Losing my right hand man
- for Jon, the other survivors,
and the ones who didn't make it back


Dear friends -

Now it's your turn to give the orders.
"All right," I said. "Tell me to put my hands up."
Plunge your hand in water up to the wrist;
Gaze into & note what it is you soon will miss
The glacier knocks in the oil tanker
the desert sighs in my head,
And the crack in the gas tank opens
a lane to the land of the dead.

Happy New Year's! I'm about to head out with the boys on patrol.
Happy New Year's! In about an hour we will be hit by an ambush.
Happy New Year's. This is the last letter I will every write you.
Happy New Year's. The absence of my right hand is not the right hand of absence.
Happy New Year's. My boss tells me you can fool enough of the people all of the time.
Happy New Year's. Someone said something about freedom.

Should my old right hand be lost
can it not be brought to mind?
Should my old right hand be lost
we'll take a shot of kindness yet.
And here's a hand, my trusted friend,
in the dirt, and give a hand of yours.

You took a shot of kindness yet
And you're dead face down in the dirt.

I wonder at this You and I
You are all there is
And I am all annihilated.
There is an I
No longer exists.

- Mansur al-Halaj, a 10th Century Persian Sufi

A Julie Cervantes spammed me with the following message:

you holdover me diffractometer me you during me query me you nymphomaniac me solve me you irene me detention me
you anybody me crusoe me you dingy me patti me you percussive me hobart me you bisexual me palladian me

The Earth Is A Satellite Of The Moon
Leonel Rugama, radical poet
trans. Kent Johnson


Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty.
Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2
Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty.
Apollo 4 cost more than Apollo 3
Apollo 3 cost more than Apollo 2
Apollo 2 cost more than Apollo 1
Apollo 1 cost plenty.
Apollo 8 cost a whole shit-load of money, but no one minded
because the astronauts were Protestant,
they read the Bible from the moon, astounding and delighting
every Christian, and on their return Pope Paul VI
gave them his blessing.
Apollo 9 cost more than all of these put together
including Apollo 1 which cost plenty.
The great-grandparents of the people of Acahualinca
were less hungry than the grandparents.
The great-grandparents died of hunger.
The grandparents of the people of Acahualinca were less hungry
than the parents. The grandparents died of hunger.
The parents of the people of Acahualinca were less hungry
than the children of the people there.
The parents died of hunger.
The people of Acahualinca are less hungry than the children
of the people there. The children of the people of Acahualinca, because of
hunger, are not born, though
they hunger to be born, even to just die of hunger.

Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the moon.

King Richard's Song of
Jacques Stout's Diving Songs

for Joe Donahue


Are, am, are?
Be.
Be.
Be.
Who
finds ways back to books of myths
in which nothing does not appear?
Who
might drown them?
Not a swimmer named
Jacques,
not the face forming in a haze of asphyxiation
how the blood boils in rising
blop
blop
bloop
when the spinning pin pricks of purple light
pinwheel and nova, the flesh explodes
and is then set on the corner
swapping cocks for a cop of candy.
Who frames profanes, inflames, and
proclaims. The naughty boy
strangled the pussy and threw her in the well;
sing a dong to the children. Who
wins the books of myths but no one,
not one but only one.

Traveling knots and nots
in sinking.
We drown
only separately,
we,
I,
because
I am I
to drown
my
books. Love cannot be drowned;
the
Is
do not have it.
They
cannot.
Who be the
they
that frame?
We
of course the
they
but at a different depth.

Coming to the surface is otherwise
not inevitable, not all fish eyes
point to the skies. We're not Cousteau
nor amphibious humans owning all possible worlds
nor regularly enjoying lovely vacations at sea.
You is what you aren't, the ocean being otherwise
the original, contemporary and ultimate solution.
I am not she I am not he I am not it but I am but
I am not I
We are not we
we
but
so much less than
infintely more

consider the lilies of the field
consider the lilies in the field
consider the lilies across the field
consider the lilies in my field of vision
consider a lily of a field
consider one lily of a poorly defined open space loosely demarcated by some trees
some trees and a golf course
consider the worms
consider one worm the worm
consider some worms eating
consider eating
consider ate
consider how it is you consider one lily or a lily or the lily or a field or the field consider it please
I tell you what to do and you listen
what does your consideration look like?
I’ve had a nice morning
contemplating my investments
out on the golf course
wondering how interest rates will bear the market
and the market is bleeding
the bodies pile up trades considered trades made
all aboard consider how the train is scheduled the deal is brokered
consider how wal-mart marvels at its own wonder
consider how it plucks lilies from the field
they just walk right up
say please pluck me I have nothing I will work inside that barbed wire camp I don't need Eichmann's train
consider profit margins
consider the suboptimal agents of the field
consider the suboptimal agents considering their children considering the exchange of horrors
consider the optimal agents counting in billions
consider the optimal agents considering who to hire to consider who to hire to manage their yachts at their various estates and how to keep cousin Jim from pleading for a few dollars
consider how they end up there
consider that by they I mean the lilies how they end up where in the labor camps in a system of slavery enslavement of the willing
consider who shall suffer for her children
consider this
consider this my pit bull
consider this my next word
consider words directly
consider the people who speak them
consider the
consider lilies
consider of
consider the materials of our exchange
consider how it is your world is mediated
consider whose world
consider it may be no one's field and no one's lily
consider your worldly needs and the fences thereof
consider the field not a sermon and the lily not an omen
consider the lilies of the field

Evidence of unintelligent life in the neighborhood

It's nearly impossible for me to express in words how saddened I am to know that the weird one with the freak power has retired from the professional leagues in a flash of peacock feathers and a broken cigarette. Hunter never lapsed into good taste despite the fears of his peers amidst the stink of a Nixon with legion. For that he has been a pillar of my own writing, where telling the truth is lying, and lying with a sneer and a smirk that, despite the superficial offensiveness, lets you in. Truth in language, after all, is not fidelity of signifier to signified exactly but instead the inflation of that space with something you could really sink your teeth into, that which appeals to the beast in all of us. While my body could never withstand the excesses of the great gonzo, my mind, well, nevermind, never mind that.

It's been too much to bear for HST I imagine, his physical deterioration and the ever-looming pile of bodies rotting in the streets of Washington continuously transformed into religious singing contests through the transformations of satellite transmissions and digital processing units and sickening sincerity, Moonified mung from a black magic seance with guys like Rove and Pearle and Murdoch stroking themselves in the corner of the room to smuggled Texas execution videos. When I dedicated my recent book to Ginsberg, Dorfman, and Baraka, I did so because I felt truly beholden to the sense that truth in language could be conveyed only by a sort of lying, a lying that vaults like a breastbone in a surge of blood and old-fashioned guts right about to pop open. I owe equal credit to HST for informing that with equal parts outrage and humor.

Journalism, not just gonzo journalism, is dead. In America it is dead. First battle field reporters, then investigative journalists, and now the Great Gonz himself. Nothing so surprising, because democracy in America is likewise dead, never to be recovered from the screwheads, these Operation 40 whores whose CVs include the murder of presidents across the globe, genocides on three continents, the engineering of the technologies of terrorism and plausible deniability, countless billion dollar heists of the public trust from colonias to savings and loans to weapons pork to missing military budget funds and now social security, and shameless gloat over their oh-so-munificent incorporation of Jesus as some perverse extension of loving wrath. "Here are your hoods Allah; you'll kneel at our temple." John Ashcroft is writhing down in his kiddie porn dungeon, oiling himself madly & frothing at the thought of a Supreme Court nomination. The screwheads have won, and they are truly terrifying.

We've been fucked America--dusted first and then fucked. Hunter understood what it meant to be dusted, and he was tough enough to stay awake. It's why he was screaming.

Hunter S. RIP

when the going gets weird
the weird turn pro
but when the going stays weird
the weird choose to go


Hunter (as "Harris form the Post"):
You know I was never really frightened by the bopheads and
the potheads with their silliness never really frightened me either, but
these goddam screwheads, they terrify me. And the poor doomed, the
young, and the silly, the honest, the weak, the Italians... they're
doomed, they're lost, they're helpless, they're somebody else's meal,
they're like pigs in the wilderness.

Nixon:
Come here Harris, come here. (pause) Fuck the doomed.