Sinister: Making free with Llewed and Lascivious boasts

[toy stephen]

'In the poetry wars of 1984
I passed him in the street
Armed to the teeth with adjective
He had haikus at his feet.'

We should spend more time looking up. Shyness,
bookreading, backpacks, eyes sensitive to sunlight,
and general suspicion of what's in front or behind us
have caused the muscles in the back our our necks to
atrophy, brought the shoulders to the ear lobes, and
made the chest retreat into the back. I have to remind
myself to slacken the shoulders, open the chest, and
turn the face skyward. Then it feels like hugging
someone special so tightly that you should collapse
but you feel as if you extend in all directions.
Seeing a blinking airplane move slowly through the
volcanic sand of the night -- how restorative.

'In the prose-hibition of '69
Our fathers had it worse
Smuggling nouns into London-town
So I could finish the verse.'

Panleukopenia. The noun smuggled into our
conversation. The word means a distemper in cats.
Seems churlish to invent a word that reiterates what
it means to be a cat. It's like saying loneliness is a
modern malaise. Isn't it always lonely to be modern?
[grin]. Or saying girls are difficult. They'll never
approach _you_ unless they're fabulously witty and
know it's life's greatest folly to take oneself
seriously. By then, youre madly in love with her
anyway, and in willing service after only a few
minutes.*

'So the wind won't blow it all away
Dust
Dust
American Dust.'

They're tearing up the main road connecting the two
towns that host the University. Reducing traffic to 2
lanes; making it more pedestrian friendly. No doubt
planting trees alongside the road to win over the
walking tours of prospective students. The same local
government is urging its constituents to support the
President's War on Terror in Iraq and God knows where
else. Yemen. to lower petrol prices. to fill the
ravenous SUVs that'll idle for just enough extra time
on the new 2-lane road to suffocate the sapling trees.

The roadside is swept with dust and rubble while they
work. Last Friday, the student pubs conspired to
celebrate the Unofficial St Patrick's Day. The real
holiday falls within spring break. And how could the
pubs feel right without registers full of Green bills?
So on a spring-like warm Friday, boys and girls
wearing green from head to toe. The tee shirts said
'Irish Princess' and 'I'll drink until I'm Irish.' I
can't understand what type of viral delusion has half
of America thinking it is ethnically Irish. They speak
of Ireland as a homeland. I'm beginning to see how
m.c. and wealthy Americans understand ethnic identity.
They dress up in stereotypes of other cultures to
amuse themselves: as Irishmen for wit and drink, as
Indians to dance at intermission of sports events, as
Italians to be Bobby Deniro Soprano Pacino dons with
fuck off cars and animal pride. It's saturnalia,
except, being Americans and sitting fat with cash at
the top of the pyramid, they fantasise being poor and
hardy and actually capable of inventing interesting
culture.

'I wish I'd been born sooner
To gather all he left
Imagination in a fragile mind
Just put to the test.'

My grandfather died when I was nine. I knew him like
any young child knows an old man: as a smell, a form,
and a particular timbre of voice. He walked hunched
over and smelt of black coffee and moth balls from his
cardigan. The Coast Guard took him on a luxury cruise
through the Pacific for the low low cost of fighting a
war against the Japanese. He died of a heart attack
while on the toilet 30 years later in Chicago. Well,
the crack on the head after the fall killed him. My
grandmother is stingy with details of his life. He
loved travelling, taking photographs, and collecting
coins. I feel like I'm supposed to do things for him
that he never had the opportunity to do. The last time
I felt it was in the emergency room last summer. A bad
combination of days walking criss-cross town in search
of work, nights in cafes with coffee and whiskey,
earning $20 by laying in an MRI for 90 minutes to help
out a desperate Psych PhD student, and a finch's puff
of a joint left me in hospital without any sensation
in my limbs and a heart rate of 169 bpm. If the
dehydration (the cause) didnt kill me, the scary alarm
from the heart monitor or the woman's shrieks from the
next bed over as the doctor did a vaginal scrape would
do me in. The thin blue curtain made it worse with its
Hitchcockian shadows performing a dumb show of the
papsmear. Anyway, I thought of my grandfather then. I
had to leave the hospital and do what he never could.
I wish I knew where he had been, so I know where I
need to go.

'They're always dreaming of Babylon
The war it carries on
Verbal confrontations
Between the beautiful and the damned'

Special cheers for baker,baker and sophia katrina for
grate posts recently. Sctuallly all yr posts have been
grate recently; it'd be Lear-like to quantify or
differentiate the love going around. A groundswell of
promise! Spring from below and above! Love from below
and above! Ooooh, you know youre in the lap of luxury
when you get it from both directions.

And a chorus of cheers for Archel's being shortlisted
for the poetry prize. hell, that's magnificent.

'So the wind won't blow it all away
Dust
Dust
American dust.'

One frat boy to another on the blistered road --
'Happy Fucking St Paddy's Day brother!' I swear Im not
inventing this detail: the road is, and always has
been, named Green Street.

'Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you
love them.'

I have nothing to illustrate this quote. It has been
rolling around in my head for some time, from a memory
of reading a Dorothy Parker story. Since I have no way
of subtly bringing it into the message, it's a blatant
attempt to curry favor with Mlle Laura Llew. I dream
of the day when she's a right bitch to me and I know
she loves me.

vernal and venereal,
t.s.

*Panleukopenia I find is fatal. Fever, diarrhea and
dehydration, and extensive destruction of white blood
cells. So I suppose it's a necessary word, tho not a
necessary disease. & that ruins the analogy to girls
being difficult. Maybe it proves they're not
difficult. I need to stop taking myself so seriously
and talk to more. (doesnt everyone love a message that
ends with a Wonder Years type personal revelation?) 

p.s.: after Becky crossing the Thames with tompaulin,
and Laura Llew's Richard Brautigan, and Vel's subject
line, I felt it time to declare how excellent the Town
and the City LP is. The words above are copyright
'Richard Brautigan' by tompaulin

p.s.s: the ms. parker is copyright her in A Telephone
Call

p.s.s.s.: the rest of the words are copyright all the
the authors I've ever read. blame them.

pssssssst: Ive been reading a collection of Japanese
senryu poetry. Senryu is like haiku but more playful,
common, and not as constrained (e.g., not necessary to
include a seasonal marker word). Last quotation, I
promise, you'll like it. by. Kimura Hanmonsen

in the sunset glow
a slaughter house:
cow cow cow cow cow
cow cow cow cow cow



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