Mao ZeDong and Andy Warhol (or How Things Got Out Of Hand: All I Wanted To Do Was Float)

Chairman Mao
in His time
Loved to swim

The rivers in the south
Yanghtzi, Jiang
The river Li

A master at not sinking

Never too heavy to float
No think. No sink.
Never afraid

The Chairman, Mao
and Andy Warhol,Neither
Shades of neon Green

And Tangerine and Red, Glowing

Red Like Paint
And Party-line
Like Blood at Miss Chao's Suicide

Andy and The Chairman, live to entertain
Andy with his God-Phone
Beloved leader with his pen

Thrust forward, under banners, Revolution

(if you're curious...i was going to try and include some footnotes for clarification of some obscure things in this poem....but i have no idea how to include the little superscript numbers that denote a footnote to be read....so I'll just make mention of a few things for anyone that is curious enough to try and dig this stuff up.)

1) Don DeLillo - Mao II - a great novel....definitely worth a read...probably the single largest source of ideas for this poem...talks a lot about Chairman Mao, and a little on Andy Warhol (in particular MaoII by Andy Warhol).
2) Andy Warhol's pictures of Mao ZeDong
3) Mao ZeDong's Poetry...in Particular "Miss Chao's Suicide"
4) Mao ZeDong loved to swim....certain informational sites online tell of some of his swimming practices..quite amazing
5)The Electric Kool-Aide Acid test...very little on andy warhol...but maybe some similar Ideas??

Late

I woke up without the usual, heart racing, cold sweat inducing drone of the modern day digital alram clock in my ear this morning. I looked over to my right to where this buzzer from hell should, SHOULD, have been screaming at me to get up-and-at-em. From the bedside table, the only thing staring back at me was the red glow of the clocks incessent blinking telling me that it is, right now, and has been for some time judging by the height of the sun pouring in from the window to my left, 12 o'clock midnight on the dot. DAMN IT!
Needless to say I was late for work this morning. Strolling in at about my usual pace, trying to remain inconspicuous as I made a course for the timeclock. I hate being late for work. It is the one thing that I cannot, CAN NOT, stand. Tardiness. I do not really know why, thats just the way that I have always been. Ever since my first job at 14 years old I can remember always telling my mother, "hurry up I'm going to be late", as she leisurely strolled out to the garage where she kept her car. It never seemed to bother her like it did me. Never was that big of a deal. It really isn't; I know that. No one at the Library really seems to care one way or the other whether I'm there on time or not. As a matter of fact, I'm not all too sure that it would really matter if I chose to show up at all.
Student assistant jobs are really just there so as to have a warm body filling a chair behind a desk in the event that someone, at 9am on Saturday morning, can't seem to locate the bathroom. The bathroom, it seems worth noting, is behind a big grey door with that universal men's bathroom stick figure on it standing above the word BATHROOM in all caps - also in brail.
I know that I don't have the most important job, I just hate being even the slightest bit late. It's not even like I have to be on time everywhere. I don't mind being 20 minutes late to see the movie, it lets me miss the previews which I loathe, or even to a dinner date or class. It's really just when it comes to work.
I don't know if it is healthy to be so anal about punctuality in the workplace. I don't care. I'm not going to punch myself or anything over it. I won't even think about it once I'm clocked in and sitting behind my desk, playing solitaire on the computer and pretending to care when a patron asks where the third floor is -- at this question I generally just point up without so much as a look up from the computer monitor. It's just the act of punching this card, with that permanent claclunk that the time-clock makes as it prints out, in that extra formal blueish grey, 9:36am Nov 14 2004 when I know that it should very well say 9:00am on the nose or even 5 to 10 minutes before.
Did I mention, or have I, that I grind my teeth? And not just when I sleep either. All the time, especially when I'm late for work.

BOX? (or Thoughts I Wish I Didn't Have The Volition To Think But I Already Thunk Them TOO Much)

Did you ever have that feeling, like you were trapped inside a big glass box that no one but you could see, but none-the-less you have no where to go??


Someone once told me that poets were crazy, the looneys, the daft. Someone once told me to put down the pen.....so I did.


Poem

Someone told me long ago
That I should go away
Put six-pence on the bedside table
go greet the brand-new day

And if I leave and let you sleep
And the blue sky falls
If thats the way it really ends
I will have spoiled it all

And she said she loved me
But I never was a trusting man
Lord she said she really loved me
I never was a trusting man

- fin -

Grotesque

I just saw a woman, bound to her wheelchair for decades it seemed. Her skin wrinkled and baggy as if there was once more of her; sometime in the last decade or so she must have been shrunk to about 70 percent of her original size. It was Grotesque.

As the woman sat there-- and I did not see her for more than a few seconds, thirty at the most -- she shook in the manner of a dead fish, or maybe Jello brand gelatin Jigglers. I realized finally, with some degree of disgust and that distinct taste of bile in the back of my throat from impending vomit, that she was trying to eat. These Grotesque contortions of face and limbs were the outward symptoms of a body refusing to feed itself, to perform the basic functions necessary to sustain existence. The face of such a creature I will never forget. Snarling at a Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich.

Grotesque, only a word, but a word none-the-less. Grotesque, the physical symptoms, visible, audible, OH GOD WHAT NOISES IT MAKES!!! Somewhere under the Grotesque I saw the living envy the dead, like diamonds, for the dead need not to eat. A corpse no longer has a need to snarl at the daily Chick-fil-a chicken sandwich. OH THE GNASHING OF TEETH!!!

It was as if this woman had such a pain-- burning at the base of her tongue -- that the body had rejected it. And with skin wilted, tongue flailing-- trying desperately to escape -- electric legs to carry her through life. Shaking in that dead fish / jello manner and gnashing her teeth she continues on until the doctors decide she's had enough.

People that I saw on campus...so i wrote them down

1)

As he moped out from the doorway,
Head held low to view the dirt,
He paused and gazed at rusty stair-rails
The color of his flannel shirt.

2)

Another turned and kissed the wall
seeming invisible to us all
but alas alas he knew I saw
saw him turn and kiss the wall

3)

The woman, Slavic, standing tall
Hair a golden flax
I tried to make a conversation
My tounge was tied and hers relaxed

4)

I alone in my suspicion
and they alone in theirs
But at least I have my intuition
and her, the golden hair


As my title indicated, I was walking across campus (UNT....but if you are here you probably knew that already) the other day...i guess tuesday... and decided to sit outside and watch the people coming in and out of the language building. There were a few interesting characters so I wrote a few short poems about them. So yeah....thats all....i'm at work AGAIN. I do enjoy working in the library though. It gives me some time to do stuff like this while on the clock.

@ work and whatnot

Its approximately 6:29 according to UNT Library Time
not sure if this is real time or not

Like jackhammers pounding
on razorblades in my head
Hurts
probably a computer screen type culprit

or carnivorous earwig

Belly grumbling
3 day beard, think i may just give up shaving
Razor blades all got lost inside my head I think anyways

6:32 now...almost there
My fingernails hurt....bit to the quick
started tuesday night
just finished about 10 minutes ago

Squeeze the tips of my fingers just enough
you know?
nail-biter thing
probably has a root deep in my psyche
(my dad left when I was 8...but whose didn't?)

I once heard a man
He said
"the world is very very old"

I didn't believe him at first
I didn't really realize I suppose

No use for a title...too late to try

Diabolical, the way it seems
something simply nefarious
about the way the wheels turn

Nothing but speculation for sure
And who am I really?
No one to make such a call

But in all my ignorance, blissful really?
In all my lack of character quality wisdom?
Between drags of Camels I despise?

Amongst it all I breathe and eat
and piss and sleep and all the stuff
Men Do?

Amongst it all I Am
I Be
I is
I (insert Be verb here)


- End -

Not quite sure what to say to everything going on in the world around me. Not really all that sure that there is anything to say....
I sometimes wonder why the grass is greener....then I go to sleep.

The way the crackpot crumbles (or How the Empire Finally Convinced me Otherwise)

I once again hold onto the comfort

That comes from the knowledge

That the fate of the World,

No matter what I do one way or another,

Or possibly not at all,

Hangs from the proverbial

Acorns

Of a madman

Last night I rested easy

In the knowledge that

Either way, I fear the victor

There is a certain comfort, I suppose

In the very act of knowing

That it is all

Downhill

Either way the coin lands

No Difference

Continuity, Stability

The laughing hand of God

As if

As If

as if

as if

as if

No one really wanted

To look and listen

Ear to the tracks

Buffalo

Freight train

Or other wise