To Mike

The man who calls me
once a month at work
to cheer me up.

Rules to live buy if you are me (Draft, can't keep eyes awake)

1. Don't give a shit about weather predictions. First of all you don't know how weather works. Just because you hear the weather man describe in it some bull shit scientific discourse that he learned in a textbook produced to condition the masses to think a certain way, doesn't mean that his or her description of the nor'easter is apriori. As the weather person, no fuck it weather man, why try to be politically correct and mask the social relations that are taking place, uses a model that was created by a Norwegian dude who had no way of measuring things in a way we might consider scientific. When these readings were taken, well the measure worked, the same goes for Eratosthenes, who was able to surmise the circumference of the work, being part of the same tradition, our scientific measures come to similar results. Ok, so yes our very categories for knowledge, their construction, the way we quantify, conceptualize, and measure, solid supposed unchanging things in (not of) space, comes out of this tradition or epistme. So, anyway this way of seeing the weather is but one way of course. I will not here about the fetishization of technology and what it tells us, because as we practically know, the weatherman is usually wrong, he whines about how complex this thing the weather is. But weather is a process ofcourse that is physical, but also a constructed measure linked to our expectations (are floods or snow storms normal), and ofcourse our mode of production or the economic superstructure. That being, in a system in which the production of surplus labor is paramount, and our function is two be a productive force in this process, weather becomes something important in certain conditions. Freezing rain and black ice, are not only connected to the automobile, which ofcourse are produced out of the coercive laws of capitalist competition, which simultaneously attempt to give profit to the individual capitalist while lowering the value of labor power. The latter gets complex, when we start discussing the size of a commuting area, and a metropolis. The erasure of time by space is rampant, as we worry about the commute home. If the worker cannot home, how will he reproduce himself for the next works day?

2. In general, the older people get the lest trust worthy they get. As, I struggle with one alot, because I feel more fluid with knowledge as I age, I specifically talk about being co-opted by dominant or hegemonic forces. These forces, go ahead shit on me for being abstract, but ideology and general weighs you down after a while. Like at the radical left movement that development during the depression, and how they turned into the conformism of the 50s, and hippies who became professionals or just poor. As the zeitgeist of your generation is rationalized and basically figured out, your identity is used against you and co opted into this particular ideology. It gets to a point that you must change, to keep out of the grasp on capital, which is very difficult. Admittedly, I must elaborate on this one.

3. Never own a home. As I may read this in a future life, and get depressed, I would recommend subtracting yourself from reproducing this aspect of private property, i.e. the spatial reproduction of the social relations that encapsulate capitalism. Why? Whats the difference between renting? Your flexibility is punished, as your identity is reified as home owner. When put in this situation, it is logical to preserve the value of your home. This may mean making unethical choices, such as exploiting Mexican laborers, super intendenants, and other service workers, to maintain your property. Don't forget about the exclusionary functions that are implicit in this institution. How can I blame you if you don't want certain people if your neighborhood. You have no choice! You must protect your investment. If you don't care about it you would have not bought in the first place. Ok so you don't care about these actions, or you don't think that the money you pay in property taxes, or the way you keep your community doesn't affect anyone else... guess what, you probably don't own home. Unless you have reached your mid fifties or later. Down payment on houses, interest rates, and the number of years of a mortgage do vary geographically, by market etc, but the trend since world war 2 has been for low down payments and long term debt financing. This is a good thing right? More people can own homes, well yes in theory, but the only thing guaranteed over the long term (30 years is a long time) is that more people can be fed to the jaws of financial capitalism. For example, in the last 30 years, we may take a look at the people of color who actually have gone on to own the homes they have taken mortgages out. While i do not have this empirical data at hand, and we are assuming certain things when we drop persons of color as a category or identity, i could tell you the sauces rates aren't that great. For example, who do you think was most affecting by the latest mortgage crash. It is important that we don't see this as just cats like Mui trying to get rich off someone elses plights, it is built into the housing industry, the credit system, and financial capitalism as a whole. Also, as you are in the quest to make these mortgage payments, which probably now adays involves your partner working the same amount of hours, you must produce surplus value! What does this mean? You probably won't leave your job because your unemployment check won't pay your mortgage. Also, if you don't live in the right neighborhood (read black), you wont be able to refinance your loan, or only at a very costly price. I'm talkn white slavery, and this ain't some funny necro shit, but you working fifty hours for the rest of your life, rarely getting any fulfillment.

4. to be continued...

Fuck Hip Hop

Hip-hip (or this kind of hip-hop) has officially been officially co-opted by capitalism. No, no, no many of you may argue that hip hop in the last ten years or more, has been nothing but ideology to oppress black folks, but now that imaginary threshold has been crossed. Yes, i am reifying it, but this latest fiasco really represents a process or transformation that hip hop has fully gone through. You may tell me that Eric B and Rakim had song back in the 'golden era' called paid in full, and isn't that Milk on the hook of the 50 cent track saying 'I get money, money I got'. Making dough and getting paid out the asshole has always been part of hip hop. No one here is against African Americans accumulating use values. I can even deal with this fetishization of money, as long its not the focus of an image or a persona.

Fucking Forbes dude. Forbes, the publication that comes out with its top 400 wealthiest person every year. Now you have to have over 3 billion dollars to make into this club, (Now if this isn't proof that the gap between rich and poor is widening in this country I don't know what is) Are we supposed to feel bad for those who didn't make it this year, who dropped out. These billionaires are portrayed as guys, and by guys I mean white males, who are just like us, but used some kind of hard work or savy to get where they are. Only if these million dollar men would act like the million dollar man and be dicks. Everyone would hate em. I heard ted debiase is coming back, but now as the billion dollar man. God, even virgil has millions now a days.

Anyway class is erased, and if its maintained, its celebrated as an achievement of a quantitatively roll for broke system. While Emelda Marcos could only collect a couple of thousand pairs of shoes, the universal equivalent can be accumulated forever.

Anyway, fuckn 50 cent. In a lot of ways a guy who is on the vanguard of a new breed of rappers. Hell it was only 2003 since he broke into main stream radio. His newest incarnation of capitalist ideology the 'I get money remix' is featured on the Forbes website. Doesn't anyone else see the fucking hypocrisy in this move. Someone who in many cases, not all of course, represents the streets, or what I would gingerly called economically oppressed black people is side by side with the people who have made their empire off the surplus labor/sweat off the people represents (or people like them). Of course fifty didn't ask for this, but he did give a free shout out to Forbes in the title of his song.

I am apprehensive to group 50 or actually say his identity. I won't take that away from Curtis. Who knows he might have the identity of a white man. He does live in a fortress out in Connecticut somewhere, he is paranoid about traveling in the streets (yeah he did get shot, but stop being such a god damn pussy), he has fetishized money to the point where it makes me want to throw up, and he really cares about record sales. Sounds like pathologically white behavior to me.

I would have more respect for 50 if he advertised for whitening cream, god damn it. At least we would know where he stands, that he was transmitting ideology that was in someway racist and harmful, but this mother fucker comes out with a song glorifying Forbes. I don't think I've ever seen capitalist idea logy work so well. What an inner contradiction, so fuckn juicy. How will it resolve itself? On one hand capitalist enslavement, and an urban reserve army which is maintained largely by the state, and on the other a culture of alienated value (i.e. fetishization of money) (See the prison diaries of Antonio Gramsci for further reading on the formation of common sense in capitalist society and the interplay between culture and bourgeoisie ideals). We don't know where this value or money comes from. Record sales, way to abstract. How does value get generated in this process. Who knows? Where is the cash in these videos coming from? Whose labor made it? And now white critics can unite against hip hop culture telling us that it has no values, and how it keeps black people poor, while they are most likely oppressed in a similar way on a more basic level.

I'm stopping here
'I like being around money' THANK YOU P DIDDY. ALSO, jay z is in this song, go figure going back to his volume 2 days.... sigh!

Is this shit dead

They said it was done but I started a new, I'm too live for your crew, learned how to life it from nancy drew. The hop hop vocabulalry doesn't help but neither does your breath, feel the pain in my breast, as I caress. every one of my breaths. I'm alive and no force can contain, the dude with a such a big brain, that conservatives say its a shame, that i dont rep for them on the front lines, my telepathy is like proximity mines, you get near me and I'll make your insecurity shine, like bonds son when daddy did his deed, Im not here to give you what you need, but Ill still save the day like Willis Reed, come through in the clutch like robbert fuckn horry, when I hear your sob story, I forget it quick like the brother of joe torre, takn you into the next age Im a digital feed, they nick named me the iron steed, cause not even broken bones can slow down my ultra hyper speed, pretty please... can you slow down and stop being the worlds greatest living entity, ill have you blind foldn like 'i dont know where they sendn me', youll get it good plenty, when I burst cats at the scene like bruce Lenny, the fourth side to the double album got you playn sitar, Im a rock star and I smash guitars!

A Very Artistic Video that I Made

Procastinating

Got some work to do. Got a lot of work to do. Dug myself a hole, and I am trying to get out. TIme ticks, it erases. Why couldn't things be easy, like when my dad broke both his wrists in the snow storm of 98. I stayed home all day and played donkey kong country 2. 7 hours of laboring on a paper. I think not. 7 hours of Donkey Kong 2, fuck yeah. THey asked me if I had been doing that the whole time. I said no. I said that I had stopped for a period. I did go to the bathroom atleast once. Running down the hall. Could I run down the hall now? Wow, I remember playing till I just couldn't take it anymore, like I was going to shit my pants. It was torture. But golly, it felt better the more I waited. I would here "don't worry its not going anywhere" but why. After a dehydrated day of social inadequacy, what could be better than drowning your sorrows in a fistful of keebler cookies and hours upon hours of video games. I was a good student I guess, but I don't remember studying, just doing homework occasionally on the kitchen table after dinner. Nintendo would call my name. Games like River City Ransom, prevented me from concentrating in class on some days. I faked sick so I could go home and play Mario Kart for Supernintendo. Ah that perfect comfort space. On my couch with shoes off, sipping soda, and eating popcorn. Tv and video games were everything to me. Its easy to see why I would sometimes prefer to sit home on that saturday night, or find a guilty pleasure in playing old video games, eating cookies, or watching that hour of family matters on a sunday afternoon. To say that those games didn't significantly alter my subjectivity would be ridiculous. As a matter of fact, I can see that in a rather overdetermined world, where cause and effect is always a bewildering process, megaman and Donkey Kong influenced me more than my teachers. I fed into the exoticism of Thailand when M Bison smashed me through a native woman's statue. I learned gender roles from the princess, and sexuality from Chun Li. Let me not reify, they probably just helped either justify or reject my father's opinions on the subject, but beating up homosexuals, women, Latino gang members, and the homeless in Final Fight had to have reinforced some exogenous hegemonic influences. And yes, on the bay stage, there are dudes in yellow jackets sleeping on the bench, which you often beat up unprovked. And ofcourse there was that message, stay off drugs. And not only did you stay off drugs but you beat up potential drug users. Regardless of the exact elements and processes we can safely say that beat em up side scrollers, especially final fight, were of a revanchist nature. Cody Hagger, and Guy, took the city back for the decent, heterosexual, white, male haggar. So the leader of the gang was a guy in a wheel chair, not a Jamacian drug dealer (see Seagal). It really didn't matter. Yes, yes, at the end you climbed a penthouse and avoided falling chandiliers (an icon of the rich), but realistically what most people would probably remember is the first stage or two where you kick the living shit out of people hanging out on street corners in a city plagued with urban blight. Everything is boared up. These people aren't human (well neither is your character), but the punching off the screen phenomenon that these games were often crticized for is pretty signficant. Why even see your opponent, when you can kill them off the screen. Another interesting thread is the lack of blood, pain, or permancy your enemeies experience when you smash them with a weapon such as a pipe. Your enemies, your other, simply gets knocked down and pops back up. The fading phenomenon of the mad gear gang is especially intersting. You have injured, and killed someone, but no you don't have to deal with the body, or contemplate what you have just done, they dissapear in seconds. No dead body disposal. This gang member is an insect, literally indistinguishable from the rest of his kind, ready to respawned at the next possible moment. When the city is saved, you are faced with the same task again. The city is never safe. A constructed demon is always out there to kidnap your girlfriend, wife, or daughter. Life in fear and stick to consumerism. Keep on pumping those quarters into the machine.

I hope to do this more completely at a later date

A Whale and a Seagull

A whale and seagull
are spending time together
in the sea, the one
with whales and seagulls,
when the whale groans,
"I've a thorn in my fin."

"How'd you manage that?"
asks the seagull.

"Building a swingset
for the little ones,
the little whales. Can you
pluck it out?"

In the sky, the sun
is tired out. The sea
is too big to heat.

"No, I can't pluck it out.
I stand on your back
all day, scratch you
wherever there's an itch.
Isn't that enough?"

"It hurts," cries the whale,
freshwater rolling down
his blunt whale head,
disappearing like a leaf
on an autumn forest floor.

"Besides," gulls the gull,
"it's too dangerous. I'll be dragged
under when you turn over,
or slapped comatose
if you flinch."

"I will be so still"--
the whale.

"No thanks."

"Fine, could you scratch
around my blowhole, please?"

"What are friends for?"

There is no wind. All the seaweed
swimming on the surface gossip
about the good-for-nothing kelp.
A bottle floats by, a bee
inside tapping on the glass. And
when the seagull scratches his buddy's hole
he is blown straight up
into and through a cloud, right
to the face of the tired sun,
who feeds and dresses his wounds
and joins in when the seagull
points and laughs at the grumpy,
thorny whale.

Whatever's happening beneath our feet

Grass grew up to our waists,
tickled my thighs and the hair
on my calves, while you stood,

bent in half, touching your toes
and letting the green blades
lick and taste your soft face

like they were tongues of the soil,
or the Holy Ghost planted itself
and hit an underground vein.

In this dream, you only bend
and I watch. You let the grass
slip inside your mouth

and now you can taste it,
whatever's happening beneath
our feet, deep down,

and I wonder why
six eight and four
are suddenly consecutive, and how

a blade of grass won't cut your gums.

The thing about independent wrestling shows

The ring was square
in the middle of the hall,
red white & blue ropes
letting us know where we were
lest we forget. The boys
and their fathers cheered
the Patriot, masked
in the colors of the ropes,
handing out miniature flags
to the lucky ones
in the front rows. They giggled
at the fat brown man's
hairy back, and when our hero
slapped the villain's flabby ass
the crowd flared
like an office fire.

"Terrorist!"
the children screamed
at the fat man, stage-named
after a spider-hole dictator.
They were seconds from spitting
at his foreign flag.
"You stupid Americans,"
he declared
in a fake accent.

The thing about
independent wrestling shows
is that there's always
a retarded boy
a foot taller and twice as old
as the ones around him,
waving a flag in the air,
believing it's all real.

After Mass

The car won't start after Saturday Mass.
Before, it rumbled to its spot
but now we see: it's out of gas.
Mom taps my shoulder. 'Take this can,
or canister, whatever it's called,
to the Exxon down the highway.
Be careful down the icy hill--
it's dark--wish you had a lighter coat--
lighter in color, not weight, I mean.
So, walk there, take your time,
try to stay beneath the trees
and their skinny limbs, away
from the road's shoulder. Or better yet
take the side streets, the backroads,
as much as you can--because that coat--
no one will see you until you're on
their windshield. You know what?
Wave your hand as you walk,
in the air like to a song that's slow
and full of joy. That way you'll be safer.
That way people will see. Here's five bucks,
we only need a gallon or so
to get out of this lot. Let the man
there fill the can. Try not to breathe
the fumes, or get any fuel on your hands.
You hear me? Let me give you a kiss.
Take your time. We'll be waiting, just like this.'

There's a Hess, I'm surprised she doesn't know,
half a mile closer. That's where I'll go.

Supple Tees

Would it be a sin for a christian
to be a millionaire or billionaire
and keep the money to themself?
and not tide? But spash
their money away, away
in like a mattress they sleep on?
Or in a flour jar, or in the whole
that is sunder the wood-working table,
write beneath the vice? Would it hurt
the christian's sole if they put the money
in a bath tube and pretended the bills
was the water, and the coins
was soap? Would he go to hell
if they took the millions dollars
and bought a golden bell
to live in? With a gold doorball
and even gold couches? What if he lived
in New Jersey? If he bought a whore
with all the money, and used like
silver condemns, and even if
she became his wife, yes, he is dammed,
but I'm having trouble
with the supple tees.



(Adapted from this message board post.)

I think I almost died

The lighting was off in the lunch room,
in one corner;
I could tell with one eye
and thought I had cataracts
spontaneously forming.
Anna straightened my change
so the bills fanned rigidly.
My wrist was tight. I snapped
my watch off, rubbed the skin
with a wet hand: sweat or tea?
Tea the puddle told me
next to the sugar shakers
and milk dispensers. Only tea
for now, but still my mind felt stifled,
smothered with a pillow. That shade
inside, though I saw the overhead glow
of electric light, remained until I sat
at my desk, by the wall windows,
by the morning light
reflecting off of everything
I'm hidden from.

A blank look

All I ever wanted
was a blank look, a curious gesture,
a Parkinson'd knee,
an adjustment of posture,
a spot of blush below the eye
glowing like a firefly,
a quaking breath
uncontrolled and muffled,
an ankle bouncing in place
like a dropped superball,
a sweat scent, foggy,
condensing on the window panes,
a fingernail tapping the beat
to some jazzy bloodsong,
a heartbeat I'd never see
but hear above the slushy street,
maybe feel if I had the nerve
to reach out a hand
and confirm what I'd always suspected.

Words are flat

Today I'm feeling shallow
my buddy-old-pal-o
and words are flat
as the paper they stick to.

What a thick Jew,
that man who robbed me
of my place in queue for the loo.
I hope the toilet seat

is uncomfortably warm
and full of angry invisible crabs
and his balls turn red from claws
and pinches, miniscule grabs.

I don't have to go anymore.
I think I'll sit on this curb,
watch that puddle, count the cars
that roar past, that don't disturb

it's placid face. A lake for ants,
that's what that is. If I were rich
I'd make waterskis by the tri-pair
and little flaming hoops to jump through.

Bees have no need for waterskis.
They could be the lifeguards,
if they get certified, of course.
Running an ant lake can be hard,

and we don't need a lawsuit.
That's the last thing. Shit.
That Corolla has no tact,
just plopped its tire right in it

and splashed me right in the nose.
And me without a hankie.
And me with a sock around my toes,
and me taking off my Newbies

and me with a sock on my face,
no, why did me do that, strange,
me is disgusting and dirty
and me will probably die from the plague

now. This curb has gotten old
fast, like how I was young once,
slow and to the point. Goodbye
is all I can say and forget, let it die.

Do you mind if I wait?

Do you mind if I wait? That wind,
I've never felt so cut up. My fingers
are hardly there, can't even bend
to meet my palm. Ten little integers,
I mean digits, frozen like fudgecicles.
Well, vanilla pudding pops, I guess.
My own fault. Riding my bicycle
on a day like this. I'm not the blessed
type, to hold on to homemade mittens
when I really need them. It's like
what happened to my Uncle Olet.
Drunk in Duluth, took home the wrong bike:
turned out to be owned by Mr. Tom Bodet.
I've got another you'd hardly believe...
Warm enough? I suppose. I'll just leave.

Snow is the color of our skin

Drunk on a futon
at four in the morning
can never be boring.

Your fingers shine in the dark
and your eyes gleam
like little ghosts,
or so it seems

from where I'm looking,
my head on a pillow
and yours in the air
like a sparrow,

like something light
and precious--I know;
your eyes aren't ghosts
but flakes of snow.

Snow is the color of our skin
when we're in from the sun,
and red is something else
altogether.

Red can be anger, I've read,
or courage, and of course
it means "Stop!" but for me
it's the color that bores

blissfully into my eyes
when we kiss
in this darkened state of grace,

and though I may nod off
like an addict in a corner,
the fact is the blood I see
through my thin eyelids
is moving this fast
because of you.

Palmful of phallus

Crispin Ennvict
hardly had a chance
with such God-given wrists,
limp and sloppy
and homoerotic,
and the disposition
of a foggy mirror. The man
who shook his hand
could be forgiven
a blush or flustered cough.
He'd put his twiggy fingers
tight together, his skin
always soft and warm
like he had a mini-spa
in his pocket. You'd reach
for a manly grip
and instead grab a palmful
of phallus. Not exactly,
but you get the point.
No one gets ahead that way,
except maybe in the fashion world
or dark tennis locker rooms,
rarely in business where
a man's strength and potential
is judged in those seconds
when he's touching another,
and today all I know
is where Crispin isn't.
I'll never forget his handshake,
his dead eyes blurred
from generations of Sicilian inbreeding,
how his dried-out lips curled
at my reaction, how my bones
could startle at something so soft.

Carelessness

That is true,
now that i think about it. And the increase
in earthquakes and bombings,
and the fact that a lot of countries want
the United states destroyed, and The U.N.
wants to tax globally. And Israel wanting peace.
WW3.
I do believe it is true
what all of you
have said here. It is somewhat a cop-out
to quit your job, and not take care of daily things
when it hasn't happened yet.
It's the expectation
(potentially miscalculated)
that brings people into a state of
carelessness. Carelessness
is not a Godly trait, by any means,
no matter the age of the world.
It's over when it's over, and we
cannot know when. But God
wants us to have faith in Him today.
God lives Today!
You can Experience God today!

The Bible tells us to watch and pray.
It also says that a fool folds
his hands and ruins himself,
but the wise man (something)
works in (something).
Proverbs.

It's very late, i'm going to bed.


*(Poem adapted from this message board post)

Co-worker on a Thursday Afternoon

She stretches her arm
and makes it do loops
like a trick plane
over her empty inbox
and mountain of butterfly
clips and mugs full of pens
and pens and markers,
the occasional highlighter
hiding like a suitor
who can't replace
a former love's smile
on his woman's face.

She streches up and out
toward her god, the one
that is not Mohammed's
because her god has a son.
Her hand is a fist
but not angry, just a ball
at the end of a dumb limb
that stiffens during
non-ergonomic keystrokes.

Both hands now, fingers
finishing the puzzle, bending
palm-first to the overhead
flourescence, bowing
like a tree in the wind
in her three-walled cubicle,
the final cracks of her knuckles
a deadened Amen.

Arcade Monsters

Sebastian's parents decided at the end of a three-hour dinner that they should renew their vows. They were in Vegas, after all, and it would be fun to have their own son serve as the ring bearer. Sebastian was darkening in a wizard on his children's placemat when they told him the plan, and after they finished their vodkas they were walking down the strip to the nearest chapel.

The chapel they found was small and triangular. A woman played the organ as Sebastian's mother walked down the aisle with a crooked smile, which was nice. Sebastian had her ring and his father's in his hands. They were wet now, his hands and the rings. The air conditioning wasn't working.

A tall man presided over the couple. He was white and had the seedlings of a beard poking through his chin. Sebastian's father was a man and his mother was a wife, and they kissed for a long time. The organ woman struck a chord, then swiped their credit card, and the renewed family was back on the smoggy sidewalk.

At the hotel Sebastian's mother sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back on her hands and supported by her bare arms. His father gave him two rolls of quarters. "This is for being a good ringboy," he said, and patted Sebastian on the shoulder. "Go play in the arcade. Try to beat all of the games, if you can." His father's breath burnt his nose, but Sebastian didn't care. He was happy to see his father happy, and he had quarters now. There was so much he could do with a roll of quarters, and now he had two. It was like having a chest of gold coins. He hugged his father and kissed his mother, and then his parents kissed each other, and that's how he left them.

*******

The hotel arcade wasn't the biggest he'd been to, not even close. It had about ten games, five lining each side wall, and an air hockey table guarding the wall opposite the entrance. No one was playing; all the other kids were probably asleep. Sebastian felt like an adult for being up so late. He walked around the room, reading the titles and watching the game demos. In front of Wrestlefest he kicked away a milk crate, the kind of thing he needed a year ago, and started playing, standing on his own two feet.

The Million Dollar Man was jawing away when he heard soft footsteps behind him on the thin carpet. He could see a silhouette in the screen, small at first and walking across the room, then bigger and stationary. He heard a man's voice from behind him: "Hey, you're pretty good." He was pretty good; Sebastian knew it. He was the fastest tapper he knew. His fingers were like lightning. He liked to call himself Merlin in his head.

"You like Mr. Perfect, huh?" the man said. Sebastian nodded and kept his eyes on the screen. "Do you know how to do the Perfect-plex?" Sebastian nodded again, but the man reached over him and took his hands. "Here, let me show you." The man's hands were big and white, and there was hair all over them, even on the knuckles. They were warmer than Sebastian's, like they'd been holding a mug of hot coffee, but they hit the buttons clumsily, and Mr. Perfect was pinned for a three-count.

"No!" Sebastian cried. He ducked beneath the arms around him and looked for another game.

"You could always add more quarters for energy. Hulk says so." Sebastian ignored him. "Have you played The Simpsons game?" the man asked Sebastian's back. Sebastian nodded. "I wish I could play it. But I ran out of money. Could I borrow a quarter?" Sebastian took a quarter out of his pocket and softly tossed it at the man's stomach. "Thanks, kid. You're a really nice boy. Most people aren't very nice to strangers."

There was a game called Ghosts 'n Goblins which Sebastian had never played. He put his quarter in, and he controlled a man in armor. He threw a lance at zombies and other colorful monsters. Sebastian wished his character had magic powers, because that's the only way to really kill monsters.

Sebastian died, as everyone does. He walked around and came to a basketball game in the corner. It was the kind with an actual hoop and actual balls, and the game counted how many shots you made. He couldn't reach the balls, though, so he walked past it, looking for the spurned crate.

"Did you want to play that?" the man said. He walked over next to Sebastian. "A big boy like you doesn't need a crate. I can lift you up if you want to play." Sebastian squeezed a quarter in his sweaty palm. He nodded and stood in front of the game. The man put his hands in Sebastian's armpits and lifted him until he was standing on top of the machine. There was a gate ahead of him, which locked the balls up until he put his money in. Then they would roll to his feet.

"Here, I'll use the quarter you gave me." The man started the game. There were digital notes playing "Charge!", and Sebastian got excited.

"I'm really good," Sebastian said. "I'm gonna be the next Michael Jordan."

"I bet you are, kid. Now shoot some hoops."

Sebastian bent over to grab a ball. It was huge in his hands, not like his child-size one at home. He chucked it at the hoop, brushing the bottom of the net. The man was holding him at the waist so he wouldn't fall, and he shot some more, getting closer every time. He must have been moving a lot, because the man held onto him by the waist of his sweatpants. "Don't want you to hurt yourself," the man said. Sebastian shot rapid-fire, then took his time. He threw a ball up with all his strength, and it felt like he was watching in slow-motion as it bounced off the rim and through the hoop. Sebastian pumped his fist in the air, and the man yelled "Yeah! All right!", and then Sebastian felt funny, like he was getting his temperature taken. He felt an evil presence in the room. He put his hands down and spoke in a low voice, chanting a spell he had written to kill monsters, and then the man stepped back, and the feeling went away. Sebastian jumped down on his own and walked out of the arcade.

"Where are you going? You didn't finish the game."

Sebastian cast a spell on the arcade entrance, and then on every third tile he stepped on. When the tiles became carpet, he enchanted the green boxes, but left the red ones alone. He took the elevator up to his family's room, and put a curse on the floor buttons. The curse was only meant for evil fingers, so he didn't feel bad. The door was locked when he go to the room, and he could hear his dad snoring when he put his ear against the hallway wall. He knocked and no one let him in. He was tired, though, so he sat with his back against the green door, took off his sneakers and put one on each side of him, because he had a spell that would create a forcefield between them, and he knew he would be protected.

A wizard with a purple coat and starry hat

It's called a 'window.' It's smooth
and flat and made of glass
and it's called a 'window'
because that's what it's called.
Don't call it a 'wind-no,'
despite all the logic
you want to conjure
to convolute the fact
that a window is named so
because it let the wind in.
This was in a former time,
of course, before we got clever
and melted our beaches
into see-through panes,
when there was nothing
to press your nose against
besides stone and metal,
dirt and grime, and not even
Merlin's magic could stop the cold
from penetrating your bones.
You've heard of him? A wizard
with a purple coat and starry hat.
That's as much as I could name.
That doesn't change the fact that
coughing all over this 'wind-no'
and drawing in the surface mist
is not itself a magic trick.
It's only hot and cold and moisture
and a million other things
we could measure
if we had the time, the tools,
and the reason of adults.

Lust on a Bench

A clown is throwing trash away
around the corner from a kissing couple
whose cold fingers cling to each other
and fit like a flesh pangea,
and it will only be a time until
their saliva begins to crystallize
and their lips fuse together
like braced pre-teens
kissing in a closet
among the oldsters' smoky trench coats
while their friends stand outside
giggling and watching a stopclock;
when will they learn
that lust is not a fire itself
but needs a flame below it
like a kettle or a popcorn popper,
that the cold can seep in
and freeze the blood,
crack the veins
and the foundation, even,
that the clown has it right,
as his red wig bobs
and makeup comes off
on everything he touches,
as he places the discarded
in metal bins
like his actions are a panacea.

A blinding shine

Rumor has it
a farmer once found
Happiness
at the bottom of a well
in a damp leather attaché case
wrapped in rusted iron chains.
It was there when
he pulled up the bucket
so his thirsty retriever
could lap from it,
and he had planned himself
to maybe splash some water
onto his tongue
with his soil-caked palms.
So he threw it back down
not knowing what he'd found,
and lowered the wooden bucket
for his companion, and rested
it on the well's stone surface
so he could sate himself.
As you've already guessed,
the sun was a blinding shine,
and if you told him now
he'd be hard-pressed
to discern the difference
between that moment
and what was in the case.
He might even
give you a quizzical look
and scratch some soil
across his brow,
but it's not something
one talks about, as if
you could ever explain.

She's got legs

She's got legs
and a terrible habit
of bumping into corners.
Such brilliant bruises
appear overnight,
blue and hazy, swirly
like a galaxy.

My rabbit died from neglect.
There was a summer storm,
and while my dinner was warming
in the oven, or maybe while
my brother and I
played tic-tac-toe
on the kitchen tiles,
poor Penny's hutch blew over,
and the metal gating broke loose
and punctured poor Penny's gut.
He was still alive, shivering,
you know, shaking off
that extra energy,
and he wouldn't blink,
his eyes were frozen black holes.
I wasn't even the one to find him.

Sometimes I'll find the marks
on her legs before she does,
and she won't remember
the culprit. I can't criticize.
My hands have secret slits
from sorting sheets of paper,
and I won't even notice a new one
until I see a red splotch
in the white above a signature,
or a streak across a manila folder.
It's really impossible to erase
that kind of stain. But at least
bruises heal, evaporate
in the skin, and at least
there are other parts
that won't bump a wooden desk
or car bumper. At least she has lips
and she knows how to use them.

An Adequate Opening?

The infant crowned through a red mess. The doctor reached inside and pulled him out in relative silence, only the beeps of machines around him and the nurses and the father looking down at the spent mother. The infant cried, dripping in umbilical disarray, and was shown to his father, who glanced once and nodded, his eyes drawn back to his wife whose eyes were closed, as if she were only sleeping.

They asked him for a name later, the father. A name for the survivor. It's likely the thing that had transpired was still on his mind. She had to have been on his mind, her name ringing "Judith" like church bells. The nurses knew he was grieving, too, and knew he would continue for, they hoped, an appropriate amount of time. The question was meant to provide stasis: grieve for your wife, but here, there is tangible joy. But he was not ready, not yet. So when they came upon him, not with forms, out of respect, just an index card and a pen and said, "Mr. Newbell, a name for your son?" he took the card and pen and leaned against the smooth but imperfect concrete hospital wall and wrote: Judas Newbell.