21 april 2008

princeton junction/

wood-paneled benches attached to the wood trim around the windows and the rest of the blue-tiled wall. large gray I-beams supporting the angled white terra cotta ceiling. an american flag hanging from an overhang between two whirring ceiling fans. a convex mirror across from the three ticket windows. an advertisement printed on the floor. above the doors leading to the platform, a sign flicked on in dull orange letters: TRAIN APPROACHING.

*****

in politics and government, the only thing more pervasive than corruption is incompetence.
corruption is not sexy; it's hardly ever spectacular. it's a daily grind of a multitude of tiny gears. things get done within the machine and in the path of the machine. the only variables are its size, speed and orientation.
nothing is stronger than a guild structure, or pyramid. the upper reaches, the only ones at which accountability is at least asked for and feigned, are utterly disconnected from the daily realities of those at the bottom, the beat cop or the clerk mailing out tax bills.

*****

there's a freight line that runs parallel to the light rail tracks. a slow-moving train sometimes passed by the 22nd street station while he waited. he could see the rails bending and compressing as they were pressed down into the earth by the great grinding wheels.

*****

it's depressing seeing the way real people live. by real i mean real poor.
three women at the police station with two young kids in tow: one was taken in to tell cops how her man had choked her last night. the other two, ignoring the kids, said it was hard for her to do.
they sat in the lobby, sending texts to each other and complaining about their phone bills. one said that when they left, she would go find her roommate at work to get her share of the bill, $45.
both women were fat and shabbily dressed. they looked abused. are they satisfied if they get beat up less by their men than their friends do by theirs? who knows what kind of job they have, if any. health insurance?
maybe bayonne is as big as a country for them. i don't imagine they would even go as far as jersey city except for a custody battle.
one sure thing in bayonne would be to run a liquor store. some things american never change, and hard-bitten destructive alcoholism is one of them.
the third woman hadn't come out by the time i got the reports and left. she was having photos taken of the bruises on her neck.

18 april 2008

safety net/

live in luxury. recuse and abstain. on the waterfront. once in a blue moon. undocumented and unauthorized. superstructure excavation. impervious. HYPERBOLE. buzz. juice. success and achievement. restore what has been forfeited. reclaim what has been lost. new names for old men. landscape rowhouses. easy steps. savings and loan. payment center. free phones. nature's palette. exchange place. a model of prosperity. high efficiency. cool customer. open space. growth share.

15 april 2008

tax day/

fabrication. withdrawal. nickel and dime. death by gravity. beacon oil. biofuel. plumb the depths. it's not your time. keep your word. a change in culture. well-oiled machine. marching orders. storage facility.

jersey lanes/

a piercing new image
in pyramid club karaoke
you wanna be someone, make a difference
propane sold here, so dust off the grill
summer is upon us
your polyglot pulse quickens
AND AWAY WE GO.
this is just a rough draft landstar
with worldwide packaging
teen graffiti judges under the train tracks
avoid the traffic and express race relations in a cage
auto pride in an advanced machine
the mark of a true supersonic so-and-so

I can see the front yard in as many ways as I have memories of it. It had a totally different aspect according to the season, weather, time of day and whatever I happened to be doing. The driveway took on a soft, sandy texture if I imagined it as Wrigley Field's warning track, or the spongy hardness of a tennis court, or the thick turf of the Soldier Field endzone, with yellow Wiffle bats stuck in the hedges as uprights. This made it unrecognizable as the same wet slab of pavement across which an aunt walked from her car for Sunday lunch through the kind of soaking rain that made the grass glow a deep, lush green.

The varying light and my mood even changed the contours of the lawn, smoothing it level after it was mowed in a perfect striped pattern, or allowing it to slope down toward the neighbors' yard and making our house appear to be up on a hill instead of at the bottom of one, as it was, while I lay on their prickly, over-fertilized grass. I can still feel the texture of our lawn in all its variety, from the thin, sparse strands, like an old man's hair, under the shade of the dogwood trees or on the hard-packed short slope on the other side of the hedge, to the thick clumps of sweet onion grass by the front walk.

One day as a young boy, fearful of bumblebees after one returned my stepping on it by stinging me between the toes, I tried to ward them off by cutting each clover stalk with a pair of scissors and taking away the white blooms that attracted them. But that was in the back yard, where instead of the neat arrangements out front for public consumption, wild profusions of asparagus and raspberry plants, dark secret spaces under the lilac bushes, and even a barely remembered pumpkin patch prompted my imagination in all its fantasies and fears. I could construct whole worlds there, and often did, cheered on by the power lines and the three towering silver maples, whose leaves rustled and rippled and flipped over to reveal their light underbellies when storms approached. The heavy air would be pushed aside with a few strong gusts, while fat raindrops began to fall, too real for me, and I would run up the hill to the house, leaving my things behind.

another autumn/
bees stuttering around the honeysuckle tree. sticky pine needles and stale cigarettes. hairspray and a nose ring. just beginning to turn. groundhogs on a children's playground. fields of amber weeds. crackling over the loudspeaker. a general assembly of all mankind. hardscrabble sunset opera. rows of picnic tables. power lines through the forest. ability and integrity. wrecking and recycling. cessation of hostilities. parallel tracks. clover leaf jug handle. subdivision. no longer valid. close clearance. compacting presses. abstract. overnight. added value. scoreboard bulbs. loading dock. a ruffled awning. costa chica. managerial services. license and registration. love your day life. specialists. stomping grounds. bittersweet homecoming. optical illusion.

29 September 2003

Morton Avenue in Jacksonville, Illinois. To swing on to its wide lanes from Church Street or Massey Lane is to be pumped into the town’s gasoline IV, to be sucked into its iron lung. A five-mile east-west scar that pulls together the old town and the rapidly growing “village” of South Jacksonville, Morton Avenue is home to an everchanging array of cheap restaurants, gas stations, and strip malls. In a classically American display of overindulgence, this thoroughfare and the thousands of cars that use it accomplish the same feat of transportation that would be accomplished in a comparable European city by a few buses and a train line.

It’s where Jacksonville goes to eat, make money, and spend money. It’s where disaffected high school students plop down on the hoods of their pickup trucks and pimped-out coupes to smoke cigarettes and bemoan the lack of anything better to do. It’s the endless series of stop-and-goes that creeps out to the interstate, passing the prison just as the corn and soybean fields—which used to hug the town tightly—finally come into view. Above all, it’s where family businesses from the now-deserted town square go to die, their souls reborn in a neon afterlife of melting asphalt and chain store brand names. Morton Avenue is what became of small-town America long before it even knew it had changed.

spaghetti straps and long island iced teas. an explosion of lush green growth hugs the winterworn stones all over campus. yes, clack your poker chips together like chattering teeth. it's a spring saturday night and the dark courtyard air is rolling through the windows, finally thrown open as the group gathers.
they may have listened to this album before, humming from the old glowing phonograph in the corner; they may have tasted the same crudely prepared mixed drinks; maybe they had even passed similar joints a time or two; but not on a night like this.
back in morgan county, they're probably cruising the country lanes, the corn not yet high enough to hide their cars.
grass clippings, pollen, wet earth, bees inspecting the clover blossoms.

27 juin 2004

Il faut me concentrer. Dix-sept heures dix, et le colloque sur roland barthes commence. Qui est roland barthes? Sur une tribune au milieu de la cour du palais du roure, il y a deux hommes qui essaient de répondre.

—trente minutes, c’est terrible, dit l’homme au costume gris. À peu près cinquante-cinq ans, figure ronde, sourire amical. Les profs et les bons vieux citoyens sont d’accord par compassion, les étudiants par quelque chose d’autre. L’autre homme (chemise rose, tête carrée, un peu plus jeune) ne sait quoi faire. Il sourit nerveusement, il caresse les lunettes, il garde impatiemment le silence qui lui est imposé.

Qui est roland barthes? La voix de dieu, peut-être. Les deux hommes font les déclarations solennelles.

—il a dit… il a écrit… amen.

Jamais une chose pareille aux états-unis. Même aux réunions scolaires, cet air à la fois relâché et forcé, ces hommes sérieux mais plaisants, cette passion aisée… non, c’est inconnu.

Il faut me concentrer. Les français ne jouent pas très bien cette année. Thierry henry semble un peu désintéressé. Ma copine arrivera mercredi matin. Quel train prendra-t-elle? Je dois lui acheter un petit cadeau. Les martinets hurlent d’un ton aigu pendant qu’ils descendent en spirale vers le palais du roure. Je me demande comment roland barthes aurait réagit à cette interruption de son colloque. L’absurdité infiniment complexe de la nature se moque de la simplicité absurde des pensées humaines.

Qui est roland barthes? Les déclarations deviennent difficiles. Le barthes moderne a résisté à la modernité. Son marxisme était quelque chose d’inclassable. La phrase absolue. La mort de la littérature. Il n’aimait pas les mots. Apparement, il y a un livre roland barthes par roland barthes. Quelle chance! Il faudra le lire un jour.

farsi/
closer than you think. make the connection. wear it on your sleeve. black ribbon. glass tower. chattering teeth. asymmetrical. quarky sparky. bridge plate. contains enriching ingredients. you show me yours. self help. rugged individualism. arks and crafts. mountainous terrain. bake me a cake. we see the future. leave no trace. pledge allegiance to the flag. how does your garden grow?

mexican/
mobile homes. king of the road. way off base. ballpark figures. the american pasttime. directing traffic. incriminating yourself. shoulder the burden. median income. flocks fucks fox flux. steal a base. amnesiasty.