once i wanted to be the greatest

hip hip hooray
talk to me
and i'll be a saint

take off your clothes
grave-starved ghost
and don't be ashamed

if i'm watching
don't stop talking
just start walking

you sat and stared
at your grandmother's chair
in that favorite room

and he drunkenly
five for three
pressing on you

oh darling,
stop talking
and start walking

oh darling,
stop crying
and start smiling

sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can’t move
awake but cannot open my eyes
and the weight is crushing down on my lungs
I know I can’t breathe
and I hope someone will help me this time

and your mother’s still calling you insane and high
swearing it’s different this time
and you tell her to give in to
the demons that possess her
and that god never blessed her insides

then you hang up the phone
and feel badly for upsetting things
crawl back into bed to dream of a time
when your heart was open wide
and you loved things just because
like the sick and the dying

and sometimes when you’re on
you’re really fucking on
and your friends they sing along
and they love you

but the lows are so extreme
that the good seems fucking cheap
and it teases you for weeks in its absence

but you’ll fight and you’ll make it through
you’ll fake it if you have to
and you’ll show up for work with a smile

and you’ll be better
and you’ll be smarter
and more grown up
and a better daughter or son
and a real good friend

and you’ll be awake
you’ll be alert
you’ll be positive though it hurts
and you’ll laugh and embrace all your friends

and you’ll be a real good listener
you’ll be honest
you’ll be brave
you’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful


you’ll be happy




your ship may be coming in
you’re weak but not giving in
to the cries and the wails of the valley below

and your ship may be coming in
you’re weak but not giving in
and you’ll fight it
you’ll go out fighting all of them

who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window;at the gold


of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

Oh honey,
Broadripple is burning
And the girls are getting sick
Off huffing glue up in the bathroom
While their boyfriends pick up chicks

And darling, I'm lost
I heard you whispering that night in Fountain Square
The trash-filled streets made me wish we were headed home

And there was love inside the basement
Where that woman used to lie
In a sleeping bag we shared upon
The floor most every night
And darling, I'm drunk
And everything I that I have loved has turned to stone
So pack your bags
And come back home

And I'm wasted
You can taste it
Don't look at me that way
'Cause I'll be hanging from a rope
I will haunt you like a ghost

And if my woman was a fire
She'd burn out before I wake
And be replaced by pints of whiskey
Cigarettes and outer space
Then somebody moves
And everything you thought you had has gone to shit
But we've got a lot
Don't ever forget that

And I wrote this on an airplane
Where the people looked like ants
And when a woman that you loved is gone
She was bombing east Japan

Don't fucking move
'Cause everything you think you have will go to shit
But we've got a lot
Don't you dare forget that

And I'm wasted
You can taste it
Don't look at me that way
'Cause I'll be hanging from a rope
I will haunt you like a ghost

And I'm wasted
You can taste it
Don't look at me that way
'Cause I'll be hanging from a rope
I will haunt you like a ghost

"Happy Endings"

Margaret Atwood

John and Mary meet.
What happens next?
If you want a happy ending, try A.

A. John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.

B. Mary falls in love with John but John doesn't fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you'll notice that he doesn't even consider her worth the price of a dinner out, and after he's eaten dinner he fucks her and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he won't think she's untidy, having all those dirty dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll look good when he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesn't even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took them off. He doesn't take off Mary's clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts as if she's dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesn't, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely he'll get used to her, he'll come to depend on her and they will get married, but John goes out the door with hardly so much as a good-night and three days later he turns up at six o'clock and they do the whole thing over again.

Mary gets run-down. Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so does Mary but she can't stop. People at work notice. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isn't good enough for her, but she can't believe it. Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough.

One evening John complains about the food. He has never complained about her food before. Mary is hurt.

Her friends tell her they've seen him in a restaurant with another woman, whose name is Madge. It's not even Madge that finally gets to Mary: it's the restaurant. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it's not even whiskey. She leaves a note for John. She hopes he'll discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.

John marries Madge and everything continues as in A.

C. John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair falling out. She sleeps with him even though she's not in love with him. She met him at work. She's in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down.

John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isn't impressed by him, she's impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free. Freedom isn't the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. Thursdays are the only days John can get away.

John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time. John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he can't leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time.

One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than you'd believe possible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Mary's apartment. He finds them stoned and entwined. He's hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless he's overcome with despair. Finally he's middle-aged, in two years he'll be as bald as an egg and he can't stand it. He purchases a handgun, saying he needs it for target practice--this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later--and shoots the two of them and himself.

Madge, after a suitable period of mourning, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names.

D. Fred and Madge have no problems. They get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise. But their charming house is by the seashore and one day a giant tidal wave approaches. Real estate values go down. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it. They do, though thousands drown, but Fred and Madge are virtuous and grateful, and continue as in A.

E. Yes, but Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until Fred dies. Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be "Madge," "cancer," "guilty and confused," and "bird watching."

F. If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you. Remember, this is Canada. You'll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.

The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.

That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

Now try How and Why.

my favorite season.





& i just ordered new moo cards!


today is a lovely day.

yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of Noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its Indian summer breeze
on the day that America
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please

and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for it to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything I've seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
and I'll tell you what, while we're at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every TV
that's been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair
and there's a fine silt on every mantle
from hell's kitchen to Brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour

so here's a toast to all the folks who live in Palestine
Afghanistan
Iraq

El Salvador

here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. Rushmore

here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City
just to listen to a young woman's voice

here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner's guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
I mean
it don't take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
Jeb said he'd deliver Florida, folks
and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 George W. Bush is not president
#2 America is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
I've got no room for a lie so verbose
I'm looking out over my whole human family
and I'm raising my glass in a toast

here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
in my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else's desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall

and while we're at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the Ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn't even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?!

it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn't have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
must be more than poems
in some asshole's passion play
so now it's your job
and it's my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn't die in vain
sshhhhhh....
baby listen
hear the train?

Living in Sin Adrienne Rich

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own---
envoy from some village in the moldings . . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

"For him, being for or against was an unbearable limitation on a complex question"

"It seemed to him that a human being was so vast and so rich a thing that it was impossibly vain to be overconfident with others, with strangers, and with all the uncertainties that each individual represented."

"Alcoholics are pitied, they are cared for, they are thought of in medical terms, humanely. But no one thinks of pitying intelligent people: "He watches human behavior, that must make him very unhappy", "My niece is very intelligent, but she's really a nice girl. She's hoping to grow out of it"; "For a while there, I was afraid you might become intelligent." ...intelligence is a double curse: it makes you suffer, and no one thinks of it as an illness."


"I'd like to  be able to say, like the character Joker in Full Metal Jacket: "I'm in a world of shit...yes. But I am alive, and I am not afraid."

"suppose"

suppose
Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

young death sits in a cafe
smiling, a piece of money held between
his thumb and first finger

(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters, life has a beard" i

say to you who are silent.--"Do you see
Life? he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep, on his head
flowers, always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
yes,
will He buy?
Les belles bottes--oh hear
, pas chères")

and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else

there is a lady, whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death, is slender;
likes flowers.

Have you been neglecting your inner voice, lately? You know -- doing things that other people are telling you to do instead of going with your gut? Today, you need to realign your priorities. Make sure you put yourself first, in every sense of the word. Take your health more seriously -- ramp up your exercise routine and target a certain part of your body that you want to change. You are in control of your life and your body, and this is a power you need to not take for granted.

Sadie
White coat
You carry me home
And bury this bone 
And take this pinecone

Bury this bone
To gnaw on it later, gnawing on the telephone
And 'till then, we pray and suspend
The notion that these lives do never end

And all day long we talk about mercy
Lead me to water Lord, I sure am thirsty
Down in the ditch where I nearly served you
Up in the clouds where he almost heard you

And all that we built
And all that we breathed
And all that we spilt
Or pulled up like weeds
Is piled up in back
And it burns irrevocably

And we spoke up in turns
'Till the silence crept over me

And bless you
And I deeply do
No longer resolute
Oh, and I call to you

But the water go so cold
And you do lose 
What you don't hold

This is an old song
These are old blues
And this is not my tune
But it's mine to use
And the seabirds
Where the fear once grew
Will flock with a fury
And they will bury
What'd come for you

And down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender
You and I, and a love so tender
Stretched-on the hoop where I stitch-this addage
"Bless our house and its heart so savage."

And all that I want
And all that I need
And all that I got
Is scattered like seed
And all that I knew
Is moving away from me

And all that I know
Is blowing like tumbleweed

And the mealy worms
In the brine will burn
In a salty pyre
Among the fauns and ferns

And the love we hold
And the love we spurn
Will never grow cold
Oh, only taciturn

And I'll tell you tomorrow
Oh Sadie, go on home now
And bless those who've sickened below
And bless us who have chosen so

And all that I got
And all that I need
I tie in a knot
And I lay at your feet
And I have not forgot
But a silence crept over me

So dig up your bone
Exhume your pinecone, Sadie

... An Asian American college student was reported to have jumped to her death from her dormitory window. Her body was found two days later under a deep cover of snow. Her suicide note contained an apology to her parents for having received less than a perfect 4.0 GPA.

How many notes written
Ink smeared like bird prints in snow.

Not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough
Dear mother and father,
I apologize
For disappointing you.
Ive worked very hard,
Not good enough.

Harder, perhaps to please you.
If only I were a son, shoulders broad
As the sunset threading through pine,
I would see the light in my mothers
Eyes, or the golden pride reflected
In my fathers dream
Of my wide, male hands worthy of work
And comfort.
I would swagger through life muscled and bold and assured,
Drawing praises to me
Like currents in the bed of wind, virile
With confidence.
Not good enough, not strong enough, not good enough.

I apologize.
Tasks do not come easily.
Each failure, a glacier.
Each disappointment, a boot print.
Each disappointment,
Ice above my river.
So I have worked hard.
Not good enough.

My sacrifice I will drop
Bone by bone, perched
On the ledge of my womanhood.
Fragile as wings.
Not strong enough.

It is snowing steadily
Surely not good weather
For flying this sparrow
Sillied and dizzied by the wind
On the edge.
Not smart enough.

I make this ledge my altar
To offer penance.
This air will not hold me,
The snow burdens my crippled wings,
My tears drop like bitter cloth
Softly into the gutter below.
Not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough.

Choices this as shaved
Ice. Notes shredded
Drift like snow.

On my broken body,
Covers me like whispers
Of sorries
Sorries.
Perhaps when they find me
They will bury
My bird bones beneath
A sturdy pine
And scatter my feathers like
Unspoken song and cold and silent
Breast of Earth.





Janice Mirikitani,  Suicide Note

i've been updating like crazy & really trying to get myself out there & trying to take and post as many photos as possible. i want you to look! and tell me what you think! i know i am terribly annoying with all of these "look at me, look at me" posts but look at me!


www.maeisgreat.com
www.maeisgreat.blogspot.com

check it out!

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xo mae

purchase jordan hope's new CD for which I designed the album art:



back of artwork

one night to be confused
one night to speed up truth
we had a promise made
four hands and then away
both under influence
we had divine sense
to know what to say
mind is a razor blade

to call for hands of above, to lean on
wouldn't be good enough for me, no

one night of magic rush
the start: a simple touch
one night to push and scream
and then relief
ten days of perfect tunes
the colours red and blue
we had a promise made
we were in love

to call for hands of above, to lean on
wouldn't be good enough for me, no

to call for hands of above, to lean on
wouldn't be good enough for me, oh

and you 
you knew the hand of a devil
and you
kept us awake with wolves teeth
sharing different heartbeats in one night

to call for hands of above, to lean on
wouldn't be good enough for me, no

to call for hands of above, to lean on

and when we kissed it didn't feel poisonous
and when you cry I dry off your blue eyes

she smiles at me as she's falling asleep
and says "we've got to live the best we know how to"