outdoor dinner party kinda porch

so often my impressions of the city are through the noises i hear around me and that manage to wander up to whatever porch i'm sitting on.
i never see half the things i hear.
and i hear less than what i smell.
but i only really smell cigarettes right now.
i see cigarettes too. i could probably hear them if i tried.
but enough of smoking.
it happens sometimes. other times it doesn't happen.

but there's always a noise happening in the city.
i hear my roommates laughing inside.
i hear myself being too loud.
i hear people asking other people for beer, or for empty cans that used to have beer in them.
or bags rattling with lots of cans that used to have beer in them.
i hear a dog barking.
i hear crickets cricketing.
i hear nature and i hear man.
these are all sounds of life.
there's a sound of life happening in the weird house behind me.
a white lady i vaguely know is drunk and laughing really loudly.
or i'm guessing she's drunk from the time of night and how i usually see her back there.
i hope she's having a nice time.
i hear a couple on the street below me.
someone is wearing heavy shoes. and the guy says "riiiiiiight."
i hear the last buses for the day whistling into the station.
not too many people stand by the bus stop at this time of night.
but if it were earlier in the day i would hear them too.
once you're familiar enough with the sounds you can look at the city with your eyes closed.
i know that's a car not stopping long enough at the intersection of washtenaw and adams.
i hear another car going fast enough that it must be on hamilton.
i hear the last bus that was whistling moments ago make it's last trip out of ypsi.
it stops and beeps and lets more people on.
it gives a little fart and takes off again.
it turns right and i can hear this.
i hear myself tapping on the keyboard. my eyes are currently closed.
i can hear myself hitting the space bar.
and the enter key.
the other keys sound a little vague between eachother to know exactly which ones i'm hitting.
it feels quiet once you decide which noises are white noise:
crickets
lady laughing
cars
ambient buses leaving the station
when people walk by, or a noise comes from inside i see this as a distinct noise.
i get excited about them.
i'm capable of making so much noise in the city.
but it's a tuesday and i'm not feeling up for it.
most people aren't interested in hearing what noises i feel like giving off.
usually it's a mixture of george clinton, or abba, or my casio, or laughing too loudly.
it's a sign of being bored in my 20's with nothing else to do except be having fun on my porch.
a car is pulling up to my house...maybe it's for me? they turn off the car and i hear them open a door and they're stepping out. it sort of sounds like my friends.
but it's hard to hear because the white lady is laughing again, my roommate is talking about bottles, and yes it is for me. my friend just said hello to me.

Riki Tiki Speaks Words of Encouragement

if this feels sort of fractioned off, it's because it's intended to be part of a larger piece. I've started working on a series of things attempting to explain the character of Riki Tiki Tavi and what they represent and the issues they've been put into the world to fight.
This was a smaller part I was feeling fairly settled with so figured I'd toss it into the internet tumble-box of crap, y'know, a blog.

and if a bunch of this seems Kenneth Koch-y inspired - yup.

Riki Tiki Speaks Words of Encouragement

Sometimes I cough and fear that it’s blood. I know that it’s bullets.

(Now, where are you?)
I’m driving through Dearborn on accident and it’s 9/11.
It’s 9/12 and I’m drinking a cup of coffee.

It’s some point in August and I’m emptying out a golden locket in Ann Arbor that hands have touched.
I’m not crying.
I’m looking for Riki Tiki. From her I can draw my strength.

It’s good to hear your voice brother.

Stop and look at the girl spinning the circles.
Think about her. Think about the circles.
Think about how great she is. Think about how she’s prettier than you.
Think about the circles she’s spinning and how useless they are.
Think about how great the circles are.
Think about her naked. Think about the circles naked.
But still the girl is just a dream, an image, as well as matter, as well as death.
The circles are the poem.

Write this poem until it becomes your life.
it is then your job to live your life in accordance with the poem.
For you are a dream as well as a god as well as a piss as well as a cycle hungry
carbon life form
You are a part of the earth as you learn to break the earth.


I was with you through the summer.
I was with you when you saw him.
I rejoice with the tall one
I fought the house with you
You’re a genius at resisting bullets.
Now I will enter inside of your golden locket and take you along with me.

A few things I have to say to you:
Remember, a full meal makes a slow mongoose.
Sometimes one can have a better time cleaning house than taking the world by storm.
You’ve created me through your prayers
You gave me a voice in your poems.
I saved you in the garden though you didn’t deserve me.
You believe in feelings and you know this to be true.
You know there to be external phenomena and internal impulses which decide how you interface to face.

And you know a bit of love. But can you live with love? Can you let it circulate?
Can you be held and hold back?
Can you say goodbye and mean something else?
Can you stroke hands?
Do you know nothing of prolonged eye contact?
Would you allow the warm tingling to spread from your fertile crescent out to the tips of your fingers and the lines of your lips and let them be guided to the one you love -
or have you become too jaded and insane my child?
Do you wake up so haughty every morning to believe the world will tear everything from you?
Are you too smart to believe the sun shines with more than one meaning?
Are you so sure you’ll never sit in his lap again, and reach for his hand and taste his lips?
No moment has an architect hell-bent to destroy you, my darling. But every moment has a start and an end you can only see afterward, and you function with him in moments of euphoria.
Are you so clever as to explain euphoria?
The sun rises too quickly and quietly some mornings, and for this I apologize.
But have you not the moon? Have you not late night breakfast?
Will you not hold hands on the street looking beautiful together?
Your tears are a beautiful seasoning, as is your sex - waste neither of them.
Wake up in the morning, stumble home and cry in the shower if you must because that is what you are feeling and I love your feelings.
They are yours and they are beautiful.
But you will never be asked to give up.
For were you not given the most beautiful hair, and eyes, the softest of skin and flowing of hands?
Weren’t you given your mind to stare out of those eyes and know the world happens only so very indirectly at you?
For what it means, it so rarely means to, and I’d rather you be held in the hands of the grasses by the river than to believe for a moment that you are alone.

The East quakes and then falls still. How much your life has changed.
But you still remain positioned somewhere between life and death and eating
and shitting and
sleeping and not sleeping.
It is all dreams and it is all waking in the Midwest,
in the heartlands, on the broken railroad tracks of the rustbelt.
You stand up for the bus as it comes and sit down as it leaves,
thinking of him and life and his life and being in a different circle than yours
and the levity of all these things.

The wind is the biggest difference for you now. But it is all still a cycle. And you can live through cycles my dearest darling.

Now I would like to leave you.
Hold the locket when you miss me
but know that it is only a locket, and those are only hands
and when you feel power through holding it
it comes from you.
May the wind always kiss your skin
and the rain always stroke your face
and the ground be firmly under your feet when you aren’t flying.