rent

So the search continues,

likely a bolt from the cerebral orbit

and she said, we can’t trust families,

no, not in this weather.

The domicile is lonely and lost, looking outwards with cross-eyed windows.

Flames can stomach infancy that is hope,

that is, ultimately, fate –

the comparison will not compose itself into a relevant mantra.

in a mouth

Your thought is lodged in the mouth of a beaver trying desperately to escape but its buckteeth have you trapped.  I can hear you whimper loudly enough to be heard clearly across the dam that could be called the Damned that could be called Oakleigh.

            How it or you or even perhaps we got stuck there is a mystery not worth investigating this time because surely you’ll escape soon and everything will appear as a rose unfolding towards the sun.

            And, yes, sexual energy come innuendo could free the mind. 

There’s just no conclusive research to confirm this fact and as far as grandiose statements go that there is a pearler.  That is, if I may say so without the fear of arrogant retribution settling on my shoulders and karma causing a fuss.

in defense of Swans

Your flawed mythology provokes the worst sort of propaganda:

that men in glasses, with bad suits, are not worthy and do not belong.

‘Better to beat them then join them any day.’

Huh?  Your rebuttal will be the undoing of this system

which is better than theirs in all but concrete policy.

Turning inwards on the peculiar vision of raving, fat vests

that, between statements of wisdom and churlish stupidity,

fail to account for the outrageous gravity of their notions.

Ultimately, there is no pastoral scene to beautify the statement,

everything now is bogged down in the mire

reaching up and out and praying for God to stop by and say

…

well, God can’t speak for her muses.

between the quiet

Lost this time, outside

We can’t find a sound to mimic

The lying birds lie too quietly.

Your breath, then, stains

Serenity, as if repeated

Thousands of times in my car.

Between fingers, a cigarette

Hangs desolately.  Air trailing away.

Meaning would strive

To find a verse of voices, softly

Lingering in your mythic dusk.

In such moments only your lust

Strikes out to find time

And the future wants nothing

Of you and I staging an argument.

Its too loud and time to stagger inside.

With thanks to John Ashbery and 'Some Trees'

after a working interlude

My morose affinity with your intelligence is something that I cannot liken to anything else without you getting lost in the dizzy haze of my definition.

            Sounds like a putdown doesn’t it?

            Perhaps it is without that being its contention.  My mind is no swifter than its clearly visible shapely curves and sensational bust.  More often than not it is confused and asks questions of itself like a crudely organized parliament.  

I worry that the questions will get ya in the end.  

It doesn't stop my fascination with the mechanics and pulleys of your meticulously designed and affected thought.  Airy as it is it is fed by permanent oxygen and it is something else, dammit. 

sever

I’d cut off your arm to use it as a pillow.  I’d carry it with me everywhere to rest my head on whenever sleep or that dull, numbing sensation of boredom collapses my neck.  On a train or plane I imagine it would be very useful.

My violent fantasy though won’t give an easy birth to reality. 

Please, I’m a professional mourner.  I could use the comfort. 

The blood would probably make me queasy.  I’d mourn its loss, watching it sprout freely from your shoulder all over the concrete.

I couldn’t cut off your arm for my comfort, because you’d probably really miss it (even if I need it more than you do … I’d only take your left arm and you ARE right handed).

This neediness is hard to explain.  So I’ll let you fill in the gaps like any good writer would by developing an abstraction as symbolic of ‘need’.

Begin by imagining a lonely figure strolling like a cowboy into some callous sunset looking over their shoulder at the partner they leave behind.  That might set you on the right path, even if the walker you picture isn’t on any sort of path to speak of and is instead surrounded by a flat plain of dirt and strange rock formations that you might be able to climb if you had the time and right equipment.

dim

When I saw the Witnesses of Jehovah approach my house through my window I dressed in my favorite steel silver tights, removed my shirt, and quickly tattooed a raven without wings smoking a cigarette flexing his calf muscles on my chest.  I called the bird Stefán Moldorov.

            They knocked three and a half times until I answered sipping pineapple juice from a three-liter bottle looking imperial.  They overlooked my ensemble.  Stefán melted away with my sweat.

            One of them said: we have come for your soul.

            I’d lost that old thing long ago when I threw out my Persian carpet with my prettiest dining room table. 

            So we danced around their conveniently sized Bible sipping the juice without my gin and sang about being Christian.  The song, though, sounded like a Hindu chant.  My Greek neighbors, whose confusion was famous, became more confused till they melted their hommus.  Then we were all Buddhist and the parable lost traction.

            There have been frequently observed questions and correlations between my missing self and my inability to take people seriously.  Humor, I have said, is separate.  Hiding in another part of my body under a lamp with a blown light bulb.

With thanks to Henri Michaux & Max Jacob.  Also, I suppose, Snoop Dogg.

The Guide Led Us Here

My Understanding of the Title (definitions … so-to-speak)

Curious – to be interested and interesting.

Rants – to never stop talking loudly, crudely, and with passion.

Lift Weasel – one who does not drive, but will frequently be found in the passenger seat of a friend’s car.

THE MEANING OF THIS …

The intention of The Curious Rants of a Lift Weasel is to produce and broadcast a continual stream of creative writing inspired by the reading of its author or the random procession of things that pass by in the continuous manifestation of the day into the night and, perhaps, beyond into some murky delicate subconscious. 

Although the term ‘creative writing’ conjures all sorts of uncomfortable university and high school English connotations about correct form, the importance of leaving things to the reader, and why we shouldn’t ever use the word ‘nice,’ it is instructive in its simplicity for the purpose of this series of random jottings that will be, a) written, and b) creative – or so I hope anyway.

This practice will not be aimed at paid publication, as the volume of writing I am intending to, well, write will likely not maintain any sort of high quality or edited finesse.  Rather it will be a poetic journal that will attempt, in some sense, to tag along on the coattails of my personal experience in literature and life and whatever else falls by the wayside in a heap waiting for God.

This does not mean that if something is particularly striking I will not pursue publication.  It is a simple matter of this particular avenue not being the road most keenly followed.  It is not the primary objective of The Curious Rants of a Lift Weasel.  My own entertainment dominates that category, along with the practice of trying something wholly new to me: the act of constant writing that does not always have to be brilliant or insightful and that is perpetually open to public scrutiny.

The rules will basically be as follows (with modifications surely to follow):

1.     Form is irrelevant.  The writing will be anything from poetry, to prose poems, to short short fiction, to fiction in any length.  Creativity and consistency of output is the guiding form.

2.     Subject matter is irrelevant.  Not everything will make sense.  And some of these things will be too personal.  And some will be adages to either ignore or live by or both.  There will be nothing I focus on for long periods, and things I will be obsessed by for weeks.

3.     CONSTANT PRODUCTION is relevant.  The purpose is to write and publish as often as possible.  The moment that falls apart, the practice of this whole thing becomes irrelevant.

4.     I will acknowledge influences and any writers I am directly imitating.  This is not a swerve away from creativity but, rather, a driving factor in ensuring constant production.  Inspiration is the key.

5.     I will accept criticism.

6.     I also accept the right to reject criticism.

7.     These are not for republication by anyone other than the author without the author’s permission.  I will accept word to be spread.  I will accept my site being linked for other readers to have a quick glance.  I will not accept the rehashing of my work in another’s name.

From here, then, it begins even if I have been thinking of doing this for weeks.