Atomic Age: A Play in One Act

this play has been published at ygdrasil -- it's towards the bottom of the issue

K A- E-

If I were a girl, I would take you up in my arms
And dot your cheeks with kisses
Hold you tight around the hips
And laugh in the rain while pulling you along

There your teeth would shine too in streetlight
And eyes catch so much the rain hadn't
If I were a girl, would you kiss me too?
If I were a girl, could we play under the covers?

If I were a girl, we could laugh while closing doors
I would let you take off my shirt first

The first few moments

The first few moments
are clowns on top of wires!
Everyone has seen the
gloss program, t.v. time –
but here it is –
as close as your Breath!
It's tense, as tongue
taps grip and lips lap place –
They've learned new
tricks after all!
And then with the skill
of One No Longer Afraid –
there’s the plunge
of Nerve –
to the netless ground!
And – there – it's all heart
and blood, baby
Now who will take my love!

Vicadin, No Wisdom Teeth, Alcohol, 5/21

   float up the first line
under swollen aspiration a
ruse of skirts, white panties, to feather the ascent
is peach cans and undrinkable tea
 the breasts could be swollen
or just my eyes below the haunt
of shadow figures needing to alert them
that I have awoken, to sudden, grip
hips that repel me  but here I’ll
press softly fingers to tackle
  space, immense  I’ll be helpless
  in your myriad visions . there
slide reels of legendary flesh
 that could knead brain ripe
  at any untrusty moment
a peak at life beyond oddly returned phone calls
a peak of life but here I am
   I’ll go boom boom
      for all my meaningful passions

Though there is Rain Outside

cityrain, originally uploaded by skij on.

We kissed, aware of skin
in slipped time her grey frock relied
on weight - her lips,  purpling and eyes
stiff closed though-the-rain-beat
outside and a fire crackled dry
logs in pine I held her, a bracelet of hair
the gleaming eyes protruded through
the circles of my love But I will
not listen to them for she
has such red flushed cheeks
skin that becomes my nakedness
  lips to tremble at my wrists
 and more power than when
they would have called her alive

Vozdootion the air was

Vozdootion the air was
cold and moist with oily spit
but not in the metro
where I hurried with
my backpack like a
plastic bag sidestepping
melting lumps  of timidly liquid while
and dirt the girl sat
with an outstretched flare
of blonde a hand pining
for two Roubles and in
the other a tiny baby
Other days I had barely
noticed her or the
statue of Lenin sweeping
across Finskii Vokzal
fingers a slipping gesture
only today the man
in front of me handed her
a coin as she had it between
her breasts in spite of a
heartbeat and then again
a small white teacup
The Square of Lenin
they call it just that
Pining such a weak word
As is 24,000,000
 maybe I deserve it:
the tear feeling just
screwed out of my eyes
her eyes did not ever skip
and the man walked on
adjusted his fur hat
as he stepped onto the escalator

Filthy Smut Movie - Protect our Kids!!

ooooh Believe you hopeless Bastards, just look at that tree en Fucking Flamed, originally uploaded by skij on.

After reading more about onemillionmoms successes, in particular with ABC affiliates pulling Saving Private Ryan (and the FCC-emailin'-hysteria gripping our nation - where have you been?), and rereading my own recent blog post, I (or, rather, my elderly-woman psuedonym, Gertrude Cristophers, from Englewood, Colorado) also decided to get involved. Below is a recent submission. Now awaiting response.

First name: Gertrude
Last Name: Christophers
Type of Complaint: Program
Name of Complaint: Filth on TV
Network: ABC (?)
Description:

I wanted to write in to complain about an extremely offensive program I viewed last (our Lord and Savior, amen)-mas. I fear it may run again this year, much like that dreadful Saving Private Ryan. I didn't know how to take action last year, and so I pray and thank Lord Jesus that finally there is a site available (and willing to fight!) for conerned Christian folk.

The name of this film was, "The 10 Commandments," and particularly shocked me as a faithful Christian. It was also played at a time when children might be watching.

First and foremost, it was a film which portrayed a close relationship between God and a certain non-Christian race of people. To be showing how wonderful THEIR lives are with "God" (much like the trash our kids learn in school about Darwin and Evolution), is an attack by the Hollywood atheist elite on OUR relationship with our Lord and Savior. To be showing non-Christians receiving the Ten Commandments is, quite simlply, rewriting the Word of God and attacking our way of life. It reminds me of a story I heard on the radio yesterday about a girl in Florida who was laughed at by her TEACHER for carrying the Holy Bible.

I am also reaonsably sure this film contains hints of sexuality. What lesson could be worse for children than seeing this next to a representation of God?

What next, a film about how wonderful Allah is? And how suicide bombers will receive virgins in Heaven for murdering? It's fine if Liberals and the Media love Semites, but it's not something our children should be shown!!!

I think it is time for all serious Christians to take a stand against this filth. I've tried to locate on the internet who will be showing this movie come December, but I'm not very good with computers (yet). I would appreaciate any help onemillionmoms could make to take a stand once and for all.

Sincerely,

Gertrude Christophers

Luckily America has the best parents in the world!!!

supportive family-ing,
originally uploaded by skij on.

It's super that the parents of this country can get so concerned, even in Boulder. My absolute favorite is this site, which is really doing a lot of good in the world. Just read about their successful crusades! If you'd like to report anything to them, here's where you can do it. I know I will!

Wendy's Honey

thanks to those who helped me privately worksho this piece - I'll let you know about it's online status soon.

Unward and Upward, Bush on Every Bullet!

soldierwounded,
originally uploaded by skij.

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim thy glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"


He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

(e. e. c.)

Who says we have a different perspective on war?

secretary yum

secretar-a-do,
originally uploaded by skij.

Does life imitate art? When it can.

Thoughts on Losing You

You will not remember me -
     don't worry,  while I may now
    hold your brain as so many
  pulls of sensation, rough-shod
scenes in familiar places, or
    smells, should you smell
  with me - still able to animate them,
 those will be gone, photographs
   can be burnt, letters erased and
flowers made into drain water, and only
remain the too-good memories,
  that hurt your stomach a little,
  press crab-hands into your throat nerves
a little less every other week,
  as well as the too bad ones
that friends hear about in the brief
sketches, and eyes flash strangely, turning
 all of the me-stories into a tiny pill:
with dimensions, at least, you
   can touch and measure
and save the limp associations
 -  found in stupid objects, name-games
    nothing in between.

11/07/2004 - Georgian man Commits Suicide at Ground Zero

ground zero,
originally uploaded by skij.

And what are you doing for America? Still sitting around and thinking?

Commercial Critique: Michelob's "Swimmers"

The Chronotope of the Swimming-Pool,
originally uploaded by skij.

The Swimming Pool: a chronotope for suburban encounter, childhood memory and individulaistic athletic activity. In this commercial, subverted through the hyper-reality of rupture of the physical, social, and the ritualistic, the idea and Story Space of the "Swimming Pool" is subverted and ultimately undone.

Michelob's Swimmers : the camera begins with a slow pan on the toned frame of an athletic blonde and then moves onto her partner, an equally statuesque male. Located on the side of a Swimming Pool, encoding readiness, we are to believe they will "compete," in a ritualistic expression of modern gender relationships, with hints at the ritual of pre-sexual-play. What is the symbolic level of their interaction expressed in the form of a game? Perhaps initially we might want to ascribe it as a kind of comment on modern working status and the repression of women (ie entering into a game when the results are previously or "Genetically" determined). Our attempts to divine a simple correlative relationship is frustrated, however, the second our pair enters the pool. Any realistic prediction of the outcome of this race would surely favor the male. If they are a "normal, sporty couple" like any other "normal, sporty couple" (as, no doubt the commercial wants us to believe, that this is a sexed-up Everyman with whom we idenity and then whom we mentally access associatatively in our consuming of the advertized beer-beverage), then do we have a man ironically throwing the competition, given that they come out of the water side by side? Or are we witnessing the ultimate in surrealist expression? The latter answer is clearly the most satisfactory account, especially considering the severity of the features in the gentleman (a sign indicating his intentions to compete to the extent of his capabiltiies), and also considering the direction the rest of the text takes. As the couple swims along the pool, "neck and neck," as it were, the viewer encounters musings on the low-carb and low-caloric nature of the beer-beverage. But as we can clearly not take seriously the images we are viewing on the screen (or only as a kind of "hyper-reality" where our judgment of the physical rules of our surroundings must be suspended), can we take these claims with any measure of veracity? Or it the entire project of low-carbness being undermined? The reality of the commercial-world splinters even further after the turn in the "competition" (now we must put this term into quotation marks not only to denote the abstracted level we demand of considering the term, but also because we cannot be sure any more that any competition is taking place) when the coluple comes out with the 'butterfly' instead of the 'freestyle,' representing a complete inversion of the rules of the game. As swimming is structured, both formally, as well as intuitively (at least in the Western canon), butterfly never follows the freestyle and its inclusion here extends far beyond the Revisionistic and into that of the Improbable (however, given the absurd momentum into this point, maybe nothing less should be expected). The "commercial-hyper-reality" then takes one final splintering. The camera now focuses our attention onto the male swimmer, who finishes strong into the wall, looks up to see where his partner is, only to find her sitting on the side of the pool. What are we to believe? That she removed herself from the "competition", went to the side wall, climbed out, walked to the end of the pool and sat down before he completed his own sport-task (absolutely impobable), or that she beat him so soundly that she had the time-luxury to climb out and seat herself (equally improbable)? This represents a time-space rupture, which serves to further heighten the competition-reality and ritualistic ruptures of the earlier part of the commercial. The man splashes the girl, but why? It may seem upon pre-critical viewing to be that he objects to her action of "getting out of the pool" (dismissing the competition he has himself dismissed? This would be a 'straight' reading by those who refuse to play the absurdist game). However, his splashing of the girl - as a sexualized quest-object - represents his protesting against the unreal-nature of the Pool-World. He, as Suburban Man, is horrified in the rules of his everyday comportment breaking down in a kind of "speachlessness" (notice he speaks not a single line the entire commercial - his only form of expression is the "splash"). His "splash" is a signal of resistance and rejection of his "thrown-in-ness" into the "swimming pool" "competition," and further a signal of his personal trauma (compare to a Dostoevskian character who attempts to speak about his "illness"). Thus, the entire commercial can be broken down as a traumatic-therapudic testimony on the rules and codification of the modern experience, while "swimming pool" substituting by metonymy to be the "average experience of modern occupational existence." The women, as sexualized quest-object, is never reached, and has completely broken down in the hallucinatory Unreality of the "Swimming Pool".

Ice is the second most solid container as of

Ice is the second most solid container as of
course you know the stories of
the north young child young
 men voyaging writing poems for
ice princesses they dreamt of your
father was such a man my child his
eyes like a fox's they
wore long cloaks and braced
their bodies to the ice's heart its womb their
fires were more for the love of smoke
 than the invisibility they ate
they never tasted for
north is quite like a sea a garden of
waves caught fumbling in some crystal moment
of loved hating thought caught at
the moment when everything is packed under
only some men have ever returned the story
 is an old one for north during days
of darkness days of sheer sparkle either
stellar or the hope the men planted in the
snow and caves and white like thumbnail corn their
eyes would change color you
see deep shades of red some of
leapordal orange aurorial and the ice
worked like slippery magic

Try not to let the nightmares in my
            child

With unsteady pace it begins in sweats and

With unsteady pace it begins in sweats and
contracts of words in hewn times and little paces
it is morning and Poe is awake
and dizzy inviting-swollen birdless
sleep   he is alone and his neck
is uneasy - muscle by muscle - when I chaught the door too long
its hinges peeled in such wooden tear -
to the ends of nail marrow -
and there can be no stars in this morning
of prayer outside the green
great tree holds Poe and his
time in millennia - and froths
miniscule life with invisible
branches labeled life and
love, (I felt the love but now I only have one memory) the rough
tatterings to the sky while the
little life lives on - building monuments and
even more promises while
Two Snakes, the lover and the dead, search for matches in
the tall grass or tiny beating hearts of nuclear triggers that is
Poe's tree and he twisted
slightly and felt hungry in
his fingers, hips unwound but winding and
it is morning but he does not sleep up
for hours and minutes in
his kitchen, played cards by himself
rak-rak-rak the shuffling impressed on empty kitchen-space
to urge any sorts of magic
or portent went on a walk to a closed cafe past the tree
but still inside it where the
battle bent with fervor on the street,
nearly deserted, the slain and
shorn sprinting arm in arm with muscular
calves to the log iron bar for vodka
and conversation with pretty
waitresses in short skirts hallucinations that Poe's tree was a
rose tomorrow they
will be whole again and back on again he stood outside the closed cafe
for nearly a minute, and then back
home, smelled
every puddle down the street
though he resisted
and felt the gaze of two drunk
women on the streetcorner disheveling old faces and baby eyes -
laurel tiaraed - steadying themselves against another one and his
pockets were empty save the crisply worn
note in his back pocket,
graph paper and black ink Meet Me
By The Cafe and We Forever Drink and Laugh for Union
and again so young           Your Strong Hands
(The way I feel) she sat in the third room of the apartment not listening
thirsting and unrested / hideous lips when
she cried though
the windows beautifully repelling tired words, beautiful at that
closeness, such eyes this morning! and golden hair, Poe, golden -
here she reads novels in the tattered bulb light
burned her skin with faminous
little razorettes and forks she lit in
the over had just awoken when Poe lay down - to write
him a  letter and talk quite naturally on the telephone

for Daniel Yuvachev

Of course I’m not sure if I believe
in such a tale but here it goes
there once was a writer who lived by a bridge
She lived by a bridge in England-town
Wrote about cats, wrote about God
A steady six weekends a year

Then one fine England-town day
something strange happened
and only this we know
she did not write she did not write
not about cats, not about God

Five years did pass and again she sat
to write a poem for dear dear Beth
justly returned from holiday she
played a tourist       Anyhow
the writer sat  the writer thought
the writer baked strawberry muffins
and the most extraordinary of extraordinary then occurred

Nothing
She had nothing to write nothing to write
Not a single thought upon her head
Not a single thought worthy of God
Worthy of dear Beth

So warn you writers, sufferers all don’t
go like the woman in our tale
write write  burn with your God
Write write    love your kittens
love your youth

09/11/2001 petersburg, russia

IM000092,
originally uploaded by skij.

Three years ago and what to do with that flag now, oh my brothers, torch it to the ground or make hats out of it and drive around Nebraska

Still thinking about the Election, kid?

one says protest, burn it to the ground and kick in their windshields fuckers can mop up some of your blood in the glass, one says slide to Kansas and learn to talk the bible and Trust and we know it's got to be somewhere in the middle, between disgust and understanding but where to go where to go. and how do you not stop caring. maybe instead of reading the nation you should read some a coulter (for as long as you can put up with the moneywhore - and if you can't then you'll just be out on the bridge holding up traffic and proving to them all the worst they want to think about you and your little coastline) and you'll understand more about Their side, the language They've streamlined, the rhythm of Trust as Liberals hate America), and how They have managed to convince a Majority that They are a persecuted Minority. if you're surprised to hear that, that ,Christianity is under attack, you have a long way to come, my brothers.

once you say you want to reach out to the Red States you've lost the game, they'll spite you all the way to the gallows for it, better to walk barefoot and bombed-up but still carry the cross. once you have a populace convinced that CNN is Liberal, do you know what you have?

Red State rhetoric is bullshit, once you think it's a mass of ignorant farms you're playing Their hand, they'll get you and your pretty little children too. but not holding Them accountable is also bullshit, that rhetoric of cultural values is a pretty enrichedup cover for hatred and not caring enough to engage, so where do we go, pray that the democrats can stir up a prgressive farmer with good teeth from the plains? make me one too while you're at it. face it that Trust and and all of those Gut-Feelings are the name of the game. so what, burn a bridge, or bend over for some Konservativ ramming? Open Up the Pocketbooks, kids, we're Going on Another One!

panic? yessir. and then what?

The moon was not/ forever tragedy

The moon was not/ forever tragedy

In flowers    she would have been three (he slept
 one as the sunflower you’ll find her
 nestled in the creaking darkness of seeds
 hinges of shadows' cloud dust or more and
 two an orchid of violet fervor  (his face, framed in the hills and wet grasses)
    skin the flavor of honey blood  find shade
    in the spiraling      darkness  behold
 her beauty is the legend of
   Pagans the blood they heaved as
   ballet grace and the drunken love
          water for
                     purity  she is her
 own legend as calm
      seaborn typhoon
        or cool summer grass
        midnight        you’ll find
   three flowers
       and as she falls in love the tide shivers
and  her  love
   shepherd of men  but only as he
  reminds us of our mortality
she passed above
  his flock  for years
and finally
jammed him to Paradise        begging forever
                        (her father smiled)
his life  her breath
in  a  box
   a life no less
a life of love
and grasshopper legs

We walked like strangers

We walked like strangers
 The straight concentration    and she found my skin
holding something under breath


was love she said
was love she said

    walked heavily
            like paste

another glass of wine

on for the pain, my brothers, but it won't feel like much. and there is all that cool water, as long as you can hold your breath that long.

boom!