way from nature into the room. It hovers in a corner, watching with its multi-faceted eyes. So much gang and bang! You see the green hills and hear the soft birds of woman. The woman are dying, they love it! Is it not lovely that she is so well tuned into nature? Who would have thought! Time to excrete your bodily fluids onto her, take a piss in her bush during your pit stop on this tour. This is all so natural! You hear that it is good for the soil, good for the ground. It is good to partake in nature. Naturally.

Six: A game of Russian roulette. You see her. She throws her hands at the winding locomotive, circling hap--red--black. Will you take your coffin tomorrow morning black or with cream? How many refills will you have? It is comforting to know you hold a biological clock in your hands, one that you can use to insulate your flesh with steam. The smell of earth rises in outbursts. You cannot pretend that mound of dirt to your right is not from your own shoveling hands. Its base is a cold foundation. The sprinkles on top are light and warm.

Seven: Muses, he groans, then the clay molder morphs the brim of his vase with spit while wheeling the base around. The slightest pressure his finger applies against the body brings vulgar alterations he then fingers with finesse. Love is a crude mold, lubricated and made from the most base of things.

Eight: On the floor of a dimly lit playroom, the woman has returned and is holding a dead Orange-spotted Emerald dragonfly in her hands. She gradually lifts the insect into the moonlight that pierces through the room's curtain-drawn windows. With her left hand she takes a pair of fabric cutting shears and cuts off the wings that glisten like the surface of bubbles drawn out under an ocean of stars. This is the end of flight.

Nine: Out of the playroom you are walking, walking through the hallways of an enormous house you recognize, although you are not sure how. You do not believe you have been here before. The art deco tiling, black and white, is cold. A slow pat-pat is crescendoing towards you all. Down the stairs in front of you a decapitated head is rolling down, wet and smacking each step. A tangle of rubbery purple and blood. You see her above with her hands thrown out in front of her, the room a circling hap. You are transfixed.

Ten: You see a man. He steps foot out onto the ice and slips. The head, so full of romantic ideals and vision, tilts back so the ground can breathe once again. As socio-economical exchange becomes congested, old business and institutions are leveled down to the ground to create new spaces for new ideas and new, younger leaders with bigger and brighter heads for their inherited craft. It is good to keep things fresh and alive! From his spill onto the pavement, from his blood, you will receive the elixir to sustain your life. Come drink (there is enough for everyone) and hear the rumble of the timpani as the stage lights up for your own viewing this spectacular evening.

and you were and you were there

and you were there and you were there and you were there and you were there and he was there and I was there and I was holding his clothes in my hands and you said to drop them and I did but it would have been easier with a cigarette. I never get to smoke a cigarette in my dreams. I dropped his clothes as you said but I picked them right back again. 

Super Bowl 2013

I cannot believe
how, wow, twelve billion dollars(?)
was spent on this shit.

Uproarious Green

Uproarious green spreading over stones; the Landowner's wife demands his attention. He mutters back dry pork chops and returns to his work, eating back at the fields, she, crumbling another sunflower in her hands.

Icons, Part Two.

Evenly spaced out on top of a ceramic tiled-window sill in my bathroom, four candles, scentless, but brightly colored, are encased in tall glass containers with various patron saints printed onto their paper wrappers. There is Mary, well, one of the Marys, and also a Peter. One of the icons actually resembles an angel, but I do not read the description of the artfully depicted, so I am not too sure whether or not the entity is what it appears to be. I do know that a large number of people recognize these magisterial symbols as illustrating a big meaning of some sort.

They are there, perhaps even for me, as I use the toilet, shower, and shave. Sometimes, I even light them, although I am not sure for what reason, as they do not effuse the smells of warm sugar, Bergamot orange, and blackberry, like the other candles in my living room, unsaintly, or at least lacking in magisterial presentation, do when I light their wicks. I suppose I might light the heads of these solemn faces as I necessitate a particular ambiance. At night when I have friends over to unwind and drink, I certainly have the saints brightly keeping vigil over my bathroom. I hope, like my friends and I, that these saints are able to revel when I am away.

At night I sleep on my twin bed, pushed up against the wall that my bedroom shares with my bathroom. While I sleep, I lay with my head just a wall away from my bathtub. For the first hour of my sleep, I am more just trying to ignore the erratic thumping and scurrying away of my two cats. Whenever I have managed to fall asleep, my cats will notice they are no longer being paid any attention and will jump onto my body. Claire will bury her face into mine until I open my eyes. Then, she just keeps staring, or, she will inch back up to my face and lick my nostrils. Justine wills start his therapy session of stretching out his paws and clawing them into my blanket (and my legs), as he sucks at the fabric, missing a nipple from which he was weaned too early in his life. Momentarily, they manage to rest and cause minimal noise on my bed. Some nights they might even fall asleep for a couple of hours before jumping back into their nightly groove, their paws resounding off the hardwood floors. We all love each other, I am sure--they are given food and warmth and I am given the pleasure of their company and observing the lively way in which they interact with each other, but there is also resent in the chords. Resent in the cats for the eternal imprisonment and in me for their stench and noise.

I hear a shattering noise from the bathroom, but I keep my eyes closed. I hate knowing what time I am waking up, disturbed in the middle of the night. Minutes later, another crashing sound. For whatever the ruckus, I am determined not to let my sleep suffer.

The next morning, glass. Bits of glass on the tile floor and large cuts of glass in my bathtub. All but one of the patron saint candles have been knocked down to the floor. Mary, one of the Marys is still on the window sill. Torn shreds of paper are hanging by their glue from the larger, more intact clumps of glass. Jesus Christ, I liked those candles! There are dirty paw prints on the brim of the tub and along the tile floor. In an ocean I cannot collect and certainly will not swallow, I leave the mess for another day.

Of course, I know I have to shower, sooner rather than later. I thank Mary and Jesus both that I am not a Catholic who might read too much into this iconic desecration. In preparation for my shower, I pick up the bigger pieces of glass with my hands and drop them in a four plastic grocery bag-layered sack. One of the candles has been cracked in two. I hold the wax up to my nose and then remember that the wax is scentless, so it is quickly discarded and not considered again. I wet several napkins under the bathroom faucet and sweep them all over the ceramic tub, picking up the smaller cuts of glass. At least the saintly candles are not too expensive. If I care enough, I can always drive back to Walmart and just buy three more. Hell, why not ten more? It is impossible to get all the glass out of the tub. I turn on the bathtub faucet to wash the rest of the glass down the drain, off to be dealt with elsewhere and then take off my clothes. My cats paw at the bathroom door, because they find all separation from me unbearable whenever I am home. I can take my shower now, but I will have to keep in mind that my feet enter the water now slightly imperiled.



"Hail Mary, full of grace, get down on your knees and pray. Jesus Christ, hanging on the cross, died for our sins, it's such a loss. Saint Christopher, find my way, I'll be coming home one day. Saint Sebastian, don't you cry, let those poison arrows fly. Saint Anthony, lost and found, Thomas Aquinas, stand your ground. All those saints and holy men, catch me before I sin again." --Madonna, 2012.