Last Bender

An old, nearly lost friend wrote to say she had read my highschool reunion blogh and thought that i found the whole thing depressing. well, i’ve just reread it. to my old comrades! I was not depressed by you! I am happy I went and I am happy I saw you. I still want to [...]

South East Asian Historiography
Not long ago I finished William Southworth’s two volume dissertation on Champa. Since there is very little written in English about Champa I was excited to find it, and I was not disappointed, really, or at least, I had no right to be. I have also just finished reading Georges Maspero’s [...]

3.
The door dinged and swung open decisively as Athol, the UPS guy, bumped his hand truck down the stairs. He was a ruddy, aggressively ugly man in that particularly English way that is almost beautiful, like a gnarl on an oak tree, with his bent nose, pockmarked skin, and blue, rhinoceros eyes.
“Back here,” I [...]

 
the crude drain in a pair of pants
snow squalls at the window
 
women dressed like children
indignant courting of filthy thoughts
 

A Question for Dreams

why do you bring the dead
and write yourself
in love’s light
why her still and
empty face
the blue eyes and
tangled nylon hair
she doesn’t cry ouch
at the knots
dad wants to know
where he is
i didn’t tell him we threw
the videos out

Holidays in the Sun
 
Mind and heart in revolt
I trade this rain for feedback
these branches are broken guitars
and the lavender mist
smoke drifting in
from  battlefields
 
the smell of mowed grass
covers sulfur and formaldehyde
Holidays in the Sun
–the bombs haven’t gone away
and I’m still waiting
 
the call is loud
I can’t breathe
sitting in this chair
a plucked academic chicken
swords and words confused
 
Idea takes [...]

The Girl in the White T Shirt
 
Jack Spicer drank himself to death
Olson drank himself to death, Lowell and Bishop,
Berryman and Thomas drank themselves to death
It was fashionable to drink and poetry
Was not fashionable and so they drank
To be famous and because the pain of alienation
Was too great they drank but now
It is fashionable to be [...]

Endangered Species 2.3
That night I believe I stood at her door for five minutes listening to the pounding bass, feeling tweeters ripple through the cinder block and wood. After this momentary hiatus from reality, I turned tail and pushed the elevator button. I had not been detected. There would be no loss of face. I [...]

 
My sister lives out on the island
And her husband takes the train
He’s big and he’s fat
And he doesn’t even have a brain
Don’t you know you have to kill
Kill your sons
Don’t you know you have to kill
Kill your sons
Then you run run run run run
Run away
 
-Lou Reed, Kill Your Sons
 
I went to a 30 something reunion [...]

2.2
All through junior high Tammy Markham ran and swam and played tennis. Her athletic body was unbearable. I would see her at the pool in her bikini. She had the hairiest armpits of all the girls and used to lie out on her towel on the deck so that you saw her pubic hair sticking [...]