He wore black and always picked up the check. He smoked crack and slept in. He was outta work, underpaid, and went unloved. [He was] dirty and despairing.
-Norah Labiner. "Miniatures."wildstyle.
we are all graffiti artists and poets
middle-aged lovers and social historians
oral historians and half wits
sometime academics and modern-day plebeians
punk rock heathens and riot grrl feminists
once, i let my love spiral out of control like the undiscriminating kudzu vine
once, i let my love become consumed by a dark heart that could never shine
once, i let my love be controlled by a pragmatic gray brain that always kept tabs of the time
once, i let my love shun love because i was a dime short a penny and she was short three more
amber.
i thought of you today/thought of a memory/downstairs at the 400 Bar/the creaky floorboards/you wanted me to stay/i probably should have stayed/and taken that risk...
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Have you ever found yourself in a situation that while it was improbably surreal was also so narcotic, so desperately at a remove from the rest of your life that you had no choice but to give yourself over to it from the inception? To without coercion, pretense, or exertion become immediately someone else?
-Norah Labiner. "Miniatures."Elizabeth was different. At first you despised her and her inaccessible physical wonderment; ...and then all of a sudden you both just clicked. You discovered her easy going, down to earth quality that only a small minority of womyn possess: its pervasive in southern womyn, girls reared with a shitload of brothers, and tomboys that blossom that right way. Elizabeth was the most beautiful person you'll ever see. More beautiful than your mother, your ex-girlfriend's mother, and all other womyn in between. Half-gringa and half chicana but her countenance betrayed her heritage. You'll guess wrong. You'll think she's fucking Brazilian. but all you'll be able to do is stare, as she stands prominent, quizzically gazing at a student kiosk, looking for clues and dictates. She is beautiful and the city is beautiful. And if you understand both and you will be lost but you will not despair...
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No temor, no perspire: Heaven is here now, in Minneapolis.
-John Berryman, Dreamsong 119
The city is beautiful. Jewel of the Midwest. A very opaque jewel. Almost see thru. The biggest small town in American. Sterility and bike lanes. Clean and beautiful. Clear and Stark. Summer winter spring and fall. A beautiful city filled with illicit secrets. A vertebrae of lutheran social propriety and american fortitude. A secret city:An invisible town. Go there with your eyes open. I dare you...
the aftermath...
lightrail and broadband
but the bridges don't burn they crumble
thepinkfeatherboa runs from osama
Pre-9/11 westernunionmoneygram on cedar
Le Tigre does hip-hop jamz in Loring
you're smoke "maybe" heroin on Franklin
Uncle Pat wants you to be a skybluecop
you just want to successfully outargue them
leave on kirbypuckettbobbleheadday
but by then you know everybody
meet incoming wisconsin afro at the bus stop
she knows you got the goods.
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