Tango

There's a dalmatian named Freeway
Laying in the neighbors' yard
With a coat like our vision
And not half as determined as he once was
To cross the street
Across all that pavement
Into another world—
But that decision was made months ago.
He'll gladly lie in the gutters
Of either curbed hemisphere
Before he'll ever come back.

Torsos Are Fun

This is what I did instead of writing or studying for finals. Because, you know, I have time to waste not being productive.


And another. Why not?

I suppose this means that ennui can encourage creativity, even if it isn't so much creativity as it is apathy that happened to have some charcoal laying around.

Quam singulari

Validation seeps in the time
between sex and sobriety
as you commit murder in the bedroom.

You've shattered your idol
but you keep the pieces
tethered around your neck,
feminine, more than ornamental.

Even more laughable
is your American pragmatism
when you take your pills
to help you sleep
to help you face
your illegal truths,

But insomnia is as good an inspiration
as love or pain or chewing nails
or pinned shoulders.

Protestant words
silence Catholic frescos
as jaundice fades through childhood
to paint by a higher number,
preferring to play along the edges
but remaining unenclosed ourselves.

Blasphemous stick figures
idle in anxious gallows,
hanging in endless debate
between good or lesser good
in kidnapping
and touching neighborly conduct,
crane their broken necks to watch
as the curtain is pulled
across the water-filled doorframe like
ducks on a string.

Good morning, angels,
did you learn to sleep last night?
Trace the patterns
In the birdbath frost,
more fundamental than physics
or little girls.

Wedding Pictures

We have built a civilization of spectacle
Heralded by a fanfare of fragmentation.
Lo and Behold--
Baby Jesus cries over spilt milk
Harder than any martyr should.
The tourists weep with him
As if collective empathy is important
And not ideologically suspect.
Against what does the sun rise beside nighttime
And all its little indiscretions?
It has no cause,
No reason to remember.
The name is a placeholder, empty
On subways and at dinner parties,
In wedding pictures,
Among shopping lists for self-improvement,
Drawn in the margins.
In Gold we trust--a symptom
Of industrialized prophets
And appropriation of southern seas.
When it is no longer history,
The deception will lie in the footnotes
And fabricated stains will be the only trace.
Biographies of men are burned with the rest
And Roman buildings turn crepuscular
Like reality running too far down a linear street,
Where the church is surprisingly warm,
Until you realize:
It was the religion that was cold.
Sitting down to breakfast,
Everything seems in perfect accord
As generations sigh and disappear.

Leave the Light On

Are we still living in a noir world, with evil, nameless, yet altogether human intent? We are aware that secrets are withheld, and that trust is, at this point, futile--but we still clutch to and structure relationships in the most banal and profound ways. We still live in ultimate suspicion--of appearances, of conventional wisdom, of everything we were once told was right until it fucked us over for the inevitable last time...this is when we live in nostalgia for the calm before disillusionment tapped us on the shoulder and blasted a bullet in our skulls when we turned around without a thought to duck. Power eclipses reason, and conspiracy with impunity follows us home, masking its footsteps in the echoes of our own. But now danger is inside our homes as well as threatening it from outside the door and through the windows; it has settled in and become domestic, washing dishes in the clogged kitchen sink and languishing on the sofa with its feet on the cushions.

I'm Hot-Blooded, Check It and See

The average adult has a circulating blood volume of approximately 70 ml / kg of ideal body weight. Thus the average 70 kg male has approximately 5000 ml, or 5 liters of circulating blood). The loss of one liter in an adult, or about half a liter in a child, is considered to be very dangerous. Loss of 10-15% of total blood volume can be endured before significant risk. To recover such a loss, the human body generates blood at a rate of about 2 liters per week.

I have about 3.5 liters. This means I would be able to survive losing about a third to a half of a liter (no wonder I was so debilitated when donating a pint). This subsequently means that I should be careful not to bleed a lot, or give blood again anytime soon.

Just a note to self.