Thursday, July 3, 2008

alphabet city is soggy soup

we’re not new yorkers
because there are none

they’re buried in sleepy hollow
on the islands of the city
left out to dry

flocks of us, having read walt,
thinking there’s more than

black coats and tough guy movies

bad rock stars with
loud nothings

hairy brains

and worn out cocks

adam and ryan
whine from the village
about the thorns on their rose parade

a good paul followed the caravan
fleeing some time later to the red dirt

i sit a bit northward
beginning again, in a most unfashionable shirt

we’re not new yorkers
because there are none

we’re not new yorkers
because when the drink runs our engines

we wish we had a firepit
we wish we had
wisconsin back
we wish we had ortherockies or the orthedriveon52
wider lanes and tiny magic nighttime cities
the boredom of
iowa to see a show
back rooms you can get into and
people you hear and smell and know
the sort of good company
that’s capped with snow
and drops the petals of open spaces on the ones we love

a few million visitors
capped with chic cigarettes
and the right to emphysema,

cursing badass whimpers
through pursed lips,

about to die with a black car
and a black suit

and black shoes

we’re not new yorkers
because we don’t wear shoes

and because there are none

because they paved over
the beautiful, uncut hair of graves

because we are less in their meditations
than we might suppose

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

on college students

college students are both the most helpfully brilliant
and
naively stupid and laughable
members of society.

as someone ideologically trapped between liberalism and conservatism (some might say free within borders -- free i may be, one who has surrendered), i've found that at least one truth seems to shed some light on young, stupid, brilliant, drunk people's value to old, wise, boring sober people:

Living in a "college town" or near lots of universities is infinitely more enjoyable and culturally inspiring than not. people who want (or are forced by virtue of environment) to spend their time learning, do not really work. so they have time to make the world more interesting and enjoyable for those of us who have to drive for 45 minutes on a two lane road to a job that really doesn't interest us that much, spend the day typing, talking to people who can't solve problems a chimp could master, getting paid too little, driving an hour back home, eating a fried dinner, watching our gut grow slightly every week, watching "everybody loves raymond" reflect our, or our significant other's family life, going to sleep, waking up, taking the dog out, putting on uncomfortable clothes, shaving off whiskers that REALLY want to grow, .... you get the idea.

they give us late night pizza delivery guys that are too stoned to care if you tip them well, great remixes of old bjork tunes we forgot were mindblowing, new ways to think about pastries (???), phish concerts (no more, i suppose, but don't knock till you have... tried it), really great paintings that you can buy for 25 bucks and wait 75 years and sell for 56 bucks, conversations about kirilov (who else would know who kirilov is?), beer that you get to drink but their parents somehow indirectly paid for, good jokes about george lucas, EXTREMELY loud farts that wake everyone up by sound and put them back to sleep by odor, philosophers and physicists exchanging ideas and blows, fantastic bagel sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil for lunch, and full attendance at shows that would otherwise go shamefully under-appreciated (kelly joe phelps, bela fleck and edgar meyer, glen hansard and marketa irglova).

thank you, philosophers and theoretical physicists in training. i will not ruin your current acid trip by ruining the suspense about the next chapter of your life. alright, yes i will: it's depressing, simply because it's not as good as the last one. but it's not really that bad. you'll realize that charlie rose is your idol, you wish you would've figured out how to get a job with 'globe trekker,' and you might even still not vote democratic. maybe. but you might.