rants n raves

by tom miller

 

 

11/12/98 - 4:35 P.M.

 

no life, nonsequiter dogs, shopping at 4 a.m.,
& return of the wet jocky shorts contest

 

 

i realize i have no life.

 

just looking back through a couple of weeks here, what have i written of?

 

drugs, sexual organs, stink, crabs, drunkenness, misery.

 

i'm content with all of this. that's the kicker. i'm content with no life. nothing inside me is on fire to reach out and be something. i prefer my stomach in knots. i prefer to be alone. i prefer to hurt myself, slowly, over time, like wringing out a sponge of its water, its purpose, and then letting it dry out.

 

 

*****

 

 

patty (the pretty girl that lets me live in her house) has two dogs. when somebody walks by the fenced in yard, the dogs bark and run back and forth. once in awhile, they run into each other and when this happens, they usually attack each other and forget about the pedestrian.

 

there's a lesson here, but i don't know what it is.

 

 

*****

 

 

after work, i went to the all night grocery for some microwave dinners. i walked inside and saw the cashier. the place was empty. it was four in the morning.

 

"am i the only one who shops at this hour?" i asked.

 

"pretty much," he replied.

 

i went to the frozen food isle and there was c.e. nelson. who would have believed it. c.e. nelson; the only other guy dumb enough or alone enough or beautiful enough to be shopping at the same time as me.

 

you have to know about c.e.; as a poet goes and as poetry goes, he's as real as it gets. he's built like the leader of a biker gang. you wouldn't want to fight with this guy; he could bring down the toughest of men with his words, much less his fists. and they'd go down screaming.

 

but he's a marshmallow inside. an angry marshmallow, but a marshmallow nonetheless. funny, but it seems most of my friends can beat up most of your friends. most of my friends are tough as nails.

 

most of my friends i see once a month, and sometimes only once a year. most of my friends are straight. i like it that way.

 

and about c.e., i know he loves his daughter, katlynn. i know he loves her with all his heart, and c.e. has a lot of heart. i know he's had troubles in relationships and with drinking, and i don't think he'd mind too much me sharing this with you, because you can read it in his poetry. i've seen c.e. read his work in public. i've seen him at his best and his worst. i've seen him berate his audience from an alcoholic stupor. i've seen him stumble over his own prose, and then half way through, toss the poem over his shoulder and say, "fuck it."

 

but when he's on the mark, he's as good as any great there was or is. c.e. is real. many times, he's on the mark when he's drunk. so am i for that matter, or at least it seems that way to me.

 

(and this reminds me of an anecdote somewhat unrelated to the topic at hand and somewhat related. my friend kurt lang used to have a prescription for dextroamphetimines. he occasionally shared them with me and there's no doubt i got the work of ten men finished in half the time. one day, he pointed to the prescription label and read the following:

 

warning: may cause a false sense of euphoria.

 

"false sense of euphoria?" he asked, "what the hell is a false sense of euphoria? either you feel euphoric or you don't."

 

i agreed, and felt good about it.

 

back to the action...)

 

craig earl nelson and sometimes c. earl nelson; that's what he goes by. but when i met him, it was c.e., and i'll continue to call him c.e. until the day i die or he kills me for it.

 

i gave him a poem once, for him to critique. he scratched out most of the poem and returned the only two lines he thought mattered. i think he was totally wrong, but in principle, he was right. cut to the matter at hand. be clear and precise. mean what you say. no unnecessary words. every word must tell.

 

same thing you'd find in the elements of style by william strunk, jr., and e.b. white.

 

i don't want to stroke c.e., until he cums. outwardly, he can't stand praise, and i do tend to overpraise people i believe to be giants. but that's my lot. i want them to know they're good.

 

too often, the greats don't know they're good.

 

let me conclude with a couple of poems by c.e. that will tell it all much simpler, more direct, and in a much more telling way than i can.

 

 

SUMMER COME BLOODY ME

 

 

to

become fire,

that is:

 

piss

daffodils

exasperation

thrombus

daydream and

futility;

 

see

the sun

not as gravity

but

 

yellow

 

and nothing more.

 

 

 

 

AND SO I SING TO THE

OLD PERPETUAL DEATH

 

 

as tho the women are not enough;

the jobs are not enough;

the automobiles and skyscrapers, insufficient;

the black lungs dripping with heat

miles of highway and belligerence, nothing.

 

i sing the old songs.

 

i sing to forget 28 years

and 35 women

and sing to forget that i kept

such boyish numbers in my pocket.

 

sing to grandfather long stiff,

to his tools rusting in a shed twenty miles

from here.

 

sing to my daughter

who i haven't seen in two years.

 

i sing to the rats in cages.

 

i sing

to the ensuing death of my mother and father.

 

i sing to my loneliness.

 

i sing to the stench of twentydollar sex

in the front seat of a chrysler,

 

i sing to her sixhundred miles.

 

i sing to the old perpetual death,

to the graves freshly turned,

the bullets continuous,

the ropes stretching, the

tourniquet lashed

quickly to forget.

 

i sing to climb back into the womb.

 

i sing to charge the nightsky with fire

with phosphorescent leering eye.

 

sing to make widows lust

to drive the nails home,

 

i sing.

 

 

i rest my case. for more works by c.e. nelson, check out my c.e. nelson shrine.

 

 

*****

 

and for those of you who care, i went to the wet t-shirt / jockey short contest... again.

 

why? i ask of the heavens, o why?

 

and there was a big surprise.

 

one of the guys in the contest actually had a big cock. i saw the others in their miserable failure as the lady pearl poured the pitcher of ice water down their little shorts, and i watched the shrinking of manhood and mankind and of ego, but this guy was hung like a stud clydesdale. and when she poured the water on him, it didn't shrink, it grew.

 

he liked it.

 

in fact, it became rigid and peeked over the hem line of his underwear.

 

"hello!" said the lady pearl, knocking her microphone against it. thump thump thump. "and what is your name?" she asked the penis. then abruptly, she got the top of his shorts and pulled them down. i'm sure this was some sort of autonomic reflex on her part. she couldn't help herself. and this pontoon, this arm, this burmese python sprung out and dangled there over a giant set of balls. it was something to see, let me tell you.

 

on top of that, the guy was handsome. he couldn't have been more than eighteen years old. it wouldn't be out of character for the lady pearl to want to "play in his sandbox," as she puts it.

 

but guess what, friends.

 

he lost. he came in third. that entitled him to a cocktail (no pun intended) but due to his age, he left the humility of the show with but a coke.

 

the winner was a stocky attractive fellow with a dick about the size of a pebble, or maybe a tic tac.

 

but he had a great smile and he was personable.

 

and from this, you can probably derive the moral of today's entry: guys, it's not the size of your cock, it's the sum total of your character that wins you the prize.

 

now if you will excuse me, i'm going to have a coca-cola and win nothing.

 

 

(tune in next week for the continuing adventures of tom miller and his world of the angry and laughing.)

 

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