weeds

there’s a kid down on the street screaming just to hear himself scream

and mary louise parker has darker eyes than most

muscles in her shoulder
grit in my teeth
most of us arching our backs when we get baptized
mouths moving a bit but no words coming

if you let me I’d slump my shoulders
I’d be able to remember how it felt
it’s there, a minute or two into a moan
and you’re thinking…
but this morning I walked all the way to the train

tonight I walked all the way home
signifying tremors
little bits of me all night

and mary, she’s amazing
little bits of her racing in the streets
just like bruce
prove it all night

then I remember that I contain hard parts
teeth
the back of my head contending with wood
the socks that come off every night
every wounding walk home
the way you’d have me give in
but I’m not going to sell myself that way

“no sandman”, you could say

hard rib missing
it drove up six avenue to the 7/11 store by duarte road
stoners were outside doing bike tricks
tricks are a way of saying
but neither of them, rib or stone, knew what,
or which, but the slurpee got bought
rib back in his truck
windows lowered
t-shirt and shorts
an empty cooler on the passenger seat
where words, rib’s words, find their way inside
from hot to cold and a cassette tape slipping in in the stereo

off the rack

I'm not proud of this, but I'll tell you anyway. my dog spot has a barbie doll that he carries with him everywhere he goes. she used to be malibu barbie, but then spot ate her splashy little lounging outfit, and now she's generic, brunette barbie, or as my girlfriend annick says, she housing project barbie. spot stole the doll from layla fernandez-villas who is five and lives two doors down. layla's mom gloria (call me glow!) hammered on my door, told me what had happened, said her daughter, her baby, was in her bedroom right now weeping hysterically. I told glow to take a deep breath, offered her some iced tea. sweet or un? she said something to me in spanish, something about my cabeza. I stayed calm. I explained that while spot was admittedly rambuntious (how could I deny the chorizo frito episode?), and while, yes, he was decidely mischievious, though I preferred the word frolicsome, and certainly he could be naughty on occasion, and granted, he is impervious to discipline, I'll give you that, glow, still he's an honorable dog, and he would never--
I heard the clicking of spot's toenails on the terrazzo and turned to see barbie dangling by her legs from spot's jaws. she was naked to the waist, her buttery body slimed with drool, her belly punctured, her arms flung above her head. he hair was perfect. I ordered spot to come. he backed away, wagged his tail. I snapped my fingers. I said, drop the doll! he shook her. glow said she didn't want the goddam doll any more--what good is it? I said, please, let's not make this any harder than it already is. spot dropped barbie on her head, dared me to reach for her. he snorted. I said, my goodness, is that the greenbergs' cat on our couch? spot looked at me, at recumbent barbie, back at me. he growled. when I reached for barbie, spot snatched her up and bounded toward the kitchen. he stopped when I refused to chase him. he woofed. had I forgotten the rules of keep away? spot hunkered down on his forelegs, barbie between his paws, his butt in the air. he lifted his brow. glow told me her husband omar would not be happy about this. omar sells discount cosmetics and knockoff perfumes out of his silver ford aerostar. he claims to be responsible for this new look where women paint their lips a conventional red and then outline them with a violet or brown. so we know he's a dangerous man. naturally, I bought layla a new doll--los alamos barbie. she wears a spiffy, starched--and discreetly revealing--lab coat, high-heeled hiking boots, and she glows in the dark.

--from johnny too bad by john dufresne

i-pod wars

"hot chip will break your legs...and snap your neck"

I am superman

in the fifteen minutes that I got to be superman
there was kryptonite
people watching
a warning in my head
a man with a lash
a tearing of red and blood and blue and skin

a warning that I’d kill him when it was over
even when it was someone else’s fifteen minutes afterwards
I’d leave a memory somehow
I was superman
eventually it always ended

now though, a smell of iron
a rich odor of saint’s blood and longing
a thought of you
of former strength that I’d never felt
but was in my body

your hair was up in a rubber band encore
vampire neck ready
and although your breasts were small I saw them curve
the front of your top an everyday
promises children make to mothers that they’d never keep
they came out of your mouth
my mouth biting down on my cape
the taste of his blood and borrowed ufo’s
some blues so pale that they eventually seem gray
or that day I saw you walking when you didn’t see me
no one did
my time was up
but I left some of myself in him
a broken-hearted cliché of a kid
bound in arms and feet

birds fly

sillup sillup,
squawk
we are ever helpless

once we are a dancer, an artiste
a figurine
a lifeless still, we watched the cat chase rubberbands in the kitchen
watched boards on the opposite wall that were already are
but not like we are
they were pictures, other devils
we are and we were built for transport, for spoils, voracious devoured
corvus corax
sillup sillup
a whisper to a scream
a mouth to open branch perched
we are tied around the throat, later adornments
painterly
then we are waiters
cat sniff sniffed when we are alone
but we are not cat respected
we are even cat-licked once and twice which we must confessed liking

then we are robbery rapine and nighted
wooden screwed and dark hued
we are raven christ
raven final
finding our way around indecision

we are events out of order, blinked and hung and talked to by children, by every bird
passerby asking we are to rise, to fly, to die for raven sins when raven inns are
fuller than the manger, the granger who grew 33 hours of wood to wood in the
quickness that is any eventual black-out, and the hole that went through we are
was we are so we became the ratchet and the turning of it as one.

but loose we are once again

feathered, look they’re covered with a bright elation

now couch sitting and the obsessor is snap crackle at early light
we are giving single caw to this toucher
this box picture watcher
and still we are the ratchet and the waiter of often quiet, of dark foolers
of listen to the bottle of the wall
of drunk boys getting out of shiny
of another something passing as quick as us but without wings
not as proficient, or well-dressed

we are eyes of never hungry deflectors so stop looking at what you can not see in
stop asking what exists in stately
we are have not been seen in our temporary obvious
we are come down upon us until you flow like water
we are whether you
of raucous voice and carrion fed
sacrificed for a new nirvana
nighttime sends us on our way

OED definitions

ratchet--

a. intr. To move by means of a ratchet. Also transf. and fig.
1881 YOUNG Every Man his own Mechanic §270. 103 The angular borer turning clear around without stopping to ratchet. 1977 Time 3 Jan. 44/3 The signal, according to some radio operators who have heard it ratcheting over their headsets, sounds like a ‘buzzsaw’ or ‘the whirring of helicopter blades’. 1977 Rolling Stone 16 June 36/1 The movie director, age 34, spirals, ratchets, thrusts his chin like Mussolini.
b. trans. To move (something) up as by a ratchet. Cf. ratchet effect s.v. RATCHET n. 5.
1977 R. JENKINS Europe's Present Challenge & Future Opportunity (Jean Monnet Lect.) 8 Floating exchange rates transmit violent and sudden inflationary impulses... Each new impulse ratchets up the inflationary process. 1979 Daily Tel. 9 Aug. 2/7 We are quite clear that the union movement has not been responsible for ratcheting up inflation.

ADDITIONS SERIES 1993
[b.] For def. read: To move (something) with, or as with, a ratchet. Freq. const. up. (Earlier and later examples.)
1973 T. PYNCHON Gravity's Rainbow II. 193 But the clock over the bar only clicks once, then presently again, ratcheting time minutewise into their past. 1981 Times 18 Apr. 11/1 The spring detent, a small spring which ratchets the teeth of a wheel. 1988 New Scientist 17 Mar. 29/1 He said: Maybe we are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate.