Funeral No. 12

Now in the day I was pushed out into world suddenly and fully embracing this ever forewardness and nowness stuck between prediction and memory when far enough only black...

He Was

I can't remember

how fast it went

but it happened,

red leaves

stay in their October piles

white snow

melts into the ground and feeds

yellow flowers

casting shadows in the

green grass

SWAP

red leaves

and then that morning

401 people thinking about Descartes

I am at least absolutely certain

the he has failed to perceive anything

for about 500 years,

he was,

therefore he is not,

and my ears stopped working

my mind frantic

looking at the absence

of everything

it pulls out your connection

to anyone

temporarily

you are somewhere else

trying not t o b e

so i hid

from the souls in the soil

in an old brick building

thinking someone's gonna die

several days a week

i forgot to not think about it

and like i said

my ears stop working

when that happens it feels

like floating out of

equilibrium

as if hovering

over a quiet patch of snow

in the darkest month of January

stuck and cold

I yell, NO! at myself

And then it is hidden

When the sidewalks are wet

I roll my pants up

Look away from passers by

Nervously Smoking

Nervously lighting up another

What am I going to do with myself?

Clean and clear

It goes on inside

Inside my head waiting

Water drips on my eyelids

closed and wandering

Into The Sea, Sons!

The sun burns hot, and then all the trees fall

Everybody leaves, everybody leaves

Eyes get stuck in words

Brains snowball into cumulative scores

Frozen stuck

and then spring to life

All in the sun

He tried to sum her

North Ave

Lights rise and swim through the open air under a bridge

Light from sunrise, Light from sunset, Light from McDonalds

Quick picking songs and songs and songs

Hearing songs and songs

Bus stops contemplating life

Watching SUVS turn their heads

Always fitter, Always happier

A castle, A cross

A cross in the empty field

Collecting ashes from addicted buildings

Struggling to breathe the refugee trees run west

Crushing the old old houses

Stacks of bricks holding liquor and new movies

Streets turned to ice from one hundred million credit cards

Stacks of bricks holding crosses and children

Gravestones and trees

Fresh paint and pointy hedges

Families inside of ancient vines

Grown from the local botanist

Parking lot too bright to look at

Waving flags of the country

Waving flags of the Brewers

Passing $100 bills with smiles and pressed collars

Kicking pianos

Disposing of them with axes and chainsaws

Organized by stacks of bricks holding crosses

With face clocks everywhere

Everyone is late

Everyone is late

Everyone forgot

Refugee trees take rest

Listening to passing trains like concerts

Found a home

Not for long

Flashing Stop Signs

Flashing stop signs

On an uneven sidewalk

Going through tunnels

Carrying weight of the earth

Living breathing trees

Watch red and blue lights

Circle and circle

Your chest runs for it

And you are left with no lungs

And numb thighs

Open pupils to see

The thoughts of a mind relaxed

Not paying attention

An arm like a cat's tail

Going wherever

Resting on your pillow

Thoughts taking up space

While the red glowing sky

Hides your face

Familiar and almost forgotten

We go side to side

Facing incomplete lumps of time

I always have tomorrow to figure my life out

Forgetting

Forgetting

With our eyes closed

Records skip

Repeating life

This is some kind of hiding

And laughing

The yellow has taken over my thoughts

While they lay in the grass

Nibbled by bunnies

The clouds have gone

Forgetting

Forgetting

With our eyes closed

Critiques

Hello everyone,

I have heard from several people about critiquing.  I had an idea.  We could individually label the pieces we want to be critiqued at "critique".  Then we would also have easy access to critique several posts instead of having to search for them randomly.  Any other ideas?

Dog Man In Clouds

Untitled Painting

This is for a project that me and Laura are doing,  please criticize, help is appreciated

What we were responding to in our pieces was the interaction between different forms of visual communication.  Words are filled with visual symbolism.  The individual letters inform the reader how the word should be vocalized, as well as the individual letters put together create an idea or image.  Visual art communicates in a different way.  It takes things such as forms, colors, and lines to create ideas.  Some of the questions that arose were, "Can words communicate the same idea as an image?", "Because of the different way of communication, is one form more effective or overpowering compared to the other?", "How can you use the combination of them to create emotion or meaning?".

            As writers and readers, we most commonly experience words the same way.  Black words arranged on a white page.  Though the combination of visual ideas with text is not new.  In America we are constantly exposed to flashy advertisements, for example.  They are meant to inform and influence you, and are different from a hybrid art that is not meant for commercial purposes.  Text and images can interact together in a creative way to express emotions and ideas.  

New Wilco Song

Chorus:

Wilco

Wilco

Wilco love you baby

The Travelogue Will Be Erased!

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The Marriage of Colin - A Play

It was the worst snow storm ever.  In anyone's memory, it had possibly been the largest snowfall ever, in Milwaukee.  This was only because most people just didn't remember anything at all.  Dangers of ice storms and blizzards and sleet the size of cats.  These are the kinds of things you would concern yourself with on a night such as this.  Driving a car that was manufactured roughly 5 years before they were born.  2009-1989=20? 20+5=25.  This car did not remember how to work.  A brilliant plan to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee was, in fact, all one could do, in a situation like this.  It was 3 a.m. and John had lost his mind already.  

Colin

Damnit John, are you going to do your homework?

John

Colin, why are you attacking me like this?

Colin

Do it, do it now, otherwise you'll complain

John

About what?

Colin

You'd be like, "I didn't do my homework, and spent all of my money"

John

Pfft.

Colin

What is that?

(pause)

The waitress brings the soup.  The one that looks like John's mom.

John

Well, before you bash me for being lazy, I am OFFICIALLY quitting smoking

Colin

Pfft.

John

Im serious!  

Colin

Ha

John

I have finally decided after dealing with quitting during school, which is complete bullshit by the way, because it fucks up everything, and I can't focus, and I can't think.  Like I need one to do a paper

Colin

Yeah... Tom Waits would appreciate that

John

Speaking of... I am out of cigarettes... can I bum one?

Colin

What? Wait, no, fuck you.  You always do this

John

What?

Colin

You always smoke alot, so that you finish your pack, because you know that I'll bum you cigarettes later.  

John

Yeah, but at least I always ask

Colin

What? you don't ask, you always take them.

John

Fine, I'll just smoke that butt in the ashtray

Colin

What?  Ughhhhh, you can have ONE.  But your being a little bitch

John

I'm being a little bitch?! Come on I just asked you for a cigarette man, your being a little bitch.

Colin

What?! Fuck you, you know what?  You are not having a cigarette.

John grabs one.

Colin

Ughhh... 

Poetic Seduction

"John, your not going to get sucked into a poetic web of seduction", says Laura.

A Tale Of Mt. Bartlett

I

Ben smokes a Pall Mall in his dark brown chair in a dark brown apartment. Thinking he's Andrew Schmidt or something. 

Laura

(Hoarsely) Can we get mascara from Walgreen's?

Kate

Yeah, I need cigs.

John

(Suddenly appearing) Hey! Can I Come? Please! I wanna come. Let me come!

Laura

OK Moppy

II

Ben sits in his brown chair, chewing on his soggy Pall Mall. Mike sleeps soundly on the couch. Colin Van Winkle sits next to him, stoned, talking about art. Mike gets up and the couch breaks. The space that Mike once occupied is elevated three feet in the air while Colin Van Winkle weighs down the other side to the floor, giggling.

Ben

Mike, What the Fu...

Mike

(Coyly) Ben, can I sleep at your apartment tonight?

Ben

(Accepting the challenge) Whyyyyyy Mike?

Mike

Because I don't feel like going home.

Mike sinks into the chair

Colin Van Winkle

(with a hint of fuck-off) Go home Mike

III

Objects in Ben's house flood the floor. 

Narrator

Someone leaves a lifeguard chair, so, as usual, Ben keeps it and uses it. Ben sits silently peering over the top of his macbook. Like some sick pervert. In the pool--that Ben installed for the kids--stand Kate and Kevin, drowning. Ben takes the last 3 cigarettes in his Pall Mall box, and throws them like lightening bolts at their sad faces.

Ben

Noooooooooo! I don't want to be bothered!!! Nooooooo!!!!!!! I'm going to sleep!

Narrator

And there they stood, in the Moppy poop water, shocked and speechless.

IV

Ben sucks on the snake that was, in fact, Dane's hookah. Dane and Kevin sit mellowly.

Dane

So, uhhhh, Kevin, do you like this flavor?

Kevin

I like dis Latin flava!

Suddenly Dane's bison ass and Kevin's Latin ass dance the cha-cha wildly, while Ben takes a sip of marijuana.

Narrator

Inside of a flower-cloth peace sign, Ben watches Voluptuous and Beyonce leave. He then retreats to the ashtray he calls his chair.

V

Ben, with an ashtray on his knee.

Narrator

Ben suffers from red eye and the giggles as he realizes that he can no longer think. He writes a poem about the world ending and munches on an Orffs. He resolves never to smoke marijuana again, but then is distracted by the humping, knocking noise at the ceiling of his brain. He staggers like a haggart to his bedroom window pushing the screen through...

Ben

(Yelling) Can everyone just take a dose of Fuck-Off!"

Narrator

Just then, Laura knocks mushily on the door...

THE END.

A Frightful Heart

A frightful morning

A frightful cigarette

A coffee delight

A sun soaked headache

Half closed eyes

See less

In the eyes

Of the blue blue open ones

A ticking clock

In the chest

The alarm goes off

And every time I shuffle for the snooze

Because I don't want to take the snooze just yet

She had paint on her fingers

She had art on her hand

So I splattered paint on mine

She we could leave our marks

She kept a secret

A secret mark

She had a boyfriend for each stroke

I wasn't getting a stroke

What is there to offer?

Offer

Offer

Of her

To her

The pants I wear

The brown cords

The film class doesn't care of I'm smelly

The dorm mold showers

The dorm mold food

The dorm mold pants

Sleeping on couches

Sleeping in a chair

Ben cut my locks

And opened the door to a head full

Haircut heart attack

Smelly smoky brown lung hair

A heart that beats fast when laying down

A heart in a hurry

"Hurry"

"I'm trying"

"You do so little for me..."

"I know, I know, I know, I know..."

"You just don't, I just feel... like you don't care about me anymore"

"No! I do... I promise yo..."

"Then DO something!"

"I told yo..."

'No! DO SOMETHING FOR ME!"

"...I"

"DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF!"

My heart's heart beat quickened

He tends to angrier than me

Kates Feet Inside Of Milwaukee

Cigarettes and Ted

Hand

Mushy Makes An Oops

Poetry Reading

Guys let us have a poetry reading as soon as all the kids get backkkk.  It should be free, and have lots of kids that are willing to read, and lots of kids that we've never met, and lots of wine would be good too.