My world is small. The news I read to stop my brain is 7 inches long. I hear a lot of talk tonight which makes me think of fright when blue eyes and blonde hair makes a date rehearsal late the dreams and reels barely feels like a difference in a matter of taste i remember the shimmering water the ride down the road in a rickshaw looking up trying to get up the branches they looked lyike sycamores. a woman stood down below i watched myself get up and go somewhere else in a parking lot an empty store or maybe not back in work a separate office laughs with bosses and royalty checks but now its real and im a bit tired but not too tired to bounce in a riot

Weekly writing contest

www.wordsfordollars.com 

This website holds a weekly contest. The first place prize is 500 bucks. It costs 15 dollars to submit your writings on the given subject. This week the subject is winter. No more than 1000 words. I haven't made up my mind about giving money to strangers, given that they are brand new and haven't had any winners yet. Any thoughts?

The Farce

The woman walked across the window naked. Drying her hair in front of the closet cabinet. 

"What's the matter? Are you ashamed of your body?" She asked.

"No, but you sure do a lot of sit-ups. What's that saying?" I said, laying up in bed. 

"Well, its a matter of pride, I guess." She answered throwing on a robe and cleaning her ears. 

"Everyday people look at me,  and this is what they see." She waved her hand over her body. 

"One day you'll be unattractive. After that your dead." I rolled over and watched the patterns in the carpet mysteriously shift. "Everybody's got their moment, I know that." She adjusted her skirt in the mirror and dashed her bangs. 

"You sure do." 

Jersey makes me think of a sea turtle digging holes in someone's front yard in upstate New York. Are locations confusing me? I am not sure what I mean by "locations" though. I am confused by perception maybe. My dad saw a family of foxes running through the woods in the suburbs, "going from yard to yard." My friend saw a family of foxes playing, "like as if they were on the nature channel". That was in the middle of the road, I think. This is true: I got like ten emails over the weekend. 0% of them were written by actual humans, I think. I just want to do some collaborative work with someone. I need to insure my existence with meaningful relationships, in case I decide to act like an asshole for 95% of the next ten years of my life.

True, the earth moves under the stars. How do you explain the North star? I heard you cast your eye off the last star on the big dipper's dipper in a straight line to find it. But that Big Dipper is always in different places! Anyway, lighthouses are absurdly phallic. All the ones in Jersey have different light sequences so the sailors can tell them apart.  I found Bruce Springsteen's beating heart on the Jersey Shore and threw it back into the water. The guy from the Sapranos was attempting to drown himself next to me. Sea weed was stuck to his fattened breasts. 

Seems like lighthouses move only with the rotation of the earth
but stars don't move.

Lighthouses don't really move
but dolphins do.

Visitors

"That was terrible, holy shit," Matt says, falling to the floor. 

"Now you can write about it," Scott says. 

"This feels interesting actually...No. I don't even want to write about it - yet, anyway" Matt says. "I want a shot!"

Matt rolls over and knocks into the chair with wheels. The chair rolls a little. The box fan rattles a little. 

Scott's eyes widen. Matt and Scott's eyes connect visions. Scott moves his eyes around, then Matt does too. 

"Shots!" Matt says. 

Matt and Scott don't find any liquor in the kitchen and Matt goes to his landlord for some, who forces the bottle into his hand grudgingly. 

"Don't keep me up," the landlord says with close-cropped eyes.

Matt swallows a shot of gin and says "This all feels really good... man, I feel alive, bro," into the medium-space, before the off-white wall. 

Matt registers each of his reactions to the outside world as individual feelings, glowing distinctly in his chest. Hands scooping the circumference of color-coded orbs. He resigns knowing the despair will soak into his flesh and pours another shot.

"You're doing a good job," Scott says.

Matt moves his eyes over to Scott's without moving his head, which is fixed over the desk, the bottle and the glasses. 

"They were both just here, right? Did you see them there and hear their voices like I did?" Matt says.

Scott smiles at Matt, wildly a little. His hands in his pockets, tasting gin. He cannot feel any of his own problems directly. Matt touches his finger tips to the desk and begins moving his body rhythmically to the music.

 

a poem about the wildlife refuge in brooklyn

my life seems depressing. 

when i write about the things i do in real life i feel like i am fucked.

we all change as people, right. there are some bananas near me

and there are more bananas on the windowsill. 

i changed as a person, but still feel existentially frustrated,

and now i like to drink coffee and think about how societies are meaningless

constructs. the line breaks in the poem will drive home this winning argument - 

something, be post modern maybe.

my endocrine glands have been infected, i feel

and will require an injection

the doctor says. 

the serum they use is electrically charged, and seems sweet!

the anxiousness in my stomach is yellow and ice creamy. 

at night on a friday i feel like i took a nap and woke up extra oily.

i read some

sentences of short stories and then stopped after some sentences

and made pasta, ate it, 

rode my skateboard around at 5am and bought a huge cantaloupe

and dropped it, but it was fine and then i ate it

then i took the train to the wildlife refuge

where i walked around in a maze of bushes.

sometimes i came to mud and grass taller than small trees

and at one point felt completely surrounded by birds

but could not take pictures of any with my cellphone.

with my shirt off, sweating a little,

red lines and patches streaked across my chest and arms.

then, finally i felt too tired to keep up my an inner monologue or something.

forgetting, but imagining a little, 

i slept a little on the train ride back.

Whensday?

Lenny was thinking that American English was an ignorant language. His eyebrows were pointed and full of worry. He chewed the inside corner of his mouth.  Across from Lenny, George sat silent and whistled a lit match through his pipe. A grandfather clock chimed and tick-tocked through the room of daze dust and sun. George exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“How was Len-Fest?” George’s curious eyebrows and ears curled.

Brimming, Lenny stated, "A modern debauchery recalling the days of Caligula Rome." 

“That’s always good,” George unfolded his arms. A little annoyed about missing this "caligula" thing. 

“Well, besides the horses it was actually pretty legit.” Inserted Lenny. He thought about the party and about the seducer of his friend and the stained carpet. 

“Well I hope it wasn’t too tame.” Winked George.

“I had encountered much stress, offered Lenny coughing, 'but managed quite nicely. My brother wound up coming with some of his friends.” Lenny began a sip of beer but stopped… “ This friend of my brother's is some tragic disposable hero. Real 'live for the music' guy. Completely over the top. Quite sure he ripped into the PA he brought with a guitar.”

"Was he any good?" George asked.

"No, he partially cried while singing an original titled 'Basement Mother Blues."

"How old is he?"

"30."

"Wow."

"Yea."

“Did you play?”  

“Yea, me and my brother alternated on drums.” 

“How is Sal anyway? He’s married no?” George asked recalling Lenny’s brother. The tall bright guy. 

“Yea, couple years. New baby.”

“Oh shit, congratulations. “

“Yea, well that’s what happens.” Lenny winced. 

  

“He still at the plant?” 

“Nah. Laid off with a six month severance.”

“Fuck man, my mom got laid off too.” George offered. Lenny looked at George's screwy blue eyes.“Really? Sal’s wife also.” “Damn,”  George scratched himself. “My parents are pissed because Sal and Lena just went to Arizona for vacation and are now planning on Cabo.” Lenny snorted.

“I read about that in the paper.” 

“About my brother?” Lenny asked, questioning reason.

“About laid off people taking vacations . . .why not right?”

“Well the problem is each of them have debts the size of a house, and my brother’s wife got a job but first morning they called early to tell her the job wasn’t in the budget.”

"Damn."

"Yea."

Each of them paused. Lenny wanted to laugh, like when he did when his dog was being put down and afterwards seeing a new puppy on his way out the door almost winking.  George was thinking about yard work and a rubbish fire and crashing through the woods with a big stick. Then they both thought about the time when they were fighting a war in the desert. And they didn't want to talk about that. 

"Stupid clock." Lenny spat and dusted off the clicking grandfather clock. "You should get a cuckoo clock." George smiled and exhaled another cloud of smoke into a beam of sunlight.

"Nah. This is like a family heirloom." 

"Is it worth anything?"

"Not in dollars my friend." 

"Does it work?"

"Not properly."

"Get a cuckoo clock." 

"Shut up, George." 

Silence came over them and the ticking clock again filled the room. George and Lenny both felt terribly lonely. They wanted to speak hot and fast and laugh at something really funny but there was nothing. Lenny started to think about an Arab girl that reached out to him as she died. George put on the Television.

"Seinfeld's on."

"Yea."

I was/ You were

English grammar is arbitrary. Other than that I haven't much to say. I got drunk and woke up with some violent scabs on my palm and wrist. Apparently I refused the stairs. This morning I was in the hospital at the bedside of a stomach virus victim. Took a cloudy motorbike ride out to a beach on the weekend. Too early to re live it but last summer was the shit over there.

Distracted Party

It came apart all over my hands. Stacey scratches her eyelid with a stick, reaching for a plastic, purple egg. What a way to ruin an almost perfect day - the egg cake eaten in minutes. 

The internet said low of 35. I drove the shy kid home and quickly returned. What I did when I got back didn't look like what I was really doing. I'd have to explain the intentions of ten different people. What was important was that I woke up in my clothes again.

An image of a person with the impulse to bring their guitar somewhere entered my head. The image had my apartment in it. I was in my apartment. The easiest way to say it was to say that my apartment was floating. 

The party was a gathering of old friends from the hotel. No one expected Chuck to be drunk upon arrival. No one performed badly, though. In fact, Chuck had us all laughing in minutes. Whatever people felt before we got drunk was gone, but returning tomorrow. My friends are sleeping to the noise of a giant fan.

In minutes, I'll receive a memory, like a trinket. The thing had an interlocking, internal structure. One piece broke under a lot of pressure from my finger nail. My finger nail felt like a piece of paneling being pulled back, but the thing came apart first. 

The Sad Basketball Diaries

Yao Ming holds Nate Robinson over his head like a basketball. Steve Nash jumps off a small trampoline, makes his legs into a 'V' over Nate Robinson while grabbing Nate Robinson and does a front flip. Steve Nash then dunks Nate Robinson in an over-sized hoop. Steve Nash lands and Nate Robinson tangles in the net. Nate Robinson dies from strangulation by the ropes of the net. Steve Nash and Yao Ming leave Nate Robinson's body in the net and go to McDonald's. They order extra value meals with one dollar menu item each. They sit in the second story seating of the McDonald's, looking over Federal Plaza. Yao Ming says "I want to write an iconic book of poetry while I'm still young because that's the only way it's possible." Steve Nash says, "That might not be true. Anything is possible." There is a pause. Then Steve Nash says, "I want to enrich that girl's existence be sending her office supplies in the mail." Yao Ming sees the girl Steve Nash is talking about and says, "oh."

After McDonald's Yao Ming and Steve Nash go into the City Hall subway station. A W train comes by and Steve Nash gets on and sits down. Then Yao Ming gets on and sits down. Steve Nash says, "This is the wrong train" and runs off the train. Yao Ming runs off the train. Steve Nash says, "We should go to MSG anyway." Yao Ming says, "Yeah."

When they get to MSG, Steve Nash makes baked ziti in the conveyor pizza oven but with cut up pretzels instead of ziti. Yao Ming eats the ziti and says, "This ziti is dry." He throws the ziti onto the basketball court from the upper tier where they are. The ziti lands below Nate Robinson's dead body still tangled in the net. Steve Nash stares with a vacant facial expression at the hoop and the baked ziti splatter. Steve Nash says, "That is where famous bands played like The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead." Yao Ming says, "------- hippie."

New bands like My Morning Jacket, Kings of Leon, and Vampire Weekend didn't play at MSG because basketball and hockey seasons have been extended to year long seasons with no off-seasons. This caused players to spend a majority of their lives inside arenas. Players also traded teams regularly and recklessly; team loyalty faded with million dollar contracts and endorsements, which all failed due to the collapsing economy. Sometimes a player played on a team for only one game and then moved on to another team. Kobe Bryant once scored 100 points against the Milwaukee Bucks using only three-pointers and foul shots. On the backs of playing cards it listed the teams players did not yet play for. Some players played for each team in the league at least once, the older players sometimes twice. Carl Malone came back from retirement and played for each team three times as a publicity stunt. He lived permanently in a coach bus fueled by restaurant oils. He nurtured one large cat through obesity and back to average mouser weight.

Steve Nash and Yao Ming were now in the visitors locker room of MSG. Yao Ming wears his Houston Rockets shorts and his Orlando Magic jersey. Steve Nash wears his Boston Celtics shorts with his New York Knicks jersey. At one point both Yao Ming and Steve Nash thought of themselves as iconic figures of the NBA. Now, you can see in their faces a sense of prophetic sense of loss. Yao Ming bounces a basketball off the top row of lockers that makes a very loud rattling noise. Steve Nash hands Yao Ming an avocado bowl. They both begin to eat avocado bowls sitting next to each other on a bench. The locker room smells like lemon cleaning products. A laptop on the end of the bench plays Journey To the End of the East Bay by Rancid repeatedly. When Yao Ming finishes he feels a little drunk though he is not drunk. He stands up on the bench and makes a 'man-gina' by tucking his penis between his legs. He calls Steve Nash's name and Steve Nash looks up at Yao Ming's exposed crotch. Steve Nash shouts "Nooooooooo" in an exaggerated tone.

Brooklyn, New Orleans

- Brooklyn's between-81 and 71-square miles contains 2.5 million people.
- New Orleans' 180 square miles contains a little more than 1 million people.
- New York state contains between 5,000 and 4,000 black bears in the Adirondacks, 2,000 and 1,500 in the Catskills, and 500 and 300 in the Allegany region.
- Louisiana contains 1.5 million alligators and .5 million of which are on farms. They contain between 1,000 and 500 black bears.

Orange monkey.

Left flat foot hot burning hurt for no damn reason other than taking another step on the long walk of life. Now it's bothering for two days. Let's see a doc. Stick needles in my foot. Throats also soar. Damn shame. No damn reason. Dogs got gas. Had to switch his food. Argument with a Georgia boy 'bout Pearl Harbor. Who knew. Makoli revelations. He should've had some. Other than that not much more than a fight for your money and life, just what everybody else got themselves  into. Told I have no rights. Performed a mid level office sit-in. Now I'm changing tickets. Moving out. Still selling my shit. Got a couch. Various chairs. Bass guitar and amp. Plants and towels free. Yoga ball and mat. What else. . . we'll keep you updated. I pretend to sound so tortured. But I think anyone who reads this is dying a rather oblivious slow death. Compare your life to the tragic victims of . . . 

michael earl craig

michael earl craig puts on his whooping crane-costume and gets in the triker plane. two other people with whooping crane-costumes open the gate of a large mesh-net-cage and 10 whooping cranes come out into the feild. the person who opened the gate begins flapping the arms of it's costume. michael earl craig starts the engine of the triker. he speeds down the grass runway. the whooping cranes run after the triker. the triker takes off above the pine trees. the whooping cranes follow michael earl craig's triker in a 'V'. michael earl craig flies over tennessee. the whooping cranes move their wings up and down rapidly, and animatronic-ally. michael earl craig turns his head to look at a whooping crane as it accelerates alongside the triker. the whooping crane stops flapping it's wings and glides, for a moment staying even with the triker, then falling back into 'formation'. as michael earl craig turns his head back towards georgia he pauses to look at the sun which is halfway below the green mountains. the clouds look orange to michael earl craig. michael earl craig thinks 'the clouds aren't really orange.' then he thinks 'that was the first complete sentence my brain produced since i got in the striker and thought 'turn the engine on'.' michael earl craig begins to feel nervous that all the whooping cranes are still following him. then he thinks, 'what if i took off my whooping crane-costume helmet?' rhetorically. 'i want to take off my helmet and show the whooping cranes i am a human. i would just make a crazy face and shake my cheeks so that they flap on my gums, smacking.' michael earl craig looks at his arms and legs stretching out towards the foot and hand controls of the triker. he thinks 'i'm a stupid human. i don't want to show them my face because it's the face of a stupid human who can't think for itself. i'm a numb stupid human. i want to write this down. i want to write 'i'm stupid' in emotionally affected hand writing.' then michael earl craig sees a field of long grass. he feels an urge to urinate in the long grass. he tells himself 'i have to urinate.' he nose-dives the triker and pulls off a miraculous landing. the whooping cranes land in the feild behind the triker and stand around confused and energetic. michael earl craig takes off his whooping crane-costume helmet while facing away from the whooping cranes. he slowly turns his face towards the flock. michael earl craig walks towards the whooping cranes thinking 'i want to touch their necks with my neck.' he gets close to one whooping crane and it jumps into the air. the whooping crane spreads its wings and draws its clawed feet towards michael earl craig. michael earl craig puts his arms over his face like a boxer, but it is too late. the whooping cranes are too intolerant.

There was a city street lined only with red and clear plastic tents. Some of them long as a fog-horn bellow and others short as a pop. They were all smoking, cussing up plumes of harsh charcoal and seared fish skin. Inside the tents, flames burned in the make shift kitchen. Old women cooked and cleaned. People sat around, late in the night drinking the clear liquor, laughing and smoking. A metal rim around the fire cookers sat the people. Other tables were scattered about which were white plastic, defiled and scratched by shoes and the wind. Cooking smoke and tobacco smoke lined the meaty tenor throats of youngish boys with gelled hair. The girls' conversations progressed in a flute-ish harmony. They were flowing together with the smoke, the tent plastic and the wind. Everyone swirled up into the salt laden blackness and laughing so hard their feet did not recognize the floor.

The old kitchen women bleated like a lamb and served the grilled eel in red sauce with lettuce and raw garlic. A shot of Soju comes right after swallowing the meat and garlic wrapped in lettuce. The meat is sauced smoky, lettuce clean, garlic like a violin on fire and finally, the clear liquor disinfects. 

It brought all the people back down to business. Grunting, touching and nodding were commands and requests. All the mouths were slopping up like mop buckets. Fingers licked and supped tasted like alkaline battery acid. The senses were being pulled and knocked around. None fit well together as sunshine and floral fragrance might, but there was a carefree balance.

People channeled out of the tents dirty with money and in search of taxis. They were ungraceful, unsymmetrical, un-admiral, uncivil heaps of flesh.

A taxi arrived yellow and dutiful smelling of dead flowers. It hummed as people entered. 

All the people vanished into compartments, sat quietly and fuzzed off. 

should i have standards for things i 'like'

sometimes i think why do i like that thing?

do i like things because i just want to say i like them

i think i could easily be more into billiards if i wanted

or birding; i've been to bird sanctuaries.

i was getting food from a buffet one time and i was going

through the books i've read recently in my head

i thought i like all these books, all of them.

do i like these books because they're linked to other books i like through style, or period, or tone, or something else that describes a book?

i think i like books that deal with emotional problems - relationship, or substance abuse problems.

*

i think i should be more of an asshole.

there's no point to thinking about why something is good or you like it.

i think i'll be too vulnerable.

it'd be funny if i took the books i liked and put them up to peoples faces

and then punched the other side of them so that it gives them bloody noses.

i just thought that this post seems hormonal, or emotional.

assholes can be little bitches too. assholes are little bitches with things for show - muscles, clothes, engines and drive shafts, or money.

summer shooting

a white shirt dipped in green 3-d words with gray shadowed reliefs hangs from the cuffed suspects back. he says his cousin called him to help him with a beef. he says he can't fight and doesn't own a gun. the blue eyed homicide detective says everyone there knows him, everyone knows why he was there. the suspect moves his head up and down. his eyes are a little sad. he's leaning forward. the homicide detective with spiky hair blinks slowly. the blue eyed homicide detective has as a gold-ringed finger on his lips. the suspect says he did not shoot the victim. the spiky haired homicide detective leans forward, sliding his blue sleeved arms across the table. he says the suspect can make this easy or hard on himself. he says something very wrong happened and that they need to make it right. the suspect feels small and sad. he feels like he's been alienated. he cannot remember the rage that surged through him when he shot the cito in the apartment. you're cousins says you had the gun in your hand says the blue-eyed homicide detective. what i don't get is why you'd want to kill this man. with the amount of money we found in you're trunk what did you have to kill a man for says the spiky haired detective with a confused look on his face. the suspect looks at the other detective with a more confused face. he's leaning forward. he's cuffed still. his eyebrows arch like bridges over the black rivers of his eyes. his eyes get wet. he says but the ghosts officer. he shakes his head like he's pleading with the officers. the ghosts officer. it's a hundred degrees out there, kid says the blue eyed detective. you're lugging around farm equipment, half a million in cash, and you pull over in the projects and knock off some guy named cito for nothing? we have enough to keep you for the night, kid. people make mistakes, kid says the spiky haired officer. the detectives leave the room with their manila folders. the suspect puts his head down on the table. he sees the green 3-d letters with the gray shadows on his shirt. the summer is depressing he thinks.

Stacy and Rick

STACY SLEPT WITH RICK LAST FRIDAY. This weekend (it's Friday again) she goes to her friend's house who's having a party later. She drinks with the friend and other friends, knowing Rick will come there later. She had told Rick to come in school but he would have maybe come otherwise.

Stacy keeps looking at her friend's breasts in their shirts while they drink. The other girls are looking at the beer and the cards and each other's faces and anticipating about boys and penises and also maybe noticing each other's breasts but maybe not as much as Stacy. Stacy's friend who lives down the block from the house they are in flashes everyone her breasts like it's part of the drinking game but not really, just something she'd been thinking and knowing she'd do because it was entertaining to her. The flashing prompts the buzzed girls laughter. Stacy laughs but thinks they're all watching her laugh. Her self awareness turns to reassurance or acceptance, maybe comfort. She thinks 'they're probably thinking about breasts as much as I am'. Later, after more flashing, and a few spilled beer cans, they move out back to the porch because they are expecting more people to be arriving, because a few have already arrived - boys.

The boys who arrive don't do a good job talking to the girls. They talk to them like they are still in the hallways of school. Rick arrives an hour later when Stacy is drunk. A variety of personalities at who arrive in the mean time distract Stacy from Rick. Stacy feels excited to see people she didn't expect to see. One group, who Stacy can picture Rick telling them he had sex with Stacy even though they don't call each other or go over each other's houses for non-drinking things, had one interaction with her friend whose house it is and then sat on the top of the hill behind the lawn and passed a blunt back and forth. She feels good that she is part of their relaxed substance abusing night.

Ricks eyes are black and wide when they contact Stacy's. Rick thought about Stacy before he got to the party. He expected Stacy to want to have sex again but thought that he didn't care if he doesn't have sex with Stacy, he likes Stacy but will contemplate how to have sex when he's more drunk. Rick walks up on the porch and says Hi to Stacy's friend who's closest to the stairs. Rick says Hi to Stacy from the distance of the other end of the beerpong table. Rick is wearing a tight shirt that makes Stacy picture his naked, hairless chest. She thinks about his small nipples and then thinks about her friend's puffy wider nipples which she saw earlier. Stacy goes back to talking and drinking with her friends, looking at their breasts, seeing the beer spills soaked tightly over them; sometimes poking them and laughing in retaliation from other pokes. When a girl named Kim comes out of the darkness around the corner of the house with her friends behind her the night pauses shortly like bands are changing stage at a show. They observe the crowd and go straight to Rick and his friends. Stacy never talks to Rick or even thinks she will after this. She sees Rick and Kim kissing under the porch later.

Eventually, the kids from the hill come on the porch. They are more high than drunk, but a little drunk. Stacy and her friend whose house it is play two of them in beerpong. Stacy pushes her breasts together and pulls down her shirt to show a lot of cleavage to distract one of them who's wearing sunglasses and a backwards hat as he's about to throw a ping-pong ball. Stacy's friend pokes Stacy's left breast with her finger and the ball hits her hand on the way towards the cups. "That's interference," says the other kid. The other girls laugh and hold each other's arms. Their heads fly back in a frenzy. Their hairs are everywhere in the porch light as they shout 'nooooo' tauntingly at the boys. Stacy's friend says, 'What, you can't handle a little distraction?'

The boys beat Stacy and her friend and her friend goes down to the overly populated lawn. Stacy leans into the kid with the sunglasses and backwards hat while they're in the kitchen. They kiss and she leads him upstairs to her friend's room. They close the door and fall onto the bed in the darkness. He puts his tongue in her mouth and rubs her ---- through her jeans. He unbuttons her jeans and puts his finger in her vagina. While they have sex a ceramic lady bug the size of blue jay falls on Stacy's head from the headboard. The boy puts his cell phone light to her forehead while his penis is still inside her. "It's okay, I think," he pants. "It's bleeding but it's just a red line. The blood isn't coming out."