Cold, Dull Knives

they're putting the cold knives into her again
not even heating them up
they don't want that flat steel to go in too easy
too smooth
want em to take a little elbow
a little sweat
they wanna have to get mean to get em into her
they keep em in a freezer most of the year
only take the things out once in a great while
so you can imagine how cold they are when she feels em
they keep them right next to the ice tray, even.

and they're not very sharp either
i've touched em
they keep em dull as an afterschool bible club
for the very same reason they keep em cold
they like it more if they have to get mean
don't ask me why they do it
don't ask me why they like it
i don't hang out with those assholes


...
so i know i haven't posted in a while. it's been a rough few months. but i've got some new projects in the oven. THE BOILERMAKER is def going to happen soon, and then there are two new poetry series that i can hopefully cull as couple chapbooks out of.

speaking of, i'm still working on my debut chapbook, INVINCIBILITY POTION VOL.I. so that may be ready sometime before Judgement Day, i guess.

anyway, this one is about a girl i know.
-andy

Beautiful, Beautiful Ugly D

Dude made me okay with
calling my girl "Baby"
Dude was fast and hid churning, rolling waves
behind the widest smile any river ever wished for
all that turmoil
the same as our frowns and screams
and glass doors temper-tantrum'd into rainbows
on dirty cement
but with a grin
and eyes trying to fold themselves smaller
into less threatening shapes

When the smiling wasn't enough, Homey got determined
plucked and pegged and tuned strings
from one cheekbone to another
fingers to neck, softly
Kid strummed them
Kid made you smile right back
wide enough to make all the bullshit look stupid
all that turmoil
so fruitless

Friend got punched
and maced and cuffed
and talked to like his face
was a bad joke
a rude comment at a polite event
Dude didn't flinch
Dude just stretched those corners to destiny

Some of us, the lucky ones
will always carry an image
in the pockets where problems aren't allowed
a fuzzy photograph of a house He built
a house for smiles
a house where the bullshit didn't know the password

Baby was maybe too fast
and maybe shoulda slowed down
but he got to where he was going and
sometimes ahead of the rest of us.
Baby might've crept into some bedrooms
that he shoulda steered clear of
but Baby tickled the lucky ones
Absolutely Pink.

...
For Raul, 1980-2010
i love you, Baby, and i'm gonna miss you for the longest time.
-andy

White Grins

Lotsa white grins
starting to look awful ghoulish.
like a hidden hangar for billions of buzzards
all waiting on that jaw to open
all waiting on my surrender with a single cough.

my skin's gonna peel off in their
sardonic pecks
like wet Budweiser labels
just another empty bottle in the sun
without a name.

white grins at the restaurants
in foreign realms under key lights
white grins at the department stores that
i can't afford to breathe in.
white grins who've never heard a good joke
as funny
as mean as their own barricades.
white grins, barbed and electrified.

Lotsa Budweisers in the sun.
Lotsa Luck with the toothbrush, pal.
My grin will never be so white.
Carrion can't have the vultures on its side.

Bones bleach like a rich, satisfied smile.

As Soon As This Bottle's Empty

As soon as this bottle's empty, we'll rise
and though there'll be decades of clean-up
we've all worked in bars
and restaurants and shit like that.
we get a broom in our hands and it'll be like
riding a bike.

it won't be any kind of party, but it's okay
because we'll have killed that bottle.
once we sweat out the asshole
and drink enough water
we'll be good.

we'll buy whatever we need and
then maybe work on what we want.
see, we're rich.
we're rich
in piano lessons and offensive jokes
and first-aid tips and Aesop's fables.
we remember how to do push-ups or jumping jacks.
we can diagram sentences.
we can count to any number
as long as a few of us still have fingers.
we can count forever.
we'll be fine.

we've got the Double-Jointed
and the Hyperactive
the Bilingual and the Big-Boned
and the Obsessive-Compulsive.
we've got seven seas and stormclouds of
raw, natural talent - enough to
cover this Earth and then tuck it in again
after it dries out and yawns.

Y'all might wanna start building a boat
because as soon as this bottle's empty
we're gonna rise.


...
so i guess this one's a little positive.
i've always been interested in that notion of "threat vs. promise"
this could probably be seen as a meditation on that. or maybe i'm just looking for excuses. one of the two.

what's interesting to me about this is that i wrote it at least a month ago. before the recent patch of sourness i've gone through, and the subsequent shaking-it-off. things were looking pretty damn grim for a minute there, and in the last couple days i've found some reasons to smile... some not-so-horrifying headlines have been leaking through.

one of my biggest issues with this whole Being-an-Adult business is the concept of self-motivation. i've spent so long now just going with the flow that it's difficult to reclaim the assertive discipline i had to struggle to find when i was much younger. i'm not used to it. i procrastinate like a motherfucker. and when i'm all out of distractions, i tend to just dwell on my failures - lashing and whipping myself for putting off everything i want to do. this leads to a form of depression, which in itself is a pretty major distraction. before i know it, i'm talking myself out of all kinds of things. every now and then, i snap out of it, flip a switch, say "fuck this, i'm a goddamn dynamo!" but it usually fades after one or two minor accomplishments and i grab at some distraction like it's a type of reward and the cycle starts all over again.

i've got some pretty amazing and talented friends. they help me through it. bit by bit i can feel myself (and more importantly, ACKNOWLEDGE myself) gradually working my core through the mess and into some brighter progress. the extremities follow. it's subtle, but exponential. so, really, i guess this piece is concerned with that. and how i'm not the only one caught and flailing. so many people i know are in similar positions, similar traps, with similar lofty hopes about crushing the bullshit and getting up on the ambition ride. it's a difficult time for all of us. especially we creative-types, who have been known to smash ourselves in the face with one kind of mind-numbing substance or another just to silence the screams of all our old prayers realizing the world hates them and wants them dead.

this is just my promise to everyone, my invitation. let's actually do it for once. let's actually pool our resources and stories and skills and stop fucking around. i need help. you need help. let's help each other. because we could do some awesome things if we just gave ourselves the chance. we could build some breathtaking monuments. let's be grown-ups about this.
-andy

Supposed to Keep Going

we're driving toward the sun
she's not in the thing with me
not exactly
but we're driving toward the sun

and i know i'm supposed to keep going
all the way to where the crushed glass meets
the trashy salt and all those finned ghosts
all the way to the endzone
with possession

dodge the stink
hurdle the roadkill
drive to the sun
until i drown in its bathtub

i wanna nap
and not know when i'll wake up
wanna have no faint idea about it
but i'm supposed to keep going
i know this

she's got something she needs to see
and she can't get there alone
can't even get there with me really
maybe i'm crazy
because she's not in the thing with me
not exactly

but we're driving toward the sun
and my face is melting
my ears are horrible telephones
with eight billion friends
and nobody to answer them
i'm so tired.

i'm so tired of driving.


...
well, there's a new one.
-andy

August Tenth

it was like some terrible tailgate party
starved of laughter
all the bulbs held red for miles
like everybody wanted to tell me to stop
it was too late though
i was already here

the flares on the asphalt somehow made it worse
and the music didn't help
there was too much of it
too many tinted windows
and too many bored or frightened
or hateful faces grimaced by too many nightmares
in the windows that weren't

the uniforms were weary and lifting the body from the shoulder

it was covered
thank Providence, it was covered

even when the lights went out
and the smoke stopped grumbling
stopped telling me to stop

even when the blood started trickling
and then rushing again
it was still terrible
i was here
but i didn't get it
didn't know where

it was all just a big swing around the everything
like i was some particle
accelerating
no prayers other than a collision in a billion years
like the tailgate party was a seance
or a tarot reading

i was a wandering spectre who
couldn't find a hallowed smile
to lay down in
Resurrection Mary
with a car

but at some point
a friendly voice put a palm out flat
and flexed its fingers toward itself

i was alive
i circled the length of it
the clammy premonition defeated
i was here

and when i got out of the car
the entire street smelled like flowers


...
so i realize it's been a while - almost a month - since i last posted on here. i meant to put something up for my mom's birthday and mother's day. but i didn't. i'm a horrible son. i'll have those pieces up soon, i think.

i've been writing plenty and busy working on a bunch of other projects and undertakings (details on some of them will be forthcoming). i've also been sort of lazy, i guess. or maybe just afraid. or maybe some part of me wondered if anybody would miss my work. i'm not entirely sure.

this one is about driving into Los Angeles on my big move out here. that first night, there was a bad, fatal accident on the 10 and then i got way lost. thankfully the Little Joy was only a couple blocks from my new home and i got to drink a bunch of beer with my new roommates/good friends.

anyway, i plan/hope to get back to regular posting and that. cheers.
-andy

Crumple

yeah, like i threw myself in.
because it was easy
i had so many creases and folds from before
that i crumpled up like it was nothing
didn't even have to put any rage into it
it just happened
i just gave in all the right places

and i was light
so i went far
i threw myself in
all the way in
so fast i swear i heard some asshole's ears pop
my wake changed the arrangement of a girl's hair
or two, maybe two

but i went so far
so fast and so far away
it was hard to find me when it was over

and i had crumpled so easily
that i had crumpled so tight that
it was hard to recognize me when i opened up again
when it was over

not sure i ever quite got totally smoothed out
but
i'll probably never throw myself that far again

probably never crumple that much
and throw myself all the way in.
not after that shit, probably.


...
i'm sure it's pretty easy to decipher what this one - and the one before it, for that matter - is about. right?
-andy

Finally Heaved That Corpse or Stink & Forgiveness

finally heaved that corpse up and out of the bed
got sick of it hogging the fuzzy blanket
and the cool sides of all the pillows

got sick of it fucking my shit up
got sick of the goddamn smell
like somebody left their religion out
long after it soured and turned brown
got sick
and sicker

finally hacked its limbs from it
had to saw through bone and snap em off
had to break the whole thing down
into pieces that didn't look at me so crooked
pieces that sneered in a way i could laugh at

i'll say it was a holy, bloody mess
and it made me even sicker for a minute
and i had to open the forsaken windows
and strike twelve matchbooks down to nothin
had to let the neighbors see and
get a few major lungfuls of all the crap
in all that smoke
pouring out of the scene
bright by over nine-hundred candles
smudging the walls perfect again

but i didn't burn the body
i didn't want to choke or vomit
i just threw it in a couple black garbage bags
and tossed it in the dumpster
while the landlady's family gawked
their eyes welling up with stink
and forgiveness

i finally heaved that corpse up and out of the bed
feel better now
i can get some decent sleep
maybe have some lucid dreams
just gotta be careful and
not let anything else crawl under the covers
and die there.

Viking Standard

lots to do
up and away from this
this puzzling scene: a funeral mound
of pillows gathered
from too many houses
the pyre pile of paperbacks
and magazines
and newspapers nobody'll ever read
looking at me like, "hey buddy
where's the torch?
we were promised a torch."
but all my matchbooks are under other things
like some maybe abandoned poems
short stories
and there's too much to do

and all of it isn't here
it's all up and away
maybe out the door
it should be out the door, but
the hollow cardboard
the eaten shoes
the blue jeans with the crotches bit out
and all the junk
all the junk it all just crowds around
this bed
this puzzling scene
and it hollers and it all wails
and it makes bullshit demands

what a mob!
what a truly unruly collection of spoiled
maladjusted little bastards!
all bullying their way into the day's schemes
like suits and ties and bad attitudes
spitting on authorship
running around Hollywoodland in farty little cars
all parking and sneering at the valet
what a mob!
i can't find any of their keys and
they won't stop yelling at the borders of my bed
won't stop spitting on authorship.

if i could find those matchbooks i'd send the whole place
up to some kind of Viking standard
i'd make it all like Darth Vader under the fireworks
and the Ewok song
but all that sulfurous potential is hiding
all that flame is smothered by other things
probably in weird places
near the empty cans
and emptier glasses, stacked like Russian Dolls
who are all the same size and fighting for a place
near the coffee mugs full of pens & markers.

nah. the fire's all gone, man.
it's hiding and it doesn't want to be found.

and that's fine, really
that's okay
because there's so much to do
and it's all up and away
out of here.
i gotta get to it
gotta throw off the junk mob and their crowding
and their honking
just push past the piles and climb over the pillows
and forget about the buried fire and all the
murder and suicide and orphans
and get to the lots to do
just get to it
gotta get out of here
gotta get up and away.
there's so much to do
and i gotta get to it.

For My Father, On His 61st Birthday

Wayne
was given his breath down there, deep and snug in the heart of the thing
maybe someplace where it meets the stew
around the border of the gut
right along the dotted line
Wayne
loved that whole deal
despite the heavy temper he had to dodge.
Squeezed between all the women
all the girls, he stretched his sleeves
over his hands
and learned to take the quietest steps.
he crossed the creaking floorboards
and walked down the stairs.
He tiptoed through whatever it was
that bothered
whatever it was that crashed old cars
into trees
or other old cars.

Wayne
caught cowhide and pigskin
in dirt-smeared fingers that held it all tight
like detasseling corn
or like he never wanted anybody to ever leave.
Wayne
found his new religion and the strength in his legs
under the skin of a cold body of water
found how great his arms could hug
along the steel rails and ties
along the green rows and mosquitos
under the insistence of a hot star who puts its palms
on us all.

Wayne
saw more.
Africa and Central America
Wayne
watched the bad cells gallop with weapons
down the fragile corridors of whole families, painting
the walls ugly and punching holes
watched the helicopters disappear behind treetops, smoking
watched in confusion as lots of things just went plain wrong.
Wayne
made up his mind about war
and blood
and the things a person owes to the living
and the not-so.

Wayne
makes up his mind about these things and others
every day
year in and year out.

Dad
gave us these things.
The baseball and the football and the pond
and the railroad and the sun and the piano
and the clarinet.
Dad
sees his sons and smiles.
Dad
gives us these things every day
year in and year out.

Wayne laughs and holds us like he never wants anybody to ever leave.
We won't, Dad.
We won't ever leave.


...
i'm a day late getting this posted. 61 years ago, yesterday, my father - Wayne Arthur Sell - was born. Happy Birthday, Dad.
-andy

A Good Cast Deserves Repeating

Last night, I dreamt that I was
a United Artist
and everyone in the breezy gazebo
and everyone on the liberal terrace
and everyone near the ice sculpture swan
including Fairbanks and Flynn
tipped hats and raised glasses to me
perhaps mistaking me for a Nihilist fresh out of UFA
or imported from Svensk
and Lon Chaney gave me a conical cap
and Valentino gave me a sabre in need of sharpening
and Harold Lloyd taught me how to take a fall
Gish, Bow and Pickford
all professed their undying love for me
but declared their leading men jealous rivals
with no patience for co-players, famous or otherwise
or Europeans.
So i flared my nostrils on fish-hooks,
leaped from a balcony to swing from a crystal chandelier
and crashed through the elaborately set dining room table
rotating just before impact
to displace the blow
but they were not impressed
and would not lean in for a kiss to melt an Audience
of a Nation.
D.W. proposed a toast to my Apathy
but i, ashamed, refused to drink to it.
Otto Preminger and G.W. Pabst offered me work
but i declined.
Frank Capra wrote some clever jokes with which to woo
on a cocktail napkin
but he tore them up when i confessed that i could not pay
or give him credit.
He over-tipped the waiter and we were friends.
Fatty Arbuckle loudly announced that he knew plenty
of nice girls who would accompany me to a hotel room
for a few hours
but grew disgusted and left when i used the word "love."
And when the roaring engine of William Wellman's wings
stole the crowd's attention away, i knew the end of a good evening
had arrived, and was bitter.
Surely enough, i was instructed not to talk or to sing
or to dance or to reference myself
(earlier in the evening, they'd lynched Vertov for that very offense).

I was only to watch.

And Murnau told me i'd never work in this town again
when i asked where Sergei was
and i went home, escorted by a Lumiere brother on each arm
to eat popcorn and play my organ
in a dark room
with lights on the floor

And Melies came over in search of a shoulder to cry on.

...
wrote that one about eight years ago, give or take. the TCM Classic Film Festival starts in Hollywood today, and i thought this a fitting invocation.
-andy

Said I Should Swallow It All

the clown told me i should stop writing about death
he said love stories were the new thing, the way of the future
i laughed, said tomorrow ain't been penned yet
he laughed harder, all "exactly, because
you've been too worried about the suicides and murders
and accidents n shit."
i told him i didn't want to talk about it anymore
the clown said he couldn't hear me anyway
said my mouth was too full of bullets
said i was stuffing em in there faster'n i could
spit em out.

the clown told me i should just swallow it all
let my tummy hurt for a while
take a shit
move in with the future
eat it out
buy it a ring
said i should get on this with this motherfucker
already

i told the clown i didn't appreciate his familiarity
but that i'd think about his things anyway
said sometimes the death poems are really about love
more than the death shit
said i had some places to be.

[a few from the old first notebook]

"Carlo"

A.
A man holds all his hope in a bottle
in his hand, standing in the middle
of a street, in the middle of a battle.
In the middle of his chest brews
an ending, beginning with the bottle.

Z.
A man lies in the street, all his hope unfolding
around his head in a crimson halo... dreams drunk
from a hole by asphalt... a pistol-round shell-casing
lies yards away, satisfied with its pop, it's punch
... spit and spent and aspirations still
spilling from the man's face. Face down or face up,
face it, this face-off fakes out fists unthrown.
This is not the final argument. Not all have flown
from this fight. Some still stay. Some still stand,
and all will still scream until this dream finds
something other to sip... something sweeter
than sanguine and Molotov cocktails... some water
perhaps... some blood that stays blue..
Carlo, our comrade... we have still not forgotten.

...

"The Eyes of Czolgosz"

And the cries come from the observation bleachers, "Kill this Anarchist!"
Leon, they may ask why you didn't save a bullet for yourself
but that question never reflected upon itself
in your eyes.
Leon, they may say you murdered an innocent, benevolent,
heaven-sent President
but that statement never had to pay rent while bent
on the knee of a tyrant.
Leon, now your hope's spent and the barrel's gone cold
your throat, dry.
Friends call you "traitor"
Comrades come to your cell to grin closed teeth
like prison bars
and blink tearless eyes like electric chair farewells.
Leon, I feel your gunshot filling my lungs
with every chamber-loading breath.
My heart revolves, my tongue clicks.
Leon, I never doubted you.
Emma and Max and I never doubted you.
Let McKinley be only the beginning
let our cries reload and fire again
and again and again and again and again
and again and again and again and again
and AGAIN!
Let them all fall as we exhale.
Leon, we knew your name was not Nieman.
Leon, your pulse brought us Sacco
and Vanzetti and Durruti and Spain and Paris
and Seattle and Carlo and petrol bombs
and bricks leaving hands
like invocations leaving mouths
bodies leaving feet
feet leaving ground
blood leaving holes punched by
bullets leaving pistols.
Leon, your time is our time
and our time is all time
and all time is now.
Right. Fucking. Now.
Revenge for Valliant, Leon!
Long Live Anarchy, Leon!
Attentat, Leon! Attentat!
Czolgosz! Open Your Eyes!

...

"I Am Talking About Fucking Up Our Sundays"

We turn drums & rotors
tear the fucking tag off this mattress
erase the FBI from this video.

We trouble this square.
Instead of asking,
"Why can't I see pictures in these clouds?"
Like smoke between teeth
fingers between ribs.

We rake the flats of our knife blades
across the bars, like smoke between teeth.
The escape
is in the cafeteria riot.
It is inevitable.
We trouble this square.
We turn drums & rotors.

Because
We drove like a barricade
to protect the schoolbus.
And then another one came.
And we had to get aggressive.

...

"I see you..."

I see you. You see me.
And someone else may see us.
Else may be a wall that
we may, or may not,
bounce a ball off.

...
okay. so, i was looking through my very first notebook for something to use for my next editing experiment post. i figured it would offer the greatest challenge, as it is quite painful for me to look at the stuff i wrote during that period. really. most of it ranges from cringe-inducing to atrociously inexcusable. it is bad writing.

it is crawling at its lowest and most awkward.

however, while trudging around in that poorly-lit sewer, i found a few gems that i'm actually a little proud of, or at least find kinda interesting. "Carlo" is a piece i wrote about Carlo Giuliani, an Italian anarchist who was killed by riot police during the G8 protest on January 19, 2001. it is one of VERY few political poems in that notebook that doesn't obnoxiously or desperately rhyme, and of those, i think it's one of the two most sincere. tied for that honor is "The Eyes of Czolgosz," about McKinley assassin Leon Czolgosz. i had just read Emma Goldman's autobiography, and was very moved by her brief, haunted relationship with that dude. as you can probably tell, i considered myself an anarchist at that time and was very into the militant aspect of the movement and its colorful, often violent history. i think i was maybe more just fascinated with the imagery, dynamism and drama of it all, and i had a strong affinity for tragic figures. i'm still very much a socially liberal dude who thinks the vague tenets of anarchism are a pretty awesome notion, but i understand the limitations and have long since denounced the idea of holding onto isms and specific scopes of belief. and i shouldn't have to offer this disclaimer, but i will, for the cheap seats: NO, i do not believe that political assassination is a viable or practical means of protest in this age of complexity.

Fun Fact: for anyone who may be familiar with the poet Jose Araguz, "The Eyes of Czolgosz" was his favorite of my work while we were in college, even after i started writing better.

those last two are just little things i found in my digging that i think are WAY better than about 99.9% of the actual completed "poems" that beat up, purple Mead composition book holds. a prize to anyone who can tell me where i got the title for that first one. the second is about a weird, term-free relationship i found myself in, long before i realized that "term-free" isn't so much a reality as an excuse.
-andy

He Straightens His Tie

And he straightens his tie
and adjusts his collar like
he's got X-Ray Vision but wishes
he didn't
like he's made of steel but would
rather know what it feels like
to get cut
just to at least know he's got
some blood swishing around
inside him.
The X-Ray Vision doesn't work
on mirrors
and you can tell he doesn't
listen to Hip Hop
and he probably calls it
"Rap Music" like he doesn't
even know nor care what "rap" means
like he's never actually thought about it
and he doesn't actually consider it to be "music."
He probably calls it "Rap Music" like
he might as well be putting scary pictures
on magazine covers and
knocking over tenements
maybe with people still inside them.

And he thinks this whole
thing he's got going on is
a burden because maybe
he doesn't believe in blessings
at all - mixed, sacred or
otherwise.

And he'll never be the Man of Tomorrow.
No matter how much we need him to be.


...
another sorta recent one.
-andy

All Just the Same to the Chessboard

If it's all just the same to the Chessboard
then it doesn't really matter how many moves it takes
for all the everything you have in your hands
to get took away or tipped over and
sobbed about.
And the kids who say they're pawning you off
at the bar ain't never had to hawk a saxophone
for the five or fifteen minutes it took
to get fixed and then fucked
on the Far Side of a Bum Horse anyway.
All maybe just squawking junkies
without the genius.
So what does it matter
if the Board don't care?
Those Birds ain't never tasted True Blue
so fuck 'em.
Like it's all just the same to Paris
to Kasparov
to the Deepest Color of the Ocean or any simple sea
named after Whoever
where there's all that swimming and
all that sinking.
Where there's all those moves without
any fucker or computer keeping count
no clock to slap
aside from the sandy bottom you hit
or the crisp surface you break
or the reef that scrapes blood from your belly
to stink up the whole place and get it crazy
like it's all the just the same to space


...
decided to combat all that old with a little new. this is my most recent piece. i wrote it in a mad dash the other night at a bar (4100 in Silver Lake, to be precise) after a day of junk food and beer and whiskey with my brother and some friends. Not sure if any of that's relevant, but full disclosure seems to fit the theme of the poem, i suppose. so, in that spirit: we also went to Cha Cha Lounge and had Hungry Howie's pizza for lunch. and played Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 on the xbox. i mostly alternated between Thor and Luke Cage.

-andy

[An Experiment in Editing]: Ambassadors

[2003]:

Wrapped up in syntax and soap-bubble birth
vexed by spiders and sapphire blitzkrieg
in spirals
and some people drive through the
Midwest and get the fucked-up idea
that space is nothing more than
absence and lack
but voids attract activity with vacuous
velocity and i don't see too many
of you moving to Iowa.
So maybe the black hole is the coastal cityscape
skyscraper starships sucked
in and stuck
because the plains are so full
that mountains that try to reside there
are flattened and swallowed.
The Dakotas, Ojibwe, Oglala, Lakota
occupancy firecode
packed more than just passing through
can bite off and chew.
Their whole highway haunted
because celebrities are just
ghosts kept from leaving
the flesh by flashbulbs
and trapped motion
simulated by repetitive imagery
and the certainty of isolation may be
a murderous cretin
but what's more certain than steam under
streets and stories stacked statically above?
What's more bloodthirsty than that
concrete fact?
Displacement and misappropriation perhaps
but we spill and embezzle ourselves
like the guilty little fucks we are
and leave our homes empty
skeletons with only the memory of the
organs they held.
We hit those wormholes
and suffer whiplash at every attempt
to look back while leaving.
Maybe we are like the mountains and forests
that place doesn't need
or maybe we're all headed back there in
the end somehow anyway and just don't
notice
too concentrated on the step to be
concerned with the walk.
Expatriates, ambassadors, tourists, and



[2010]:

Some people drive through the Midwest
and get the fucked-up idea
that space is nothing more than
absence and lack
but voids attract activity with speed
and danger and
i don't see too many of you moving to Iowa.
So maybe the black hole is the coastal cityscape.
Skyscraper starships sucked in
and stuck.
Crashed in a vaccum inhaling
an infinite density and a collection of wreckage.
Maybe the plains are so full and thick
that mountains that try to reside there
are flattened and swallowed and
become the rich earth, become the wall
or get thrown out like there's a bottomless centrifuge.
Bounced like they violated the firecode of
the Ojibwe, the Dakotas, the Lakota, the Chippewa
the Oglala
and somebody had to go. We all had to go.
Maybe the occupancy is packed more than just-passing-through
can bite off and chew up and digest.
Those greedy jaws have eyes that dwarf their stomachs and
they don't get it. Don't eat healthy.
They gorge and choke - guts splitting at seams imagined
into place.
The Midwest knows when to say when
when to burp and excuse itself and catch a nap.
And the certainty of isolation may be
a murderous cretin, indeed
but what's more certain than steam under
streets and stories stacked statically atop
one after the other after another?
What's more inevitable than the fall?
What's more bloodthirsty than that
concrete fact?
Displacement and misappropriation perhaps
but we spill and embezzle ourselves
like the guilty fucks we are, like
somebody's gonna measure us by the markings
by the spaces we can fill elsewhere.
We leave our homes empty
skeletons with only the memory of the
organs they held.
We hit those wormholes
and suffer whiplash for every attempt
at backward glance, considering
our speed and our danger.
Maybe we are like the Mountains
who that place doesn't need.
Maybe we fucked around and got spit out
our wonderings too deadly and fast.
Too much to move around in a space already so full
of space itself. And we set to wandering
not because we wanted to.
But because the Midwest wanted to teach us a lesson
about sharing alike
and how to make room.
All piles lock arms with gravity.
All heaps struggle like all trajectories arc back
to the windless ground.
Maybe we're all headed back there in
the end anyway and just don't
notice
too concentrated on the step to be
concerned with the walk.
Expatriates, ambassadors, tourists, and


...
you may have noticed that i've been posting a lot of older pieces lately. in the process, as i type them in this little box here, i've been editing them - adding little fluorishes and cutting bits of fat. but i thought i'd try something a little different with this one. the seven-year-old version remains intact, exactly as one would find it in the notebook in which i originally scribbled it. for the remix, i just copied and pasted and then went through and fucked around with it. how does the comparison look? personally, i'm partial to the second version, but i still think it needs some work. it's a little chunky in some places, while a touch too frail in others. like popeye's arms, perhaps.

a note about the last line: whenever i read this one aloud, i would have a last noun after that "and"... i tried to improvise it, see how i was feeling that night, about that particular performance, etc. most often it was "corpses." i think once it was "insects" (which i rather like now) and only one time did i just leave it at the "and." some others i'm thinking of now include "attractions", "soulmates", "widows", and "carnivals."

oh, and about that beginning in the original version: i used to have this really annoying habit of just writing down random shit to get started on something. a lot of my poems from that era have these opening lines that have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the piece - subject or style. just verbal masturbation to get me warmed up, i guess.

-andy

An Ode to Chow Yun Fat

He's the Chinese Steve McQueen,
Pirouetting 'round bullets on my screen,
A concerned hitman,
A gun in each hand,
He washes his tortured soul clean.

He looks real cool in a suit and tie,
Maintaining panache as bullets fly,
He takes a deep breath,
As he's sized up by death,
And that badass spits right in its eye.


...
i wrote that when i was 17. for AP English. in High School. it's one of four or five poems i wrote for that class (including Haiku). the class that made me decide to start writing poetry. the class that made me want to be a poet. the other three that i can remember were about a break-up, with the death of blues legend Junior Wells as a backdrop, and my trombone - both sonnets (elizabethan and petrarchan), and a technopagnia about man's relationship with religion (in the shape of the Crucifixion).
one day, i will find and post the first poem i remember ever writing (i was 8-years-old and it was about Halloween).

thanks to Eneasz Brodski for randomly posting this thing on my facebook wall immediately after i updated with the "Under the Starzzzzz" piece. strange, indeed.

-andy

Under the Starzzzzz

I want to wake up to find myself
pissing off a helicopter who hovers
above Mt. Rushmore.
I want to fall asleep and
hit the forest floor running desperately
from the Huntress Ghosts of Long-Dead Loves
who try as they might, can't snort enough
antihistamines
or coke
to force my scent from their faces
I want a shitty U2 song blasting from a boombox
that I throw mercilessly against the
concrete knife-hand of a highway divider
surrounded by the burning rubber
twisted metal wreckage of a thousand brake pedals
pressed down just a fraction of a hesitated moment
too late to walk away from
while a mass choir candlelight vigil stands
in a semicircle, seventeen mouths deep
humming the elegiac chorus to
"Season of the Witch" by Donovan.

Fuck Dreams.
I want the waking world to be splashed
and peppered with hot sauce wrung from
the charred skeletons of burnt offerings
in sacrifice to a god too fat on tragedy
to fuck around with appetizers

But too often sunlight finds me taking
cold showers in the torrent of bad blood
gushing from the faucet-head slashed wrists and
throats of all the girls I've dated.
Or speaking about change, not proactively
not with confidence
but with all the hushed, remorseful dynamism
of eulogies for miscarriages
and abortions
to the arrhythmic din of a dozen hundred keyboards
clacking away without the slightest shred of consciousness
most notes in the symphony ghosted with
fluorescent sighs of defeat.

Bravo. Bravo. Author. Encore.
Encore.
White lie time sheets serving maximum sentences
on deathless stands.
Most mornings I'm a witness
heaving forged testimonies onto piles begging for the torch.
Most mornings I need to be swimming in whiskey & cola
just to gasp for air.
And if any of this seems pathetic, Congratulations.
You must not live with your parents.
You must not work a job that hates you.


...
i think this one is about three years old. maybe more. yeah. more. i've tweaked it by a word or two here or there. it's one of approximately five poems i wrote in the almost-two-year period that i last lived in Denver. the notebook i pulled the piece from is mostly large chunks of blank white, and i don't think i'll ever fill it. i leave it empty to remind me that late-2005-to-mid-2007 was not a prolific nor particularly proud time for me. i'm glad to be gone from there, though there are plenty of things about that time-and/or-place that i love. i'm glad i no longer live with my parents (though i do miss them often). and i'm glad i no longer work in a cubicle in an office building that acts like it wants me dead.

-andy

Crazy Brain & Skin

It's Crazy how
my Brain can still remember her Skin
how soft it feels, like
right down to the dead dust mites
the micrometer
It's fucking crazy.

It flips through the files quicker
than anything
and brings up her name and
there it is, right in the folder.
The Soft, Crazy Skin.
It points and clicks and drags and double-clicks and maximizes.
And all this while the rest of me doesn't work
lies limp like it never did anything
or just did way too much.
Like death, maybe, but barely breathing
through congestion and a crumbling atmosphere.

It's crazy how
it just runs through those stacks like
a library long after closing.
At Midnight, even.
It runs through those stacks, racing time
playing Hide'n'Seek with Dewey Decimal.
My Brain, forever It
grabbing titles from shelves
shuffling index cards and
listening to hollering
"Olly Olly Oxen Free" and
opening little drawers and
there's her Skin.
It finds her like research.

And it's true.
It's Crazy how I reach
through sleep
and touch a shoulder - a specific shoulder
under the covers and it's warm
but not hot
and there's a coolness in one area like
it didn't get quite covered completely.
But i knead there, and massage there
and that Skin responds and the coolness fades
under my fingerprints.
And she says something, smiling.
I can hear her giggle, even with her face full of pillow.

Crazy how that tangled mess of wires
soaked in slime and spackled gray and
pinched into my skull like that.
Crazy how it got that right.
The things fired and the other things fired back
and there were maybe some lights flashing
or sparks
and then, while i snored with my right arm like a chicken wing
under my head and the rest of me wrapped like a burrito in blankets
and then there was her Skin.
And I woke up with a Hard-On.

A Trillion Stories

There are about a trillion stories
about the first date and the
weird thing that happened there
and they all open up their palms
in front of your face to show
you that little nugget they found
in themselves.

Or sometimes they pull a coin out
of your ear or a little bunny - by
its ridiculous ears - out of a formal
lid or they pinch your nose
and rip it right off your face and wave it
right there under where it used to be.

A trillion stories all thinking they
tricked a little kid
with flooded toilets and chipped
teeth and racist family members
or cab drivers
stalled cars or flat tires
allergic reactions
burning hair
things that pry our limbs apart
like bear traps, waiting.
Things that press us into each other
like we're looking for homes
looking for chores and a fireplace
a kitchen table
things that pull little collided remixes
of ourselves right out of us.
Reach right up in-between our thighs and yank them out.
Little versions of these stories
that are easily impressed
and who believe in Magic.
Little kids who want to sit in those
homes and listen to a trillion
stories about where they came from.


...
a pretty recent one. less of a downer.

-andy

All the Little Lights (Are for Kids)

All the little lights make
the trees look invisible
like you wouldn't see their shapes
at all, if it weren't for Electricity.
Like the bark isn't really there
just that spirit - vain and
dressing up in jewels - or maybe
just insecure and needing the adornment
like frightened knights need armor.
The Hero never needs it
at least not the helment. You can
always see his face when he slays
the beast and kisses the
helpless chick.
Always see his blond hair like
her blond hair and you
can tell he wishes they were frenching.
Wants her tongue in his mouth
wants her to make him hard
but he can't and she can't because
it's for kids.
It's not the videotape Matt found
in his Dad's desk.
It's something else.
It's for kids.
Anyway, the Hero doesn't need the armor
because he's The Hero and he's dumb
and the trees don't need those little lights
but they sure are pretty.




...
video by KC Robinson at the Atomic Open Mic (formerly "Wasted Afternoons") at the Silverlake Lounge on January 17th of this year.

thanks.

-andy

She Screamed (For Nicole)

She screamed.
But you didn't scream.
You were real quiet the whole time.
She was so awake, so up on it all.
So into crushing the things into smaller things and setting the things on fire.
So into riding the things as high as they'll go and laughing higher.
So awake. So up on it all.
She took something to help her sleep.
She wasn't feeling well, surrounded by all that blood and curiosity.

And that's where you came in with your not-screaming and your silence and your hands on all the doors. And your feet so firmly on the ground, like you'd never learn how to jump.
I'd consider making some joke about how a month is the longest it could've been. About how I'm surprised she could keep her mouth shut for more than four minutes. Or maybe an hour.

But you wouldn't laugh.
Not even crickets.
I'd be begging for the spoiled tomatoes.
I'd deserve the hook.

As it stands - without the joke - I'm hoping for a haunting.
I want to hear her scream again.
I want you to throw on the sheet with the three holes in it
and come around here, all quiet.

I'd tell you to call her up and tell her she's missing a helluva party.
Tell her we got some things here that are real high up and we need her help to reach them
or at least laugh at them. We got some things that need crushing
and some things that need burning.
I'd tell you to bundle yourself up in some skin and some guts
because it's a chilly fucking world without the fire and you'll catch your death of cold out here, Idiot.
I'd look right at you and tell you to shut up with all that shut-up.
I'd put on some Nirvana or some Pixies.
Some CCR to see if you'd sing along.
Some Zombies.

I've got her in my contacts twice and I'll be waiting
for her to call back, from this barstool until forever becomes now.
Or maybe yesterday.
Two months ago. Or at least last Thanksgiving.
Until that Big New Year's Eve when Zero finally means something, I'll be
dashing to a volume dial every time I hear a Bright Eyes or a Modest Mouse
or Weakerthans song.
No matter where I am.
And I'll crank that fucker way, way up.
I'll get it real high. I'll ride it 'til it doesn't go anywhere anymore.

Hoping to hear her scream.
Hoping to make you forget why you came here with your hands on the doors
and your feet on the floor and the shut-up.
Hoping she'll scream over it just to be heard.
Maybe you'll sing along.
Maybe you'll make me smile.
Or maybe the silence will make sense for once.

...
for Nicole McLoughlin
5/8/84 - 12/29/09

i love you, kid. i miss you and really, really hope i get to see you again and that that's how these things work out. i'm keeping my fingers crossed, beautiful.
-andy

Pep Band Blood

We find ourselves Here again
where the creaking, cracking sounds remind us
of laughter - Middle School Laughter.
Something almost mean about it.
The squeak of sneakers on shiny reflections,
whistles and shot clock buzzers like angry murder
and cages
and that Smell.
Not quite a new notebook.
Not quite salisbury steak farts.
A green, fading & curling.
A confidence well-worn but still scratchy.

They play the same songs at
basketball games - Professional, even - where they let
the blood of Pep Bands trickle down the pyramid steps,
praying it will enrich the waxed soil below
at least as much as the Shit-Talk
and that creaking, cracking laughter.
Bouncing down corridors that don't go anywhere and
penetrating the corners we should be making out in,
but usually end up vomiting all over.
That laughter snaps like
text spines
or old doors
or thin, dead wood.
or whatever we choose to consider a portal.
Like wet dreams
or cancer cells.
Through those same empty hallways
after the Bell.

We find ourselves Here again and
drunk as I may be,
I know these stairwells like the back of my goddamn hand.


...
that was the first thing i wrote after a long quiet period back in 2008. i didn't care for it much at the time, but it's grown on me. it was also the first in a series of single-page, once-a-day-ers. it may be responsible for my newfound discipline regarding my writing.
-andy

Fucking Cancer

Fucking Cancer has removed the Joker from
Death's deck of Numbered Suits.
No more Surprise.
Forget it.
None of your loved ones gonna get it by Shark Attack, Shootout
or Helicopter Crash. Except maybe The One.
The One.
And no matter what they did in Life.
No matter their earthly matters.
They will hereafter be known as "Yeah, The One who was decapitated
by whirling propellers." or "...Bit in half by
Carcharodon Carcharias all 'CHOMP! CHOMP!'"
The One forever defined in the racket and mess of an Exit,
despite the quality afforded by Lungs & Blood.
The One will be all that we know of Spontaneity
of Refreshment.
All "BOO!" and your fucking heart tears itself in a trillion pieces for all the goddamn pain
and confusion and throws itself away like it just didn't know what to do with itself in the face of such a bold and beautiful fuckin bullshit Birthday Present.
Forget it.
But the rest of us?
Lose the poker face. You can't be happy about your hand.
You don't get the Bullets and the Fire
The Passion & The Glory.
The Rest of Us?
Fucking Cancer.
That's what was waiting in Post-Industrialism's Bucket
at the Grand Prize Game.
Congratulations, Bozo.


...
this was actually originally part of a bigger poem about Van Morrison (or more specifically, my reaction to and appreciation of his music), i never thought it really fit quite right in that piece. so i ripped it out and now they're two separate things. enjoy!
-andy

Some Stories

I've been considering hitting up
the nearest Presbyterian church lately
on some Somber, Sober Sunday
when it's the morning's eagerness to commune
that wakes me up
and not the Headache
not some sardonic hangover that thinks
mustaches are funny.
Because I don't want to feel like
the Service is some kind of deal with
a back-end and lawyers
I don't want ink and paper binding and
memo-ing my desire to
just sit
with some strangers
and listen to some stories.
In the same big room
where some people promise to Honor
each other until they Die
and lie down in the same big room
where maybe some of the same people
say nice things about them
and cry
and Honor them still.
With that church smell
that smells like cub scout meetings
and old books
and people being quiet together.
That shiny wood polished by Gossip.
That colorful glass stained by
shushed giggles.
That Dead Dude forever awake and slouching
in Daydream,
arms trying to Hug Everything all at once
but Frozen.
Pinned back like a butterfly
under classification and study.
The lowlight and hymns
voices trying to sound good together
and everyone there to just
sit
among familiar strangers
and listen
to some stories.
Together.


...
wrote that some Sunday, probably hungover, at the end of 2008 before working a matinee show. i've been to church since (the following Easter) and feel like i got most of it out of my system. ...most of it.
-andy

Call Yourself

Once you call yourself some kind
of Titled Thing or call yourself
a cab in a rush not to be late for some kind
of dinner, well then, you've got
your work cut out for you,
don't you, Smart Guy.
And someday, somebody's gonna
crack you open and take
a good, long look
just so nobody calls them judgemental.
And they're gonna get out a red pen
and underline all over your insides,
Smart Guy, gonna scribble little
notes all up in your margins
fill you up with their ideas about what
you mean.
Someday, that cab's gonna crash,
Smart Guy, and your ghost
gonna go hungry
and cold.


...
yeah. i realize most of these have been downers lately.
for some reason that's the kind of tone my work has taken
over the last few months. sorry.
-andy

Howard, Zelda, and J.D.

Death is not a guy, or a cartoon
or even a Force. It's just sorta this stupid thing that
kinda happens. But we lay out these
clothes around it so we have someplace
to pin our anger. We draw pictures
with features -
eyes to spit in
a nose to bloody
a mouth to crack open and stretch wide
around pain & fear, full of teeth to
knock loose and make rattles of.
We pull a hood over it and call it names,
give it weapons so it can fight back.
So we don't feel so bad about hating it so much.
We're just putting faces on potatoes.
Like we're gonna boil, bake and
mash death. Make it easier to swallow.
But we can't eat Death and it doesn't
eat us because death is not a creature.
It's just sorta this shitty stupid fucking dumb thing that kinda happens
to everything.


...
wrote that before i knew about any of the three timely, yet still quite upsetting losses on the 27th - oddly enough. good bye to Zinn, Rubinstein, and Salinger, you (or they?) all had a rather profound impact on my life at different stages and gave a lot to this world in their turns.

Thanks a ton. You'll be missed. I'll be drinking plenty of Old Crow, Ancient Age, Old Granddad, and Early Times to you.
-andy

I woke up this morning...

I woke up this morning from a dream that
had me back at the movie theater, threading projectors
and crying.
I've been having that one a lot lately.

I did some bogus fucking myspace survey
simply because it asked me what I dreamt
last night

then I fished a couple halfs out of my car's ashtray
for shameful refries

I woke up this morning trying to remember the
name of Seth's dog. Who I haven't seen in
fifteen years. Who's definitely
dead by now. The dog. Not Seth.

I even called Matt to see if he remembered.

But I got his voicemail.

...
a really, really old one. two years actually.
blame the fact that "Just Like Honey" came on my itunes shuffle today.
-andy

The Hash Brown

So, I opened the bag
and there was a Monopoly
game-piece on the hash brown

And - right there in Burbank - I said,
"Come on, man. Not that shit. Not today.
Don't lay that shit on me, man. Not today.
Not on top of everything else, man."
But I was just being selfish,
like those Shadows that Rip the seams at Senators' feet
so they can Sneak into Bibles, Steal Pages and
Roll crushed-up Corpses in 'em after Separating
the Seeds and Stems.

They Smoke this Shit and Get High.
It makes Them See things that aren't There.
I was being that kind of selfish.
Selfish like that.

So I ate the hash brown
and I still have the game-piece.
But I doubt I'll ever do anything with it
other than throw it away when I move
or Get Drafted.

Somewhere Around the Mountaintop

somewhere around the Moutaintop
somewhere near a place that can't lie
we've been told there's a God of History
and we'll have to choose somebody to answer the questions
that sound from its center
someday

somewhere around 1968
somewhere near the Balcony
we've been asking for a chance to apologize
and to be heard
we'll probably want a little girl to write a letter for us
and fold our forfeits into the envelope
like they're just these thin things we don't need anymore

somewhere around a lunch counter
somewhere near the back of the bus
we've been heard mumbling
whispering
sneezing
where we used to shout
where we used to sing
and holler
and orate
and share the meanings of our dreams
where somebody made a bunch of us feel like we'd lost something important

we got it back
we think we got it back

"now it doesn't matter now"
now with our threats
sick and white and
wandering, some in the open
posturing for flashbulbs and pistol-blasts
others keeping secrets
indoors and dark, with periodicals in patient stacks
counting down
counting backwards from a number they couldn't get past before

now with troops surging and
sand waiting and
the world sneezing all over and
"Difficult Days Ahead" and
Great Crime
"it really doesn't matter what happens now"
now with our new dogs and hoses
now with urgency

somewhere around the Lincoln Memorial
somewhere near the Promised Land
we've been heard asking how long it will take, stuffed into frustrating hours
and, fearless of man, eyes soaking in Baptism
he tells us
"Not Long."
shouldn't be long
any day now

Glory!
Hallelujah!

Glory!
Hallelujah!

Glory!
Hallelujah!


...
for one of the Greatest Poets ever.
-andy

A Couple About Airplanes

From this Altitude...

from this altitude that sand down there
by that blue blue sidewinding whatever of water
looks like some fossilized flames
set down and streaked
and smeared
by a lot of "nobody gives a fuck"
just left there
blurry and swept with detailing
laying down for some solar panels
and some kind of road and
those ugly mountains with their crushed
and crushing attitudes and
i feel like i want to feel like i'm
Rod Serling or some such
and i point down there
and i ask,
"Hey, do you think any cool kids hang out there ever?"

and there's just a fat quiet
a fat, warm, smelly quiet sitting beside me
and i say,
"Man, I hope so."


...


You Can Fart...

you can fart on a cramped, tiny airplane
- a schoolbus with wings, really -
right next to me
and I guess that's cool
but I feel like you should accompany it
with some important detail about yourself
maybe your Zodiac sign - but only if you
believe in that shit
Otherwise tell me about a recurring nightmare
from childhood, or where you got your
first kiss, or what it was the kids
used to call you to really paint the
Face of Death in your gut
to really get all your ends curling inward.
Tell me why you quit that thing you
wish you'd never quit and walked away from
We're sitting too close for anything less, man.
Our knees are touching
and you just farted.

And there's at least another hour left in this
squished-up little crinkle of sky.
Before it's over, I'll probably even need to tell you
a little something about myself.

...
those are for Ryan. fly safe, man.
-andy

[a brief pause for station identification]

hey Folks,

just a quick note about what the deal is here.

my name is andy Sell and i'm carving out this little space to stuff with my poetry and short fiction. hopefully it'll mean something or be well-received or at least make somebody snort or laugh or maybe just sigh a little. i'm pretty confident of most of my work and would like to get it out there in any form i can manage.

which brings me to the next item.

i'm starting a literary zine. poetry, short fiction, essays and art. it's called The Boilermaker and it should be pretty awesome. the first issue is in the works and i'll have more info about it (along with hopefully a link to its own site) sometime in the next couple weeks.

i do, at some point, plan to move this thing to its own domain. but i'm just sort of seeing what i can do with it here and now. hope somebody enjoys.

thanks.

-andy

p.s. - i'll try to stick to only posting my work on here. no commentary or opinion or "dear diary" stuff. i have a whole other blog for that, should i decide i actually want to contribute to the internet cacophany at all (outside of social networking sites, that is).

Andy Sell Says, "Fuck This," and Starts a Blog.

i could begin by reciting a childish rhyme
meant to invoke a swagger, boundless and bloodthirsty
but we all knew it was a lie on the playground
so i wouldn't be fooling anybody now//

Don't Fuck with Tradition

Don't Antagonize Ritual

Embrace Them

Or Learn to Leave

Goddammit

Jump for the Reset Button

Burn Some Shit Down

Keep Some Rope
and Some Daggers Sharp//

This is the Remix
This is the Final Draft
This is the World Upside--


...
welcome to the party, kids.
-andy