Limbo

Here is the dichotomy of an artist:  when a person is happy, they are usually busy, loving, living, playing; they are not creating.  However, when they are sad, here flows the endless stream of creative vision. When you are distraught, you are alone with plenty of time to make art.

Happiness explores and sadness dissects.  The former offers more 'specimens for dissection', the latter comes to a full understanding of that which it has found.

Why does dissecting a situation produce sadness?  I think any thing studied enough brings to light elements that are unexpected, unpalatable and even disgusting.  Dissection opens a concept up and exposes contradiction- indeed exposes that which makes us human.  I believe that humans have a natural tendency to lionize life, see it as invincible and incorruptible, making myths we are also making disappointment when we cannot live up to the things we have canonized as 'ideal'.  And so the arts are in a continual state of revolution.  As it should be.

  The piquant touch of a melancholy is what makes me reach out, what enchants me ... letting go, to know the perfection of possibility and chase it and lose it and lose it, to create under the stars of mischance and look forward to the morning.  Knowing that being human means hurting and lying and contradicting yourself and still living to love and offering your own.  How can a person deny that penultimate ache to the climax of life?  I paint that because I see that above all with every person I meet, but more, that they never get to the climax, like they are in a limbo, waiting, waiting, waiting, and never reaching out and taking.

Poem from Midnight Friday Night Poetry

Life Advice

First and most important

USE BIRTH CONTROL

nothing fucks up 18-24 years

of parties, art and beer

like a little hip-clinging rodent

gnawing away at all your corners

because it needs

            EVERY LAST IOTA       

                        of your attention, else

the filthy, pant-shitting hanger on

will make you wipe its ass

the drool from its gurgling mouth

FOREVER

it won’t puke in the toilet

it will rub Vaseline all over

            your record collection

break eggs on the kitchen floor

lock the babysitter in the closet

pee right in your face

            more than once

unless

you become a real

                        HEADKICK FASCIST

I mean, really, those little leaches

don’t know shit when they are born

and if you want to raise

            the cooing demon

well enough to not get stabbed

to death in a barfight

you have to disown your feel-good

“ISN’T IT CUTE”

Pavlovian drooling

and put on some third Reich boots

goose-step on its pouty face

collect its tears for making gas

buy pepper spray

and USE IT!

You’re going to have to build railroads

to Siberia and send that

barnacle germ fucking kid

            to the gulag.

That idiot parasite

            MUST BE BENT TO YOUR WILL

and you have to be ready

to “make the trains run on time”

you will embarrass yourself

in malls, at restaurants,

                        IN PUBLIC

                                    by screaming

DON’T talk with your mouth full

DON’T interrupt

STOP eating worms

STOP hitting your grandma

You will not recognize yourself

you will grow a Hitler moustache

you will perform gross medical experiments

            BLOW YOUR NOSE

            DO YOUR CHORES

            SHUT THE FUCK UP

and it will be good

because it must actually believe

that you will

KILL it

OR IT WILL LIVE WITH YOU FOREVER!

And if you don’t become Mussolini

if you get all soft on it

give it its darling way

                        RESPECT IT

you might become one of THOSE

            those horrifying mutants

with endless wallet photos

and stories about choir shows

            sports events and teeth cleanings.

Don’t make us suffer you

because you can’t think of anything

            better to do with your life

USE BIRTH CONTROL

snip your shit

pop that pill

end the plague of pussy fruit

polluting the world

            and our souls

(maybe start fixing yourself)

and that’s

all

the advice

I got

for you.

A Set of My Poems

I Couldn’t Stand

As mortifyingly WONDERFUL

            as all my past relationships

                        have been

with their stiletto knife tears

            ravaged voice boxes

threats of being committed

            (to an asylum and each other)

the locked door cage matches

                        broken finger pointing

guarded litanies of EXCUSES

after evening reports

            of who what when where WHY?!?!?!

I’m taking my jealous

                        expectation-ridden

            heart

and crushing it to pulp

I’m burning the red-flags

            and all the obnoxious

                        trying-to-change

someone

            YOU CLAIM TO LOVE.

Agreeing with me

            IS NOT

a precondition for my affection

Your day job is not

                        making me happy

Your night job is not

            constantly considering

my needs

and hoping you don’t

            do something inadvertently

                        TO PISS ME OFF.

That’s not what you were doing

when I fell in love with you.

It pleases me

for you to go right on

            being

the you

I couldn’t stand

                        to be apart from

that

first

day

we

met.

***************************************

Fucking Sisyphus

O I’m gonna tell you

what really turns me on –

it’s someone tapped into

the lost art of a lost cause

someone giving up

on the whole lousy world

and then choosing to go on

knowing there is no reason to do so

            but the doing.

Fucking Sisyphus, man!

Nothing gets my panties wet

like a man or a woman

heavy lifting some god-forsaken

boulder up a mountainside

besides

watching them chase it down again.

This is not the same

as tripping over the same stone.

I like deliberate futility –

going in with eyes unveiled

to the purposeless purpose.

Sisyphus had his eyes wide open

he didn’t trip or fall,

I know. Because if he had

I’d been sure to be underneath

him when he did.

His eyes were open, and seeing,

he knew his path all too well.

O if you want to woo me,

tell me about your apathy

how you woke this morning

with a choice between

a shower and a suicide

and decided to get clean,

opened the windows

to let the morning air in

before taking yourself

            up the hill again –

and I’m in.

You, shaking your fist at the wind

hollering at the fall leaves falling

putting caterpillars into therapy

telling them they don’t have

            to change

writing poems on torn napkins

and asking me to

stuff those words down my pants

anything useless, outrageous

that asks too much

and takes too much

and I’m all

            blush.

Fucking Sisyphus, man!

That’s what I’m thinking about

alone in my bed tonight

with my left hand

between my thighs

and my right hand

            on this pen

getting off on this poem.

*********************************

No Name

To call this intersection

of paths

love

is like calling the ocean

a storm cloud

we do not name things

for what they could

or will be

we name them

for what they are

which makes this

            whatever it is

something unnamed

because we are inventing

it as it emerges

I have my terrified moments

I write secret notes

and slip them in an envelope

with fire and magnets

addressed to you

I have my pleasures

thinking of your green walls

and I know you’d rather

see me dolorosa

but you awaken me.

with you I have two hearts.

I will not call the seed

a tree,

nor the tree a house

I will not call the fire

a destroyer

or a candle

I will not name this.

************************************

The idea is

you get your ass

busted

by killers

who worked

on chain gangs

who can open

beer bottles

with their teeth

and gargle

            scotch.

They get you

on the ropes

with a 1-2

a right hook

they break

your nose, then

they make

you get back up.

The idea is

you get your jaw

knocked to the floor

you get to offer

no excuses

you put your own

teeth back in

            swallow

the blood

and walk back

on the job

the next day

with your chin

high.

You look those

roughnecks

in the eye

and say

what

next?

I’m ready.

The idea is

that if you

take your lickings

for being a dumb-shit

and keep going

back to those

brighter, tougher

fighters

eventually

you’ll

learn enough

to stop

getting

kicked.

You’ll

get

the

idea. 

*******************************

Even though I love you telling me no

My panther of the yellow eyes

and cagey pacing,

when your black body

stinking of meat

leapt back into bed

next to me

with your kamikaze purr

and then

when your huge paws

wrapped me in tight

to the lank of your body

teeth so very near

but no, never touching

the neck I always

leave exposed for you

and you told me

you wanted to die like this

gripped in a savage cat’s embrace

face to face

with whiskers and fangs,

I wondered about the surety

of not leaving this life alone.

We both know

this is the kind of question

with no answer.

How do I prove

I love someone?

Is it true my body

ends at the skin

and the wide, starry void

is separate from me?

How do you know

I’ll keep my promises?

Let’s stick to questions

with answers.

Are you here right now?

Am I in your feral arms?

Do we dream?

Yes, panther, yes.

I let your claws open me.

  

A Poem by Hank

Just finished reading "The Last Night of the Earth Poems" by Charles Bukowski ... here is my pick

air and light and time and space
“–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

The New Name

Perhaps you are wondering, what exactly is a self-abusing wondershow?

In short, I think it is you.

But not the polished, presentable, practiced you. I'm talking about the you on your deathbed, in the emergency room, flailing on the floor crying for your lover not to leave, raging against an injustice done to you, snarling at the person who cut in line. The one that springs up unexpected and suddenly takes over your actions as though you were a marionette.

The you you regret, apologize for, put away in a special closet deep in your mind and try to forget. The you it gives you anxiety attacks to think about. The part of you that makes you say, 'well, the good outweighs the bad.'

This self at the raw of yourself is where are all your wounds live. When awoken, you are powerless to your own will because that damaged you needs to be bandaged, needs attention, needs healed. You fling yourself into a haze of acting crazy to try and mete out some justice for your injured self. You sling arrows, you say things you do not mean, you scream, anything to get that other person to listen to what you need.

This is self-abusing. And don't you act like a wondershow?

But, this is not the only self-abusing we do. Also, there is the abandonment of your dreams, the settling for what life gave you, the giving up on being an artist. Perhaps, when first we betray ourselves we cannot help but feel betrayed and used by everyone around us. Which makes us lash out, do harm, be angry.

Can you admit this you is inside of you? This impish, sabotaging devil comes out to wreak havoc every now and again, mostly when you are hurt?

We are all self-abusing wondershows. It makes me happy to come right out and say it about myself, I am not misleading you: I will act the fool.

Please, when it happens, laugh.

Suffering Suffering

Are love and suffering constant companions?

It seems the windmill of what's passed on from generation to generation might be a story of how we all suffer at the hands of those who claim to love us. We're told, "I only do this because I love you." We are taught that people make mistakes and that forgiveness is divine.  We must forgive and forget because family is the most valuable thing in our lives. This is what we are told.

We perpetuate this paradigm, turning on our friends and families and children as adults. Drama ensues. Think about most of your fights with people you love, they seem years later to be practically incomprehensible to have started clan wars over, to print up Team This Person and Team That Person shirts over. We say what's important is the lesson learned.

So what exactly is that lesson? That to love and be loved is to make others suffer and suffer yourself? Give up on love if you want autonomy and happiness? 

There will be no abandonment of love, but is there a way to mitigate the suffering?

The next time someone you love irritates you, hurts you, try something different. Instead of being mad and angry, asking for explanations and justifications and waiting for your opportunity to be cordially forgiving, decide that person does not need to be sorry. Decide there is nothing to forgive because you love that person and are going to keep doing so either way. This is not to demean a genuine apology. Saying you're sorry is a powerful gift and perhaps a necessary element of our being able to move on, both in the giving and in receiving.

Not needing to forgive a person means that you are not angry. So you must focus on how to not be angry with the people you love. The solution centers first around yourself, if you can relinquish the sense of entitlement you feel you have over another person's actions, truly allow them to be themselves, then it is my theory that the anger will fade. The people you love will no longer be able to hurt you because you cannot be hurt by them.

I can't imagine being mad at the people I love right now because I know that what I really want is for them to be themselves, and for that to be ok.  I want them to know that they can be with me without walls or judgement. I don't expect them to adopt my mores as a precondition to my love. They still have their own needs and expectations, and I respect that.

Now, as a self-described self-abusing wondershow, you might argue that I like being hurt and discount your own ability to forgo your anger. I say that it is precisely my masochism that has taught me how to truly love another person. Because being hurt hurt me less than other people, I analyzed and delighted in my suffering, I was able to give my sadness a depth of thought most people avoid. I was able to put aside my ego long enough to see my part in the relationship drama, and attempt to stop making those who love me suffer. In doing so, it also freed me from the particular pain of being disappointed and hurt by the ones I love.

 I learned my lesson: the best gift is loving a person for who they are.

Jayne Deserves Special Attention

This girl is fantastic and deserves to be famous. I made a webpage for her. Jayne-saw