Never Mind the Beasts

Don’t know that money is so evil when you don’t have it. Once you have too much of it it might get a tad evil. How about two more abstractions: money and freedom. Too much money and you’re bound to lose some freedom. But not enough money and you’ve lost as well.

Money ain’t evil.

Money is an exchange of energy.

Poetry is about the exchange of energy.

When I see the other side I can see my own side more cleanly.

Money liberates. Money dibilitates.

My mind needs a counterpose to work its way back into poetry.

I have adapted to ESL English.

I hear English too slowly.

I need to feel
language thinking
me back
into existence

I need to get
wet around
the ears.

15:44

In Poland they call unfiltered coffee Turkish. I don’t know how long this has been going on. My clothes are drying on a white rack by my window in Block 7A. I’m in a small cramped room in New Europe. A concrete grave in a maze of flats. These flats are my patrons. I’ve can’t get a grip. My ears keep ringing. Old receipts clutter my desk and I’m feeling a bit like a rat. I want to tell a story but I can only find beginnings. I am all beginnings. Snowflakes are falling and I still can’t see the future. Behold my muscles and all their friendly neurotransmitters. It’s not what I think but what thinks through me.

Havel gave some good speeches near this spot to the good citizens of Prague. This is the site of revolution. Re volition.

nice wee town in Bohemia

A Russian race car driver’s grave in Bohemia

so I have a nice wee hernia. I went to the Polish emergency room last night. It’s a bit painful but not terrible. I need a small operation next week. Trying to figure out if the British government can cover it since I don’t have Polish health insurance. My boss has me working under the table. It’s just a small operation but I guess I need to do it because it could be dangerous.

I am not fond of my hernia!

This is a church in Sedlec (a little village outside Prague). The story is a knight went to the holy land during the Crusades and returned with some holy dirt. He sprinkled it outside the church. It became prime real estate for the departed. Big gold coins if you want a place in the holy graveyard. So the places filled up fast. Then the plague came and lots and lots of people died. There were too many bones from the dead. So later a wee monk dug up the bones. He mades nice decorations of all the bones in the church. More room. And art. Ah glorious art. So white and pure. Holy robes indeed.

I am using my moleskin again and it feels good. I find it difficult to write when I can’t settle my mind about the future. I applied to a lot of independent schools in the U.S., but then I realized it is going to very difficult. Logistics wise it is hard to survive in America without a car. Even if I were offered an interview I would have to fly from Poland with all of my belongings and then try and take a bus to the school campus. Not impossible I guess. I will wait and see what happens. As long as I am creating potential opportunities I feel better.

I don’t think I want to teach in a boarding school though. I would like some privacy.

There is also Taiwan. My close cousin is in Taiwan and I could make a comfortable living for a while.

My dreams have been very intense lately. Lots of head cutting and decapitations. A Russian spy was sent to kill me because I was dating a Polish woman.

I am leaving for Prague tomorrow to see an old friend. We went to university together at Weber State and spent New Years together in Slovakia. It will be nice to lighten my head a bit with some nice green, homemade Mexican food, and beer. I just have to survive the midnight train from Katowice, which is notorious for thieves. I think I will change my ticket to a sleeping car so maybe I can lock the door.

I can’t help wishing I were ten years younger with my whole life ahead of me. I feel so old lately. But I am only 32. My life experiences make me feel old. Northern Ireland and a forced move to England at the age of seven. A change of accent and a confused identity. Then America and a third change in accent/identity. Still, I wrote my goals all over my wall. I looked to the future as my savior. Now the future is here and I have made a lot of mistakes.

Today I don’t have a headache and I can think. It is nice to think. I’ve got to let go of so much. Letting go is a relief but also a continual exercise in futility.

I remember the excitement of attending honours classes at Weber State. So many new areas to explore. Here I am in central Europe and I can’t seem to find the spark. The spark comes now and again but I can’t seem to get fully lit. I need a healthy dose of challenge and a slight feeling of settlement. I should stay in Poland until June. I am finally getting a little settled. It would be nice to feel a little settled for seven months.

What is settled? Maybe enough routine to ground me. Enough comfortableness to move out of survival mode.

I ache for a companion. A cliché I know. Someone who can share in my passion for poetry, art, music etc.

I need my mind.

I also need my body of course.

I have been listening to Chad Helder’s cd of queer horror. It is an amazing performance of poetry and short stories. The ambient sounds, flashes of insight, and unforgettable images make this cd a must for the brainpan.

There is derelict energy here. Imagine Jack Kerouac reading queer horror with ambient music. It’s a purging. A good purging. More effective than an old Greek tragedy. I am amazed at the precise pacing and layered sounds on this cd.

Chad’s performance is cinematic and theatrical. POV and ellipsis are handled with subtlety. Disorientation and montage and missing bodies. This is the “id pool” at it finest.

Contact Chad Helder for a copy of the cd at:

Chad Helder’s Queer Horror

I can’t seem to shake the feeling I should have a solid career by now. I am heading into my 33rd year and just living from week to week in terms of money, savings etc.

I fretted this all week and spent a lot of hours on the internet looking for secure jobs for a teaching career. But if I want to teach secondary school, it’s back to school for a teaching credential.

I have no babies either. But maybe that’s ok at this point in my life. It would be nice to have someone to come home to at the end of the day though.

My job is good right now. I live in a little room in źory, Poland. It is much better than my nice flat in Katowice.

Some English speaking friends would be nice.

What next? I am constantly thinking what next? It’s a terrible dilemma and disease.

here are the pictures from my trip to Slovakia for Christmas:

Poland Webpage

New website for Poland. Pics, video, audio, and a poetry podcast from my ms Godzeenie.

Click Poland website link on the right.

Also, a website with pics and vids from South Korea and Northern Ireland.

Click South Korea and Ireland link on the right.

The poets in North Carolina are alive and busy. Energy abounds. Here is a great video of a reading at the Nightlight in Chapel Hill. Amy White did a great job with the editing. A really engaging video.

Nightlight Reading

A very interesting poetry e-book and performance. Check out the queer horror album and the e-book at:

Queer Horror

I will report back with a mini review soon.

Only a few weeks till Christmas. Need to figure out how to get to the Slovak mountains. The mountains in Slovakia are supposed to be real nice. Going to the Tatras. Hope it is nice and icy.

can’t get any sleep. It’s a friday night (or early Sat morning) in Poland. A boring uneventful night. I am typing this at a friend’s house in Poland. I am typing in the dark. Thinking a lot lately. Maybe it’s time to take the voyage home. Problem is: I don’t know where that is anymore. Since my marriage ended, I have been drifting. Losing consciousness a bit. Keep searching for something just don’t know what it is. Or why. Maybe the Ukraine has what I need?

So I ran out of Lamictin and Zoloft in Korea and some doctor (via two translators) put me on Prozac. Not a good reaction. Wrong drug. nearly packed it all in.

So I stoped them altogether.

I was on Lamictin and Zoloft for one year. Now I finally feel like I am climbing out of the haze.

Zoloft and Lamictin helped me work out some shit. Now, at least so far, I don’t need them anymore.

I don’t get as anxious overall.

Just breathing. breathing. breathing.

Zory is an old Polish town. Nice old streets. The people are very friendly. I found a really nice pub called Spinoza and it is perfect. Abstract murals on the walls. All brick inside with arches. Underground in the cellar. A really good feel. Just need to make a few friends to drink with.

Still don’t have internet but I found a nice non-smelly internet cafe in the Rynik (town square). Everything is clean. Love the old cobblestones. The job is good so far. A lot more prep time, but at least I can design some interesting classes for English conversation. No more Callan. Although I may do a bit of Callan (5-10 hours) at a nearby school to get enough teaching hours, but that’s ok. I can handle that.

I am going to Ostrava in the Czech Republic this weekend for a friend’s birthday. It feels good to have a few friends again in the nearby town of Rybnik. The beer is much cheaper in this small town as well. 4.50 for the Czech Pilsner (which is about $1.54). Still my salary is in the local wages not U.S. dollars so I gotta stop doing the currency conversion. However, if any of you want to visit me in Poland, it would be very cheap when you change your U.S. dollars or U.K. Sterling!

I am also making some good headway with Godzeenie. I am taking more chances with my writing again. Really I lost my sense of audience in Korea and for a while in Poland. These travels abroad made me realise I do have a sense of audience when I write. Since I am in a foreign country, I oversimplified my English a bit. I imposed an artificial “clarity” on the sentences. Of course clear declarative sentences can be complex and interesting. But I imposed a sense of the “poetic” onto my writing. Maybe because I wanted non-native English speakers to “understand” some of my writing. But I found a sympathetic reader. Even if she doesn’t understand everything (I don’t understand everything either), she really reads my writing. So nice!

It is interesting to look back and examine my various obsessions and concerns in my writing and see how they were squelched or repressed due to the scaling back of my vocabulary. Certainly saying “what’s this” all day long has an effect.

So, now I am going to pick up some textbooks from my new boss and look through them for some ideas. Yesterday, I had a class of 11 year old children, a class of 10 year olds, a class of 13 year olds, a class of 16-17 year olds, and a class of college students. It is a nice challenge to try and design conversation classes for these different age groups and English speaking abilities.

I have a nice clean room. My landlord is very friendly. All is well. I expect some not so great days. But everything in my life works by comparison. I am enjoying Poland more than Korea and I am enjoying Zory more than Katowice.

Keeping it real!!!

No more Katowice. I am in the small town of Zory. The 50 year old lady/landlord is super cool. A nice room. A shelf in the fridge for my food. There is another Polish lodger that works at the hospital. Both the other lodger and the landlady don’t speak any English. Only Polish and Russian. So maybe now I will learn some Polish beyond please, thank-you, and where is the toilet?

so far so good.

not noisy. I will get my head back!

I didn’t realize how much I appreciate Thanksgiving. For a long time I disowned it because most of my relatives were in Ireland. But then I created some wonderful memories with my ex-wife Tiffany and her friend Missy. Now I am missing them terribly today. A rough week so far. No human contact for a few days. Just in my flat all day and then going to the internet cafe. I had a big argument with my former boss at the Callan school in Katowice. He was very insulting so I walked out. I am counting the days till I am out of Katowice and I start my new job. The lonliness really got to me last night. I am starting to realise my lonliness is deeper than just not having human contact. When I keep busy with work and socializing it is just masking a deeper emptiness. But maybe that’s just the way it is.

I do have a lot to be thankful for. I am eating and have a nice place to sleep with running water. I do have friends (even if most of them are half way around the world).

Anyway.

I am going to get out of this internet cafe and find something to eat.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

it always sneeks up. Surreal again in another country where I don’t speak the language.

Here are some recent poems from Godzeenie (always mutating/in-progress).

22:38

Godzeenie
won’t eat sins, can’t atone
for what you don’t have, labia
majora, give us a rolling egg, into
the sun-clotted bladder, we’re
all going to die, too late
for the shrunken urethra, ovem
medula, fucked
ass and alas now
let us lather supine
in drops
of urination, give
us a kiss, cherries &
cut-away
heels, copulation
of shadows, between
bone and skin, yesterday
is all we have, time
is a diamond
in the dog’s ass, forsaken
for the sausage-shaped
oven, you can never choose
poetry over suicide, immermorial
judges on leather chairs,
for sake, for heaven, motored
away, Vroooooom, no one knows
the birds of the heavens, white
caps, flesh the distance, poking
around in rapture, bottomless
prayers in god’s bucket, nippers
at the heels of time, fountains
in the shit-caked park, atonement
is a financial building, sucked
snot now slick the walls
with sexsweat, meat-up and
stick IT out, ambient
bound with pubic hair, count
the overlaps and underlaps, all
skinned & sucking IT up

10:34

waking up armed and tangled, lamp-
posts and composts outside
the window, your sounds raised
my flag, nightcoughs and hiccups, saint
retreat, my nameless reversal complete, fish
it up, a laughing bandit
with square flowers, stubby fingers
in the air duct and not enough
sleeping pills, hope u’ll come too, aided
by exquisite cheese and wet tomaotes, black
beer floats in the sky, I’m a runaway frog
still sweating the lillypad, torso of iron &
a hankering for junge Menschen, there’s
turblulence in the slippery line, contact
high, tell me what you find, can you read
my mind, let me show you the ghost
in the boat, spell IT and sell IT, SASS &
pumps, the writing lies, behind the rim
of the clockface is a piece of dry celery

Gonna keep this blog rolling. Keep the voices and lose my self.

That’s what I want from art and life.

To lose myself.

To become less self-consciousness.

To experience experience.

I’m in Poland. Recently finished with Korea (but Korea will never be finished with me). I’m seeing parts of the world I never thought I would see. I get depressed and lonely. But it’s all worth.

Just make me stronger and don’t kill me thank-you very much!

Need to heat up my bones. Keep it cooking.

Maybe I will stay in Poland for a long time. Or maybe I will move to Russia next year. Or maybe I will move back to my childhood home (Ireland). Or maybe I will move back to North Carolina.

For now I’ve got a lot to explore in Poland and Eastern Europe.

Listening to a lot of gangster rap since I moved to the shit captial of Poland. It helps psychologically. It changes my gait. I tend to get overstimulated so music can zone me in.

Another reason art is vital for me: I need the mindfulness.

My mind needs moving.

Sometimes this includes moving my feet.

I am floating in shit.

Time to put on the goggles.

FUCK THE PASSIONLESS LIFE!

FUCK KATOWICE!

FUCK BORING TEACHING ROUTINES!

Full-tilt again.

Mr. nice-guy gets flattened.

I refuse to flatten!

Got a gig in Zory.

Zory is a little town.

I have free housing with a 50 year old Polish woman.

But they assure me she is a young 50.

I will have freedom to design and create.

No more Callan for 32 hours a week.

Two more weeks in the armpit of Poland.

The formating is way off. Much different poems in person.

12:20

(For Zofia)

“The Bright tongue of the two / languages / dance in the one light”

(Robert Duncan)

I could summon

cosmic

gosip, unskin

the monkey

with its un-

relenting eyes, it is

never simple, these

passages, these pro-

miscious wanders with

gravel in my teeth, stolen

ladies & blood & snot

& seeds, wrong about

harmony, wrong, u know,

constantly, can’t won’t

have her, my windows

shot to hell, the smell

of sex under my

muffled pillow, Ireland

and God are fish-

bones jabbing

my throat, the super-

market and the

ancient fortress, the

crown and the peasant, swamped

children, banks &

hard Z’s

12:20

strutting backwards

to the music not

trembling we’re tired

of trembling love

and hate in the goose

pudding

Godzeenie says

we muss shave

our heads

to find our mind

9:00

dried-up

soup

at the bottom

of the bowl

lookin to fix

my acid

reflux

rubbish &

guma

under my

shoe

rumaging

for a corpse

all things

even: my

head

is kickin

my ass!

04:20

Two weeks of Ulster Fries and

Buckfast and I’m with

sore bum.

Waiting for a plane to Krakow from Dublin.

Ate a monkey smoothie for eight Euro.

I’m taking discussion for depression, letterbombs for wooing, liquids over solids

in my body slop.

I’ve grown tired of my scholarly ways.

Fairy tales comet the sky and my teeth

are buried in the fruit bowl.

13:17

However far the pattern

serves

it’s still

where it

began

pieces of real

in

cracked cement

bitter

convenant

of

nameless

actions

a fading neighborhood

I couldn’t find

IT

anymore

a pun

in

the perishing

hours:

hopped-up on

hope

with a bum

credo

by

your leave: a

brightening prospect

still

faith

in-

different

to my old

poems

washed

in clouds

pop-

ulations

gather

in the

changing

light

24:00

Pathos does not absolve

memory. Fucking

sordid history. A focal

mope knows no mercy. We’re carried

away with the spoils. History

is fatal. The winter brings

all sorts of furs. I exagerate

with my bionic brace. Melodic mind

Bier Garden fat rat in the fog.

24:00

Just like that – Godzeenie – the man’s prick drips music. Unconscious with Cosmetto the Cunt – involved – naked – leading to this HISTORICAL MOMENT. I’m singing – now – on an international flight to – FLATLAND LEAFLAND YUNKLAND. And once again banal development in my Post-Avant. I’m chalked in cliches. It’s our common denominator. Divided and multiplied. Godzeenie, you are clearly audible, misunderstood and UR great apple sags MY vine.

13:00

Alle schon und ich bin

ein bischen hungrig

submerged & out of touch

it’s been two weeks since

I had a decent writing

nur young &

a tad lonely

searching for love

in The Milky Bar &

worrying cliches

the coffee burnt my lips

Polish women up &

down the street

full of hard Z’s & gusto

can’t count my money

acid in throat

hard clunks in nose

contacts come slow

no sex and no sleep and hard speak

IT is always packing up

Can’t pack IT in

I’m in the 80’s and my jaw is cracking

Bon Jovi and Summer of ’69 playing in the cafÈ

Kawa Cordon Bleu Ziemniaki paraliz

Tak

Prus-sha

Jen KOO ya

on the lank in Poland

don’t know if I’ll make rent

02:00

come

here, hear

her, want

her, can’t, want to, she won’t

let, hear, her, can’t,

won’t her

can’t

won’t

know

her

want want

her, can’t

can’t

open her

11:00

weddings never completed

justice in the hours

swanky linen blouses

devouring the gloss

of what’s lost

15:00

Ding An Sich

stuck

behind the eternal

stink

�15:53

Old horse with new

bucket, Hermes in a real

duel with Apollo, I’m gaining

weight, strip the scales, got no bal-

ance, immense rage & fleet

on foot, I strap on my Zbigniew

Herbert, let the bands pass, hour by

hour dedicated to this in-

visible world, another pulled

neck & dust fills my flat.

� 16:36

Banners cascade

in the blind

mind’s maze

everything

miraculous

in the hour

in the sign

of the bowels

these are handwritten

songs

in a wilderness

of snow

�00:00

Godzeenie

in the attic

cuts

lenses

for fortune tellers

driven into

mystery

bussling with weasels, apples

under black

jackets, carried

into shame, fingerprints

in the timeless gaps

let’s speak about

the syntax

of terror

�08:58

Godzeenie hast gesprochen

under a bundle of microphones

a rusting future

a wooden shack

a tyranny of silent pines

a few distinguised shamans

arrangements in the doghairs

lacquered spring

movements in torn nets

�

00:12

drawing a thread

into the horse’s artery

in the

the stoney

bosom

of my homeland

�13:37

chained to the emporer

the monkey commends

itself to measured claps

�22:40

my pupil dilates and only the real

is abstract under the weight

of the closing curtains

of clay and despair

Godzeenie illuminates

the mineshaft of memories

black Ulster breath

mouth stuffed with stray cats

crossbeams groaning the hours

coated in fog I conjugate

question marks and stroll

under the sparks

of reconstructed cities

only once

the unreedemable youth

the mask of sexual misdeeds

I’m lost in the house

of god with celestial ceilings

and the secret markings

of undergarments

�13:47

parts

peel off

in another brutally

brilliant

land

jabbing carefully

for solid ground

an eyelash

flickers

& disappears

in the twilight

�00:17

self-hankering

godforks

at the tonsils

chill of

late October

&

frozen

dog-

shit

on the

streets

�13:43

nothing at all

or

other

actual fabric

of

survival

miles of intimate senses

no one’s alone &

everyone’s

alone

being in doubt

in

the hotel lobby

in Katowice:

I left

my wife

for love

from another hauled

up

onto

the shore

still breathing

still kicking

I can’t find

the

natives

my mind

opens &

shuts

at strange intervals

hours dim

only

yesterday only

yesterday

the rusty

years robbed

red-

eyed

ex-

posed

to the noose

with

sentries

in the twilight

wandering poet

tangled

in

misery

slithering

among

the

splinters

on this

windy

All-Saints Day

�13:59

soot made this Silesian city

railway station full of half-dead bodies

the horror of cut lips

floating around with a shrinking skull

hanging upside down and thinking

of burning another bridge

in the forward glance

nothing’s owned

darling

dear

tea

drop

�14:00

The present is a prologue of excessive and morbid discharges.

The snow melted the moment it hit the road.

I spent the night turning over the moments.

Each wave is a blot on the human heart.

Crinkles increase round the eyes.

Generations tread the differences.

Providence scatters in the key-tap.

Enraptured cobwebs on my pillow.

Snared in the emptiness.

IT will not be sublimated away.

All pain is subsumed IN the moment.

A mutli-tracked railroad baptised by fire.

A broken heater hisses my shame.

My name is belly to hot belly.

An appetite for calamity.

Bats of the past.

Box of wedding pictures.

The mighty bull whom we love is full of black blood.

�18:41

mixing it up

Bitches

Brew &

Tyskie, trying

to lose myself, drop

out, ignorant

lullabies expose

my private parts, gotta

do it with a bit

of WHOMP, a bit

of justice, else

without the persuasive

mysteries, my face

away from fear, lonliness

is a weightless sack

but it breaks my back, can’t

keep it UP, what’s

this? It’s my body

all chewed up. What’s this?

it’s my mouth attacking

my stomach, stuck

on teaching

Callan: no ideas but

in repitition makes

this monkey square, bardzo

prosimy, El

Problem kapiche

�08:58

once more into blue

green slobbering

giant’s mouth

against

the mechanics

of the hour

I shot a bullet

round the world

and it’s

gaining speed

don’t know

when it will hit

in which land

on what street

during which hour

meanwhile I’m covered

in soot &

second-hand

love

Candles galore in the graveyards

Callan works but so does McDonalds!!!

on the rebound. I’m reading between the lines. Back to the voices. Damn I missed the voices! No more self-indulgent thoughts of ending it. Back to my head against the wall! Fuck suicide!

I’ve got to remember why I am here. I mean, not on the earth. There’s no reason for that. It just is. But I am in Poland to write a manuscript.

But I need a job that’s a little interesting to feed my writing. I return home almost always mentally drained every night. I mean, there’s a good mental drain and there’s a not so good mental drain. I have had much much worse jobs than Callan. But life is too damn short to just float along in a mindless haze doing a mindless job.

I have been here two and a half months and still no internet!!!
soon soon.

If I were in a place where it wasn’t possible, that’s fine.
But a lot of people have internet.
The one telecommunication company has a monopoly and they take their time.
And what else are you gonna do.
They have THE internet.

TEXT

I’m finding an exit outta katowice. Two interviews on Friday. One in small town called Zory and one in Krakow. Hope I can make it to both interviews. Gonna be a crazy Friday but I gotta get outta this shitty city.

And fuck Callan!!! So tired of teaching stage one. Where is my fucking mind????

The oven :-(

I got more pictures and much more recent versions of poems from Godzeenie. Just got to get internet in my flat and then I will post them. It helps to put them out in the world somewhere. Just imagining an audience (however small) helps me to revise.

I can’t stand Katowice. I went to Krakow this weekend and its the place for me. I sent out a few apps for schools and might have an interview in two weeks. Gotta get out of this very very ugly city. Keep steppin in dog shit. Gotta walk fast after work and look like I mean business. The other teacher was robbed at knife point a few weeks ago (which can happen in any city I realise). But I like clean.

In addition to the shitty city, I hate the teaching. It’s called the Callan method. Very boring. Regimented. By the book question and answer. No pictures. No activities or creativity. Just rapid fire questions over and over and over again. I need a bit of variation.

It’s interesting because I often think a mindless job will give me more energy for writing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s a delicate balance. I need interesting work that generates energy for my writing.

I miss speaking English beyond:

Teacher: “Is this a chair? is this a chair? is this a chair?”
Student: “Yes, this is a chair.”

I have to repeat each question three times very fast with lotsa hand actions. Maybe if I was stoned it would be a little more fun. But can’t find much of that either :-)

Despite all this, I have met some wonderful people and I like Poland much more than Korea. The food can be great.

Still don’t have internet though. It’s taking forever!

I like good cities but dirty ugly cities drain me.

I was gonna fly out to Kiel, Germany this week for an interview teaching business ESL (Kiel is right on the Baltic sea and an hour from hamburg). But I decided I want to stay in Poland at least until June. I mean I just got here. I want to finish Godzeenie and get to know the culture a bit.

ah well, I am not stuck. I am creating other options.

Gotta record the dirt while I am still in it.

Just moved from Rybnik to Katowice. I have an amazing flat. The nicest place I have ever lived in any country. But no internet so I am typing this in a smelly train station.

So I am back in a city. More to do. I’m also connected via rail to other cities in Poland and Europe (in Rybnik I was off the beaten path).This week was very isolating and lonely. I made some friends in Rybnik and my social life was very good. Now it’s just work and home. I hope things will pick up soon.

Lonliness sucks!!! But I will work though it.

more soon.

Heading to Czech Republic in a few minutes. Great little village on the border named Owsiszcze. Hanging with a real cool gal named Ela and her friends Aga and Iwona. Moving to Katowice tomorrow which is a medium sized city. Jazz club. Nice flat. My 4th flat in POLAND IN four weeks. Amazing. But I do miss the city. So it will be a nice change to move into a Polish city with galleries, art movie houses, and even poetry readings. Although I won’t underland a lick of the poetry readings I will check em out anyway. Plus Katowice is connected to all the major cities in eastern Europe. A few hours and I am in Viena etc. Rybnik was a little off the beaten path.

More interesting times ahead.

Katowice here I come! (I think the last pope was from Katowice)

Just purchased a selected Zbiegniew Herbert and received a gift of some poetry of Szymborska. I wanna check out some of the younger poets soon.

But first, I will cross the Polish border and enter a wee town Czech town full of pubs named Ostrava.

More soon.

The paint is very wet on these. I’m always in progress. These poems will change and mutate no doubt.

15:53

Old horse with new
bucket, Hermes in a real
duel with Apollo, I’m gaining
weight, strip the scales, got no bal-
ance, immense rage & fleet
on foot, I strap on my Zbigniew
Herbert, let the bands pass, hour by
hour dedicated to this in-
visible world, another pulled
neck & dust fills my flat.

15:00

in the beginning there were answers
I bedded-down for ten years &
bent the bow & my ill-proportioned
executions left me sticky
with poisoned chastity &
under the navel floor
my effigy was the ding an sich
stuck behind the eternal
stink with my washcloth
and wrinkled brow

11:00

I am a dried up song at the bottom of the sea where weddings are rehearsed and never completed and I’m stuck with judgements and a mind/body split and I wanna keep the rock moving & reject all else but the lowest but it’s all a one-sided game with justice and desire hanging over my head groping for gestures with wrong-headed lambs bleeting round my house and rose-cheeked fragments side-stepping in their swanky linen blouses drawing too many smiles so I took the black and red ink of the ego and shoved it up my ass and the significance of imaginary friends dissipated into the gloss of what’s lost

I am starting to hit my stride with the new ms. It’s called Godzeenie. Thanks to the help of a nice Polish girl (and fellow artist) I discovered some interesting things about the word:

Godzeenie is a play on the Polish ‘godzina’ which means hour. So the poems are titled according to the time when composition began. Time is also a thematic concern.

Godzeenie is also a play on the sister word of ‘godzina’ called ‘godzenie.’ ‘godzenie’ means to make an agreement ( (ex. Trudne jest godzenie pracy z zabawa – It’s difficult to reconcile work and play). It’s about coming to terms, making peace. ‘godzenie’ also shares roots with ‘godziwosc’, justice/fairness and ‘godnosc,’ dignity.

I first conceived of Godzeenie on my way to Ireland from Korea. I felt each hour on the long journey from Korea and some Polish word popped into my head. Suddenly, the god of the hours was talking to me in the airplane. Now, I find myself addressing Godzeenie at all hours of the day and night.

Here is a wee sample (although the formating is a little off):

12:20
(For Zofia)

“The Bright tongue of the two / languages / dance in the one light”
(Robert Duncan)

in my passages, in my other

lives, shuffling cards, talking

to myself, I could draw

blood with stolen

ladies & shinning

rings, safety round

the moon & blood & snot

& seeds, wrong about

harmony, wrong, u know,

constantly, I would summon

divine

gossip, unskin

the hawk with its un-

relenting eyes, it is

never simple, these

passages, these pro-

miscious wanders with

gravel in my teeth & the old

west wind tugging

my elbows, can’t won’t

have her, my windows

shot to hell, the smell

of abyss under my

muffled pillow, Ireland

and God are fish-

bones jabbing

my throat, Godzeenie

is the super-

market and the

ancient rain, and the hour

09:00

a one-bit bonder
mostly manipulating &
making collages
reading snippets
of Ulster memories
sailing to Central Europe from
Asia with nasty surprises
& rumaging
for a corpse

Dublin Airport 14:20

Two weeks with idle hands and I am waiting for a plane to Krakow. Ate a monkey smoothie for eight Euro. Two weeks of Ulster Fries and Buckfast and I’m with sore bum. Godzeenie, I am taking our discussion for depression, letterbombs for wooing, liquids over solids in my body slop. Godzeenie, you are my plump mistress in chilled silk. I’ve grown tired of my scholarly ways. Fairy tales comet the sky and my teeth are buried in the backyard. Glass animals are on the fireplace and my fat is in the fruit bowl.

24:00

Just like that – Godzeenie – the man’s prick drips music. Unconscious with Cosmetto the Cunt – involved – naked – leading to this HISTORICAL MOMENT. I’m singing – now – on an international flight to – FLATLAND LEAFLAND YUNKLAND. And once again banal development in my Post-Avant. I’m chalked in cliches. It’s our common denominator. Divided and multiplied. Godzeenie, you are clearly audible, misunderstood and UR great apple sags MY vine.

Finally moved into a new flat and got my very own internet connection. YIPPIE. A little slow but it works.

Poland is fascinating. Lots to see. I am hoping to visit Krakow and Prague in the next few weeks. Meanwhile work is hectic, but I am in Poland so I’ll deal.

I am waiting for my mind to return. It should return soon. Then I can create again. I haven’t written any poetry for over a week now. Massive withdrawl and irritability.

made it to poland. so far it’s a tad hectic trying to learn the new teaching method after getting used to teaching uni. The method I am learning is called Callan. Not sure what I think about it yet.

I don’t have internet access yet. Gotta use internet cafes. But I will move this weekend to a bigger flat and hopefully get some internet in the comiing weeks.

In other news, the dating is fab here.

I will post some fab pics over at Wonderland (click link to the right) in the next few weeks. Check the “Poland section” soon.

check out Wonderland for lots of new pics and videos from Ireland (Portadown, Giant’s Causeway, Ulster American Folk Park) as well as some poetry from a new manuscript Godzennie

It feels good to sleep in my cousin’s bed and eat an Ulster Fry and walk the footbridge into downtown portadown for a sausage supper with Chinese gravy

videos will soon appear on the wonderland website under “ireland”

This is the correct address for Wonderland

I am flying to Dublin then getting picked up by my aunt and then I will be in my birth town. This is my last night in Seoul.
But leaving is painful cause I got my close cousin and a girl I admire and love in Seoul. Wonderland will include a Poland and Ireland section. keep checking it for updates: new poems, pics, and videos. I miss my friends. So, till Ireland and Poland (and lets hope no delays for liquid bombs).

Keep checkin Wonderland

Sweatin like crazy but now I am showered and in my Korean nightshirt. It is purple with little cotton buttons. My dreamshirt. This is the first time I will wear it to bed.

wear
ear
bed

hm . . .

I am ready to admit my favourite vowel is . . .

E

my second favourite is . . .

O

I am not much fond of . . .

A

Andrew, me, and Jonathon

Check out the summer cookout over at WONDERLAND

Been working out for the past two weeks. Three times a week. One hour cardio. 20 min of various crunches with weights etc.

But here’s the strange thing: I gained 2 kilos.

I’ve even been eating small meals. Sometimes just two sandwiches. One for lunch and one for dinner.

Strange.

Maybe it’s a bit of muscle.

I lost a lot of my English for six months in Korea and tried to refind it via clear concise sentences. That was the beginning of my ms Wonderland. It was an interesting experiment. I had a difficult time reading novels and poetry with complex vocabulary. My day to day English was severely limited and I lost the ability to engage in complex thought.

But all of this was very helpful.

The limits of language limit my world. This is the language of experience.

At 2 AM, when I close my eyes, I can see clearly.

Losing my way is finding my way.

I compose word collages from 4PM-8PM Mon-Fri. I write longhand with six or seven source books open. I scan them very rapidly over strong coffee and very loud music. The music is on shuffle from Dvorak to Broken Social Scene.

I create a maze of sounds and images and try to navigate my way out during revision. The navigation is about finding various levels of meaning. Not all of the meanings are conscious. But not all of the meanings are unconscious either.

I regain the personal by trying to short-circuit it. Exhaust it through sound and image collage and montage. I need sources. The personal is complex. Emotions are complex. My sources are complex.

I am composing myself. Sound by sound. Letter by letter.

Ideas emerge in the sounds.

Then I can find the images.

But it all depends on the day.

I’ve added a recent video and some new entries from my ms Wonderland. It’s an interesting process thinking about matching poems with pictures.

WONDERLAND

I am feeling restless and rough. The rain just won’t stop. I normally don’t mind a bit of misty rain. But this heavy rain is getting to me. It’s summer break but I am just staying inside writing and perhaps thinking too much. Feel like I need to get out of here. Somewhere else. But I do have a good uni gig here in Korea. I guess I’ll just stick it out till Feb and then see what happens. if only I had a trustfund! AH. If only!

I do crave Europe. My mind is feeling a bit weighty lately. Can’t really pin-point it. Need to let loose and go a bit crazy. It’s nice having two months off but I need some friends to share it with damn it! I still teach about 10 hours a week, but I am going a bit stir crazy with my free time. Don’t like some of my tutoring. Well, one tutoring gig in particular. Mainly it’s the commute. I travel 3 hours total on the subway and bus to teach for 3 hours at the lowest possible wage per hour. I didn’t do my research. I thought I would charge less since the person is a student but it turns out she is not paying for the tutoring. Her parents are rich as hell and negotiated the lowest price possible. Teachers with no experience (never mind university teachers) are getting way more for tutoring. SHIT! Being nice isn’t working in Korea. Gotta get a bit more tough!

If it wasn’t for the commuting this wouldn’t be so bad.

It won’t stop raining here in South Korea. Flooding etc. Heavy rain for almost seven days and nights. Non-stop. In other news irony is finding its way into Wonderland. Or maybe it’s a little wit.

What is between irony and elegy?

Some current reading projects:

Walter Benjamin (Reflections)

Jonathan Williams (selected poems)

Tolstoy (Resurrection)

Art of the 20th Century (2 volume set by Taschen)

Kenzaburo Oe (The Silent Scream)

Rene Char (Selected Poems)

I will need more books soon. Location matters. But so does my reading material. If I had to choose, it would be reading then location. I need to read most times before I can get down to writing.

With Wonderland I am exploring the interaction of place and reading. Reading place and placing my readings.

Some serious rain in South Korea today. It is monsoon season I guess. I’m not in the mood to venture outdoors today for my usual Kim Bap for lunch. But I have some bread, peanut butter, and some cream cheese. So a cream cheese peanut butter toasty.

I think I am gonna watch a BBC special on my laptop called The Century of the Self. Freud is the central character of course.

If any of you poets need a job that allows for some interesting experiences, good money, and plenty of time to write, COME TO KOREA and teach ESL. But do not teach at a hogwan like Wonderland etc. Teach at a university.

Korea= best wages
Japan= best lifestyle
Taiwan= decent wages and decent lifestyle

I haven’t saved much yet. I just wish there were a good artist community like Lucipo (well nothing can be LIKE Lucipo but . . .)

Maybe I should try Cork. Mairead Byrne is writing some great postings about the Sound Eye Poetry Festival in Cork. I wish I could have seen some of the great performances and met some of my idols!

Things are cooking in the alternative arts world in Ireland (and it can really be called alternative in Ireland in comparison to say America).

I still don’t know what to call the poetry I love:

Alternative if it is really alternative to something big and mainstream.

Experimental only touches on some of the poetics.

Investigative is the closest I think, but maybe too specific (Ed Sanders etc.)

Avant Garde is dead (or maybe that statement makes it alive!!!)

Post-Avant is trying too hard!

I do know there are some REAL epistomological differences between the poetic tradition of the avant garde and the mainstream world of Norton etc.

It’s not only marketing.

I’ve decided to keep this space and use it for off the cuff shit. talk. Get a bit personal etc.

The Wonderland Blog will contain excerpts from my work in progress as well as pics, movies etc.

Today I am feeling very lonely for my books. I thought I could give them up. But I keep looking for them. Where o where!!!

I have two nice big boxes of books in safe keeping. At the end of my travels it’s my magic goat!

So, it’s summer. I am getting used to the food. I have a personal trainer who promises to “rip me.”

I’ll see what happens.

I’ve never been ripped.

I am only interested in ripping my stomach.

Enough for now.

Poland or Mexico next year? Or back to the States for while? Gotta keep moving.

Time to reinvent.

THIS BLOG IS NOW RETIRED FOR A WHILE. I’VE DECIDED TO USE MY WONDERLAND WEBSITE AS MY NEW BLOG. PLEASE VISIT my WONDERLAND BLOG

a few poems from Wonderland at MIPOESIAS

June 12th 2006

Everything I care for happens
All the time
The old wood sticks out
From the newer handle
The neighboring dust
Will have its way

June 11th 2006

That, we into the world, into the cowshit and
Gold painting
the sky, that we, laid in-
Mind, rolling over cat-
Egories not likely
To be adequate, we, that
Big round story, slip
into the hole
of tradition: we.

I WILL POST A VIDEO SOON OF A KOREAN BASEBALL GAME I ATTENDED WITH THE POET JIM GOAR. I WILL ALSO POST A VIDEO OF THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD AT THE OLD PALACE AT THE CENTER OF SEOUL. PLUS LOTS OF OTHER FUN STUFF IN THE FUTURE. CHECK IT OUT PERIODICALLY FOR UPDATES: VIDEOS AND PICS FROM SOUTH KOREA, AUDIO READINGS FROM MY MS WONDERLAND ETC.

WONDERLAND WEBSITE

Just got an email from my friend Chad Helder. He has a really interesting blog and website on Queer Horror.

Check out his blog here:

Chad Helder’s Queer Horror Flash Fiction

and his website on Queer Horror here:

Chad Helder’s Unspeakable Horror

Gestures and Greetings
(Ssangmun, South Korea, May 30th 2006)

“If a man has character he will have the same experience over and over again.”
(Nietzsche)

He’s completely wrong > I could veil myself in speculation because I’m such a pig-headed bastard > the answer is: “You don’t need talent to be a genius” > my head has to cope with itself in a completely different way > > If a man has a body he also has characters > characters may ask: “What am I working for or against?” > and “What kind of person are you?” > I’m among various and sundry things > shedding tears and brandishing my fist when I play my cock > I’m always behind with everything > it’s the idea of fungus > virtually interchangable even if the results are apparitions > one character cannot say ‘I’m making something beautiful” without another character crying bullshit! >

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
(Hyewah, South Korea, May 26th 2006)

There was a man with a radio strapped to his neck. He crawled on his knees and cupped his hands to people passing. I don’t know his past but I’ve lost my compassion. Life is short. The subways are crowded. Everything is wise and wrong. There are theatres and galleries and jazz clubs. This is a place for the young. A strap on yr tongue old man. Prayers beat against the wall. I’m clean on the outside and dirty on the inside.

I’M CREATING A WEBSITE FOR MY WONDERLAND PROJECT. IT WILL INCLUDE READINGS FROM MY POETRY MANUSCRIPT, PICTURES, AND SHORT MOVIES FROM KOREA AND OTHER ASIAN COUNTRIES.

THIS IS THE ADDRESS:

WONDERLAND

I just moved to north Seoul. it’s about an hour and a half commute to work. But it’s much cleaner than Gangnam. I live in Ssangmun. It is close to Dongdaemun. Dongdaemun has cheap clothes. last night I went to the Dongdaemun night market. None of the clothes fit me. It was frustrating. So I had to go to the luxury basement full of imported items. The imported items included CK, D&G, Hugo Boss etc. I spent $50 on a nice t-shirt from Italy. I guess I can only buy “luxury” items in Korea. Cheap clothes don’t fit my body in Korea.

For some strange reason I am enjoying fashion. Maybe my mind/body split is clearing up. I can think, feel, and care about materialistic things. HM . . .

Seoul Station
(May 5th 2006)

Waiting for a bullet train I am heading to Pusan to see some Korean sea. It’s overcast, dirty, dusty, muggy. My shirt sticks to my body. It smells like shit and everyone is mumbling in staccato. Rush. Push. Bali bali. An old Korean lady (ajima) wanted money. When I refused she slapped my ass.

Pusan, Korea
(May 6th 2006)

“In the prosaic rooms of our later understanding . . .”
(Walter Benjamin)

I’m at the roulette wheel at Paradise Casino. I’ve never gambled with money. Heavy flooding outside and I have wet jeans, wet socks, and a wet head. I’m winning a few hundred at the wheel. I’ve many holes to fill. Turning language: turning tricks. I’m not holding, or folding. I’m letting go. From dry earth, modeled, stretched, torn, twisted my gods stretch out in rows upon rows of old teeth. A coarse shadow in the absence of draperies. Blood and fungus. I am building an illusion of choice.

Hot Sun Restaurant
(Gangnam, Korea May 17th 2006)

Baked chicken and Budweiser. Yellow raddish. My new shirt is sticking to my bones. This area is full of the young and fashionable. Haagen Daz and Starbucks. Polo and Abercrombie and Finch. How you dress is how you’re treated. You’re treated according to your branding. Ranked and filed. People swarm under paper lamps. My eyes cannot sit still.

Dental Clinic
(Banghak, North Seoul May 20th 2006)

“We penetrate the mystery only to the degree we recognize it in the everyday world.” (Walter Bejamin)

Today I am in a clean clinic with an aerial view of the dentist’s fingers. I am surrounded by mechanical devices. I’m becoming part of the furniture. The scraping and molding of teeth. The drilling. The clean smell of bones. This is not a spinning barber pole full of cheap hookers. Not a bridge with businessmen in power suits. This is not a room full of westernized noses and westernized eyelids (in Korea plastic surgery is the norm). Korea hangs by a single thread over a violent ocean. Korea is bali bali and not knowing what shadows snake the corners.

A few poems from my manuscript Buckshot will be featured in Unpleasant Event Schedule on May 14th. Check out
Unpleasant Event Schedule for new poems every day!

Birthday
(Gangnam, South Korea, April 6th 2006)

What can I tell you about Korea?
Got this new moleskin for my pocket and some square glasses with a red frame
I sweat on the subway I SWeat on the bus I SWeat in the classroom I SWeat & I SWeat
Got a package with new shirts and sweets from Tiffany
I am working on getting the bones back in my face
Got a package full of vitamins and fish oil
An Egyptian poet was delivered to my door
He speaks French and his name is Rami
Got an electric shaver for hectic mornings
I got and I got and I get and I get
Last night Rami and I ate fire chicken and relieved ourselves with an egg sandwich
Last night I awoke early with a yearning for Mona
My new bathroom smells musty but my room is huge
I crave a Baltic mist, the cold sea, the voice of a Russian woman
I am an alien but this is UFO BULLSHIT
The yellow dust is blowing in from China
MILLIONS WEAR MASKS
I cannot see the sky

Gecko’s Lounge
(Itaewon, South Korea, April 9th 2006)

Itaewon is little America
.
Maybe security settles in boundaries.
Maybe security is a ship full of fish.
Maybe security is a port for the soul.
Maybe security is cracked and caked.
Maybe security is a cruel joke.
Maybe security is precise but not in the way we expect.
Maybe security cannot be locked in one spot.

Maybe America
holds its gas.

Maybe I am entertainment
fucked.

Maybe it’s all a bore.

Maybe my face
splits down the middle.

Subway Line 2
(Gangnam, South Korea, April 22nd 2006)

This stop is Gangnam. Gangnam. You may exit on the right. Please watch ur step:

Nothing is more dull than sheen. More useless than thousands of trite fictions. You’ve got it right: ensnared in inertia.

Welcome to nowhere Korea. Out of frustration my memory runs westward.

I suck the insubstantial.

Sub
way:

I speak English slowly. I teach ESL and I’m losing my English. Alas my thoughts are car-peted in grammar.

Divorce/departure, parting

the curtain
and witnessing
an empty room.

Coex Mall Movie Theatre
French movie with Korean Subtitles
(Seomsung, South Korea, April 28th, 2006)

This story is based on a film which is based on REAL LIFE. The story itself is based on failure.

A few children wanted to have fun in the forest. They murdered a couple in the sewers. They ran through the forest with flashlights.

The woman taught French. The couple was handsome. The children were supernatural. Their actions could not be explained.

My Villa
(Gangnam, South Korea, May 1st 2006)

trun
cated
pass
ages

My passages is full
of errors.

The paint is still
wet.

In two months
I will be
divorced.

I am getting ready to start my commute this morning. It’s a tad exhausting but not in time. It only takes 45 min. 25 min in the subway and about 20 min on the bus. But it’s the traffic. The crowds. The sweaty bodies stacked against each other. The herky jerky bus with abrupt turns and stops and starts. By the time I get to the university I am a bit nackered.

Well, time is strange as we all know. Ten years ago I got married to a wonderful woman and in two months I will be divorced. We are still good friends but it is difficult. I don’t know where I am headed. I don’t know if I will ever marry again. But I don’t plan to be lonely either. I will try a roaming lifestyle. A nomadic existence.

We’ll see what happens.

Korea is going through some big changes. The women’s movement is just getting started and a lot of foreigners are pushing for civil rights. It hasn’t totally kicked into high gear yet (not quite the 60’s), but it might get there. Some university students are protesting against the Americanization of Korea and some of my female students are bold and speak up in class.

A few while ago some American soldiers raped a Korean girl. There is a place called Itaewon about 20 min on the subway from where I live. It is a little America with lots of wannabe gang bangers and fights every weekend with Russians, Koreans, American soldiers. There is a lot of great international food though.

Everything is Confucian here so it’s all about ranking. The first thing a Korean asks is your age so they can know how to speak to you. If you are an older male you are called “Oppa” and they have to pour your drinks and all sorts of things.

The conversation with a stranger normally goes like this:

Korean: “Where you from?”
Wa Gook (foreigner): “I am from . . .”
Korean: “How old are you?”
Wa Gook: “I am . . .”
Korean: “Nice to meet you.”

Then maybe a bow and a handshake. A lot of the people have been really nice. I don’t care for the business men though. No matter where you are in Korea there are barber shops (spinning barber poles indicates a sex house). It is frequented by a lot of business men. When some women protested against the sex trade, the business men complained they need the sex houses in order to relieve stress after working long hours. So sex houses help make Korea a productive, hard working country. The sex workers also protested against the women’s movement saying they needed their jobs in order to eat and feed their families. So it’s not a simple matter of getting rid of the sex trade (if such a thing is possible). It is a really complicated situation. If the government overlooks it and gets some taxes from it, then they should provide good compensation for the sex workers (regular health check-ups, safe working conditions, vacation time etc.)

A lot of my students are “waking up.” They don’t all want to work 12 hour days six days a week and try to climb to the top of Korean society. Everything is based on appearance. Indians and Filipinos are at the bottom because their skin is too dark. Europeans are at the top because their skin is the lightest. There is a lot of plastic surgery. Most women (if they want to marry well etc.) have eye surgery to add an eyelid and look western (rather than too Asian). Plastic surgery of the face is a huge business here. It’s really intense.

Some people are quite scared of foreigners. Korea has been a closed society for quite a while. Quite a few Korean men post messages on various Korean websites calling for “the purification of Korean blood” because foreigners are mixing their blood with Korean women. Some websites even show foreigners holding Korean women’s hands and post articles about the “shameful” activity of Korean women dating foreign men. So the racism can be intense at times. Everyone is almost always staring at me. I am fully aware I am a foreigner at all times. Now I know A LITTLE about how it might feel to be a minority in America.

However, a lot of young people have a different attitude. I really love my students. They are so kind, respectful, funny. Just amazing!!!

So there are good and bad things just like any country.

Starbucks
(Gangnam, South Korea, March 31st, 2006)

I’ve never heard of a conscious monotype
the shower curtain illuminates a dead body
I’ve a glittering exterior but a gloomy interior
the days are shifting and I am unable to reach you

this is not a grim joke

spring is coming is coming is coming
to Korea to Korea
the dust from china will blow out
to sea and the source of light
will twitch and I will
grow old and regal

I had a really good birthday celebration last night in Hongdae with my cousin and some friends. I drank a little too many shots and I have quite the headache this morning. I didn’t get rip-roaring drunk. I just do the buzz these days. But mixing drinks does my head in.

I have a Korean roommate and a French roommate here in Gangnam. They are both very cool. My situation has improved dramatically! Rami might even teach me a bit of French.

I am off to the Coex Mall to get some new glasses. I live two stops from this huge hip mall with lots of international food. Coex Mall also houses the Apple Store for Seoul.

Fate? Shit I don’t know. But after so many coincidences it’s hard not to believe something is at work. It’s hard to seperate subjective experiences. But in the end it really doesn’t matter if fate is an objective fact. Subjective fate is still fate.

Gotta go do some after grog bog now.

After Grog Bog
(OSAKA, JAPAN MARCH 20TH, 2006)

the bog after grog is runny

Grog clears the tummy

Grog grog grog
Bog bog bog

I’ve got a bog in my tummy &
a grog in my throat

Gog gog
Og Og

I’ve a runny gr . . . gr . . .

Gr OG bOg

Af
ter
grO G
bO G

Japan was clean. Japan was rainy.

Korea looks drab. Korea is runny

GrooooooG
BooooooG

HOLLY’S COFFEE SHOP
(March 25th 2006, SOUTH KOREA)

castle without
king In-
visible ink

I cannot read
the signs

after recent events it’s come
to my attention

my attention has come to

hence these words

I’ve got something to share: being
alone is not
an illusion

the eye is full of blood

what good is blood? blood is a hard d with lots of OOO’s

a man is exercising his tongue at the next table &

my mouth
is flapping
on the keyboard

GOSHIWON
(March 28th 2006, SOUTH KOREA)

out
of loneliness

consciousness accumulates
&
salts the road

there are
many ways
to shift &
snake

out
objects

a soft
bell
on the seashore

washes out the tide

**

humans
on
the under-
tow

say
crack
&
one head
among
many
falls

off the wall

GOSHIWON
(March 29th 2006, SOUTH KOREA)

I do silly things all the time
and they usually
remain silly

glitter zendo coco mint and pheromone leaves
babs meets Wonderland

drenched in Spanish bombs
the ape stares back into the music

I remain the toy
of everything
that ever comes
into my head

I was brought up by my mother &
my religion consists
of humble admiration

I am leaving my goshiwon in 15 min for a new place in Gangnam. Goodbye to terrible tiolets! My new place is very clean and modern. I am sharing it with a Korean roommate who speaks very good English. It will take about an hour to travel to work everyday, but it’s worth it.

Now I just have to catch a taxi and ride for an hour with all my stuff. Then, finally, I can settle in. My room in the new place is very big. I even saw a real coffee shop and a diner. The pavement is even. I can walk again!

This university gig is really rocking. I am meeting some fascinating professors and the students are really really good.

Tomorrow I am going to a classical music concert with some of the faculty. It should be cool. Then I am going out to eat with the professor of art that hooked me up with this job. A night of drinking and eating.

I am also going to look at a place in Gangnam (a really nice area of Seoul). Once I am out of my goshiwon things will be PERFECT!

Korea is cool again. I just had a really bad experience with Wonderland and was feeling really isolated for a while. Now I think my social life is slowly picking back up. I am seeing the other side of Korea.

I love this university!

My actions cannot bear this out. Actions are abstract and abstractions cut me down to size. An abstract is a summary. I stand under an act.

My guilt is a damp sock. Eden feeds on waste. Love feeds on love. This notebook keeps me sane. Stung with passion I am not enough.

Throatchoked with all these images. A book of snow. When someone touches me I see pictures of where I want to be. I left my broken watch in JakJeon. Time is out of image. Image is a crackle of distant thunder. Auf Englisch: I shuffle through a silent desert. I`m stretched out in this capsule coffin and the kitchen is full of strange smells. I`m relearning the arguments of love. My head is creme brulle. Ireland is my ankle and Germany is my distant toe. I`ve got a load of rubbish to sell. Grace is on the nape of my neck. Knight on the horizon. An ancient horse in my throat. This is a different sort of time. I cherish my broken watch.

Inside my shadow is another shadow. A Russian box of shadows. My tongue is a provocative projection and my third mind is a pendulum. This is an erotic tendency. Legs and crotch. Jumphappy. I bleed ego.

Breaking off or breaking in? A rock shrugs off water. Hard on the outside; chewy on the inside. I have a mind/body problem. This is a fixed madness. There is no end to making out.

SLEPT　in　a　capsule．More　ｌａｔｅｒ．

Ｊａｐａｎ　is　ｖｅｒｙ　ｃｌｅａｎ．

　
乗れ　そおｎ

3-16-06

Family precepts strike me as vaguely correct. My name is a question. It does not answer where I come from. Also it lets me enter the chorus of absolutions. I do not know what will occur in my second childhood. I am in Korea as a newly shaven lamb but a lion grows within me. I play the fool in my body. True, this is fascinating. My mind is wrapped in old troubles. I cannot find my emblem and I have no family crest.

3-15-06

The owl ate my pussycat. A new form is just around the corner. I am typing on my powerbook with an open robe. I lie in shame before my father’s face. Hotcold I am always leaving somewhere. In shame I sit on some yellow swings. In shame I color my clothes with white paint. I left my father’s house with a towel around my neck. What I know I know IN shame. Shame is guilt. A gilded frame. The real trouble is always somewhere else. I’m in someone else’s mouth. Mice eat through the wall and my solace is returning. I cannot find my name. Kafka’s book of rules is the flem in my throat. My narrator hides behind the curtain and my Grannie’s mask is hidden under the stairs. This Korean wind snaps my black flag. I had it all in strident bliss. Beginnings and endings without a middle. The upshot is I am in shambles. But I want to touch you. All image is sham. My solace is neither wise nor methodical. This is a comedy and I carry my guilt with every rapture. I’ve not going anywhere. My father hurts my head and the air hangs heavy with pollution. I am scared of the slide. I taste hot chocolate beside the ping pong table. I am a ping pong table. All this salt sticks to my ribs. I’m missing something I cannot find. Whose eyes are in the mirror? Whose nappies do I smell? Whose beer in the babies bottle? I ought to know the history of my image. In shame I left my father’s house.

Toy cars are hidden under the loveseat. I am ashamed of begging. Ich hore and in the interim I enter fear and trembling. In the middle of the creek without a waiver. This is not personal and is therefore true. Bevor es passiert ich hore im Boot auf dem See. Swollen bevor es passiert.

Crossing over into a self collaboration. Word by word, sitting on top of it. Kneeling in my open gown. Aber meine Auge ist my little horse. Damp socks dry on my floor. I do not know the ratio of speaking to writing. Never mind thinking. But when I speak too much I forget to think.

My lonliness keeps coming and going by the hour. Iron and Wine is either helping or prolonging the sadness. I am not really sure. I am having some very intense dreams. A big swirl of memories every hour or so. I miss the west quite a lot.

I think I may go to Poland or Prague at some point. I am really interested in Eastern Europe. I am also interested in Latin America. I guess I’ll just have to see.

Jesus the Mexican Boy is playing in my office right now and I am looking at the mountain. I am carrying a lot of guilt around. I can’t just ignore it or intellectualize it away.

I really feel alone right now. Lonely and sick of everything Korean. Not all Korean people of course. I have met some amazing Korean people. I am just feeling really isolated.

Why the hell am I putting this on a public space? I don’t know but it makes me deal with whatever it is I am dealing with.

I feel a lot of anger but I don’t know why or what I am angry about? I feel frustrated. Really frustrated. I am really tired of being timid and polite and nice. I think part of that feeling stems from my experience with Wonderland. It feels really cut-throat out here. One of the things I wanted to work on when I came to Korea was my lack of aggressiveness. I want to be much more assertive. Fuck getting walked on. Maybe I am finally getting the picture.

I almost feel like trying to be an asshole for a while. Or if not an asshole at least someone a little less senstive to every fucking thing around me. It gets really overwhelming. But damn it. I can’t.

I feel like I have pushed away friends in the past not because I didn’t value them but because I was scared of getting too close. There has only been two people I have fully trusted and let the walls down and that is my mother and Tiffany. I’ve had a lot of good friends. I miss so many of them right now. Damn this lonliness.

After moving around constantly and really adapting to three different cultures (Northern Ireland, England, and then America) I have learned to have a threshhold in terms of getting close to people. I have a difficult time letting people all the way in. I mean they all disappear so fast anyway. Everything was in a violent flux. Writing helps me get a bit of order to all the shit bouncing in my head.

I don’t know what’s on the other side of this emotional state but I don’t want to ignore it. This is all confessional bullshit. Not very intelligent or theoretical.

Which reminds me of my main obsession: writing. It’s been over two months since I really wrote. I was just going through the motions writing about my environment. Today was the first day where it all really exploded. So I have gone inside myself again. Korea has been so hectic and everything was directed outward. Meeting new people, going out to dinner at night etc.

Now I am eating alone every night and except for the few hours during class everything is very silent. I don’t really know anyone in this new area. The goshiwon is very quiet and no one speaks English. So far the week has gone like this:

I wake up go to the corner store and eat some seaweed and rice. Then I ride a packed bus full of Korean children, moms, business men, and some university students. When I get to the university, I go inside my huge office. I sit. I go teach. I return to my office. I sit and write. It feels really good to have some really quiet time to think. Then I teach some more. Around 12PM I ask the English department secretary to order me some noodles or rice of some kind. I eat. Teach a little more. Then I feel like I need to get out of there so I ride the bus back to Bomgae and go sit in my goshiwon. Walk around outside and then grab a sandwitch and come home. The television really bores me (I have a tiny one in my room).

Now this is all well and good. I couldn’t have asked for a better job. I really have time to write now. The students are really wonderful. But the trade-off is I am hardly interacting socially at all. I think this will change over time. Perhaps it’s a matter of getting comfortable in the isolation and then going nuts on the weekends.

Outside my window I can hear car horns and cheesy Korean music. I really need some of these pathetic emotions to stir me up. Flip on the all-or-nothing switch. I’ve been lukewarm just trying to hang in there.

Now I want to turn it on. I need the full load or nothing at all. I’ve been holding back on my writing and my emotional state. I guess I am just ready to go full tilt again. There really is no other choice.

3-14-06

My hands believe in Spanish songs
And bullet holes in sanitary walls
I used to get my kicks in used bookstores
But I’m out to sea in Korea
Histrionics is after correspondence
Untidiness is infinite; tidiness is finite
Where is my mind among these unsorted metaclips?
My ambivalent tongue inserts into someone’s ambivalent mouth
I’m covered in shame and I’m not coming out anytime soon
Someone I used to know lived within margins but this is a lie
I don’t know much ABOUT margins but it’s a pretty song
A swan and the outline of a swan are both metaphors
Nothing explains gravity since gravity is an explanation for something else
God enters my steps as I move to the left but when I move to the right it’s hummingbirds all the way
I’ve got the flutters but do not mistake them for jitters
My window overlooks the Taihang Mountain Range
I’m hearing birds for the first time in three months.
Drunk on the crock and crow
Drunk on the distance behind this uneven temper
Standing naked kissing my hands I’ve got everything to lose
A sense of structure is found in every reckless twist
I ushered in betrayal and now my shame grows daily
My restorations are wrapped-up in books
A lost anthem IN my burdens
I am at the beginning of another jumping-off point
I don’t know when practice ends and the game begins
I’m at the margins of memory
The past is full of salt

3/13/06

I believe in heaven and hell. What is hell other than hell? Hell is not like anything. Other things are like hell. It hurts like hell means it hurts a lot. Hell is about torture.

The lower ninety percent of static latching is also called hell. The upper ten percent of wondering can feel something like hell.

Choice is a harlot. Fate is a gigolo. Captialists are on my left shoulder and priests are on my right. The priests are not priests but trembling fists.

Hell is not a battlezone
It is a trusted servant of the mouth

I’ve cheap clothes from Korea and cheap clothes from the U.S.
Hell is wearing stiff shirts from Korea.

Love is neither created nor destroyed.. .

I believe in pins and needles

I’ve got no bets to hedge

Humans are tricky

I am in Korea watching trees
the bard is in the bark

It’s getting heavy

I’m isolated
& I’ve lost
my giddy purpose

3-2-06

I have not eaten today

I don’t know what THEY want but it’s all about saving face

the top of the chain never takes the blame

3-2-06

I have been in this small room waiting waiting

and a mother is screaming in the next room because her child was put
on the wrong school bus

The boss has kept me waiting for over two hours

What’s the difference between a mob and a school?

3-2-06

I saw the cleaning lady

Her face was severely bruised from a beating.

This is a Confucian system

the darker the face
the lower the class