Wednesday, November 26, 2014

To the Great Whatever - Introduction

I

      I woke up with an unshakable concern for the interpretation of dreams.
      What had I dreampt?
--
      Last night was tarot cards and whiskey in my summer apartment.
 Luke read in his hand of cards that a cataclysm was all but certain and
that he ought to consider sharing his feelings
with that special someone.

       We felt little desire to wash the dishes that were groping their soggy way out of the kitchen sink - so we didn't.
Fruit flies billowed out in a flittering cloud as I lurched groggily over the sink to espresso myself awake.
Drosophila Melanogaster -the fruit flies-
their species name became a song I sang every morning with a side of jelly toast–

I welcomed them,
I fed them the sticky residual rings of mixed drinks from last nights party. Peach Schnapps.

Sudden visions of Biology 200 - the murderous subject!
Discarding tiny heap after tiny heap of drugged up drosophila into their soapy petri-dish doom -
but not before ascertaining their genetic breakdown for science - Eye color: 3/4 devil red, 1/4 purgatory white – Punnet perfection.

Come summer, I was done with death and
I made it law:
No one is to squish, swat, squash, wash away or do any violence of any kind to these benevolent guests.  I was still drunk from the night before.

We didn't have any fruit in the apartment.



II

       The subway stung my nose of urine in puddles and someone was smoking a cigarette on the platform. It was July, and hot.

The woman sitting next to me was a waitress. She spoke suddenly into my shoulder:

"You ever have these before?" [She handed me an obscenely orange tiny plastic bottle]

"No."

"I'm a waitress, so I work 12-hour days & I -
Well I don't drink the whole thing, just this much." [She pointed to a spot 2/3s of the way down]

"Right," I said.

 I got on the train, and didn't see the waitress again.



III


       I swore this was my last styrofoam cup, paper sleeve and plastic top I would ever send to a landfill.

       I wasn't sure if I even enjoyed my coffee.
The man next to me drunk from a “Giant-Gulp” convenience-store cup – the straw made a hollow squeak as he neared the bottom.
He suckled the last few bits and dropped the cup where he sat - Dropped the cup at his feet where he sat.

His eyes were hollow. The advertisement on the subway wall ahead of him was for a slick plastic cell phone. It was well designed.



IV


The events that followed have been described as our "Neo-Sincerity-Hipster-Cliche-Post-College Adventure."

A baby blue minivan.
Our degrees worth little more than the swank paper on which they were printed.
We were burning - the four of us.
We were certain.  We believed in believing in believing in-
The threat of being ordinary prickled our skin like dried sweat.
It seemed there was nothing we couldn't shake.
Society was a myopic cyclops 
and here we were
scurrying under its nose in sheep-skins.


-JV

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Spot-Face

I have spots
          In my eyes from looking up
          At the ceiling-fan light.







& there you are
         In the living room, with
         A big rainbow spot
                  For a face.
                  .
                  .
                  .
I love you, 
                  Spot-Face says






JV

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

23 Today


-- I.

 Happy Birthday!
 
She is 23 years old today.
 She wakes with a start from her American dream.
The Holy Ghost in the corner is tugging on her toes.



– II.


The oven door shattered, and she cut her foot, those
Foyers she ran her childfingers down, stretched out: the paintings she bought when she was abroad
Were sobbing dust from their corners.

Inventory:
Iphone, guest room,
Tchotchke,
Silverware,
In-ground pool,
Going-out clothes and billiard room,

Dorito, Ikea, Target

Market Street, Wall, and Easy.




-- III.

She said earnestly,

               I love you, you know that right?





-- IV.

Get up!
SHE shouted,

It's Eleven O'clock!

And the child groans
Into their Daffy-Duck pillow case.

There's doing to do! HE said seriously in the dining room with pride,
Move Move Move.
And preened HIS waxy-'stache corners with a flick.





-- V.

Has anyone ever been quite so well equipped to choose what you will choose?

Are you conscious? Hey!
Hey!
Listen!

To whom will you entrust your detritus
When you are as dead as you expect to be?

What conveyer carries you heedlessly thence?
And Yo! Who built this ride? 
 
The boppy preteen, in the seat next to you,
With mushrooms for eyes, says

            You're totally safe.

But I don't believe him.







-- VI.

In what abject corner of the globe are you so satisfied not to dwell
That you happily shudder here?

Who will help you?
No one.

Who will call?




-- VII.
 
Beat beat beat beat fathers!
This dream is not mine
But you've made me dream it.

--VII.

Who dreams tonight
better than the evening news?





--VIII

Now is only preparation time.

Don't burden your consciousness with affect and trifles.

You are a serious person.

Work. Indeed,
Be employed.

Take not a single frivolous moment for observation;
Trust,
in short,

Your American gut.

– Ding.

When you are matured; indeed when you are done,
                [As a Lean Cuisine is done]

When you are ripened from toil and feebled soft;
Then!
          and not a moment sooner, 
Will you slink from task.
And, Oh! The Sitting Things you'll see!
The Sitting Things you'll have earned!

Sitting. Wheezing, sitting! Sunsets, you'll see, wheeze-hack, sitting! Hack-wheeze
Sunsets, sitting, sitting, sunsets, hack, hack-hack! 


And you'll let it all go then, 
At long last, you'll wake, ah! at last;
At long arduous last, you'll wake

from your Dream










--Then




Now

A simple dusty fifty years are passed.

Fret not
For your obedient, well-gendered,
2.5 children,
As ignorant as you are righteous,

Will seek no further solace than you have sought.

And the House!
           Oh! The house is paid!
What a brave brave life you have bought with hardship and grit!


Go peacefully now, valiant American, go!
Your time's been well spent; Rest assured now, friend,
 
Your Life has been well fought.

Now sleep, sleep!
    Others yet
are restless here.






-JV


Saturday, August 23, 2014

Something Was Stuck, Rotting Between Your Morning Teeth

 OR                          


Falling Asleep In Work-Clothes


...







[It was 5 AM and
The crickets were still spooning on my window sill.]

Your cell phone alarm was a song we sung whenever we could.
But not this time.

I had slept for hours with my ring finger in the loop of your pants before, but
In my twilit grog, I recall thinking that this time was the best.


You had to leave in seven minutes or
Miss your train, But,  
This crusty-eyed morning,
At ungodly 5 o'clock - 
Before Work sharpened its pang - you
Languidly preached
That Under the comforter is nothing short of Heaven and that

Outside,
Is the vast kingdom of Hell; and so

You stayed softly Under with me
Until your living breath rattled at the neck
And jangled me warmly back
To sleep.





The crickets spooned still
Precisely as they do, on the sill, and 

When you returned greasy-beat and ready for rest again
From work,
You relayed this morning's events:

O, how I drooled! you said,
How our song thwacked and insisted and insisted itself into your ears.
How sleep honed itself into breakfast,
How you salvaged a work-shirt from the floor-pile, and how
You replaced my finger in your belt loop

With a rag

Used for wiping tables.


-JV

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Withoutside

 "You know," he said,
"Sometimes, folks just don't got."



--








There is a silent house
On the street with the church
With
The Songs in it.

The silent windows of the house, I'm sure you'd remember
If you'd seen them:
      The windows with the “X”s in tape, you'd recall, I'm sure,
      On each of six window panes, an “X” in packing-tape.

Well,

Just under the planters of that house, under
The windows,
Peter
         “Subway” Burgoo scratches himself.
[He's been SICK on three swanky suits from the church so far]

Pete's groveling,
PLEASE!
to each of the passing trees.

Subway trudges, dumbly
Smoking his last cigarette, backwards,
His unfamiliar feet are oozing
From his scarecrow legs.    A dog is watching him.
SPIT.
And the strand won't break;
It bolas about his ankles and
he
    trips, but;
A bungee about his neck secures Subway Pete to the grid of clouds.

SNAP!

Something cracks open
His skull.

--

Meanwhile,
Through the windows, The Silent
Have watched Pete trudge
Up
and Down the street,

The one with the church
With The Songs in it.

They all know Subway Pete as the One

Whose breath could kill a hamster


          or a subway mouse.


-JV

 

Scene 1

A lit candle
An open laptop
A person

[Person closes laptop, which no longer lights their stupid face. Candle. Person speaks percussively right about the flame to put it out:]

PERSON: Pants. Penis. Porn

[The candle goes out on porn. The wick smokes. Person exits for half a beat, returns, snuffs wick between index finger and thumb.]

PERSON: [direct address] I dream better with no socks on. I
want you to understand. I steal sniffs of my sweaty-person smell and pretend its
your sweaty person;
I'm face in your pits and we're, sure as love is sweet, makin' sweet sweet, baby.
And then the grass gets complicated. And even
sunsets moonlight as undercover snowflakes, lawless as reason... 

And then there's U.

[U enters with swag. They wear a raggedy cap and bottle-cap glasses. U sucks their teeth, scratches crotch, shoves PERSON's head, and steps up, over and onto a plastic-wrapped couch which appears beneath them. They land on the couch and immediately feign impossibly relaxed.]

U: What the great fuck are you blathering about?

PERSON: I will the stars down out of ignorance. [Silence]
Do you believe in fulfillal?

U: [immediately] No. Fulfillment. And no. You have to learn to talk to people, Person. People fill you. If you're full of people, you will be filled by them.
It's my solace, Person; people,
People fill you.

[EYE appears wearing a trench coat and galoshes. They carry a water pistol. They point it as if taking careful aim at whomever they are speaking to.]

EYE: [Splirt of the pistol at U] Tautologous. [Splirt] You can literally say that about anything; If you're full of water, you will be filled by water. [Splirt] If you're full of corn grits, you will be filled by corn grits. If you're full of canker sores, you will be filled by canker sores. [Splirt] If you're full of the Madonna [Splirt], you little Michelangelo you [Splirt], you will be filled by the Madonna. [EYE pretends to take shots of the pistol at U with every new example sending the words like bullets:] Toothpaste, petrol, cat, fork, grace...

PERSON: Sunsets. [Launches a mime hand-grenade at U, after pulling the pin with their teeth.]

EYE: Yes, sunsets. Point is, U, you're reasoning is invalid. Your solace: invalid. Your operating under a system as lawless as -

PERSON: - snowflakes.

EYE: There you have it. [Splirt]
Snowflakes. No law;
Invalid.

[EYE pretends to take 2 shots of the pistol at U , making a splirt sound with each shot.]


-JV

Friday, June 27, 2014

For Charles


I rinsed an apple for
A child who came into the market,  

Thank you,
Sir, they said,
then,

The Apple, turned
Over in their hands revealing a face, which
Winked at me.

The child wasn't wearing shoes.

I wondered where their parents had run off to, smirking.

You're very welcome.

There were three customers behind him,
Irritated, all
wearing
Shoes.

Your feet are really sad, the child warned seriously,

They're sad, ya know? Like

                        Monsters; Monsters
                                          who 
                                   only become
                        Monsters 
                        because they're forced to hide.


The next customer,
Drowsy, and
In a hurry,
coughed a nasty nasty cough,
                                  and

The Apple hid its face again
  in the child's hands.


-JV


Saturday, April 5, 2014

The Eolian Harp*

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, out Cot o'ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.
                   And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere- 
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

   And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquility;
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!
   And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
   But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised 
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge  
       1796




* from Aeolus, Greek god of the winds; this was
an instrument of strings stretched across a sound
box; attached to an open window, it produced a 
quasi-music when the wind swept over it...

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

From: Jail Poems

30

I have never seen a wild poetic loaf of bread,
But if I did, I would eat it, crust and all.

-Bob Kaufman

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Locusts and Wild Honey

 
Fat priest sweating,
stock-still in his vestments, gold.

christening of small child, chubby, and parents

fat.

Bone-thin Jesus head-hung vinegar-soaked sickly
photo-bombing.

-JV

Monday, March 10, 2014

From: Song Of Myself

7 
 
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I 
 know it.
 
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd
 babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
 
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal 
 and fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
 
Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and 
 female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be 
 slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the 
 mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.
 
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be 
 shaken away.
 
-Walt Whitman 

Monday, March 3, 2014

Untitled Haiku

The little worm
 lowers itself from the roof
By a self shat thread

- Jack Kerouac 
        1959

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Remember?

[Author's Note: This poem should smell of leather, cigarettes, and Puerto Rican style rice and beans.]

Don't you?

Those

icicles hanging precarious winter on the
17th floor terrace, and you must remember
The Bronx.

Right?

how
you were so proud you were the only borough with
the The. 

You used to winter
whatever would fall
like toy car springs would
kill things
like

mosquito larva
wriggling tiny waves
in        stagnant        summer.

You threw things over constantly
like dinosaurs you gave names,
pogs,
you threw
those
bloody-nose tissues out of
the window, you
had to! Or
Mommy'd see
you
were
fighting. Or



Wait!
wait...

Yellow dimpled hard-rubber batting-cage balls... Right?

.

.

.

Yo,
Remember we buried that dead bird and cried?

Oh, and
They could never convince you to go on rides, remember?

They'd be trying for weeks before you went, waving
hands at chu and gettin' mad pumped, to pump
you up
            but,

nothing. 
.                  
.     
.
Not
even

the log flume.


.



Hey



Remember

Waiting            for             a                tan                            Nissan?

   And
Papi's
shirt

down
to
your knees
 
 
       how it smelt like boardwalk floorboards

Oh.

Hot-asphalt recess smell! 

.

Definitely,
you remember
your first set of house keys,
                                                              cell phone,
Oh,
and always!
you would always end up adding "-ahh" to 
the end of every phrase when you were
whining-ahhh.
                          Right? and 
                                            Oh Yeah and
                                                    and the hallway,
                                                                        
On the 5th floor, where your aunt lived, just
                                                           constantly

constantly

smelled
just like your aunt.



JV

For Marc and Joey M.

Friday, January 31, 2014

West Philadelphia in the Snow

 
Outside, the Monsters wore people-masks that covered their faces,
they paid top-dollar for a quick December,
and brooded over their pensions.
When they weren't feeding,
The Monsters busied themselves with trifles 
and fantasy football.


One night,
A congregation of young philosophers assembled through the snow
smuggling snark and thrift - 
They descended the stairs
in pairs, and slunk to the door of the basement wearing
people-masks too, like you do.
A throng of aesthetes, dissidents, exuberants.

Inside, Fransisco kept cogless time on his jeans with spoons - 
There were Christmas lights that'd been hung in June, and 
all around
beards were endlessly unbearding beards.


"Hootin' Annie,"
as she was known in trendy people-places, writhed, her eyes
twisted to the ceiling, chin
to the ground, saying,

they'll try to sequester you away in taxicabs of comfort!

and a rowdy bottle launched itself over the crowd
becoming perfect as it shattered
on the basement wall.

-

Meanwhile the throng twitched like a rabid dream
waking Bach upstairs in his powdered curls, who
promptly joined the revelry with
his tropical drink and
his lisp.

In the corner
the son of a politician brandished glistening
teeth of crime, wore horrible pants, and rumor has it,
the whole bleeding shindig was a recruitment scheme
for the vicious charge he led against his own 401(k).

JV

Monday, January 27, 2014

Canon


Everyone who heard the discharge, turned
deferentially to marvel at the technique of
the canon-gunner who fired once a generation.
“I wish to make a humble contribution,” one woman said to him
with a bold forefinger tap on the shoulder.
He turned
and his white beard wafted magniloquently catching the
languid sun in wisps. 
She lit the fuse artfully,
rounded the shaft and,
with the utmost conviction, sunk
her head nose-ward to the blast.

-JV

Friday, January 17, 2014

Squinting Suspiciously

I was watching time crawl roachlike,
Shuddering and stopping
As if some of its legs
Had already been plucked.

It still had the whole of infinity
To climb like a kitchen wall.
The very thought of it.
In all likelihood,
Causing these jitters,
These eentsy-weentsy doubts.

It must be the chill, I told myself.
Neither one of us can get warm
Even on a hot night like this.
O cruel Time, I need someone to throw
A blanket over you, and so do I.

-Charles Simic

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Resumé

 
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
 
- Dorothy Parker

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Why Go To College


So people will give you money,
Wear your degree ear-tagged
like shark-week


And promenade about a storefront like
a pet shop cat
'till others flock to your cause
thronging to the window displaying
rodent sacrifices over the transom dripping
from their tiny mouths



In case of adoption, piss
on Master's couch and
blame it on the minority.


JV

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia: a co-poem a la Lu Marie


I haunted the steps of St. Francis of Insects,
now meditating on a rock, brown in the sun,
in hopes of mercying
myself to health.

Across an old train bridge,
Up through the woods,
Lichen-painted,
tucking scrubby oaks and pines.

The river is wide below,
and from here you can see
slabs of rock sunk copper-green,
'neath tubers, tiny from here.

Cicada hum,
Distant highway, and the wind-tree rustle
Here we are, out in the world
Let it ever be anew,
Amen.

San Francesco d'Insetti, you are standing on your rock now,
Looking rivers, accompanied by broccoli-thick trees.

I’ve been thinking about solitude,
in a deep-water way
and about maybe even writing
when the gong-sun hits,
and there you are, and 
your freckles.

I will start with single words.
Copper. Spade. Luminescent
Then phrases, sentences.

[My glass-bauble soul leapt from the bed!
D'ja catch that?]

Then poems,
Then stories,
rambles. Brambles.

You gave a woop, and I roared terrifically back,

So I’ll start here.

LMK & JV

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Marx in City Parks While She's in Paradiso


One could deduce the rate of soul-
flow through the machine,
were one so clever.

--

Given:
The tempo is 17th and Market.

Here and there something horrible beats
inside a human chest.

We're aware that something horrible beats
inside a human chest.

I'm here, still;
A dynamo,
While
Your off
Being off
Somewhere
Warm -

You can spend a lifetime here underground.
Eyes down here are sharp. Adapted for
Clocks!

Observe:
This Guy-At-Precisely-3-O'clock.
He's gotta 
Dusty dusty shag carpet cough, and
              he's
Leaning farther in the seat then there's
Seat
         to sit.

You'll never deep enough, dude;
The nails won't scratch that deep!
The throat.
Soon enough
Your head won't lift again.  All of it.
It'll all slide
To the corners of mouths
Where't'll pool cocoa green
And your teeth will rot
Moss fuzz and
You won't
                 care.

Ah my fellow fellow!
Something horrible awaits, under the split-flap clock,
If you've got the time to sink that far!
You wait.

--

I want
Answers.  

Who sleeps through Paradise?  And can green,
Green even green 
At all?

And Love,
When you return from scouring the globe for Eden,

I know
You'll return
With news that fruit is hand-picked and hegemony-free somewhere we can really be!

Without clocks
Falling on our heads
Forever and ever,
Amen.

JV

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Unemployment Pome



I. Without
 
A story below the silent window
with the “X”s in tape,
each of six panes, an “X” in packing-tape -
shatter-proof -
God, sick,
on full-time bourbon,
toiling alone:

Hoo-rah!
Take That!
Whah!
Rah!
Take This!
Ha!
Bleh!
Ah!
Take That!

The conviction impresses no one.
A child launches an apple as high as she can.


Below the clouds are shoulders,
who swear have never been massaged;
Slumping
licking the corners of mouths,
pissing in the corners you'll lean
waiting for trains.

Somewhere lustrous, Subway trudges, dumbly
smoking his last cigarette,
his unfamiliar feet spill
from scarecrow legs.
SPIT.
and the strand won't break.
A bungee about his neck secures him to the grid of clouds
His breath could kill a hamster
or a subway mouse.


Seeing that I wore a handsome November
and freshly shaved,
you asked me,
Can you spare anything?”
And as December lurked,
and as there was no job in the pit
of my stomach, I spit
on you and
traipsed on.

And you ticked forward
despite days upon weeks of tomorrow
clogging the mechanism
sticking the gears
crusting
yesterday's muck


II. Within

Within
the coffee's only warm,
the mug is second-hand – the drinker: handsome,
it's chipped a bit on the lip
and would spoon the tongue nicely
if the breaking bubbles
would stop
sending impulses across its face
like skittering insects.

If,
smartly,
it should shatter,
the mop 'n broom, lazing about the corner,
should hop to life,
and the handsome drinker should be served another.

-JV