The Toga Party

One morning James

awoke to find

his bed in the middle

of the street.

An appropriately formal

letter pinned to his head

said he'd been evicted.

Suddenly he saw

some problems with sleeping

in the nude.

Fashioning a toga

from a tired bedsheet,

he recalled a party

to which he'd once worn

something similar

under his clothes.

The night had taken

an awkward turn

when he forgot to remove

a layer and went home

with a psychology major.

James could not explain

his choice of underwear.

He hoped his landlord

would show more sympathy.

A relief, then,

that the man

answered his door in attire

revealing a proclivity

for roman trash culture.

James got his room back

at a discounted rate.

In it he discovered

a vat of grapes

and a rack of new garments,

and he never slept

naked again.

-the ambassador

Graffiti Animation

This is a short film called MUTO by a Latin American artist called Blu. I was shown this earlier this year by a friend, but had forgotten about it before tonight. Graphic media like nothing I've never seen. Enjoy.

untitled

You are

all creatures I do

not recognize,

and still I climb,

hands tied, up

a worn rope

to gaze inside a gut.

All I see

is aflame.

I have written

down my name

many times, each

memory is more

scrambled

and strange to me.

So we take

photographs of mirrors

and move in reverse.

Someone here is

powerless precisely

because we do not believe.

This is how it goes.

A god dies

every day.

I would dream

another but

I could not cause it

to behave.

I am

only a will,

a network I can't

create. An inactive

appetite

has brought me here

weakly, I make no

appointments or promises.

A voice inhabits us.

-the ambassador

Here I Lay It Out

Unable to say I am

a victim of circumstance,

I burnt my house down.

It was made of cards

anyhow. This is why

we balance a job

and a hobby so precariously.

I am invariably

wrong.

Watch the news

tonight. Wasn't that home

beautiful on fire? A location

primed for crime

and romance, just

don't ask how many

have lived there.

A story still does. I am

evidence incarnate. Heat has

licked me clean, though I do

resonate with memory. Here

I lay it out.

-the ambassador

Fright & Comfort

It has been years. At

slim twenty-two I have

known only so many. I

cannot cover a catastrophe

much. We will sing it again.

She bays her way into

a home, a refuge for

a recluse, or some. This

winter I will write a poem.

The edges have been lopped

off. I held the note up under

a light and trimmed it. An

unnecessary maneuver, but

the degree was such I'd sooner

scrape my fingertips than watch

the moon go down.

We will sing it again.

There is no consequence.

We will sing it again.

-the ambassador

Disassociative

He was looking

for complex answers

in all the wrong

places.

There are simple bodies

in the skies,

white harbingers

of a darker disguise:

a day to bring solace.

He brought his person

under bright lights, and I

looked on unharmed.

They are two people talking

at all times. A third, the

self, decides

on the sound.

There are complex bodies

underground.

-the ambassador

Progeny Song, Dreamt

I & my brood blaspheme.

A hungry son and I

wandered, a sundry toll was

kept apace by matheme.

He did not warn of wagging,

nor lagging of the soul;

a mind of time behind.

He should have kept it

simple. The genetic toil

to an end. For me, he is

still gliding; I must believe

it. In every instance

the eyes will be questioned,

subjects of a cruel & quiet

prince (a mind of time behind).

In this we see a structure, unnatural.

A constructed bending

of the beams of light.

In this we see a structure.

-the ambassador

X

It is often odd to think

that without us there

would be less than nothing

here and yet everything

but us would still appear,

and probably (a stretch,

perhaps) a lot more oxygen.

So I keep a pet illusion

near, I have named him

real, but he is only a looking

glass.

By which I mean he is inside himself.

It must make it

hard to breathe.

Ah, but the clock is bent

on precision and turning

this day over. A virtual

subversion of the plot.

-the ambassador

Logic, Religion, Dolphins

I am, by nature, analytical. This is not to say that I'm always entirely reasonable or rational. I do, however, tend to look at things closely, to attempt to see what lurks below the surface. I realized recently that my poetry is an attempt - subconscious until now - to recontextualize beauty for myself. Actually, it has become something of an obsession for me to take horrifying objects, events, etcetera, and to use language itself to bend them into something different - perhaps even something worth looking at for a long while - something to, as my analytical side insists, figure out.

I'm also deeply interested in the human animal. More precisely, I'm interested in the human as animal. Far too often a gap is posited between the human and the natural - and, if you've noticed, we as a species are always trying to justify our belief in that gap. "Oh, it's our consciousness of the self that sets us apart." Not so. Some primates recognize themselves in mirrors. Is it, perhaps, language? I will grant that the range of language humans have attained is impressive. Dolphins also have an extremely complex language - for it can be called nothing else - with which they express a range of emotions - for they can be called nothing else. Before any attempt at scientific justification of our unique standing in the universe, we turned to religion. "Yes, we are the Chosen People," said the Jews. But, then, weren't Muslims also the Chosen People? Weren't Christians, in turn, also Chosen? Don't all religions believe that they have the truth, and that everyone else - benign as their intentions might be - are simply wrong?

Well, I have a tendency to believe fact. I suppose it is a fault I can blame on nature. Nevertheless, it is this interest in the human animal - and all the beauty, shame, ugliness, importance, impotence, reality, and unreality that is inherent in it - that drives my poetry.

None of this is any more than one possible lens through which to view my words - because words is all I has to play with, as someone (I'm not sure who) once wrote. It could also be the ramblings of a would-be poet who has had one too many drinks on a Friday night.

-the ambassador

A Summary

Who is judged thus?

Be it an appearance

of mortal man? So the anger

speaks, the augur seeks,

the craven weep of mercy. By

rights, on whom the mantle

still obsidian rests, attest

not to shadows what was

seen.

It is a departure.

The setting straight of a crooked tale.

No more as orator,

in lieu a craft of subtler stead.

A waking of the worms

inside a head.

And so, a temporal adieu:

no more ask of whence

a body came, not

of why a soldier laughs or how

these bones collapse,

but of how a life resumes.

-the ambassador

Some Neo-aeonic Musings

So dead skin goes,

it grows,

resigned to residence

on the floor.

It's flaw, consistent.

Do not read the wall and its paper,

yellow and cracked

as it may be,

as a lack of entertainment.

Here,

time is

fragile.

Here,

the moment

of conception means

something entirely different.

If your skin is twisted, if it is

dismissive of your bones

and their regal bearing,

if it is

inconsistent, flay it from

its throne and lay it where

these stones collide.

-the ambassador

New Valence

Do we mask our lies with certainty?

Make light of particular discrepancies?

All stories, all songs:

repeatedly related, readily incarcerated

for purposes known

and steadfastly evaded.

I put a call in to the moon,

even left a message

(which I never do),

but I must have imagined

a previous conversation.

I've seen some serious indignation.

Regardless, he left me hanging

(which seems ironic),

so it's the cold shoulder for him,

at least while I sleep.

It's more fun in the Deep,

where conflicts and clashes

and flashes of sublimation

get cold and I

stubbornly see my body get old:

(some lies, some appearances)

(some art, some new valences).

-the ambassador

(untitled)

Burnt myself out in a dream:

spoke to a cop, a rock,

a damsel, a demon,

one too many friends.

Ask me if I'm giving up:

two flat tires on a tricycle

and some elevation ahead.

These buildings are boxes and I'm free

inside them.

Somehow the stairs

fight me: play a game called thin

air

and tumble.

Even the friends I create ask

too many questions.

As luck would have it, the search was had

for somebody else.

Scalded my nose

thanking the stars.

Refused a ride

home just to walk

with somebody real.

-the ambassador

I Dive Too

oughtn't tease a brain,

they sneeze, they sprain,

and a tongue turned wrong

side down won't do.

Is this an error

or has reciprocity gone bad?

Hanged hopes on coat

racks in corners

speak volumes and sink

to decks soaked in blue:

eke out a living as ghosts do.

curious,

though,

how these ghosts

still pray.

at a desk wrought

from the butt of a sequioa:

he sits.

sifts through reams of orders,

wondering which to give next.

somebody's sequence

reflects.

-the ambassador

From the Shitter, With Love

Don't squeeze humor too hard.

Blasphemy to say we have the same head.

This is for every man and woman

I've ever loved: will be flushed

in short order.

It's never held me to my word.

I always made you eat yours.

Drained of every calorie.

Nutritious or otherwise betrothed.

Clean sheets should not belong.

Look, I'll play a word game too,

if only to amuse you, called truce to

abuse your sense of benefits. And doubt.

If I seem unhealthy I am.

Biohazard fornication:

I think I've seen the URL somewhere.

Seems to be the only way I know.

Not an insult, a mission statement.

Time's up. Down the hatch.

In Europe the hole is differently placed.

-ambi ass amore

Windfall

She bit off his ring finger first.

Jesus! he said. Haven't you any manners?

There's silverware in the drawer.

After a moment of thought, though,

he bit off her finger too - and dashed

out the door.

Luckily a ring, like a LifeSaver,

won't coerce you into choking.

It'll just feel really uncomfortable.

He wasn't worried, he had unshaken

faith in his peristaltic strength.

Still, as the gold eroded

the world took on a reddish tint.

He thought perhaps he'd become

perpetually enraged or even insane

since his senses defied symmetry;

bled alchemy;

ruined reason.

the ambassador

Standing in the Sea

standing in the surf consumed by
countless angels body surfing
through the blood of dying cattle
infeedlot style neighborhoods but
her eyes like the ocean
green and blue give gifts
immaterial and intangible they crash
like waves over your soul stinging
salt on the wounds
ocean mist that tastes like tears
falling on bearen earth
chemicalized by artificial fertilizer
brought about drought and made Oakies flee to the coast
she stands
sea water swells around her ankles
like tears in your eyes
flow over the levy and it crumbles
streets are rivers of emotion like hate fear and love
call but no one answers the noise is too loud
waves crashing as the sun sets
her head filled with distant
places where the sun is rising
to a new days bringing streets veins flooded with hate fear and love
as intangible as her gifts
we rely on their presence
angels fall but her oceanic eyes
steady your legs in the
tumultuous violent sea
some say it is angry
it is pleading for mercy

-the colonel

Makeshift Minds

The indefinite boundaries
confine you to a room
(or a coffin)
to explore the room is to move
forward then a back, ramming a log into a medieval fortress.
Chisel away at that wall. Make it crack
wide open.
expanding that boundary yet may be possible
stretch it like a womans skin around a developed fetus
Taught. Vibrating
with all your thought
It is peaceful inside the wall (or the womb)
see peace within the self - extend peace to what is outside the self?
let them in!
imperialists or the mind - or soul?

Still stuck in this tumultuous room (or womb?)
hot sticky and evil
let them in...
extension of the mind. Amoeba eating lunch in the tepid pool of unwanted water

Open the flood gate of the room (..womb..) move out
FREE
ly
Inconsistant is organic
Makeshift dwellings give no shelter

Scale the wall, open the door

-the colonel

Not a Thought

He tried to order his insanity and

that was his third mistake. It is

reality that is ordered; insanity’s

where everything is real. Brought

his feet into and out of two holy

hydrogens and an oxygen but “my

halves are carbon, I am fiber, I am

a liar – try to follow if you can.” So

they listened and interpreted insinuations

that autonomy had a part to play in Ultimate

Demise: The Rise and Fall of that lump

in your throat – where’d it come from? I

‘d blame Jesus. He wanted to feel (second

mistake). There are better ways to notice

blood than to get a crowd screaming for

it. Appetites eat or want enough only

to momentarily sate, you soon find the

same void dressed in wolf pelt. It’s always

howling. She got pregnant and I can’t

stand getting stoned or stoning (even

in a voyeuristic sense) so I let that

baby get all born (first mistake.)

-the ambassador

Deities and Definitions

When deities fall,

webs collapse with them, leaving

citizens wishing we

could still communicate.

Our eyes are pink

but LEDs no longer blink

so we can tell we're shit

out of luck.

I continue to spill words

on you; it turns

out they mean even less

without a god to define them

-and, more importantly, who

I am-

so all these little molecules curl

down the drain and out

of sight.

No mean, no message

in the ether, just inconsistent

ciphers; I

know not who you are

but we speak in emergencies.

-the ambassador

Midwestern Hospitality

God, dear brother,

do you see me breathing here,

seething here intimately,

communing consistently with

angels and delinquents

screaming for anarchy in

Chicago?

Go home. This isn't mine.

Delilah, I think,

you've moved me inappropriately.

I'd never say this on my own.

Alleviate my sensibilities,

too often I submit to

rationalities and do not

listen to myself.

I must go back to

Chicago.

Oh, this aching foot of

mine. How it drags;

how it holds me aloft.

I'm answering the phone

with halted breath.

Situation! Location! Temptation!

Since both the colonel and I have posted poetry on here at this point, I figured I'd dip my toes into how I, at least, view poetry.

Poetry is about movement. There is movement from the title to the body, from word to word, line to line, and stanza to stanza. The movement, the path of a poem can dictate its meaning - or if there's any meaning to it at all.

A poem is not and should not be about the author's emotional state - instead, it rests entirely on the emotions evoked in the reader. As a poetry professor of mine once said, poetry today has far too much "I" and not enough art. The ego of the poet can often get in the way, making language in their poems too personal. This is not to say that poetry should not be intimate - and I'm certainly not hating on first-person poetry - but a truly personal poem must be approached with caution.

There are only three more things I have to say at the time (although I'm sure that over the next few days I'll be constantly hitting myself for leaving so much out), and the first is that poetry - and I'm speaking of mine in particular, but I can think of quite a few poets this applies to - has a creatively destructive element. That is to say, the linguistic violence contained within the act that is the poem is also productive. It produces thoughts, emotions, inspiration, and catharsis. As such, poetry is an exploration, both for the poet and the reader. It is about widening the space of the location in which language can perform.

Finally, I'll close with a thought on form from one of my favorite poets, Frank O'Hara. He had this to say: "As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you."

To be continued.

-the ambassador

Ship of Fears

America has been set free
She flies
Full mast on the ground
Screaming to the atmosphere
Keep them at bay
Narcissistic bastards they are
Create rules for me
Die for me
I never wanted it
Do not die for me
I would not die for you
How do you think I have grown so old?
There is no heart of gold
Only lust
Take what is yours I will not shelter you

America sails again
Tie us together
With lies and this game
People have fallen for the slogan
What is to this phallic affiliation of hope and pride?

One (or Two at a Time)

There is a conundrum

some find facing them

(and I am no stranger

to this specific indecision)

when it comes

to the question:

shall we walk?

shall we drive?

On the one foot,

there is time to let

a topic or theory

or logic or query

really blossom (or evolve,

if your method is such)

and go where it may.

Then, and then again,

on the other, ass,

bubbled intimacy can

lead to spontaneously arousing

verbal double-backing,

and so I tell hands and self:

Pick your Prison.