I always assume that people I admire are single
and experience a sinking sensation
when I learn they are not. They drop
in my estimation – for what that’s worth –
from wishful thinking to cold hard earth.
February 4, 2013
Redemptive Half Measures
January 31, 2013
Antiepithalamia Valentine’s Offensive
If you feel like dragging your ass across town on a Monday evening to listen to a splenetic misogamist repeat himself, this might just be the place. Come one, come all…
January 28, 2013
Let Me Ruin Your Night
I will be appearing at these star-studded Valentine-related galas.
Beyond Baroque. 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA. Saturday Feb 9th, 8pm
Standard Hotel. 8300 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA. Tuesday Feb 12th, 7pm
January 27, 2013
Doghouse Epiphany
The object of this restlessness that puzzles you
is solitude: a loneliness for loneliness,
a wistfulness for restlessness,
a straining back to what comes naturally –
the way things used to be
when I had only me.
I miss myself madly.
I long to be romantically involved
with myself again, like old times:
dependent only upon independence,
demanding only temptation.
January 25, 2013
Love Story
I cannot locate the source of the disturbance
that has blossomed between us.
It seems, possibly, real… untranslatable.
At best it can be mumbled incoherently,
requiring a different language:
one that you can only feel.
And a different form of currency,
in which I lack sufficient means.
Nevertheless, a situation has arisen
that demands my complete attention:
You persevered beyond the numbness,
even after your jaw cramped, to induce
a state of constant sickly anticipation
of something sweet: an impatience to wallow again
in a mutually tacit sense of wonder, to swoon
into a different kind of loneliness,
from which I restlessly await recovery
and the long snarled return to a serene apathy.
January 21, 2013
The Measure of a Man
A long time ago I made a decision
to become a failure. It wasn’t
as easy as I thought: browsing through life
from one distraction to the next, while waiting
for the last lost moment to become unseizable.
As if there were some fundamental honesty
to not striving: There wasn’t.
I suspected it all along.
January 13, 2013
LXXXV
There are no levees capable
of withstanding the torrents of distraction
that surge through my mind. Tender
resentments, useless trivia and tired lusts
are carried along like debris on a swollen river,
from which, very occasionally, a lucid thought
emerges – only to be sucked back down
into the sewage of pettiness and vanity.
December 22, 2012
Compliments of the Season
Imagine viewing Christmas as an occasion to to enjoy,
and not something that must be endured.
For that matter, imagine feeling that way
about the rest of the year.
December 15, 2012
a charming combination
Throughout the month of December two VCPs (Victorian Choking Paintings) will be adorning the wall of Alias Books in Atwater, while a stack of Antiepithalamia will be decorating the counter. 3163 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles.
December 13, 2012
past, resent, future
Living in the present, negligibly;
regretting the past, sweepingly;
and speculating upon the future,
incredulously.
John Tottenham 