39 days to kickoff (and counting...)

Will this sadness
madness
never end!?
My goal
my goal
why hath thou forsaken me?


© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

RE: too much 411?

Daniel the neighbor
upstairs is prancing
like a Nazi
storm-trooper in high-heeled
boots.
Dancing more
pain into my
brain with each
staccato step.
Forcing me to awaken
far earlier than my god
Bacchus had intended.
After a trip
to my other god
he of porcelain utility
I notice my cell-phone
on the table
flipped open
among a pile of fritos.
Wiping it off
I see last night
I called Information
12 times.

While I am
forever a student
and you know me
as a man
seeking knowledge
this seems excessive
even for
a lover of extremes
like myself
May I enlighten?

I wanted to tell you
how much you missed me
How empty your life
is without me
How you're so gonna miss me
after I am gone
But I outfoxed
myself.
After my last
drunken
dialing
I deleted
all your numbers
from my phone
No way to tell
if your number is unlisted
No way to tell if
your line was busy
No way to tell
if my call went through
My cry
travels through
miles of unseen wiring
telegraphing
my graphic
desire
that is
unheard
unknown
unanswered
And that's the real 411


Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

the loneliest beer in the whole wide world

42 days to kickoff (and counting......)

Steve Van Buren-
Philadelphia Eagle

Such a tough guy
that he
refused
to
wear
a jockstrap.
After an
8 year career
his bird was
never
the same...

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Random notes

• Ode to my Achilles Dick...

So heroic, so tragic, grizzled veteran of

many

Trojan battles.

Yet

he is my compass still,

pointing towards

True North

and glorious defeat.

(This needs some work)

• sometimes work is just a paycheck

other times it is an
excellent excuse
to goof off
and work on
your blog.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Relationship 101

Accidental jackpot
consistent in our inconsistency
please turn to page 12
in your sex manual
fumbling towards
mediocrity
Are we there yet?

44 days to kickoff (and counting...)

There's only one thing
worse than
the Dallas Cowboys:
Dallas Cowboy fans.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Signs that a man begins to age...

1. You have to shave your ears.
2. You have to shave your nose.
3. You get your first gray hair, down there.
Gray pubes. That, my friend, is when you truly confront your mortality.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

46 days to kickoff (and counting......)

Sometimes,
late at night,
I miss the cheeto orange
uniforms
of the
swashbuckling Buccaneers.





© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Drunk Like Me

Drunk Like Me is the true account of Joseph Brennan's harrowing experiences when he passed as a drunk man. Brennan takes rubbing alcohol treatments to saturate his skin and leaves his home in Texas to travel throughout the South. At one stop, Brennan encounters a sloshed bar back, Burrrt Wilslonn, who befriends him and shows him how to "act sober" so that he can fit more easily into the American bar culture. It is through Wilslonn that Brennan learns the art of washing glasses. Most of his encounters with sobers are quite degrading and disturb him. As a hitchhiker, Brennan meets several sober men who refer to drunk men and women in disparaging ways which angers him. Throughout the novel, Brennan is harassed and persecuted by sobers without reason. In one of his many stops throughout the South, he finds himself on a park bench sitting by a teetotaling old woman. A sober judge walks by and says, "You'd better find another place to sit." Even though he had a college degree, menial jobs were all that he could find. Brennan meets Frank Newcomb whose son, Tom, is arrested on drunk and disorderly charges. Brennan tells Tom about his "passing for sober" in the South, and Tom becomes enraged. Tom feels that Brennan could have served the plight of the drunk man in the South better as a drunk. Frank asks Brennan if people would believe the story. Tom says, "I don't know, but I'll tell them, right after this next round."

Summer Weekly Reader: July 7, 2005

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joseph Brennan's groundbreaking and controversial novel about his experiences as a drunk who transforms himself with the aid of medication and rye in order to experience firsthand the life of a drunk man living in the Deep South in the late 1950s is a mesmerizing tale of the ultimate sociological experiment.

Library Journal: July 20, 2005


© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

48 days to kickoff (and counting...)

If I were a Native American
you know
the one thing
that would piss me off
more than anything
about the
Washington Redskins:

Billy Kilmer and his
broken bloody nose.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Trouble in Mind (E)

(E7)
I'm blue
(A)
but I won't
(F#7)
be blue always

It starts when you feel empty.
You begin to act out that emptiness with others.
Painful choice:
Spiritual suicide with collateral damage to loved ones
OR
continued despair?
No matter what you choose
you become infected
with a malaria
of your spirit.

Such a common situation-
the unstated conspiracy among men:
"keep it on the side
live the lie
Don't risk the financial,
live with it
keep it together.
What?
You are out of your goddammed mind.
Destroying your life, for what-love?
Freedom?
Don't be a fool!

A terrible toll.
Damage of living hypocrisy
or the damage of goodbye.
But hey,
I've always been a Sex Pistols kind of guy
in a Bob Seger kind of town.
Turn the page...

E E7
Trouble in mind, I'm blue
A F#7
But I won't be blue always,
E C#7
You know the sun's gonna shine
F#7 B7 E
And brighten my backdoor some day.

Trouble.mp3

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

5-20-5 2pm Friday @ Brick Store Pub

Money in my pocket but still languishing in Languedoc.
St. Artemis of Bender, bless us.
St. Artemis of Bender, pray for us.
He who can only allow himself to feel happiness when he's stoned,
have mercy on us. Oh lordy, have mercy on us.
I am, who am, he is.. was, and ever shall be.
Embrace the grape.
Yo padre,
a little help here.
Change this tap into some pinot grigio.
God,
Deo,
Jesus,
hey Zeus!!!!

(fyi: I love drinking)

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Rule of Three

Sun shines down on my back burning through the whiteness of my t-shirt into pale white skin. Sometimes it feels good to sweat, from the top of your head on down till you get that moisture right in the pit of your knee. Damp. Casual breeze brushes by. The sound of the town in the distance. Background noise of clinking glasses, guttural moans, and car horns. Smell the asphalt and rubber on the street. Going to a cafe to write is so cliched but when the inspiration hits you, what is one to do? Work with it. Surrender to the muse.
Or go fuck yourself.
At least the caffeine will jumpstart my heart. There's a flower bush out here on the patio; purplish-red blooms next to my steel mesh chair. Someone who works here tends these flowers. Along with bussing tables and stacking chairs. Delivering sugary beverages and slices of turtle cake. This one slice of 20 minutes in their work day. Checking the dampness of the soil. Making sure the balance is correct. Not too acidic. Not too loose or too tightly packed soil, giving the roots enough room to breathe. Wiping the dirt from their hands onto the barista towel at their waist. Feeling in touch with this little portion of mother nature's womb.
Leaves variegated, thoughts unsettled. Wondering when the clouds will scud away. Bring back the healing rays. Thoughtful. Magnetic. Magenta. All the colors of the gay rainbow kissing the hairless skin of my arm. Beaming down. Coming down on me in my zone of comfort. The slow wind down to a weekend, goodbye Sunday afternoon/evening, where are the blues and why have they gone away?

#1-Ordinal: It helps to number things. Gives structure to my madness. Order out of chaos. Makes me feel there is a sense to this world.

Not sure how I came to this point or when I first started doing it. Maybe it was when I first learned to count my stuffed toys. How many snoopys? How many ducks? How many teeth? Now let's group them: small and large.
This is one of the few lessons I learned well.

#2-Action: Bodies at rest too long tend to get buried. It helps keep my restless nature in check, plus it gives me something to do in those wee small hours.

My famous quote, "Action is better than inaction, but passion is best of all,"
seems to capture it.
You find more out and bring more to yourself by remaining in motion. Not just busy work and not without a calmness to your soul, but somehow, somewhere, striking that delicate balance.
Moths attracted to light, life attracted to the motion. Movement breeds movement, activity, pushing forward with that pioneer spirit. Peristalsis, the act of digestion, moving through the body. Photosynthesis and the release of oxygen into the air. Internal combustion, the spark of a light switch. All these miracles surround our everyday, the buzz of the wings of a dragonfly, alive for 30 days max and then falling into the ground, dust crushed into the pavement and blown away.
In the same way it encircles us all.

#3-Truth: To find a truth that's true for me. The sound of this sentence rings in my head.

Fuck everyone else's answers, I'll find my own. Become my own Magellan, laughing into the face of circumnavigation. I must find my sexton's tools, my compass and world-weary maps and then I am off!
The answers are within us.
The answers are bullshit.
The answer to question #3 is FALSE.
The answer for me is not the answer for you.
You want answers? Go to the encyclopedia and find your trivia.
What's the Gross National Product of Tanzania? (273)
How many stripes are on Zimbabwe's flag? (7)
Where's the best place to fuck yourself? (take your pick)
Inside, man, it's all inside.
So go out there and live it
or just sit at home,
alone,
your own miserable little fun house amusement park ride.
Just about there,
bottom of the page.
Sometimes it feels good to give yourself permission to suck.
Made it,
Amen.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Fist

Broken glass embedded in rubber.
The city is sad,
it cannot hold my anger.
The fist is dynamite connecting
making my dream a missile.
A sugar cone of death
or a pocketful of hate.
When someone pisses you off in traffic,
RAM THEM!
Or better yet
seek out a seduction.
I have an unreasonable passion for sinning
and sainthood
transcendence
true magic
religious sex.
Come sinner
and be baptized
by my holy water.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Broken Promises

I won't become my father if you promise not to
become your mother.
Some sorry-ass Michael Jackson Lovers
explode into wombs
so sacred
and then
at that
magical moment
wonder where
Wisconsin
is located and
what's the capital,
by the way,
of Greenland?

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

2 mysteries to ponder

1. Before Eve, did Adam dream?
2. After washing, is dirt considered clean?


© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

sammich

Sometimes you just feel like having a sandwich for dinner.
Know what I mean?
A couple of pieces of almost stale pumpernickel stashed in the way back of the rent- to-own fridge.
Pull out the block of extra sharp neon yellow cheddar and slice yourself thick slabs of cheese.
Rummage around for a few stray slices of pepperoni.
Stack and DONE.
If I'm feeling a little crazy I'll take some fat free mayo, mix in some tabasco sauce, whip it up and slap on the bread.
Caliente!

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

Joe's Theory of Relativity

I've said it before but it bears repeating:

"Spend as little time
as possible
with your relatives."

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

the way (but not tao)

This is the way it does start,
this is the way it goes.
Wish my hands were as smooth
and as solid as my pen.
Ahhh the seductive track love takes....
I used to have money, kid, you had dreams.
Almost learned my lesson too late. But it's worth the bargain bin
I live in,
the freedom's not in the things you buy but how you live.
The times I felt most alive had nothing to do with the cash balance in my savings account. Agreed, cash grants easier access to some things, i.e. driving a girlfriend's convertible Porsche Boxter 120 miles an hour on the downtown connector @ 2 in the morning-but it is not required.
I have felt just as connected to the elemental and in touch with mammy nature sitting perched on my commode.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

12:29 AM

tick tock sleep or write tick tock dehydrated weary
tired today too much caffeine to keep awake and too much sun to bring me down.
My belly swells. If I don't get to sleep soon (unlikely)
I'll be too exhausted for my morning run and my stomach will grow ever larger.
More hair falls out. My contact lens prescription weakens even as my dull hand drags this pen across the page.
No one writes in notebooks like this anymore. Dinosaur. Yawn, dry mouth, bad breath. Somehwere in the world a bomb explodes. Wish I was knocked into slumber with it. Maybe if I sit on the toilet for a while peace will come.
Where did it all go wrong? So damn wrong.
Growing up I was the oldest child, Jesus on a Big Wheel, flashing through life, kicking ass. Lost my edge.
Now I'm on the Geritol softball team, smelling of rubbing alcohol and the stale mothballs of my grandmothers closet. How the fuck did this happen?
Sitting on the commode @ 1 AM I think to myself,
"I knew I should have eaten that second bowl of frosted oat bran this morning...."

Clench, unclench
clench, unclench
By the way, that's my jaw.
Clench, unclench
clench, unclench

Although at this late hour it could have easily been my sphincter
or my fist.

Listen,
I don't know what the answer is-
but I've got to keep trying.


© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press

begin anew, again....

Starting a new blog
to save my soul
to stop the madness
to cleanse the voices
to wreak havoc
to try and help my feeble brain
break those same
old patterns of behaviour that lead to
wretched despair
but some great parties.
So...
sit back
pull up a tombstone
relax
and enjoy the rebirth of Shroud Press.

© Copyright 2005 Shroud Press