S.B.T. 311

architectural romance

drumming fingers on the sideboard his thoughts r in other places

near and far he happend to remember

some exiled emotion propelling events toward a renegade hand of gin

rummy and some rum

she pulls the hose up taut and checks the mirror, fluffs the collar

the navy blue ensemble w/white blouse, tightens the belt.

the shoes she says to herself the ballet heels

predictably boring chart projections (sigh thumbing thru blue prints)

heels latched 2 the rung (keep the chair from rolling)

dribbling a list of numbers A list (this notebook has seen better days)

he drew a voice balloon inflated a mystical monk chanting and

filled it w/new jersey erudite curbside sayings (noone out of town gets)

with a friendly frown (pencil in hand)

in contemplation

they met for lunch across the street

he orders tonic checks his watch

"i want to get home early today...

but this is home everywhere is home she said

pulling out a page with a cartoon of woody allen (hoboken)

there's no place like home

S.B.T. 310

pyro maniac

music accompaniment

sweet wall of fire circle round a blackened pit
lined with rough stones that fall from the dirt
wild animals of a certain species scratch
with tips so sharp they glisten in the dark

dig and roll them out
out from soily hollows molded
omega arc of pearly claws pull
on mass massive mass, with
tips so sharp they glisten in the dark

crusted with mud and smooth as eggs
colored like caramel, with veins of chocolate
these rocks get hot , hot rocks shatter
hot rock bbbrings down the wall, with
tips so sharp they glisten in the dark

S.B.T. 309

lunar eclipse

what i didnt know opened up the show

in the middle act were the things i lacked

and the final scene was a poignant dream

of a man reposing who might be dozing

while the stars turn round to the lovely sound

of the impish moon singing tansen's tune

on the ides of june

S.B.T. 308

strength in numbers

1___2___3___

one love

4___5___6___

7___8___9___

10__11__12__

13__14__15__

16__17__18__

19__20__21__

22__23__24__

counts

25__26__27__

28__29__30__

31__32__33__

34__35__36__

37__38__39__

40__41__42__

43__44__45__

46__47__48__

for a hundred

49__50__51__

52__53__54__

55__56__57__

58__59__60__

61__62__63__

64__65__66__

67__68__69__

70__71__72__

73__74__75__

others who dont

76__77__78__

79__80__81__

82__83__84__

85__86__87__

88__89__90__

91__92__93__

94__95__96__

97__98__99__

100_ have any

so

exponentially

and multidimensionally

1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

and still counting

the voice reading is an appropriated excerpt from

a vimeo of robert kelly, poet xxx and can be found

here

S.B.T. 307

crime wave

i was an innocent victim or so i thought to begin with. i mean the acts perpetrated upon me were just plain dark and mean. and all about betrayals. and money

i'd seen it before, yeah, when i was a kid an uncle in my family pulled a major business rip-off on my father. it was ugly. and then a sinister moneytype thing happened again with an aunt suing another uncle and it was nasty. some of the things that went down in harsh words still echo to this day.

but you know more than half of those people are gone now. the aunt who sued the uncle died in '02. the uncle himself died last year. the other uncle who pulled the caper died a long time ago. about two years after the incident. he hung himself. and i got the news from my older brothers bud, eben, a guy with a sort of german bodybuilder accent. the phone rang in my little studio in boston.

"hello?"

"rusty hung himself"

"what?"

"rusty hung himself"

so i was saying i'd "seen it before". but thats why i didnt see it coming this time. i'd been blessed with a slow easement from the past, i wasnt paying attention. but i hereby take full responsibility for slicing off my achilles heel because i was thinking about something else and didnt realize what i was doing with the sword.....

and i thought about it often. because it was a terrible thing.

i went back to boston, to the dojo where i rented a room,

and took up martial arts, lived there, and worked in a restaurant and went to classes.

form and practice, precision, clarity, movement. we worked out with specially carved heavy wooden sticks to approximate shape and weight of a real sword but used the real swords in demonstrations and blackbelt-winnings. to achieve 1st black belt all the forms at all the graduating levels had to be performed with a real sword, a dangerous weapon, terrifyingly sharp, enough to cut a fly in half, a lethal, glimmering sword drawn flashing swiftly from a black leather scabbard and the choreographed sparring began.

only once did someone get injured, he sliced a bit of skin from his heel accidentally in a flying leap over cutting bamboo action (a 2-handed leaping above the swords as you are moving one in each hand like scissors). bloody as well. but it was shameful. stupid even. if you are blackbelt you just have to be better than that goddammit.

the master had no pity

and we took his cue.

if your hand is on a sword

for certain this is true:

you can not be a ninja or a master of kung foo

if you slice off your own foot.

shame on you.

ok, cmon, lets wrap it up with gauze and get you some comfy slippers. carry you on a red velvet pillow to the kitchen and give you soup. the doctor is coming to give you a shot. and then you can go to bed. and fuggettabbouttit. we forgive you, but you f'n better not do anything stupid like that again or someone'll f'n slice off your ear by accident too. namaste. quan yin.

hearts pounding we back out bowing. the things you do for love?

anyway back to me as innocent victim. (whose mind is this anyway?) screening play-by-playbacks because i enjoy them? uh, not exactly... or maybe because i cant help it (i dont know why i sliced off my heel) or some hot button starts flashing and i cant control it cuz i dont have the program even tho i might have rewritten the program like a hacker using virus mire code of past experience because thats how the computer works, stores and/or trashes memories. replays them on demand. from whence came the image on the screen...........press the

restart button.

S.B.T. 306

there was this scene: where the gentlewoman with her homecoiffed style ish shtick

sits on the rattan chair, her neat black rectangle briefcase of a purse on her lap

and she takes off her gloves, saying "I came to tell you something."

he was on a wooden chair behind the glass. he was leaning forward on his elbows and his face flat down over crossed elbows on the ledge of the booth. he looked strained and cautious.

somehow she got it that he wished he hadnt done the thing that put him behind that glass wearing fluorescent orange overalls and white canvas slip-ons. but she didnt know if anyone knew or cared how he felt. he was rolling his eyes 'oh shit more damn torture, ok ok ok what does this character want for christsakes, this little church lady with her purse and gloves and whats that, a wig? jeezus - touched or something...'

"i want to tell you," her voice as soft as hummingbird wings, "to tell you..."

he looked up at her, his eyes pulling at the gestures she made, he was all about body language

"yeh, ok, what,," he said, in a low voice.

he was beyond the ordinary education in his degree of expecting the worst from others and getting it

but with her, he was bracing for the beating, he was ready, willing to hang his head as low as it could go and stay attached to his neck and he was expecting black-and-blue welts from her rant, her rant about what he did, about what it did to her, to her family

about what a piece of shit he is, what a pathetic fool who threw away...

"well...i know what my son would have wanted because he was a ghandian disciple"

he said "that some kind of brotherhud?"

"you don't know gandhi?" she asked, incredulous, "he believed in nonviolence and compassion. there is a movie about him. do you have movies here?"

"yeh we have movies. gandy, heh ya, i heard of him"

"if anyone has a video player here, i can send you the movie."

"we have cassettes but no dvds"

he was wondering where this was leading but always looked forward to any diversion, still he sensed something that drew him in to her. she was motherly toward him, and he was curious about that about how it somehow felt 'good'.

and she just laid this gandhi thing on him, and it was cool, like a tall glass of water.

"but there was something i wanted to tell you," she said finally.

'ok', he thought, 'here it comes...'

"ok what" he said clenching knuckles

"i wanted you to know.........i forgive you for what happened....i know you did not mean for it to happen the way it did. the lord and my son would want forgiveness

for you. i mean it sincerely. i want to help. i think we can help eachother. "

he looked at her. then he put his head in his hands, covering his eyes and said "serious"

"yes serious" she said

and he sat back and he looked at her and he said "why"

and she said "because i care about you"

"why"

"because you and my son had intertwining fates, and you are suffering and god doesnt let that happen for no reason"

in earnest, mrs he whispered, put his head down on his lap and cried.