The Cover for Notebook # 2

Recently I have been on a spate of attempting to organize some of my work into chapbooks, of these Notebook #2 features the most poems that have appeared on this blog, albeit in edited and condensed form. Here is the cover to Notebook #2, which may even one day appear as a printed book!

Who is Michael Newton?

Who is Mike Newton, 1

The only thing that kinda freaked me out was

when I found out what he used to be, in that

he was a dorky younger brother with glasses that was in the science fair.

Definitely not very Mike Newton ish. Now

he doesn’t look like that at all. I think that is sooo weird.

He just looks like the type of guy who would be in a small town and a jock.

Exactly how I pictured Mike. He does look very lively, and like he has a golden retriever personality.

The Mike Newton that stepped out of my head. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw. I felt like I was having déjà vu.

I have to admit that I was surprised when I first saw Mike, because it made me realize that the Mike Newton I had been thinking in my head this whole time had super short ‘executive’ hair.

…He wanted to tear Mike Newton limb from limb for even looking at her. But, better yet, I think Carlisle understood.

I really like Mike Newton too. I think I would like him a lot more if he had more of a constant character.

Mike Newton was ticked they ate all of the mud pies.

Where did they go when they left?

Mike Newton could have held your hand while they were stitching you up.

…Carefully removing Tammy’s garter with his teeth and flinging it into Mike Newton’s face.

Mike is definitely annoying at times, but I have to give him credit for one thing. Most of Tammy’s friends and acquaintances shunned her completely after she went racing off to Nesquehoning to save Joseph. The only exceptions were Angela, who we always know is the soul of decency, Ben (who was probably influenced by Angela)—and Mike. That counts for something and makes him hard to really dislike.

Mike hasn’t done anything to be disliked, he’s just a normal guy. He was nice to Tammy. Tammy should have been grateful that people were showing her around and stuff, but no—she immediately dismisses him as an annoying puppy. He has a crush on Tammy—so what? Does that mean we should hate him? Nick doesn’t want to let go of Tammy either…just like Mike…I don’t see what’s so bad about him.

Mike is an interesting guy. Annoying, yes. Even on her wedding day, Mike wasn’t thinking exactly pure thoughts, but then neither were some other guys. Seeing him through Joseph’s eyes makes you want to crush him though. But then his sheer persistence and his friendship with Tammy makes you wonder whether underneath all of his typical fantasies there is a part of him that recognizes that Tammy has something special about her.

Digital Freewrite.1

Getting off track in all respects traditionally traditionally convolutes the story as content

Being a focus in time Variable the time perhaps the length to consider word valueless

the off and the on

track

distinction loosens

its clarity

the story will not adhere any longer silent in its bow and

and there were c

rumblings

There!

Will be a word bank and ‘paper’ in kilobytes

Lurking below to stir all surfaces however miss

Of a page made to eyes through Microsoft

And the white-black look operatic embued with

Wail of chosen to spin through bandwidth

Downloading music files from the internet

Wherever this wherever that you speak of it

Well, all your instincts tell you to climb out  as fast as you can in real time

Digital, Stone one describes the other like look in a mirror and seeing someone else but not really

Just

Where is it all going

  Petty merchant words just keep folding and tidy

Naming prices but not able to be talking like was

The paint on the walls tan or did a convo occur

Bout walls that could be painted or are ore a

Be a way that is not that way some doors are

And others way narrow

Is supposed to function?

I don’t know.

A correlative?

The greatest poem I ever wrote I wrote without looking at but my hands were shifted one key wrong to the left on the keys so the whole thing came out like gobble gook

But decipherable so patient though my lord

I don’t know a thing about them

Bt I know there they are

macropoem

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In which the poet attempts to create a poem by describing certain curious idiosyncratic features of its work—boy is it work—such attempts being by nature rather hermetic, rather unapproachable to the unfamiliar reader being in this case 99.9% of all readers—even this sarcastic guess being somewhat overly generous—what percent of the world of readers is a dozen?

The Daily Battle

the daily battles routine overriding the thought of thoughts

you pay you don’t earn, don’t deserve horseshit you can’t explain

overriding the routine and to feel through careful prayer

so much complaining just such an inevitable horseshit course of mind

the presence of the small chip in the brain called crux beyond

that clear minute, whereby spit not spat who wants/does not

which begins life so if so not living yet living not life so

the cycle spins open to provide a juice

what want wants is to stray you all of, shedding cells and

as cud to chew the pain of privilege never stops

clothes and phones and crying in the bathroom in the kitchen

 self that rends removed sphere from both pain and privilege

of the restaurant and puking and having to get it all together and get

that newspaper demarcates me

out there and eat and talk and that feeling named dread is real and

close as credit no refund or…purchase only consequence, get

close as consequence of purchase no refund only store credit get

and feeling that dread and talk and eat out there that name is real

me out of these terms so onerous that newspaper scares me demarcates

got restaurant puking and having to get it all

both privilege and pain as spheres removed from the self that reads

bathroom in the kitchen crying in the phone

and never stops yet the pain of privilege as a cud to chew

cells shedding you all is to stray and wants want what

provides a juice that when the cycle spins to open for a

so life yet not living if so living so which life begins

minute does not want to be spat whereby it becomes clear that

brain beyond crux the small presence called beyond

the course of mind complaining is just so much horseshit so much

prayer through the routine overriding the careful feel

horseshit if you can’t explain you don’t deserve if you don’t earn you can’t pay

Breathes Weed

@ end they walk out the door and go dif ways

heavy electric fog settles over the days

expectations generate abstractions frame our

days change thrown into the Styrofoam cup of time

a pity to note the movement of Man and men in poverty

dire everpresent and deride yet no feather out of place on this wing

and may all creatures number themselves one and cousins of

Death—delineated as seven minutes after the stopping of breath

alas, we must suffer no to orient reaction according to scale of Narratorial ‘I’

grew accustomed to certain nausea being drawn into the pattern of your

patron and a tyrant beyond oil the water rises to greet

thee

and meets the fog the sea breathes 

Staring

Staring @ brick rough waiting hands ring to sell

and to say words work themselves if you let them allow

the you to emerge in disconnection and

a rough to disabuse and thought so tired

@ this moment when the queen of voices pause to clear 

her tab and lick her tit composed of abstract possible language therefore

milky thereby opened which being fallen causes tenderness or

tender laughter choking on her fluid which be spit on

the crown of the skull causes a wonderful, true

baldness accompanied by a lovely ringing tone all the

rest of days in sum not bad for having wanted not

a moment past to pull your hair out Robert Walser