Petalogy

Floral wallpaper draws my eyes above her head

To a crevice beyond her breasts, her ivory, her veins

She has spent years cramped by walls and blinds

Subdued by a domestic dwarfing

A draught, a drought, a lucid lucite vase

A draught, a drought, a lucid lucite vase

Flowers that submit to his patronizing grasp

Their heads limply cower; their petals rarely close

As my eyes ascend naturally they spot a pale, kidnapped square

An entire row of them, a despondent border––so pale

On an oppressive mantle, encapsulating flames,

Sits a stack of dog-eared wallpaper––overturned squares

Written on each page I find but one sentence:

"This woman is not a homemaker;

  This home is not a womanmaker"

For The Crows To Pluck (Shipp/Smith)

A ripened peach dangles from a branch just out of reach

Born and bred in Georgia,

A drawl weighs down its speech

Blotches of red contrast its fragile softened skin

Redder than the softened clay that swirls beneath my feet

Well, the old Judge came along and shook it down

What cannot be reached is always brought down by force

His body is the law; his head is the lord

–If the lord is above the law,

Why do his hands reach above his head?

New bills are drawn, new rights are wronged

New bills are drawn, new rights are wronged

New bills are drawn, new rights are wronged

(Hoods and cloaks)

(Obscure your face)

(Hide your life behind your morals)

This fruit tastes strange, its skin is raw

How can they so easily swallow it down?

(with compliments to Meeropol/Allan and Holiday)

Overkill.

Does such a term as "morbid hope" not appear to be at least slightly oxymoronic? The housewife clings to a pink cellphone that feeds on livelihood and good sense like a parasitic pink maggot. With each monotonous ring manufactured on a hard-drive in Osaka, her heart flutters and hands spastically search through a polyurethane purse that in the long-run will kill more Guatemalan factory workers (due to the poisonous fumes during the manufacturing process) than the luck-of-the-draw Southern Ontario highway pileup she pines for. The notion that for us to live others must die is reminiscent of Pop Art and the Black Plague, two things that went out of style and created unnecessary death (in the case of the former I refer not to Warhol's death, but the death of artistic ingenuity and integrity). The housewife's justification is as misguided as a canvas of Campbell's soup cans.

"What if I get the call?"

Oh, the call, the call. Always expecting the call. Let the pink maggot consume your flesh, cultivate your organs, make jewelry of your eyes to sell at El Mercado Central to American tourists. The call is an excuse, a voice, a reason, a guiding light, a saving grace, a pinnacle that dangles just out of reach that will change life for the better and once grasped will fix faulty leaks and marriages. 

Mild.

I recently (perhaps two months ago?) lamented on those über-cool "journalists" whose fingers act capriciously each December to crank out yet another end-of-year list that ranks albums based on some bizarre scale of self-importance and a deeper desire to impress the douchemongers at Pitchfork (get over it, no one at Pitchfork reads your blog). Alas, as 2007 drew to a close I felt an overwhelming desire to share my top albums of the year. I have refrained from doing so in a battle of the will that was not quite as intense as whether or not to have that "I'm bored as fuck and it's Wednesday evening" beer, but more intense than whether or not to eat the pink cupcake. Thankfully, I used my better judgement and did not succumb to the demons of establishing a musical hierarchy. This relates to why I hate battles of the bands. Music is not a sport. You cannot have a deathmatch between a band of 15 year-olds who play Fallout Boy covers and a few original songs about that girl who doesn't know you exist in some bullshit class like Family Studies (to address that misconception: she absolutely knows you exist. She probably even knows your name, who your friends are, and that you wear cargo pants at least once a week. Regardless of this, there is no way that she will ever, ever "fool around" with you at Steve's party. From what I hear, Steve's parents are going to be upstairs anyway––it's going to suck) against a band of 17 year-olds who play Every Time I Die covers on their Ibanez guitars that are tuned down so low you cannot even hear notes anymore, just devil farts.

I have difficulty reconciling the role of the artist with a basic need to survive. I don't know if I want to survive. Suffering allows for a better artistic flow anyway. 

No matter how you dress it up

When I came-to I found myself as a passenger on an unplowed sidestreet, snowbanks cascading over curbs––as if white-noise was a literal image concocted in the sitting-room of a bungalow (or "ranch-style" house for my midwest American readers). My guide in this noiseless circumstance was a housewife beaten down by self-inflicted, self-preserving burdens; a flesh-eating disease that spawns new epidermic cells. The blind leading the optometrist, if you will.

My self-satisfying goal during this journey was to convince the housewife that all things, grand and miniscule, must be accepted. She was reluctant and stubborn. And feisty. And defensive. And argumentative, but not in regards to anything in particular, just a general desire for argument pervaded any rational thought she may have been capable of.

I could have explained my position to her thusly: I spent the first 20 or so years of my life hiding in the shadow of my death. I would have difficulty getting to sleep due to waves of intense panic that would sweep over me. I saw no escape but to jolt out of bed and pace the room, the house even, walking quickly (to the beat of a Loverboy song in my head, perhaps...), subverting this panic into another energy form. When the panic would subside, back to bed I would reluctantly return, to roll in dampened sheets and baskets full of near-hatched larvae. However, I have learned to accept my impending death and emerge from the shadow. I still am swept over by the occasional wave of panic, but these barrages have generally subsided. We all must accept our deaths (and begin to fantasize over them, concocting the most fashionable manner of death). Once we do so perhaps we can accept something as inconsequential as having to answer the front door for someone else's guest.

At my funeral I would want the playlist to be as follows:

Emily Haines - Crowd Surf Off a Cliff

Beck - New Round

Anathallo - Hoodwink

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Taking Back Sunday - One-Eighty By Summer

Blur - Sweet Song

Eisley - Marvelous Things

Thursday - Running From The Rain

Thrice - For Miles

Incubus - Just A Phase

Incubus - Earth To Bella (I and II)

Brand New - Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't

Brand New - Play Crack The Sky

Brand New - Limousine (MS Rebridge)

Wintersleep - Fog

Everclear - White Men in Black Suits

Idiot Pilot - Militance Prom

Coldplay - We Never Change

Manchester Orchestra - Sleeper 1972

Pilate - Alright

Death Cab For Cutie - A Lack of Color

Metric - Police and The Private

Straylight Run - Later That Year

Patrick Watson - Luscious Life

Tegan and Sara - Like O, Like H

Tegan and Sara - Call it Off

Radiohead - Nude

Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates

Radiohead - We Suck Young Blood

Radiohead - Videotape

Radiohead - I Will

Smashing Pumpkins - Once Upon a Time

Smashing Pumpkins - Stumbleine

That being said, I instead explained myself through frustrated hurls of informative pebbles that barely cracked the surface. With each sentence I uttered, I was verbally attacked. I should have heeded my own pretentious advice and simply accepted the attack. Ah well.