ziel

[ziel]

Quiet

When you give up on those who speak your own language, And the veins in your arms direct you otherwise, This world leaves one distorted from the perspective of what is whole.

[ziel]

New Years

It's a party for the willing. I'm sitting down facing wind to force smoke away from my face so as not to choke on air. Plastic furniture on the stoop lies covered in salt. Winter takes it's toll on us all. Crystal Castles from the DJ 'And I Wonder What All My Student Loans Paid For' is held back by closed doors. I look up. 'And not a day goes by in which I don't know what I'm thinking about.' you say. Lipstick stains cigarette ends. The seconds move slow. I smile for a while. 'How 'bout we make a slogan for the future mass?' you whisper above me. I don't know what this means. 'Sure.' The song ends. So does my cigarette. I walk back inside. And the wind closes the door.

[ziel]

Your life’s work cumulating in feeling sorry for yourself sitting at the bar at Applebee’s struggling with some bitchy bartenders who don’t want to pay attention to you, you are a liar and a cheat, the last days of feeling like you’re 20 and you got nothing to do died in your ceasar soggy lettuce,...

[ziel]

Should as an Option

When does someone become a poet? Is it when she takes her first sip of liquor? Is it when he attends his first abortion? Is it when the differences in ‘what could be’ speak louder than ‘what already is’?

I’m finding it more within the bedroom walls of my neighbor’s downstairs apartment. Melded in groans, particle board, and plaster, before she cries out for the welfare check, and he lines his heart with boredom.

It isn’t in putting on black frames, and saying ‘it is’ in a coffee shop. But more of a way of saying ‘it isn’t’, and being okay with it all.

[ziel]

cleric cant

seemingly I’ve woken up and I’ve got nothing I am superman in glasses with lois and a dog university placard on a wall if I jump from the building I’ll fall

days and day on days of nothing kryptonian and no batman and no wonder it’s no small feat not to repeat

[ziel]

fri oct 31 2014

comp died i’m staring at me surrounded by black dog barks door slams shiver

dull anxiety w/r/t various misplaced possessions computer charger my only coat it might snow tmw

someone calls ‘goodnight’ i am hiding in these...

[ziel]

A Decaying Orbit

Don’t speak to me of madness. Don’t whisper to me in ear of obsession. Of language, interred in ground reaching out through the green vines that found their bed, dug down deep and delving.

Love is blind. Love is chemical. Love is oxytocin and cortisol coursing through the walnut shaped gray colored material pulp that composes the brain. Neural nets and electrical shockwaves shake and maneuver across the pulsating bloody mess that is encased in bone and sinew smiling across the coffee table from you. I’m betting the eyes are dilated now. Don’t worry darlin, I’m sure it was just the lean I took earlier.

Make me a beast to tame, to know, to lean into when the sheets are heavy in May. Make me the pinpoint, the focus, the mouth of the mountain that fails to burst. Make me the coffee that lies out still on table tops on Sunday. Make me the silence, the laptop, the television show that plays at five am. 

I’ll make you the scapegoat, the martyr, the hatred of my ages, in order to soothe my outlook. I’ll make you the Mary, the mother, the salve to the sunburn at Lake Michigan. I’ll make you the gun towards the target: the statue in the rain. I’ll make you the pedestal so I can place all of the blame.

And when our world lays shattered by our own striving, together and separate, we’ll bind our threads to the winds, for spiders we became to circle the earth.

[ziel]

[ziel]

When True Love leaves you on your Knees in the Rain

I pet my cat; Rubbing her belly and looking towards her face, getting affection in return. Suddenly remembering when I was a child, the dead cats stuffed underneath my neighbor’s trailer, and how they all looked similar due to bone structure and fur. Thinking of how my cat would look eyes sank in, fur decayed, mirroring the gaps in the skirting underneath my neighbor’s trailer between the power meter and her plumbing outlet. I wondered if it was the same for Army vets coming home. Sitting on a floral couch watching MTV, patting their dear wives on their dirty blonde hair, trying to not focus upon the bodies they tried to leave behind. While they bawled on their knees in the desert.

[ziel]

La llave al infinito on Flickr.

www.facebook.com/CollagealInfinito www.trasvorder.tumblr.com www.trasvorder.bandcamp.com www.twitter.com/trasvorder www.cargocollective.com/Collagealinfinito

[ziel]

TL;DR

-Monday morning

My boss strolled into the shop twenty minutes later and walked over to where I was working on the machinery.

“Hey Lucas, did ya get any pussy this weekend?!” he smirked.

“No.” I said monotonously.

“Weren’t you at the bar all weekend, again?”

“Yes.” I said in the same tone.

“What? You trollin for boners instead?”

“No.”

“God, yer such a fag.” He turned his head towards the labeler.

“Hey Travis! What the fuck’s wrong with Lucas?! He don’t even try to get laid! Probably spends all his time jerking off with his cat! Hey, did ya go golfing this weekend? See any skirts?...”

He wandered over towards Travis asking questions rapid fire.

-Saturday night

Persyn Avenue is the main street with eight bars leading towards the east bank of the Logan River. There was a boat racing festival that occurred over that weekend, which had brought in numerous tourists from all over the Greater Rivers Region.

I had made my way towards Persyn Ave after I had gone for a long walk on the west bank, sipping out of a flask with Old Grand-Dad whiskey, walking through the abandoned rail cars stacked up from when GM had had a plant in the area. All of resulting infrastructure was a haven for so-called urban explorers, dressed up in neon plaid shirts, checkered Red Wing work boots, scarves, and cameras. I smiled at a couple as I passed through the front gate of the dilapidated plant heading towards the bridge that would take me over to the east bank.

Once I crossed the bridge, I could hear the various ‘thump thump thump’ of club/electronic music playing out of the various bars leading up Persyn Ave. I put my flask away in one of my inner pockets of my jacket, and walked up toward Irish’s Bar which was on the corner of Vera and Persyn heading away from the river. The bouncer was a large man with a shaved head, directing the line in front of the club like a construction worker directs traffic. I made my way towards the front of the line, where the bouncer saw me, nodded his head, and let me on through.

“Gonna be on the Ave tonight, eh Luc?”

I nodded again, and walked into the club, allowing my eyes to adjust to the neon lights on the dance floor, and the contrasting dark surrounding the bar area.

I meandered over to the bar area, pulled out a stool covered in scratches and beer, wiped the beer off with my hand, and in doing so, noticed a tube of lipstick on the ground next to the stool. I bet over, picked it up, and set it on the bar, while sitting my ass down onto the now less covered in beer stool. The bartender was a thin, tired looking blonde. She was swamped. There were people surrounding the area all asking for different drinks and waving cash.

I just smiled at her, and shouted out, “Whenever you get time.”

I looked over at the dance floor. It was packed with various bodies all trying to awkwardly dance in time to Lana Del Ray’s Summertime Sadness Remix, writhing and sweating, drunk foam spewing on the floor, beads and jewelry jangling, and v-neck skin tight shirts in resounding affect.

The DJ shouted at the floor in the midst of the music. It reminded me of North Korean and Nazi Germany propaganda radio announcements, and had the same effect on the crowd.

“Here comes the BREAKDOWN!”

The music stopped momentarily. Everybody attempted to freeze in motion. Then the bass dropped and the floor shook with a massive thump as the multitude of dancers jumped back into the music and started dancing again.

“MAKE SURE TO TIP YOUR BARTENDERS!”

The blonde touched my shoulder, bringing my view towards her face, and asked me what I wanted.

“Just get me a beer and a shot of whiskey.”

“What kind?!” she sighed, exasperated.

“Surprise me.” I fully expected her to spit in my beer and dose my shot.

“Whatever.”

I turned my view back towards the dance floor. Lana Del Ray was hitting the last notes, and the beat was extended into a Crystal Castles song, while the dancers tried to match their movements to the beat as it shifted into the new song.

“$6.50!” I heard in my right ear.

I gave her a tenner, told her to keep the change, and downed the shot, then the beer. It was cheap house whiskey, and a PBR.

I got off of my stool, pushed it in, and walked through the entrance way that connected the building into the next club, called RestOp.

This area was black lit from top to bottom, ceiling fans spun relentlessly, and a steel railway enclosed the dance floor towards the back of the bar. The bar area was an island surrounded in inflatable tiki palm trees, and Christmas lights. The DJ soundstage was raised over the entirety of the club in the back, with neon black lights rotating fast illuminating the dance floor in split second intervals. The walls around the steel rails all had mirrors, giving the illusion that the dance floor was bigger than it actually was. I tried to imagine what this place looked like at 8am, everyone sitting in the middle of the floor, passing pancakes and bacon around, looking at themselves in the mirrors, as daylight filtered in, exposing the puddles of beer and puke surrounding them.

The Ying Yang Twins Whisper Song started playing as I walked in. The bass beat was amplified to get the crowd moving. I could feel it in my chest.

I moved onto the dance floor with about thirty other people. I stared around me, watching as everyone danced very similarly in tone and writhing movement. I hunched my shoulders, brought my neck down into my chest, stared at my feet, and started rotating my shoulders and arms in a windmill motion. I moved my arms backwards, kicked out my feet one at a time, and held my wrists in a sloped position. It looked like I was continuously falling backward as I looked into the mirror. I started getting glares and weird looks from the dance patrons. I heard some laughter from the bar area.

I thought to myself that nothing was funny about the misogynistic lyrics to this awful song.

“Wait till you see my dick! Eh bitch, wait till you see my dick! I’m gonna beat that pussy up!” went the song.

I shook my head to the song, and kept falling backwards, waiting until the end to spit on the floor. I walked up to the bar and sat down.

“Draft please.” I said to the bartender.

“What kind?”

“Surprise me.”

He groaned, grabbed a plastic cup, and pulled one of the handles at the tap. It was full of foam when I got my beer.

“$4” he said.

I gave him a five.

A young looking brunette sat down next to me, as I sipped on my draft beer.

“That was really funny!” she said smiling at me.

“Thanks.” I said as I finished my beer, and set the plastic cup on the bar. “See ya.”

I got up, and walked out of the club, back onto Persyn Ave and up towards the next bar.

-Tuesday night

'Value - Art and the Desperate Duck-Faced Selfies bringing the New Age Beggars from the Streets into the Internet'

I stared at the title of the resulting rant I had been typing up for a few days now. I was listening to St. Vincent, drinking heavily, lighting bottle rockets out the south window at intermittent times to offset the noise coming from the river front due to the overly-boring crowds watching the boat races.

The writing was absolute shit.

The rant was absolute shit.

There is nothing worse in this world than putting time and effort into something that I felt strongly about, only to have the finished product come out looking like a fucking cancerous growth with an intermingling mix of twisted steel and smashed glass as if it was the result of a station wagon wreck involving a moose, leaving bits of fur and nostril strewn about the wording and phrasing.

I closed the window to the Word Document in which I had been typing into for about an hour, didn't save, changed the music to an Iron and Wine song, finished my beer, and lit what was left of a Camel Light laying on top of an ashtray near the window facing over Willard St.

I watched as the smoke filtered through the screen and into city below me. It curled upwards into the wind, through the branches of the overarching trees that scrape the bricks of my apartment whenever storms roll through, all striving for attention, seeking an audience, submitting towards vindication of an effort, only to prove distracting, destructive, and overall annoying.

I flicked the ashes of my cigarette into the ashtray, and watched as the wind picked up, and the rain started to fall. A couple of kids were over at the abandoned theater next to my apartment building, skateboarding off of the handicap accessible ramp hand railings, down onto the cement steps, and off onto the sidewalk curb. Their hoodies were drenched by the sudden downpour, as they all scooted off for shelter, growling and grumbling, all the while wiping water out of their eyes and off of their oily noses.

I had seen them around the area for a few weeks now, ever since school had let out for the summer. They would often congregate near the alley separating the ticket office from the main stone building, passing a brown paper bag back and forth, taking swigs. Then they would get on their boards and skate around the building, jumping off whatever railings that were still attached and unbroken. There would be whooping and hollering whenever one of them eventually fell, usually accompanied with the percussive "faggot", "queer", and the ever-popular "pussy." It always seemed like they were always trying to out-do each other in tricks and length of time on their boards. Seemingly trying to prove that there was purpose in these events, even when they themselves wouldn't admit to there being purpose. Or maybe I was trying to assign a purpose in my own mind, as I overlooked the whole scene.

I thought about all of this as I stared at the rain. I listened for the boats on the river that were not too far from my apartment, but the noises from the motors had ceased when the rains started. I imagined the crowds of people piling into whatever shelters there were on both sides of the river front, packing themselves in like marshmallows in a zip lock bag, bursting at the seams and frothing with drunken slurs and spilled beer. My cigarette had burned itself out, and I shook my own empty beer can. I got up from my spot at the window, placed the ashtray down on the carpet, and threw my beer can into the box with the rest of the empties. I picked up my cigarette pack from the counter in the kitchen, grabbed another beer from the fridge, and walked back into the room.

The rain was coming down hard as I sat back down next to the window and lit another cigarette, popped the tab on the cold beer, and stared outside again. The trees were swaying back and forth in the wind, with branches scratching against my windows. Sera Cahoone started playing out of the laptop.

I walked back to my laptop and opened up another Word Document.

“I’m having a hard time as of late, understanding the conceptualizing of Value. It seems to me, in my own myopic view, that a lot of the people that I associate with like to make things seem a lot more important than they actually are in the context of reality.”

I looked at the statement. Then thought about what context I was actually trying to get across.

“By reality, I mean the view within the years encompassing the person’s life. Something might be important at the age of 25, but it is possible that in six months, that thing that was so important that it was a focus, might not be important or even thought of. What once had ‘value’ now has none to the person that placed ‘value’ on the thing (whatever that thing might be whether physical or emotional). That thing might have ‘value’ again later on, but it seems to me that it is assigned depending on the situation that encompasses the placement of ‘value.’”

I sat back again, took another sip out of my beer, and went back to typing. I attempted to focus on generic nouns, and use gender neutral pronouns to try and describe what I wanted to say.

“Wouldn’t life be less complicated without the concept of ‘value’? What if we (humans) were able to just live, and be happy with living, without placing importance of physical things, emotional concepts, material goods, or anything associated with ‘want’? It just seems to me that the things that I don’t need are being forced upon me to be considered to be important, when in fact they aren’t important to me at all.”

I re-read what I had typed out several hundred times, making grammatical changes where I caught mistakes, tried to clarify views that I felt went unexplained. I continued typing about what Value meant to me for the next two hours. By the time I finished, the sun had come out low in the sky, the clouds started to disperse, and the motors from the boat races started up again. I heard cheers and roars to go along with the ambient noise that permeated the air around Persyn City. Even the skateboarders had come back, drying their hoodies on the handicap ramp, and jumping off the cement steps onto the connecting sidewalk.

I felt a little satisfied. I decided that after I had re-read it for the hundred and fiftieth time that it was good enough to post on my BlogSpot. I navigated the menu, logged in, highlighted the entirety of the Word Document, clicked Copy, Paste, and then Submit.

I got up to take a piss. Everything seemed right. I was happy.

I checked out the BlogSpot real quick, just to re-read what I had wrote again.

At the bottom of the entry, I noticed that I had already gotten a comment. I clicked on it, in order to read it.

“Tl;dr What are you some kind of fag lol You need to get laid buddy”

I sighed, and closed my laptop. It was time for another beer.

[ziel]

The place where they said

In Internet traverse

I've read poems and short stories

All grouped from folk in Brooklyn

with disdain of their privilege.

Here,

the people burned down the bookstores

and banished all the art alive

as the fires from Detroit and Flint

left all with potential, to flee.

And those left behind with no means,

as literary refugees.

With tarps in the ashes, broken glass, and bricks

in a circle lies abandoned office chairs, stolen wi-fi

And that campfire smell that comes in the wake of a riot.

It is with envy to run off or give up,

And complain in awe of an independent bookstore.

[ziel]

[ziel]

Zin Lim

(via ImpressioniArtistiche: Zin Lim)

[ziel]

When Hotel living, just press play.

[ziel]

The Fever

The desire for connection derides itself instinctual. Stupidly so. In the midst of the many relationships I had been in, I would catch myself looking at outlines of other women in my peripheral that I found attractive. Whenever I and my partners would became comfortable with each other, compulsions - noncommittal and sometimes hurtful, roiled within each of us towards those that we saw as attractive outside of the relationship. It wasn't until the last one, long after she had taken her possessions to a new state, thankfully leaving a mess of contradictory debris that some man had developed a personality out of, like a dandelion in the midst of a polluted, trash filled median, in the middle of a January thaw, that these overlooked slight glimpses moved from the peripheral and into focus. The dust that settled over the landscape was evidence enough of how much time it took for me to figure it all out.

Marie spent her time behind the bar. Life had been relatively hard on her in the sense that she had the luck of being born in Persyn City during the latter half of the 20th century to moderately conservative parents. In my mind, she could have easily been born in Brazil, in a shack, pimped out to anyone who'd pay for her by her older brother.

She was friendly with the patrons who came in and out of the bar. I spent most of my Fridays sitting on the left end of the bar, overlooking the rest of the space and the people who sat within it. The regular scene was out tonight. Mostly people who, like myself, spent the majority of their week in a job they hated, to pay for the time in which they could be themselves and relax away from the stressors of the job, the people they worked with, and the moronic problems that occurred as the week rolled on.

Marie would periodically come down to my end of the bar, where I sat by myself, and ask how my week had been, whether or not I needed a beer, and shared stories of her kids, her boyfriend Henry, and the outlandish behavior that other regulars indulged in after having a little too much to drink. It was in these times, that I got to know Marie pretty well in the sense I could learn something about someone who served me drinks at the end of a bar stool. She reminded me of one of my older sisters, which of whom I hadn't heard hide nor hair from in at least five years.

Her favorite color was orange, ironic considering her being allergic to citrus. Her kids all had allergies and health problems. Henry's kids were similar. She had a hard time paying bills. She had met Henry in the bar she worked in. Her car never worked. Henry constantly texted her late at night when she had to work, usually drunk, scared that she'd run off with the next fool who came in flashing cash and a house to live in, as this was the way he had swept her off her feet (supposedly). Her tan lines were asymmetrical. She liked a cold Bud Light, hated country music, Nickelback, and Madonna.

I lied to her with every moment of conversation. It didn't matter to me what I had said to her one week to the next. I didn't care. There was nothing here I wanted except my drink. My story changed consistently, but her's stayed the same. I never knew if she chose not to remember what I had said the week previous, or if she just went along with my ever-changing stories.

A man came in one Friday night, and sat down next to me, overlooking the space with the rest of the people in it. He introduced himself as Peter, and started a conversation with me, at first focusing on the Tigers game, then as each little detail of his life leaked out, I responded with a similar detail of my own. His knowledge of Six Sigma gave way to my knowledge of ISO 9001 as well as the details behind manufacturing procedures and protocol.

In the pauses between our conversations, he'd flag down Marie, telling her how it'd be great if he could get some service, always being sarcastic, smirking. He'd put down a tenner on Keno, waving the ticket in the air above his head spastically to draw her attention whenever she was on the other end of the bar. She'd grab the ticket out of his hand mid-wave, pointing her finger at him with an angry smirking scowl on her face, and stare back at him annoyed as she put the ticket into the machine. We'd drink our beers, and he'd finish, and shout out about how the waitress wouldn't get a big tip no matter what. Marie would respond back something about the tip never being satisfactory, especially if it had come from him. He'd laugh to himself, and we'd return to our conversation.

Banter would continue between the two of them over the course of the night, with me taking short cigarette breaks, intermittent piss breaks, and staring at the Keno screen, the Tigers game, and conversing with Peter. The Tigers won that night.

After the bar called last call, the rest of the patrons began to filter out, leaving Peter and myself the only ones left. I sat staring at the Keno board replaying the same "Thank You For Playing" board with the generic moving graphics of baseballs, frogs, and numbers, promoting the "Jack" and "The Kicker", promising a life without worrying about money, where everything that could be purchased to make someone happy was right at the tip of their fingers, and the hard life of working day to day, week to week, for just a meager paycheck disappeared into a distant memory.

I saw Marie starting to clean up around the bar with a wet towel. The last group to leave was about seven people that left their bottles, pretzel crumbs, and napkins all around the back table near the shuffleboard table. I, being one to never watch another work without joining in, especially in my booze battered mind, asked her to toss the wet towel my way, so I could start cleaning the back tables.

As I wiped down the tables, and picked up the remaining beer bottles, I heard Peter in the background.

"You know you're really pretty cute, right?"

"Pretty cute, huh?" she responded.

"Yeah, I mean for a girl with a man's haircut." he smirked.

"Whatever asshole." she smiled back.

I smirked at myself, whilst wiping down the last of the back tables, and pushed in the chairs. I knew exactly what was going on. Flirting seemed to be instinctual between people of similar backgrounds and mindsets. I was aware of where this road would lead, and sad for what I knew could happen, should Henry find out.

Their banter continued back and forth, escalating in tension as Marie counted out the money, and Peter stared back and forth between her and the big screen TV showing the latest episode of Hardcore Pawn.

As I returned the towel to the sink behind the bar, I glanced at Marie. Her tired face looked at me, and gave me a look that I had seen many times before in my past. I knew exactly what it meant. She wanted desperately for me to leave the bar.

I smiled at her, and said, "Hey Mare! I'm gonna head out. Maybe I'll see you Sunday, kay?"

"Alright Lucas! See ya then." she responded, staring right at Peter. I wasn't even in the room at that point.

I walked out past the wooden door into the street, and sat down on the cement stoop, lighting a cigarette to match the crosswalk light above me. Behind me, I heard some muffled talking, a lingering silence, and then after a couple of moments, a light, repeated thumping sound, intermingled with slight sighs and tinged groans. I felt bad for Henry, sad for Peter, and happy for Marie.

I watched as the crosswalk changed colors a few times while finishing my cigarette, and walked towards the intersection.

"My road to Hell is surely paved with all the love I never gave." thinking of the feeling that Marie might have later, singing the William Elliott Whitmore song as I crossed the street to where my bike was locked up.

[ziel]

I walk in darkness, and no one will help me but my own mad self. I want to communicate with Dostoyevski in heaven, and ask old Melville if he’s still discouraged, and Wolfe why he let himself die at thirty-eight. I don’t want to give up. I promise I shall never give up, and that I’ll die yelling and laughing.

Jack Kerouac’s journals (August, 1949)

Promises made like after that very first fight when you're fifteen and not knowing whether or not she'll text you back. Promises not unlike whispers, followed by kisses made in soon to be demolished abandoned buildings. Promises just like she said he'd never hit her again. Yet again.