Controlled Sonnet

I wrote series of facts and information
in numerically based grids to satisfy
a psychological urge only to realize
that things are often squares, and so am I,
and I create nothing but squares, squares
in my home and where my parents live.
I was raised on the square! I thrive
on the glowing rectangular frontier!
But the planet is a sphere. Gravity
rained knives on each side of my square,
collapsing the edges, ripping, tearing
it into nameless, shapeless entities

and then into a circle, the perfect thing.
I need to know God, madness, everything.

Time Capsule 2626

In those days God was a heap of blank
cassette tapes and twisted rabbit ears.
The people had more knowledge than sense,
and commercials could incite riots.
I guess things aren't any better now.
Our cars still have tires,
and jetpacks were outlawed a century ago.

Now, everyone knows that Elvis was real,

and that Microsoft was a myth,

and none of us want our meal
to come in a pill or powder.

We quit war, but that took the fun
out of football and professional wrestling,
and we grabbed our guns and invaded Mexico.
Religion finally gave up, then it massacred nations,
then gave up again. We made it illegal
Then again, cigarettes are illegal too,
but they're not going to smoke themselves,
though we have robots that can do that for us.
But, in those days, robots danced endlessly
in front of monster-truck dealerships.
The language was a series of clicks
bouncing off monstrous satellites in space.

Flawless Victory

So there was this writing gala at Ball State University, and the first three places won some nice books.


So I read some stuff. So did Jeremy Bauer and Shaun Gannon.

I won these books:

















Jeremy and Shaun won some books too. Here's the stuff that I read:



The Challenge


BEER. WINE. FOOD. Three words in fifty-six point Helvetica on the window of a bar that hangs on the corner of unremarkable downtown streets, flashing a neon red OPEN from three to three most of the week. Tonight, a Tuesday, begins after three hours of a fast-food job and an endless five minutes attempting to knock some sense into a group of English undergraduates. I’m three beers to one over Annie, my hands gesturing in schizophrenic waves, ranting about a Buddhism-drenched poem that, artistically, is surely equal to Blonde on Blonde and far better than everything after the Joshua Tree.


My antics start a fire in my belly making the alcohol crawl up my spine, and there’s a college football game on the television above the fake fireplace, and Annie manages to make sense of all this for five minutes while I talk myself crazy and she’s on just that one beer. She’s got resolve, and I’m not exactly sure what that means but I have a notion, and Annie gets my notions. And a great smile. But not too often – it must be earned. That’s nice. Because I don’t have resolve. I need the challenge to prove to myself that I am myself and that proves I am: challenging.

Crowd noise flares up from the television. Tulane is playing a team in awful maroon jerseys. Annie’s wearing a yellow hat and sweatshirt under a leather jacket adorned with what could be entirely fake zippers, that is to say real zippers without pockets. It’s the kind of fashion statement that might say “I can carry a lot of shit in my giant purse” or “I want to annoy you by pretending to be a DJ, aren’t I hilarious?” She glances into her beer and then at the television during the few moments I’m not exasperating. I breathe, and keep going:


“Listen, Annie, I know you haven’t read it but I wish you could, you’d see how the poem gets hectic as you creep down the page, how the couplets collapse on each other like punctured lungs, the whole time making noise on the page by colliding consonants over and over again like linebackers. I mean, I resent anyone who does not like this poem. I would be horrified to learn that someone who hates this poem holds any major public office. Revolution will come and those who do not love this poem will grease the wheels of poetic justice with their blood.”


Annie and I take our longest gulps of the night. Tulane is down by three points.

“Sounds like a pretty fuckin’ cool poem”
-and I almost do a spit take down Annie’s leather jacket
“Yeah Annie, it’s pretty fuckin’ cool poem.”
The bartender swoops and grabs our empty mugs with her thumb and middle finger. “You want another beer, Ryan?" she asks.


Now, I’ve been asked this question three times tonight and at least three hundred times since this bar opened only four months ago. My answer is always casual, predictable, full of appreciation and always accompanied by a modest tip that reflects my current socio-economic status and total lack of fiscal responsibility. I look at Annie.

“Do you want another beer?”
She nods. “No. You can have one if you want.”
It takes seven to ten seconds for me to make a decision. Annie and the bartender wait in fantastic anticipation.
“I’ll just close out my tab, Miles”

I end my Tuesday night on 36 ounces of beer and five mozzarella sticks. Six dollars. Two-dollar tip. Tulane kicks a field-goal from forty yards out but wind knocks it wide left. The ugly maroon bastards win. Can’t win ‘em all, Tulane. I never could play football. Too small, too smart to get tackled endlessly for no reason. I wave goodbye to Jesse, the heavily tattooed cook and nod to guy who’s name I’m pretty sure is Bill and walk with Annie out the door.

“Annie?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know where Tulane is?”
She pauses, grinning “I have no clue. Alabama?”
“Probably.”

My right hand finds the small of her back and she presses her face against my shoulder to shield herself from the cold, bending her knees slightly to come down to my level.

Internet: Porn

There's no way to avoid it,
and that what makes it so impressive.
I think of how, as a toddler,
I would scrape my knees, flailing
with other brats inside polyurethane tubes
covered in yellow,
blue, and lime-green
lead-based paints

It's that kind of recklessness
that powers this naked machine,
an endless series of tubes.

And I learned from this.
Not just how to crawl
on my hands and knees,
but to elbow my way up
just to slide for the exit after
wading through a ball-pit. And now,
I can type the word "polyurethane"
with my left hand
and masturbate with my right,
simultaneously, with gusto.

You're Helping Me

For every dollar you spend,
I grow a finger

For every cough you suppress,
my mother sends a keychain

For every puddle you jump,
Jeremy gives me a cigarette

For every cigarette you lend,
you give it to me

For all of your cancer,
my lungs turn to crystal

For every hospital you've bombed,
I sleep easier at night

For every doctor you've punched,
my body fights off infection

For all of your fears,
I trade my fears.

When you are dying,
I am still dying.

Internet vs. Television: The showdown

Ten rounds in,
the referee has been impaled.

Half the audience is dead.
The other half is deaf.

Television throws a right hook
of evangelism. Internet counters

with a photo of a kitten wearing
a watermelon. The audience
screams and screams about
this media-fuled massacre.

Television goes below the belt
with Elvis Presley's legs,
Internet strikes back with
fourteen lesbians in a monster truck.
Right hook, haymaker, uppercut
pornography, illiteracy, Coldplay.

The fight lasts fifteen rounds,
unanimously decided by both fighters
to be a draw. They are both champions.

The deaf half hears none of this.
The other half hears none of this.

"I am the head, and she the heart"

O Lord, it was difficult
to be blessed with sight
while my wife beat
below our ribcage children

Toilet Poetry

I want to use an analogy about how taking a shit
feels like other things do. Here's a list:
good break-ups, fruit roll-ups, toilet paper
music, fucking, drugs, computers, words.
It's hard not to laugh though because
it's funny and it feels rewarding. Flush

Moderation

Six-hundred pounds and maybe eleven feet between them,
the couple holds plastic sacks from the grocer downtown.
I've been strutting the sidewalk, moving fast, trying
to kill time. And there they are, bouncing from right foot
to left, shifting the mass of their hips, those spare tires
made only for a semi-truck on a long, long road.

The plastic strips for handles must be digging
into the potato-dense fingers of the husband while
the wife carries only two, both on her right hand.
The walk continues for blocks, the struggle
protruding a foot from their bellies, those bellies!
I look down at my feet and jump a dying puddle

while the wife's trapeze act shadows her husband.
We are directly across from each other, a sign
framing the horizontal space between us.
They pause at the curb where water laps
upward towards the sidewalk. He steps,
into the refuse, dampening his sweatpants

and reaches a busy hand, motioning her across.
She steps far enough to make a small splash
with the heel of her flip-flop. Down the street
their see-saw bodies wave goodbye.
I walk a straight line to Savages, counting
the calories I saved watching them dance.

Consumer

He had been stacking dominoes for hours. For two hours he sat in his only chair and arranged black plastic rectangles in a circle, a pattern spiraling into itself. The lightbulb swung overhead. When he flicked a switch it would turn on. When he pressed the bulb it would sway. He cast a shadow on the sink and oven. He cast a shadow on the refrigerator. Inside the refrigerator was milk and cheese and juice and condiments. The dominoes did not move. He grabbed milk and a glass. The milk was full of lumps and chunks of milk. It was old milk. This made sense. He poured the glass and drank it. The lumps grazed over his teeth and under his tongue. The smell was worse. The cheese was green on the edges, soft and pliable in the center. He bit into the cheese and swallowed. The gap between his front teeth filled. The dominoes did not move. He poured orange juice into the same glass. The orange juice was fresh. He poured mustard and mayonnaise and relish into the glass and drank that too. These flavors were not complimentary. His stomach flared and gasped. It tried to make sense of its contents, and failed. He threw away the milk and cheese and condiments. The orange juice was still fresh. He vomited. The light reflected off the regurgitated rotten contents. He was on his knees when his elbow bumped the table. The dominoes began to fall. They came to lay flat in a circle, a pattern spiraling into itself. He stood up and saw the dominoes. The pattern was simple. He cleaned up the vomit. When he pressed a switch the light turned off. The bulb did not move.

Nothing has to change

I yawn at the world
and shove a sword
into my stomach

via my gaping mouth.
The sword moves south.
I am still bored,

I am yawning
at all this beauty
and sex and cable television.

I'll take a nap
hoping to wake up
and feel better,

finding out everyone is dead
and I am dead, and nothing
has to change.

Oh, the sword.
It's a metaphor.
If I could swallow swords,
I wouldn't be writing poetry.
That's for goddamn sure.

INTERNET: Gag Reel

INTERNET has special features.

On the special features is a gag reel.

The gag reel is full of laughter.

The laughter is full of laughter.

Laughter is self-sustaining.

Laughter begets laughter.

The gag reel is forever.

Forever is self-sustaining.

INTERNET is forever.

Everyone is laughing,

nobody knows why.

It feels good. INTERNET sends you this feeling

via e-mail, and g-mail, and mail-mail

and INTERNET pays for the postage.

Cue laughter.

Birth

Gave birth to harlequin baby
who's insides are its outsides
at this point I think it's crazy
to think God isn't taking sides

How to Build The Internet

Massive deforestation

paper-mache

discarded lite-brites

two boomboxes

two Stephen Hawkings and a Bill Gates

black hole sun

hundreds of aquaintance-level relationships

all of your ex-lovers

The Indianapolis Colts

eight-track tape of "Jungle Boogie" by Kool and the Gang

Kool

The Gang

mouse (right click)

mouse (alive)

instruction booklets from Ikea furniture

boobies

dicks

64 count Crayola (for texture)

staples

abacus

safety scissors

bombs

Nintendos (a ton of 'em)

The Internet

The Internet

The Internet (for texture)

The Internet

A Conversation With the Internet

R: What the fuck happened?! Where am I?

I: YOU'VE GOT MAIL

R: Christ!

I: CLICK HERE

(clicks)

R: That did nothing! Is this cartoon porn?

I: CHOCOLATE RAIN

R: (disgusted) I see that.

I: SHAUN GANNON HAS COMMENTED ON YOUR STATUS

R: lol.

I: DAN BAILEY HAS CHANGED HIS INTERESTS TO "BOMBFUCKING"

R: lmfao

I: YOU'VE WON A FREE iPOD

R: I'm not falling for that shit.

I: COME ON

R: Are you a sentient being?

I:....

R: I'm going to blow up my computer

I: YOU'VE GOT MAIL

A Very Special Episode of INTERNET

The Internet becomes so famous it gets a television show called INTERNET. The show is popular with all demographics and defeats racism. Parents bond with their children when they watch INTERNET. The characters are relatable and share your interests and favorite films. The setting is vast, but comfortable. INTERNET is on right after dinner. INTERNET is sponsored by erection pills and alcohol. No one seems to notice the correlation. The show has a website and everyone is in on the joke. On this episode of INTERNET, your daughter is addicted to the internet. INTERNET confronts difficult issues with panache. Your daughter spends all her time networking and blogging and absorbing image-laden texts. Her grades are skyrocketing from this wealth of information. She is deemed a celebrity on all social networking websites. Her candicacy for president of the Internet is a popular rumor. She's a fourteen year old mastermind of code and presentation. You are beaming with pride at your creation. Co-workers grow tired of your stories about her; INTERNET kills them off later in the season. No character lasts long. Twist endings are effective to end INTERNET. Turns out your daughter is a forty-six old postal worker.

Fear of an Internet Planet

I overcame my fear of the Internet.
My pride swelled to the sound of clicks and whistles.
And then I searched 'clicks and whistles', and discovered
that computers beep and boop, more or less.
Then I learned things from the internet.
I learned how to build the Internet
I discovered infinity plus one.
I found out my sister is having a boy,
and he will be named after the Internet.
All of these things are true, and you
can read about them on the Internet.
Next I ravaged the Internet for sex,
and discovered none worth having.
I assume this is why pornography exists,
although there are infinity plus one reasons
to pretend that sex isn't hilarious.
I bought a computer off the Internet,
and the Internet thinks I'm very clever.
The Internet indulges my vanity.
It is a room full of mirrors.
It is a grocery store full of naked people.
No one is embarrassed to buy bananas
in the virtual reflective sex-market.
If the Internet didn't exist,
it would be necessary to invent it.

bonesetter

This is no trick of photography.
I've been so busy I'm blurry.
That's Jeremy Bauer right there.
He's playing a handsaw with a bow.
Yes, it's as cool as it sounds.
Click here to hear the band we are in.
Anyway, back to how blurrily busy I've been.
Too busy to write
Too busy to fill out paperwork.
Too busy to be rich.
Too busy to smoke cigarettes,
but much busier to quit.
Too busy to freestyle rap.
Too busy to stretch my hamstrings.
Too busy for sobriety.
Too busy to read good books.
Too busy to have emotions
except anxiety and restlessness.

Paranoia

I watched North by Northwest.
Hungover this morning.
I'm going to eat a cookie.
Everyone is looking at me.
No one has anything to say.
It's all in your head.
My head feels like a bowling ball.

Restraint

Showing your teeth is a sign of weakness
in the animal kingdom. A woman
bites her lower lip; Every time I fall
for one I kick myself in the ass.

Raps

I'm murderous, unheard of it
I put it in her uterus
Now she's gonna have my baby
Never fuck with fuckin' crazy

Geography

I'll ask more questions and answer fewer.
I'll set myself aside in a corner

(Perhaps Florida, Probably Oregon).
There I'll weave a new history

that stands up against any scrutiny.
Against the gaze of bitter old friends

or the sheer miles that lay between them.

The Internet

The Internet is foreign like a BP clerk with a shifty gaze signing "Don't Stop Believin'".
The Internet does not know that the BP in Muncie is owned by (possibly) Persian businessman.
The Internet screams for racism.
The Internet needs a weatherman, a weather balloon, and a wet thumb to know which way the wind blows.
The Internet alliterates.
The Internet does not give a shit about anyone while simultaneously providing all the shit we care about. The Internet finds this hilarious. I do not.
The Internet twitters all the time. I only twitter on crystal meth.
The Internet makes me feel old and I am only twenty-one, someone buy me a drink.
The Internet is responsible for twenty-five percent of my sexual encounters.
The Internet has a website behind your forehead.
The Internet LMFAO
The Internet is the opposite of Bob Dylan
The Internet is not alive except NOW NOW NOW NOW
The Internet has never offered me a handshake. Get to it.
The Internet cannot read.
The Internet 56k modem bzzzzzz
The Internet has a motherboard and no fatherboard. The Internet is a bastard. Long live the Internet.
The Internet is only twenty-one years old.

Hello

Writing is hard and dumb
and sometimes I hate it
so I took a vacation
from the punctuation

Again

Why not this blog more?

Why not the last three slices?

Why not muncie? why lafayette?

why so excited to see some, and not others?

why not another drink?

why bars? why not!

why?

please?

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

here is a poem about bridges. it's called "the trouble with bridges":

there are bridges everywhere

gaps have to be breached

rivers must be crossed

point a to b

san francisco to brooklyn

we're going places, america!

and bridges are, well,

the bridges to the future

the metaphor is solid

the metaphor is sturdy, like oak.

but there are bridges that sway

in the wind. iron ropes stretched

from trees. the river flows beneath.

why jump the creek

when a plywood slab

rests its ends on both sides?

strut across, live the dream!

bridge the gap, or gap the bridge!

when you get to wherever it is you're going

the future has happened,

and you are in it.

turn around. see where you've been.

there it is! there it was!

and now it's done. the creek

has already forgotten.

Grace Kelly

I know I’ve seen her before, dancing

maybe, or clutching a graying

Clark Gable, the tidal wave of her

blondeness fluttering into his mouth

But this is the first time I’ll remember her

and her lips, half open, like she’s been

holding her breath since 1954, the date

on the photograph. How could I

forget her profile jutting into her

reflection, as if it were whispering

“the only thing that can cut

a diamond is another diamond”, or

her loose curls swallowing the edge

of those immaculate eyebrows? I wonder

if the photographer thought the same

when he snapped off three quick shots,

The first click caught her eyes half open

and mouth closed, the second catching stray

wisps of hair as she turned to face him, and

the third photo taken just prior to Grace

sweetly telling him to get her good side, which, I suppose

is all her sides, save the bottom of her feet which

may have been bruised by ridiculous footwear.

It only took three clicks, but he took more anyways.

The Maid

She moves

her hand

from right to

      left to

clean

a mirror

that shows

the hand

she moves.

Spring is Broken!

So I've been watching Breaking Bad. Essentially, it shows Bryan Cranston as a chemistry teacher getting cancer and, reasonably, selling crystal meth to pay the bills. Cool show.

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

Distracted Sonnet

I've been having these weird daydreams: I'm like

a villian in a suit-and-tie

or a pro-basketball point guard who likes

the paint. I could be driving smoothly by

a burning church, thinking only about

the inevitable threesome between

myself, my ex, and Avril Lavigne.

Hearing the screams and the fiery shouts

of the hopelessly talented orphans

burning alive with a crucifix of

a six-second abs Jesus Christ above,

I am a hero all of a sudden,

kicking down flaming doors in slow-motion.

I drink and I have a lot of free time.

How to Give Great High Fives

The trick? Look through
the elbows
inside, where muscles
are, the place amino acids
dissolve, how reflexes
happen, verbs of action
or something like sleeping.

Two children stare
at each other with their
eyes and their mouths
are showing rows of
connected white lights.

Not moving eyes or lids,
it happens, the clean
noise, a tree cracking,
or axes landing straight blows.
This was
a success
Although it usually ends
like a rubber chicken clapping
when their palms fail
to meet and then, strike

It moves without us

"Don't write about man, write about a man."

-E.B. White

They build, we build
out of straw, stone, and soon
plastic and space metals.
They thrive, we live on
the backs of women, then
of slaves, and now for
wage slavery. They fight,
we war for meager crops
and hollowed-out, crusted
loaves of hard bread. Still,
their pain is our pain, the
opposition, the others,
those with better grass
and short brick fences, those
with rifles and we with arrows
or knives, those with clean
water or those in drought,
the sun burning their faces
lined with years of squinting,
staring into the distance.

The fields are level, but saying this
to a man born on a mountain
and one born in those fields, well...

Can anyone say the man from
the lowlands can't feel the
earth beneath his bare feet, and
know that it moves without him?

White People!

Sometimes they shove
their elbows into each other’s
soft, trendy kidneys and bend
their knees in pointless, unnatural
ways. This is called dancing,
a constitutionally protected
form of ‘acting out’. This happens
on nights when the moon casts
identity aside and embraces the
orange of the sleeping sun.
Sometimes they can see
themselves-- in the bottom backwash
of cheap painted tin cans, or when
bouncing past clean store windows.
Willfully abusing their insides for the sake
of tradition, white people will
always die, and when they do
their remains are secured in a
plain ceramic tomb, always
to be turned on its side and
rapped on the base, forcing
the fog of ash to catch a
flurry of cool wind, lowering
them to the waves crashing into
crooked coasts of crystal sand.

Castrato

Clipped roses float from the crowd and drop at his feet.

The ladies in velvet seats are weeping,
a lump between each lung from
a glass shattering high B-flat that
reaches them like a butcher would
claw for a sharpened blade.

He remembers the milk-bath; his mother's breath,
the last woman to clutch the nape of his neck;
blood bubbles from the empty wound
curdling in orange at his throat.

One thousand hands
collide and separate; applause.
A thousand crying eyes, in pairs.

Things I Will Never Get to Say to Kurt Russell

There's a way your hair falls on the back of your head, a way that fits the narrow space between too redneck and non enough rock&roll. It's the kind of haircut a man would find at the best point in his life; the kind of style that always seems to be positively reflected. An experienced actor such as yourself has surely seen the films of Ingmar Bergman. You haven't? Neither have I. There's something about storytelling for the sake of itself. Protesters will weave together in the streets just to brush picket signs against each other and yell in a glorious way that only large crowds can produce. These crowds are screaming for people like you and me, Mr. Russell. And we will shoot tear-gas from comically sized cannons and shout cowboy words into the air, the waves of angry young folks will dissolve and grow families to cope with a lack of passion. The hoopin' and hollerin' will be slowly silenced; We will laugh to crush our egos so we can fit in. But with a haircut like that, I could never compete.

Going Through The Proper Channels

"I thought about starting a blog, but I know I could never honest with something that so many people were seeing at once"

J. Haney

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

The proper channels:

Channel seven will show death from enough perspectives that everyone who watches it will find something to relate to. And then they, also, will die.

Channel four will be reserved for my ex-girlfriends. Women will love this show. Men will not understand. I will watch it on Sunday's clean my dirty laundry.

Channel twenty-four will be neverending blackness. This represents all of television. No one will get it. That represents everyone except the self.

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

The thing I hate most about television is that it entirely dictates decorating procedures, forcing everyone in their room to have their backs facing the same wall that reflects the blue-white glow of the black box in front of them.

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

I love my friends.

Seven Things I Didn't Know When This Picture Was Taken

1. Putting acoustic guitars in photographs do not add any artistic credibility
2. Barack Obama will win?! No fucking way!
3. I am slowly falling into patters of abuse
4. There's better sex out there, just waiting for you to find it.
5. Somebody will really hate me, and yes, it will be my fault.
6. Women are not right 100% of the time; it hovers in the mid-eighties.
7. I will be seventeen years old for a very long time.

This is what we did, yeah. Sean is on the left, Kelson is holding the damn thing. It was not an everyday thing. You can tell by their faces that, yeah, this is pretty fucking cool.

This is just good advice, really. Pretty girls will sometime draw pictures of you that are great, and you will think the craziest thoughts about them. LoL.

Living together, young people will destroy each other.

There are creases in my bed that I have created with my body. They will form shapes like my body would seem without skin and gravity. The world will not carve me from onyx, it will wear me like granite. My body is not a rock, it is many smaller rocks that were forced together by natural causes. Earthquakes, tornadoes that prey on the illiterate, mudslides that are worse than the name suggests, whirlpools, half-assed rainbows in the spring. All of them are happening in extremely small doses to my nervous system. Is it obvious that I am thinking? That is why we are here: I am thinking too much. My mind is an army, and it loses more of itself by noon than most people lose in an entire day. We don't have a shot at making this work. My eyes are rolling beneath closed lids. Too much sensitivity to light can't be normal or good. The sun is near my body right now, as close as it will ever come. It pushes my shoulders down. It's hard to keep going. But, I will. I'm sorry. This is over.

This is not love and that's okay

The white haired dog
was snatched by the throat
for yelping at bigger dogs. This
dog was too much of a dog
to take any more of that shit.
The puppy corpse belonged
to me, a child. The dog of dogs
set it at my feet, paws moving
like a blade of grass above
barely breathing lips, which is
not enough movement to keep
any kind of hope for resucitation.
I never tried to replace it with
another little white dog, I didn't
do anything about it except
watch it happen, and then walk
inside for a glass of water. Such
is the nature of dogs, or so I figured.
The water was soothing, I was
thankful for such a warm day.

Existence

It's a pretty great thing, especially if
you're a book that I've written

birdhouse has ten poems and is
wonderfully put together thanks
to the help of my new-ish friend
Johanna Ofner. She's great! And
the book isn't half-bad. I've read
it cover to cover at least twice.

You should really consider buying
a copy at a poetry reading that
takes place tomorrow evening,
Wednesday, January 7th.
Place: MoTini's (Muncie)
Time: 9:15

It's only two dollars!! Wow!!