Wrote these a few years ago after reading Ted Berrigan's great book The Sonnets. Obvious debts also to Ashbery, O'Hara and New York School scene. What I did was sit down one night a little drunk with music on and write the whole time the CD was playing, pretty much non-stop no thinking. Then I took the big thing, several unbroken pages, and hacked it apart and rearranged lines and phrases in homage also to Burroughs and cut-ups. Beats and NY School still rule I think. On "Centerfold" We drove in our shitty cars mine was a Subaru little red thing Or maroon I've heard you call it one time remember Truck nearly drove me off Sprinkle Road Could have been it for the Kid. But what I've always really wanted to do is Take that car yes we will take that car and drive it Take it to a motel room and take it off in private. No, I'm in a transitional phase, It's not you, it's me, Go easy, Captain, Nothing but some cretins on the periphery No! Not here! The lawn is so well-manicured out here strolling the Leaf-strewn quad -- remember? -- out where The chicks are so foxy. _____ On Jaws 3D Do not adjust your set Those are the screams Do not run screaming into brightly-lit rooms And do not try Whatever you do, don't aim high. Today we went to war or we're going to war or Already went to war and are home again Home again as my mother (mom) Used to say. My heart is real, it's a fan club or whatever one Calls it these days. It certainly wasn't a movie or I'd have kissed you there like in the long ago days Of terrific seeds and that severed head coming at us Through blue water. _____ Sunday School Trouble in the very last phases, Slow-going. We've arrived at this certain port. Into the mouth we march, how it feels, how I briefly, How it feels being spit with the lips, When you kiss or it's easier. In the back row last seat CCD the Galesburg kids Gull Lake kids No one understands but it's real The rock song, lunge of guitars or like lungs or we held fast Or the room when it sighed And I said, Well, it's not like that, no, creepy may not be the word But I was doing you a favor because how? You creep, she said. You are too patient for me, I want to ride you but can't last. I am crying out loud. _____ How I Briefly Became Interesting This song starts the way another song I know starts. And has not the debate been exhausted? Go ahead and build the strip club. I'm a kid but first I was a zygote then I was a fetus Then I busted out and got a job. I did nothing but keep it real. So listen. It's the tale of how I briefly became interesting. He's still here. God spared him or me. I sold you that. I sold you that war. We are at war or are at least thinking about The T-shirts of war, my favorite T-shirt is the one With you in it. What did you say, Ronald? The government wishes to inform you that you have arrived At that part of life that swells when you try to suppress it. _____ Rosebud Because I wanted you to experience something like death And fucking with dust on the old prickie. Dust? No. Sand. I had a memory, but it was fake and I was tired and she said Or someone said, maybe my mom said, I am pinching your Dreams like these shoes pinch my toes, Or I dipped my toes in the ice cream and got a little charge A little thrill, I said to her, dreaming, I said, It's the name of his sled. No, shitty, what I was was, It was his best friend, the pathologist, Not the one-armed man. Listen, partner, no one wants to die. That's not true. How can kissing mean what it means in wartime? _____ What I Thought I Wanted These are approximate times But I could swear I saw it. I was squashed in a lens, Timeless, I was at work I was drunk A healer of eyes that bled mist. Let me at least travel. To travel, does that count? Well, I, we've never really, we've not read the reports. We've heard a thing or two. We are displeased. Let me send you something nice at the holidays. Let me not care about time. I thought I wanted to be dead but that was bullshit. _____ Three Cheers For Mutant Do you remember? You were near me and we had walked From the train and I reached over and I copped a feel. Now it's ten, fifty, six thousand years later and What have I been since then? Today we go to war or is it went to war Or are we now at war? Oh well. No Blood For Lube Was the sign they waved at the march But I ask after you often and am quite comfortable Staying in on a Friday or Saturday night. You have brought us this far, said the lady Today was a trick of the light. I have given up on you, said my father. Copyright © 2006 by Bryan Charles

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