Jonathon Todd

September 25, 2011

2011-09-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

September 25, 2011 in gratitude to Whitman and Ginsberg

Under the austere glow

of New York sunset,

between towers adjusted for perspective:

We are commanded by Whitman to:

“Sound” our “barbaric yawp,

over the roofs of the world.”

Indifference is only apt

for those not afflicted.

And so long as you are conscious,

the friction is poised to ignite.

Here:

in the rhythm

of drums, cans, flutes, guitars,

feet, and vocalizations,

is potential.

Avoiding the pitfalls

of possessive language,

creating a new sense,

which is older than language itself.

To bind by frank understanding and love

and contact and awareness,

which dismantles the machinery

of dead-pan eye consumption

with wanton lust

for the electric candy colored

glorification of god.

We are the dissent,

which is the organic byproduct

of production.

We are the scattered masses

churning in the belly of Moloch.

We are young girls cornered and maced

by obscene police,

protecting the unseen entity.

We are 80 plus arrested for speech,

criminals only in the stench of

a mad Orwellian dream.

We are the collective body

howling over the expanse of:

streets, parks, rivers, oceans,

states, countries, continents,

and universe.

The collective yawp,

back to the first moment,

demanding to be reborn,

awake and aware.

Good-Bye Philadelphia

2011-09-11T03:59:00.002-04:00

Good-Bye Philadelphia

The most acute observations

Deliriously board,

Growing tired and fat

Stroking the mind at full length,

(by counting the speaks on my wall).

Onslaught of visions before I am even awake,

This silent repetition,

I am a mammal seeking missile.

It is best to swallow words

Before the mind turns its’ filter on.

It is best to view with the eyes of 22 years,

Or confusion and solitude,

The great wait of liberation.

It is best not to suffer too much

For the sin of idle time,

It is what makes the breath and

Body poetic.

What do you want to hear…

About inspiration?

I have a slight headache

& a tendency to despair.

But I also have silence & the runny egg

Of thought before dawn.

I curl my foot into a ball

The stillness of 6am begins to get to me.

I think of letters I need to write,

Watching the snake of aspirations devour itself.

Suffering in the protracted peach palace,

To recreate.

Distant from the moving frames,

Blowing and bowing,

Boiling the thought down to a pearl,

Exiting the asshole, anxious and seeking love

On the beautiful frozen steps,

By the ubiquitous neon signs,

This cradled child,

Product of glue & promise & paranoia &

Pillows & loathing,

Burnt televised tubes seeking

Sanity in reflections,

Hollowed crack of electric guitars

Burning traces of class and unity.

A photograph of uselessness,

Borrowing points to practice

Uncertainty with an eye

Towards progress.

So we begin with this:

The insanity of notion,

Locked and reached,

Desirous and delirious seeking angels

To accept my worn shadow and cigarettes.

Quit the job, pushing baskets of bright cans &

Mad with love drove boxes and cynicism

To Philadelphia.

Spent money on books & food & wine,

Adjusted to hysteria, locked gentle trees

In great glass vials,

And rubbed my fingers in the spit of her streets.

Today is my good-bye.

Good-bye strange jobs, unions,

Hand rolled cigarettes and blues.

Good-bye crazy angels who washed

Their assholes for the common good of the world.

Good-bye theologians who got drunk

And tried to convince me Christ

Was just a sad-eyed sexy soul.

Good-bye shelves of wine and cigarette ash.

Good-bye steps where I talked to angels

Over invisible, innumerable nights.

Good-bye electric play of the proletariat,

& hoagies stuffed with knowledge.

Good-bye muffled conversations of drunken loneliness,

Heard through these empty walls.

Good-bye saintly uncles who perfected chess in

Their chain smoke longing.

Good-bye countless books,

Passed between bed sheets,

Killing time or expanding it.

Good-bye first poems of public

Old bookstores & bearded bards of adoption.

Good-bye final cigarette stomped out

In dental office parking lot.

Good-bye country bars where I belted

In smoke, songs for the ageless.

Good-bye Bed where we laid

Exhausted in our arms,

Building heavens’ with

Conversations, sex, and laughter.

Good-bye faces who burnt their essence

Into my skull.

Good-bye first candles towards eternity

And the loss of God.

Good-bye terror of repeating the past,

Realizing this is; of coarse, absurd.

Good-bye long highways of blight,

Followed by wilderness,

Golub mountain peaks, valleys,

And the soft fog of mourning.

Good-bye every breath or thought or song or moment.

I return you in the grateful

Understanding that I am

Born with each new moment.

I acknowledge the greatness

Of all your quirky perfection,

And gassho to the great heart

Philadelphia.

Art????

2011-09-07T07:52:00.002-04:00

When people talk about ontology in relation to art, they are always searching for some abstract grandiose way of characterizing various things. Now, there is nothing wrong with “abstract” thought in art; in fact it is paramount in many ways to the creative process, but what puzzles me is the strong desire in critics and artists themselves to name everything, specifically in relation to the abstract. This compartmentalization of form and ideals tries incredibly hard to classify everything. Why? What good is this identification system, especially in relation to art? I will make no claims that art is somehow “elusive” and therefore not able to be understood, but rather that art is simply a reflection of a specific idea or moment, and that is all.

This is not to downplay the importance of art, as it is often the very thing which propels movement forward. The importance of the abstract though, is a means to an end. By looking at things from unusual angles or points of perception, we allow ourselves to create new ideas. The problem occurs when we apply this same way of thinking to the understanding of art. By doing this, we separate ourselves from the creative process, making it nothing more than a side point: something to reflect upon in the aftermath of it's creation. The ontology of art is art. In other words, the “being” or “essence” of art is art. It is beautiful, poetic, majestic, and awe inspiring, but it's existence is in and of itself.

This is what we need in a future poetics. A direct reflection of everything, without the incessant ego trying to name everything. When we can move away from this point, and towards a more honest and frank art, we will begin to create art, that truly reflects the universe.

Hurricane musings

2011-08-29T02:33:00.000-04:00

8/27/2011

4p.m.
The sky is beginning to tear itself apart, with sporadic bursts of water.
There is an unsettling quiet as it builds behind the naked eye.
So for now: coffee, pot pie, and waiting.

9p.m.
The anxiety I feel right now is unlike
anything I have ever dealt with before.
I wish I understood the root of this.
I've lived through many blizzards in the mountains,
but somehow, this is different.

Threw up, first full blown anxiety attack.
Feel better now, heading to the hotel
to hopefully calm down.

11p.m.
Tea, and a moment to sit helped,
now the storm might not hit until
tomorrow morning.
Learned the hard way that the 24 hour
news cycle is vomit inducing.

The signs have begun the rattle
and the winds really does sound
like the devils howl.
Non the less, I do feel better.

8/28/2011
Wild visions, signs rattle violently,
jesus my gut feels strange,
whole body seems alien like
being drunk of some old forgotten fear!

2a.m.
Fire alarm went off,
whole floors of confused people up
and nervous, now back to sleep
while I sit awake and worried,
wishing I had someone to talk to.

3a.m.
Distractions!
Jesus what I wouldn't give for em' now!

4a.m.
Fear is such a strange thing,
eventually it exhausts the body
so much it becomes incapable of
feeling it.

6a.m.
Still more than anything,
I need to avoid the news.

poem -
(Information)

25 hours,
onslaught, buy or fear
it continues like stone.
Always laying its pretense
d
o
w
n

Unified by desire,
moving materials
placement,
aligned monetary symmetry,
blessed by the gaping mouths.
No real hunger when it's spoon-fed,
no real production
when it's produced.
Without cause or ideal,
manic purchases,
or loss of appetite,
as in broken sinks collecting fear,
as in over stuffed as we are,
with information,
info
info
info info info info info info info info!
The snake which devours its' own tail!

5p.m.

It is finished, haven't slept in hours.
Good night.

Vanish

2011-08-12T06:24:00.000-04:00

A formal apology for silence,
the emerging memory of places and scents,
every gesture,
departing footsteps,
the fog of four a.m.
A pas de trios with a celestial gaze
to the bark of familiarity.
A place full of objects,
full of disorganized sequences.
A place with a great empty table,
full of wine and insects.
And all the cards vanish,
and the numbers structure the faces,
and the ace is a burning clock,
and the joker is seeking God,
and the king has no kingdom,
and the queen weeps in fear of:
bugs,
spilled milk,
emptiness,
hair,
contact and empathy,
ovaries,
sunlight moving up dirt roads,
of coming home,
coming home.

And the ink bleeds to ash.
Everyone knows the deck is stacked,
so we smoke cigarettes and make love in the woods...
come to breath and bath in absence.

A great list, ordered sentences, summer heat,
the milky thought of repetition, blinding the eye of god.

Bar

2011-08-12T06:16:00.000-04:00

The people sit,
catatonic, sweating,
while she squeezes limes,
and the television distracts us,
(we are quite content with this)
they talk about their poetry,
and the worth of others,
as the bartender sways her hips,
and we collectively dream of greatness.
The bearded man and young girl,
slowly get loose,
expelling the Greek,
the light catches her glazed eyes...
We are bombarded with images,
a thousand points, rising to the surface,
extracted bits of brilliance,
warm wood,
the presence of home.
And what of this?
And what of us?

Coney Island

2011-08-12T06:11:00.002-04:00

The boards stretch towards,

the horizon, bending in,

and the rain has ended

as they chase recurrences in Bronx twilight.

The cyclists, couples, cooks, bums, and fishermen

are all fixed out there.

So am I, I suppose,

sitting on this sticky bench,

with a beer, under the shadow

of broken rides and tin gates.

The barmaid mixes drinks,

and washes the tables with grace,

and I feel like getting drunk,

and I haven't slept,

and I miles from certainty,

but something...something makes me calm.

Perhaps familiarity, or the familiar

of the unknown.

I am...going to be here a while.

The rides have all shut down,

suspended sculptures of sex & eyes & youth.

And I want so much,

contact implicate in it's inevitability.

A drunk stumbles to catch his footing,

the clouds swallow an already hazy sun,

a woman bares herself under the showers,

to remove sand,

perhaps to feel...

An old man washes a pear,

delicately.

Something about salt and sand and shadows,

suggests form and curve/

the importance of rocks and the

ways sleep eludes us.

This Poem

2011-03-29T21:13:00.004-04:00

This poem is ugly, because it's a connection between the object, and the objectified. Because electric attention attains nothing, & a string of prophetic words leaves the throat parched. This poem is awareness, because you are chasing shadows among plastic glasses: full of reflection full of soft tones, full of notions. This poem is drunk with insignificance, the ink leaking from point to point, a broad stroke of moment between the thought, and the word. This poem is Marxist, infused with history and love, and the products of production, and steal, and the indifference of promise: the need and ability which is silent, the burden of chatter which astounds the attention. This poem is manifestly fraudulent, like identity, or god, or commerence the exalted evolution of movement and the void. This poem is a contradiction, exalted humility the pretext of language, which assumes no assumptions. Tomorrow is the day of the Lord, but the sky is empty.

Dishwasher

2011-01-19T23:43:00.001-05:00

Dishwasher

Sometimes when asked my vocation,

I answer “dishwasher”.

I learn more about the soul

From a stranger smoking wet

Cigarettes on a street corner.

Or the hooker who perfected

The five minuet trick,

Who taught me economics.

I wash dishes and listen

To the girls gossip:

About who is fat or ugly or high or strung out.

And I can’t stomach it.

So I keep the coffee hot

Watching the quick dance

Of consumption.

The history of it all.

Conversations matching the sweet

Cups of electric radio.

Everything still and bright,

Just like the moment before death.

And I watch or listen,

Distinctive hum of cycles,

Dots forever strewn from light to light,

The madness of wage, drifting trough this life

Silent and aware.

Revolution

2011-01-19T23:41:00.000-05:00

Revolution

If I didn’t understand it then,

I get it now:

As a poet exchanging

Warms coins

And prewritten sentiment

To earn my keep.

Watching old men

Cough out sugar and smoke.

If I didn’t care then I do now:

Ten o’clock cancer

Belting monotonous hormones

Over plastic and glass.

And as a cynic,

Catching scents and worn

Paper,

Learning life by the sadness

And fatigue of purchased goods.

If I didn’t notice then,

I will now:

Waiting for the bus,

Listening to the lull between,

The silence where I think about

Pasta and whiskey,

Or the way the space between branches

Catch the street light haze.

If I didn’t understand it then,

I get it now:

It begins softly,

Until is rises in ecstasy.

Ten

2011-01-03T00:29:00.002-05:00

I. This can not be it!

Something which

Half heartedly boils itself,

Aimless and aimless

Not even aware of aim or:

Less we admit to seeking

Dust under our own eyelids,

There is only the sound,

There is only the sound.

II. Collected dust

Pools of rain, here:

Following these…deeper

But still just following,

Secret poems between

Breast and thighs,

Trail without signs,

Leading…leading.

III. Through the bowls

Something dissatisfying,

Seeks it’s own stench ,

In gratitude, reach deeper,

Catch yourself catching it,

No: this is not the way

To go about changing.

IV. A great struggle!

Within our hands, grab & grapple &

Fix, and lose it again, and regain:

Return.

Breath…this is going to take awhile.

V. When struggle ends:

Acceptance, obedience, and gentleness.

No, this is not the wild

Same self

Lacking the ability or necessity,

You are not the enemy I had once perceived.

VI. Great joy!

Returning home atop

These mysterious things,

Music and dance and sex and wine,

Everyone joins!

Everyone begins to grow great beards

And wild hair!

VII. I am here:

Joy has subsided,

That which left footprints

Is transcended.

Idle…idle…idle…

Ideal.

VIII.

IX. There is only sound.

There is only sound.

And laughter, happiness, sadness, trees.

Ordinary becoming ultimate,

Ultimate becoming ordinary.

One and one makes one.

X. The circle is complete.

I return to the first face I saw,

And that face returns to me.

Walking I smile at strangers,

They return the smile,

and begin there own thoughts with:

This can not be it!

death

2010-10-28T04:54:00.000-04:00

Death

You slow moving creature of strings

Vibration of eternal nothingness,

Skin that I felt.

The kind of drip which exists in

The mind.

You were a bodhisattva,

I wouldn’t know this until much later,

My only experiences with death,

Showed great confusion for the sounds

And scents,

Like Carlin once said “Why send flowers

When you’re dead? You can’t enjoy them”

Now at twenty-two

Death is an abstract thing,

Musical,

Some day I will die, and

If nothing else it will be a chance to slow

The hell down.

You focused on the breath,

I am now learning,

These sentences one long

Uninterrupted chorus,

Mingus playing,

I lie below naked paintings,

I want to believe there is a connection,

But I just can’t fear death,

Because it’s just sleep,

It’s just sleep,

It’s just rest.

But the mechanic who hacked his lungs

Making the end of his Lucky wet

With spit and phlegm, said he was dieing,

And I believed in him then,

As I do sometimes now.

God damn my logic,

Preventing me from knowing it,

The more silent I try to become,

The less I understand.

Beginning with madness: ending with love

2010-09-15T22:58:00.002-04:00

Beginning with madness: ending with love

Heaven is hysteria in a fine rolled joint.

The trigger of air pressed between objects,

Echoes caught between the books.

And the answer is Christ

As a perfect triangle.

And the answer is wine

As a solvent.

Repetition: reminds us.

Repetition: is candy-coated

Pushing us to starvation/salvation.

Repetition: is the weight of soft music pushing old mops

Against the wheel of life.

What about that connection is surreal?

What about that connection knows itself?

II.

Whatever is beautiful,

Whatever is just,

Give me these with naked eyes

That I might not spoil their truth.

Rid us of the rotten apple boiled in salt.

Here we must eschew the wild herb,

Which leaves us drained and savage.

Bliss or unfocused resilience,

Shifting between the water and the wine,

In the end, let me scrawl my poems

Into the wall and regain fragments of the whole.

III.

I have been missing the point all along!

One thousand catatonic poems,

Blessed with revelation,

Busted beards of bliss,

O mysterious cigarettes of sunshine!

IV.

Dose this make us insane?

With plastic purchases

Steamed in mountains of genetics,

With repeated rhetorical allegorical books,

Assumption of ascending thought,

Drunk strangers mad with glow of

Antiquity,

When will you teach your millions

What they already know?

I purchase desert silhouettes

With Abrahamic morality,

Building up towards the great eye.

The definition of insanity is reproduced/cloned

And cool eyed ramblings. Juxtaposed salvation with…something…

Blue collar crying satanic tears for revolutionary Trotsky’s and Che’s,

While suckling the breast of Manhattan’s

Factories of Gold,

Burning black smog along

NJ’s Turnpike.

The definition of insanity is two joints

And half a bottle of wine,

Three day hazy indifference,

Trying to grasp significance,

Repeating tasks with empty mind agony.

The definition of insanity is unknown

And relaxed.

Acceptance in the form of hysterical bits.

I have been missing the point all along!

Now you got it!

Go outside, get drunk: notice anything different?

Roll around in it, kiss it,

Follow the breath/catch it,

Notice anything different?

Sit/stand

Stagger/swagger,

Stumble…do you notice anything different?

Now you go it!

Now you got it!

Now you go it!

Now you got it!

Architecture

2010-09-15T22:57:00.000-04:00

Architecture

The pigeons who struggle in thick heat,

To presume their worth,

Perched atop crumbling shelters.

The orange vents/miniature cites

Scrambling up their backs.

Along those steps/agonized bliss/

Still poised after drunken nights.

Succumbing incessantly to out-stretched awe!

That I could sink between chipped paint,

Or soar over electric lines and understanding,

The shifting of feet or clicks of doors/ignitions,

Plastic, or rustled vegetation,

Overturned crates and bales,

The bounty of which chirps at it’s own

Random distribution.

Goals

2010-09-15T22:56:00.000-04:00

Goals

Goals.

I want to constantly ask:

What is this?

I want to get rid of I.

I want to write poetry, paint stories,

& play music.

I want to know what my face or yours is.

I want to memorize the excitement of your

Eyes in climax.

I am the saintly bum,

Nothing more nothing less.

I contain every variable

Choosing silence instead.

Flathead

2010-09-15T22:55:00.000-04:00

Flathead

What to say of this nature?

Paddled to the middle of this self,

Water lapping at stone,

Immovable and time bent,

Breathed in obscure color,

Snow capped laughter,

Pine and sun/affected and unmoved.

The water churns and rises, never halting.

I fix myself against the backdrop of Heaven

As if cloaked by the very thought,

These dusty places give birth to every breath and bone.

Skimming the surface,

Every drop of water,

Reflects and returns.

Find no clinging!

This moment will soon disappear:

Have you swallowed it’s fatty juices?

Rising over each crest,

Every bang whipping us out of our monkey minds,

The bell at the beginning and end.

Soak the dust,

And it becomes mud

& sticks to our bones,

Forms us and breaks our flesh.

I am dieing quicker than this scene.

How wonderful to know

It will be here long after I am gone!

Roots stretched over,

Grains meditating in the wind:

What secrets do they know?

Quit

2010-09-15T22:54:00.001-04:00

Quit

I watched your lips, inhale existence

Sighing ecstasy with tongue and stone.

Knowing my own limitations,

To endure love/dripping from the vine,

Dew drops ascending,

Angelic certainty, endless yelp of womb

And prick.

Steal and cotton soaked in language and light

This simplistic song and sense.

I the ignorant child,

Listening to sauce boil,

Along with the burnt offerings of us

21 years latter

Done with birth,

Done with god,

Done with mystic enunciations

Cross and bread/

The milk of mothers tainted & just,

Anxiety:

The godfather of wanton lust.

The city sleeps with me,

The city burns with me,

The city eats me with all

The fine soul of blue notes

And suspended electric organs.

And I’m done with self mutilation

Of ageless aphorisms

Breathing new soil and flowers/

Blades of grass uncountable curls,

First shames breaking through the

Breast of this earth.

Jaw lock stitched hack against the rushed scene.

Gone is your perfection or idealization,

Gone with scent and sighs piling debts and

Cries.

Toothache

2010-04-22T01:37:00.001-04:00

Hand against my sides

I sighed and urinated on the pavement.

Cigarette bouncing on my lips,

The slowness of breath and movement (death)

Still got this toothache and anxiety /

Cold sex against the static hum

Of horns and candy,

Reaching deep for comfort.

Hard drag hacking habitually,

Wild laughter in balls of sleepy salvation,

Exodus into holy routine and shame.

The agony of words:

Which words or word begets language?

Money and material dripping from cracks /

Angels in bright cities dancing along the bridge:

Who satisfy longing and madness,

Who eat boiled eggs and salt,

Who paint hallucinations of bleak nostalgia,

Visions of dinners / shadow faces

Gnawing on biscuits and grease.

The howl of summer skin and jeers,

Gestures of clenched teeth and erotic tears,

With bawling eyes / shameless kicks.

The windows of alleyways expressing

Love and music,

Scent of shit and brick,

Hazed glow of coal, burning ash.

With garbage rooms cynical eyes,

Resting from dizzy abandonment:

Paint cans, notebooks, cigarettes & Buddha.

Resting and silent,

Worries and calm mutations /

Solo collaborations,

Steady hack and blow thru chipped walls;

Death, a strange lethargic beast smiling in

Front of televised Christ, who swears my

Silence and sex and scent and sense

Will damn us all.

Another hack slacking illusion for our

Dualistic obsessions,

Radically reductive to random acts of radiance,

Lotus sits on worn mattresses /

Gazing longingly at oxygen and light,

With noodle breath and complacent urges,

Beautiful slug caught in slush and slime.

Wild eyed marveling singers,

Blowing their blues to whiskey and wine,

In Philadelphia’s strange clock motion,

Which binds us all to fury and frankness,

Spitting ageless loquacious aphrodisiacs

Into solace and despair…

And my tooth still hurts.

Holy Ruins

2010-04-13T02:18:00.000-04:00

Such anger!

The crumbling crack of

Industry’s ghosts,

Eating smack along the rivers edge,

Poverty statistically stereotypes derogative hymns,

Angels of Tioga & Fishtown

Sprinkle cancer on my cigarette,

w/ it’s deep drag and exhalation pouring

Over steel cased skies,

Uninhabited rooms echoing through plywood

And newspaper headlines read Democracy for Middle East,

Young woman pokes holes in these papers,

Let in this light of rickety Els and Golden Cathedral

Domes…

Oh yes, even in the Ghetto, god is rich.

Skewed Stars

2010-04-13T02:17:00.000-04:00

Small mind

Streamed bliss walking against

Skewed stars,

Hidden before glowing half moon

Street snap and crack of pavement

Adjusting itself everyone’s

Asleep in toe curling erotic euphemisms,

Bland/no rhythm

(SHAP-SOCK-LETS-GO)

Watching over the hills

These all knowing blessed

Little critters, now they sleep

Evoking Allen I kneel before

Shrubs/sucking their dirt and herb juice

Cut off like crosses clumped in Victorian

Bouquets,

Piss and drink water from

Chrome faucets, dispensed from heavens

Whirling fans, circulating cool

Enumerations from boxed.

Steady blinking of four-thirty

A.M. glows red against the wall

I am counting moments til’ light.

Visions

2010-04-13T02:15:00.000-04:00

The Prophets in the desert,

I am in the desert!

Among fools with their smudged aces,

Starless trench of mountains and heat,

Horizon bleeding triads of color/

Between squinting eyes and silhouettes,

Smokey air like a dirt road bar

Whiskey feet against microscopic stones,

Dancing wildly,

Abandoned steel roasting for perfection

In praise to emptiness and hunger.

I stepped out as if it were

Some new moment,

The barrage of color and scent

Indiscriminately howling against

The backdrop of laughter and coos…

Pounding and chanting/ no difference

All little red devils swaying in the electric breeze.

I want out! I want out!

Want to pause and drop all clinging and sense

With everything sick and stumbling.

Bedford

2010-03-23T02:02:00.001-04:00

Bedford

Under the deceptive silence,
my thoughts/stale cardboard
chipping at the brink,
soft brie of exposure
rotting in the winter sun.

What I saw was the belly of Brooklyn,
bursting with 200 years of
sentiments and angst.
The rusted green pillars of the El,
like unwanted weeds leaving cracks
in the garden of Eden.
The impressionistic haze of
drunken lights swirling in
the milk of ecstasy/ shaman dance
in abandoned hotels/ among that pounding rhythm,
older than the first orgasmic sighs of liberty,
older than your original self
tracing back to first drops
of water on ancient seeds.

I roll my bones in underground steel &
vomit in chain kitchens.
Yellow-cab anxiety & fried grease
water from corrupt NYC water department,
quenching the thirst of millions.

Long hours in Trenton waiting
for trains, watching towers
swallowed by the red haze
of mechanical dusk.

I spend my time waiting for
machines to deliver me,
I spend my time absorbing the mystery
of dharma,
watching the play of this planet
with cool detachment.

Existentially

2010-03-23T01:56:00.002-04:00

Existentially

That is the rain; or first step,

Breathing through agony & pills.

See \ myself withered and dusty,

Before I look…what’s next?

No god or awakening,

Or reunion.

No breaths or cigarettes,

Or touch,

Strange air…my mind blooms

In wet cardboard box,

That will eventually just eat itself.

And then what?

And then What?

II.

The prophets are in the desert,

I am in the desert / among fools

With their smudged aces.

Starless trenches of mountainous heat,

Horizon bleeding trinity of color /

Between

Squinting eyes and silhouettes,

Dense air, hanging like smoke

Between notes in a wailing chorus.

Whiskey feet against microscopic stones,

Dancing wildly,

The abandoned steel and flesh

Roasting for perfection,

In praise to emptiness and hunger.

Riff

2010-03-23T01:55:00.001-04:00

Riff

Rift, raft/kinetic coherence

White eyed saints,

Scratching flecks from ashen palms.

Catholic guilt smeared bread:

Choking on croaking crosses

And whiskey superstitions,

Rushing for exchange.

Outside:

Smoking burnt skin,

Light reflection of dark

Blue March,

Sparkling eyes of hunger/

& crazed plaid / hat / tipped

Irishmen shitting in public.

Communion of the lost,

Their bread and butter rough / smoked / mechanical

Heavy sighs.

Dilated souls expanding under artificial lights.

55 Bar

2010-03-23T01:54:00.000-04:00

55 Bar

Snap/clap

Scent of whiskey and wine,

Seeps up Christopher Ave. (55 Bar)

White haired men/tonic & gin,

Find their seats against the unpolished wood of the bar.

He is drinking for two…

The blare of horns

Barely moving him.

Crowded, dim,

All lonely souls dancing for skin

And reminiscence.

Sorry

2010-03-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

Sorry

“We’re sorry to inform you that

Your having a nervous breakdown.”

Well, okay: but I’m just a fucking poet.

I’m not trying to suck biology

Through a straw/

I’m just chain smoking and drinking

And having episodes.

Note to self: confession works

Much better with a cynic present.

Okay so here it is:

I’m refusing to accept objects

As just objects, objectively or

At least optimistically I should just be.

I am drunk on the big why?…

The center of the street is quietly cold,

Somewhere in the distance

Someone is receiving a miracle,

The planet lets out it’s language

Solid/beneath the surface,

Every croak in its skin/

Groaning ghost groaning…

Fungus sustains light,

Like smack for the queen,

Like the-shit-that-grows-when-you-stir,

Like repeated conversations when you’re stoned,

Like words you cling to

until the mouth forms tones.

Phone call confessions

During all hours

To drive the point into heaven,

In case you were unsure…

YES.

I admit to watching years without

Attachment craving delicate scents/sights/sounds/

And understanding.

Direction goes every which way,

So: I am facing a thousand points

And carving 62 notches into stone,

One for each trace I left in myself

Of that certain something.

I want conversation without

Excessive salt and spice likewise

For love.

18yrs catches up fairly

Swiftly, its good to see

So many old faces.

II.

Brass rings strung over pipes,

Our work has just begun,

This house with echoes of stone

Enumerations crept up on every wall.

Tone carrying itself cocky and

Unstable through rattling copper pipes,

Fumes mixing with the velocity of water

And the strength of wine.

Tattered abstract pillow cases

Against the form which holds us,

Binding our hearts to explicate longing.

How many years starving off

Sacraments and delusions to wind up

Here and anxious?

Our work has just begun.

Walking, Messanic Whine

2010-03-01T23:55:00.003-05:00

Walking

Walking down Rising Sun high,

Ice crunching beneath worn shoes: a siren,

Then nothing, & back to my idle fantasy

of sex and brick, by the old Princeton

Cursing under breath at these “pigs”,

And vomiting through bulimic masturbation's

Of the tongue.

Cheap wine and electric touch screen thrills,

Dancing in the street light impressionistic whirl

Of plastic ridden sidewalks.

I left everyone to find myself,

Excited and cold/a thousand hands

Touching and kissing with the scratch

Of gravel and stench of liquor,

& light feet with heavy heads,

Not as fun as watching strangers

Undress from third story windows,

Under the cross and bread of row home apocalypse,

Foaming at the asshole for carnality's, desire,

And the breath of words scrawled on convenience

Store napkins.

With love,

With angst,

With trying to detach unsuccessfully

From labor and strife,

With phone call promises of

You-have-no-idea-how-fucking-great-I-feel-right-now.

I’m creating a myth propelled by desires,

To break even with debts I owe to myself.

Messianic Whine

The sky is moving ancient scripture,

With clouds burning below the navel,

The slow, steady turning of a hundred wheels,

All spokes returning to the hub.

The battery of time,

Surely drained of it’s roots/seeks water in the desert,

Like a junky’s messianic whine.

Hang over smoke stake bales on 7^th avenue,

Eyes the color of street light fog,

Seeking the divine.

The Fall

2010-03-01T16:23:00.001-05:00

The Fall

Between agony and bliss,

The Christ like bright labels,

Shimmering against the backdrop,

The rotating pop charts croaking

Through blown speakers,

Sprinkling their sweet scents over

Fruit and balding skulls.

Mustard packet of unknown age and volume,

Hidden among the dust and sticky substance

Of concatenated sugar.

Outside frozen with self-help hypnosis,

The cars and buses repeating

Geometric patterns blissfully,

The stench of 100 years of Americana/

Burning at the fleshy heart of its’ fat

And cynicism.

It is the food of television and whores,

It is the stuff of substance and emptiness,

A choir of angels proclaiming

The great trade off of the species,

Phallic and cunt of Greek suckling,

Their holy cites now long forgotten,

My holy self now long forgotten,

Wanton lust and the smack

Of rejection lingering scents and

Whispers now long forgotten/

everything glistening in new rain,

Starving masses buying smack

On rationed stamps, caked

Specks of wine on dry lips,

Praying and feeding on spit and anxiety.

For------

2009-11-07T16:59:00.000-05:00

For -------

Great sage,
the soil will nourish you
& your Christ-birth
into eternity,

Knowing how life begat life,
mind-vessels will be inferior and
submissive.
Holding grass, the coarse pieces will
set themselves ablaze,
sucking ash from every crevice,
the distant dust drifting clinging
to solid and slush,
dispensing every ripple from ripple
thru atomic yelp!

Never-mind
going past affluent embodiments
of cynical longing,
naiveté wet-dreams of green death,
the iron industry phallic of progress,
raping the arched bough of eternity.
Underpass psalms of salvation,
Edisons electric crucifixion:
glory be to the great grid!
Clenching the ink bubble of clouds,
reclaiming shattered earth, to offer piece
by piece to the sky.

Mind heavy with the frost of abstraction.

II.
The magic jazz, Coltrane couldn’t palm
heaven quick enough to catch faint scents.
Illusions of smoky high C#,
Christ incognito raising kings and queens,
diamond torn against jacks heart,
stranger to the broken pillars of
Philadelphia,
underground change passing thru…
snap to ancient beats,
self propelled forward,
burning traces,
angelic prophets between the barbed wire,
scrawled words, and the crown of thorns
itself.

Alliteration Nation Will Lose Control

2009-11-07T16:56:00.001-05:00

Alliteration Nation Will Lose Control

Cataclysmic conclusions condescendingly compel creation,
contradiction and conditioning continuing cycles of carelessness,
until complex controls cease to captivate and concur.
Consequently, I struggle with these strange idioms
and thus fall into:

omniscient outlining observations
ovulating outrageous onslaughts of outside
organisms overruling ongoing outputs.

Still,
I am…
neglecting no one,
never-the less nothing nor no one nourishes
my narcissistic neurotic neurosis, napping
noisily non-conformable at my self.

Though, this tight translucent
turbulent tide tricks
this thought, turning truth
to trepidation, tripping
this transcendentalist to
trust truth.

Really,
Really?
Really realizing rational revolution revolves round
ricocheting righteously,
requesting, rethinking, reshaping and replacing
this “Rison de arte”

Only with onslaughts of outlandish ongoing oft-misplaced orgasmic origins,

will we ever:
Lovingly lose this lacerated lost lion of
longitude and latitude,
letting loving kindness leap!

Laughter and Communion

2009-11-06T16:43:00.000-05:00

Laughter

When she laughs, it’s an odd cackle,
loud and vulgar.
Even the air feels violated
for being exposed to it.
When she walks, you will hear the
industrial age cough and choke.
When she spits onto the ground
time flies by,
and nobody notices.
O’ beautiful:
you sleep on walls, holding the thread of life/
haphazardly, with your heart towards heaven,
and your skin towards dust,
and you expect my gratitude?
Numbly she dances, nimble and sincere,
…I know this is her,
and not that violent laughter.

Communion

Intro: Somehow I am always caught
between Zen and my narcissistic self.

Stepping outside I grabbed
the wind and shook it furiously
in my hand; and when it yelped,
I exposed my palm and set it free.

Sat down and saw God anxiously pacing
these streets, chain smoking,
rubbing his bare feet deep into the gravel,
leaving a trail of blood where he walked.
So, I ran to the street, bowed down
and licked the pavement.
Swiftly, a bird flew down and whispered into my ear:
“That’s God you’re eating.”
I looked up and saw a brilliant flash of light….

The lesson:
Just sitting will show you more than
moving in circles.

Big Bang (Go Boom)

2009-11-05T16:42:00.000-05:00

Big Bang (Go Boom)

I.
I am scratching beneath the soil,
to search for what can not be named.
My television seared strange halos
into my skin, and it’s distracting me.
Deep in I see:
life is circling,
spreading its’ carbon waste
in a thick pool,
we wait to drink from.
So I walk for miles,
empty cup in my hand,
waiting for you to fill it.
I craw with open
hands and mouth,
waiting to taste it.

II.
I will lick the filth from the ground,
and attain God, because unlike you:
I am searching.

I Lay naked in the embrace of the gentle earth.

III.

The posts are screaming ashes from their bases!
Rising seductively from itself, and the silence
is shrieking!
Shaking itself madly over the soil,
we collapse, confused & confined,
(waiting to hold)
and our hands like rubber, just form (and we sigh).

I want to rub this into me,
breath and eat because:
I am the big bang,
and this infinite sense is both ugly & beautiful,
and we are still trying to hold/ this is still strange.

…I am writing simply because I am afraid of running out of ink.

Alarm Clock and Brooklyn

2009-11-05T16:39:00.001-05:00

Alarm Clock

Let us begin,
realization of revelations,
static, stoic, and impatient,
Understand the individuals
perception is just that,
shade and tone,
the bleak machine rattle of progress,
unfolding perilously,
disguised by loquacious euphemisms.
Surely heaven must cry ink tears &
write in blotches to be discovered by
the patient,
surely this incessant buzz will be
the source of awakening,
like an alarm clock for us all.

Brooklyn

With ageless eyes,
& long beard sweating proverbial
flat top wailing!
W/ no mind in the Bowery,
egg spiked children between the thickness.
And days! Oh, days of underground
meditation, listening to wild announcements
begging for change,
slight whims,
cereal spit between yawns and long divides,
Newark’s detox skyline,
angelic loves,
pushing the excrement through sobbing birth eyes,
grain fields rough from the industrial plague.

Drunk Sunrise

2009-11-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

Drunk Sunrise

Oh what a glorious innocuous sense we breath!
Hanging from signs til’ they bend to the streets,
and out of sight!
In this concrete jungle
only water is free,
so I go back to the point of forms and become:
formless.

Last night I gave into
my strange friend, leading me
from this warm worn mattress, and colored tubes
feeding my relentless hypochondriac self,
and I spun the age old yarn,
blissfully, til’ direction imploded,
and I grew sick and spat myself into
the warm arms if summer repeatedly,
til’ drifting I saw strange illuminations in this self.
Now, I sit recalling all,
to spin like the spiders cryptic web,
each strand holding the sum of my parts,
waiting and dangling from tenement rooms,
lit by cathartic cigarettes, and this sense of…
awe!
And flowing wine,
the constant hum of electric fans cutting
thru the thick heat, while I cut through the
thickness of the self I am struggling to
eradicate.

Yet the soft silhouette of
reflected street lights
fighting to claim the skies
from eternal sun, are beginning to crack!
And the staccato hack of global lust is settling
with a sigh, and feet are
again digging into the
awkward wet soil, as
spines straighten to its lackluster touch.
And this spinning slows to a translucent calm,
my body/self drifting to the edge of nothing,
settling like dust after the storm,
here to watch and wait again.

Morning Walk / Job Thoughts

2009-11-04T16:36:00.000-05:00

I.
What will become of abstract
chairs on tabletops?
Coat hangers inhaling first
gasps, crouched on stone,
legs numb, no-mind,
staring into perpendicular lights,
the sun rising suspiciously
before my fogged eyes,
giving way to the white lines,
soaked in ash, fizzling deeper into
the cornea, then spat back into the new sun.

II.
Was it these monotonous languages
scrawled into eyebrows, which left you
searching for god between fibers,
without the whole?
Ruined angels now starved
looking for nourishment in plastic,
while I shell for shell,
rip bricks apart.

III.
Ah,
the sweet smell of mustard gas and
marijuana!
The tragic clanging of metal
& false accusations, empty glares and salvation,
fat sobs from eyes, clinging to electric lights,
dripping constructively & running along cloaked walls.
What a strange existence,
blurred between frozen meditative bliss,
and chaotic big bang catharsis,
extracted from every light and life,
to be dropped casually thru eternity,
laughing: drunk and boisterous:
held by holy crutches upon which stands Dionysus at
ripe old age to wander deserts,
stench foreboding, learning the truth all over again.

Afterthoughts:
IV.
A pure mind is like a bottle of wine:
the longer it is still, the stronger it becomes.
Yet, just like when we drink wine,
if we drink too deeply,
our minds / the ego: becomes drunk.

New Poems fresh from the oven of my disorted mind!

2009-11-03T02:43:00.004-05:00

Hello,
It has been a very long time since I have updated this site, this is due to extensive travel and also a good deal of aimlessness. I have discovered much during said time at wish to share it with you all, most importantly though, I am laughing again. So I’ll leave you with a musical quote: Life is short but sweet for certain.

Peace
Jon

Rain

In this age of narcissistic information &
exploding expectations
it becomes:
impossible to cease the relentless chatter
pilfering emptiness until the complex
is whole.

In this space,
benevolent rain,
remains whole.

Did you attest to rain,
beating the ancient rhythm forward,
smoke clearing itself through.
Rain hanging onto lifeless oaks,
until the strange merciful wind tears it down.
Rain! This endless chatter,
beautifully drawn across, stretched thought…
tension the governing body of the soul/washing in the rain,
returning always to the birth.

God is Electric

Have you ever been mesmerized,
by the arcane glow of electric gods?
Time washed from broken faucets,
sporadic as rain: constant as the breath.
Have you ever known your true self.
naked & soaked; screaming,
much like before you hurt beautifully & …
collapsed,
dropping through endless heavens, tasting salt with
wry grins?

When it rains, everything is thicker,
even your thoughts.

A Reductionism Poem

I started with God,
my notion of supreme determinism,
the idea that we are being governed.
But God is merely my ego-conscious
scraping at identity for meaning.
So I turned to my mind,
creator of perception and consciousness,
until told that I am a byproduct of
electricity and my self is simple chance.
So I turned to chance, trying to understand
where to wager meaning, until realizing
that chance is another bullshit ego-delusion.
So, I suppose I am left with nothing,
yet that’s too nihilistic, so there is no mind or form,
which is where form beings?
True mind is no mind.

21 Year

2009-10-24T17:38:00.000-04:00

21 Years of 21st Century Angelic Consciousness

Golub mountain satori,
over Cherokee Delaware,
hot grass sticky and stiff,
illuminated souls in bleak university grander.
Acrylic happenings in late night whiskey
induced trance,
funneling Coltrane in hopes of realizing the self.
Bouncing between beat Philadelphia: with its’ mad
poet Buddhas, septic serpents,
all night anxious imploding meditations & angelic goddess worship
in Bethlehem.
Isolation in peach cream walls,
starving for green in artificial colored markets
of opulent attachment,
chaotic notes between sighs of complacency
in holy cathedrals of bureaucratic chains.
Slept in academic walls,
bored with conventional wisdom,
dropped out of the American dream
and into the seven circles of the self,
(and cried at each level)
Lost attachment to self
(still working on desire) forgave past trespasses and those who
trespassed against myself,
developed cynical longing and lost it,
lost God and found it,
walked aimlessly for a year &
grew roots into these streets.
Dug jazz induced love of life,
broke language into primal rhythms,
deprived myself of love and nourishment,
than ate greedily,
read volumes,
accepted new consciousness:

first I was crazy,
then enlightened,
now I’m just fucking nuts.

Learned to love beautifully again,
accepted change but denounced current,
accepted new rhythms, mobilized nimble
meditative fingers, sang blues on Columbus Boulevard and Frankford Ave.
with the yuppies, hippies, jazz men and blue women.
Received smiles and magic bills from reformed
junkies who claimed my music was redemptive.

Lost all of that, and still content.
Saw God with my sorcerer brother,
and cried when life was too beautifully
shy for him.
Barreled down grey highways with my beautifully mad love,
deconstructing ancient myths and burning
ahead towards eternal bliss,
sought solitude and grander,
wrote of all this madness,
and stood at the end,
happy to show it all.

Estatic affairs

2009-04-23T00:15:00.005-04:00

Hello, I’ve been avoiding posting of late due to days spent in bed contemplating the universe, and meaning, while staring silently at blank walls, forgive the lack of post, and enjoy these questions.

Peace & Enlightenment,
- Jon

Recollections of the Wooded Hunt

I recall that night, leaping from vision to vision, responding to the chorus deep in the soil with shouts, cooking the scent of wet pine and moss to an intoxicating brew which hovered beneath my nostrils indiscriminately, as I wondered through the woods guided by the trickling moonlight filtered through the evergreens, searching for enlightenment between every living thing around me. Creeping stealthily at moments, tersely at others, I would wander until finding a clearing within the woods where I would sit; and, reaching into my pockets grab a stale cigarette that I had bummed from an old landscaper named Henry. I would entertain his speeches on being a failed writer, in exchange for smokes, which at the time was a strange luxury. Silently, I would lay there in the dirt and overgrown grass, staring at the treetops, swirling in the breeze, the sun’s light playing hide and seek with the dusk. Solitude for me; was an escape, I did not fear the loneliness, for whatever mood the woods were in, they spoke in tones, never with words. I can not recall them screaming at me through delusions, nor did they mock my hopes, nor did they judge my soul. I would lay their breathing with the soil, as content with her as she was with me. Tentatively my hands would run along the bark of some tried trunk, and though logic now permits questioning, I could of sworn my hands grew warm, and the tree would whisper.

Water

2009-04-15T17:46:00.000-04:00

Water

I’ve been thinking, scatting holy rhythms,
trying to cope, shadows on these walls,
they are as confused as I am.
Walking through paradise,
listening to water roll across these stones,
I saw finite wisdom
carved into the stream,
out of focus to my tired eyes.
For every line written,
I cease to know,
standing in front of windows,
lit smoke,
I dream of tangled messes, and I
can’t understand this
urgency to begin and this
heart to end.
These eyes are haunting me, beautiful grace,
suspended in heaven telling me:
“Look, it’s all there!”

And the rhythms, the rhythms, the rhythms,
and the sound.
I am safe here with your cries of exasperated
orgasms shining like crosses, and god-like breasts.
Embracing in the river,
howling
I want this, like blind men wish for sight.
I want this like how we all suffer.
I seek enlightenment through lowered lips,
reversed entry, going back to where I’ve come from.
I want to hear again:
you.

Survey

2009-04-15T17:44:00.000-04:00

Survey

I’m taking a survey of everything,
so on a scale of one to five,
how would you rate your experience?
Do you feel that you’ve obtained unknown
truths lying in bed staring at blank walls?
Do you feel as if all suffering leads to great things?
Or that late night meditative cigarettes leave brilliant
ashes on your stoop, to be washed away by the next rain,
returning a small part of you to the gentle Earth?
Here:
I am thinking of what to say, now that everyone
is talking, and singing, and eating, and drinking. And I
sighed in their warm embrace, and I sighed on that
silent drive home, and I sighed while making love,
wondering who I was as I stood naked on the front lawn
of eternity, unsure and scared.
And I’ve silently chanted to anyone listening,
moving in between counters. I went back to my day job,
but I saw it everywhere, even in their benign attempts
to be civil, and I wondered how much of it was real.
So I drank to subdue the questions,
and I smoked to seek some answers,
and I laughed at myself and cried.
So now I’m left with these faces,
moving forward, though I question the
absurdity of it all.
Please respond A.S.A.P.

Sex with Strangers

2009-04-15T17:42:00.000-04:00

Sex With Strangers

I. Another slow night, dreaming of
flying in the cool eyes of
strangers.
Each passing breath shaped by
clouds, each lingering scent
unfolding like an old book
beneath our tongues.
Shifting thru day old goods,
rotting in their self-righteousness.
(A silver slice)
These sly lunatics are fucking famished!
Someone must serve us and quick!
But, as night goes on,
I’m left counting matchbooks
to kill this idleness.
I’ll create a heaven which they
inhabit and rule…Matchbox kingdom!
II. Blue eyed chicken shit,
spitting life all over the tired old women,
singing praise to the all knowing,
sucking the economy dry with lipstick
drenched smiles, very aware of the lust
they inspire in shallow young men,
who try to own the neon night,
without knowing who she is,
or what she works for.
But like an untouched phallic,
their minds explode before they realize:
1. the universe is infinite
2. respect is indifferent
3. god is in us all

III. So before death, we all drive
madly thru the oaks,
bouncing between life &
beautiful sleep.
Enjoy your strange wine,
vision giver, you’re too ugly
to hold your voice down,
and too shy to sing.

IV. Be drunk on your deathbed
so you can smile and say:
“Come and get me, fucker!”
Be silent in heaven so you can
inhale eternal poetry,
be humble so you’ll know the difference.
Kiss the stars each perfect breast, thigh, & lips.
Accept brutal hunger to
drive deep into twilight,
lost in curiosity & morose
tones, jubilant exile in
shadowed womb,
beneath the flooded promises.

V. So great: that salt, burnt skin,
that I don’t much mind giving myself
to strange gods and odd rhythms.

VI. Even though it’ll be a hundred yrs
before I surface and scrape a shallow
breath from the sky, eyes bloodshot, yet seeing
clearing for awhile, it’s…ahhh
I’ll dig my hands into my face
ripping off the worn pieces,
(I’m born again!)
Any actual likeness in this
life to reality, or heaven,
is done with a healthy dose of humor
and a fucked up sense or mortality.

VII. So we write & write & write $ write,
and take our prayers, crumble, rip, and throw
them away.
My last few customers bled before
my washed sight & made innocuous purchases
one after the other

Communication

2009-03-31T17:51:00.000-04:00

Communication

If I ever/

cease to understand/

communicate/

it will -

lock me within a place

I am afraid to be.

Where night is a silent foreign film

without subtitles,

where rest is faint/sporadic

& subject to wild shapes,

where a cool wash of neon-green

spreads over my pupils.

Where television becomes the

heavenly father.

Now I am purposely waiting for dawn.

(There will always be someone out there,

recording this for posterity.)

This circle will not come full,

for fear of exposing itself,

I will not be boxed in

for fear of hitting corners.

Now please!

Hours of canned laughter,

one-line quips and info-mertials,

for the love of God they're eating me

alive!

Going Mobile

2009-03-31T00:40:00.002-04:00

Greetings!

Several new things to discuss here today: First, recently i performed at Robin's Bookstore in downtown Philly, and learned that the event was filmed as part of the Philadelphia Poetic Arts Project, an extremely excellent group of people. Here is a link to one of the videos where I read "Ode to Insomnia" from here you can find other performances from that night (as well as two other readings I did). Secondly, here are some new pieces written over the past couple of weeks while working long hours to save for a transportation vehicle (of which has been recently obtained hopefully leading to more performances) enjoy.

Peace and Enlightenment,

Jon

Link to Robin's Bookstore videos :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZw1RjDyiRg&feature=channel

So I have been standing here,

numerically meditating in a

fixed upright position, while

drifting in and out of fragments

of demands and pleas.

Blindly rushing for fear of

not "keeping up", so i am

essentially silent save for streams

of pre-written polite exchanges,

baffling empty language.

Watching from apathetic eyes,

strangers passing between,

& sirens rolling down the grey avenues.

Wine

Home now,

beautifully spent,

wasting away in bed,

drinking deep the succulent fruit,

while the room swirls.

And out come the beautiful devils

to kiss you good-night!

And I am now in the frame

of mind to expose these secrets

I've held for so long.

I am now in the frame of mind

to dance wildly in the soft

song of my youth.

Propelling the self forward is key to

retaining faith, so I leap into

destruction to save my wretched self.

Coltrane

2009-03-23T02:07:00.000-04:00

Coltrane

My brain feels like
it has been brutally abused
by Coltrane!
Euphoria!
Praise the ancient gyrations!
Fueled by whiskey and smoke!
Obsession for supreme,
I attempt to call forth the
heavens, in all her complexity:
brash, brass, bohemian martyr,
I propel you in great leaps
of tri-pol-ets!

Seeking....

2009-03-11T00:42:00.000-04:00

Just a few updates:
First, two new videos both from a performance held at Tranquilitea, during Lauren Doyle's art opening. Got to play with two incredible keyboardist who elevated the music to estatic planes of vision. Second, a new painting is up for show, this one steming from sugestings and the harmony of sublime late night tones. As always peace and enlightnement.

Jon

Perceptive Bliss

2009-02-25T03:39:00.001-05:00

Perceptive Bliss

I. Great transitional star-lit
balconies, from which we
sat in subdued bewilderment
spitting at obscene hours of the night.

We Said:

“This entire existence is
addicted to its’ own
scent and stench.”

Yet we lived on as suppliers
to their erroneous needs.

II. In the wake of this
fire, we silently observe
the smoldering ash,
extinguished with words
unspoken, quenched by
startled inaction.

III. At the ripe age of twenty years,
I feel I am halfway thru
this funneled vision of the self.
My existence certainly isn’t
permanent, my work far from some
grand cure for the masses.
My life, a daily reoccurring
enigma, with soaked pieces
that no longer fit together.
A wandering, syncopated line,
in love with the (as yet) unfulfilled
promises of heaven,
while trying to relinquish
this spiteful vision of the self,
that I (myself) despise.

IV. May-be this vehement insecurity
is a mask for jealousy and contempt.
Right now however, I would give
my fucking tongue to shut these
voices down.

V. I apologize for each
breath that I’ve squandered,
I apologize for cursing
the unseen order,
I apologize for disbelief
in the self,
I apologize for blind
belief in the self,
I apologize for dwelling in the realm
between broken lines & closure,
I apologize for my expectations & yours,
I apologize for not existing,
I will not however,
pardon my existence.

Bridge and Pratt

2009-02-16T15:27:00.002-05:00

Greetings, it has been quite some time since I have updated this site, mainly due to the wonders of executive power existing in the shadows of corporate America; but, I supposed I shouldn't complain, at least I have a job. That being said, here are several new poems, including two epic poems as well. Also three new jazz videos on youtube. Coltrane's “Giant Steps”, Miles’s “So What” (This time electrified) and Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” please enjoy the new work, and remember,

Peace and Enlightenment.

As always,
Jon

Bridge & Pratt
Staring down Pratt, I see the woman
embracing the strange, & walking through streets made of paper.
At Orthodox, steel cages house the people,
& contain the cold.
At Church no one prays to the metal God,
speeding through their apparent lack of hope.
At Torresdale, I pass over century old rooftops,
covered in the dawns dust.
At Tioga, broken glass windows are art deco.
At Allegheny the woman in blue stares cautiously,
& an old woman smiling quiets her child.
Somerset passed over Uncle Sam’s promises,
(all shut down, or bought out)
Cheap! Sale! Free!
At Huntington we stopped too long and
the cathedrals wept.
At York I realized this is all pointless,
as the great bells foretold.
At Berks I reminded myself nothing is insignificant,
not even the decay, or piles of non-sequential shit
between crumbling smiles.
Girard had more emptiness than before.
Spring Garden brought Liberty Towers &
the promise of tomorrow into plain view
a phone poles’ shadow cast Christ and Buddha
on the wall.
Around the bend I fell beneath the streets,
away from light.
At 8th Street I rose up again.

Holy

2009-02-15T18:02:00.000-05:00

Holy

That morning when you
rose from bed and declared
yourself patron saint
of the lunatics, I
simply smiled and went
back to sleep.
I watch with disdain as
these streets are bought up
and the luminous sky is
covered in faux salvation. Still,
I must admit this prospect of
happiness through a sensible
payment plan is just
delicious.

Belief

2009-02-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

Belief

I can’t believe
this miracle of being,
here:
this fraction
this green scented
wooo (sound it out)
Step out,
tune in,
this mind/low hymn
helps you/holy hymn

Begin:
Shouting down car
reflections,
we retract into our
beautiful selves.

Ode to Insomnia

2009-02-15T17:58:00.000-05:00

Ode to Insomnia
January 21st was the day I checked
myself into the Fall Hills Sanitarium.

I. As I was tired of the apocalyptic
buzz in my brain, and the stealthy
yet brutal visions of blue.
For weeks the old woman
had screamed warnings of
the pending catastrophic dawn
into my bloodshot eyes,
I’ll be damned if she’s correct.
So great night, I send forth the
citrus Gods & blind men:
for they hold the keys to my
pale kingdom.
And honor thy Mother who spat
you from dark womb into this
sensation called life!

Still, I can’t keep from this sound,
faint yet sustained.
Calling and shifting before sight receptors.
Christ, Buddha, Yahweh, what do you want from me?

II. Mind Vessel / will you
drive the great rhythms /
forward thru starless melancholy /
leaping between pillars / to my pillow /
while I weep.

III. Waiting now for someone to
collect scattered ashes
between this life and tomorrow.
Counting great temples to calm my breath,
still trying in vain to observe fragments,
like the blue ribbon lady searching soup cans
for the best date.

Exile

2009-02-15T16:09:00.000-05:00

Exile

I.
I am an exile in my own home,
wanton,
estranged.
Could you remind me of
the soils touch & scent,
before I retreat deeper
into the white noise?
Solemn angel.
Keeps dancing out of reach &
calling.
You remind me of
emptiness as naive bliss,
speaking in hushed tones,
eternity was possible,
as we lay deep.

Juts five years have passed &
suddenly I no longer feel immortal,
though from time to time I still
catch the echo between
each space.
And in those moments,
the universe is infinite again.

II.
I am an exile in my own
home, so I have adopted
these cold granite slabs and
carelessly discarded youths
as Aunts and Cousins.
So I will grasp heaven in
my hands like a garden,
and squeeze the juices
of eternity from its fruit,
letting them run over until
everything sighs and breaths again.

III.
I am an exile in my own mind,
creating a void which expands
and contracts leaving its sporadic footprints
stamped through time.
In the end, I’m just waiting in the shadows,
to dance with you again.

Tribute

2009-01-08T01:18:00.002-05:00

Tribute

Wind,
you’ve shown me that despite
my goodwill, there is a limit
to my physics.

Praise be
to the elemental existence,
that makes you: and you,
breath.

We walk because we are alive,
refusing to act out of rage,
instead this silent yawp,
will bring you forward,
and this will be brilliant.

New site for music

2009-01-06T18:34:00.002-05:00

Hello,

Due to the many wonderful illogical fallacies of modern technology from now on all new songs will be posted from this site. Here are two new songs for starters, my tribute to Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Peace and Enlightenment,
Jon

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=909625

Public Jazz

2009-01-05T18:13:00.000-05:00

Public Jazz

I trip to celestial rhythms
gliding over the cold steel
of the el, watching
birds sink into grey skies,
absorbed in wind,
the Earth repays us kindly.
North side rising on the East,
moving, roaring, roaming, revolving, pushing: back.
Interference creating a static pound in the quiet air,
gliding past holy shrines and faded signs.
City of Love has covered her streets
in orphaned material,
seeping deeper below wind burnt pavement
where I fell and lost my, my…something.

3 Shorts

2009-01-05T18:07:00.000-05:00

Light

As much as you and I would like to see,
beyond this false hope: immortality,
reason to breath, and disgusted we seem,
the endless charade, it shall never cease,
when lights’ upon light, endless shall we weep,
the loss of true life is all we can keep,
the loss of this night, is all we can keep.

God

What is exchanged in fluorescent
hues remains fickle.
Questions so shallow,
commerce is GOD!
Weaved into the swollen
soul fabric, how they thirst
for this.
I must subject myself
to codes of conduct,
written by false prophets.
Waiting for the woman
with strange eyes
to play games with the
lost children, screaming
for senseless shit in tiny
islands, rejoice!

Advice

From this broken block of frigid air
and shattered images love comes.
Days where I feel like once a month,
I die, and am reborn.
I spoke to an old friend yesterday, telling him
of this; he says, it is necessary to continue on like this,
for each time we are reborn, we gain the compassion and
compulsion to carry on.

What If

2009-01-04T18:14:00.000-05:00

What If

What if I told you
I’ve spent all night
walking through this green
desert, diamond hued,
I’d opt for water.
What if I told you
these cathartic hymns
mask a sadness for
the liquid burnt sunrise
climbing up these iced walls?
What if I showed you this?
Would you repent back into
the sustained, supreme dawn?
Crawling the ground and cursing the light
for this inherent blindness?

Evolution My Dear

2009-01-03T18:27:00.000-05:00

Evolution My Dear

Many years ago,
you were born of dust and sun,
a strange light in spite of yourself.
Crawling eyes adjusting,
scent preparing,
consuming the emerald species
who ate their young,
declaring them: delicious, delicate, and decadent.
Pressing forth despite fatigue and starvation,
we sought to reinvent the city as a giant joke,
but everything disappeared leaving us sulfur burnt
and naked, starting over in endless abundant blue.

Water

2009-01-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

Water

I’ve been thinking, scatting holy rhythms,
trying to cope, shadows on these walls,
they are as confused as I am.
Walking thru paradise,
listening to water roll across these stones,
I saw finite wisdom
carved into the stream,
out of focus to my tired eyes.
For every line written,
I cease to know,
standing in front of windows,
lit smoke,
I dream of tangled messes, and I
can’t understand this
urgency to begin and this
heart to end.
These eyes are haunting me, beautiful grace,
suspended in heaven telling me:
“Look, it’s all there!”

And the rhythms, the rhythms, the rhythms,
and the sound.
I am safe here with your cries of exasperated
orgasms shining like crosses, and god-like breasts.
Embracing in the river,
howling
I want this, like blind men wish for sight.
I want this like how we all suffer.
I seek enlightenment thru lowered lips,
reversed entry, going back to where I’ve come from.
I want to hear again:
you.

The Great Vison

2009-01-03T01:41:00.003-05:00

Greetings from the age of indulgence.

Here are four new poems based on current thoughts and observations. Enjoy.

The Great Vision

Nirvana =
Peace & Wisdom

I obtain this:
no light opens us alone,
these hands must work too.

Eternity = nothing,
the bond between us and around.

When walking through time,
it is necessary to smash all clocks,
when traversing the great mountains
direction is only implied, not concrete.
To know peace you must spend countless
nights awake.
To awaken you must spend many lives:
asleep.

What Was Left Unspoken

2009-01-02T18:29:00.000-05:00

What Was Left Unspoken

A few times he offered a ride,
seeing me walk down these streets.

“Hello” says the stranger,
(no response)
“How are you?”
(no response)

Sing, sigh, sight.
Look, nothing is…
(no words)
This ten second stare says all.
“I won’t be seeing you again…
keep the faith.”
Walking away I knew all too well.

So, with that comes disappearance &
acknowledgment.
These lights create the ominous
fading as he walks away.

Endless shall they weep…

Jan 1

2009-01-01T18:28:00.000-05:00

January 1, 2009

My breath copulating
with the frigid air and smoke,
I reflect on walking long distances.

List of thoughts:
I created swooning goddesses,
and kiss instead of spat at my muse.
I embraced the warmth of static infused thought.
Losing everything taught me the fickle truth
of possessions.
Letting go of fleeting images taught me the meaning of peace.
I’ve no qualms with the realities of my life,
for I am free forevermore.
God bless us dreamers,
fuck complacency,
obtain light,
love the dichotomy.

It’s been real,
it’s been hell,
thank-you for the sleepless nights
contemplating spasms in 10 x 10
plastered rooms.

I love you, than-you,
let us begin again.