13 YEARS OLD AND IN THE 7TH GRADE

The exact moment in which the Internet finally begins to speak I am there, listening. I am standing there with my hand on it. Next to the computer, it is mine.

The moment that the Internet begins to speak I am there because I am the first one speaking. I am entering, I am deleting, I am browsing through the secret and it's only 1997.

I am standing in the hallway of my parent's house.

The secret says GO OUTSIDE.

In 1997 strange television shows began appearing suddenly on television. My brother and I watched them alone because they only came on when no one else was home. The strange television shows would show animals that were like people that were like animals. The shows were always very calm like nothing was very wrong but then someone would begin weeping. The other animals would begin to weep and then everyone would hide and wait somewhere else, hidden like a camera, somewhere down a hallway, next to the computer.

(By 1997 nobody knew just how depressed the PBS programming staff had become. A caveat arrived from Human Resources stating complaints that the Programming Staff only sat around shivering. The Programming Staff had been radically damaged by the Internet.)

My parent's house did not have a hallway. It was the only house where each room led to every other room. When you walked in there was the living room and then the kitchen and then my room. There was no hallway because we did not have a computer. It was 1997 and we still did not have the Internet. I had saved up a pile of AOL disks. 500 minutes of browsing through the secret. But we couldn't even afford a hallway. And so we stayed up to watch the strange television shows on PBS instead.

What the secret says that's what I do. And when it begins to speak to me it says, GO OUTSIDE.

I obey -- there is the sun. There is the dog, there is the grass.

There is no Internet.

There was no hallway to take us to it and my brother and I could sense a paralysis of the modern.

There was an urge with no name. The urge was something like the need to click on something. Or to enlargen some kind of an image. We could feel it even on the useless acreage where we lived. Our dogs kept dying. The television shows got stranger. Finally, we left the house after a television talk show host gunned down his entire studio audience.

It was the end of an old secret.

joel tells me his best friend died last year

and that his brother had killed him

outside of a bar
in an argument

israel likes to sleep
he likes good dreams
in the morning he is purest
the sounds already carry him away

FAVORS

the slowest of the softest of the all the all

all still possible rythms still possible

bodies against a slow soft rhythm

still simply experiencing 

the body working toward a favor

the ease of that favor

WHAT IS A THOUGHT WORTH AND HOW CAN IT MAKE HIM SOME MONEY

the last three pay days i have not been paid on time

i have been paid at night when it is no good to me

when the bank is closed and when the next day is saturday

this is what it means to belong to a credit of union

it means that the bank is closed all weekend 

and their one ATM in town does not accept deposits

the reason i have not been paid on time was they fucked up the checks

and most were sent to columbus where i don't live

this is the third weekend i can remember

sitting on a burning slip of paper

waiting to cash in on $600 monday

eating almonds and almonds and almonds

and it's the most money i can ever remember

but it's still sunday and i'm still very poor

and $600 all of it for mine and not to share?

i try to remember father's advice on money

but i only see him showing me how to fold my pajamas underneath the pillow

(advice i still heed)

but nothing on money and on monday after work i go racing 

down to the main office for the check

tearing out of the parking lot

to deposit it before 5 and to buy dinner for us

an oncoming driver, a stranger disapproves

because people walk around here

but it's money driving and i only have 15 minutes

that night i fight with dylan and either lose or spend $50

we come out of the bar and fall into the grass wrestling

leah walks backwards over a utility stump and falls on the sidewalk

we were both embarrassed and she was having surgery on wednesday

i thought of all the times i had driven home drunk

i went to work half-drunker in the morning

and one of the clients said to me
"North Platte, the land of candy and coupons."

but then i find another paycheck in my box

and i can't believe it because that means even more money

when i go to the bank after work the cashier recognizes me

says, back so soon?

and i half-suspect she's pushing a red button underneath her

because the check was baited and i'm going away now

but she doesn't, she gives me the money i have more money now

being poor used to be my only incentive for frugality

what to spend the money on?

to fix my car that it can make it through the winter

without snow blowing through the unrolling window

or buy music gear because isn't this what i am pointing myself at

or to pay back all the people that i owe, companies and loan sharks

or to plan a trip and to sit in a new place and imagine i've never lived anywhere else

this much money cannot be saved

cannot be withheld in the idea of 'savings account'

nothing here will be accountable to anything else

it must be put out in the world

and some of it given away 

(I had a envelope marked "charity" but i spent it on grass)

it's like i told hudson

thinking thoughts is lonely because you're the only one there

HEROIN

the first time
i heard the velvet underground
i could not understand the sounds
the understanding was far off from me
and i could see everyone waiting just through the gates
waiting for me to understand the velvet underground
to join them and i couldn't
what i could do was see it coming,
i could see the lights dimming
as just before carnal knowing
as just before the moment
'warm familiar'
when everything turns red
and adam says to you sit down
and when he lowers the lights
and everyone goes quiet
the song plays
the music keeps happening
the whole thing keeps going
but i would not have any of it until dawn
not until i was alone
listening with headphones at three in the morning
the body of the velvet underground approaching
my own vessel soon to collide
and off an improvised drum riff
in which the body of maureen "mo" tucker
overran itself and gave it away
the woman had no preclusions
the woman kept time as poorly as a drummer could
but no one could tell
her body had flown away
and no one knew that it was her anymore
she was never more of a stranger
and i was never aware of a gate.

VEILS

1. When you wake up and your face is married to a veil. When the moisture holds the veil flat to your skin. When the floral lace pattern shows down the length of your neck. When you carry your self through the aparment, through the place where you live. When the window is open. When light traffic sounds rise up. When you watch your neighbors carrying on. When you see mothers wearing veils. When you see policemen wearing veils. When you see veils enveloping entire families. When you close the window. When you remember your wedding. When you imagine the groom. When you think of so many fowers. When you see those flowers appear again within the folds of your veil. When you follow the tall flowers. When the opaque meets the splash of your pale legs. When you still only wear one veil. When you add another veil on over that. When you fall asleep beneath the window with your veil trapped under it.

2. While you are trapped to the window by the length of your veil. While you remember the instances of irony in the Old Testament. While the prophet of the Lord is eaten by a lion. While you imagine your neighbors devoured. While you boil water in a small pot. While you sip tea. While you absently run your hand across your lap. While you watch all the steam collect under your numerous veils. While the columns of the fabric flap in the gust of the steam. While winded salt lights up into circular wind.  While small ships take to sea on the floral voyage. While they navigate from your lap to your face. While you watch them continue their direction east. While you wait for the groom to come home. While you use your index finger to write a poem for him in the air. While you are arranging the next gallery stream. While you write the last few lines. While you the smooth the poem with your outstretched hand. While you await the parade forthcoming. While you hear a faintly unlocking. While you fall alseep beneath the window with your veils trapped under it. 

3. After your mouth has been filled with veils. After you have tied a collar around your neck. After the layers of veil fray under your jaw. After you dream of the sea sailing lion. After you dance and shake with your head bowed. After the afternoon traffic know to look for you. After they watch you adding more veils. After you take on the form of a lion. After you decide to put on a show. After the groom comes home. After you show him all the veils you can wear. After you remember the nothing you got married to. After you're head is swaddled in veils. After your neck takes new form. After your teeth fall out. After you fall asleep and watch your body rolling, rolling away inside the strength of a tow.