Through the Storm Drains With Flashlights (By Drugs or By Satan)

it was maybe the whip-its in the Aurora King Soopers
or the silver spray paint
behind the Super Skate in Cedar Rapids
maybe it was all that elbow grease
spent cracking open A/C units
for the freon in Roswell
or Las Cruces
or Anyshithole, New Mexico

but some goddamn thing crept up the tunnels to Dude's brain
and did some Devil's Work in there

like when a talonful of us
went crawling all spidery, all Saturday
through the storm-drains with flashlights
and backpacks stuffed on Occult library books
to draw Pentagrams in chalk
to light candles
to chant words we couldn't pronounce
in service of Whatever Dark Lord
whatever Forgiving and Fearsome Thing could give us
Big Muscles
and Big Dicks
and Big Brains and
Big Leaping Futures
boundless, bewitched

by Drugs or by Satan
we all swore to claim Power
Awful awful Sexual awful Wealthy
vindictive Awful Just awful Magical
terrific awful awful Power
all of us cursing in margins
all of us behind, under
all of us hidden and aside, levitating
light and stiff, on homemade highs
all of us slithering Serpents
all of us worms
digging dirt
out of the plains and the desert
and the thick, thick stoned forests
it was Something that did it
the huffing or the smoking
or the licking or the eating
or the needles or the reading, the Worship
it was something
It was Really Something.



...


so i never continued the thing about Ray. i don't know if i will now. anyway, it took a while before i could really write again after that. here's a new thing that i really like though. hopefully i'll be able to start posting with more regularity again.

-andy

Something for Ray - part 1 - 6/6/12

Ray Bradbury died last night.

I have felt sick all day.

And I don't expect to feel much better anytime soon.

I spent the day at work, so I haven't had much time to make the Information Super-rounds, but I have no doubt that the Internet is close to bursting at its ethereal seams with eulogies and obituaries, meditations and musings. Plenty from people who never met him, maybe even more from folks who knew him far better than I. I admit that mine will be a relatively quiet voice in the cacophony of dirges, keens, prayers, and odes. I am a tuna in a sea of White Whales.

I am not Joe Hill. I am not George Clayton Johnson. I am not Frank Darabont or Stuart Gordon. I am not F. Murray Abraham or Joe Mantegna.

But Ray knew me and called me by my first name. And wearing that badge, I will scrawl my tribute on the wall with the others.

Inevitably most of these tributes will come as tales of first encounters, either with the man, or his work. I will spare myself the embarrassment of recounting how speechless and awestruck I was when I came face to face with Our Hero on that September evening in South Pasadena. I will also refrain from boring you with the moment in which his words leapt from the page, swam into my youthful mind, and changed my life forever. Because you've heard it. You probably share a lot of the same details with me there.

Shortly after I moved to Los Angeles in 2007, a good friend and former collaborator from college, Danielle Holland, called me up and said she knew of a job I might be interested in. Stage crew. At the Fremont Centre Theater in South Pas. For the Pandemonium Theatre Company. Their production of Dandelion Wine.

Next thing I know, I'm working for Ray Bradbury, alongside some truly wonderful people.

A great deal of my friendship with Ray is due to the enthusiasm and heroic nature of one of these people. Arguably my closest friend in Southern California, Robert Kerr is the kind of guy everyone knows they are cosmically lucky to have in their life. I met him during Pandemonium's longest running show, an ambitious and passionate stage adaptation of Ray's most famous work, Fahrenheit 451. He had a relationship with Ray that I am deeply envious of, a relationship that damn-near every single living human being on this goddamn Earth should be deeply envious of. Without a car, and without many other means, he has managed to see and hang out with Ray more often in the last five years than anyone I can think of - with the exception of Our Hero's daughter and his staff and the ever-generous John Tarpinian - even accompanying him TWICE to the legendary San Diego Comic Con.

I can imagine few people being as crushed by this morning's news as Robert. However, because of Robert, I got to spend Ray's final Halloween with Our Hero in his home, reading his own words to him at his bedside. Though I never wanted Ray to ever count an All Hallow's Eve as his last, it had been a dream of mine for decades to be in the presence of that Mystical Figure on That Magical Night. There are only a handful of moments more precious to me. And a big, bright, shining one of them is another time I got to read to Ray Bradbury.

On Ray's 89th birthday, the celebration - like many others before and one after - was held at Bookfellows (owned and managed with Great Love and Unquestionable Grace by Malcom and Christine - seriously, go in and see them sometime) in Glendale. Four blocks from my apartment. I had written a poem for Ray. For his birthday. I was asked to read it to him. In front of a crowd of his adoring fans.

I followed Bo Derek.

By the time I finished, Our Hero - My Hero - was weeping.

"I Love You!" he shouted as we embraced. It wasn't the first time he had said those words to me, but it was the first time I felt I'd earned it.

Later on, I was clever enough to smirk, upon hearing of Our Hero's tears, "Good. That's a debt I've been waiting to repay since I read Something Wicked This Way Comes."

...to be continued...

NPM 2012.3 - Quite the Panic

Quite the Panic
cutting keys to my place now
gasping through a mist
of sweat
can't fuckin wait
to get in and get that shaking
all over all my shit
turn all that Shake
into Break
and wake me up like
lousy cops like a very lovely person
got into a car and won't
ever get out again and
goddammit it's still dark out
but you've gotta get
out of that bed
and bear witness
you've gotta point and sneer and nod
and throw up and pace the horrible
horrible stillness til the sun
tells you to go back
to sleep
to swim too slow through things you remember
but never happened
to swing at the Panic
and land too soft

NPM 2012.2 - Throw Them Bodies

crowding the tippy-tops
the wingless mark time on pinheads
shouting down at the catastrophe
screen to screen

throw them bodies
in the ovens or in the gears
listen to em sizzle and pop or go
crunch crunch crunch crunch
put em in the ground
drop em in the water
or just leave them bodies
laying there on the cold gray
opened up in a place or two
spilling stink and juice all over
just as long as they
ain't on the beaches
or in the beds
just as long as they ain't
dreaming of anything they ain't already got
or seen or rubbed on their skin
just as long as they ain't
more than one to a space
naked and clapping together
like biology giving itself a round of applause
chewing on shit and always smiling
so proud with what it's gone and done
give it silence
and time to shake its knotty head
sit it in the corner

take them bodies
plant them in the garden
chop em into the stew
they're just in the way



...
meant to post yesterday but my internet connection had other plans.
-andy

NPM 2012 .1 - Non-Teens

those hangovers that grab your ears and then
go slack as dead weight
those thirty-somethings who play teenagers
in movies
on television
at bars and house parties
or all over your chest
their laughter is joyless
and cruel
they've never heard a good joke
but the keep repeating the horrible ones
those days you go clean
for weeks
those frustrating bogus pretenders
throwing parades in your neighborhood
never bothering to ask for permits

better get up, it doesn't look like rain today



...
it's National Poetry Month again. hopefully i'll do better this year.
here's one. haven't been writing much lately. pardon me if i'm rusty.
-andy

Headlines

you rise
and stand under the headlines every morning
digging at your eyes
and clinging to the shade they cast
well after noon
with displaced prayers spilling out over the edges of polite behavior
at dinner
and when sleep comes
it comes crashing
like computers
or like dead cars dropped from helicopters hovering over the freeway
to provide you with either
nothing
or nightmares
secret portable biographies piled up into
bloodless statistics once the screaming has ceased
though the smell of gasoline lingers
the screen is black
all that work lost
oral tradition silenced
by closed caskets
there's no auto-save
and the defibrullators aren't a guarantee
so we trek with pulled plugs and
outdated virus scans
morning
noon
and night
under headlines constantly retreating from their progeny
and we keep our most necessary prayers to
ourselves
don't want god reading our diaries
don't want to risk boogeymen and bad luck
stepping on all those cracked mirrors for
seven times seven times seven
in search of a decent pair of shoes
when the Historians come looking
just tell them to follow the bloody footprints
yeah, dude
that's when nobody carried nobody
tell them to watch the sky for headlines
as landmarks, all
"make a left at the last presidential election and keep going straight
til you see World War III,
then make a right."
tell them to catalog all the splashes of
spilled prayer along the way
you know, for reference
"oh, look. i stepped in a puddle of Global Peace
and got my boots wet."
tell them that nightmares in the desert
are divine visions and
they shouldn't get scared until sleep brings nothing
but when that happens,
they better shit themselves.
tell them to hurl obscenities and dishes at the suppertable
and dart out into the harsh sun
every morning
if they want to avoid horrible accidents
tell them to let their prayers flow freely
from every hole biology saw fit to puncture them with
if they don't want to bleed to death through soles and toes
lacerated by superstition
tell them to whisper their secrets through megaphones
morning
noon
and night
and the rest of you
for the sake of history
the rest of you
come out from under the bold type
stop digging at your eyes
save your work as often as you can and
memorize your prayers for some evening when
you hear a helicopter overhead
while your stuck in traffic
on the freeway.




...
so this is kind of an old one. as a matter of fact, it was the first piece i wrote after moving to Los Angeles. it was the first piece i read at the Little Joy Open Mic (now the Silverlake Lounge Sunday Open Mic). it was also the first thing i've ever had published online. some online journal called Moronic Ox published it a couple years ago. i don't know if there were rules about me reposting it or not but i really don't give a fuck. here it is.

i realize i haven't been very on-it as far as posting goes lately. i've been busy editing pieces for a book. yeah, a book. i don't wanna talk too much about it as i seem to have a history of jinxing myself by talking about projects which are in the works. if it happens, it'll be called "Invincibility Potion vol.1: Viking Standard."
-andy

[three brief pieces]

REMAKE (TURN, TURN, TURN)

They're gonna rewrite Qoheleth
they're gonna take out all that shit about
Gathering stones together &
Weeping &
Laughing &
Embracing.
It's gonna be all about
the Rotten Time.
They're rewriting Qoheleth and
they're gonna make a movie out of it.
It's official.

I read it in the trades.


...


HELPLESSNESSNESSNESS

Fire is helpless.
It may be important to remind yourself
of that from time to time
maybe mainl when the Bad Cells crawl
and assassinate their way
through the unlit corridors of Something you Love.
maybe when it burns.

Fire is helpless, cannot help itself
cannot cease or direct or argue
can never find the discipline, the courage
to make up
or change
its Simple Mind,
does what it does by foreign will.

Rock cannot defend itself against Water
or Whatever.
Sharks die if they stop swimming.
The Sun has no Tae Kwon Do skills.

Even Oxygen, immutable & powerful Oxygen, has no way
to decide where it goes
or what it does.


...


BAD SEX, WORSE JOKE

I asked him what sex with her was like
and he said something about
getting in a helicopter
and dropping a toothpick
into the Grand Canyon

at which point i meant
to say that i didn't know who
he was trying to insult there

but he had somewhere to be
and i guess it really wasn't
an important thing to address

because the he answered my question:

The Sex between them was Bad.


...


so these are all pretty old, and pretty short. thought it was time to post something again.

-andy

NPM.6 - The Question VIDEO

...
so my friend, the ever talented and enthusiastic Evan McNary, asked me to recite my poem "Cornields" (my "twinkie piece" as spoken-word genius and indie-multimedia art guru/mogul Vince Kadlubek playfully calls it) for a video recently.

Evan was in charge of the lighting and camera and sound and scenery AND he edited the whole thing, so while the words are mine, this result is just as much his. i'm damn proud to have been involved for my half. i really love this thing and hope to do more work of this kind with him in the future. FUN FACT: that's actually water in the beer can!

hope you like it. thanks.
-andy

NPM.5 - Skeletonpaste

i threw up the barium the first time
they said it would be "chalky"
it was way worse
blue-white deathvomit like
drinking skeletons ground into powder and watered with
weak piss or
somebody whose family's just been murdered
cried into the bucket for 13 years

all over
the hospital gown, the squeaky shiny scuffed-up tile floor
the clean metal and expensive plastic
i couldn't get it out of me fast enough
praying for anaphylaxis
then i just had to drink more
and lie back down

been losing weight
didn't tell anyone there were some days
where i just didn't eat
was blood in the toilet and seizing awful cramps
in my gut
my stomach
felt like a teakettle with nothing in it
sitting on a burner on high
no longer whistling
unshrieking
didn't mention
i hated everything, everyone, everyday
even when they asked if maybe
it was all in my head
it wasn't
it was in my gut
my stomach

where the barium sulfate went

i didn't throw up the second time
but i spent the next rest of my life
wishing i had

NPM.4 - The Only Babysitter Left

oh, i get it
as long as there's a miser sun standing sentry
we shouldn't let our question marks hang out
up on the roof, making all that noise
too scared of the crackdown
i get it
you're content to let the Flood raise your children
let these Earthquakes teach them what numbers do
while Forest Fires inform them of the relationship
between duty and consequence
i get it
there's a Sickness coming
and your kids are gonna have to cough and
bleed and vomit through it
just like every other sad fuck
let the Tornadoes run them in laps
burning off every birthday cake
i get it
make the check out to the End of Days
she's the only babysitter left on a Friday night.


...
so yeah. i straight-up dropped the ball on this National Poetry Month challenge.
gonna try and make up for it.
-andy

NPM.3 - Late Grandfathers, Not Gone

Choose Mom's laughing Buddha on a boat with a warlock's medallion
or Dad's rail-thin Grimace with fists
and a flask, but
Both loved to dance and
both lived in houses they'd rather been
forever running from because
they were Men, goddammit, and that's
what Men did.

The fat man and the skinny guy
sunburnt as fallow farmland
and beached beaches
and all the small sin swept into
a great big pile under
God's hateful, glaring eye
and then buried with family in some
Midwestern backyard
or scattered like fish food over
warm Mexican seawater.

Gone from sight, brushed to the far dark
corners or under the rug but
talked about often, usually with booze
Toasted often
we get toasted and toast them and
talk about them often.

Carl the Methodist.
Jack the Presbyterian or Catholic or What-Have-You
Two Major-League All-Time Drinkers
Two Faithful Terriers,
dead as fuck and
long in the ground / short in the water
by the time i started making memories.
The Mean Man a blur and the
Meaner i never met.

All the same, i know them
i know them well
i know them from night terrors and whirlwind
neverending benders and tasting
my own salty metal blood
and sailing and fishing and driving and fighting
and fucking and running through the corn and riding horses
and cutting a billion goddamn rugs into sample scraps
for happier couples.
I know them from Iowa and California
and Scotland and the Mississippi and Spirit Lake and Cortez.

I know them from every bullshit gauntlet
tossed at my feet that i
kicked dirt on instead of running from
because I'm a Man, Goddammit.


...
this one's kinda long, i guess. but i think it's the best thing i've written in months. maybe i'm finally getting used to writing while stone sober.
-andy

NPM.2 - Saturnalia Princeps

We used to trade places with them others yesterday
at least til we woke up the next mornin for work
Used to wear their crowns and call the shots and
roll em like dice in their own shit for a change
For laughs

See, the idea was that we'd fuck up the public works
and all our own complaints
And we kinda did
but the setup there is that
the first day anyone gets the sceptre in their hand
all they feel like doing is partying
So we did

We raided their liquor cabinets to
see what the top shelf tastes like
We rolled filthy in their pristine beds
We ate the meat we raised and
Butchered and
Cleaned and
Carved and
Cured for them and
We got all into their
Little Black Books and Little Black Dresses and
We forgot what it felt like after a few months.

Some dick actually had the balls to call this "Misrule."
The shoe don't fit the other foot.
We lived like Kings but it was just a joke
and most mornings we still can't hear ourselves laughing.

The crown musta gone right over our heads.


...
So I guess I inadvertently played a date-appropriate prank on y'all yesterday. Only one post. Whoops. This is the first piece written and posted via my phone. TECHNOLOGY!!!
-andy

NPM.1 - Fish Story

bone thugs
poets, fools
words are idiotic
fuck-ups are beautiful
i'm telling you, tonight i saw a guy get into a Hummer
like it was nothing
like he wasn't going to war
like he wasn't being ripped open and eaten alive
it was nothing
just a Vaudevillian relic
and the girls in the chorus line wear
their girdles and rape fantasies
like we've all gotta smile
sooner or later
and the funnymen wave bamboo canes under straw hats
in front of shoepolish masks
like here comes your fuckin' punchline, suckers.
The joke ain't on anybody
if the banana peel's in the trashcan
Bigfoot plays it straight
Nessie's the foil
but they're both tapdancing on the far end
of that bridge you mean to buy
just as soon as
your horn comes outta hock
your house gets refinanced
or Christ smiles on your student loans
all you got in your wallet
is neverending war and
reality television assholes handing out
voter receipts.
it's halfway to Resurrection
the darkest part of the forest
and there's nothing left for
the poison ivy and parasites
but snake oil
and your grandmother's blood.
Now who's the dummy, pal?


...
so it's National Poetry Month and seeing as such, i'm gonna make it my mission to write a new poem and post it here every day. for the entire month of April. today, however, i'm gonna inaugurate the thing with two new ones. this is the first.
-andy

No Such Startle

The garbage bags and the
coroner wind been talking
some bad plans there
some real harsh witnessing.
And the turf just lies there
like the day before
no such startle there.
There's a rake in the garage
and a fright worn garishly on
every shivering tree.
Some slippery words start
planning to slur out over a burial
without anything resembling
enthusiasm.
There's a gold band for every other
ring finger and a tag for every other
big toe and.
The autistic frost kicking the
dust up on every highway just
outside of town
keeps a real clean pistol in its glove box.


...
been mostly working on comedy lately, but here's a more recent piece that i actually like a lot.
-andy

Pharoahs Ain't Shit

the Pharoahs are shitting themselves now
shut down the networks and they can't call the aliens for help
the kids that built the Pyramids are listening to rock'n'roll
the kids threw up the honey beer and slipped into hoodies
stepped out onto asphalt to answer the Sphynx's riddle
with rocks
and fire
and bodies
the kids aren't bowing to the whip
the kids are fucking shit up
about to prove there's no such thing as immortality
the kids are ripping brains and guts out of the Great Corpse
hoping to stuff flowers and spices in their place
the kids are staying up all night, breaking curfew
about to bury a ruler
with no more ritual than clapping hands
and dancing feet


...
just a brief, far-away perspective on the ruckus in Egypt.
-andy

Train Poems

1.
The thing i hate about the train is that the train has to stop
sometimes
to let another train pass
and i tell you the other train is always longer than Satan's Pecker
i tell you that other fucker never seems to end
seems like it's just a big ring around the world
spinning because the earth is nervous and fucking with it
it's worse at night because you can't see it
you just hate it
unable to give it a dirty look

2.
the thing i love about the train is that the train doesn't leave
the ground
you can move around in the train
you can treat your legs like you appreciate them
and want them to come out of this okay
and if it's a full moon
you can follow that guy through the night
listening to The Mountain Goats
or Willie Nelson
or Miles Davis
and the morning will come rushing at you
like it's happy as a puppy to see you
it missed you and it's time to enjoy
each other's company.

3.
if it's not a full moon, though, all you have is black
and maybe some little red
or orange lights here and there
and they aren't enough to tide you over until the sun
shoves the day at you
so you should probably bring a flask
that's another thing i love about the train
you can drink just about anywhere
if you're cool about it
and aren't some kinda asshole
to the conductor

4.
they yell at you if you try to smoke
at a stop that ain't designated for it
if you ask them to curb the hostility
they pull out the scalpels
and even though you woke up
the night before just in time
to see that mine or factory or whatever it was
lit up like Dali's x-mas tree
like frozen fireflies
you suddenly feel like there's no magic in the world
none at all
it's all just ugly
but we lie to ourselves
you tell yourself it's beautiful
because otherwise you'd lay down on the tracks
or you'd smoke a cigarette anyway

5.
When the train pulls in
when it arrives, there's no long walk
no legions of uniforms wrinkling scowls
no crowds of the mob, restless and fitful
no painted zones on a curb or a wheel of belongings
no angry horns or voices of gods all "Don't Do That."
just a few strangers hugging
just a little building that gave up its grand assumptions
and smiled to be itself.
When it arrives, you arrive, and there's just the sky and the
"Hey. Welcome."


...
this is a small series about fighting vampires in the 13th century riding on trains.
-andy

Those Songs

That Golden Birds song came on the ipod
the one that was always about her
and that's what twisted off the bottlecaps
that's what said "leave the shot glasses on the shelf,
let's kiss a groove. let's swig.
let's hear that splash of amber slap back against the bottom."
that's what got me going
and before i knew it, the fucker hit me
with that Mountain Goats song
the one that was never about anybody
but me
and the guy who ain't around anymore
and that's what turned the key in the car
that's what opened the garage door
that's what put me on the freeway
and in the car was just
that Weakerthans album
the one about my entire goddamn life
hesitant start to likely finish
and that's what saved my life.

and this?
this one ain't about anything
except maybe some music that
i wish i'd heard when i was much younger
before the whiskey
before the pictures of people who would leave
paraded through computer screens
back before the asshole boogeymen got driver's licenses
and checking accounts
and Christian names.
this one ain't about shit
but those songs
i just wanna hear those songs again and forever


...
should be painfully obvious what this one's about.
-andy

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.